Miss CutePea

Here's Lily in her purple sunsuit aunt Wendy sent. I think she is getting a tan! We slather sunblock on her whenever we go out, but she gets a lot of walks between me and John. The park is so close and she loves the swings.

Today I was on my own again all day with Lily because my helper was out sick, and I think for the first time I really felt comfortable, like yes, Mommy knows what she's doing. Not just that I would survive the day, but that I would be on top of it and enjoy the time with her. Now when I pick up Lily to carry her, there's a spot on my right hip where she fits just perfectly and I can carry her with one arm, and it's like I've been waiting for that feeling, that level of Mommyness where baby sort of fits back into me while still being her own unique self. And now I have it, and it is good.

Hop on Pop

Giggle giggle giggle Daddy so funny!

in the pond

Here's Lily in the pond area in Habitot, looking into the mirror on the floor. Next to her is a soft nest with "eggs" and a frog puppet. On the lower edge on the left you can see the tip of a rain stick that's mounted to a wall and can be turned upside down to hear the rain.

Children's Museum fun

Here's Lily with John in the Habitot room at the Minnesota Children's Museum. This was her first time at the museum, and she had lots of fun. I've taken her back twice since, but with just me and her, it's too hard to take pictures and keep up with her. When it gets crowded I have to run interference and protect baby from the bigger kids. Today I was there and had to pluck a girl out of mid-stride and put her down somewhere else because she was about to run over Lily.

New Skill!!

Yesterday Lily starting clapping! It's the cutest thing, how proud of herself she is when she does it. For months we've been doing pat-a-cake and other clapping games and she never clapped and didn't like it when you tried to take her hands and show her how to clap. So I guess she just wanted to figure it out on her own and do it when she was good and ready. It's so exciting to see when she can do something new and how happy she gets when we tell her she's wonderful and smart and "that's so good!!"

More at the Children's Museum

Here's Lily in the pond, and then in another exhibit that has a tunnel with little storybook scenes in cubbyholes lit up inside. She is having a ball.

Lily at the Children's Museum

Here is the cutepea at the Children's Museum, our first visit. We bought a membership and I've already taken her back there once. They have a really fun room just for toddlers and babies to crawl around. Here Lily is on a ramp. There's a mirror behind her and the flash is me taking the picture. They have the room divided up into different types of terrain: prairie, pond, caves, stuff like that. Very fun. I hope to bring her there again this coming week.

Lily on the swing

Lily loves going on the swing at the park near our house. We try to go for a walk most days with her and Cocoa, and I've even managed it with both of them on my own a couple times. I just figure, this will be the most challenging thing I do all day. And it is, with the dog weaving back and forth and pulling, and me trying to steer the stroller with one hand. But it's worth it.

But Enough about Me

What about Lily? She is doing wonderfully. She's growing big, almost 19 lbs. now and very happy and healthy. She's finally getting some teeth!! Right in front, she's sprouting two lower and two upper teeth. It's so cute, when she gnaws on things now, you hear this little click-click from her tooth.

We're starting to have a more normal schedule, trying to get her in bed by 9ish, although our goal is really 8pm. It's hard to have any time with John if we are up until 11pm with baby every night. She is sleeping through the night now, pretty much. Sometimes she wakes up crying and we think it's the teeth, and Oragel works pretty well helping with that.

We have gone out on a few dates since last time I wrote. Finally got to see the Indy 4 movie, and yes, Harrison Ford was kind of geezer, but it was funny, they made fun of it. It was better and more entertaining than I thought it would be. Last night we went out and saw the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, and I loved it. I want to see it again. Hans Zimmer did the music and his scores always send chills down my spine. Too bad Heath Ledger is gone, he was so talented in this movie. Usually sequels suck, but this one was almost better than the previous one. This is one I'd actually like to have on DVD when it comes out. There aren't that many movies I like to watch over and over, but there was so much packed into this one, I would watch it again several times.

My mother's helper is working out pretty well, I just look forward to times when I don't have to lie down with a headache when she comes. I'd much rather spend that time on me, making more art, especially for my Etsy shop, and I haven't been able to do that most of the time.

I think that's all for now, I do have a headache and need to go lie down. Will try to keep up better on this blog, even with only a few lines a day if possible. So much is going on with Lily right now and I want to share it!

Me on Diet. Splenda Evil.

I haven't written in this blog (or any of my others) for quite a while, and I'm missing it so I'm going to try to just jump back in. What's been going on with me? Well, I've been trying to deal with my health issues. I can't be a good Mommy if I'm sick all the time, and I was getting sick all the time. I got a new doctor who is Western but is open to alternative medicine, and she believes I have Candida problems, so she put me on the Candida diet. What is Candida? It's a natural bacteria everyone has in their bodies, but you can get an overgrowth of it and it can wreak havoc. Most Western docs don't believe in it because it explains too many things, but it sure fit the bill when the doc went down the list of symptoms:

fatigue, headache, mood swings, sinus congestion, depression, poor memory and concentration, and cravings for sweets (not to mention yeast infections and and UTI's).

