Category Archives: Babies ‘n Stuff

four months

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Today is Cate’s four month birthday, so I thought it would be a good time to brag about some of our girl’s latest accomplishments:

* Just this past week, she’s figured out reaching and grabbing at things. It was so weird, it seemed to literally happen overnight. Her hand-eye coordination isn’t totally perfect yet, but it’s starting to make things pretty interesting. She now loves her baby gym since she can grab the rattles on it, so she’ll often have a parrot in one hand and a giraffe in the other (er, it’s a jungle-themed gym, obviously), and she’ll just yank and yank on them like there’s no tomorrow. Sadly, this new skill means that it’s the end of me being able to wear my hair down, and all dangly earrings have been banished for the foreseeable future.

* She’s figuring how to squirm around on her back – the other day I put her on the baby gym and walked away for a minute, and when I came back, she had done a total 180. Her head was at the opposite end of the gym from where I had originally placed her. Another time this happened, she wiggled off the gym completely and I found her halfway under the coffee table. Hmm. Seems that it’s time to get rid of our rectangular metal-and-glass coffee table and trade it in for something less hazardous.

* A few days ago, we gave her her first taste of rice cereal. The books all say to introduce solids in the “four to six months” range, and I figured that since it was only a few days before her four-month birthday, we were close enough. It was… not a huge hit. In fact, she sort of hated it and freaked out. We’ve tried it a couple of times since then, and she’ll get maybe a drop or two down her throat, but I stop the second that she starts to cry. I don’t want her to develop some kind of aversion to spoons, and there’s plenty of time to work on solids. God knows it isn’t like she’s wasting away.

* One thing that I absolutely love is that she no longer screams when she wakes up. I’m not sure when that happened – I think it started last week when we were staying at the hotel in California. Now I’ll hear her making little babbly talky noises on the baby monitor, and I have time to toss a bottle in the warmer and pee before I go fetch her. And when she sees me or Dave in her room, she starts laughing and kicking, which is awesome.

* She’s now able to hold her head up completely. She used to get tired after only a minute or two in the Bumbo, but now she can sit there for ages and be totally content. This morning I put the Bumbo on the kitchen counter while I emptied and reloaded the dishwasher, and cooked myself breakfast (providing a running narration on everything I was doing along the way), and she was totally happy the whole time because she was up high where she could see everything. She usually gets fussy if she’s on the bouncer on the floor, because the view from there is pretty dull.

And in honor of this new ability to hold her head up consistently, today we put together her jumperoo and let her try it out. It was a huge hit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViYe0fYLQcM

Check out those purple mary jane socks. They were a gift from a friend in Mississippi – they come in a whole bunch of different colors, and I love them. They’re called Trumpette’s – here’s the link, if any of you are interested.

claim to fame

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Today, an internet rock star held my baby:

Amanda is a total sweetheart, just super-nice and easy to talk to. And her kids are gorgeous. Genoa is so cute, and constantly on the move – she wants to walk, walk, walk everywhere. Alex is really funny, and way chattier than I expected. Most kids I know don’t really talk to adults, but he has no problem with that. And I learned quickly that I don’t speak Little Boy – he mentioned something about a crane, and I thought he meant a bird. Um, no. Construction equipment, duh. I suppose that if I ever have a little boy, I’m going to have to learn that stuff pretty quickly.

Oh, and I now have a major case of Camera Envy. And Christmas is a loooong way off. Rats.

There’s not much else to report. Monday, Cate and I lounged around the hotel and did nothing while Dave was at work. Yesterday, mommy & baby drove around to explore some more neighborhoods, and that night we all went to dinner with my aunt. It’s always fun to catch up with people in my family, so that was a good time.

Oh, the story I forgot to tell. So, we’re staying at an Embassy Suites. If you’ve ever been inside one, you know they’re all the same: a big center atrium with rooms all around the perimeter, and 4 elevators – two in front and two in back. After we first checked in and got our luggage to our room, Dave and Cate went to lie down for a nap, and I went back to the car to haul in our stash of groceries (the perk of having a mini-fridge in the room).

I noticed that there were about a dozen or so kids on various floors, running around the perimeter hallway. I didn’t think anything of it until I was trying to get on an elevator to go downstairs. It took well over five minutes to get an elevator, and when it finally stopped on my floor, it was going up instead of down. Fine, whatever. We’re on the fifth floor. A girl who was probably about twelve years old got on the elevator at the 6th floor, pressed the buttons for both 7 and 9, then jumped off at the 7th floor. Since she had also pushed the button for 9, I was confused and said, “um, what?” as she was getting off, and she kind of giggled and ran off. Little brat.

So that’s why the elevators were taking forever. The kids were jumping into an elevator, pressing a whole bunch of buttons, then jumping off at the next floor to run around to the other end of the atrium and do it all over again. Meanwhile, the elevator has to keep stopping at every floor. Either that or they’d hit the elevator call button and dash away, so it would stop at a floor and there would be no one there.

