They Grow Up So Fast

The title above is clearly going to apply to a lot of posts from here on out, so I'll just use it now and get it out of the way.

But it really does feel like she's made massive developmental strides in the last few weeks. In the day or two before her 9-month doctor's appointment, she started clapping, waving, and high-fiving. And a day or two after the appointment, she was pulling herself up to a standing position by grabbing our hands. A few days after that (and every day since), all she wants to do is this:



And that was 2 weeks ago. She's much better at it now.

Yesterday, she stood up by herself in her kiddie pool, which was all the more impressive because she was standing in 3 inches of water.
And this morning, after moaning in her crib for a few minutes before her nap, she decided to start crying. When this happens, we usually let her go for a little while, and most times, she stops after a few minutes and falls asleep. This time, it went on for some time, and when I went to check on her (and her diaper, which is usually the problem if she won't calm down), I was greeted by something that looked like this:
Except significantly less happy. Little bugger had pulled herself up all on her own. I have no idea how much of the whining was done from a standing position. One clear instance where a video monitor would've been worthwhile.

I should note three things about the above picture. First, it was staged. I stood her up and she just held on. Second, it was taken more than a month ago. Third, I lowered the crib base about six-inches right after I took the picture. So when she pulled herself up this time, she wasn't nearly as high above the railing.

Physical stuff aside, she's really babbling away now, too. She seems to be naming things, although at this point, everything is "Ba!" Points at a ball? "Ba!" Points at a ring? "Ba!" Points at the dog? "Ba!"

And speaking of rings, she's a pro at the Rock-a-Stack. For a while, as with all her toys, she was much more into taking them apart or knocking them over than putting them back together again. Now, though, she carefully puts the rings back on the post, unless my foot is nearby, then she puts a ring on my big toe. Still... Progress!

Granted, all this progress comes with a price. As I said in a recent Tweet, she'll (hopefully) never have fewer teeth than she has now. She'll never walk less than she does now. She'll never be the lump who didn't smile at me when I held her.

I think I can live with that.

Update: I forgot one other thing that this little girl has decided she's big enough for. She has to feed herself. Even if it means spitting food out so she can be the one to shovel it back it. You can see how well that worked out yesterday.
I guess I got my beet mess after all.

Status Update: 9 Months

I took Little G to the doctor's office this past Thursday for her 9-month checkup. Just so this milestone doesn't go unremarked upon, here, in no particular order, are the things that I learned at this visit.

1. There is no one in the doctor's office at 12:45 pm on a Thursday. We were literally the only people in the waiting room for almost 10 minutes. This is apparently a regular occurrence. So much so that they had turned out the lights because no one needed them.

2. I am now old enough that it's not just the physician's assistants that look young. The doctors are also starting to look younger than me.

3. LG is 19 lbs, 1 oz, or at the 54th percentile for weight. Up from the 35th percentile at her 6-month checkup.

4. LG is 28 1/4 inches long, or at the 75th percentile for height. This is down from 85th percentile at her 6-month checkup. I contend, however, that the physician's assistant under measured by at least 1/4 inch, so it's likely she's closer to that 85th percentile.

5. LG's head circumference is 44 centimeters, or at the 50th percentile. I don't know why they measure this, and I don't recall the measurement from 6-months, beyond the fact that she's been exactly at 50th percentile since she was born. I also don't know why they take the measurement in centimeters rather than inches. Seems weird to use a different unit of measure for head circumference than length/height. Of note, the physician's assistant doesn't know why either. She had only written "44" in that space on her sheet, and when I asked why she used centimeters, she checked her tape measure to make sure that's what she was using in the first place.

6. LG doesn't even flinch if you give her one shot. She will, however, scream if you prick her finger for a blood test. But this will only last for as long as the doctor is squeezing her finger.

7. When the doctor puts a small Band-aid on your daughter's finger, then tells you to make sure she doesn't put it in her mouth, don't nonchalantly say "I got this" then allow your focus to stray. Because rest assured, your daughter will remove and eat the Band-aid.

8. Crawling is not a milestone, and your doctor doesn't care if your kid can do it. Well, that's not exclusively true. The doctor did ask, but she then told me it doesn't matter. Walking, sure, but crawling, not so much. I don't know why this isn't considered a developmental milestone. And I was so proud she's finally, sort-of, kind-of doing it.

9. Some shots make your kid sleepy. It's the first time this has happened, but Amelia fell asleep on the ride home from the doctor, about 30 minutes early for her nap. And she slept nearly two hours. I did not mind this.

