Another pal

Lucy is now hanging out with us Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We laugh, we drool, we listen to dead music.

Doesn't she make Anna look extra bald? Sigh.

I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Other feats

Anna is learning to roll.

Oh, and she can swim.

At least we know she's ours

They did not accidentally (or otherwise) switch our baby with anyone else's at the hospital.

Last night, Anna leaned to the side, farted, and giggled.

Alive and well

I haven't written anything in over a month, and now I have almost no record of Anna's third month of life. But now we're in her fourth month, and I have to say, I love it! She's fun. But, I am also back at work, and I miss so much of her funness. By the evenings, she's pretty lazy and tired, and I miss her big gummy smiles and big laughs and squeals. Accomplishments include that she's trying to roll onto her side (which she can only do when she's swaddled... I think her monster thighs get in the way otherwise), and she wants attention a lot more of the time.

Thankfully, I'm only working part-time, but this week I've worked a lot since I had childcare available, and it's been a hard change.

I have pictures of her baptism and her first flight and vacation, but they're stuck inside our camera at home. (I am currently at work, wasting time on a job I don't love and missing time with my baby who I do love.) I was hoping to do pictures tomorrow, but I have two babies with me then. I guess it'll just have to wait.

Speaking of having two babies with me, everyone knows about our childcare arrangement with my friend Amy from work, right? So Amy has a baby, Jack, who's 3 1/2 weeks older than Anna, and she has both babies on Mondays and I have both babies on Wednesdays, and I get Jack some Fridays. Jack and Anna apparently have a blast together these days, but I haven't had them both in over a month. This is the two of them at Amy's on Monday, holding hands!


More about childcare: we have a wonderful babysitter, Jenna, for the next 5 weeks on Thursdays. Then I haven't a clue what we'll do... But we'll figure it out. We are lucky to have many friends and family eager to help.

So much growing, so little time!

I'm way behind schedule here. Anna is a new exciting person every single day, and I either don't have the time to write about it, or I just don't take the time because I'd rather be cuddling her. But I write here for myself primarily, but also for her. Someday, I like to think she'll enjoy reading about our first days, months, and years with her. Maybe she'll even learn something about what it'll be like when she has her first child. Or maybe she'll just think her mom's a big dork. That's okay, too.

Anyhow, in no particular order, here are the things everyone must know:

Anna can grasp an object, and she knows it. She has held something in her hand before, if you pried open her little fingers and placed it in her palm. But it was more like a reflex, like how a newborn can squeeze your finger. But now, she really has to be awake and feel like playing, but if you put something (in our case a chopstick) in her hand, she waves it excitedly (in our case imitating Harry Potter) (or like Mike said, "NO, she's Hermani!" or however you spell it.) (And then we took away the chopstick because it's all fun and games until your 8-week old daughter pokes her eye out because you're a couple of immature idiots.) But it's like she can play, and it's so exciting! She also seems to be developing ticklishness and she just enjoys when you poke, kiss or tease her. And I just love her. (Please bear in mind, though, that she's only like this for about 4 minutes a day. The other 23 hours and 56 minutes, she still doesn't care very much about what goes on around her.)

Somebody hurt Anna for the first time in her life. She had her 2-month check-up on Monday, and those were her first immunizations. I guess she did have a shot or two in the hospital when she was born, but I wasn't there to witness it, so it really didn't happen. Anyhow, they had to give her 3 shots, and they told me that the one could cause her thigh to be warm and swollen and she might get a fever. #%!&*$!!! That is a serious shot! And if her thigh is warm and swollen, doesn't that mean it's tender? As in painful? Ugh. So I braced myself, and prayed she'd be calm. And the first shot went in, and her eyes got very big, and then the nurse pushed the plunger, and Anna closed her eyes, threw her head back, opened her mouth wide, and s-c-r-e-a-m-e-d. And then she got jabbed twice more while screaming, and I think I was in too much shock to do much. I haven't a clue how I reacted or what I did. It was surreal. And then the nurse rushed out and I grabbed my poor, arched-back, wailing, betrayed daughter, and I tried to cradle her in my arms, and I pulled her to me and offered my breast, which she desperately took. (At least I was smart enough to keep her hungry because I thought she'd like comfort nursing and she'd have something else to think about.) And I sat there, nursing her as she pulled away every 30 seconds or so to let out a sad whimper, and I cried. Big tears fell onto her naked body, and I tried to make myself stop before I had to go out and face all the nurses and doctors and look like a big crybaby mommy. I was totally not expecting her reaction, but I was totally more not expecting my reaction.

