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).