Legwarmers

The Animalia's legwarmers got me in the mood to watch a little Flashdance. Guess what? It's on TV Land. What a coincidence.y

We Love Weekends.

So the weekends with the Animalia make me feel soooooo much better about working and ABANDONING her during the week. This weekend is extra special since I got out early on Friday and have a three day weekend on top of that. We've been busy but it's a relaxing, family type busy.

Today we all went to breakfast with Lan at the Cup. Animalia was super cute in an ethnic top her nina bought her, jeans, and some soft mary janes. She wore her Cubs cap too, as extra sun protection because we walked there. She was lovely although she started getting loud right before we left. If everyone else is chatting she has to chat too. LOUDER. Besides, she saw a little boy and she just had to tell him some stuff. We walked home and changed back into pajamas. Animalia played for awhile before we all took a nap together.

We woke up, lazed about some more and then went to visit her Da's family. She was quiet but observant until she saw the cat. Then she started talking a mile a minute. When we left she showed off her latest trick, waving bye and she actually said Ba! when everyone was saying bye to her. Smart girl.

Oh yeah... she had brown rice and lentils for dinner. She's never eaten that before and she just loved it. She even got mad when it was gone.

So tomorrow... zoo. She's gonna love it.

It's in the bag.

Breastmilk that is. Breastmilk is in the bag.

OK, so I was just pumping and having a hilarious memory. Sometimes I pump into bottles and sometimes, if I have an excess already in the fridge, I pump into convenient freezable storage bags, you know, for if I'm away from the Animalia for an extended period of time and she needs supplementing. It hasn't really happened so far, but we did take some frozen milk to Chicago for out and about times, in case I couldn't whip it all out.

So the hilarious memory. Once I was pumping and somehow the paper thing that holds the bag on broke during pumping and it spilled all over the place. I was very irritated. I think I lost like 3oz of this precious substance called breast milk. Well. It's funny now.

She's a maniac.

Maniac. Maniac. On the floor.

I sent this via email to the person who bought this fabulous Swedish onesie for her and her Nina. I couldn't resist posting it too. Baby legwarmers are just hilarious. Also, the Swedish onesie must be magical because it fit her since she was around 3 months old and still goes on easily and comfortably.

Oh weekend.

Whenever I have an extra day off or just have TIME, precious TIME to spend with the familia it makes it harder to go back the following week. I just want to be with the Animalia, with Jimmy, at home, at the drive in, grilling outside, planning an outing. Anything but work. It seems like such a waste of time with so many more important things to be accomplished. Like watching Animalia crawl furiously toward me, focused on my shoes, ready to pull herself up on my skirt or my pant leg.

She does that now, pulls herself up regularly. Sometimes she falls if we don't catch her quickly enough, we almost always do though. She crawls very quickly. She's growing two more teeth. She's starting to wave goodbye and give besitos. She stares at strangers, judging them.

I feel like I'm missing so much. It'll be bad next week, after I have a 3 1/2 day weekend. Just hard.

Last night I was exhausted.

Last night I was totally exhausted. Animalia had woken up, that's right WOKEN UP, the night before at 9:30pm. What was she thinking?! That she'd had a nap?! That it wasn't really bedtime?! She wanted to play and be hilarious and while I typically find her extraordinarily entertaining well... At first I kind of battled her a little, rocking her while she tried to push away, trying to nurse her to sleep while she giggled and tried to patticake my bosom. Then I became resigned. Fine. Play. We'll see who gets more exhausted. OK. So obviously that's a slam dunk. ME! ME!! I WIN!!! I'M MORE EXHAUSTED THAN SHE IS!!! She played til after midnight. Then she woke up at 5:30am. It would have been fine, this one 5 1/2 hour night of sleep but I'm fighting off illness that seems to be hovering, waiting to strike. That and the night before Jimmy snored like it was going out of style. So two nights with very little sleep and pending illness makes for a very tired me.

So back to last night. Last night I borrowed Animalia's play yard from my parents. We don't own one yet, haven't been able to make the commitment. I knew it was trouble when we couldn't figure out how to dismantle it. After about 15 minutes of fighting with it, we did the best we could and put it in the car anyway. Not completely folded up but good enough to carefully fit.

I got home. IMMEDIATELY put on pajamas. OK, so I actually only made it to pajama top and underwear. Animalia was fussing and yelling at her Da. I figured she was sleepy so I decided to get her to take a nap, then I'd finish dressing for laying around and we'd set up the play yard. She dozed for less than 20 minutes which didn't give us much time at all. When she woke up, she wanted to play. Jimmy took down the damn thing from the car and we started trying to set it up. The shorter sides wouldn't stabilize. "Let's put her in it anyway," I said in my exhausted state. He looked at me like I was crazy, like I didn't know that it would crush her tiny body. I wasn't serious. Just tired. Didn't he know that? So we're at it for about 20 minutes with no luck and I decide to call my dad. He's the one who set it up in the first place, did he have any tricks, hints, tips for us? He tells me about some tiny little holes and some rivets and I dont' know what. He tells me he's coming over. I say no, I'll try it and call him back.

