Happy Easter

Post-Easter coma.

Did I tell you about Easter?

Ooops. Almost forgot.

So Easter. Animalia's first Easter.

There was a visit to Tía Grande in the morning for brunch. Easter fell on her birthday this year. It was nice and relaxing and Animalia got held by several different people. She did well, no major freakouts but she would complain loudly when someone else was holding her and she could see me across the room. It took me forever to even get a chance to eat. No matter though, she was really excellent. And she looked adorable in a sundress and short sleeved cardigan.

Then we went home for a bit. Relaxed. Dressed the Animalia in a lovely pink cotton dress. Had to have the costume change-- she has like a million dresses that need wearing in the next couple of months.

Went to Tío's house. First time we've been there in a while. It was my Tata's house before. Animalia got STUFF. She had an Easter basket, courtesy of me, a Hello Kitty head wearing a bunny hat, filled with NO GRASS, a baby's first Easter rattle, a large and useful bib with Easter eggs printed all over it and a book that has spaces for pictures. I think it's called "Who loves baby?" I can't seem to find the bib now and the Who Loves Baby still has no pictures in it. We try. She also got an easter basket with a bunny from a Tía and a teeny tiny handmade basket and a fluffy teddy bear from an Aunty. She was poked, prodded, and tickled by cousins. Pictures were taken. We went home and before we could strip her down to a onesie, held a mini Easter photo shoot. Must get those pictures off the memory card and somewhere where people can see them.

What can I say? Everyone loves Animalia.

First food.

Animalia ate with a spoon yesterday!!! We mixed rice cereal with breastmilk and she loved it!!! I am very surprised and happy, can you tell?!!!

Anyhow, we were at my parents' for dinner and we decided it was time. She's been staring and grabbing at our food for a few weeks now and she seems hungry more than she used to. She's almost 24 weeks old too and has MORE than doubled her birthweight. All the indicators.

She ate Earth's Best whole grain organic rice cereal. She actually ate more of it than got on her face, hands and bib. She kept grabbing the spoon. And when she was done she kind of made a frustrated scream. She wanted MORE!

Cleanup wasn't as awful as I expected and it was just so CUTE. Yay. Now we're making plans for her first non-rice cereal in a couple of days... bananas or avocado or applesauce. The options are endless. We're cooking a huge batch of the need to be cooked stuff on Monday to stick in the freezer. In the meantime, more rice cereal, increasing quantities and some things that only need to be mashed. Some genuis gave us an immersion blender as a shower gift too so we're ready.

A little Irish

So I'm Mexican. Mexican-American. Whatever. And Jimmy is Irish. Irish-American. Again, whatever. That makes Animalia half Mexican, half Irish. I've been thinking about this.

It's going to be very easy for Animalia to know she's Mexican. We live in Tucson, AZ. An hour away from the border with Mexico. We speak Spanish to her. Well, everyone minus her Da does. Etc, etc. But how will she know she's Irish? Her Da grew up on the south side of Chicago, surrounded by Irish-Americans and ACTUAL PEOPLE FROM IRELAND, imagine that. He knew girls who took Irish dance classes after school. Etc, etc.

So we took the Animalia to her first St. Patrick's Day parade. She wore a white tshirt with a glittery green shamrock on the front, green longsleeve onesie, denim shorts, black and white striped legwarmers, and socks with shamrocks. She looked pretty hilarious. It was great until it got cold and rainy. Next year we'll take her to St. Patrick's Mass too. I think we'll sign her up for Irish dance when she's old enough too. Cultural identity made easy.

Little movers and shakers

Animalia went to her very first baby gym class yesterday. It didn't occur to me to take pictures until we were on the way there without the camera. So no pictures.

