Unleash the Beast

So my darling baby dear, you know the one that was always sleeping and happy and easy going? Well, mostly she is still the happy go lucky smiling cutie who has found her way into the background and galleries of many a cell phone…HOWEVER.

Yes, that is one big However.

I went back to work last Monday. And by back to work I mean I walk downstairs and turn my computer on (with the exception of a small snafu on the first day). The munchkin stays upstairs with one of her small army of awesome sitters. And hollers. Yep, still not sure tomorrow’s sitter will be back…

Just kidding.

I hope…

For a little variety today she decided to switch things up…she unleashed the beast early. Daddy worked downstairs and Mommy dealt with Mad baby. Mad baby would calm, lay down for a nap…and then, Hello! The beast was back. While I make this sound drawn out and horrid, truthfully it wasn’t hour long shrieking. In reality Mad baby has short spurts of beastliness. But what these spurts manage to do is hinder progress.

My kitchen…wasn’t cleaned.

My living room…still has Christmas cards on the wall.

Cookie dough was made, but not baked until late this evening (Wendy you’re welcome. Appreciate me).

I, finally realizing this was cyclical (yes Mad Baby also is know to slow mental deduction), grabbed the Snugli and wore the munchkin around the house until she dropped off into a sound sleep. After an hour later, I put her down. She stayed asleep and I started work. And the beast was harnessed for the remainder of the night.

Daddy says if mommy could arrange that fussy schedule everyday it’d be great. Mommy incinerated daddy with one quick glare.

He should just be glad I washed the cookies and baked the baby…oh wait… back up…reverse that…

LiveJournal Tags: Mad Baby,fussy,WAHM,working

The Fountain of Youth

The proverbial “they” have a lot of things to tell you.  And I disregard most of what “they” say. Especially since “they” tend to contradicted “them”selves. For instance, if your baby is nursing “they” say not to use a pacifier as to avoid “nipple confusion,” but “they” also say that use of a pacifier may help avoid SIDS. I really wish “they” would get “their” story straight.

However, I will believe “them” when it serves me well. In this instance I am going to take the idea that “kids keep you young” literally. I may or may not be approaching a milestone birthday this year. But since Autumn clearly is a kid…and therefore keeps me young, this year I will once again be celebrating my 29th birthday…and next year my 28th…and so on and so forth. I think that sounds like a good deal don’t you?

Proof of this youth-ening: not too long ago I may have watched the crazy fools playing out in the snow. But Sunday, I was out there pulling Autumn in the sled—which she was ‘clearly’ enjoying.

(see how excited she is?)

Heck even the Heatmeister—the hater of all things white, frozen and winter—was out pulling the monkey butt…and look! She’s smiling!

(sledding pictures courtesy of Mark—not Marc)

---

However, making me younger doesn’t seem to stop the munchkin from growing right on up. Today marks three months from the day our family of two became three. Three months….Ho-ly. Cow.

Apparently, “they” say she is no longer a newborn. Today she is an infant.  My bright eyed, little girl is getting so big. No really, she IS getting big. She stretches to the toes of some 6M clothing now (not all, just some), but is a skinny girl (although as Wendy says she’s getting ‘mushy’ and  she is indeed developing some baby rolls) so the necklines are very large on her. If she wears two piece (pant and shirt) outfits 3M fit her mostly and 6M a little loosely, but put her in a sleeper and you’ll really see how long she it.

(this picture is probably at the 2 month mark)

(all stretched out on Mommy’s Memere)

She holds her head up like a champ, and has done so pretty impressively since she was born. She prefers sitting up to being cradled. If you try to recline her you can really feel her tense her muscles trying to stay upright.

(she looks so…not newborn-like in this picture…this is about 2 1/2 months)

She holds her weight on her legs and when lifted over your head she holds her body stiff like a board. My little over achiever is not going to wait too long in getting around I fear, as she pushes on her toes when on her tummy like she’s trying to squirm forward. I know she’s not quite there…yet.

(Can’t have a picture of Mommy’s Memere without one of Mommy’s Pepere)

As much as I don’t want this time to fly by, it is and will. She’s going to learn and grow. It means she’s a healthy girl, doing what healthy babies do. But no matter how quickly she grows…nor how the time flies…nor how young I get …she’ll always be Mommy’s Little Munchkin.

LiveJournal Tags: baby,Autumn,infant,newborn

Normal is for the birds

(Alternate titles: To heck with Normal; Whoever said I was normal, If you’re normal, I’m glad I’m not…etc…etc….etc)

My husband likes to remind me whenever I’m doing something the way my family does, that I’m not normal. Just having cake after a baptism—not normal. Christmas lunch of appetizers—not normal. So on and on goes the list. Some people may be offended by that…but growing up as one of eight kids, I learned quickly that a large family who didn’t have cable and drove a fifteen passenger van—ISN’T NORMAL.

And so, I like to think he came to this relationship fully cognizant of the fact that this her woman, she ain’t normal. And that means, often times I buck the mainstream. Sometimes I know what I’m doing isn’t how “normal” people do things. Other times I’m clueless. Meals after baptisms…I didn’t realize that was how “it was done.” I’d only seen it done once…but when I thought about it, I’d only been to one non-Knox child baptism. So we compromised between his “what people do” and my “just cake.”

But that got me thinking about what messages we, as parents, send to our kids.  We need to do what society expects of us…but we expect our kids to fall for the “we'll we aren’t everybody line” to their “but everybody does it” pleadings. And even though I’m not “normal,” there are times when I find myself falling into line with “everybody else.”

And so, I vow to continue to be abnormal:

We have three cars to a two adult household (See Marc, you’re not Normal either)

I’m a WAHM…pretty sure that’s not the trend.

I don’t have cable (and pretty sure Autumn’s going to have to deal with that growing up…are more channels worth an extra $700 a year or more?)

I cloth diaper my kid.

I will have more than 1.25 kids (apparently the average number of kids per US household is actually .94…how do you have a decimal kid?)—Hey, Hey we already scoffed the norm, but I plan to at least have double the average…how many can I talk Marc into?

I’m sure if you asked my husband, he’d have more examples for you…or “abnormalities” that have been “normalized.” But, I don’t do things for the sake of being normal, or doing what they do… If it makes sense, if it’s doable, and if I’m ok with it..then I’ll come to the main stream. At least that’s what I’m hoping I do.

Lately it’s become more of a thing I’m aware of. What we are projecting to our kids? We want them to be their own person and do what they do because it’s right or it’s what THEY want—but is that what they see?

Let’s make “Not Normal” the “thing to do.” My child’s on a great start. In 6M clothing and not even three months ( I don’t care that three months is in 2 days). Teething and not even three months…born the size of a giant…you see…definitely my child.

I better be a good role model on bucking the norm….Maybe I’ll start raising quail…