Rolling Stones

So much of early kiddom is about milestones. Our pediatrician tells us to watch for them, note them as signs of health and proper development. Like slow rolling stones, the months between sitting and moving can seem void of anything notable.

The two most common questions of Jason and I these past few months after "How old is she?" are "Oh, she's standing/crawling right?" and "So, how many teeth do we have?" The answer to both, at eight months and three weeks is still, "Nope." and "None." In fact, I've noticed myself lately heading these questions off at the pass with the admittedly odd introduction of, "She's almost nine months, noteethyetandnotcrawlingeitherjustbusydoingotherthings."

[There, that's out of the way.]

But, in fact, she is busy doing other things. We're busy doing other things. Somewhere along the line, Jason and I just stopped waiting and watching for teeth and four-legged forward motion. She's close to both, and when met, those milestones will be exciting, but...

just having fun together is so much better than waiting for stones to roll.

Beautiful Mess

Our friends at Bela Dubby are throwing a Kid's Art Show/Charity Fund Raiser to benefit Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital research for Children with Cystic Fibrosis and Storey was invited to submit a donated piece! So this morning, she worked her first canvas (and ate her first paint.) (no worries! non-toxic.)



Come to the artist's reception and silent auction, held on Saturday June 21st from 2-5pm to see her finished piece!

Bela Dubby is a kid-friendly coffee house located at 13321 Madison Ave. Lakewood, Ohio. There you'll find Phoenix coffee, live music and comedy, and our parental favorite, Brooklyn Beer on tap! Yum... beeer.

Mmmmm...Bob

Storey has mad skills involving those fingers now! She's moved on from nostrils to Os. A much more socially acceptable favorite.

Bob (in red) likes to look on in admiration. Bob is thumb-less, so, alas, Os are not part of his morning routine.

This For That

Whew. It's been a long time since the last post. Busy.
Doing things like...

Selling this:









So we could get this:












And it's oh, so worth it.

Where Is Pointer, Brother John?

Storey's developed the unfortunate habit lately of waking up between 4 and 5 o'clock in the morning. Up for good. Ready to start the day. We are not. Usually, I placate her with a boob or two until Jason gets up to get ready for work and blessedly whisks her away to sit in her swing while he showers.

Well, it's Saturday and this morning, Jason slept on. No whisking. I laid there thinking, "No. No way. Not 4:00 on a Saturday. I can't." And apparently I didn't. After trying to put her back to sleep for awhile, babbling back at her in the pre-dawn darkness as she softly bapped my face with her fist over and over, I inadvertently fell back to sleep. Hey. She's not crawling yet and she was safely between us on the bed. There's only a few weeks left before she's mobile and we no longer get to languish at all. Don't judge.

Anyways, she's really into pointing at everything lately and how did I wake up? Her laughing, and two little index fingers fully inserted up my nose. What better way to start the day? I say.

Poop Song

Sarah Silverman, Jason's new favorite female comedian (shhhh... big crush), wrote this song called the Poop Song. It comes from an episode of her show on Comedy Central where Sarah gets herself a daughter (just for one episode).

Video of the first time Storey ate prunes and a tidbit of the song edited all together made a nice film project for me one afternoon during nap/creative time. So now, for your viewing pleasure, here you go:



And no, we didn't actually go to the mall, so no, she didn't poop there.

Tada! Meet Clayton

Jason named him. I'm crossing my fingers that someone really needs a stuffed bunny and perhaps a sheep print for Easter. This post-holiday spending lull is not good for our accumulation of millions via etsy.com.

Mod Bunny

My mind and hands are bored, so turning to stuffed toys for the answer seems to be working. We'll see how it turns out.

Winter

As soon as Storey went down for her nap today, I threw on gloves, coat, hat and boots and ventured out to the garage to fetch the shovel. We've been bound in at least a foot of snow. It's bad enough not wanting to go anywhere because of the weather. It's worse feeling like you can't go anywhere, which is how I've felt for the past few days. I hate winter in Ohio. And winter in Ohio, at home, with a baby can equal double or triple the blahs.

Buried under all that snow somewhere was our car... and the path OUT of here. It took me 30 minutes, which was exactly how long she slept (sigh, that is NOT long enough). So, surrendering to our seasonal reality, we both got bundled up and headed out to visit my mom.

Ahhhhh... there. That's the best way to warm up a boring winter Wednesday.

Prunes

Gross.
Food should not look like poop.

Buckets

Before Storey was born, our friend Emily gave her a bucket (yes). It had a tag attached that said, simply, "Buckets are amazing."

This sentiment apparently came from experience because Emily's daughter Aliza is just over a year old. Little did we know how highly accurate those words would be.

You can put things into a bucket, dump things out of it, bang on it, wear it, laugh at Mama wearing it, throw it and whack yourself in the head with it. Your voice even sounds big and impressive when you squeal into it. Damn.

Buckets ARE amazing.


They're delicious too.

Funniest Papa EVER!

