Free Toy!!! Provides hours of fun!!!

If you follow my blog, you'll know that I wasn't thrilled about getting Samantha too many plastic toys or that her favorite thing in the world is a plastic water bottle. I was happy, however, that the plastic water bottles are free since we reuse and reuse them, so she just got an old one we've had for god-knows-how-long. Well, things have gotten better! She has a new favorite "toy" that is free AND environmentally friendly! Wanna know what it is?

My belly fat. For real.

After nursing her, my shirt's lifted up, thus exposing my belly fat (which I am trying to get rid of...not very hard, though). The other day after nursing her I laid down, belly fat exposed, and put her on top of me. She kind of "crawled down me" until she was face to face with said belly fat, looked up at me, and gave me a great big toothless smile, like she couldn't believe her good fortune! She then gave it another good long look, buried her face into it, and blew a great big raspberry! She raised her head to look at me and had the expression of having just completed the BEST thing she's ever done. She'll do it for a loooong time, too, like 15 minutes (which is a long time for a baby to do anything... except cry...they can do that for a really long time).

It's really funny to see. I'd post a video of it if it didn't mean exposing my fat to the world. So for now, only my husband and my sister have been privy to this phenomenon. My husband expressed concern that she may suffocate "in there" and to be careful. I think he's the one who ought to be careful now after saying that!

Money Saver

Even before our daughter was born, my husband and I tried to live as eco-friendly as possible: we recycle religiously, we drive fuel-efficient cars, we reuse everything until it basically falls apart, we keep our heat down, etc. Now that we have a daughter, we try to raise her in an environmentally-friendly way as we can. Aside from cloth-diapering, we try to avoid buying too many plastic toys for her. Actually, since she has 2 sets of grandparents and many loving friends, we haven't had to buy much of anything for her since she's been born!

This Christmas, though, I really wanted to get her something. It's her first Christmas after all! So I went to Timeless Toys, this great toy shop here in Chicago, to pick out something for her that, hopefully, would not be plastic and made in China.

I came home with something plastic that was made in China. I spent more money on it than I would have liked, but whatever. It's cute and fun and she actually really likes it!

What she REALLY likes, though, and in fact I may say that she LOVES and GOES CRAZY FOR are, interestingly enough, plastic water bottles. (Again with the plastic!?!) I swear, if you walk up to her holding a plastic water bottle, she will give you this huge grin that just melts your heart. You think she's showing you how happy she is to see you, how much she loves you. No, she's excited to see the water bottle.

Thanks, kid. Now I know what to get you for Christmas next year.

These are a Few of Her Favorite Things

My daughter, the crazy baby, cracks me up. If you read the last post (from a million years ago...sorry), then you're aware of how she suddenly started refusing the bottle. Well, I'm happy to report that she is over that now. It turns out all she needed was a little distraction. Seriously, it wasn't the usual suspects (according to baby books and websites): nipple shape, milk temperature, mommy being around during bottle feeding, taste of frozen milk, excess lipase in the breastmilk, etc., etc. No, she just needed to be distracted by her FAVORITE THING.

Samantha has lots of cute toys. Her mobile, for example, is one of her favorite things. She literally squeals when we turn it on. She stares and stares at it for hours and talks to it. I even named the group of fish on it her "Swimmy Friends" and have given them a whole background story about how they are pairs of brothers and sisters who married the other pair --they even had a double wedding!-- and then each had a set of fraternal twins (one boy, one girl). Then they created this sychronized swimming group known as The Swimmy Friends. Hey, it's really important to talk to your baby, and, really, what is there to talk about? Please tell me I'm not the only mom who does this. Wait, I KNOW I' m not the only mom who does stuff like this because when I asked my friend, Marcie, what the heck she talked to her baby about, she said she told her baby the whole story of Dallas (as in the 80s tv show).

Another of Samantha's favorite things in the house is our biggest plant. I actually just pruned it a bit, so it's not as huge anymore, but she still stares at it. It doesn't play music or move like her mobile does, but there's something about it that she loves to look at. I named the plant Felix, by the way, but he doesn't have a background story yet. Feel free to share any ideas...

But neither of these, nor her other myriad beloved things, like the butterfly (named Fifi) that lights up and plays music or the 2 animals on her glider (that don't have names but my husband deemed a bassoon and viola player), nor the other plants (Harriet, Curly, and...shit, I can't remember the other one's name) were the trick to getting her to drink from the bottle.

THIS is the thing that Samantha needed to stare at in order to get her to drink from the bottle. And she stares at it pretty much any chance she gets. THIS is her favorite of all things:

Yes, the ugly-ass light fixture in our entryway. We had to hold her while standing under it to feed her...not very comfortable. It was literally the only way Samantha would eat. Our friend, Angela, came up with a plausible reason for this: it looks like a giant boob! I guess since Samantha wasn't eating from a boob, the next best thing was to stare at one. Crazy baby.