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Seven Months!

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No, I'm not teething. Why do you ask?

Lillian turned seven months old on Saturday. That last month just disappeared. But major stuff happened during it. We got our first cold. Then we got it again. Yuck! Two sick parents and a sick baby = not so fun. But we staggered by like always. I’m starting to mend other than my useless lungs which insist on pretending they have asthma despite the metric ton of steroidal inhaler I’ve pumped into them. Man I hope Lillian does not have my asthma, because yuck. At least it’s way easier to treat these days.

More fun stuff: crawling! Really crawling. Not almost/slightly/scooting/army crawling – the real deal. Don’t believe me? Bam! [flickr video=5023498671 secret=8880833235 w=400 h=225]

Every day she’s getting better and faster at it. It took her about a week to make the mental connection: see object – go get object (insert object in mouth/bang against other objects). Now she’s got it and is booking it around the house. She’s also pulling herself up to standing on stuff, and grabbing stuff out of baskets (laundry, toys).

She says Mama a lot these days. Or more accurately, “MAMAMAMAMAMA” – especially when she’s upset. I think she’s supposed to be too young to associate the sound with me yet, but tell me that when she’s shouting across the house at me.

I thought she was teething for the last week. She had a big swollen lump on her top gum, but it kept not showing up. After a spectacularly fussy day on Saturday, I felt around her gums again and there it was, all pointy and hard. That brings our grand total of visible teeth to three.

For whatever reason, ’tis the season for dead rodents to be left around the house by well-meaning terriers. They considerately leave them where Lillian is most likely to be playing, necessitating a lot of disinfecting and vacuuming. Loki is very competitive with the baby, and has limited tolerance for her hi-jinks, especially when they involve crawling on top of him and pulling his ears. This might be revenge? A peace offering? Mostly it’s just really icky.

Lillian is just an awesome kid. Even when she’s got this icky cold, she’s really funny and active and curious. I can’t wait for all of us to be healthy again. The weather has turned in Texas and it’s finally starting to feel like Fall. We’re going to spend more time outside and take advantage of the cooler temperatures.

Morning walk

The Princess surveys her subjects.

Multitasking

You know how I’m this stupid perfectionist and I feel like I never do enough/get enough done/accomplish enough? And how it’s ludicrous?

So sometimes when David gets home from work and I’m all like “Aaaaaah, I’m exhausted TAKE THE BABY!” and I then survey my messy house, unfolded laundry, dog-fur laden floors, and half-finished dinner I think I really just kind of suck at this homemaker thing.

So today I decided to count the number of things I was doing during a 10 minute interval:

  1. Wear the baby (because our house is not completely babyproofed and she doesn’t want to be put down right  for whatever reason).
  2. Cool the baked squash (for baby food).
  3. Bake sweet potatoes (for baby food).
  4. Vacuum the living room.
  5. Dry laundry.
  6. Fry bacon (for part of dinner).
  7. Prep acorn squash (for dinner).
  8. Write blog.

Dude. That’s a lot of stuff. How many tiny but not insignificant tasks do I do every day? Somehow the baby has clean clothes, and David and I usually do. She eats home made food. We eat home made food with almost no convenience food because of the whole soy/dairy free thing. I take walks. I go to yoga. I occasionally shower. I breast feed. I participate in at least 2 activities with my mamas’ group per week. I pay bills. I do all the grocery shopping and cooking (though David does some grilling). I take care of the baby full time. I take a million pictures, edit them and upload them. I go to therapy. I even sleep sometimes. And all the other crap that has to get done that you then forget about as soon as you’ve done it.

No, I haven’t written the Great American Novel yet. Nor have I run a 5k. Or met many other lofty ad not so lofty goals. But I’m getting by, I have a beautiful family, I’m happy a good portion of the time and not crazy most of it. My kid is happy and wonderful. I think I need to just chill the hell out, no?

