84th in What?!

Emma can be a real jerk sometimes. I'll be holding her and she'll be looking all sweet and adorable, then suddenly she's trying to rip my throat out. Or squeeze my cheek off. Or she'll start punching or slapping me in the chest. Sometimes she'll even grab my chest with one hand, the side of my upper arm with her other hand, and proceed to bite my shoulder. For no apparent reason. 

*sigh* but this evil baby is certainly something else. She had her nine-month well-child exam on 4/9... I had noticed recently (maybe I mentioned it in my last blog post? Can't remember) that she seemed to be a lot taller all of the sudden. And yep, I was right- she was in the 84th percentile for height. Eighty fourth. For those of you who know me in real life, you know that height is not something I ever excelled at. Spelling, yes. Being tall, no. And hubby is average height for a dude... I won't go into detail because my dad will pretend he's mad at me for saying my family is short... but my family is short. Now, clearly this doesn't mean that Emma will be a behemoth when she's an adult because I was reasonably tall for my age as a young child. I just stopped growing around... eighth grade? Ya.

She weighed in at 19.6 pounds (the .6 I believe is 6/10 of a pound, not six ounces) which is in the 61st percentile. So my short fat baby is now a tall kind-of-fat baby. I still have to take extra care to wash in between her folds and rolls in the bath so that they don't get cheesy, so I'm pretty sure she's still really fat, 61st percentile or not. And her head was in the 31st percentile, but it's still too big for her little body, as is typical for infants. Her head has always been on the small side, though, and I guess that's not a bad thing. As long as there's enough room for a big enough brain so she can be a doctor when she grows up...

I am so grateful that she has fallen into a fabulous schedule lately, especially with how (literally) insane my job has been over the last few months. My saving grace has been that Baby Bird has been sleeping entirely through the night for a while now. If I was still having to get up in the middle of the night, fix a bottle, change the baby, feed the baby, rock the baby, and put the baby back in bed again, I think someone would have had to Baker Act me by now. But her scheduled, which is subject to change with no notice, has been: wake up sometime between 7 and 8am, feed herself an 8oz bottle, playtime/ride to meet grandma or to Grammy and Pop's house, breakfast at about 9:30, 10:30- 4oz bottle and naptime. She usually wakes up around 12, then has lunch, plays, has a 4oz bottle and nap around 2:30. She sleeps until about 4:30 or 5, then another bottle and playtime. Dinner at 6:30 (if I'm home by then, which I rarely am these days), bath at 7:30, bed at 8. Repeat.

So mixed into that nice little schedule is a lot of shrieking, grumping, and babbling. I can't get over how crazy she is... she decided to try to see how loud she could scream today. I'm not even kidding- I watched her holding a plastic ring (from one of those stacking ring toys) in her Pack n Play and she started screaming at it like it had insulted her mother (which, it didn't). Then she started screaming louder. Then louder. And just when I thought she couldn't scream louder, she did. And then screamed even louder again. All at this poor red ring which I'm fairly certain did nothing to deserve that kind of verbal abuse. 

I think my neighbors think we're abusing this poor child. We're not. But it probably sounds like we are.

For some reason, she still hates eating lunch and dinner. And I'm being completely serious and somewhat facetious at the same time when I say that trying to figure out how to properly feed my kid solid foods has been more difficult than when I took pre-calc in high school. There's no consistency in information on the web- some sights say to feed her 4tbsp of cereal AND a jar/tub of baby fruit/veggies per meal. Others say 1-2tbsp of each. Emma will gladly eat a whole container of yogurt or about 2tbsp of cereal and 1/2- 3/4 of a jar of fruit in the morning. Lunch time is a struggle and sometimes she doesn't want to eat anything you put in front of her. Same with dinner. Although this weekend, she did a little better and actually gobbled down her veal (I call it veal, but it's not. It's jarred beef baby food. Which equals baby beef. Which equals veal. The end.) and green beans for dinner two nights in a row. I couldn't get her to eat her green beans for lunch today, though. Hmph. For dessert tonight (she actually never gets dessert. That's not why she's fat. She's just fat because she's fat, and she's a baby) she had some apple cinnamon flavored baby puffs. I was worried that they were too big and she'd choke on them so I broke them into pieces and let her play with them. When the pieces are so small, she doesn't quite get the fact that she can put them in her mouth and eat them. Instead, she usually just picks them up and plays with them. But tonight, she figured it out and ate a piece all by herself. I gave her progressively larger pieces until I gave her a full sized puff, then held my breath in anticipation of her swallowing it whole and choking to death. But alas, she chewed the darned thing like a big girl and eagerly awaited the next one. So it would appear that my little crazy animal can start moving on to some big-kid food and table food instead of all of this pureed baby food nonsense. Of course, she'll still have plenty of that too. I have a pantry full of baby food now :)

