Am I Marge Simpson?

Okay, yes, that is a ridiculous title! But this episode of the Simpsons keeps coming to my mind-Marge is sad because Bart and Lisa are growing independant of her so she goes to check on baby Maggie. Maggie is asleep and doesn't need her either, so she pokes Maggie until she wakes up and cries, then Marge can pick her up and comfort her. Yes, that is a pretty blatant display of codependency and whole college courses could be taught on the unhealthy family dynamics of the Simpsons (in fact I think there are some college courses on the Simpsons!) However, when I first saw that episode, probably several years ago, I laughed and thought it was funny, but now-sadly-I can relate to it!

This week I was almost in tears as I put my baby to sleep. Which is odd, because normally I'm very happy to put her to sleep. But this time she had dropped a feeding and a nap, so she is only nursing every four hours now and taking three naps a day instead of four. What that means is I feed her around 7:30pm, then she is up for another hour or so, and then I put her down for the night. So on Monday, I read her a story, sang her a song, and laid her down in her crib. She looked at me for a moment, eyes wide, and then turned her head and went to sleep. Every other night since she was a baby (Ha! I know she is still a baby!) I've nursed her right before she goes to sleep, she would normally fall asleep while eating (Yes, I know "they" say not to do that, but I only did it at her night feeding, so "they" can kiss my. . .oh wait. . .I mean I respecfully disagree) and then I would lay her down. With the exception of the ninety five degree days which made nursing a four month old baby incredibly uncomfortable, those moments at night were precious and I treasure them. That night I came downstairs and looked at Bard with sad eyes because it seems like every time I turn around, my baby is growing up in some new way. And while that is exciting, the constant process of letting go is just a bit heart breaking.

Remember in Father of the Bride when she tells her dad that she is getting married? He looks at her and sees a little girl in pig tails saying, "Daddy, I met a man in Rome and I'm getting married!" He can't quite understand how this seven year old could be talking about getting married because he doesn't quite believe that she has grown up. I get that. And last night as my daughter lay in her crib, falling to sleep on her own, part of me wanted to reach out and poke her, then scoop her up in my arms and rock her to sleep. But I didn't. I let go.

Tickle Monster!

Baby Vignettes

I can't believe how long it's been since I posted, sorry! I put up a bunch more pictures and here are some snapshots of what has been keeping us busy:

*Sports Camp: Our church put on a week long sports camp for kids in the community last week and I was in charge of a lot of things. I worked extra hours and it did get pretty stressful, but I still was able to spend a good amount of time with her. It was just time spent running errands and that type of thing, not hanging out at home as much as normal. I took her to camp with me every day for the first half and she loved it! We walked around with her in the front pack and she had a great time being outside and seeing all the people.

*Four month check up: on the last day of sports camp we had her four month class, which was good but made for a long day. Based on what the doctor said I'm going to go ahead and just keep nursing-waiting to introduce cereal until 6 months or when she starts acting hungry. She now weighs 15.6 and is long! She also had to get three shots and she screamed, I felt so bad! It was nice to be in the class with everyone, and fun to see similarities and differences. One four month old already has a tooth! Another is still sleeping in bed with parents (which I think is fine if that's their choice, but the doctors sure give you a hard time for it!) And another couple said they haven't been out on their own yet without baby-which surprised me since Bard and I go out almost every week!

*She did fine the afternoon following her appointment but then appeared to get a nasty case of indigestion from the oral vaccine. Unfortunately I was at camp and couldn't leave just yet, she cried and cried with grandpa and then grandma and finally fell asleep. Poor baby, and poor grandparents! She is all better now, thankfully!

*Bard took this week off work to work on finishing our basement, which has become quite the project. I haven't really been able to take Evy down there because of all the concrete dust, but when it's finished it will be a great place for her to play. And cool. . .

*It's been in the 90s and really hot all week. I think it's hard for her in the evenings and we've all been sleeping downstairs. Today it's cooled to a nice 85 and I am so glad! She doesn't seem to mind the heat too much, but in the afternoon and evening it's really too hot for her to nap upstairs so she is down with us which kinda cramps our style ; )

*She is down to five feedings a day now (from six) which is really nice and I think I'll be able to drop it to four pretty soon. It's great because it means that the time in between her feedings and naps are stretching out which makes life a lot easier for me! She still naps really well and sleeps through the night-from about 8pm to 7am MOST of the time!

