Woo-hoo!

I started giving Lucy solids on Monday night. The pediatrician recommended I mix rice cereal with prune juice so that nothing gets stopped prematurely, if you catch my drift.

She. Loves. It.

I fed her a tablespoon of rice cereal mixed with enough prune juice to make it thin and sloppy and she cried when it was gone.

Last night I mixed 2 tablespoons of cereal with prune juice and she ate almost all of it, leaving about 2 tsp in the bowl.

And then?

Then, I put her to bed. She fussed once and Mike plugged the pacifier back in and that was the last we heard from her until 2:30. Woo-hooo!!

She also seems to be asking to nurse less frequently, so I think the solids are helping her not be so ravenous all the time. YAY!

Tomorrow is the start of NaBloPoMo. Another month of posting every single day. Last year at this time, I was pregnant and didn't know it yet.

If you give your dog a treat...

If you give your dog a treat, he's going to wolf down his dinner (the treat was on the dinner).

And then later, your toddler is going to start screaming.

Because she touched the dog puke that was left in the middle of the carpet.

So you wash your toddler's hands and your husband cleans up the puke, while your brother-in-law corrals the other toddler (his son) and your sister-in-law re-pacifies your infant.

And your infant will start screaming because Auntie Kate is NOT MOMMY!!! Waaa!

And then you have to get out the carpet cleaner to de-dog-puke the rug.

Then you have to wash out the carpet cleaner and wonder about the white chunks in the waste water. (EW!)

And then you are nervous the rest of the night, every time the dog so much as groans, you jump up, fearful that he's going to puke again.

All because, when you were making dinner, you sauteed onions and ground beef in olive oil and the drained the fat off into the dog's dish, thus giving the dog a treat. Yeah, onions? They make dogs puke. And the worst part is that I KNOW that onions make Domino throw up, I just forgot. Argh.

So, word to the wise: don't give your dog beef fat with onion flavoring. They will throw up. And you will spend part of your afternoon-child-free-time on your hands and knees, sniffing the "scene of the crime", so to speak, making sure that the carpet cleaner got it all.

5 Things I never thought I'd say

1. Emily, don't lick your shoe! That's yucky.
2. Emily, if I get to 3, I'm not going to let you help me dust!
3. Mommy will let you help her dust this time, but you have to be a good girl, OK?
4. Yeah, that's a boo-boo on Mommy's butt. It's OK, it doesn't need a kiss. (she was pointing to the tattoo on my butt.)
5. No, no more movie (The Wiggledancing DVD) today. Yes, the movie is sleeping.
   

Kids are hilarious, aren't they? What have you said that you never thought you'd say?

Before & After

This is my kitchen sink before Dawn Simple Pleasures

This is my sink AFTER Dawn Simple Pleasures

Any questions?

I am not a real big air freshener or candle person. Most of the make-your-house-smell-good stuff either makes me sneeze or gives me a monster headache. And then there's the time, right after my in-laws moved out, that Mike and I lit a candle and then LEFT THE HOUSE. WITH THE CANDLE STILL BURNING. We came back home to a very lime-y smelling house and were quite thankful that we had a house to come home to at all. We still refer to that incident as the time we tried to burn the house down.

So, to sum up, not a big fan of smelly things. BUT, I really like the Dawn Simple Pleasures. The air freshener part is not overpowering, but just smelly enough that it takes the edge off the slightly overripe garbage or last night's onions and peppers. And the soap smells exactly the same way. And the soap does all the good stuff that the commercials say Dawn is supposed to do. I used it to clean a pan that I used to cook some pork chops with a honey-based glaze in (read: CAKED with goo) and it came clean very easily.

Positive IQ Required

Not for personal use.
Wow. Just ... wow.

Not for cleaning or sanitizing skin.
Do not use as a diaper wipe or for personal cleansing.
But what if I'm really ... dirty?

Not a sleep pillow.
So, for what exactly should we use this soft, comfy pillow?

Do not crush, chew or break tablet.
But they look so tasty! I want to munch on them like Swee-Tarts.

Keep out of the reach of children.
Yep, that toddler toothpaste is off-limits. Sorry, Emily.
No more toothbrushing for you.

For external use only.
Bacteria outside = bad. Bacteria inside = good.


And finally, two for the "I'm putting this sh*t on my face?!" award.

Huh. I guess Mike is going to have to stop welding and shaving at the same time.
And I have to stop cooking while putting on my roseacea cream.
Damn, those were such timesavers.

This post was brought to you by the Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse & The Parent Bloggers Network. Do you have a wacky warning label of your own? Grab your camera and take a picture. Put it up by midnight (PST) Friday 10/19 and email the link to parentbloggers@gmail.com and you might be one of 4 lucky winners!