I've been feeling very grateful this weekend. Aside from being exhausted, that is. We had a busy weekend of shopping... can I just say that I'm tired of spending money? I'm serious. After the down payment on the new house, we still had to buy a new washer, dryer, refrigerator, garage door opener, breakfast nook table/chairs, end table, rugs, shower curtains, door mats, ceiling fans, mini fence for the backyard for the dog, security system, and various bits and pieces of things here and there. Oh, and Emma is transitioning into her 12-month clothes, of which she doesn't have much. So I bought her a whole new wardrobe this weekend, and that was actually the fun part. Now she has a few drawers full of new clothes and I cannot wait until she wears each new outfit. Since we're only having one child, I'm so glad to have my girl. Shopping for girl clothes is insanely fun. It is a little bittersweet to start shopping in the toddler section of the stores now and to see that she can wear two-piece jammies at night now, because they sell those in 12m size. And that I can't find too many onesies in her size either, because most of the 12m stuff is separates, just like big-kid clothing. 

So while I'm trying not to be broke, I'm soaking in my surroundings and being grateful for what I have. And whom I have. Specifically, a husband who cooks and does dishes every night. ;)

I've been reading over my old blog posts lately and it's an amazing reminder of how much things change in just a few months. Every time I find myself getting frustrated, I remember the days when Emma refused to nap in her crib or would be up every couple of hours every night and I think darnit, 90210. This really isn't that bad! Stop whining! I mean, jeez. I used to rock her and bounce her in my arms for what seemed like an eternity while she calmed down enough to sleep. Every. Night. Now, I feed her, rock her for a few minutes (depending on how drowsy she is and how difficult it is for me to let her go for the night), put her in her crib, and let her babble/kick/wiggle/clap herself to sleep. 

My last saving grace- no teeth. I can't even begin to describe the stress I've been enduring at work lately. So add to my ever-growing list of things that would cause me to have a psychotic break: teething. Thank you, Emma, for not having any teeth yet. They can wait for a few more months, right? Please?!

Well, Look at Those Big Blue Eyes

I can't come up with the words to adequately describe the last few weeks of my life. Hectic? Doesn't even begin to cover it. Stressful? Close, but no cigar. The week before Easter will live in infamy in my life for a long, long time. It'll be the litmus test of any horrible week I may experience during the rest of my career- "this week sucks so bad... oh, but wait. It's still not as bad as that week." I'll leave it at that. Just know that my job has been beyond anything I've ever experienced and my confidence is shaken. Not a comfortable feeling for this gal.

It's absolutely absurd how much changes in such a short period of time with a baby. Emma's development kind of plateaued for a while, with her managing to learn to roll from tummy to back (out of pure necessity and her incredible hatred of being on her tummy. She still has yet to roll from back to tummy because she has no desire to do so) and then being content with her life from that point forward. Until the worst week of my life came around, when she decided that mommy at least needed something good to happen. She started clapping on 3/26 and babbling on 3/29. And, of course, both of these things happened while daddy was home with the baby and mommy was at work :( but luckily daddy was kind enough to video tape her clapping and I got to hear her babbling while on the phone with hubby. This weekend, she learned how to make kissy sounds with her mouth. Next up: cartwheels.

