3 freakin months!

Baby girl is officially 3 months old and is already making Tyra proud. She brought the fierce today in our photo shoot...when she wasn't wondering what that giant, black lens hovering inches from her face was.

Today's ensemble - Totally Appropriate for Protesting the Pope on SNL.

Housecleaning

I'll admit it. When I started this blog, I was more than a little pissy. I wasn't psyched about our move, I was dog tired, my back was already killing me - it was was what, like, 6 weeks into the whole shebang? Even though I was excited about my pregnancy, I felt a basic, black blog seemed the appropriate choice for my mood. The little black dress of templates, if you will. 12 weeks on the otherside, I'm still a little pissy, but not so much, and to celebrate, I felt it was time to spruce things up a bit. (OK - truthfully - the fact that I now actually have readers stopping by made me feel like my poor sweet blog got caught in its skivvies. And now my blog gets to do that montage thing like in teen comedies, where the shy, awkward but totally hot girl gets her braces off and gets a spray tan and does some crunches while her little brother looks on in disgust and then she comes to the top of the stairs in slo-mo and...

Polka dots!

I'm liking the polks dots, except polks dots make the text do strange bendy twisty things around my photographs, but it's a little sunnier, right?

Speaking of sunnier, I haven't spent much time talking about Mothersville. One of the hardest things for me to leave behind in LA was an amazing, diverse, supportive circle of girlfriends - friendships that took a loooong time to cultivate. Especially in a city not known for sweetness. Wouldn't you know we move into a house just minutes away from one of the few places in Memphis that makes me stop moaning over our move and actually grateful we did so? I think it was week 3 with the bebe that I managed to slap some makeup on and get myself over to Mothersville. Suddenly I'm rotating work shifts with some very cool chicks while our (truly) fearless leader and grand poobah finally gets her maternity leave on. And if this afternoon's wonderfully bracing conversation is any indicator, the homesickness is gonna clear up sooner than I thought.

Oh - the Hilary Swank Thing was brought up today and Caleb had a brilliant observation. Hilary Swank is so totally our lovechild. We BOTH kinda look like her. His recommendation? We go as her for Halloween. Him: Boys Don't Cry. Me? I'm thinking maybe Karate Kid 2.(Edited to say that I think I was thinking Karate Kid 3. I think the chick from 2 might be little trickier for me to pull off)

Generations

Today was a lunch 3 months in the making. Baby girl finally got to meet her great grandfather. Four generations eating biscuits and dumplings and cake together. I was proud to see that she actually stayed awake for a portion of our visit and got to flash those dimples she got from her grandmother. She also spectacularly blew out her diaper and got to go pantless for the rest of her visit since her mom forgot to pack backup bloomers. But that little H&M top was so cute it didn't matter she was Porky Piggin it.

She's just days away from the magical 3 month mark and seems to be in dress rehearsals for a big finale. We haven't had another night where she didn't wake until 6, but she's getting closer and closer. Last night she woke once at 4:30 and we slept until 8 and man if I didn't feel rested. She's smiling so much of the time and starting to laugh which truly is the cutest sound I've ever heard. Of course, it can't take Avery's laugh which is truly something spectacular. It now comes in 2 varieties: the woodpecker and the mad scientist. Both can stop a room cold and crack up everybody in it. Hell, her Nana even posted it on You Tube.

Pretty in Pink

I know that I'm not supposed to mind when curious passerbys ask if they could say hello to my son, when they guess that my son is 4 1/2 months old, when tell me that my son is just precious while my sweet baby girl blinks up at them. It's just that nobody ever guesses correctly. I suppose it's my fault that I dress her in green and blue and beige - I'm just stubbornly refusing to believe that the only way people will know that my daughter is in fact my daughter is to throw her in some frothy pink concotion. I've got nothing against pink. I wear it often. But why in baby fashion must it be paired with the bows, the lace, the frilled, the (shudder) smocked? After a day of strangers commenting on my sweet boy, I caved and put her in what I thought was not only cute, pink but kinda subversive faux-preppy in asmuch as an 11 week old can be subversive ensemble. I called it The Future Bride of James Spader, complete with an actual polo logo on the dress. We proudly took her cute pink self to Fresh Slices for lunch - where the sweet old lady next to us asked us how old our son was.


The Future Bride of James Spader in one of her many tummy time fashion shoots.

wow

6:20 AM

Harlow went down around 9 PM last night.

And she's still asleep.

I woke up at 6 in a slight panic. No baby in the bed? I craned my neck over. There she was in the bassinet. Still breathing. I couldn't help it. I had to check.

She's stirring now. Good thing - my boobs are about to explode.

And somehow I forgot to mention...

...that Harlow slept through the freakin night! Down at 8:30 and up at 4:30 for a quick meal. Then she and I didn't move until 8:30.

I would have been more excited if I my boobs didn't feel like they were about to explode and my body felt like it lost a few rounds with a prizefighter.

Baby Part 2: Electric Bugaloo

Already, the questions.

Well, they really aren't questions, more like assertions. The "when" you have another baby, not "if." This comes from other parents, the ones with two+ who tell us it's a foregone conclusion that we will succumb, we will come around. I think I can speak for most people that - like most people - when I was younger and childless I envisioned having the 2, the package deal. I have a sister who I adore and couldn't imagine not having in my life - but that's the thing. It's all I've known. I've been doing a little polling, and the #1 reason cited by parents of 2 I've talked to on why they've had 2 is...guilt. The "I would just feel so bad if he/she were all alone" justifcation. I know there's a lot more going on here than just a crisis of conscience, but is that really the best reason for having another child? I know several "only' children, and they are some of the most outgoing, confident, self-assured women I know. Asked if they regretting not having a sibling, uniformly they said it would have been nice, sure, but there were always kids to play with - but more importantly - being an only child was all they knew, so it was cool.