It was hilarious. I thought she'd be in a MOOD because she hadn't napped but once we got there she was more interested in looking around at all the babies and the bouncy blue gym floor. We did activities in a circle, sang itsy bitsy spider, bounced the babies around on our knees, learned how to make the babies tumble, and made them do exercises on big bouncy balls. There was also a crawling race (most babies are a little older than Animalia). We stayed at the starting line while she tried to eat a beanbag in the shape of a turtle. We also did ring around the rosy (love that song for dark reasons) and we put the babies in the middle of a parachute and kind of walked them in a circle, back and forth. Most babies freaked but Animalia didn't. She kind of tipped over, rolled onto her tummy, laughed and stared. She also knocked over another baby in a quest to eat the back of his shirt. She was great.

It was pretty fun. The other moms were interesting, some more likeable than others.

Next order of business: Animalia's first "real" food. Rice cereal. This evening.

Poop.

Yeah. That's right. Poop.

The first time the Animalia pooped in the hospital it coincided with Grandma Lori's visit. Da was supposed to change the first poop as I would have just given birth. Fair trade, right? But Grandma Lori was there and took care of it. We had heard and read about the first poops, meconium, black tarry sticky badness. We were still unprepared. First of all, everything we'd read said "the first couple of times or so." So when she was still pooping like that for a couple of days it was horrible (and slightly alarming). Hey, we'd never done this before. So when she'd poop it was a THING. One time she even kept pooping as we were changing the diaper. In our exhaustion we just laughed in complete horror. I think that was her second day of life. We were at my parents' house. Me, Jimmy and my mom were ALL changing her diaper. And she just kept pooping a black tarry fountain of poop. Poor Animalia, two days old and everyone's just standing there laughing at her.

So what got me reminiscing about poop? Well... The Animalia doesn't poop that frequently anymore. Apparently breastfed babies sometimes just don't. But she doesn't poop so much that a couple of months ago we had to introduce small amounts of watered down juice just to help things along. Now we're getting ready to introduce food. She's ready. She's more than doubled her birthweight 16lbs 1oz a couple of weeks ago when she had a cold and we took her to the doctor. She keeps trying to grab our food and seems a little more hungry now. She's almost 24 weeks old. I'm looking forward to it in some ways because I love to see her grow and change but in other ways I'm not. Nursing her, though sometimes inconvenient, is nice. I realize that she'll still be nursing with the first foods but this time, her first six months, has just passed so quickly.

What will she do next?!

I wrote about the Animalia's many skills in a post a couple of months ago. She's grown so much since then. I find myself amazed at how much she's grown and changed.

She sits on her own a bit now. It's something she was building up to, kind of slumping a little but the last few days she can pull herself up and sit upright and only tumbles to one side or the other after a few minutes.

She's so wiggly. She reaches her arms out when she wants to go with a new person. Her sense of stranger danger comes and goes but she typically doesn't tolerate unknown people for very long. She tap dances when she sees someone she knows.

Little kids fascinate her. Her eyes get wide when she sees someone small.

She likes to stretch out in her sleep. She starts out curled in a little ball. By the morning she's on her back, her arms and legs splayed out.

She takes her medicine like a big girl. She makes a face but she still drinks it right down.

She and her Da make funny faces at each other. When he's not looking at her she stares til he does, then sticks her tongue out.

We've gone through 3 little colds. She doesn't mind suctioning her nose so much anymore.

She's discovered walls. She lays in our bed and touches the wall. She was touching the wall in her Nana and Tata's hallway between the dining room and the kitchen when I left for work this morning.

She's slightly concerned that her Tio is visiting.

She's interested in food now. She tries to grab whatever we're eating or stares at it intently. She's only had watered down juice and breastmilk so far. We're starting rice cereal in a couple of weeks-- soon!!!

She plays "Kaboom!" now. Her Nana and Tata taught her to pound her feet on the ground when they say "Kaboom!"

She's starting to use consonants.

She chats with the dog. She also chats with a cat that visits my parents' yard.

She loves books and newspapers and magazines. Anything with words. She turns pages then tries to eat whatever it is. She likes to rip paper.

She laughs a big laugh now, especially when someone's blowing on her stomach or her neck. She laughed like that when we were changing her into her baptism gown.

She takes some naps in her crib. We find her awake, on her tummy, trying to escape.