Falling In Love Again For The First Time

When Lucy was born, I loved her because she was my baby, the product of my husband and me. But, I didn't really feel the connection between us. I loved her because, in a way, I was supposed to. She came from my body, was being fed by my body and ... that's what moms do.

In the past few weeks, suddenly I LOVE HER! The words "I love you", which I whisper to her as I am putting her to bed, or more notably when I am telling her, "Lucy, I love you, now, SHUT UP and GO TO SLEEP" have the weight of all the affection in my heart behind them.

Lucy is my little goober. She is so funny. Last night, she woke up at 4:45. I fed her and put her back to bed. Girlfriend was having none of that. She rolled her head away from me as I tried to put the pacifier in her mouth. She'd roll her head to the left, I'd follow with the binky and she'd roll her head to the right. I finally got it in her mouth and had no sooner walked down the hall to our room when I heard her start to grunt that she'd lost the binky. When I walked in, I reinserted the binky (my dad calls it "plugging her back in") and was treated to the biggest gummy smile around that pacifier, like, "Hi Mommy! You came back! I'm so happy to see you!" She was awake and ready to rock. Mommy not so much.

I know this picture is blurry, but it cracks me up. Mike discovered that if you blow in Lucy's face, this is the face you get. She widens her eyes and sticks her tongue out. I think she looks like the picture of Einstein with his tongue out. Lucy has also recently discovered her voice. She loves to coo and "talk". When I respond to her gurgles, she breaks out into the biggest smile.

It seems that Emily, too, has fallen in love with Lucy. I have a heck of a time keeping Emily from stealing Lucy's socks, smashing Lucy's pacifier into her face, bouncing Lucy in the bouncy seat so hard I fear Lucy's going to fall out on her head, and laying on her to give her hugs, kisses and nose rubs. It's a fine line to walk, trying to let Emily express her love of her little sister without letting her kill her little sister with love and kindness. Emily asks almost every day to hold Baby Woofy (that's how she says "Lucy").

I love the color of Lucy's eyes - they are so blue they're almost navy. I'm still not entirely sure who Lucy most resembles. Someone (in the grocery store?) told me that she looks a lot like me, but I don't see it.

Nothing (yet)

When I was in elementary school, I remember with fondness (and some yearning) the Scholastic Book Fairs. They would set up a bunch of tables on the stage in our gymnatorium and then load them down with books of all shapes and sizes, books as far as my 6-year-old eyes could see. I remember walking up the stairs onto the stage and entering a book-filled wonderland. The curtains were drawn across the front and back of the stage, so the stage felt cozy and intimate and there were BOOKS! Cool books! Books about every subject you could imagine! All RIGHT THERE on the stage!

The yearning comes in because I never had any money with me on Book Fair days, so I couldn't buy anything. I could only look at all the wonderful books that I *sigh* couldn't have.** I especially loved pop-up books and Scholastic always seemed to have the most wonderful pop-up books. ** To be fair, I'm pretty sure the reason I didn't have any money was that I didn't give the flyer to my mom so she didn't know that the fair was happening. She loves books as much as I do and I am sure that she wouldn't have intentionally denied me the opportunity to get some good books. She's in Italy right now, so I can't verify that theory.

The Parent Bloggers Network is sponsoring another blog blast today for Scholastic.com, and they are asking the question, "What are your kids learning in school?"

Since Emily is only 2 and Lucy is just 3 months, neither of them are in school, but they are learning things every darn day. Yesterday, Emily picked up Lucy's pacifier for me and said "Emmy get it." And when I agreed with her, she said "Emmy got it." She changed tenses! She's learning how to piss her mother off with one little word: "No." Ahem. She is learning how to pick up her toys (last night she picked up all her toys, with some guidance from Mike, without any tears!) and put them away. She is learning a deep love of books (yay!) - when I went in to her room after a nap this week, there were a bunch of books in her bed. She had pulled them off her shelf and was reading them until she fell asleep. Ah, that makes a reading addicted Mom's heart smile. She's learning how to put her clothes on and take them off.

Lucy is also learning things. She's learning how to raise her head and is working on rolling over. She has discovered the deliciousness of her fingers and how to get them into her mouth to munch on. She's learned how to smile and coo at her family and she's learned that doing that will make us pay attention to her.

