Halloween

I am not going to dress up my daughter for Halloween. I know, I know...how could I not??? It's her FIRST Halloween!

She's 4 months old, people. A. She will not remember this. B. What am I supposed to do, parade her around so that I can get candy? C. I have to spend $20 on a costume that she will wear once and not remember?

People tried to convince me to do it: various friends and family members (especially grandparents), and I did waver a couple times, but have decided she is not dressing up.

That is, until yesterday. The pediatrician of all people convinced me to dress her up! She didn't give any new reasons that others had not yet given that made me change my mind. I think it's just her position of authority that did it. I wonder what else she could get me to do?

So, Samantha will be dressing up for Halloween. We stopped yesterday on the way home from the doctor's office and got her a butterfly costume. (Awwww!) I even thought of a place to bring her on Halloween so that she's not just sitting around the house in a butterfly costume looking silly (but oh-so-cute!). I'm taking her to visit my former class at school! We're also gonna stop by the in-laws for what I'm sure will be a one-hour photo session. And I believe my sister's kids and Samantha will be going to nonna's house the day before Halloween to take pictures.

So what started out as us doing nothing for Halloween has now turned into this 2-day extravaganza. But my reward for waiting until the last minute is that I got the costume for half price AND I didn't have to spend 45 minutes choosing between the ladybug, the butterfly, or the pumpkin. I got the last costume the store had left in her size!

Now I have to figure out how to score some candy.

Good Thing I Don't Believe in Hell

I was raised Catholic, but I really don't believe anymore. No, I don't know what happens to us when we die, but I personally don't think that our souls go to heaven or hell. However, I've done something so terrible that it's a good thing I don't believe in hell or I'd be going there for sure.

My daughter was given this cute little stuffed animal lamb. It's seriously so cute, soft, and cuddly...EXCEPT that when you squeeze it, an oddly high-pitched voice starts reciting, "Now I lay me down to sleep...". As my husband and I have decided to raise our daughter without a religion, we thought this toy inappropriate (and as I said before, creepy). So what to do?

For a while I just ignored it. It's not like she's playing with it anyway. The only thing she really wants to play with are her hands, which she shoves into her mouth, sometimes both at the same time, so far that she gags. So for weeks, the fluffly little lamb sat on her rocking chair with all the other stuffed animals.

Then the other day I was in the kitchen crushing some whole pecans with a mallot.

Do you see where this is going? Am I going to hell?

Yes, I beckoned my husband to bring me the lamb. Yes, I took a mallot to its middle where I could feel the mechanism inside, and, yes, I pummeled it. The first couple hits did nothing. In fact, each time I hit it, it kept starting, "Now I lay me down to sleep...". So I had to hit it continuously, over and over, until the thing finally stopped. Am I a terrible person?

I'm just so glad that it didn't go into that distorted slow-motion voice, "Nooowwww I laaaay meeeee dooooooowwn tooooo sleeeeep....". That would've haunted me forever. Hopefully I'll only be temporarily haunted by the vision I have of myself, mallot in hand, pummeling this poor lamb.

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.

My Crazy Baby

Samantha, who is exclusively breast fed, is one crazy baby. While I truly do enjoy breastfeeding her, it's nice to get a break every once in a while and have my husband feed her my expressed milk from a bottle. S's pediatrician thought it would be a good idea to introduce the bottle at 3-4 weeks, after S had established a strong latch on the nipple. (Sorry to any guys who are reading this. I'm sure that if you want to read about nipples, this is NOT the context you prefer).

She did have a strong latch, so at the 4-week mark, Brian gave her a bottle. It went great! We intended to do this every day, but, well, we didn't. But we did do it a 2-3 times a week with no problem. Until...

I dunno, 2-3 weeks ago, S all of a sudden would NOT take the bottle. And when I say she would not take the bottle, I mean that when Brian put it in her mouth, she FREAKED out. She cried as if someone is was...I dunno, physically harming her (I can't even bring myself to give an example of how someone may physically harm my baby). It's the kind of cry where the baby doesn't breathe for a really long time. The kind of cry that makes me want to cry.