So let me just say that there is nothing more adorable than a fat little baby blowing raspberries, clapping her fat little hands, saying "dadadadada" and making kissy sounds with her mouth all in the span of about two minutes. Seriously- there's nothing more adorable. I assure you. She keeps me entertained, that's for certain, and the really big new development is that she actually wants to entertain us and tries to interact with us as much as she can. Blow a raspberry at her, and she'll blow one right back at you. Make kissy sounds, get kissy sounds in return. She also tries to interact with her toys and the dog. She'll sit in the bathtub and babble at her rubber duckies, or lecture the dog as she walks by.

And she still squeals. Loudly. Usually with a toy in her mouth, and mostly just for the hell of it. It's just as cute as almost everything else she does, except for when you're sitting in a restaurant and you clearly cannot communicate to Emma that she needs to be quiet. Because she's a baby. She doesn't understand. Luckily said restaurant was just Steak n Shake, so there were children everywhere and the only person who seemed to care about my screaming baby was some lady at the table next to us who seemed to just be miserable with her life in general. Yep. I had my first "I don't care if you're bothered by my child. If you wanted a quiet meal, you should have gone to Olive Garden, lady" moment. I mean, really. Emma wasn't that loud, and she wasn't upset either. She was just so excited to be sitting up like a big girl at the table while surrounded by a whole bunch of people and noise. It was her contribution to the ambiance.

I bought one of those fancy shmancy shopping cart covers so we could start taking Emma shopping sans stroller. I picked out the fanciest shmanciest one I could find, with little pillows on either side of her for maximum support and comfort. Our first trip with the cart cover was to Big Lots (yay.) and I couldn't stop smiling at how excited Emma was to be able to look around the store and see everything. She was the same way at JoAnn Fabrics. And today, she and I went shopping with her Grammy (my stepmother-in-law) and I was so proud of my sweet little Baby Bird and how good she was. I think we spent about an hour and a half to two hours in the store today and she didn't grump a single time. She just played with her toys, ate my hands, and watched everything around her. She just loves being in a shopping cart. I just happen to love shopping. Except for clothes shopping. Bleh. (because I can never find anything that actually fits me)

So now that she's been making appearances in public more often lately, I've noticed that everyone says something about her eyes. I don't need to point out that she has big eyes. It's obvious from her pictures. But in real life, her eyes twinkle with curiosity and happiness and draw you right in. The first thing that people say is along the lines of "look at those big blue eyes!" or "you have such pretty eyes!" It's always the eyes. People did that to me as a kid- I had bright blue eyes when I was little that slowly turned to green (fun fact! Green is the most rare of the common eye colors) so everyone was constantly commenting on my eyes when I was young and occasionally as an adult. But Emma's eyes are not only a pretty color, but they're huge. And huge eyes on a baby is the darned cutest thing ever. Google Kewpie Dolls. That's my girl.

Sleep: ah, sleep. She's been sleeping for 11-12.5 hour stretches every night for about a month-ish now. Maybe longer? I can't remember exactly when it started because I was in denial for the first few weeks and thought she'd revert to night wakings on any given day, so I wasn't counting on it continuing. But it has... and I'm so grateful, especially with the kind of weeks I've had recently (I don't think I've worked less than 45 hours per week in the last month and a half). So at an actual age of about 7 months and an adjusted age of about 5 months, I think that's a pretty good routine to have. With no parent-led scheduling! Well... mostly. We've tried to have a somewhat consistent bedtime for her since she was about three months of age, but that never actually stayed too consistent. My schedule is pretty erratic and she spends time with two different sets of grandparents during the week... and there was also a time change thrown in there. So she's been going to bed anywhere between 7:30 and 9:30 over the last month or so. But her own little schedule has emerged, with a wake up time of 7:30am, nap around 10:30 or 11 (if she spends the day with grandparents because she'll nap in the car on the way so her morning nap is a little later than normal) and another nap at about 2:30. She's a champ now.

