Sleeping Days

I became nostalgic when I came across this picture recently...it's of my beautiful sleeping baby...intense nostalgia because she has stopped napping all together.  It's not a new game and it's certainly not funny!  She snagged a cold, popped a tooth, became pacifier-less and has decided to strike this awfulness with a no-nap-sit-in.

We ditched the pacifiers since it's impossible for these bimbas to breathe through their noses with a cold, and the pacifiers keep them from being able to sleep well - since they're so accustomed to it.  We're on day 8 right now...she doesn't seem to mind missing them as much as the general jackhammering it's done to her schedule.

Dave thinks she looks big in this shot...probably just the angle.  :)

Don't tell her, but she's got a good chance of winning this fight!

The Best Part of Weekend Mornings...

...is that at least there's homemade lattes! Thanks to the mukka bialetti from our wedding...we enjoy a hot cup during Sunday Morning and the Philly Inquirer...mmm...

Here Dave takes a sip of a fresh cappuccino!

How much I love my daughter

Disclaimer: mush, emotional third trimester mama authoring this post.

After reading through several old posts, I noticed that I make a lot of fun of the different trials of motherhood as well as the daily humor a new baby provides.  But there seems to only be a modicum of love-fest posts, and so this one is long overdue.

Top ten reasons I love Elizabeth:
1.) She thinks I have magic powers.
2.) She lights up my world and makes me smile by doing nothing at all.
3.) She calls me, "mama"
4.) She does the Frankenstein shuffle...eyes closed out of complete despair, she stretches her arms up and forward with a heavy footed lean toward me as pathetically sweet as only a child to wants to be 'saved' can be. Albeit the 'saving' isn't always so dangerous...exhaustion, hunger pangs, a crumbled cookie that the dog ate when she dropped it...you know, important stuff.
5.) She bounced in her crib waiting for me to scoop her up after she wakes. My parents tell me she plays a giggly game of keep away when they go in to pick her up.
6.) She seemed to be completely tuned in that Killian was dying, insistant on trying to cuddle with him, drink her bottle while lying on him and just being around him. (This will always be special to me since Killian passed away that night.)
7.) She loves my cooking and her Daddy's homemade bread.
8.) Whenever she hears Dave's voice, she runs to either try and grab the phone from my hands or  heads for the front door repeating the Frankenstein. (I love how much she adores her Daddy. It makes my heart smile.)
9.) She loves her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. She might need 5 minutes to mentally verify that they are not imposters, but then she just follows them around...from room to room...
10.) Just when I think she's nodded off, either in her crib or the car, I hear that high pitched jubilant, "Hi!".

My sweet, loving, little, first born has the patent for germinating more love every day. (As I'm sure most mothers feel.) I feel exponentially blessed to have been given this child. And it surely must be real, since she gave me the nasty flu we've both been combating this week!

I love you so very much, Elizabeth Grace; we can't wait to see how inseparable you and your little sister will be.

Thank you for all of the love you put in our lives.

Mary

Favorite kitchen activity

It's nearly impossible to stop her from pulling all of the seasoning packets out of 'her drawer' several times per day. 

Recovering from Christmas...

Looking forward to catching up and getting back into a routine.

How we spend our morning

Birthday Cheesecake - Compliments of Aunt Molly & Nana!

The average day...

Daily schedule:

 

• Awake: 6:45-7:15am - if Daddy's home, he goes in to greet her in the morning
• Breakfast: banana/applesauce/cheerios/yogurt/oatmeal
• 1st Nap: 2-4 hours (typically 2.5/3hrs.)
• Lunch: anything - truly
• Playtime for 2-2.5 hrs.
• 2nd Nap: 1.5-3 hrs. (typically 2 hrs.)
• Play until Daddy gets home - including an awkward sprint/fall/sprint/fall/sprint trip to the front door when he arrives.
• Dinner: whatever we're having - plus some extra greens, if we're on top of it.
• Bedtime: 7pm - bottle, books (unless she's falling asleep in her highchair - which happens 2-3 times per week - then we abbreviate the bedtime routine) and she's put into her bed.

Diapers: 2-3 poopy diapers/day (size 4s)

 

Temperment: She's simply a joy. Truly a joy.

He ran off and left me...

Teaser - some people know this story, but it's a wacky new mom one.

I just retold it to my S-in-Law, Molly as to why new moms shouldn't be left alone for a few weeks. And why no one prepares us enough for our brains melt.