The diet is basically low carb, avoid wheat, gluten, sweets. So, no pasta, no bread. I've been doing this almost a month now and I can't believe I've lived without bread for that long. Breads are basically my favorite foods. And of course being a vegetarian made this challenge just that much harder. I eat a lot of peanut butter, and almond butter. Oh, and cereal, how could I live without cereal?? I finally found some brown rice cereal that I can have a bit of, although it's not real low in carbs. At least it has no wheat. I also went to Whole Foods and found a case of wheat-free, gluten-free goodies and got some cheddar biscuits, cornbread, and peanut butter cookies. And no, they don't taste like shoe leather! They're actually really good. Just very spendy. $7 for 8 cookies. So I see the doctor next week to find out how my body chemistry has changed in this month.

I haven't been sick, except for the nausea and stomach cramps that I got when I tried to use an artificial sweetener: Splenda. Evil! I've always been suspicious of those artificial sweeteners, especially aspartame, which gives me a headache, but I thought Splenda would be okay to try since it's "made from sugar." Er, yeah. It wasn't okay. Not for me, anyway. I made these delicious muffins with almond flour, and used Splenda instead of regular sugar, and got bad cramps and nausea and fatigue right after I would eat a muffin. So I started researching Splenda (probably should have done this before I bought it), and what it is is very freaky:

Sucralose is a molecule of sugar chemically manipulated to surrender three hydroxyl groups (hydrogen + oxygen) and replace them with three chlorine atoms. Natural sugar is a hydrocarbon built around 12 carbon atoms. When turned into Splenda it becomes a chlorocarbon, in the family of Chlorodane, Lindane and DDT.

And I read many horror stories of people who had all kinds of side effects from it. So I stopped using it right away. Ugh! I'm not a dieter so this has been very weird for me. John has been very supportive, finding meals to cook that are low-carb and making sure I get enough protein. I'm glad the month is almost over, but I think I will probably keep eating a lot of these healthier foods. Like not so much pasta, and I found some great brown rice tortillas that are great with either cream cheese or almond butter on them (corn tortillas not so much).

What, Did I Jinx Myself?

We were even gonna go on a date tonight and see the geezer Indy movie in the theatre. Instead I woke up this morning with a raging UTI. If you don't know what UTI means, I hate your life. And I had to get up because this morning was John's Diabetes TourdeCure ride, so I had to watch baby. She slept a lot which was great because I was exhausted and weak from this sudden infection. Well, I say sudden, but the doctor says it's probably been building a while. But I felt terrible when I absolutely positively had to put Lily in the crib to go pee and then it took forever cuz it hurt so much and she was crying and wanting out of the crib jail.

Then of course I get to take myself into urgent care because the other option is bring everyone and that's just more stressful. No coddling sick Mommy. So I took myself. Then I was an eejit trying to get out of the parking ramp. I'm sure the person behind me thought they'd never get out because I couldn't follow instructions. Doy.

So of course I have to take Cipro, the big monster killer antibiotic. Luckily the doctor was a woman and when I told I needed Percoset for pain for the last yeast infection I had, and I could write her a guarantee I'd get a yeast infection from these antibiotics, she prescribed anti-yeast meds at the same time. Bless her. Instead of "Well, let's deal with that if it happens."

John was gone when I got home from the drugstore, I think he's out walking the babies, both Lily and the fuzzy one. So I fixed myself some food in my stupor--a bowl of cereal--so that I can take all these pills.

I've heard that you're sick the first year of your baby's life, but come on! I mean, I expected colds, not this stuff. This is major. I'm weak. I need to go lie down. I'm a little scared, too, because the Topomax I'm taking as a preventive for migraines (which it doesn't seem to be doing much of) can cause kidney stones...that's all I need. Pain worse than birth.

It's such a nice summer day outside, and I'm sick. Poo. I just want to roll up in a ball and sleep. I'm glad Johnny got the babies out.

Time for Delight

Even with a raging headache this week, I was able to laugh (once i took my meds and lied down for a few hours) at Lily, who decided to do her raspberry noises for like an hour straight when we were trying to watch TV and eat dinner. It was not to be. And she's so thrilled with herself about it, being able to make this noise! It's like Horton hears a who, she's a little Who and she can suddenly make a big noise.

And I love how she finds new things funny. I got a mouse pad for my computer with her picture on it and the first time she saw it she just laughed, she thought it was so funny. She had to pick it up and turn it over and and around and wonder at the silliness of it.

