A First of Sorts

Baby's first rice cereal. I was all excited to try a bit of solid food, to get more in baby's tummy so baby would feel full and baby wouldn't want to eat once per hour or some such nonsense.

I'm not exactly doing attachment parenting, except I think that I am what with feeding on demand and all. Oh, sure, sometimes I distract the baby with other things, like brushing my teeth, just to buy another 10 minutes here and there. Now that she's five months old, she MUST want to EAT something SUBSTANTIAL, right??? When does the detachment process begin? I mean, not "rip off the band-aid and throw it away" harshness, just some subtle, you know, independent sitting for a few minutes and things.


Evelyn isn't down with it. Instead of baby's first rice cereal = success! so that we could celebrate and move on to other such things as Sleeping More and Making Mommy's Coffee, no. 


I'm in ur high chair not eatin' ur food.

Evelyn Roísin prefers to drink her breakfast, just like the longshoremen. Evelyn's got it over the longshoremen with her smooth face that I would like to lick. And do, on occasion. Mostly I just eat her hands and feet, snacking on some cheek every now and again.

STARDATE MONDAY, JUNE 18: RICE CEREAL ATTEMPT NO. 2


Our subject has gotten a whole 10 days older, with 10 days worth of growing and development under her belt. She's been practicing sitting up and watching the family eat with their utensils, though she is not mimicking us. Perhaps her fool mother thinks she is ready to try again with the cereal? Let's find out.

Hallo, what's this?

My nemesis, Spoon. I've seen you before, you of new-way-to-eat of doom. I've rejected more comforting alternate food delivery devices, I will reject you, too. If my icy stare doesn't freeze you in mid-delivery, then my steel-trap mouth will not let you in.

Do not enter. Wrong way. Do not pass go. Back up Jack. It ain't happenin'.

Noooooooooooooooooo. Ope.

Admit defeat, you coated-for-my-comfort scoundrel! Lay there like the useless instrument that you are. 

That's right.

Hmm, what is this delicious coating on my hand? Methinks I would like to lick it, just to spite the spoon.

Haha!

Evelyn won the first round, and the second. Stay tuned.........the spoon has more delicious weaponry in its arsenal. I don't want to give it away, but it rhymes with "bapplesauce".

5 Months

Evelyn is five months old today. I would like to be able to say that this advanced age means she is sleeping through the night, but no.

 Let's remember back to January 6th, when she was four days old.

And then four days later, she was eight days old.

It wasn't long before she turned 10 days old.

And, before we knew it, she was two weeks plus two days. Let's face it, that is way too young to fight the people who dress you up to look like a reindeer.

At three weeks, we put a bee on her butt and turned her over to immortalize the fanny-decoration.

All that brown hair, two blonde parents....hmmmm.....

Still three weeks old. This 11-year old child bears a striking resemblance to the girl who responded, when asked if she was excited about the arrival of her sibling, "NO." Look who is having a terrible time now.

Power to the proletariat babies!

One month old...still sleeps anytime, anywhere.

At five weeks, she began to make faces at alternate food-delivery devices. "No way, Jose," is the message baby Evelyn would like you to know.

Six weeks. Milo likes to look nonchalant, but he is wondering whether Evelyn would taste like chicken, or some kind of red meat?

Milo: That finger looks delicious!

Don't worry Evelyn, I won't leave you alone with him. He's not old enough to babysit yet.

It was during her sixth week that she perfected her Alfred Hitchcock impression.
Spot on, I might add.

I don't know what kind of things babies laugh at, but Evelyn finds life, up to now, hysterical.

Life with Evelyn and Natalie is pretty sweet. The two of them get along. So far.

Being a mom to two kids is fun. I'm more relaxed this time around with baby care, but it's more hectic with our schedule. When one kid needs to get to softball practice, the other one needs to nurse. That can get tricky, but we figure it out.

Feet.

Hello, smiling at people and not just gas anymore! Although, we all smile for gas. Who doesn't smile for gas? Unless it's someone else's gas.

Meeting her aunt and cousin for the first time. They laughed and laughed.

A giggly baby is surprisingly entertaining.

Baby shower, where my oldest friends met my newest daughter.

Misty and Evelyn have decided to have a looking serious contest.

More people holding the baby...

Having a baby makes you forget your 20th high school reunion is this year. Holy cow.

