perfection would be too boring.
I have showered once in every 24 hours for the past SIX DAYS!!!
Those that dont understand this bliss/achievement/ announcement dont have children, or maybe its just my child….
I haven’t showered this regularly in TEN MONTHS. Sad.
In related knew, my son is now ten months old…. I see you connecting those dots.
In news related to that news, its also been ten months since Ive regularly blogged, my bad. I’ve been actively trying to get back into it, for my sanity if nothing else.
Dear Son,
Today is your Auntie Aly’s 25th birthday, and you are 10 months old! You have changed our lives since the moment you came into them, some frustrating, some amazing, but all in all in the best most glorious and unexpected ways possible. This past month has made this change once again so very evident. You are my baby piranha all toothy grins and particular with your foods. You like olives and beef stew, mandarine oranges and cheese, any kind of fruit sauce or yogurt- you are a bottomless pit for yogurt! But don’t even try to offer you green things or butternut squash or avocado, we think you find the texture weird, yet you eat plenty of carpet fuzz, grass, dirt, paper, etc. Gross, and oh so frustrating, you have baby pica.
You are a STILL a terrible sleeper! Frequent night wakeings, floppy limbs, itchy eyes, and sleep crawling. It’s so exhausting but between teeth, night terrors and night nursing we just don’t know what to do. Daddy and I are hunkering down and trying desperately to ride out this storm, knowing that you won’t do this forever, sadly I know when you stop you won’t be a baby anymore either.
You, my looking more like a boy and less like a baby, baby boy are a walker. Took your first solo steps (3!) on may seventh and every day you get braver and stronger, your steps become more frequent and easy. Even though it’s not warm yet I try to give you some sock free time every day. NH, you play now, I mean really play! It’s so amazing and fun! Not only are you slowly discovering independent play- which is hilariously cute to watch, you get stuck in corners, dance to your music, stock pile your soothies… You also are learning interactive play! Any form of peekaboo or hid’n'seek reduces you to a giggling mess, you roar like a lion with daddy, you understand and look for Groma on Skype, you shriek with glee when you are caught or chased, you stand at the glass door looking for daddy at the end of the day, you sing with momma and have dance parties and so much much more! So far, this month has been the most fun AND the most exhausting, probably for the same reasons.
Since mommy teaches and classes are done for the semester, it’s all me and you all the time now, which is a blessing and a bit of a curse, since even we need a break every now and again. We’ve started a baby gym class and hopefully we will have regular playdates with your friends and cousins over the summer, and next month I’m signing us up for baby swim lessons.
Baby boy it is my greatest pleasure and privilege to see your mind and body grow and know that I am a part of your success.
Love,
Momma.
Luckily the bastard was living in my right eyebrow.
True story.
So all I had to do was pluck it out, along with the rest of the brown little suckers trying to invade my face, which if they were successful I’d be searching for a life companion named Ernie, post haste.
Also a true story.
Grey hairs? Is this the beginning of the end?
Hey… Anyone read Time Magazine? Yeah, didn’t think so….
(joke)
You know what? I co sleep, and attachment parent. I cloth diaper, feed organically and home made. I hope to do extended breast feeding- how long? Well that’s up to baby. I’ve made a lot of pseudo unpopular choices and get criticized all the time.
But, if you don’t do what I do or vice versa? I don’t care, i never have. And, It doesn’t matter-
http://www.boston.com/community/moms/blogs/24_hour_workday/2012/05/motherhood-mom-enough-advice.html
Happy Mother’s Day to all of us out there busting our asses in every way we can or want to for our families.
At this very moment, for one of the first times in the HISTORY OF HIS LIFE, my kid is playing- by HIMSELF!!
High need baby? Check.
Mischievous and sneaky? Check.
Wants to be doing/seeing/eating everything I am doing/seeing/eating? Check.
Cutest effing thing ever? Double check.
Now maybe I can get some of these final exams graded…..
Dear NH,
Happy 9 months!!! Really 9.5 months, mommy’s purse was stolen- iPhone included, which contained your monthly news letter. Technology fail.
Well baby boy, it’s been a month of successes, amazement and some failures, though being the naughty joy that you are we love you no matter what. You are now 28 1/2 inches tall and 19 pounds, which is normal in height but a bit skinny, your pediatrician isn’t surprised because of how mobile and dextrous you are. You began crawling at the beginning of march and in no time at all youve graduated to zipping down the halls, pulling up on everything, cruising along the couches, the walls, the chairs, our legs- anything. You’ve discovered the stairs and how to get up them, you do baby chin ups on the bathroom counters and stair gate, it’s insane!! You are thisclose to walking! Mommy is terrified. I guess you will be like your cousin, an early walker. I shouldn’t be surprised, you are always on the move even in your sleep, never content to stay still. Speaking of sleep, or really, the lack there of… What the poop kid? You were a rockstar with sleep up until 8 months, now you are simply awful. I’m not sure if it’s all your new skills, the fact that all four of your top teeth came in the same week, if you’ve had a touch of a bug or if you’ve inherited the worst of your parents sleep habits- your dad’s restlessness and my light sleeping- or all of the above! But it’s killing us. You wake 4-6 times a night, inconsolable, screaming, flinging your body about. Sometimes you want to nurse, sometimes you don’t, more oft we have to bounce or rock you to calm you back down. Im actually thinking you might be suffering from night terrors. Do mommy and daddy a favor and hurry on through this developmental stage yes? Thanks. Also something you could skip through? This crazy clingy, always irritated, attention span of a gnat thing you are doing. Yeah. Less then fun.
