Unbearable Cuteness of Being

I know I'm partial, but is this kid the Gerber baby or what?

Another Go

So we gave it another go this morning with the sweet potatoes and I can't say with absolute certainty, but I'm pretty sure she actually swallowed some. Which, compared to our previous attempts, feels like we just found a cure for AIDS and solved the riddle of cold fusion all in one.

She began with enthusiasm:However, there was some doubt:
And some resistance:
And some "what you talking 'bout, Willis" attitude:But in the end, she was smiling, so I don't think she was traumatized by the event:More potatoes tomorrow.

Let's Try This Again

Thinking the rice cereal might not be the most appealing first meal, I decided to break down and delve into one of the teeny tiny jars of baby food. The sweet potato seemed like the best choice. I have never been much of a sweet potato fan, but I was hoping that Sophie would be. Much like the rice cereal, I decided to show her how it was done. Only this time I actually ate it, and I have to say, that stuff is awesome! Why have I been depriving myself of this oh-so-tasty treat all these years? Do all sweet potatoes taste this good or is it only mashed up ones in itty bitty jars? So for every bite I attempted to give her, I think I ate two. I'm working on the theory that she needs to see me eat it to understand whats to be done, so really I'm obligated as a mother to do this.

Unfortunately, Sophie did not go for the sweet potatoes either. However, she did not spit them out over the side of the chair, which I consider an improvement. This time she just pushed it out of her mouth and let it ooze down her chin. So I'm thinking we may be on to something. Tomorrow, more sweet potatoes.

A Visit With Amamma

Before they headed off on a mother-daughter trip to Mexico, Sophie and I went to visit Pinni and Amamma. Of course, I'm terribly jealous that they're spending a week in paradise, and will only be mollified by fabulous gifts from the Yucatan (ahem). Because of the weather, Sophie got to wear one of her cute little skirts for the first time. Of course, I was more excited about it than she was, although she loves having her feet bare.

Sophie was in a rare form for the visit. She was absolutely charming the whole time. In fact, you might even say she was giddy - laughing, smiling, and very playful. She even stayed calm and cool through lunch at Panera. However, in a move starkly out of character, I decided not to push my luck and brought her home immediately afterwards even though a trip to Target was in the plans. Ah, Target, how I love thee, let me count the ways. Oh well, another day.

Thanks, Parvathi, for the super cute outfits for Sophie, I can't wait to get her in them!

Open Mouth, Insert NOTHING

Following our doctor visit on Tuesday, where Dr. B told us we could start feeding Sophie solid food, we were both excited to get the party started. In preparation for this celebrated event, I had purchased rice cereal and several teeny tiny jars of organic baby food on the way home from the doctor's office. Organic because now that I'm a mommy I have converted to the all natural cult. The irony there is that I love, LOVE, Dr. Pepper and will eat the bejesus out of a box of ho-ho's. Whatever. The doctor had recommended that we start her with rice cereal since it has the lowest incidence of allergic reaction and even though I suspect it tastes like poo, I'll take the doctor's advice on this one. (That's Gomez waiting his turn in Sophie's high chair. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't eat the rice cereal either.)

Once we had everything together, we sat her down in her Bumbo with the tray. Then, to whet her appetite I pretended to eat it. I say pretended because I had prepared this fine concoction with breastmilk, and I'm more than a little skeeved out by the idea of eating that. Which is weird because I'm okay with drinking cow's milk and that's pretty nasty when you think about it. Anyways, she loves it and it's a familiar taste, so it seemed the natural base for her first meal.

Well, as you'll see, Beanie watched me mime eating and kindof looked interested. But when it came to actually putting it in her mouth, she was like "unh unh, no way jose." I'm not sure we even got one spoonful in successfully. And her face on that first bite is absolutely priceless. But what I just love is that she leaned over the side to spit it out.



Stay tuned. I have a feeling this isn't going to happen overnight.

Why, Why, Why?

So I know I can't expect the world to stop so that my baby can take a nap, but why the frak is it that just as my darling bean is settling in for a long afternoon nap, the neighbor has to start chainsawing his tree into itty bitty pieces. If he weren't so nice, I'd be out there with my squirt gun.
What? It works on the cats.

What's Up Doc?

The day started at 5:45am when Sophie Bean woke up raring to go - damn daylight savings time. Needless to say, I was a little less than enthused to be up at this hour but there's no reasoning with a gurgling, chatty baby at that hour of the morning. (As if there were reasoning with a baby at any other hour.) By the time she finally went down for her morning nap, there was no way I could lay back down myself and have time to get ready, so I just resigned myself to being a wee bit groggy. You'd think I would be used to the sleep deprivation by this time, but somehow it still gets me.

