Reporting In!

I'm adorable!

Hi everybody! We're just reporting in to let you know that things here are going well and we should be returning home from vacation a little later today!

We had a great time here in SC with Aunt Cynthia, and went to some really awesome places that I never would have known existed without Cynthia's guidance. We saw animals, walked the trails and places that the first SC settlers walked, and got to visit some beautiful gardens at a local plantation.

Lois slept through it all, of course, but at her age you really can't blame her. She DID laugh at a peacock, met an overly-excited 9-year-old Boxer (the dog, not the kind that punch), which she absolutely loved, and got to know family members that she's never before met.

It will be good to be home but it was good to go out and see a new part of the world. I can't wait until this little booger-butt is old enough to appreciate these things, or at least squeal at the animals a bit more so that I can pretend she's appreciating it!

Overall, it's been an extremely rewarding trip and I look forward to having many many more with this little munchkin and her mommy.

And She Was So Excited

We're on vacation in South Carolina, spending time with Aunt Cynthia! Today we all took a trip down to Charles Towne Landing and enjoyed some time in the sun.

I was super excited about the area with the animals both for myself and for the little one. I thought she might enjoy seeing the new animals! I should have remembered a few things:

A) She's only ten months old. This alone should have been a big sign that I was being overzealous.
B) I've done this before.
C) No, seriously, I didn't think this through.

She did seem to enjoy the deer, yelling at them as though they are our cats at home and she wanted them to come to her so she could pull their tails. It was cute as she screamed at the enclosure, her baby voice echoing through the woods, "HEY!"

The deer were unfazed.

After the deer we wandered through the encroaching woods, passing people and animals alike. We came to a bridge area, pumas on one side of us and a black bear on the other!

And that was when I realized I had made a mistake. My little girl, still too young to really care about what she was seeing? The one that is only 10 months old and has no idea that these animals should excite her?

Yeah...

I'm an idiot.

She enjoyed today just as much as the San Antonio Zoo. *sigh*

Lois Just Wanted To Say Hello!

I tried to get a shot of Lois charging down the hallway with her special "Push-flump" crawl where she pushes forward with her feet, holding her head up with her hands and then promptly falls face-first into the floor and does it again, then again, then again. It's like she's learned how to be an inchworm more than she's learned how to crawl but it gets her around so she's happy.

Instead, the little booger seemed to know exactly when I turned the camera. Still, there's a twist-ending to this video and I was pleasantly surprised. Check it out!

My Brain, My Enemy

I've often struggled to explain how my brain works but tonight I've pretty much hit the nail on the head.

I just put my little girl to bed and she cried for about 10 minutes, then whimpered for 2 more minutes, and then stopped. She was quiet, the exact result I was looking for. I was happy and then this conversation happened between me and my brain:

Me: Yay! She's sleeping!
Brain: Yay! That's great!
Me: Thanks for agreeing. I thought you'd be trying to get me to worry.
Brain: Worry? Why would I get you to worry? She's been sleeping peacefully without incident (except that one time you found her face down in the mattress, not moving at all, remember that time?) for 9 months!
Me: *slightly nervous laugh* Yeah. 9 months. She's fine. The plan to teach her to self-soothe is working!
Brain: That's great! And besides, every other time you've checked on her you just end up waking her up and she's been fine. So she's fine now. Probably. It's not like she's in there suffocating.
Me: Um.
Brain: Suffocation has got to be a horrible way to die.
Me: I'll be right back.

*cue sound of baby crying*

Brain: Told you she was fine. Should have let her sleep, idiot.

This Post Is Dedicated To The Introverts

One of the things that may surprise you about me is that I'm actually fairly intensely introverted. This doesn't mean that I don't like being around friends, I really do! I enjoy social interaction and like being out and about but I recharge differently. I like my alone time; it gives me a chance to relax.

And let me tell you, having a baby is the absolute best excuse in the world for an introvert.

Before the baby a conversation about not really feeling like going out might go like this:

Extroverted Friend: "Wanna come hang out tonight with me and 30 of my closest friends? It'll be a blast!"
Me: "I'm not really feeling up for that, I'm sorry."
EF: "What?! That's crazy!! Get off your butt and get out here, man! We're gonna  par-tay!!"
Me: "Nah, I really can't. I'm just going to curl up with the computer and a book. Next time, though, I'll come, I promise!"
EF: "Nope. I won't accept no for an excuse. I'll come kidnap you. You're coming! Forget it, dude!"
Me: (Lying now since the truth doesn't work) "Okay, I didn't want to say anything but actually I have stomach problems, and I have horrible gas, I'm running to the bathroom every five minutes, I feel..."
EF: "TMI, man! Okay. Next time!"