*She has found her feet and loves to play with them (again, why do I buy her toys?!) She also loves putting her entire hand in her mouth and recently has sucked on just her thumb a few times, we'll see where that goes. . .But the funniest thing she has started doing is screaming. No, not in sadness, that would not be funny! She just has really discovered her voice and will lay on the floor talking and screaming to herself. When I have a minute I'm going to make a little movie of it and put it online cause it's pretty hilarious!

Well, there is our life in a nutshell : )

Definitely not communist. . .

The title may surprise you unless you know/remember that I majored in and did grad work in Russian/Soviet history (yes so did Bard, awww isn't that cute?!) So I have a lot of analogies regarding communism that constantly run through my head. And last Friday I had a baby experience that made me think of communist Russia, so here it is!

My friend Amy and I went to Babies R Us with Asher and Evelyn. She wanted some pjs for Ash and I wanted some toys for Evelyn, I feel bad since she doesn't really have any! Neither one of us really needed anything, shh, don't tell our husbands! Anyway, since Evy decided to be a stinker and start teething early, I thought I would pick her up a teething ring or two. I went to the toy section to look for one. By the way if you've never been inside a Babies R Us they are roughly the size of Vermont and have everything you didn't know you needed until you found it existed. So I was pretty surprised when I couldn't really find teethers. I was wandering back through clothes and decided to look by the bath toy aisle and see if they had anything there. Well, I realized I had been looking in the toy section when I should have been looking in the teething section because they have two whole aisles of teething toys! Yes, on either side of you for a good ten feet and from floor to about 6 feet up, they crammed teething toys. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry! They had wooden teethers, clothe, plastic, ones that vibrate, light up, make noise, and stick to tables. They had teethers that "stimulated the auditory senses" "encouraged visual learning" "developed tactile senses" and probably one that taught how to fill out college applications. Seriously, it was insane. Amy and I just stood there laughing. It must have taken us ten minutes to pick out two teethers-I just went with ones that she said Asher liked. Only of course I bought the pink version, let's be real here.

So why communist Russia you ask? In the Soviet Union shopping was made simple-either they didn't have it or they only had one kind. One kind of TV, one kind of cereal, one kind of ball, you get the picture. Now, I can see how that could get a bit annoying, especially because their items were poorly made and often broke! But really, I don't know that we need to go so far the other way! Try an experiment, go to babiesrus.com and type in teethers-there are three pages of items! Let me tell you, BabiesRUs is capitalism on steroids.

And you may wonder, after all that, what is Evelyn's favorite teether? It's a toss up between her carseat strap and her bib. Sheesh!

; )

Oh Happy Day!

Amazing! Spectacular! Astounding! Phenomenal! Angels are singing a chorus. Yesterday my own sweet daughter went all day without. . .you guessed it. . .a poopy diaper! I held my breath those last few moments before midnight and then popped open the bottle of champagne. Okay, so I was sleeping at midnight and don't even like champagne, but as you all have gone through the trenches with me on what a super pooper we have (although I don't see any of you changing her!) I think you can understand my elation. : )

And yes, when my daughter is 16 and giving me an attitude I fully plan on showing her how her mother blogged about her poop for four months and counting!

I'm Four Months Old!

This month I amazed my mom and dad with several firsts. In one week alone I rolled over both ways, grabbed and held an object with both hands, started laughing (I had laughed before but now I do it a lot), dropped one feeding (much to my mom's delight), and started teething (much to my mom's dismay!) I can almost sit up, but flop forward and I love to talk. In fact, I lie on the floor and talk to myself for ages, even when no one is around! I'm not sure why I love to talk so much, both my mommy and daddy seems so quiet. . . I also love to read books. I sit in mommy's lap and read 2,3 ,4 books in a row! Mommy is now sick of all my books. But I don't mind and besides, books are very tasty to chew on too! Yesterday I also went to dance class with mommy for the first time. I was very good and loved listening to the music while mommy taught and all the little girls danced around the room. Well, okay I was good up until the last five minutes when I got fussy cause I remembered that I was hungry, but I'm just a baby! And a very cute one at that. : )