She touches the faces of people she likes.

She wakes up smiling most mornings. Sometimes it's a tired smile. She likes to sleep in sometimes.

¿que dice?

"¿Que dice el perro? Bow wow wow."

"¿Que dice el pato? Quack quack quack."

"¿Que dicen los pollitos? Pío pío pío."

"¿Que dice el elefante?" Hmmm... I have no idea how to make an elephant noise. "Muah ha ha ha ha."

And that's how parents screw up their children.

Sucker!!!

So. Yes. It's true. She likes to suck on her toes and occasionally the entire front part of her foot. It's one of those "Seriously, this is MY child?!" kind of moments for me. I don't love feet. I just don't. At the same time, her foot in her mouth is, like everything she does, one of those extraordinarily cute things that you can't imagine are cute before the kid comes then all of a sudden, you're a mom and the only thing you REALLY want to talk about is how cute your baby is.

One day my mom was talking about how cute it was when my brother would put his feet in his mouth. So during Animalia's diaper changes, she'd encourage the foot toward mouth thing. Funny thing is, when she was telling the story about my brother, I was assuming it was when he was an infant. And then my mom says something like "yeah, that was when he was 4 or 5." Sorry, Tío. I had to tell.

Holy, holy

So the Animalia is now a bonafide Catholic girl. Yay!

I actually didn't think it would be so exciting, but it was. We were running around like crazy the morning of: getting ready, making food, throwing the last few things in closets. Chairs and tables were borrowed, the cake was picked up. I spent late afternoon with my dress unzipped, just in case she had to eat again. Lots of craziness, like Jimmy going to get PC who ended up being dropped off by his latest um... "girlfriend." He made it back, they went to buy a ridiculous amount of beer. PC wore a cowboy suit. Nice. Boymagnet was lovely in a dress with a plunging neckline and one of my black cardigans. I wore a red sweater over a dress that was cut up to here on the sides. I actually didn't realize that part til it was a little too late to change but black tights made it not so obvious. Animalia was excited too. When boymagnet and I were putting her into her outfit (slip, lovely gown and matching bib to catch her ever present drool, socks with embroidered crosses, nurse shoes) she laughed and laughed. She wore a cross and chain from boymagnet and a bracelet from the tías grandes.

We got to the church ok and just a little later than we'd wanted to. Another baby was being baptized at the same time. Her parents were tall. TALL. Her mother was so tall, as tall as Jimmy I think, and her father was tall too, but not tall enough not to seem short next to the mother. Priest ran down the ceremony for us. Mass started. The whole ritual was really touching. We stated her name. We asked for her to be baptized. We crossed her tiny forhead with our thumbs. She stared. More mass. Then came the water pouring over her head and the oil. I thought she'd panic but she was fine. The priest said something like "I wish you could all see this baby's face." I was proud and the Animalia just stared some more. PC lit a candle. More mass. Then at the end of mass we took her to the front of the church and the priest introduced the "two newest Catholics in the world." Mass over. I have to admit a part of me did it more for tradition's sake than for the spirituality of it all but it all turned out to be very touching.

Then the party. About 70 people showed up. We had barbacoa, courtesy of an aunt, beans (mine), pasta salad (mine), guacamole (my dad), tortillas, salsa (one of my godmothers) and lots of other munchies. The cake from Le Caves was, as usual, the best cake ever. There were presents. I honestly expected a couple of religious things but mostly she got clothes and a few pairs of shoes. Her closet is full. Also, she now needs a jewelry box. In addition to the previously mentioned necklace and bracelet, she is now the proud owner of a teeny tiny diamond ring from one of Jimmy's aunts. Crazy.

The last guests left around 12:30am. Not too shabby for a party that started a full six hours before, not including mass. The Animalia was fast asleep. She was so exhausted.

I wish she knew how to give a teeny tiny high five because I have to give her loads of credit. She was just SO GOOD all day. She fussed a little in the evening but it was really nothing. She was nice and cute like she knew it was her day. Or like my mom says, "They baptized the devil out of her."