BUT NOW ADD IN THE BABY:

EF: "Wanna come hang out tonight with me and 30 of my closest friends? It'll be a blast!"
Me: "Sorry man, the baby needs a bath tonight and I need to get her to sleep early. Next time though?"
EF: "Oh, yeah, totally cool! Next time!"

So, introverts, here's your chance at unlimited excuses to stay home! Have a baby! It's the perfect plan and I can see absolutely no down sides! So go! Make babies!

And to those friends who are wondering if I've used this technique on you let me assure you that I have.

Not.

I have not. That's what I meant to say up there. I have not.

I'm going to stop typing now before I get myself in trouble.

For those of you who are only here for baby photos.

This is dedicated to Lauren Filing Jointly who I've only followed for a while but have come to really enjoy reading. She's fairly introverted and just found out that she's pregnant! Go congratulate her!

Five Things Friday

(Umm...this was supposed to go up yesterday. Pretend it went up yesterday.)

This concept has been shamelessly stolen from Lauren Filing Jointly who you should be reading if you're not because she's hilarious. The concept is simple: During the week, things come up that aren't worth a whole post but that I want to share with you. If I collect enough of them, I share them with you on Friday! So, here are some snippets from the week!

1. Have you seen this list of some absolutely amazing parenting? I mean that genuinely and with no sarcasm. These are some awesome parents. Some made me laugh, some made me go "aww." Check it out!

2. Laura leaves tomorrow for a trip to Florida where she will be ensconced in higher learning with her peers until the end of the week.. I'm very excited for her opportunity and am sure that it will be absolutely amazing for her. In the mean time, I'm not sure how I feel about my upcoming week! I'm a little terrified that I'm going to somehow mess up the baby in a week. Then again, there are a few video projects I've wanted to work on for the blog that Laura probably would have nixed so while the mom is away, the children will play? *insert evil laughter here*

3. I am no longer allowed to say the following: "You only have one tooth? Are you a Southerner  or something?" She now has four teeth. FOUR! This means that she's no longer allowed to chew on our fingers because holy crap are baby teeth sharp! They're the second-sharpest thing in the world, next to baby fingernails. This chart shows the deadliness of fingernails:

credit to: howtobeadad.com

4. My silly little daughter has picked up a new "word." It's a baby babble of "Tickle, tickle, tickle!" She'll do this while grabbing feet and necks, legs and arms. Of course she will also do this to her bottle, her toys, and shoes so she doesn't quite "get" it yet but it's adorably hilarious.

5. She can crawl! It's not the perfect crawl of arm/leg/arm/leg, and more of an arm/kick out both legs to move forward/fall down on face/pick self up on arms/repeat kind of thing but it's forward motion while on her stomach instead of the move she used to do on her back of kick feet/scootch head/repeat! I'd be happier about this development (I was worried she was a little behind on her crawling) but now this means that I can't just plop her down in one area and expect her to stay there.

Well, that's all I have time for. I have to stop the baby from eating the cat food! 

...maybe I should invest in a baby leash...

Early Morning, aka "Blergh Blog"

I told a hilarious joke. The punchline (and set-up) was "Pthbtbtbtbt!" 

 I've been up since way too early o'clock with this little girl who just doesn't want to sleep. Mommy was up first but I relieved her after an hour or so and I might be on the verge of getting to go back to bed two hours later. We'll see. If not, well, it IS almost 7 AM already and I'll just stay up.

I can't really brain well at the moment because tired but I wanted to share some photos of my wonderful little girl with the world.

Look at those amazing blue eyes!

 This way, too, I'm looking at pictures of cuteness and staving off the random urge to growl her to sleep.

That's a technique, right? When they won't sleep, growl at them and they'll be so confused that they'll fake sleep, which will turn into real sleep?

(Of course, sitting here, two hours into trying to get her to sleep, I just realized that the real problem is probably that she's teething, as I mentioned yesterday, and she's probably in a little discomfort. Poor girl - daddy's an idiot and forgot that we have baby Tylenol that can help with that. Hopefully this works and

She really likes avocado!

There is no caption here, just cuteness.

I will shortly have a sleeping baby on my hands.)

Well, while I try to get this little girl comfortable and get myself back to sleep for an hour or two, enjoy these couple of pictures of my beautiful little baby girl.

Goodnight!

Aww, poor baby-girl. I think daddy said "No ponies until you're older."

Oh, That? That's Not A Trash Compactor: That's Just The Baby.