Anna can take medicine like a champ. When I was a child, right up until I was 18 years old, I could not take medicine. I couldn't swallow pills until I was in college (I sat down one day with a box of Tic Tacs, determined to force myself to swallow something and prove to myself that I wouldn't choke to death.) So pediatricians always gave my mom liquid medicine, which generally made me throw up. But that was only if you could force it down my throat. My poor mother. Even that delightful bubble gum flavored antibiotic that my friends bragged about drinking just for fun when we were 8 years old... YUCK. I just couldn't do it. To this day, I can't drink cough syrup because it's too yucky, so I buy children's cough syrup that tastes not-too-bad, but I have to take like 6 tablespoons of it, so each bottle only lasts through 4 or so doses. So I decided to man up about it, and I can now take a half dose of adult cough syrup and a half dose of children's cough syrup mixed up, and I gag it down. Impressive, don't you think? So I was very concerned about whether Anna would be like me.

After the horrible shot experience, she slept for a really long time. Once she finally woke, she cried a lot, and then slept a lot, and then cried more. She would be sleeping peacefully and suddenly scrunch up her little eyes and open her little mouth and a big wail would fill the room, and I'd squeeze her closer to me, and then push her away, afraid that I was hurting her little thighs. Finally, I decided that she was definitely hurting, and even though she didn't have a fever, I gave her some tylenol. I squeezed the little dropper into her mouth, and she looked surprised, and then smacked her lips... I guess she swallowed it, and I was hugely relieved. And then she slept really well for the rest of the day.

But the important thing here is that she can take liquid medicines! Yay!

Last night, from Wednesday to Thursday, May 10-11, Anna slept through the night. I'm supposed to write that in her baby book, so I'm recording the date here so I can't forget. For the first time, she slept from about 10:30 until we woke around 6:00. I wanted to sleep more, but since Mike was getting ready for work and I was awake, I decided to wake her and feed her. Who knows how much longer she could have gone?! But she went back to sleep after that and slept until about 8:30. We have such a perfect dream of a daughter.

Of course, I don't expect her to sleep like that often; she had a pretty bad evening yesterday, and she was exhausted and miserable to be around. I'd rather have a well rested baby that likes to eat once in the middle of the night than a miserable, crying baby that sleeps through the night from sheer exhaustion. But if I could have a well rested, happy baby that sleeps through the night, that will work for me!

I think that's everything. Those are our major developments. Whew. I'm glad I got that all out.

It's the strangest thing...

I've been having these funny feelings about Anna. It's just that she is the most beautiful child who ever existed, and all other babies fade in comparison.

I saw a little girl at the grocery store yesterday, must have been just about Anna's age because both of her parents were carefully comparing diaper packages and ultimately chose a pack in Anna's size, and well, come on. Only new parents read diaper labels, or shop for diapers together. Mike and I have been down this road. It turns out that what works for us is that I am in charge of buying diapers and Mike refuses to have an opinion about them.

Sabrina: "I put a stack of the new diapers next to the old ones. Which ones do you like better?"
Mike: "Who cares?"
Sabrina: "But this one has the softer outside and stretchy tabs, but the new ones have a bigger poop catcher in the back of the diaper and a thicker layer in the front where she pees."
Mike: "And?"
Sabrina: "And these ones have Winnie-the-Pooh on them and these are Sesame Street!"
Mike: "And?"
Sabrina: "Well, do you have a preference?"
Mike: "No."
Sabrina: "Well, good, because I like these ones, so when you change her, you use these yucky ones."
Mike: "Whatever."

And I've already read the entire label of every diaper imaginable, so when I go to buy diapers, I can choose what I want like a seasoned pro.

Back to these strange feelings. Their little girl had a perfect little smooth face, and perfect little puckered lips and bright cherubic cheeks, and I looked down at my little angel with her dry, scaly head and booger-filled nose, and she just blew me away with her stunning gorgeousness. And I knew that I was in love.

Free to good home

I am fed up.

One cat is a runaway. He hasn't come home, and perhaps he never will. Late last week I reached the anger stage of the grieving process, as I walked through the neighborhood thinking "Damned cat. Stupid f*@king cat." Now I'm in the apathy stage, if there is such a thing.