Eating my words: my new job description

So you know how before you have a kid you say, “oh, I’ll NEVER do that” and then after it’s all shot to shit? Well that happens after you have the baby too. Daily, sometimes. I swore up and down I wouldn’t cut bangs on Lillian because it would be so cute if she had long hair that was one length. Except then her hair was all in her face and any barrettes or clips I use run the risk of ending up lodged in her throat since everything ends up in her mouth sooner or later. So guess what?

Haircut!

Bangs!

I called in the professionals (Auntie Tracy) to trim her bangs so I didn’t botch it like I did her neck trim a couple of months ago. And it really is adorable and now she doesn’t have hair in her face all the time.

And then remember that whole sleep thing where I wasn’t going to let my kid cry? Er, well, what happens when they cry for three hours while you bounce, nurse, sing, cajole, and bargain with them, but only for about ten minutes if you leave them alone? We happened on option B kind of by accident. David was alone with her at bedtime a couple of weeks ago and NOTHING was working. So he took a breather and a few minutes later she was out. For nine hours. We had to keep checking that she was still breathing. So we kept at it for the next week or so and things improved incrementally. She hit a growth spurt right after that so she was up a lot during the night to nurse for a few days, but she was getting to sleep faster and easier.

Then we both got sick and that’s been all screwed for the last week. But she’s become an avid climber and scooter in the meantime and so we can’t leave her alone and awake in her co-sleeper which butts up against our bed, because she’ll crawl out of it and roll or lunge off the bed. So probably in the next few nights we’re going to make the big move – out of our bedroom and into the crib. There were a few days where I temporarily lost my mind and started to think that I wanted to co-sleep with her instead of moving her out of our room, but I got over it.

It basically came down to this: do I want a tired, cranky baby who doesn’t have to cry in her crib (even though she cries in the car and other times so who am I kidding?) or a well-rested baby who has a bit of a tantrum at night for a little while? Do I feel guilty? Well, yeah, but that’s pretty much a given. Like I said before this little reversal, there’s always someone to tell you you’re screwing your child up. But we tried all the Dr. Sears stuff and it just didn’t work. She needed to start learning how to put herself to sleep at night and nobody was going to get any sleep until we let her. Believe me, if what we were doing before was still working we would still be doing it. I’m a great believer in not fixing what isn’t broke, but this shit was broke.

Napping has been pretty much screwed since Lillian started her rapid approach on crawling. She’s just too busy and fired up to relax for very long. We get 2-3 half hour naps in if we’re luck now.

Enough about sleep. We’re also big on food right now. I’m still making most of Lillian’s food because I’m a big snob and I like to cook. Lillian likes butternut squash, peas, and avocado. She really hates apples so far, and is iffy on sweet potatoes and pears. I’ve got an acorn squash to cook this week, some carrots, and we might try chicken.

Today I was at a birthday party for my niece and I overheard a mom complaining to another that someone she’d seen feeding a baby at a McDonald’s should have given it french fries. Yeah, I kid you not. MCDONALD’S  FRENCH FRIES. More salt than anyone should be exposed to, let alone a baby, and God knows what else. Oh wait, I do:

French Fries:
Potatoes, vegetable oil (canola oil, hydrogenated soybean oil, natural beef flavor [wheat and milk derivatives]*, citric acid [preservative]), dextrose, sodium acid
pyrophosphate (maintain color), salt.  Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to
preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent.
CONTAINS: WHEAT AND MILK *(Natural beef flavor contains hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk as starting ingredients).

Bleargh. And note they don’t list soy as an allergen even though it has soybean oil in it.

I’ve been a food snob for a long time, but since I’ve had to be really careful not to eat any dairy or soy it’s been impossible not to recognize how much crap is in most of our food. And I love junk food, I’m just finding I like local junk food with less actual junk in it a lot more. I like purity in my artery-clogging deep-fried food, thanks very much!

So that’s the latest. Lillian is crazy busy and active these days and keeps me on my toes. I’ll post video soon! Yay iPhone4!

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