Both kids are surprising me daily. Several people have said that the second child seems to grow more quickly and that feels very true for Lucy. I've mentioned before that it feels like she just got here and that I've known her forever. Emily also blows my mind on a daily basis. The things she picks up on. Mike was leaving a couple of nights ago to go to a church thing and Emily said he was going to work and wanted him to take his laptop with him. We typically leave the house at least once a day and yesterday she came over and asked to "Go, please. In Mommy car." We're dog-sitting my parent's dog while they are in Italy. Daisy doesn't like to be in her crate and so she barks A LOT. Emily will typically remark at least once while we're on the way out of the house that "Daisy noisy." She sure is. None of those examples above are things that we have directly taught her, they are just things that she has noticed. And now that she is finally talking more, I am hearing more of what is going on in that melon of hers.

LOVE Thursday

A few new things have entered my life recently and I just had to tell everyone that I AM IN LOVE!!!

The first new thing in my life that I love is this blanket. I bought 2 of the Miracle Blankets on Lindsay's recommendation. I wrapped Lucy up in one the night they arrived (after a brief trip through the washing machine - they were a little stinky when they got here) and she slept from 8 pm until 2 am. That is a span that was virtually unheard-of prior to the arrival of the Miracle Blanket. She has continued to sleep well in the blanket, and I LOVE IT!!!

The second new thing in my life that I love is Picasa. When I re-formatted my computer, I didn't reload a lot of the applications that came with it originally. There was a lot of stuff on it that came preloaded from Dell and I just wasn't using it. The problem is that I was using Dell ImageExpert to edit my pictures. I wasn't all that happy with it, so I started to hunt for new picture editing software, since I find Macromedia's Fireworks to be way too difficult for me to work with. And then I found Picasa and the angels started singing. Not only does it have an easy to use interface, it lets me select a bunch of pictures and click a Blog This button and POOF! All my pictures are uploaded to my Blogger account into a brand-new post. This is what I was looking to do with my Seabreeze post last month. I was very annoyed that I couldn't just pick a bunch of pictures out of my pictures folder and with the press of a couple of buttons, upload my pictures all at once. I have been taught by my manager that Google is very, very bad, but they sure do make some awesome software.

Also, speaking of pictures, you might have noticed that my Flickr badge disappeared and if you had me as a friend in Flickr (hi, Elizabeth!), you might have noticed that I deleted my account. I have been very disturbed by all the accounts of people's pictures being stolen off their Flickr accounts and I am waaay too cheap to buy a Pro account so I wasn't really using it. If I want to share pictures, I put them up here. Otherwise, I hoard them on my computer. So Flickr is gone. Picasa also has a web album thingie, but I am probably not going to use it (see the Google = very very bad thing above).

"Flashing" people in the name of food

I have been very fortunate that, in my 9+ months experience of nursing my kids (nearly 7 months with Emily and nearly 3 now with Lucy) that I have never ever had someone react negatively to me nursing wherever the urge struck.

I have nursed across the country, twice. I have nursed in at least 3 airports, several malls, Applebees, The Cheesecake Factory (twice - once with each child), in my car on countless occasions, Target, my backyard, The Little Gym (just this morning, in fact)... I'm sure I have nursed in other places, but those are the ones that come to mind right now. Every time I whip out (as some trying to be nice, but sort of missing the mark commenter called it) a breast to feed Lucy in public, I feel myself tense. I keep wondering if this is the time that my luck will run out. Is this the time that someone is going to take offense to me discretely feeding my child?

This is why I joined the League of Maternal Justice. I think that we mothers have it pretty good here in North America, but at the same time, we have to put up with crap that ... well, it's crap. It sucks.


I am in the photo montage twice. I'm pretty sure you all will recognize me in one picture and you don't have any chance of recognizing the other one, unless you're Mike and that's cause he took the picture.

So, to make it easier, here are my submissions to the montage:

This one was zoomed in and cropped so you just see Lucy, my breast, my shirt and my hand.

This wasn't included at all.

I'm pretty sure you guys will recognize me (and Emily) in this one. As wonderful as breastfeeding is, it can get boring after a while.

Best Shot Monday

This weekend we took Emily and Lucy to our local Humane Society's Barktoberfest. I brought the camera, hoping to get some cute shots of Emily or Lucy to use as my Best Shot this week.


The playground turned out to be the most fun part of the whole thing for us. We didn't really want to spend a bunch of money on rides and stuff, and last time we tried to get Emily's face painted, she freaked out, so a free playground was right up all our alleys. Plus, there were picnic tables where I could sit down, since I had Lucy strapped to my chest in a carrier, and those things are so hard on your back.

