Things that should never be said...

Scene: Golden Corral.  Darren, David and I are watching Nicolas, who is holding Emma, interact with our waitress, who is enchanted  with the little one.

Waitress: "Ohhh my goodnessth, she is stho cute! Can I just take her home with me?!"

Nicolas: "I think she might be thinking, "I don't know, can you lactate?".

....I'm not even sure what happened next.

I spent the next 60 seconds waiting for the waitress to walk away from our table. I needed to make fun of Nicolas.

And the waitress had already heard too much.

Staying home

Some days I almost miss going to work.

Almost.

However, I have found that taking care of Wonder Baby, despite the long hours and annoyingly cluttered living spaces, is ten million times more rewarding.

Things

Things I've learned about myself since I became a mom:

• My capacity to adapt is remarkably better than I had ever assumed
• I can sleep in weird positions
• I can hold a baby in my sleep
• Modesty isn't quite the foe it was before.  I'm still careful, but accidental flashings while nursing cause only the slightest embarrassment, if any. It's weird. 
• I have instincts, and they tend to be correct
• My instincts misrepresent themselves sometimes and get me in trouble. Hooligans.

Things that will never be the same ever again since I became a mom:

• My body.  It does weird things now that I can't even go into detail about because it would be unlady-like
• My ability to be spontaneous (not like I was all that spontaneous before, but, you know, now I can't)
• Riding fair/amusement park rides. I rode the biggest and scariest looking ride at the fair a couple weeks ago, and beside all of my excitement was the anxiety of "I'm a mom now! If something goes terribly wrong that little girl I see in the distance being held by a man she doesn't know (Darren's coworker) will not have her parents anymore!". 
• The way I see other moms, specifically the ones who make it look easy.  As Gloria Pritchett says, "I want to be the "How Does She Do It?" mom.  That is my aspiration, but for now, I'm the "I Can't Tell, Is She Doing It?" mom. 
• The way I see other kids (excluding my nephews and nieces).  I one-up them all in my head with comparisons to Emma. She's totally cooler.

Things I always said I would never do when I became a mom, but I do anyway:

• Wipe crusty boogers with my bare fingers (I still refuse to ever intentionally wipe snot with my bare fingers)
• Use those nasty baby changing stations they have in stores.....yelgch. And yes, "yelgch" is spelled the way it sounds.
• Use too many wipes during diaper changes.
• Judge another mom out loud (I caught myself off guard with this one last week, but Darren was doing it too, so it's okay.  Her kid was standing up in the seat part of the shopping cart, and the mom wasn't telling her to sit.  I said, very snobbily as we walked past (too far away for her to hear, thank goodness!), "Oh my goodness, that lady is just begging for her kid to fall out. What kind of mom does that?".  Darren replied, "If you ever let our kids do that I will call CPS on you".  We are judgy snob parents. Dang it!)

Things that scare me since I became a mom, but that I will have to deal with sooner or later:

• Overnight stays anywhere except my own home
• Drives that lasts longer than an hour (this and the previous bullet will both be happening in about 2 weeks)
• Having more children
• Facing trials and sicknesses of my kids
• Doing something horribly wrong and messing them up for life (unrealistic, I know, but still a fear)

Things I've learned to hate since I became a mom:

• The "How Does She Do It?" moms.
• The entire section about things I said I would never do, but I do them anyway.
• Feeling like I'm being judged every single second I am outside of my apartment
• Taking her to the pediatrician (oh my goodness, talk about feeling patronized about my ability to care for the thing....I know they don't do it on purpose, but I can't help but feel like everything I do is being called into question)
• My baby getting shots
• Random people kissing my baby (if you are questioning whether or not you apply, the answer is I don't know.  I have to see you kiss her and then wait for the possible irritation to rise up...it's unpredictable. If you aren't related, it's better that you just play it safe and don't...I'm weird about mouths)
• The constant worry at the back of my mind about her health, safety, and general existence. 

Things I've learned to love since I became a mom:

• Bath time
• Early morning snuggles
• Nasty baby breath
• Her pulling on my hair (that's a sometimes love) (I feel like it helps her feel secure, so I'm usually happy for her when she holds onto it for dear life because I want her to feel secure....or something)
• Being her favorite person (for now...my reign of glory will end when she figures out that Daddy is way more fun than I am)
• The way her limbs flail when she is startled
• Her pout
• Feeling "motherly"
• Sensing what she needs and getting it right (I'm hoping you moms know what I mean...I feel like a rock star when I'm right!)
• Watching her sleep. Like a stalker. 
• Seeing her with my mom.