Ten minutes later the dog starts whining outside. My dad had shown up anyway. I scramble for pants. He comes in and starts trying to set up the play yard. Animalia whines. She wants her Ata. I try. He tries. Jimmy tries some more. No luck. After about 45 minutes I'm tired and done. She can just play on the floor. I make a declaration that I'm done. I tell my dad to go home, that I have to go to bed soon and haven't eaten dinner, that I don't care if it's set up. He seems irritated. No offense. Just too tired to care about the play yard. Animalia can play on the floor, where she usually plays.

Finally, 5 minutes past my randomly imposed deadline, they flip it over and figure it out. It's done! Animalia is happy. Jimmy and I eat dinner. She plays til she's tired. She goes to sleep. Everyone is happy. Finally.

In conclusion, baby gear is impossibly difficult to deal with, too big, and takes over entire lives. The end.

In the last week...

So much has happened in the last week or so that is bloggable.

Object Permanence. I've read about this in many a baby book and developmental stage website. It's where babies start to learn that just because an object is gone it hasn't disappeared completely. Animalia had started to know this awhile ago. She'd sit on her high chair. Throw something. Look longingly at the thrown object. And we'd give it back to her. And peek-a-boo has been played in our house for ages. But lately, she REALLY KNOWS. I can no longer hide the remote control behind me and give her a distraction toy. She'll just crawl over the thing meant to distract her in order to find the remote behind me. I can't leave her with her Da if what she really wants is Mama. She'll just try to follow me to another room, wailing dramatically with the rhythm of her crawling. She just knows where things/people/pets are once they've left her sight.

You're just an udder. This was boymagnet's response to the following story. The other day I was lying in bed, just resting. The Animalia was crawling all over me. She decided to crawl over me when she saw her breast friend. She kneeled, pulled down my convenient nursing tank that I use for a pajama top, and started nursing. Kneeling. Next to me. Like she owns it. It's true. I'm just an udder.

She weighs 19lbs 3oz. We found this out because she had to go the doctor the other day for constipation. Poor baby. She was straining and crying and nothing was coming out. She's better now after a couple of days of extra liquids, nursing and a reduction in binding solid foods. Both the constipation and her weight are the result of more regular solid food eating combined with continuing to breastfeed. She's a big girl lately. And one day she'll read this and be MORTIFIED.

She knows how to tickle me. So we've been blowing on her stomach for AGES now. It's one of her most favorite things that her Da does to her to make her laugh. Once she starts laughing she's ripe for the tickling. Mwah ha ha ha. Anyhow, the other day I was lying on the floor and my shirt was a little bit up. She saw my stomach and went right to it, blowing on my stomach. It was something of a halfhearted attempt though or maybe she didn't do it quite as well as she thought. Anyway, her Da did it after that too to encourage her (really, am I telling the whole world this?) and she got really into it. She blew on my stomach really hard then would look at me, I'd laugh, and she'd do it again. Then she licked me and I decided it was time to stop and move on to other things. But it was hilarious while it lasted.

We still make up stories about her. She's mostly a hobo in these stories or a poor girl who has nothing. Once she asked me "Mamí, puedo prestar una cinta?" and then she used my belt to strap a package on her back and crawl over to the post office to mail it to her Nina and then she crawled all the way home. All by herself.

No!

The Animalia knows "No." The Animalia is learning how to object to "No!" and to ignore "No!" When she's told not to do something, she stops, stares at the person telling her no, and will make a pouty face and slap her hands on the ground. But she stops. Most of the time. The times she doesn't stop, those very very determined times, she stops, sits up, stares, and then she goes back to what she was doing. Yes, she is my daughter.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Saturday and Sunday were my very first Mother's Days. Saturday was Día de las Madres Mexicanas and then Sunday was Mother's Day in the U.S. So I get two. But wow. Mother's Day. This is the first one that people congratulated me on. It was a little disconcerting, having spent 30 years making sure to "Happy Mother's Day" everyone else and now I'm a mom so I get that congratulations for myself. A little strange.

What did I get for Mother's Day? Well, Saturday I went into work late because I had to work late. In the morning, the Animalia was happy and cozy until I started getting ready to leave for work. Then she started saying "MA! MA!" Oh my god! The sound I've been waiting for! Up until this point she had mastered Da, Ta and Ba but I hadn't heard the "m" sound from her tiny mouth. She did it! Ma! So why was she only saying it when she was complaining? So yeah. That's her new complaining sound. Ma. She seems to only say it to me though, and only when she's mad. It's a start.