Storey and I, we do things together. We read. We pretend. We talk about what the dogs are doing. We go for walks and play on the floor. Good stuff. Good, good stuff.

But Storey and Jason. That's a whole different kind of fun. Maybe Mamas produce quiet smiles and an occasional giggle, but only Papas elicit belly laughs in this house. Big, loud, contagious ones.



(Please excuse Howard Stern in the background talking about something apparently large, with a big head. Oh, come on. We all have our vices. This, much like the occasional epithet escaping from our parental mouths, we've justified as harmless until she begins talking. Then we'll reevaluate. Maybe.)

Bleck!

These are a little old (from last month just before she got the flu) but they're funny enough that this post is better late than never. She has moments when she thinks she likes eating cereal. She has moments when she knows she doesn't too.

Yesterday she figured out she has a tongue. She likes to make clicking noises with it and lap at her upper lip like a dog. I gave her a taste of cinnamon and sugar toast this morning and she spent the next hour smacking her lips and licking the cinnamon off her face. Figuring out you have a tongue gets you two steps closer to not spitting your entire dinner onto your shirt so, hey, it's progress.

Monkeys!!!!

It was inevitable. I had to paint big and little monkeys. Had to.

Vino, Snaps, Bath, and Love

What a day.

By the time Jason arrived home I was so tired of hearing the sound of Storey crying, I think I filed my teeth down a cm or two from all the gritting and grinding. She had better be just about to do something developmentally amazing, because her sleep, day and night, is crap, CRAP I say!

It's sooooooo defeating when your kid is on your lap (for the third time since nap time should have started) screaming, kicking, wailing, arching. Ug. Again, thoughts of failure readily entered my mind. I even had to put a screaming her in her crib and leave the room at one point. I was so angry. At a baby. Angry. I am such a rotten person...

Regardless, when Jason got home, I fixed dinner, then declared that depreciating savings account be dammed, we (I) needed a glass of wine and some ginger snaps. So off I went to the store. Jason gave Storey a bath and when I arrived home, I fed her and then he graciously whisked her away to put her to bed. I married a good man. (God, that's such an understatement...)

Anyways, inspired by the wine, I drew my own bath. A bath that was mine, all mine.

As I soaked, I looked down at my floating self. I weigh less now than I did when Jason and I met. Breastfeeding, lots of walking around town pre and post baby, and eating like 11 little meals per day whenever I can grab something rather than three big ones, has led to me loosing around twenty pounds of pre-baby weight, around thirty-five pounds if you count the bulk the kid added on during pregnancy. That's a lot of me, all gone. But that's actually not what I noticed.

What I noticed was the absence of her. The kid, in utero. The last time I had a bath and had time to brush warm water over my belly, I was pregnant, with Storey. I remember how huge I thought I was, but now that I think of it, there was a KID in there, so I was actually pretty small, considering the kid and all. A KID people. SHE was in there. That's frikkin' CRAZINESS.

Now there's nothin' there. Instead we have a little person. She laughs. She sits up. And yes, she cries. This is the first time I've had a moment to consider the fact that all her little parts, her fingers, hair, eyes, ears, all those parts were there, just waiting, as I floated in the bath, belly cold, protruding out of the water like a hardboiled hen's egg.

That's amazing.
Really amazing.


She's really amazing.

You Are Where You Sleep

Slowly, as Storey recovers from the flu, we've been moving parts of her upstairs nursery to her bedroom downstairs. First the crib, then the dresser, yesterday the changing table. I've started putting her down for naps in that room. I expected her to object, but surprisingly she seems to like it. Eventually, nighttime sleep will occur in there as well. In fact, it's not that she's not ready, but rather more like Jason and I aren't willing to sleep without her in our bed. These connections between us and the girl are oddly powerful. Who would have thought we'd WANT to give up our adult, marital space and delay in taking it back? Not me. But here we are, dragging our feet. We talk about it every few weeks, checking in to see if the other has had a change of heart. "She's still so little." we say. It's that whole thing where half of kids growing up is parents letting them go/grow.

In addition, I'm sure there's some book somewhere that says I should put Storey in her crib awake rather than rock her to sleep. I do both, actually, which then blows all the rules of consistency. But in my opinion, whoever wrote that book, or any book that mandates a single, rigid solution, they've likely missed out on some really wonderful, soft, quiet moments holding their baby, while they were still small and still enough to rock, rock to sleep.

I'll take my chances and continue to indulge. Wouldn't you?

Boob Head

(Hat: The Littlest Nipper from Etsy.com.)

It's funny. Prior to the whole flu thing I started to consider weening Storey early. I had wanted to breastfeed her until at least a year, but at times, nursing, something that seems like it should be naturally easy, has been anything but.

I've always had just enough milk, but no more than what Storey needs. We have no reserve supply for date nights. She's four months old and still nursing every 1.5 - 2 hours around the clock. As those lofty, modern goals of sleeping through the night and having a life kept tugging at my sleeve, I desperately looked for boob-solutions. Rice cereal? Will it stick to her stomach and get her to sleep longer? No, not really. How about herbal tea? Will it double my milk supply as promised? No, not really. Feed more often and more milk will follow? More often? Are you kidding me? Let's just say, some days I've been happy to be her milk cow, others I've just felt like a failure.