So wtf? This happened a couple of times and thank god I was around because I finally ended up breastfeeding her after the hysterics died down. We read the baby books to find out just what the hell the problem was. And you know what they said? The problem was ME! Supposedly, some babies do NOT take a bottle if mommy is around. They apparently can smell their mother's milk and want it from the source. Crazy babies. But this is NOT what makes my baby crazy.

For the next couple of weeks, whenever we wanted S to take a bottle, I had to make myself scarce, which in all honestly, is kind of annoying unless I legitimately have someplace to go. Then S took the bottle fine. When I did stay around, even if I was in a different room or on a different floor, forget it, the baby was not having it.

Last night, I wanted her to take a bottle because this weekend, Samantha will be sleeping over at Nonna's (grandma's) while Brian and I go to a wedding, and I am FREAKING out that she won't eat. Yes, yes, I understand that she'll probably be fine because I won't be around, but I can't help it. It's the first time we're leaving her.

So at about 7:30, in the middle of dinner, I notice S giving her hunger cues, right on time. Brian starts to prepare her bottle and I got out of there. I told him to call me either when they were done or if it wasn't happening. 20 minutes later I get a call from Brian...I assumed they had finished, but, no...crazy baby had been in hysterics for the past 20 minutes. I came back in to a baby that had calmed down, but to a husband that was totally frazzled.

I sat on the couch to BF her when Brian asked if he should throw the milk away (once heated up, you can't use it again). Usually I would say yes, but something made me think to keep it a little while longer and I asked him to bring it to me. I fed S. the breast on one side and she passed out on my lap for a couple minutes (What a life!). But when she woke up, instead of putting her on the other breast, I gave her a bottle AND SHE TOOK IT! FROM ME! WTF????

When I called Brian upstairs to view this, his jaw almost hit the floor. WTF, CRAZY BABY??? No, seriously, wtf? He thought it was just him, but I assured him it was not. I mean, she's taken the bottle from him many times before without incident, and in fact, I handed her over to him last night so she could finish the bottle, which she did.

I searched for an explanation: Had she been tired? Had she been too hungry? Was the milk too warm? I think it's no, no, and no.

She's just a crazy baby.

The Worst Thing in the World

I have discovered what the worst thing in the world is. No, it's not the fact that many species of animals may become extinct due to the impact of global warming. No, it's not the crisis in Darfur. It's cutting a baby's fingernails.

If you are thinking, "How dare she compare the turmoil in Darfur to something as innocuous as cutting nails?" then you've obviously never done it before.

We all know babies are small, right? Well, these small babies have even smaller fingers. And these small fingers sport tiiiiiny fingernails. I mean tiiiiny!

I learned quickly that one cannot cut the fingernails of a baby while said baby is awake. Babies NEVER keep their hands still! So, you have to wait until s/he falls asleep, usually not a problem since babies sleep A LOT (more on this in a subsequent post). Hopefully the baby has fallen asleep on your lap, making it easier to maneuver his/her fingers to an angle where you can actually cut the nail without contorting your own body into some uncomfortable position. Now that you're all set, you will realize that you've forgotten all about the nail clippers and they're in a completely different room. If no one else is home, you'll need to get up and get them, but this will probably wake the sleeping baby, thus postponing your nailcutting endeavor. Whenever you do manage to have the clippers by you AND have your baby sleeping on your lap, you will notice that you are not the only person who thinks that baby nails are so incredibly tiny because the makers of your nailclippers have ATTACHED A MAGNIFYING LENS TO THE CLIPPERS!

When you examine the nails, you will see what feels like little sharp razor blades are truly only these soft little things that, I swear to god, are only 2 mm long. How the f*** are you supposed to cut something off that's only 2 mm long??? Answer: You just go for it.