This month you also transitioned from three naps a day to two, a change I quite like, it gives me more time to do things during your wake times. It also gives you more time to do things, like crawling, climbing, cruising, snacking, playing, licking, cleaning (yes, this is hilarious, you lick a cloth and rub the floor/wall etc), going through your tunnel, trying to stick your fingers in the outlets, eating electrical cords, getting stuck in small places, singing, dancing, pooping 5 times a day- normal baby things. Whew. Mommy is tired!
You do poop a lot, perhaps more than your average baby, daddy is proud and disgusted to pass along his colon. And since you’ve started to eat a variety of foods and textures the, er, outcome if you will is varied as well. When you first started solids you ate everything. Anything I put in your mouth you would swallow, even if you didn’t love it. Not so much anymore. With maturity not only do you refuse to let us feed you and have a vicious do it yourself attitude, but you’ve recently gotten quite picky as well! Today you turned down butternut squash with butter and molasses, strawberries, avocado and scrambled eggs. I’m crushed. It was all so yummy! Tonight you’re trying roasted red peppers, bananas (which you love so don’t fail me!) and for the first time- pizza! Fingers crossed.
Even though this hasn’t been the easiest month for us all, it’s still been pretty spectacular. You high five, have begun to hug and voluntarily cuddle, give wet sloppy toothy kisses, play hide and seek, give mommy and daddy the biggest “im so glad you are home” grins, you also roar like a lion! You are the joy of my life, you fill our house with more giggles than screams. You are a frighteningly brave dare devil and have all the boyish bumps and bruises to prove it. You are beautiful and naughty, glorious and clever, boy of mine.
Love mama.
Hey! My baby turned 9 Months this week and I did NOTHING to mark it!!!
To be fair its not a complete parenting fail (though letting him crawl and lick my dirty kitchen floor at this moment while I try and type this is- gross), My daily clutch with wallet, chapstick, coupons and iphone was stolen last week from at Bed Bath & Beyond- a “beyond” I really could have done without. Meaning- No cash! No credit cards! No license! No health insurance, AAA, library, etc cards! And the worst? (and literally the most difficult to cancel, reorder and set straight) NO IPHONE!!!!
Die. I die.
I never knew how much of an iwhore I was till this very week. And to make a long story long and full of grammatical errors, NH’s 9 Month update was stored on the phone.
I’m working on a new update post, a few posts about unpopular parenting choices and the motivation to regularly blog.
So, I’m pretty particular about things, I like to hope I’m not too OCD or bossy, but I’m a woman and women happen to be particular. I am Woman! Hear me ro- be particular!!
In general I don’t get too worked up over things that don’t get done my way, as long as they are getting done. The husband want to load the dishwasher like a crazy person? Fine! Dishes still get clean. The step daughter makes her bed like she was mid seizure? Whatever! I didn’t have to do it. The students take twice as long to base paint something as I would have? Sure! It’s not my time.
But there is one thing, one thing I just cannot get past. One thing that Makes the wires in my brain short circuit.
The sheets.
I can’t have, look at, sleep with the sheets messed up. I am so OCD about it I will actually wake from a deep sleep in they are wrong.
You know when you first make a bed perfectly and the sheets/ blanket/ comforter combo is all pulled up the the headboard nice and tight, tucked 4 square at the bottom corners and evenly dispersed on each side of the bed? You don’t? Well you clearly can’t sleep with me. Anyhow, that’s how I like it- whether I’m in bed or not. Particularily when I’m in bed. I have to have to have to have is allllllllll even Steven.
It even makes me crazy if (when) SOMEONE rolls over and instead of rolling UNDER the sheets he just takes them all with him! Grrrrrr. I’m getting irritated just thinking about it.
Ideally, I’d like to sleep alone in a completely dark cave of a room with no sound and no one touching me or my sheets. My boys? Want to be ALL up in my biz-ness all the time with their snuggling and wiggling and kicking and rolling and mouth breathing and snoring and sheet ruining.
Awesome.
My baby hums/ grunts himself to sleep. Seriously.
Doesn’t matter if I’m holding him, he’s laying down and I’m patting him on the back, if he’s in his carseat in the car, soothie or no soothie in mouth, nipple or no nipple in mouth- he does it.
It’s hilarious and so freaking cute I can’t stand it.
I kinda hope he does it forever!
Though I’m sure future girlfriends/wife do not wish for this…
Also, future girlfriends/wife? STEP UP! Guuuuuuuuurl, no one does it like Momma- learn.