Today I had a 7up with a straw in it and she giggled at the straw and flicked it so it got 7up all over my face. Goof.

With Nora, our Mother's Helper, I've had time time to work on a couple things for Lily, like putting pictures in a toy of me and John and Cocoa, and then a bunch of family pictures all over this box she likes to push around in the front porch.

I even vacuumed the rugs where she plays the other day. I think we are going to get some of those FLOR rugs and construct our own weird shape to make a path of through the house of where baby crawls most. Should be fun, actually.

Mother's Helper

Thursday was also my first day with my Mother's Helper, Nora, Sharon's daughter. I love her already, she's calm and patient and very sweet with Lily. And didn't take it personally when Lily wasn't ready for me to leave the room yet. I didn't get a whole lot done yet, but it felt great to be started getting help.

Lily's First Ear Infection

Aw, po baby. She had a fever Thursday and it got up to 102.2 and she'd been snorky all day so we went in to the doctor and they said, yup, ear infection. Funny, I wouldn't have guessed it. I thought she would have been pulling her ears but the doc said all the snot is a better predictor than pulling the ears, that studies have shown ear-pulling can mean anything. Future comedian? (Carol Burnett). Anyhow, she's been a little trooper. We have to put saline drops in her nose and then suck out the boogers so she can breathe, esp. before we feed her, and especially in the morning. This morning John just held her in the bathroom while I took a shower and got the bathroom all steamy and humid. And she gets some liquid antibiotics. Pink flavor. Smells like Pepto Bismol to me, Bubble Gum to John. I don't think his smeller works very well.

So I don't think we're going anywhere out this weekend, just staying home and snuggling da baby.

Mama Goes to Bed Now

Blog guilt is a terrible thing. But I can't tell you everything now! I have to go rest up for tomorrow's daily baby marathon. Actually tomorrow I have a mother's helper coming for 3 hours and I amd soooooo looking forward to it. I'll be able to start clearing away the rubble in the house, it looks like a collapsed mine shaft right now.

And projects.

• Like Mom's belated Mother's Day present that I'm making.
• My Chinese New year pages for which I need to carve a dog stamp and maybe a monkey stamp
• Childproof the house
• laundry
• charms for the BBA group due at the end of June??
• make more art pieces for my Etsy store, which are actually selling!
• finish the nap pillow for Lily that I started when I was pregnant
• finish the quilt I started before I was pregnant
• finish the other easy quilt I was too slow to finish at the sewing conference so I know how to do a ragged edge quilt
• clean out my desk
• organize and label every bin and box in my supply closet in my craft room
• make more dolls
• keep my blogs updated
• make simple toys for Lily that the ECFE teacher suggested
• and so on...

The Best of Times

The best times were feeding times. Here's my Mom feeding Lily. And everyone else sitting around the table being entertained by the spectacle, because she is so fun to watch eat. She's so happy. That's when she was happiest. It was just the rest of the time that I, Mom, was not allowed to be 2 seconds out of her sight or the wailing would begin. I got three showers that week, I think. Not much sleep. Not much outing, besides a trip to Archie McPhee, and one walk to the ocean with Lily, Wendy, Kathy, and crazy dog Zoey. We did make it all the way to the ocean, though, and that was my goal, for Lily to see the ocean. And me, I wanted to see it, I miss it.

Northworst Airlines

Stinks. Stinks. Stinks. Especially towards Moms with kids. Don't expect to be treated like anything better than filth. Even in first class.

Vacation

WASN'T.

Mobile Baby

I apologize to the five people who read this, I haven't been keeping up. Lily has suddenly become mobile, zippity-zooming acrossing the room, and we haven't had time to baby-proof anything yet. And she's standing. Not in the middle of the room, but against furniture, and so we kind of need to be right there in case she fall down go boom. It's all pretty amazing, she's surpassing her developmental goals, so it's good. On the other hand, it's a lot of work! I think I'll be looking into getting a mother's helper when I get back from vacation to Seattle. I just can't keep up. It seems like I'm always sick. I leave for Seattle in 5 days and I had to go the urgent care tonight because I was in horrible pain and found out I have not only a yeast infection but some other vaginal infection, bacterial vaginosis. Luckily I get to take oral pills, no more suppository mess-fests. But it's just overwhelming. I need rest. I hope I can get some on vacation.

Cel Phone Destroyed by Baby Yogurt

Well, the yogurt didn't have a lid on it, and I tucked it my purse, uncovered. Dumb idea. Of course my phone found its way into the yogurt. And it died a creamy banana death. John tried to revive it but no luck. Bye bye phone. Oh, so, we had to buy a new one. Correction, new phoneS, plural. I don't know why. But I think John had fun picking them out.