So I went for it on my precious 2-month old daughter's little nails. It took forever because I wanted to be so careful to not catch her skin that most of the time I caught nothing. Then I got to her thumb. And I did catch her skin. From her peaceful slumber, Samantha let out a howl followed by some infant sobbing. I MADE MY CHILD BLEED! I felt so bad that I vowed to never cut her nails again. That is, until, she scratched my neck so hard that I thought I was bleeding.

So really, the only thing worse than cutting a baby's fingernails is NOT cutting a baby's fingernails.

A quick update: I actually wrote this post several days ago. Now Samantha's nails have become a little bit stronger and I've discovered that I can bite them off! Yes, gross or not, I bite my baby's nails off. My life is SO much better, as I'm sure is hers. Global warming and Darfur can go back to being the worst things in the world now.

This is What I'm Doing Now?

My daughter, who is almost 2 months old, is napping, and while there are about 7 things I should be doing, this is what I am actually doing:

81 words

I actually got up to 82 wpm, but stupid me didn't save the proof, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Thanks to Laural for this big (and many other) time wasters, er, spenders.

The First Month

The first month of my daughter's life has flown by. It's really incredible how much has happened and how much has changed. She went from being this little ball of mush that couldn't really do anything but eat, sleep, poop, and cry, to a big ball of mush who has added smiling and cooing to her repertoire. Oh, AND sleeping through the night! That's right, my 5 week old daughter sleeps through the night in up to 7 hour stretches.

*ducks from being hit by stuff being thrown by other new moms*

Her sleeping routine goes like this: She falls asleep at 1 a.m., sleeps til about 7 or 8. Eats for an hour or so. Then goes back to sleep until noon. Not bad, not bad. I'm NOT complaining.

So in this first month, I've tried to keep mental track of some observations I've made about babies and being a parent:

1. BABIES MAKE WEIRD SOUNDS. I was warned about newborns being noisy sleepers, but I had no idea that my infant daughter was capable of sounding like a variety of jungle animals (mammals, birds, and insects included), Yoda, and a gremlin all at the same time. It's really quite bizarre. Add on top of this my husband's snoring and it's a miracle I fall asleep at all.

2. BREASTFEEDING IS HARD. While Samantha and I have mostly worked out our problems with this, the first 3 weeks were NOT fun. I don't know why I expected it to "just work," but it "just doesn't." Is it the media that portrays bf'ing as easy or is it just that nobody tells you how painful it is? Sorry if it's TMI for some of you (does anyone even read my blog anymore?), but the redness, blistering, scabbing, peeling, and irritation of my poor nipples make we want to just remove them and soak them overnight in cool water. Or trade them in for rubber ones. Nevertheless, I stuck with it and the aforementioned symptoms subsided. So, we're sticking with the bf'ing.

3. PARENTS NEED AT LEAST 3 ARMS. When you hold a baby who can't support her own head, you need to use one hand to hold her under her butt and one hand to support her head/back. Uh, what happens when you need to answer the phone or write something down or basically anything else that you need to do? Well, at first you don't. Then you learn ways to hold your baby that only require one arm and learn how to do things that usually require 2 hands with one.

4. MY BABY IS FOREVER DESTINED TO WEAR PINK. Everything that was gifted to me during pregnancy was green and yellow. Now everything is pink. Funny thing is, I think my baby looks "better" in greens and yellows!

5. MY HUSBAND AND I ARE SCREWED. This is one cute kid. She gets cuter by the day and now that she's started smiling, we are sucked in by her cuteness. Hell, it's not even her smile, it's everything: her sneezes, cooing, burps, hiccups, farts, poops, cries...EVERYTHING. I'm hoping this infatuation will last.

6. EAU DE BABY SPIT-UP. I think I am forever destined to be covered with and smelling of baby spit-up. It does not smell good, but I only have so many clothes and only so much time to do laundry, so now half the time, I don't even bother to change. I'm like, "Eh, it'll dry!" and just leave it.