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...

Happy Star Wars Day!

Another geek holiday nearly passed without comment, and for that I am sorry.

But I made it in just under the wire, so unto you I say, "May the 4th be with you!"

An old picture, yes, but no less cute for the waiting.

Also, to dork it up further, I think I'm wearing a Green Lantern t-shirt.

Resplendent in Her Easter Finery, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bonnet

If you recall, LG had roughly 4 bajillion different outfits for Christmas. It was her first major holiday, and we may have gone a bit overboard. Maybe.

Easter, it turns out, didn't have quite as much variety. (Not for lack of trying. We went to the Limerick outlets and looked at what felt like 4 bajillion Easter dresses.) But what we lacked in quantity, we made up for in quality, at least as far as pictures were concerned.

So without further ado, and precious little additional commentary, I present Little G's Easter photo shoot.

Much appreciation to my mom for just happening to have a selection of straw hats and ribbon that was an eerily perfect match for LG's dress. (Seriously though, who keeps eight straw hats on hand for emergencies? My mom. That's who.)

The conversation went something like this:
Hollie: We're happy with the dress we bought her, but I really wish we had time to buy an Easter bonnet. It would really complete the outfit.
My Mom: Would one of these do? (Nearly a dozen hats of varying size appear out of the ether and land on the table in front of Hollie.)
Hollie: Umm... yes. This could work.

We didn't have any particular plan for taking posed pictures this weekend, but when we decided to use the freshly mowed lawn behind my parents house, we realized the perfect accessory was this little lamb that Hollie's parents had given LG the day before. Just awesome.

So there you have it. Cutest Easter ever? I might be a little biased, but yeah, I think so.

Strange Tales in Kiddie Lit: The First in a Series

As I've previously noted, LG really enjoys books.
And we really like reading to her. Before every nap, and before bedtime, we read at least one story, which means we've read a lot of stories more than a few times. As you read these stories over and over, you start to notice things.

Like the fact that a lot of kids' books are weird.

Seriously strange, as a matter of fact.

Sometimes it's just poor writing. Take Danny and the Dinosaur, for example. It's a perfectly fine book, to be sure. In a nutshell, it's a fantasy about a young boy who visits a museum, meets a dinosaur, then spends the day adventuring around his town with the titular dinosaur.

Setting aside for a moment any problems about whether or not dinosaurs are alive now, or able to talk, or resemble sauropods who walk upright, there's some strange goings-on here. And it's mostly the fault of the words the author has chosen. What am I talking about?

A little setup for this picture: Danny and the Dinosaur are visiting the zoo, which is a lot of fun, not just for them, but the other zoo patrons as well. Too much fun, in fact, as the Dinosaur is so distracting, no one is paying attention to the other animals. And then this happens:
I realize this is a First Reader book, but page 38 features some pretty strange language, by any measure. Tell me, is "Please go away so people will look at the animals again" really that much harder to read? I'm not a huge stickler for not ending sentences with prepositions, but that's some awkward construction.

To say nothing of the fact that this admonishment comes from a "zoo man." Zoo man? Not Animal Trainer, not Caretaker, not--for crying out loud-- Zookeeper?

I try to imagine the conversation that might've occurred between the author, Syd Hoff, and his editor. Maybe it went something like this:

Syd Hoff: I'm writing this dinosaur book, and I'm stuck on the part about the place with all the animals. What's the name of the place with all the animals?
Editor: That'd be a zoo, Syd.
Syd Hoff: Right, right... who runs that place, the place with all the animals?
Editor: That'd be the Zoo Man, Syd.
Syd Hoff: Great. That's why I keep you around, Word Fixing Man.

Okay, so maybe I'm being a bit hard on a book for little kids. It really is a fun book, and we like it a lot. We actually picked our copy up at a yard sale, because it's tough to find an older copy in good condition online.

But this next book... it's hard to find the words to describe the weirdness on display here, but I'll try.

Goodnight Moon, a beloved classic, sure. For me, the illustrations in general are a little unsettling, but your mileage may vary.

Aside from the general creepiness of the book, I have a some specific issues with the bunny family depicted therein. Both of my problems can be found on this spread:
Any guesses as to what I'm talking about? Take a look at the lower right portion of the picture, under the little bunny's bed.
These nice, pleasant, peaceful looking bunnies have what appears to be a tiger skin rug in their child's room. Setting aside the unpleasantness of a skinned animal in a kid's room, how on earth did these bunnies get a tiger skin rug? Exactly what kind of bunnies are these, anyway?

Creepy bunnies, as evidenced by my next point. In a story that points out nearly every aspect of a child's room (including a bowl full of mush), it's interesting what the author chooses to leave out. First, she leaves out the tiger skin rug. Then she leaves out this little gem.Seriously. That just happened.

What on earth is going on in this picture? Calling it like I see it, there appears to be a enormous bunny--decked out in waders and a bait pouch--fly fishing. Except he's not catching fish. He's catching a smaller, stream-dwelling bunny. That, my friends, is messed up.

