Yogi Monster

So here I was thinking it had been a few weeks since my last post... yet Blogger.com just let me know that it's been nearly an entire month. YIKES! So much has happened... where to begin?

Mother's Day! That's a good place to start... Mother's Day was a sensitive subject to me for a little bit. Specifically, Mother's Day 2011 was just downright awful. I had been diagnosed as infertile about two months prior and had three failed cycles of fertility meds- and by "failed," I mean "didn't even come close to working." Add in a baby shower and a Facebook pregnancy announcement and I ended up a sobbing mess in bed that night at the thought of my dreams of motherhood being nothing more than just dreams. Ya... it was that kind of day. So Mother's Day 2013 was my redemption (although last year was pretty awesome too since I was still blissfully pregnant and feeling little flutters and kicks in my cute little belly). It started at about 3am, when my little tater woke up crying. I gave her a minute to see if she'd calm down, but nope. So I went into her room to rescue her leg, because certainly her crib had eaten her again, but I was wrong again. She was lying there on her back with the soles of her feet together in a perfect reclined butterfly pose, for those of you yoga fans out there. She cheesed at me as I slowly backed away from her crib and out of her room, and shut her door just in time for the crying to start again. I gave her another few minutes, but she kept getting more worked up and I surrendered to the thought that this was the beginning of the return of night-wakings. I stumbled into the kitchen- a ritual not too far removed from my memory- to make a bottle and just as I started shaking it, things got very quiet. I looked at the monitor, and that little goober of a baby was falling back asleep. Ugh. I put the bottle in the fridge and turned around to notice a photo frame on the counter with one of Emma's newborn photos in it and a card with "mommy" written on it. I decided that hubby clearly intended for me to open the card in the morning, so I faceplanted into bed and slept until the baby woke up. At which point, hubby jumped out of bed and told me to sleep in. Which I somewhat did, but mostly just relaxed in bed. When I got up, hubby announced that he hadn't made coffee because we were going to Dunkin Donuts. I opened my card, which was incredibly sweet, and admired my new framed photo of my boo-boo. Hubby then let me know that Emma had written me a card too, but she left it in her crib this morning. So I walked into her room, and on the corner of her mattress was a card from my sweet little baby girl. Written in it was a little note stating that Emma had a present for me in the office. I wiped away the tears that were forming in my eyes and went into the office, where a box was sitting on the couch that said "to mommy, love Emma." In it was a necklace with a ruby (Emma's birthstone) heart and diamond angel wings. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. I cried and hugged my two loves. We then indulged in some DND and took the baby to the park... it was a lovely day and I felt so overjoyed. Finally.

Alright. Mushy stuff is done.

Sleep: Still going well! For the last week-ish, my tater has been letting me rock her to sleep before putting her into her crib, which is SO much better than letting her put herself to sleep because that was getting to be a long process at times. A process that included me going into her room and putting her on her back since she decided to roll on her tummy and get pissed off about it. She's not much of a problem solver these days. I absolutely cherish the moments of her sleeping in my arms, and if it wasn't for my own need for sleep and my bad neck, I'd hold her in my arms and stare at her face all night long. Instead, I take about ten minutes or so and study every square inch of her face, her fat little hand, her arm, her hair... sometimes I give her soft little kisses (DON'T WAKE THE BABY!) and breathe in the scent of her freshly bathed baby-soft skin. It's pure bliss. I'm trying to soak up these moments because she's growing up so quickly and I won't be able to hold her while she drifts off to sleep. Sigh.

Food: I set out on this journey into parenthood thinking I'd have a baby who would graciously eat anything and everything, especially vegetables. I ended up with a baby who is extremely finicky and picky and downright fussy at mealtime. Unless you're feeding her some Gerber macaroni and cheese with vegetables, in which case you can't feed her fast enough. She also gags at certain textures still and I'm trying to figure out how to transition this kid into a toddler diet since she's rapidly approaching her first birthday and she's still on stage 2 foods. And puffs. She's a full-blown puff addict. As someone suggested, I've tried thickening her foods with cereal and she's done phenomenally well with it, but it's only proceeded to flare up her chronic constipation again. This poor kid poops like a rabbit most weeks. Her poor little bum. Anyways, I'm keeping track of what she does like and she's eating those foods just fine, so we'll just keep on trucking along and hope that she doesn't end up being a macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets kind of toddler. She's still a yogurt fiend ("yogi-monster" as I typically say) and gladly shared my yogurt with me yesterday morning after she had finished her own breakfast.

Height/Weight: Remember how I said in my last post that she held steady at about 19.5 pounds for about a month? Yea, well she gained two pounds in about one week. And now she's been hovering around 21.5- 22 pounds for a little bit. I think she also got taller, AGAIN. She's fully in 12 month size clothes and we're starting her in size 4 diapers because the 3's are getting too snug. Someone make her stop growing!

Teeth: Still one, but tooth numero dos is starting to peek out from under those gums. She has had some fussy days lately, but has still been sleeping and napping well and chomping on everything. We bought her some flouride-free baby toothpaste and a baby toothbrush, and brushing her tooth is now her favorite part of her nighttime ritual. It's never too early for good dental hygiene, right? My dentist would be so proud.

Mobility: Still not crawling yet, but desperately trying. Within the last few days, she's started being able to stay on all fours for a bit and rock back and forth before diving onto her belly. Her preferred method of getting around is by rolling from tummy to back and back to tummy until she gets where she wants to be. I'm still in no hurry for her to begin crawling. Or walking, for that matter.

The biggest development? HER FIRST WORD. Saturday, May 25- "puppy"
Ok, fine. It was "puh-puh" but it's close enough. She was sitting on the floor and the dog came over for a visit, at which point Emma got extremely excited, squealed, and said "puh-puh" a few times. I chalked it up to coincidence (I have always referred to the dog as Emma's "puppy") and moved on with my day. But then she did it again when she saw the dog. And again. And then when I came home from work the other day, we were greeted at the door by the dog, and Emma looked down, smiled, and said "puh-puh!" She's a genius. I'm going to start filling out college applications for her soon.
I think she may also try to say "baby" but that's up for debate since it comes out "ba-ba" and she tends to say "bababababa" all day long. *shrug*

Emma's current tricks:
Wave
Clap her hands (she's been doing that for a while now)
Give kisses (now she initiates kisses which is seriously the cutest and most amazing thing I've ever experienced in my life)
dance
blow raspberries
pant like a dog (with her nose scrunched up. it's pretty adorable)


The waving is mostly at her own reflection because she's a conceited little diva like that. In fact, when she sees her reflection on anything- mirror, sliding glass door, car window, etc.- she immediately starts babbling at herself, cooing, smiling, and waving. She really needs to get over herself. Heeeeeeheeeeeee just kidding, she's cute.