...I can't post more than once a day - plus, I have real Ellie updates that need to be shared, and another post sans photos is pretty boring. :)

Preparing for 2

We hit the last trimester today, in doing so, I am reflecting on how unprepared I felt when we brought Elizabeth home. Not physically or with tangible things, but with the "4th trimester".  Sleep deprivation, managing it all, feeding, clothing and cleaning myself, let alone another human being made for some tears, overwhelming and pure exhaustion. 

I thought it would never get easier, but here I am, relaxing over a hot cup of coffee, having given myself a pedi, finished 2 loads, put away groceries, ordered Christmas cards, researched photo stuff that I needed to find an alternate print lab, cleaned out the fridge, put up some Christmas decorations, cut the hair and strings off the underside of the vacuum spinner, eaten & showered (huge bonus!) and enjoyed a quiet moment as E sleeps. It did get easier - much to my own amazement. :)

So...with 2. I'm taking the survival approach. Whatever we need to do to survive. I hope my dear husband can live off crummy food, wrinkled (hopefully clean) clothes and a narcoleptic wife for a few months.  I really can't imagine having 2 kids to do everything twice though. I look around and see other people everywhere doing it (somehow).  I guess the lesson to print out for my wall and paste on every flat surface in my house is: "It does get easier...whether you believe it or not!"

Why I'm a bad blogger...

Around the 5 month mark, Elizabeth was playing while I was typing, likely blogging on the floor of our dining room. I pulled her onto my lap and she hurled onto the keyboard of the laptop.  I quickly threw her off my lap (ok, well not threw, but you can imagine) turned it upside down and blotted like there was no tomorrow. It seemed to salvage all of the keys, but I didn't dare turn it on or use it for fear of squishing regurgitated breastmilk further into some electrical board. 

Later that night, or the next day, I forget, we discovered that the "o" doesn't work.  We tried everything to no avail.  Dave developed his own shortcut by copying and pasting each time you need to type an "o"...I took it to Best Buy's Geek Squad and they offered the sweet estimate of $135 to send it out and then they would call to give me the price to fix it..."if they can". Nice, huh? So, since I make a habit of throwing $100 bills down the drain, we figured we'd save the dough and just keep doing the copy and paste for each "o". 

Thankfully, we have an iMac for photography work, but when I'm on it in the office, I feel like I'm slacking on post processing stuff, so I don't play on that computer, just this beat-up-freakizoid laptop that can't spell "Mom".

Excuses excuses. My New Years Resolution is to be better at marking the milestones and the daily life of my expanding family.

Lesson here: don't let your kid near your computer. Duh, Mom.

Baby Girl Update

Well, one of our biggest struggles recently was a nasty cold...she was pretty cheery through it all.  I finally caved after she wasn't able to breathe through either her nose and mouth enough to eat or drink.  I wasn't able to get any liquids into her, so I knew it was time.  Poor sweet child, she suffered really badly through this cold.  And it went on for 2 WEEKS!  She cleared up her nose on the 13th day, and we finished off the antibiotic for her bad ear infection that was starting to blister.  BAD MoM! I kept thinking she was teething or something!

I guess it pays to keep your Mommy intuition in check. :)

Mommy tip: don't stress about your kid feeling dependent on a pacifier - anytime they have a bad cold, you can help them kick the habit.  Logic here: they can't breathe through their nose, so they need to sleep using their mouths to breathe - thus, they can't breathe and suck on the pacifier.  They choose breathing. :)

Missing Food Club

I haven't been ofor girl's night dinner/food club since September...BUT...the holidays are coming and they grant loads of recipe daydreams...that keep me nicely preoccupied on early chilly mornings. 

And, since Elizabeth easily consumes half of my plate each night, leaving Dave to sympathetically offer me some of his dinner, I'm growing excited by the notion that I can teach/expose her to some awesome flavors at such a young age. For example, the other night she gnawed on roasted asparagus spears, popping equally roasted cherry tomatoes, packing gobs of pinenut couscous into her palms while trading off on pieces of lemon pepper pan-seared bassa, scallops and shrimp. Food snob already! 

I secretly realize that she will likely turn a page and stop wanting anything aside from bread, cheese, cookies and ice cream in another 6 months or so, but I'm holding out hope that she'll skip that phase!

Back to Rachel Ray and Bon Appetit!

Happy Halloween!



How cute that they match?!



My sweet chub-a-lub

Breakfast Shot - Happy Baby

For the girl who was down to 3% weight for her age group, she's sure made up time & eating!  This is one of those photos that definitely captures her when she pulled her head back, offering the perfect view of a double chin, but I had to share...however unflattering it might be on us as we get older. :)