10. When you have the cutest kid in the doctor's office, the front desk nurses aren't shy about telling you. Sweet.

The Expected June 19th Post

Well, here we are. It's June 19th, so it falls to me to post. I suppose it's expected of me to commemorate this day, so here goes.

Happy Feast Day of St. Hildegrin!

Wait, what? Not what you were expecting? Okay... well then, how about...

Happy World Sauntering Day! You could walk wherever you go today, but think how much more fun you could be having if you were sauntering.

I'm sorry? It's amazing how loud the imaginary shouts of my audience are in my head right now.

Alright, alright. Happy Father's Day!

This day is traditionally about celebrating your own father, and to that end, I'd like to wish my Dad a Happy Father's Day. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that my own ideas about being a father are heavily influenced by my Dad, as it should be. Thankfully, he provided a positive influence, so I feel pretty lucky in that regard.

One specific memory of my Dad spring to mind when I think about being a good father. Dad had a Harry Chapin greatest hits double disc set (this one, I think), and as was typical in our house (and most homes, I'd wager), we listened to what Mom or Dad wanted to listen to. (Side note: I'd be willing to bet that I know more songs by '70's folk rock musicians than the average dude born in 1980. Jim Croce, James Taylor, Jackson Brown, and other people who weren't guys whose names start with 'J' were all in solid rotation.)

The song I remember most off that album is "Cat's in the Cradle. This song -- as you may know, since it was Chapin's biggest hit -- is about a dad who never had time for his son, and by song's end finds that his son doesn't have the time for him. Dad would occasionally get emotional when this song played, and he told me numerous times that when he became a father, he thought about this song, and how he never wanted to be in the position of the singer. He would always have time for his kids. And Dad did. He always listened. He always played catch. He always made time for us (my brothers, too) to do things together. Just in case he doesn't hear it enough: Thanks, Dad.

As to my own Father's Day, it's been pretty good so far. The first thing LG got me was a solid night's sleep (three days in a row! Keep it up, little girl!) It just got better from there. She made a water paint coloring page of Gambit from the X-Men, which I'm told started out with a paint brush, but quickly turned into a game of "make your hands wet, then crumple the paper."

Then she gave me an awesome, original masterpiece that looked like it was a heck of a lot of fun to make. It reminds me of another Harry Chapin song, "Flowers are Red," which is about a little boy who likes to paint flowers using every color of the rainbow. I was always a "color inside the lines as neatly as you can" kind of kid, but I see no reason why my daughter should do the same. Her way is more fun.

The finished product:
Hollie got me a gift that should be as much fun for LG as it will be for me. The Art of Roughhousing: Good Old-Fashioned Horseplay and Why Every Kid Needs It. I look forward to tossing my offspring through the air onto a nearby mattress, as noted by a surprising number of illustrations. Should be springy, but not too springy. I don't want her to bounce too far.

Lastly, Hollie took my first six months of blogging (pre-baby) and had it bound into a book. It's awesome, and does a great job of showing how my mental state has changed since I started this little project. Of note, I took just as many long breaks between posts before LG was born as I do now, so I can't blame the baby for my lack of time.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've whiled away LG's entire naptime, and then some, writing this post. It's my day, and I've got some daddying to do.

Let it Fly in the Breeze and Get Caught in the Trees

Some of you may recognize the irony of this post, given that I'll be giving a fair amount of coverage to something not currently much in my possession, above the ears anyway. But bear with me. While my personal lack of experience in the last decade or so should be evident, that doesn't mean I don't have anything to say on the subject of hair.

Hair is one of those things, like eye color, ear size, or nose shape, that I spent a lot of time thinking about as Little G was percolating. I mean, yeah, given her parents, her hair would probably be brown, her eyes brown or hazel (jury's still out on that one), her ears big, and her nose... well, I'm not sure what her nose is supposed to look like, but it looks just fine as is.

But would she have a lot of hair? Would it be super fine? Curly? Shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen?

The answer, at least initially, was this:
Dark, not terribly thick, but very much there. No bald babies in this house. Pretty typical, actually. (sidebar: you know that joke about how she's got more hair than me? That never gets old. Not even after the 87th person has said it. Yup, always funny... Just keep using it, people.)

But a curious thing happened not long after we brought LG home. Of its own volition, her hair did this:
Her first diaper change after bringing her home, and there it is: the fauxhawk. I would like to reiterate that in this instance, we did not do that on purpose. Apparently, our baby was born with hipster genes.

You might think it was a fluke. I sort of did. But day after day, there it was.
Sometimes smaller, to be sure. And sometimes, it might disappear almost entirely.
But then, the next day, sure enough, we'd get her out of the bassinet, and BOOM! FAUXHAWK!
Now, we have been known to give it a little encouragement. Occasionally, we'll straighten the hawk after bath time.
But most of the time, it needs no help at all.
Little-known fact: you can sneak up on a fauxhawk.
You can also paste it down.
But it will come back. And there's little you can do to stop it.
When you put it that way, it almost seems a little creepy.