Obviously it's too soon to start seriously contemplating going through the whole rigamarole again. But this is what's got us spooked. Both me and C can't help but be ruled by our superstitions. Harlow has been an insanely easy baby, so logic (or superstition) would suggest that the second child would be the spawn of Satan. C seems pretty certain that one would be more than fine.

Me? Talking about just having one gives me an illicit thrill, like we're doing something naughty. Probably not the best reason for having just one.

pleazzzzzzzzz

Holy crap.

Baby Girl has started sleeping through the night.

From what I understand, "night" is defined as a 5-6 hour stretch, and if that is the case, she started this hat trick a few weeks back. Except it wasn't our night. She's go down around 8:30 and wake up at 3 as if she had never eaten food in her little lifetime, grunting in that crazy, primal, doesn't-seem-to-be-originating-from-her-body sort of way. And then, miracle upon miracle, she'd go back to sleep. And then grunt and roll around and push me to the outermost corner of the bed. But at least she was getting sleep.

I'd been reading about starting a nightly ritual to get baby in the mindset to traipse off into the land of Nod, so we've been trying to establish one. She gets a bath which she really seems to like, not just merely tolerate. Then comes the shoehorning of the p.j.s which she is clearly just tolerating and then everyone's favorite - a bedtime story. For my first mother's day my dad tracked down a copy of Splish, Splash and Splush, one of my favorite books as a kid (read: I apparently made my folks recite this one to me about 20 times a night), so that made the inaugural cut. Last night was Caps for Sale. I picked this up at Davis Kidd because the cover really spoke to me. Here's this roughly drawn gentleman who is giving off a French vibe and wearing a stack of caps while monkeys watch him from the trees. Funny hats, monkeys and France - It just screamed Caleb. When I showed him the book, his eyes went wide with recognition. Apparently this was HIS favorite book as a child, and you could see the goosebumps on his arms as he flipped through it. So wussy ducks and scheming monkeys and comfy pjs and a warm bath led up to her fallingl asleep around 11. She flirted with the idea of waking up an hour later but then gratefully was down for the count. And next thing we know it's 5 AM. She was crying she was so hungry and could barely remove the hand she was furiously sucking before pouncing on me. And I was so excited I couldn't go back to sleep. I'm hoping the novelty of this will wear off soon and everyone in the bed will get a full night sleep, say, before the teeth start coming in and we start this all over again. But right now I'm pretty psyched.

Parenting is hard

Thursday was the dreaded visit to the peds, the one where we felt like we were essentially rolling the dice with our baby's life by allowing her to get her shots. In typing this I know how stupid that must sound, that if any of the dreaded diseases prevented by the immunizations were to make a resurgance we'd be begging for the meds. But after reading account after account of babies havin reactions and dying after the old Dtp, we were absolutely terrified. Our doctor wasn't as sympathetic as I had hoped, but she laid out a good case for why - I mean, in the years she's been administering the shots, she hasn't seen a single reaction. So we decided to go ahead and do it. And for reasons unknown to us, it took the nurse over half and hour to come in and give her the shots - 30 minutes of us rethinking, sweating and generally freaking out.

But she got her shots. She was really fussy and upset for 48 long hours after, but baby girl is ok. Her parents are just big wusses.

Baby girl is also now 14 lbs. 6 oz and 24 inches long!!

I have a Menorah down there?

We see Harlow's pediatrician tomorrow for her 2month (technically her 2 1/2 month) checkup, an appointment that has inspired eagerness, curiosity and absolute dread. We'll finally get an answer to whether she's too big, we'll see how much she's grown and then there is the whole shot business that has me absolutely terrified.

But what has been preoccupying us the most lately? The proper care and washing of our baby girl's most delicate parts.

The past 2 trips to the doc involved her specifically instructing us on making sure to wash out the "cheesy" substances that were hiding out there since birth. On our second trip she checked and apparently we hadn't done a thorough enough job, a topic we dicussed as we were giving Miss H her bath for the evening. She had said something about leaving one part with the cheesy stuff alone but that other part? That would need to be cleaned, most definitely. So where, exactly, were we supposed to be washing? And thus ensued one of the strangest arguments in which we've ever participated. The labia majora or minora (which phonetically brought to mind a candelabra stashed in the hoo-ha)? And where the hell did they end and the thigh begin? There were pictures drawn in the air, diagrams consulted on the internet, (try googling THAT topic), and much giggling and a pretty terrible realization.

My husband knows more about my anatomy than I do.

Rip Van Winkle

Harlow sleeps a lot.

This shouldn't be surprising as she is nigh on 10 weeks old and from my understanding, aside from smiling and showing off her genius linguistic skills, is supposed to be a sleep champ at this age. But according to acquaintances and random people I meet out and about, we have a very. special. baby.

"Will you just look at her? She's just sitting there in her car seat. ASLEEP."
This said by the framer as if he was discussing a pet frog who wore a tuxedo and sang Hello My Darlin on cue.

We went to a baby shower for the head Mama of Mothersville, and everyone joked about Harlow was just doing her thing, sleeping in polite company. At 10 weeks, her reputation has proceeded her. She roused briefly to eat and take in the new digs and then promptly fell asleep.

For another four hours.

This was after trying to wake her with kisses, encouragement and some weird Hall N Oates-esque song Caleb made up called BABY WAKE UP. Wasn't doing it. I mean, even for her this was excessive. I googled "my two month old sleeps too much" and added "all the time" - and not surprisngly, nothing came back.

Because apparently that wouldn't be considered a problem unless you're a paranoid freak me.