Emily is absolutely infatuated with horses. She had a lot of fun watching them eat and gently patted this one. I was having a hard time getting down low enough to get a good shot of the horse and Emily without the fence in the way (and without overbalancing and falling over, since Lucy was throwing my center of gravity way off).
I was trying to get kind of artsy with this picture. I like the way it came out, but it's not my favorite.
Everyone thought Emily looked really cute in her hat and sunglasses. All Target specials.
Sandals weren't the best choice of footwear for this outing, since all the paths were covered in small sharp stones. Emily kept saying that there were stones in her shoes.
This is my favorite picture from Barktoberfest. A quick picture snapped on a whim that, to me, is better than the ones I was working to get. And that is my lesson for the week: sometimes the best pictures are the ones you don't plan.

I knew this day was coming...

We've had a new breakthrough at our house.

Let me set the scene for you:

It is a quiet Sunday afternoon. Mike is outside, mowing the lawn. Emily and Lucy are in their rooms, sleeping. I am working on packing away Lucy's 0-3 month clothes and going through her 3-6 month clothes.

I put a large box of clothes in Lucy's room and decide to take the box of 0-3 month clothes downstairs and look for some bibs while I'm down there (the teething, oh, the teething. The child is SO drooly I am going to have to keep a bib on her to save her clothes, and my washing machine.). While I'm downstairs, I hear a bang (like someone landing on the floor), but assume that it was Domino hopping over one of the gates.

When I get back upstairs, I walk back toward the kid's rooms and hear Emily's white noise machine louder than it should be. That's because the door is open (stupid dogs pushed the door open). I reach in to close the door, while scanning Emily's bed to make sure she's still sleeping. But ... she doesn't seem to be in her bed.

I get a little spurt of adrenaline and then push her door open further.

Whew! There she is, on the floor, decidedly NOT in her bed, playing with her piggy bank.

Wait a minute...

WHAT IS SHE DOING OUT OF BED?!

Hmm, sounds like I said that she doesn't get out of bed on her own one too many times. Here's hoping that she doesn't try that tonight at bedtime!!

What more do they want?

How far would I go for my kids? Really?

I grew them in my body for nine ten months. I let them make me unspeakably ill. They embarassed me by making me vomit violently in a public restaurant (well, a McDonalds, but still), and then forced me to walk around for weeks with a burst blood vessel in my EYE. I lived on Carnation Instant Breakfast shakes because no other food tasted good and no other food would stay down.

I let them kick me in personal, private areas. I let them jam their feet and other appendages into sensitive internal organs.

Then, once they finally got here, I let them suck on an erogenous zone for nutrition. That erogenous zone? NOT ANYMORE! The giving of nutrition to the kids also resulted in cracked nipples, swollen, incredibly painful breasts and one case of mastitis.

And that's not all, folks. I quit my job. I gave up my ability to sleep through the night. I used to be able to sleep through ANYTHING. Now? One of them shifts in their beds in a way that is slightly unusual and I'm awake, analyzing whether I should get up and check on them, thinking about the prior day and looking for indications that illness might be upon us.

And when illness does strike, I have been known to thrust my hands into the path of oncoming vomit to prevent it's landing on hard-to-clean furniture. Vomit that is not my own.

I have had someone else's blood, urine, feces, saliva, vomit, snot and tears all liberally wiped on me. And that doesn't count boogers. Few days go by when I am not adorned by bodily fluids that are not my own.

How far would I go for my kids? I'd do all that, and more. With pleasure. But that doesn't mean that I'm not looking forward to the days when I don't have to wake up in the middle of the night at the drop of a hat.

This post is brought to you by the Parent Blogger's Network and the Harper Collins new release Dangerous Admissions. Go answer the question "How far would you go for your kids?" and enter to win $200 and other fun prizes.

Lucy my girl

My Darling Lucy,

Today you are 12 weeks old. I cannot believe it. It seems that you have been a part of our family forever, yet 12 weeks ago today, we were meeting you for the very first time.
When you were first born, I didn't think you looked like anyone else in the family. But since then, I have put together a scrapbook album of all of big-sister Emily's pictures and suddenly I can totally see the resemblance. Below is a picture of you (taken by Target) at 1 month old. Directly below that is a picture of Emily at one month.Ok, well maybe the resemblance isn't that strong in those pictures, but in others it is so there. Before you were born, I didn't understand how mothers of multiple children couldn't be sure which child a picture portrayed. Totally get it now.

In the past few weeks, you have really turned on the charm. You are smiling and cooing and giggling at us. You LOVE it when we tickle your tummy or legs. You also like it when I make you "polka", by holding you under your arms and dancing you on one leg and then the other. I can't seem to translate the action into words, but you love it. You get this big, gummy smile and your whole face lights up.