If her eyes eventually turn hazel or brown, I'll know where it came from. Her ears are already big, and I know that's from my side of the family. But this fauxhawk? If it's genetic, I'd like to know how many generations it skipped to get here.

Beets: A Study in Anticlimax

When I first started making LG's baby food, I solicited my mother's advice on what foods to try. She made a few suggestions, then said that if I ever tried beets, get ready for the strangest face I'd ever see LG make. Apparently when I was first fed beets, I screwed up my face into such a grimace, my mom never made me eat them again. Not that this sort of thing is hereditary, but I figured LG would do the same thing. I mean, who likes beets, really? (Sidebar: I still hate beets.)

We actually made beets months ago during the first big baby-food-making marathon when LG was 4 months old. I think we did beets, rutabaga, carrots and yams at that point. I later read that due to the high levels of nitrates in beets, you should wait until a baby is 8-9 months old before you give it to them.

So the beets waited at the back of the freezer.

I'd pull them out from time to time when I was rooting around for something else, every time thinking, "oh man, she's gonna hate these things."

Finally, Hollie and I decided it was time to bring on the beets. Today was going to be the day.

I'm not a sadistic person, but there's a small part of me that was looking forward to seeing just how she'd react. Another thing that folks mentioned was just how messy beets are. "Feed the kid in just her diaper! Don't even bother with a bib! Just get ready to hose her down when you're done!" (They are bright red, so much so that Hollie looked like she'd sliced her hand open when she was peeling them initially.) So figured, either way, a big reaction, or a big mess. It was going to be fun!

Want to see how it went? Check it out.



Yeah, mostly she was annoyed that I wasn't feeding her faster. Other than that, nothing. No reaction. In the video, that's just straight beet. In the picture below, I mixed it in with the rest of her food: squash, apple and rice. That's just about the closest I got to a bad reaction.

I mean, sure, it looks like she wasn't thrilled, but she immediate followed up that face with this one.
And do you see that bib? That's exactly how it looked when she was done. This might've been the cleanest meal we've had in days.

In the end, I just built it up too much. I forgot that one of the main things LG does to make me proud is that she eats everything.

Except apricots. Man... now that was a face.

8 Months: State of the Baby

Little G is eight months old today. It's a little bit weird to think that a year ago, we were four months away from becoming parents. It seemed like an eternity to wait. Likewise, eight months ago seems like ages. Time is funny that way.

So where are we now? I figured now was as good a time as any to summarize some non-height-and-weight-related milestones, facts and ephemera, if for no other reason than so I can look back and remember how eight months felt.

Favorites

Favorite toy: Not much question here. Space bee takes it in a walk. She could be surrounded by blocks, LEGOs, stuffed caterpillar, turtle, ball, whatever; and she'll grab that bee egg every time.

Hollie got the egg from work before Easter, and LG just loves the darn thing. Space bee got its name back on this post, because everything was about space that day.

Mr. Potato Head or various Gladware containers are just about the only thing that qualifies as a runner-up in this category, but they still don't hold a candle to space bee.

Favorite book: I consider this a two-way tie for first place. There are two books that she'll almost always quiet down and sit through. The first is Goodnight Moon, which, despite its general creepiness, is just fine. I'm not sure when it started, but even with all the other books we have, Goodnight Moon is almost always the last book we read before bed.

The other book is something we picked up for a buck or two in a bookstore at the Philadelphia Outlets. It's called One Nighttime Sea, and it counts up from one to ten, and back down again, with sea creatures. It has some really neat illustrations, even if a few of them (I'm looking at you, dragonfish and zebra morays) are a bit scary.

Favorite food: I hesitate to even include this, because you can't even pick a favorite out of the crowd here. She loves just about everything we've given her. If anything is surprising, it's just how much she loves spinach. I sauteed it in almost no oil, with a few tiny pieces of minced garlic and water from the garlic jar, and she just scarfs it down. But then, she also does that with mango, chicken, beef, green beans, peas, carrots, yams, squash, parsnip... the list goes on.

Behaviors

Speaking of food, she's recently started picking food up and feeding herself. We started giving her tiny pieces of pita a few weeks ago, and yesterday she was grabbing pieces off her tray and shoving them in her mouth. Her coordination isn't all there yet, but she's getting there. I tried it with cut-up banana this morning, but I neglected to consider just how hard it is to pick up slippery bits of fruit. I've been feeding myself for 30-plus years, and I was having a hard time.