Car for sale!

If you guys could help spread the word, we would REALLY appreciate it!

My first car. Sniff sniff.

We are selling her as is for $6,500, or best offer.  There are about 116,500 miles.

Holla back!

Happy mornings

Emma is ordinarily a tummy sleeper.

Yesterday morning I was lying in bed, not even half awake, and I heard her talking and cooing.  I thought I'd be really brilliant and go get her before she started crying (a rare act of benevolence on my part).  I entered the room speaking loudly, "I'm here, good morni--oh! Oh my goodness, what is this?? You flipped over, oh Baby, good job! Good job!".

She responds to squealy praise with adorable smiles (as seen above).  Since she'd only been sleeping about an hour and half before this incident, I am fairly confident that it was an accident and the act of flipping over woke her.

Which means she miiiiight have fallen back asleep if I hadn't sabotaged the situation by making lots of noise.

But oh well.  I got happy morning snugs, and I live for those!

Some pictures

So I thought I could go all Anne Geddes with the little after she went down for a nap earlier today.

As you can see, she is facing the wrong direction.  No matter what I did, as soon as I was ready to snap the picture she would sleep-stretch and flop her head the other way.

This picture is as good as it got:

She has the most delicious little baby lips:

Dos Meses

Our little Emma is two whole months old today!

She had her two month check-up at her doctor this morning.  The verdict: She is growing just fine and is a fluffy 12 lbs 8 oz, 22 inches long.

I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE having to endure her receiving shots.  My poor baby.

Thankfully she was passed out before we even left the office.

These are the things that make Wonder Baby awesome so far:

• She smiles when we play with her.  It still isn't a sure fire thing, but sometime we can beg them out of her (and sometimes she gives them away for free ;-) ).
• Standing very strong when we hold her up.
• Looking adorable in even the ugliest outfits (sometimes Mommy needs to be more choosy when she's digging through the drawer...Wonder Baby hates being dressed and undressed, so I pretty much have one chance to get it right).
• SHE SLEEPS THROUGH THE NIGHT
• Yes, you read that right.  And I don't mean in the technical definition of "5 hours straight at night means sleeping through the night".  I mean that when I woke her up for church Sunday morning, it was the first time I'd seen her eyeballs since 10 o'clock Saturday night.  I'm not totally sure what to expect at this point since she's been fairly consistent with letting me sleep until 3, 4, or 5 most nights (with the occasionally relapse of a 2 o'clock feeding).  This 8+ hours of sleep thing is only four nights old, so I guess we'll see where it goes.  In the meantime, I am L-O-V-I-N-G the sleep.  You see why I call her Wonder Baby?
• She rides in the Moby like a champ.  She hates being put into it's just me trying to wrangle the thing, but she is pretty cooperative when I have Darren to help me.
• Her humongous double chin.  It is 100% kissable.
• She loves, loves, loves baths.  When she is inconsolable, we pop her in the bathtub, if only to gain a few minutes of peace (believe me, the peace ends the moment I lift her out of the water again). That being said, she hates the swimming pool thus far.  It is open now, as of yesterday, so we thought we would enjoy it as a family during the late afternoon.  Turns out babies don't like to have their feet dipped in -25 degree water. It turned into a family poolside lounging session instead, and she fell asleep.  So that was a bust. 
• Her gigantic dark blue eyes
• She watches us and can see us from further distances (not so great when we are trying to sneak past her crib)
• She has discovered her thumb! Several days of busy fist sucking around naptimes led to the imminent discovery of that thumb.  We believe that could be a part of the reason she is lasting longer through the night, and it is about the cutest thing to see and hear.  However, she and I were in the big bed the other night (we made Daddy sleep on the couch =) ), and I awoke to the slurpy sounds of a baby sucking on her fist in her sleep...hard to sleep through, but still made me smile).
• She is doing a better job of sitting in her vibrating chair and the swing, which makes it easier for me to get things done
• Basically, she's just super duper cool.