The thing that hasn't stayed very consistent is the method of getting her to sleep. For a few weeks, she was finally letting me rock her to sleep in her rocker, then I could gently put her in her crib and sneak away while she continued to sleep. Then, suddenly, she wouldn't let me rock her to sleep and I had to put her in her crib and let her kick/fuss/grunt/babble/clap/break dance herself to sleep for her naps and at bedtime. I usually like to sit in her nursery until she's asleep but she kept turning herself in her crib so she could look at me, then she'd try to entice me to pick her up by clapping her hands ("see mommy, I'm cute! Come play with me!"). When that didn't work, she'd squeal a few times, When that didn't work, she'd start to get angry and cry and yell at me. Solution? Put a blanket up on the end of the crib to block her view of me. That worked like a charm... until this afternoon, that is. There I sat, getting my Pinterest fix for the afternoon while sitting in the glider listening to Emma entertain herself in her crib. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement, and looked at her crib in time to see the blanket slowly being pulled into the crib by none other than Emma. I tugged back so the blanket didn't actually fall into the crib, and she tugged harder. Fine. No more blanket. I pulled it all the way off and put it on the floor, at which point Emma saw me and smiled and squealed. So I left the room so she could calm down and sleep... after some anger and fussing, she finally calmed down and took a nap. Sheesh! But tonight, she let me rock her to sleep again :)

So the only thing that's predictable about having a baby is that everything is unpredictable. Every. Single. Thing.

Food: Of course, my fat kid is a finicky eater. She'll gladly have a full bottle of formula, but she isn't always the biggest fan of eating solids. Breakfast is usually better than lunch and dinner, so I guess she takes after me in that way. I love breakfast. Anyways, sometimes she'll eat like she's starving, and other times she purses her lips from the first bite and refuses to eat anything. We had some jars of stage 2 1/2 carrots that were a little more lumpy than stage 2 carrots, but she gagged every time I tried to give her some, so she has remained on the stage 2 foods. Tonight, I decided to break up a rice rusk death cookie* into small pieces to see if she'd eat it. She preferred to just pick up the little pieces with her fingers and examine them (I can't get over how good she is with her hands. When her Grammy picks her up, she zeros in on Grammy's thin white gold necklace and grabs it with a pincer grasp like it's no big deal) and then drop them on the floor. I put a piece in her mouth, expecting her to immediately gag, but nope. She chewed it like it was a piece of bubble gum and smiled at me. I gave her more, and she gagged a little on the bigger pieces, but she chewed and ate them with few issues. I then mashed up some of the sweet potato I had on my plate for dinner and gave her that to play with and eat. Again- much different texture than pureed baby sweet potatoes, which is one of her favorite foods. She ate that like a champ, too. She gagged a few times on them also, but overall she did a fabulous job with her first introduction to non-pureed foods. Hooray fat kid!

*rice rusk death cookies. Ugh. Someone at work showed me some rice rusks that her granddaughter was eating. They're basically a crunchy wafer-like cookie (? biscuit? apparently that's why they're called a 'rusk'- they're not really a cookie, but not really a biscuit. Just a rusk.) for babies that dissolve relatively quickly in a baby's mouth. I remembered a friend giving them to their child in the past, so I thought, what the heck, she'll probably love them. And she did. Until I ripped the rusk from her little baby hands after she bit off a piece and almost choked on it. Like a good mom, I decided to give her the death cookie back one more time because certainly that was a fluke. And she bit off another chunk, causing my hand to go flying into her mouth to wrestle the rusk away from her esophagus before she died.
Ok, that was a bit of hyperbole there. But she did bite the rusk a couple of times and I had to get it all out of her mouth before she swallowed and choked and she did gag once or twice too, which is nothing new.

Things Emma likes:
blowing raspberries
bubbles
red Solo cups
standing up
TV
tags
pulling grass out of the ground
ripping paper towels
slapping mommy
clapping

Things Emma does not like:
diaper changes (it's like changing a baby kangaroo)
having a onesie pulled over her head
being put in her pack n play when she's tired
having her head washed in the bath
having her mouth wiped after eating
having anything on her head- a hat, headband. etc.
sippy cups

The End.