She's been sitting like a champ for a month or so now, even though she still attempts to stand initially when you try to bring her to a seated position from laying down. She barely ever falls over, unless she's really tired.

And rolling? Yeah, she can roll. No more leaving her alone on the bed. Walk away when she's sitting in the living room, and you're liable to return and find her halfway under the couch. And the changing table? You'd never believe a baby could rotate along the Y-axis, but when she's in the mood, she starts spinning like a particularly willful grill spit.

While LG isn't exactly crawling, she certainly gives it her best shot. She's been pushing herself up on her hands and knees for a week or two, but she can't quite seem to move forward.

Backward though? She's got that down. Although that can cause a bit of trouble when you can't see where you're going. For instance, you might accidentally back into a doorway, and not be able to move any farther. Babyproofing, I fear you are going to need to happen sooner rather than later.

As for language, she definitely recognizes her name, and she'll turn her head when you call for her. We're starting to think she understands the words "mommy" and "daddy," although she doesn't say them yet. If you ask where mommy is, she'll turn to look for her. Just don't do that when mommy isn't around; that's just mean.

Her vocabulary of sounds is getting broader, and as soon as she's ready to identify "mama," she'll have the sounds, since "mamamamamama" is her default noise. But she also does "babababa," various vowel sounds, popping noises with her lips, in addition to the ever-popular raspberry.

All in all, she's a pretty amazing kid to watch. She learns something new nearly every day, even if that thing is, "Hey, dandelions are pretty tasty!"

Happy Mother's Day...from Little G's Mother!

Happy Mother's Day!

So, it's my first Mother's Day as a really, real mother, and I'm thinking about what it feels like to be a mother. (Last year was nice in that I knew biologically I was a mother, but I did not have to fight the grapefruit inside me when it was naptime.)

Some women say they felt like a mother when they first found out they were pregnant. I felt great to be sure, but I don't think I felt like a mother. I felt nervous and excited and bit nauseous- but not like a mother.

Some women say they felt like a mother the first time they felt the baby move. It felt cool, but mostly I felt "Was that gas? Am I hungry, again?" and the urge to wiggle around to see if I could make it happen a second time. Still didn't feel like a mother.

Some women say that felt like a mother the first time they saw the baby on the ultrasound. It felt amazing to be able to see a little life growing and moving. Then, she did crazy things like hide behind her hands and throw the goat. It made me laugh, but make me feel like a mother? Not particularly.

A bunch of women say they felt like a mother the first time they saw the baby's face. How did I feel finally seeing this little person that I had been thinking about pretty much non-stop for 38 and half weeks. "Super-stoked" and the admittedly more refined "elated" would definitely make the list. Also on the list: "exhausted," "scared" and "relieved she wasn't an uggo." (I kid, I kid...sort of. Do you think any new mom thinks her kid is not the most beautiful baby in the world? Evolutionarily, it makes sense that despite all outward appearances, every new mom thinks her baby is the Gerber baby. Darwin be damned, Little G was the freakin' cutest newborn ever. For proof, check out the end of the post. INCONTROVERTIBLE PROOF.) But, surprisingly, "like a mother" probably would not.

I've felt like a lot of things over the course of the last 7 and a half months: a 24-hour convenience store, a blanket, a mess, a broken record (of "5 Little Monkeys"), a zombie, a lion tamer, a tissue, a hissing balloon, a carnival ride, a zookeeper, a hammock, a doofus, a jungle gym, a pooper scooper, and a vacuum cleaner. I've also felt lucky, frustrated, amused, tired, amazed, annoyed, and downright happy over the past 7 and half months. And, most of all, I am completely in love with this little baby girl. But do I feel like a mother?

Two weeks ago, Little G gave me my first requested kiss. She was sitting on my lap and giggling as I blew raspberries on her belly ( a favorite pastime). I stood her up on my lap and asked her to give Mommy a kiss. She leaned in and planted a wet kiss right on my cheek and continued to giggle. (Note: a "kiss" at this stage is little different from an attempt to consume my face. An open-mouthed face-to-face smash.) That moment right there was the closest I have come to feeling like a mother. I suppose that as Little G inches closer to becoming a kid instead of an infant, I will inch closer to feeling more like her mom and less like one of her primary caregivers. I think it will speed the process along when the "mamamama" noise she makes all the time really means "mama" and really means me.

Until then, I guess I'll have to just keep loving her and clean the drool off my face from all those kisses.

I mean....seriously, the cutest newborn ever, right?
I love you, Little G. You're the best Mother's Day gift I could ask for.

Though, you're not off the hook, Matt...