The two remaining cats are making me absolutely insane. Is it just that I don't love them because I have a child so much more worthy of my love? Is it that they've become monsters overnight? Or is it a little bit of both? They have become monsters, for sure, but perhaps that's because they get less love and attention. Perhaps they miss Jameson. But I'm going to kill them.

Cole won't get out from under my feet. He is going to trip me and send me barreling down the stairs with Anna in my arms and kill us both.

The other morning, Anna and I had to run Daddy to work, and then I had to run back home and eat breakfast in the 5 minutes before Jessie and Carl were coming to pick me up. But Anna threw up all over herself on the way to Daddy's work. So I had to clean and change her when I got back, so I was really in a hurry... but what's waiting for me on the basement steps? Cat puke. And some in the upstairs hallway. And some in the fringe of the rug in the nursery.

And then there's the pacifiers. Sigh. Every morning since we introduced the pacifiers, I've found them in random spots on the floor downstairs. So one day I boiled all of them to sterilize, and I put them all on the dining room table. And the next morning, they were all on the floor. So that night, I put them on the table again. And the next morning, the floor again. The stupid cats are climbing my dining room table (gah!) and batting them all over the house! They are SO not allowed on the table. And they know this. They have never knocked things off the table to play with before. (As an aside, for someone with cats who doesn't plan on having children, pacifiers are apparently an excellent cat toy! I think they sell 2-packs at the dollar store.) So perhaps pacifiers are just irresistible toys, or perhaps they actually understand that the pacifiers belong to the baby, and so they are acting out. But it pisses me off.

But I was even much, much more pissed when I saw what they are doing to the pacifiers. See for yourself.

It's hard to capture in a photo, but every single one of them has a dozen or so holes in the nipple. They are biting them and ruining them!! Not only are the nipples all now filthy, but you can't use a ripped pacifier as it poses a real choking hazard.

For some strange reason, they haven't bitten the latex pacifier, only the silicone ones. Maybe they just haven't found the latex one, or maybe they don't like latex. But we have exactly one pacifier left to keep her happy.

The cats also play with her little gym toy, which irritates me because they're making it dirty and germy, but who can blame them?? Look how much fun it is! She absolutely loves this thing, and she watches the light-up star on top of it very intently. And really, I can't blame the cats because things that jingle and squeak hang from bars, and, well, honestly, PetSmart should just start carrying these things! Why didn't I think of this years ago?

But that's enough of this feel-good isn't-my-daughter-the-most-beautiful-creature-ever crap. It's official. I hate my cats.

Happy Easter from the whole family!

Smiles: a timeline

It took a while, maybe 10 days or so, but Anna has figured out how to smile in response to something she likes. (Or else it took us 10 days to figure out how to entertain her.) I like seeing pictures we took of her trying to smile, and I think you can see a very nice progression as time goes on. Here it is. (Please realize that the first few days in which she'd occasionally accidentally smirk at us, we couldn't capture it with the camera. By the third or fourth day, though, she would smile repeatedly and we had time to run for the camera.)

On 4/12/06:
I like this one because you can see her really trying.









On 4/14/06:
I like this one because she looks so dorky. It reminds me of a poop smile, but it's a real smile.






On 4/15/06:
This is her playing with her daddy, which she apparently loves. It is so nice to have him with us on Saturday and Sunday each week... but this past weekend he had to work half of Saturday, and this weekend he will work Saturday and Sunday from about 8AM until midnight (and yes, he's also working those hours today, Thursday, and Friday, and then I think next week he'll go back to his regular 8 to 5 schedule, but we'll see!) So we are very, very sad that he won't be around. Anna and her mommy will miss him very much.


On 4/16/06:
And there you have it: a happy, smiley baby.


















Also on 4/16/06:
And just for fun, here is a pooping baby. How funny is this picture?! We were trying for a nice shot of her in her Easter dress with her Easter basket (made at the insistence of her grandfather, which I think is a crock because that's Aunt Lish's basket!!), and she promptly blew up her diaper. You have to give her credit for all the effort she puts into it, though.

Is that a pacifier in your mouth, or are you just happy to see me?!

Anna has more or less figured out the pacifier.















She also smiles.















Coincidence? I think not.