Then she and I got this flu.

Amidst the vomiting, the doctor on call at the physician's office meant well when she gave me this advice: "Feed her in smaller amounts every half hour. If she sleeps, don't wake her." It was that last bit that got us in trouble. Storey slept, I didn't wake her, the boobs got full, and even though I pumped, over time my body must have figured she wasn't eating, so she didn't need the milk anymore. Plus, I was dehydrated from being sick myself. I suddenly found myself with a near-dehydrated baby, who wouldn't drink the stupid Pedialyte the doctors kept saying she needed in order to stay out of the hospital, and my milk supply had dwindled down to next to nothing.

Enter, the La Leche League. I called the local league lady and left a teary message. She called me back and told me to camp out, skin-to-skin, in bed for a day or two with Storey, nurse her all the time and my milk would come back. She also said to forget the Pedialyte.

This probably all sounds like common sense. The thing is, I was tired, second-guessing myself, worried and sick, I wanted to do what the doctors said and avoid feeling like I'd screwed-up every possible decision put in front of me. I put my instincts aside, and did what I had hoped was best. Thank goodness the boob-lady set me straight.

I did what she said instead, and it felt right. My milk is back. Storey's thriving. All with no medical/supermarket intervention. From her birth on, Jason and I have had to make choices, discerning between what's medically and commercially available (and often times recommended) for Storey versus what's actually necessary. I'm sure this won't be the last time either.

The ironic thing: once threatened with the possibility that I might not be able to continue to breastfeed her, I wouldn't give it up for anything now. She can eat every hour for all I care (and in fact, she is...)

P.U. The Nasty Flu

Yuck.
First I got it. (Nursing while nauseous then running to the bathroom to puke with baby still at the breast. Priceless.)

Then, while I still had it, she got it. Way worse than I did. Then, Jason got it. Let's just say January's water bill will be steep and we've all totally had it up to here with vomit, headaches, fevers, chills and the like. At one point Storey was so bad we ended up taking her to the emergency room, because for days everything she ate, she threw up tenfold and babies + dehydration = dangerous.

Some of the most difficult moments about having a kid so far came about during this nastiness. There's nothing finer than guessing whether or not you should put your kid through the unpleasant experience of a few nights in a strange hospital bed, needles, IVs and lots of poking and prodding or keep her at home and hope that she's getting and retaining enough fluid. I've never doubted myself so much in my life. We opted for the stay at home, cross your fingers and wait it out route, but not without a lot of tears and sleepless nights (and of course, those were mine, not the kid's).

It's been a full seven days already and she's still blowin' out the bottom end, but is slowly getting her strength back. Yesterday she decided that as testament to her recovery she was going to start sitting up on her own. What a big kid! Look at her, all peaked and upright. Yes, she'll be doing a face-plant on the hardwood soon enough.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaay

Storey has always been a thumb-pacified baby. Once or twice, in desperation, we even tried to introduce a pacifier. She hated it. Hated various different models. Hated all of them. How dare we offer something other than a thumb or boob?

So, our thumbs have been her friend, her comfort, her security. They've put her to sleep every night, helped soothe her stomach after every feeding, dried her tears when scared and kept her quiet in the checkout line at the grocery store. There's convenience built into this approach. Thumbs never fall on the floor and get dirty. They never get gummy, never need replaced, and YOU get to decide when to take them away.

Ah, yes, the thumbs rocked. Up until a week or so ago.

Anything in excess causes problems I suppose. Looking back, I think we might have over pacified things a bit. Any grunt, cry, whine, fuss and wapam! friend thumb would appear. Having every little complaint met with comfort was fine for the first few months, but then Storey started to form her own little personality and test the amount of control she had over her environment. This became most apparent when our dear sweet baby found a voice and started shouting at us, really shouting. Not crying, shouting, like, "HEY!" Yes, shouting for the thumb. Downright bratty.

And so, thus began the Era of Thumb-Weening. Immediately. I don't do well being shouted at by anyone, let alone a baby. Babies turn into toddlers who turn into kids who turn into teens and then adults. Bottom line, we want her to feel loved, but loved does not = entitled. Better to let her know now that that's not how we do things.

The first night she cried for 34 minutes. The second, 10. Last night 3, then after every middle-of-the-night feeding, she soothed herself to sleep without a peep. Today's noontime nap: just a whimper and then zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I'm so proud of her. Our big girl. She turned 4 months old yesterday. What a hard won but victorious birthday present. The Fonz, I know, would approve.

Not So Fresh

P.U. Babies stink. Or at least our baby stinks.

She naps, and wakes, kicks and coos and I go up to say "Hi baby!" and feed her. I lift the blankets that cover her, and pweeeeew! Baby dutch oven! She's been laying up there, tooting away, making a baby stink bomb just for me.

Gross.