I was a little nervous about the doctor visit because Sophie had to get three vaccination shots, which has been pretty rough on us during past visits. And by rough, I mean agonized crying, with big, giant tears rolling down my face. It's pretty hard on her, too. However, she was in a really good mood all morning, smiling and flirting with everyone we came into contact with, so I was optimistic that maybe things would go a little smoother this time. Ahhh, but then.

But then the doctor made us wait for 45 minutes in the exam room. She had already been weighed and measured, so she was naked except for her diaper. So there I am with a wriggling, naked baby in a room with no place to set her down except on the exam table. But she kept trying to eat the paper cover, so the only other place was in her car seat. Which isn't weird except that she was naked. I don't know why I felt weird about that except that it reminded me of this time I wound up driving home in just my underclothes due to a very large mud puddle. I can't even begin to explain that here, but suffice to say it was uncomfortable for me...and the neighbors who saw me run into the house from the car. Anyways, by the time the doctor got in there, we were both more than a little restless. The exam itself is nothing, though, just a few pokes and some questions. The doctor pointed out that her top gums were very swollen indicating that she would likely be cutting her top teeth very soon. As I am still breastfeeding, all I can say is, YIPPEE.

Then we had to wait ANOTHER 10 minutes for the nurse to come along with the vaccinations. By this time, we had crossed from restless to cranky. Sophie only has a couple of good waking hours between naps and we were at the two hour mark before the nurse even walked in. So there was pretty much no way she was going to take those shots easily. And she didn't. She wailed and cried. I hate it so much. There's nothing worse than to see your baby cry. So, on the way home we stopped at Wendy's and got a frosty. The doctors tell me that anything I eat, she eats, so really it's as a treat for both of us.

At least we don't have to do that again for a while.

Anyways, current stats: 14 pounds and 25 inches. She's a bit light for her age but nothing to be worried about. More interestingly, her head circumference is in the 75th percentile, while her weight is in the 15th. So my beautiful little girl is the proverbial orange on a toothpick. Maybe that's why she's having trouble sitting up. The good news is we got the okay to start her on solid foods. Let the hilarity ensue.

Neil had a run-in with a tree the other day while mowing, which explains that big scrape on his forehead. I'll blame that funny smile on too much caffeine.

The Artist Formerly Known As...

Dear Dad,

Remember when I was 10 and I went to see Purple Rain like 7 times and had the record and played it constantly? And remember when I tried to convince you that Prince was WAY better than the Beatles? And you patiently explained that this was not the case and never would be.

Well, you were right.

Happy Birthday!

Love,
Cara

Little Voices

When Sophie was 3 or 4 weeks old, I had a sort of breakdown. I don't want to call it Postpartum Depression, because I don't think it was. I think it was more that I was going stir crazy from spending too much time indoors with the baby and not getting much (or any) time to myself either inside the house or out. Not to mention all the postpartum hormones that sent me on an emotional rollercoaster. Smiling and laughing one minute and screaming or crying the next. I was pretty even keeled all through pregnancy, I think my body let it all out after the baby was born. Needless to say, Neil was a tad unsure about how to deal with me.

So after one particularly nasty episode, it was agreed that I get at least one outing a week where Neil watches the baby while I go do something fun. I think that conversation went something like this:

Me: I. (sob) Need. (sob) To. (sob) Get. (sob) Out. (sob) Of. (sob) The. (sob) House. (sob).
Neil: (nodding frantically).

These outings do not include grocery shopping or other mundane but necessary activities. So far Neil has been really good about keeping his end of the bargain, probably because he likes being married. However, due to circumstances beyond our control, I haven't had an outing in a couple of weeks. So, as you can imagine, I was raging to get out on my own by yesterday morning.

These trips usually include Aparna and movies are often our destination. So yesterday we went to go see Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I won't go into too much detail about the movie other than to say that it was very funny. And there was full frontal male nudity, in a comic setting, not sexual. Jason Segel, the lead actor and writer who also stars in How I Met Your Mother (another very funny show), was just great. And did I mention there was full frontal male nudity? Definitely not for the kiddies.