Sunday was nice. Jimmy made me a huge breakfast, we laid around, talked to a few people including boymagnet who was incredulous that I hadn't demanded large sums of cash, diamonds or expensive electronics to reward me for pushing Animalia out. I really didn't ask for anything. Practicality set in and I decided to buy myself some new clothes. Later I thought about buying Rock Band but we took naps instead. Animalia was being ridiculously fussy everytime I put her down or handed her to her Da. So I was tired by the time dinner at my mom's came around. Still, the paella was excellent. I ate pie. It was nice.

And the next day I DID buy myself some new clothes. Nothing too expensive. I plan to lose about 10 more pounds.

sleep deprivation and other odd occurances

The Animalia. Sigh. That girl. Animalia.

The last few nights have been a little... screwy. The Animalia's sleep pattern is off a little, a few nights of waking up too early gave us a few nights of falling asleep too early, waking up two early and here we are. That and my schedule has been a little nutty. Too many working evenings. Last night she was asleep in her camita and I was exhausted from a very long day. She was asleep but restless. The rustling noises started to get more obvious and I forced my sleepy eyes open to find her on her hands and knees, crawling like a drunken drunk. I whispered her name in that what-do-you-think-you're-doing mom voice and she just kept moving. It was an awkward crawl, more tipping over than she's been doing lately. Like a drunk hobo looking for a grain of rice. I don't really know what that means. ANYHOW, I whispered her name and she didn't even look up guiltily. She just kept moving. I looked closely at her face and that's when I realized that SHE WAS ASLEEP. SLEEP CRAWLING. WHAT THE HECK?! NOBODY TOLD ME ABOUT THIS!! So yeah. Sleep crawling. It was the oddest thing. I picked her up, she cried a second and fell back asleep like a normal baby.

Her increase in competent crawling abilities is a very recent development. Was she dream crawling? Was her brain still practicing? I know that infants brains take a whole lot longer to cycle into the deep immobile sleep that adults know and love. Baby sleep cycles are different. Still. This was freaky.

I asked a friend and mom of a toddler if her baby girl did that. Her response? "Yes:) they have to practice their moves:) wait til she stands and then wakes up because she can't get back down:)" This response was by text message by the way. She doesn't talk in emoticons. I'm so happy to have someone to ask these random things. She reassured me when Animalia was having teeny tiny baby nightmares too.

So I'm not looking forward to Animalia pulling herself up in her sleep but I guess it'll happen at some point. Maybe sooner than I thought. I was just on the phone with my mom. Animalia pulled herself to standing while holding onto the couch! Thank God she was awake!

She looks like her daddy.

I'm sure I've mentioned how very pretty the Animalia is. Well. She is. I'm not just saying to fulfill my motherly obligations either. Most people who meet her are instantly willing to sell her into baby modeling, commercials, and child stardom. She has big eyes, long curly eyelashes, pink cheeks and lips, a round little head and a big smile. Occasionally, when someone has commented on her outer beauty, I've responded with "I know, right?" This makes me seem like a jerk who doesn't know how to humbly take a compliment. But really, I'm still as surprised and they are.

When she was born she was already lovely. Smooth skin, big pink lips, dark hair. Not that withered newborn look that we were bracing ourselves for. She seemed like the perfect combination of both me and her Da. My chin and lips, his eyelashes and forehead, nose of indeterminate origin. Coloring somewhere between the two of us. But lately, she's starting to look like her Da. She just is, down to some of her expressions. I shouldn't resent this but I do, just a little. She's a girl and she's supposed to look like her mama.

Oh. Except for the hairline. That is slowly establishing itself as taking after me. Yes, her hairline ends at her eyebrows.

I'm sorry, baby girl.

She knows.

With her constantly increasing ability to crawl comes an increasing curiosity about everything she shouldn't be chewing on.

The Animalia. She knows. I say "no" and sometimes, she stares. And waits. And just as I think she's going to let something be, she reaches for it. Slowly. And tries to put it in her mouth. Our floors are fairly clean. I'm not talking about chokeable stuff, like quarters and pieces of lint. I'm talking big stuff. Like a pair of dirty sneakers, left near the edge of her blanketed, safe crawling space in the living room. She can get herself from one edge of that blanket to another pretty easily now. She's progressed fairly quickly from the belly flops that I meant to blog about last week (pushing herself up on her hands and knees and propelling forward, onto her belly, repeating til she reaches her goal) to some actual crawling in the last few days. She has even gotten herself from a crawling position to sitting straight up. It's amazing how lovely babies look sitting up, before they learn how to slouch like the rest of us. She sits really well too although sometimes she'll tip over in her excitement over a towel or toy or water bottle or cardboard box.

She is now seven months old. Amazing. It's time to get a play pen I think. Time to trap her in a confined, safe space. Time to babyproof the house. Before she electrocutes herself or chews up my shoelaces.