Sunday, April 28, 2013

I love this kid

Aaaaand we're back (said like this):
Where to begin?
Scarlett will be 12 weeks old on Tuesday but it's insane how much older she feels. She's so chatty and enjoys trying to stand (on our hands) and trying to sit up. Crazy kid. I swear, in the last week she has grown up so much! She's even more alert than before, if that's possible, and she's just a smiley ball of fun and sunshine. Today she sat on my lap while we had Dr. Seuss palooza and she actually sat and listened and liked it. I couldn't get her to do that just 2 weeks ago. Le sigh. (And now I can't get "Gox box socks" out of my head.) I'd be seriously depressed if this phase wasn't so much fun!

So we just got back from spending 10 lovely days visiting my family. My sister was in town from Minnesota with her little man and it was a great time filled with baby squeals and Tangled.

While we were in town, we went to the most fantastical, magical baby consignment sale you ever did see. It was a warehouse crammed with all things baby and if I didn't have an extremely unhappy baby looming over me, I probably would've done some serious damage. But I was on a time crunch and went in on a serious mission for an Exersaucer. I am happy to say that I scored a nice one for 40 bucks and it is officially Scarlett Approved:

"I don't know about this thing, Mama!"

"Oooo is that a butterfly?!"

"It is! That's a butterfly!"

"Helloooo, little butterfly!"

"Silly butterfly!"
What's that? Oh, just the sound of my heart melting to the floor. I'm sooo obsessed with these pictures, it's ridiculous. I want them framed. In every room in my house. Yes, I am absolutely that mom who's totally all about her own kid's cuteness. I happily admit it. Because come on, that is one freakin' cute kid.
More on our trip (and the beach!) soon!

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Pssst! It's me!

Dearest readers (of whom I like to think I have and appreciate greatly!),
We've been on hiatus over here, visiting family and getting weird sun burns (For serious, who burns a stripe on to their forehead? Certainly not me). We'll be wrapping up our 10ish(I think?) day visit this weekend. I have oodles to share when we get back including munchkin's first trip to the beach! *Spoiler alert--wardrobe changes were involved. Don't judge.
So if you're a sucker for adorable beach bum baby pictures and tales of unbelievable sales, stick around :)

--the person in charge around here
....who still can't believe she's in charge of a mini person
(Seriously, who decided that was ok?)

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Boiling duckies and assorted good(and not so good)ness

Okay, good stuff first--so much exciting stuff going on this week!
April 16th--in addition to being my favorite Minnesota man's FIRST birthday (Happy birthday, Charlie Doodlebug!), today my nugget is precisely 10 weeks old. 10 weeks!!! It's crazy, she seems so much older. My chub-a-lub is always alert and checking out the world, whipping around her crazy strong neck, trying not to miss a thing. If I put my palm under her little feets when I'm holding her, she stands herself up and gives me a "Hey mama, get a load of this!!" face. I die. And I need to get pictures of all these fancy tricks!  She has discovered the mirror and she loves checking herself out. This past week we spent a lot of time at my sister's house (she was busy rocking a home birth, bringing my new little nephew into the world. Nah bigs.). She has mirror closet doors in her bedroom and Scarlett could not get enough of them. I think she was a little disappointed when we came home to our much less mirrored apartment. Sorry, baby girl. Since we've been back home the weather has been glorious, so afternoon walks have definitely been in order! Scarlett loves to look at trees so our walks usually involve me splitting time between narrating the trees and cracking up at her reactions. *Sigh* so. much. cute.
my adorable Little Hip Squeak!
the focus is waaay off (still figuring out my fancy camera) but come on, could she be more cute?!
Now, maaaaajor buzzkill (*salute* Major Buzzkill), we are in the middle of a trifecta of misery. A shitstorm, if you will. As I wrote before, thrush has reared it's ugly head, once again. It's hard to believe that we've been fighting this for almost 8 f-ing weeks now, 6 weeks officially diagnosed. Pretty much her whole little life. EW. My sister's lovely midwife took some time to talk to us about it and her opinion was that one or both of us is dealing with a systemic condition.  Aaaand I'm inclined to agree after doing more research. So basically, I'm on an intense diet and probiotic regimen for the next six weeks that requires me to basically go full-on Paleo. What. Le. Fuck? How the hell does a former vegan do a complete 180 and go Paleo? I guess like this: no carbs, no sugar (including fruit. I might go crazy.), no dairy except plain yogurt, no starchy vegetables. I'd say I need a drink, but those are out of the question too. It's scrambled eggs, salad & veggies, lean meats and tuna on bell peppers for days. And water and green tea like crazy. Ef that shit This should be fun..?

Fun stuff, for reals (sorta): Scarlett loves her little Wubbanub ducky. (Mr. Ducky to us. We're super creative with toy names around here.) Anyways, I realllly needed to blow torch the hell out of the thing til all the thrush on it died boil it, but I couldn't figure out how to do it with out destroying the duck part.
That is, until I actually pulled out the pot:
hehehe clever
just hanging out to dry
This had me and Eric quite entertained last night

But wait, there's more! I said TRIfecta, people.
In addition to thrush, we haaaaave.....teething.
I know, right? In my perfect little world, a 10 week old has NO business teething, but apparently, my 10 week old does.
Scarlett has some chompers coming in and I hate what they're doing to her--grumps galore, fussy from the pain and refusing to nap for more than 15 minutes. My poor baby is so tired and just cannot catch a break.