I bought you a Bumbo seat the other day and you really enjoy sitting in it. Or maybe it is just that it is different than your bouncy seat. Or your swing. In a few weeks, you will be big enough to start using your Exersaucer. Emily just loved playing in it and I can't wait to see you use it,
I am pretty sure that you are going to get teeth very, very soon. You are drooling up a storm and can't seem to keep your fingers and hands out of your mouth. Mommy isn't very excited about this. You see, she remembers when big-sister Emily got teeth and also remembers Emily biting the breast that fed her. This is why, when you are done eating and you start to play a little bit at my breast, I put the boobie away. And then you start to cry, mourning the passing of the boobie. Hopefully, one day you will nurse your children and you'll understand why biting and teeth are a bad, bad thing.

You are such a sweet, laid back little baby. Daddy was remarking a few days ago that he remembers spending hours on end, walking Emily around the house to try to calm her down. With you, when it is time for bed, we put you in jammies, swaddle you in a blanket and put you to bed. We have to go back a few times to replace your pacifier, but otherwise, you fall asleep on your own. I have a book from Auntie Karen about sleep and babies and I haven't read it, because for now, your bedtime process is ok with me.
However, when you are mad, watch out! Your little face crumples into a big frown, and you start to kick your little leg so. hard. You also get kind of mad when you think that Mommy should be paying more attention to you. And then, nothing will soothe you except me picking you up.
You hate having these shades on. Personally, I think they are adorable. And the hat (green with flowers in the bottom right of the corner) was just adding insult to injury. Hee.
Lucy, my sweet, I have to apologize to you. Daddy and I love your name very much, but it isn't a very popular one right now (unlike Emily's) and though I will continue to search, so far, I have not been able to find anything with your name on it. Your cousin Elena suffers from this problem, too, and while it's not a horrible thing to have to endure, she was very upset about it when she was 8. Hopefully the people who make personalized things will see the error of their ways in excluding Lucy as a name on products very soon.
Lucy, as much as I love you, sometimes I think your big sister loves you more. She loves nothing more than to hold you. When you are lying on the floor, I have to watch her very carefully because she likes to give you kisses and nose rubs and hugs. She doesn't know her own strength and you have suffered some smushing given in the form of love and hugs from Emily.

We are at the beginning of a wonderful journey and I cannot wait to see where it goes.

Lots of love,

Mommy

Erin, this is your life!

I don't actually watch this show, but I saw this clip on Lotta's blog a while back and then Emily decided that me seeing it once wasn't enough fun, no I must live it all day, every day.

OH NO!!! I just went to You Tube to get the code for the video clip I'm talking about and it's been taken down! NO!!!

Ok, if you watch The Family Guy, the clip I am referring to is the one where Stewie (the baby with the football shaped head, ow) stands next to his mother, saying "Mom, mom, mom, mom, mommy, mommy, mommy, mum, mum, Lois" and so on until she finally snaps and screams, "WHAT?!" and then Stewie says "Hi!" and runs from the room.

That is my life.

Emily started saying "Mommy" over and over and over again and when I answer her, she just says "Mommy" again. Cute the first few times and then I start to tune it out.

Except, this morning, Emily was babbling about something and I wasn't listening. And then she turned and looked at me and said "MOM." Oh, guess you noticed that I was blogging not paying attention to you. Whoops.

Best Shot Monday

Katie has been posting her best shots for quite a while now. Today, I am going to jump on board.


This picture, part of a set of, I dunno, 4, is the single best thing (things?) that came of the pediatrician's recommendation to try feeding Lucy formula for several days.

Friday morning I decided to go back to breast feeding Lucy. I spent most of Thursday either crying or on the brink of crying. I hated giving the bottles to Lucy. I hated that I had to pump every time I fed her, including in the middle of the night. I hated the fact that my doctor might* tell me to stop nursing. I hated the thought that I wouldn't be able to nurse Lucy even as long as I nursed Emily, let alone longer (Emily weaned between 6 and 7 months). I was extremely concerned that I was losing my supply, as I was getting less and less milk every time I pumped (this is partially my fault because I didn't pump as frequently as I should have. Once I started pumping almost as frequently as I fed Lucy, I started to get more.)

She did seem to make some improvement on the formula (well, her poop turned from green to yellow brown and stopped smelling like sulfur and started smelling ... like formula poo, I guess), but the improvement wasn't enough to justify the emotional toll it was taking on me.

For now, I am going to continue the 6-week dairy elimination diet (nearly 3 down, 3 to go!) and see where we are then.

* I didn't actually speak with the doctor when she recommended the formula, the message was passed to me via nurse. I also didn't bother to call the office to tell them that I couldn't hack the formula trial. If Lucy still is having problems when the 6 weeks are up, I will contact the office and we'll take it from there.