Another five minutes later, I’d had to stop on every. single. damn. floor. And I lost it. It had already been a long day, flying with the baby and everything, and I had just had enough. Finally, these two little boys got on the elevator. They were maybe 9 or 10 years old. As one of the kids reached for the buttons, I said in my best stern mother tone, “Don’t you dare touch a single button on that elevator.”

They both stopped dead and stared at me. I went on: “It has taken forever for me to get downstairs on this elevator, I am sick of this stupid little game you guys are playing. Where on earth are your parents? I’m telling the manager because this is bullsh*t.” Sometimes cursing in front of kids seems to be a pretty good way to get their attention. It worked, I’m pretty sure I scared the crap out of them.

And I wasn’t bluffing, I really did tell the manager. As I was coming back in with the groceries, I saw a couple of hotel security guards at one of the rooms. Since the kids were all around the same age and of various races (and because there were so many of them), I’m guessing that it was some sort of school or church trip, and the chaperones weren’t staying on top of things. Who knows. But I was kind of proud of myself for the fact that I was able to get children to listen to me. Whaddya know, apparently I’m really an adult. I’m also proud of myself for not hauling off and smacking them upside the head, because believe me, I was tempted.

everybody loves Naked Time

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Two things that are totally unrelated to each other…

1.) Spring has officially arrived here, which means the cats are back into Hunting Mode. Normally this is fine, as long as they do their business outside. Not having mice in the house is a-ok with me, I just don’t want to know about the Great Outdoor Killing Spree. Unfortunately, Beaumont hasn’t quite figured that out. A couple of days ago, I found him with a tiny little bird in our foyer. I chased him off and screamed for Dave. The bird was cowering in the corner making this really horrible little squeaking noise. I thought for sure he was a goner. Dave told me to go upstairs – I don’t know what he was going to do with it, I’m honestly afraid to ask – but he said that as soon as he took the bird outside, it flew away. So I guess it wasn’t injured too badly. Or at least I hope not.

The other incident happened this morning. I was heading upstairs to get dressed, and I spotted Beaumont in my office, halfway behind my desk. That’s not a place where any of the cats hang out, so I thought it might be smart to go investigate. Sure enough, he had caught himself a teeny-tiny baby bunny rabbit. Again, I screamed for Dave, because I am totally useless in these situations. I honestly thought the rabbit was dead because it was frozen stiff when I saw it, but apparently he was just terrified. After Dave chased the cat out of the room and closed the door, the bunny started hopping around all over the place and it took Dave a while to catch him. It seems that he was totally uninjured. And he was so cute, I really wanted to keep him, but I know that isn’t very practical in a house with four cats and a baby. Dave set him loose in the woods behind our house, where he will hopefully be reunited with his little bunny family and live a long, happy life.

2.) Cate and I have a little morning ritual that I call Naked Time. Apparently a good cure for diaper rash is to let your baby go diaper-free for 10 minutes a day. She doesn’t have diaper rash, but I figure this is a good way to make sure she doesn’t get it. So, every morning, when I change her out of her pajamas, I lay a waterproof mat on the floor (you know, just in case), toss a blanket over it, and strip her down to her birthday suit. She really seems to enjoy it, she laughs and kicks her little legs in the air. It’s pretty funny.

This morning, we were playing with this little stuffed giraffe that plays different children’s songs when you squeeze his tummy (“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” “London Bridge,” etc.). Dave came in the room to play with us for a while. He squeezed the giraffe and it started playing “Three Blind Mice.”

Me: You know, I’m realizing that I’ve forgotten most of the words to these songs. Like this one. All I remember is something about the farmer’s wife, and she cut off their tails with a garden knife.
Dave: It’s a carving knife.
Me: Oh, right. Whatever.
Dave (to Cate, in baby-talk): Isn’t your mommy dumb? She thinks the song talks about a garden knife, but there’s no such thing. She’s so silly. And wrong.
Me (to Cate, in baby-talk): Your daddy’s kind of a jackass, isn’t he?

We do this whole “making snide remarks to each other through the baby” thing all the time now. I know we’ll have to cut it out when she gets older, but it’s so much fun.

eight and a half!

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Last night, Cate slept from midnight until 8:30 this morning.

(Drops to knees, sings “hallelujah” chorus.)

She might’ve slept longer, except I did that new-mommy panic thing where you think “oh god, she hasn’t woken up yet, something must be wrong,” so I crept into the nursery to check on her. And she was just fine. She had gotten one arm out of her swaddling blanket and was holding it up in sort of a “fight the power” fist above her head, but otherwise she was still pink, still breathing, and most importantly, sound asleep.

Of course, ten seconds after I tiptoed out of the room, she woke up. Stupid creaky floorboards.

And I realize that I have just totally jinxed myself by writing about this, and she’ll probably never do it again until she’s 15. Oh well. For now, me = ecstatic.

what does the owl say?