And, just for funsies, we have (I'm pretty sure) a growth spurt that decided to show up early.
Thrush. Teething. Growth Spurt. Why?
So basically, my baby's mouth is raging, but all she wants to do is eat for ages at a time. It's making her soooo tired but all the discomfort is keeping her awake.

In 6 weeks, there is a shot of tequila with my name on it.
Grumpy, uncomfortable, poor baby.
Frazzled, sleepy, hungry mommy.
Check, please.
Hoping the rest of the week is kinder to my sweet babe!

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Why yesterday sucked and yesterday was awesome.


So yesterday started out nah-so-hot. Baby girl woke up at 4. Okay, different from our usual 5, but no big deal. Then she looked at  me with a look that said, "Hey mama, guess what? I don't want to sleep this morning!" Ugh. After fruitlessly trying to get this nugget back to sleep, I gave up around 5:45, flipped on the lights and grabbed the rattle for some playtime. After fussing for an hour, her little face lit up into a huge gummy smile. How can you be mad when you have big ol' eyes smiling at you saying, "Oh thank you, mama! I just want to play!" So what started out crappy got cute pretty fast.

Once Eric woke up, I handed her off to make breakfast. I was talking to him from the kitchen when we realized she was following our whole conversation like a ping pong match. Seriously, hilarious! We tried to keep talking, but we couldn't stop laughing.

Throughout the day, Miss Thing decided she was also anti-nap. Her little routine she usually falls into is something like: up for the day between 7:30 and 9, 45 minute cat nap an hour and a half after waking up, play for 2 hours, looooong afternoon nap (like, 3, sometimes 4 hours), cat nap, bed. Nothing doin'. It was 30 minute cat naps all the way. Basically as soon as I thought she was good and asleep, I'd put her down and *BING* wide awake. Needless to say, not much got done around the apartment.

Then, fit hit the shan again--guess who's back? (back again)
Thrush. Ew. We've been clear for over a week! Almost two! Nope. It's back and all over my baby's upper lip. Soooooo basically, Smurf mouth has made a comeback.

Later on we took a walk and Eric was telling me a story about work. Scarlett was chilling in the Ergo, hanging on his every word. Like, eyes bugging out (even more than usual), glued to his face with a "What happens next, Daddy?!!!" face. Again, we tried to keep talking but we couldn't stop laughing. This kid is just so adorably nosy!
These eyes! I melt.

But then it was bath time, and Scarlett has figured out....the splash! Oh yeah, it's cuteness overload! She gets so excited and froggy kicks a frenzy. Sure, Mama was soaked afterwards, but it was totally worth it. I love watching her figure out her likes and dislikes, and bath time is a big, fat LIKE.

So yeah, add all this in with a great 2 month check up the day before (officially 12lbs. and 24 freakin inches long! 90th and 95th percentiles, respectively. Yeeeaaahhh buddy.) We had a pretty happy crummy day.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

You wanna do something fun?

I had a baby.
My body looks like I had a baby.
It's funny, I thought that fact would be a bit more....traumatic. Before this babe, I always had (everybody's favorite) that extra five-ish pounds to lose. Legitimately, not in a Regina George "I really wanna lose 3lbs." sort of way.
And I have to admit, I got pretty lucky. Most of my pregnancy cravings were for fruit, so I didn't gain too much and breastfeeding brought me back to my pre-prego size (not a number to write home about in the first place) in a few weeks. No all-carb diets needed. But daaayummm things have changed. That's right--a TWO syllable damn. That's when you know, (all together now) shit is real.
What the hell is with the hips I now have on my box-y body? My stomach looks...sad. No really, if you look at it just right, I'm pretty sure you could see a saggy sad face in there. And, let us not forget, the crowning glory, le stretchmarks. No, they don't make me feel "womanly empowered" or like a "tiger" or warm and fuzzy or any crap like that. They make me feel like I have stretch marks. They're there. I've got 'em, and anyone who says I should love them, I've got two words for you:


Yeah, things are, shall we say, scary as all hell different, and I'm actually fine with it. I thought the whole "losing my body" thing would be more devastating but I really just don't have time to be devastated. Sure I try to watch what I eat (not at baby showers on yesterday afternoons where cupcakes and cookies abound, but let's not go there). I sneak in some crunches and cardio whenever I can, but I'm not even able to obsess over it like my silly (and pretty damn fit) former self. I'm working on it, but I've got a squishy baby to obsess over and I don't want to waste this precious short time staring at my scale. I don't have to like it (I'm looking at you, stretchmarks), but I can, in a weird way, appreciate it. I look in the mirror and say, "You grew a sturdy, almost 9lb. baby! Good job, you."

So muffin top be damned! I should be doing my ab circuit right now, but I've got a snuggle bunny sleeping on my chest and I have no intention of moving her.

P.S.--ten points and a high five to whoever can finish the quote in the title.