Anyways, we went to the 11:20 am show because it's cheap and no one is there. Does that make us really smart or really lame? We were almost late because I had it in my head it was showing at 11:45. Luckily, the theater plays 20 minutes of previews and commercials before the feature. A fact that normally really irritates me. I mean, come on, I go to movies to AVOID commercials. But often if you show up late enough to miss some or all of these you have to sit in crappy seats. Like the time we had to sit in the front row of the 800-seat theater to watch Lord of the Rings. It was like watching a tennis match, not to mention that a woman next to us had brought her 2 year old and allowed him to jump in his seat and run around in the open area in front of the screen for the WHOLE three hours. I have a pretty low threshold for those sorts of shenanigans and I was ready to strangle the mother by the end. Who brings a 2 year old to a three hour movie? There's a reason kids movies are only an hour long and its not because they don't feel like making longer ones. That will not be me and my kid(s), even if it means that Neil and I don't get to see a movie together again until the kids go off to college. But I digress.

There weren't a ton of people there yesterday, but enough that in order for us not to sit next to anyone, we wound up on the aisle. A couple of rows in front of us, there was a 40ish fellow sitting by himself. He talked, quietly, throughout the whole movie. It wasn't loud enough to bother us, really, but loud enough for us to be aware of him. The first time he said something, Aparna looked at me and we kind of smiled. The next time, we gave each other a "what the?" look. From then on, we would just sort of giggle whenever we heard him say something. Not because what he was saying was funny, because we couldn't really understand him, but just that here's this normal looking guy talking to himself at the movie. I'll admit to doing that occasionally (all right, all the time) at home, but not out.

So about an hour and a half into the movie, just as things were winding up to the crescendo, he gets up, grabs his drink and popcorn, and walks out. We watched him leave and I thought, well, the drinks are HUGE, maybe he has to pee. Fast forward 15 minutes to when the credits were rolling, and we realized that he never came back. He sat (and chatted) through an hour and a half of a movie and then left just before the end. Not that anybody was surprised by the direction the story took, but still, who leaves after an hour and a half? Maybe it was a sudden illness that prompted his departure although you'd think we would have picked up on that from his running commentary. Or maybe he got a call on his spy watch/phone and had to leave to go save the world. Or the little voices in his head, the ones that were maybe talking back to him during the movie, told him that he had to leave.

Whatever the case, he left both of us wondering. Prior to this we just thought he was eccentric, but now I'm not so sure. Maybe next time we'll look out for guys sitting by themselves.

How cute is that picture of Sophie and Aparna? She stopped by for a cuddle (with the baby, not me) after the movie and Sophie was totally eating it up.

At the Car Wash

Because of Verizon (worst company EVER), we missed swim class on Tuesday. I won’t go into the whys of that, I’m still too frustrated to talk about it. So we made it up yesterday. Swim class is only a half hour and, frankly, I’m doing all the work, but that girl is dog tired after. Sophie is almost guaranteed to take a 2-3 hour nap afterwards.

We had some running around to do. So to make sure everyone was happy while we were out, we waited until after Sophie’s long post-swim nap to go. This did ensure her sunny disposition lasted through all of our scheduled outings. And then I had to push things that one step too far, as usual. There’s a car wash on the way home that has an automatic touchless wash and since I’m all for anything that keeps me comfortably in my seat and my car was one step away from “wash me” on the window, I paid the $10 and we rolled into the bay.

At first things were okay. But then Sophie started to pout. Now a pout doesn’t always turn into crying but crying is always preceded by a pout. If I can get to her fast enough and comfort her, often I can divert a meltdown. Not always, as the many people who have witnessed one of my delicate flower’s episodes can attest. However, locked in her car seat in the back, with me up front, there was absolutely no chance that I was getting to her in time.

I have to admit that at first I thought she was unhappy with my choice of singalong material, which happened to be Kix “Don’t Close Your Eyes.” I thought, well heck, maybe she doesn’t enjoy 80s hair bands. Fair enough. So I changed the station and the crying didn’t stop. That was when I noticed that the big cries came following each pass of the jets. I was more than a little anxious at this point as we weren’t even half way done because I HAD to get the super deluxe wash and there are 42 steps in the super deluxe wash. As each pass of the jets went by, she wailed louder, probably thinking we were in the middle of an air raid, while I awkwardly reached back and tried to console her as best I could. All to no avail. A baby crying in a car is misery…for the other occupants of the car. Between the blasts of soap, water, wax, and whatever else they shoot out and her screams, it was absolutely deafening.

In the end, we both survived, albeit just a tad frazzled, the car was cleaner than when it went in and I have probably lost yet a little bit more of my hearing...and sanity.

Parenting Lesson #457: Don’t take baby in automatic car wash.