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Cate learned a new trick this morning: she actually pulls her tongue back into her mouth (shock!), she forms her lips into kind of an O shape, and she makes this little “hoo-hoo-hoo” sound. It’s like we have a little baby owl in the house. And of course Dave and I think it’s the coolest thing ever, so we keep making the “hoo” noise back at her so she’ll do it even more. I need to get a video of her doing it, it’s so cute.

Meanwhile, we’re recovering from a very long trip to Costco this afternoon (during which I came up with my own little song “At the Costco,” sung to the tune of Elvis Presley’s “In the Ghetto” – yes, I am oh so clever), and I’m going to go cook up some of our bulk items for dinner tonight.

Sorry this is kind of a lame entry. It’s Sunday, I’m lazy.

But hey, look at the smooshy cuteness!

her taste in music clearly comes from Dave's side

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The other night, I was watching a “Will & Grace” rerun on Lifetime (they apparently don’t use that Television for Women tagline anymore, which makes me a little sad because it was totally appropriate). I wasn’t really watching it, it was more just background noise while I was playing with Cate. During one of the commercial breaks, an ad for those ugly old-lady bras came on. You know, the 18-hour things that are 100% functional, 0% sexy? Yeah, those.

So, the ad is on, and I start singing along with it, because I’m stupid like that. Cate laughs and laughs. I try singing it again a few minutes later, and again she thinks it’s funny. Three days later, every time I sing the song, she thinks it’s an absolute riot.

Want to try to guess the song?

You’ll never guess.

“I’m Every Woman.”

I kid you not. Apparently Baby Girl likes her Chaka Khan. Who’da thunk it?

And because I’m a huge dork and all I know is the chorus, I’m actually downloading the song on iTunes right now so I can sing the whole thing for her.

sleeping arrangements

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I don’t know why I feel like this is shameful to admit, but here’s my nasty little confession: Cate sleeps in our room. Not in our bed, although we have taken a few “family naps” together (as long as she’s between Dave’s pillow and mine, I don’t worry about either of us rolling over on her). But we have a Pack ‘n’ Play set up in our bedroom, and that’s where she’s slept since she was born.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. When she was about 6 weeks old, I tried moving her to the nursery. But she woke up every hour screaming in terror because she didn’t know where she was, and I woke up even more frequently than that because every little bit of static on the baby monitor had me practically flying out of the bed and down the hall. So that lasted about two nights. Then it was back to the Pack ‘n’ Play.

For the past several weeks, we’ve had a nice little nighttime routine going:

1. Cate sleeps about 5-6 hours.
2. She wakes up, I pull her into our bed and she has half of a bottle. (A million thank-you’s to Cat & Tony for this, which lives on my nightstand, so I can warm up a bottle without even getting out of bed.)
3. We go down the hall to the nursery for a quick diaper change.
4. If she’s wide awake after the diaper (which she almost always is), we head downstairs so she can play for a little while & burn off some energy, and I can take all the vitamins that I have to take every day (part of that whole gastric bypass thing, I have well over a dozen pills that I take on a daily basis, lucky me). I figure it’s one less thing I have to do when I get up for the day, so that’s fine.
5. When she seems tired of playing, we head back upstairs, and she usually zonks out before she completely finishes the bottle.
6. She sleeps another 2-3 hours, then we’re up for the day. (Although sometimes I pass her off to Dave so I can get a little more sleep.)

The whole process from start to finish takes about an hour. I know that some people have miracle babies that sleep through the night from the time they’re six weeks old; in fact, according to my mom, my sister was sleeping 12 hours a night by three months. (To be fair, my sister has always been a freak about sleep – take your eyes off of her for five minutes and she’s out like a light.) But I also know there are moms out there whose babies are still waking them up three or four times a night when they’re a year old. So by comparison, one wake-up call a night doesn’t seem like I have much to complain about.

The irony is that this is one of those things that I was so opinionated about before Cate was born. I was adamantly opposed to co-sleeping, and I still generally think it’s a bad idea. It seems like a slippery slope into something that can become habit-forming, and the idea of having a 5 year-old child who still sleeps with her parents… well, that’s just kind of creepy to me. I mean, whatever works for your family is great and all, but that’s not for me. But even just having her in the same room as Dave and me – I thought that we would do that for the first month, maybe six weeks at the most. Ha.

I guess I’ve just been thinking that this pattern has been working ok for us, so why mess with it? I was worried that if I put her in the nursery, we’d go back to waking up every two hours, and I’m just barely starting to feel like I’m recovering my sanity. I’ve been working on the crib idea with her – I put her there for naps sometimes, and occasionally I’ll just put her in there when she’s in a mellow mood and turn on the mobile, which she seems to like. I wanted her to be a little more familiar with it so she wouldn’t wake up in a strange place and freak out. But I hadn’t put her down for the night there, I guess because I wasn’t ready for it more than anything.

Last night, Dave and I talked about it and decided it was time to try the nursery again. And? Nothing really happened. She slept for about 5 hours, woke up, we did our routine, and then she slept for another 3 hours. Same as usual. Huh. Whaddya know.