In truth, it's not hard to understand why Margaret Wise didn't describe this painting in the text of the book. Look at the other pictures. Cow jumping over the moon? Easy to describe. Three little bears sitting on chairs? Couldn't be simpler. But a cannibalistic, fly-fishing lagamorph who appears to have knocked over a tree for some reason?

I'd be at a loss, too.

Spaced Out

I'm not much of an astronomy nerd, but I love space. Could be my deep and abiding love for Star Trek, or just sci-fi in general, but I get excited about the possibility of space travel, even though I won't live to see the day an ordinary guy can take a trip to the moon.

But that doesn't mean I can't celebrate exciting events in space history. This week (on LG's 7-month birthday, in fact) marks two separate space travel milestones. On April 12, 1961, a Russian cosmonaut named Yuri Gagarin was the first man to travel in space. Twenty years later, on April 12, 1981, NASA launched space shuttle Columbia, the first reusable space vehicle.

Adding to the excitement this week, NASA announced which museums would receive the three retiring space shuttles. Shortly after that announcement, Sotheby's auctioned off a Russian space capsule that sent a dog and a mannequin in a flight suit into space and back again. Safely.

It's a good week to be a fan of space. And I'm celebrating the only way I know how. Doing silly things on Twitter. Check out the feed to the right of the blog, or visit my feed directly at http://twitter.com/SolvingForG.

I promise more pictures like this one of LG in her reusable spaceship:

Belated Six Month Update

LG turned six months old 12 days ago, and her six-month checkup was just last week. She clocked in at 26.75 inches and 15 lbs., 5 oz. For those keeping track at home, that puts her about 1.25 inches longer than her four-month visit, and 1 lb., 14 oz. heavier.

And you feel every ounce, too! It's weird. I can hold her for a lot longer now than when she was first born, and I don't get the intense shoulder pain. BUT there's a consistent dull ache around my shoulder all the time. I'm guessing rotator cuff strain, but who knows?

You wouldn't think another 1.25 inches would make much difference, but she's grown out of nearly every article of 3-6 month clothing we have, and most 6-9 month stuff, too. And it's increasingly obvious she's getting too big for the bouncy seat. R.I.P. bouncy seat. You served us well.

Regarding percentiles, which I have lately begun to realize I'm not obsessed with anymore, she's actually dropped from the 95th to 85th percentile in length. Now in any given group of 100 6-month old babies, there are 15 kids longer than her instead of five. However, she's also dropped within the weight percentile as well, from 50th to 35th. She's long and lean, so it's really nothing to worry about, but we have increased the number of solid meals she gets every day from one and a half (sort of) to three full meals. We were planning on doing that after we hit six months (and a larger variety of available food) anyway. She doesn't mind. She's loved solid food ever since we started a week after her 4-month visit.

Her diet is becoming more varied, too. One of these days I'll get a post up about making baby food, but in the meantime, here's a list of what she's eating up to this point.

Carrots
Yams
Rutabaga
Squash
Cauliflower
Parsnip
Banana
Pear
Apple
Rice Cereal
Oatmeal

We tried peas early on, but we were concerned they may have been responsible for an allergic rash on her face. Granted, at that time, a different rash seemed to pop up twice a week, regardless of what else was going on, so it may not have been related. I'm giving peas another shot this week. So far, so good. We also attempted apricots, but they were too darn sour. It's the only thing she's out and out refused to eat after the first bite or two.

The doctor says meat is okay now, so my plan for this Saturday is developing a palatable chicken puree. I've also got mango waiting in the wings, and I hope to get some green beans finished soon as well. Oh, and there is a beet puree in the freezer that I made when I was feeling really adventurous, but I think we're going to hold off a while on that.

That hits the highlights for 6-months, I think.

Oh, right. She had a tooth pop through her bottom gums two and half weeks before she turned six months, and a second one finally broke through the day after the doctor's visit. She can really gnaw the heck out of an apple slice now.

It looks kind of like this.

Tweetle Beetle Puddle Paddle Battle (Happy Birthday, Dr. Suess)

I'm getting this in about three hours under the wire, at least on the East Coast, but I wanted to take this time to commemorate what would be the 107th birthday of Theodor Suess Geisel.

I loved to read growing up, in no small part because my dad spent a lot of time reading to me. We read a lot of things, but I fondly remember Bartholomew and the Oobleck, The Lorax, and The Sneetches.

Hollie and I read to LG before every nap, before bedtime, and even during times not designed to make her sleepy. Hollie alluded to her love of Dr. Suess and Sandra Boynton in her earlier post, and although Boynton has her place, for my money, you just can't beat Dr. Suess. I'm hoping that all the reading we do now is setting her up to enjoy it as she gets older.

LG won't sit still for the long books just yet, like The Lorax, but the short stories and early readers are just fine. My personal favorite at the moment is Fox in Socks. I love those tongue twisters. I find that the faster you read them, the easier it gets. Or at least the better it sounds. Either way, LG seems to enjoy it.
She also likes Mr. Brown Can Moo! She reads it in her bouncy seat.

She reads it when she's got pink feet.

She reads it when she's laying down.

She reads it when she's... ah crap. This is harder than it looks, and I'm out of pictures.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Dr. Suess! You were way better at this than I am!