She ate half the avocado and wore the other half.

Food time is fun time! With the inclusion of "having teeth" on the baby's list of "new things that prove I'm growing up"* she's started enjoying new foods, from baby food in a jar to little baby-snacks that look like Cheetos, and including things like cut-up bits of avocado, seen here.

I thought it was pretty cool when her first tooth came in, right in the middle of her mouth on the bottom. Overnight - boom - tooth. Neat!

And then a second sprouted besides the first. Adorable!

And then today it happened: the third appeared. You'd think I'd be just as enamored.

Except that I found out about the third tooth when she was grinding it against the bottom two. It's growing in directly above the first two and she's learned that when she grinds them together, the pain of teething is lessened.

That sound. That wretched, horrible, debilitating sound, could be played to enemy combatants on the field of war and it would make them all stop and shudder as it ratcheted about their brain. The horrible grinding sound, on par with when a fork scrapes across a plate accidentally, and above nails on a chalkboard.

See? Teeth! (Moments later, she bit my knee, seen here pre-wound.)

I assumed, as would all right-thinking people, that grinding her teeth would be bad for her. I immediately turned to Dr. Google and here is what it had to say.**

For those of you with children, I have to ask: Did they grind their teeth? How long did it last? Was there anything you could do to get them to stop?

I understand it may be a way for her to reduce teething pain so I don't necessarily want to make her stop but that noise? That noise will drive me insane inside of a week.

She's also learning to stand with a little help, so there's that.

Well, insaner.


























*Mommy hates this list.
**Since it disagreed with me I of course checked multiple other sources. Which also all disagreed with what I wanted to find. Dang it.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Happy Mother's Day, Laura. I'm so glad that I'm on this journey with you.

Every step along the way has been amazing.

Watching you learn what it is to be a mother and the bond between you and Lois has been pure magic.

I am grateful for every moment I've spent with you two ladies.

Yes. Every moment.

I love you. Happy first of many Mother's Days.

Post-Surgery

I haven't been around much because I've been sort of fixated on this whole "surgery" thing I went in for yesterday. I'm home and healing and ready to write more, as soon as I'm off these pain meds that make me a bit loopy.

Or I might post some loopy stuff if I think of anything and can stay awake long enough to write it.

I assure you, my daughter is still awesome and hilarious and I'm still messing up on a regular basis so that I'll have to pay for her therapy some day. I'm just a little too addled to write it up ver

How Life Changes, Part One In An Infinite Series

One of the things that I've noticed has changed in my life is my search history on Google. Let me give you a sample of what the top five searches were for a year ago. Some of these searches may be worded slightly differently but you'll get the gist:

5. Classy pictures of beautiful women
4. Free arcade games
3. Dr Who free download
2. Classy videos of beautiful women enjoying each other's company
1. Jeremiah Fargo*

And let's compare that to what my top five searches are now that I have my darling little baby:

5. Can I give my baby rum?
4. Black tar like baby poop
3. Dangerous if in baby's mouth
2. Music to soothe baby to sleep
1. Are you sure I can't give my baby rum? If not, how much can I have?

Things have changed a bit. Just a bit.

*Yes, I'm narcissistic enough to Google myself.

Sleeping Woes

My little girl has started having a little more trouble going to sleep; she stays awake a bit longer and then wakes an hour or so later, needing mom or I to come rock her back to sleep or just stand there lovingly so that she knows she's safe.

This has led to some interesting things.

Last night, for example, all she wanted was to have me in sight while she drifted off to sleep or she would cry and fuss, not sleep. I could be across the room and not paying her any attention but she had to be able to see me so I ended up in the awesome rocking chair that we have: she could see my head while I relaxed across the room and so she flipped herself on her side and started sucking her thumb.

As she drifted off to sleep I tried to get up and walk out but that resulted in half an hour of a lonely baby crying and tears. I wiped the tears off my face and went back in to help her, ending up in that same chair.

A few attempts later resulted in the same thing, with me sitting in the chair as she quietly sucked her thumb and watched me.

Finally, instead of standing up I slipped down toward the floor, ever. So. Slowly. Not a peep from the baby. I crawled across the floor; no tears or noise. I reached the edge of where her crib meets the door and that's when she saw me. Tears. Crying. Back to the chair.

Ten minutes later I did it again but this time I commando crawled out of the room. No tears. No crying. She slept.

So now all I have to do is use every bit of sneakery in my bag of trips to keep my tired baby sleeping in her crib. That's not too much to ask, I suppose.

Now if you'll pardon me, I have to go practice my commando crawls.