McKenzie said she didn't know how to hold the baby, but she did just fine.

Bumbo seat! Whoever came up with this cushy seat that lets curious babies sit up before they can do so on their own deserves some kind of award. Like an Oscar, or a big, wet, slobbery kiss.

Evelyn and grandpa pass the time together. She couldn't stop looking at that red hat.

These girls don't know how happy they make me. When I saw this, my insides melted, just like the bad guy did in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" when the angels escaped from the Ark. Except mine was a happy kind of melt.

Evelyn, thank you for bringing your happiness to our lives, for making us laugh along with you.

I don't know where we'd be without you, Evva-Zevva, Evelyns, Evvie-pie, angel buns, milk breath!

May 2nd

One year ago on May 2nd, I took a pregnancy test. It was positive. I showed that test to my husband, hand shaking. We were going to have a baby! Well, duh. It wasn't a puppy.

Note: test stick shown above was the one used to discern the existence of the baby, pictured. DOES NOT INDICATE ANOTHER PREGNANCY...CEASE UR PANICKING!

Four months ago, on January 2nd, Evelyn arrived. With her birth, two sisters were made.

I always wanted to have more than one child. I wanted them to have siblings, for many reasons. Mostly so that they'd have someone to talk to about their nutty childhoods, but also that they would hopefully grow up to like each other enough to be friends.

And, with more kids you've got a better shot at one of them growing up to make a good living and support their parents in their old age.

Not after you put one-year old pee next to my innocent baby face. Think again, MOTHER.

Family: all because two people fell in love.

These Are the Days of Our Lives

Evelyn had her 4 month checkup today. We were early (SHOCKING) and so we went for coffee (decaf, one sugar). While waiting at the drive-through, this was going on in the backseat:

Adorable sister time that was captured with my phone camera. I lamented this at the time, but the results look almost better than my camera camera. Wow, technology these days.

Hands! And, siblings looking at each other! Precious moments dolls and baby cupids are shouting out to choirs of angels in heaven over this.


I may be a touch hormonal, but good lord the sweetness!


The only sister time in the car that I remember is that of fighting over who didn't have to sit on the hump in the middle. Cars these days, they don't even have a hump anymore. 


What with camera phones and no-hump cars, I can't keep up.

Way Back Machine

A change from baby pictures for a moment. How about the 1980s?

 Our family regularly vacationed in California to visit family. We frequented the Ponderosa Ranch for sarsaparilla, horseback rides, and Hoss Burgers. There was also Lake Tahoe and family in Reno.

This is me and my dad on horseback. That horse liked to scratch his butt on the shrubbery, which was located at the top of a steep precipice. My dad wasn't too comfortable with that, but he thought it was pretty funny.

Here we are again. This time it's my sister (in blue), me, and Uncle Lee (the family we visited). No itchy-butt horses here.

I remember the cars didn't have air conditioning, and we didn't acquire personal music devices for many years. Once we did, it was GREAT. Lots of Depeche Mode and Joy Division was played on my Walkman.

 My sister and I, trying not to look like to kids from small-town Oregon, and looking very much like kids from small-town Oregon.

Usually we spent some time in and around Reno, then we'd drive to Southern California to visit Grandma. The side trip to Reno broke up the monotony of I5. I can't believe we did all that traveling, in our little cars with all our stuff in two weeks.

 I still like to take road trips, but nowadays there is more likely to be a book on cd playing over the air conditioning fan. All fodder for my daughters' blog entries, I'm sure.

A Day

It's a frog-footed pajama kind of day.



I have no idea what THAT means. Or why my pictures have been so blurry lately. But anyway, frog feet!

What the Fuss

As a breastfeeding mom, I have a long list of foods to avoid eating or else they will upset the baby. As the mother of an infant, I have very little time to invest in creating new menus to replace those I have automatically enjoyed for years. Take breakfast, with the restriction of no eggs, peanuts, or dairy. I can replace the milk on my cereal with rice milk, but that leaves my bagel painfully dry, without peanut butter, cream cheese or butter.

Breakfast is annoying but the worst meal of the day by far is dinner, where I must make something amenable to my baby and the rest of the family. Sometimes, I have cereal for dinner. That doesn't cut it for the rest of them, though, who don't like to eat like they're still in college. A dish as simple as pasta becomes inordinately difficult. No marinara, and no alfredo either.

There are websites that list meal plans and recipes for people like me, but often they are for omitting one item or maybe two, not the entire list that is applicable to me. A dairy-free site will tell me to avoid dairy if baby is fussy, but suggest cabbage or broccoli as an alternate calcium source, which also makes my baby fussy. A breastfeeding guide to nutrition cautions me to get plenty of calories, and then merrily suggests getting plenty of calcium from sources like yogurt or broccoli, which we've already established are out of the question.

Restrictions + no time + need for calories = mealtime freak out.

That formula could be the case, but I've decided to remain calm. I've eaten my (cereal with rice milk) breakfast, now it's time to plan for lunch. Yesterday's lettuce sandwich was all right, but isn't enough. I can't keep improvising. I need a plan. I also need a calcium supplement.

No:

eggs
dairy
tomatoes
citrus
peanuts
soy
corn
vegetables like cabbage and broccoli
shellfish
caffeine
carbonated drinks


Evelyn is calm for now.....to the internets!

Wise Things

Today I learned how to make homemade granola and to let the dust bunnies go nuts because babies don't keep!

Granola from Orangette, Olive Oil and Maple Granola; babies don't keep sentiment from the Leaky Sippy.

Sunday, Poopy Sunday

Ahhhh..........Sunday. The day of rest. The Sabbath. A day for lounging, reading the paper, drinking endless cups of coffee, and not doing much of anything one normally does during the week.

None of that describes this day. This day was precisely the opposite, and with a lot more bodily fluids involved. Specifically, hers:



The rest portion of the day was wiped out when I was up twice to feed and diaper Baby Evvie. That's not bad, because it means she slept longer rather than shorter. My addled brain thanks you, baby. I am slightly less addled today and I appree-she-ate that. In my most sleep-deprived delirium, I think about some pretty wacky things. Sometimes I think babies know we're tired and are engaged in a plot to see how long they can keep us up until they fall asleep. I tried to take a nap with her earlier and she was all, THAT IS NOT HAPPENING ON MY WATCH. The other babies might hear about how she let her mother nap during the day, and she would be, what? Fired? I don't know. Must get some sleep and put brain to useful purposes instead of this nonsense.

The coffee-drinking is not something I can indulge in while breastfeeding, for the most part I do avoid massive infusions of caffeine. Instead, I drink black tea for my first cup of the day and then herbal after that. Well, today I went nuts and had a cup of coffee. Not more than 8 ounces, mind you. It wasn't a Girls Gone Wild kind of binge, but that was a little bit different.

What's next, reading the paper? Oh, well, I got to read an article or two before the crying got to me and I had to pay attention to the baby.

KIDDING.

It was three articles. *

* NOT REALLY.

I was under time pressure to eat my lunch and so just read whatever section was in front of me. It was the front page, about a man who shot his son in alleged self-defense. Sad. I don't remember the others (what with all the crying I was trying to ignore).

As for not doing much of anything that I normally do during the week, let's inventory. Today I did:

➜ laundry

➜ cooked, or reheated food

➜ washed dishes

➜ swept laundry room

➜ fed baby

➜ changed baby

➜ gave baby a bath after massive blowout involving immersing baby fully clothed in warm sink bath because the poop, she was everywhere

➜ changed baby's outfit after unlawful peeing incident**

➜ drank 8 ounces of fully-caffeinated coffee, with a little sugar

Those are just a few of the things I have done this restful Sunday. So different!


Neener!

Baby Evvie has fallen asleep. Now is when the ancient conundrum rears its head, because I have to decide whether to sleep, eat, read, or some compact version of all three. My husband and oldest daughter are out doing softball things, and I wonder whether I want to go somewhere? That would require packing diaper bag, hefting baby around in car seat, in other words work. I'm not averse to work, but again, I'm trying to make this day look different than the other six.

Uhhh.....no dice.

In the end I chose to blog about it, to give it all meaning. I type for you. WIth Milo looking on and concerned that maybe the cursor ought to be attacked.


This is what Evvie looks like right now, except with eyes closed.

He thinks that would be too much work and has laid his head on the computer to sleep instead. A noble endeavor, which I will now pursue because my addled brain is all empty and such.


** Peeing while one's diaper is removed.