Overprotective

It's days like these that I can begin to understand why a girl may grow up to write treacly pop songs, shave her head and forget to wear underwear for a week.

We're trying hard not to be such freaks over the well being and safety of our child. But you take a pontoon boat, 45 degree water, high altitude sun and near non-stop images of my child sinking like an adorable stone to the bottom of Lake Dillon and we let that parental freak flag fly. To Harlow's dismay, we took full advantage of the life jackets on board, cramming her into a heavy knit sweater and then stuffing her into an inflatable jacket so confining it made her arms stick straight out at the sides, so she kinda resembled a rainbow colored 747 ready for takeoff. She couldn't bend at the waist, reach her hands to chew on them - much less do anything but blink or scream - so scream she chose. I can't say I blame her. I spent most of the trip functioning as her shade, holding up a large windbreaker to block any and all sunlight in the vicinity. And then there was my 11 month old niece, doing baby gymnastics in her father's lap just to taunt us. It wasn't until the Cristal and Wheat Thins got passed around that we started to relax. Because you can't be that classy and stressed at the same time.

HAPPY!

I'm happy! I swear! Here are some things that make me happy!

1. Tonight's pre-pre-birthday dinner at the anti-foodie Mecca, Benihana

2. Saturday's pre-birthday dinner at Automatic Slims.

3. Colorado and Harry Potter for my birthday.

And happy pics!

Murphy

This was our first baby:



Murphy was found in Highland Park, a rougher burb of LA (you've got street cred, Jen!) and a fitting home for the 4 mo. old scrappy, sweet boy who was scooped up wearing a collar so tight it was about to choke him. The couple who found him fell in love but couldn't keep him, and after random emails made their way across the internet to me, Caleb and I picked up our feisty, pukey-in-the-car bundle of love and brought him home to stay.

And there was much love, and fighting with cats, and working with trainers, and chasing squirrels, and charming passersby, and nearly getting a doggy agent and the moving to Memphis and trying to kill the UPS guy and lunging at people on walks while I was pregnant but promises that no matter what, we were a family and he was loved and the growing denial that something was wrong but nothing was going to change. And then Harlow happened.

We had been warned that your pets become just that after the birth of your child, just pets, not the sweet baby that you rolled around with and took 1000s of pictures of in stupid hats and bored people at dinner parties with stories about how CUTE he was at the dog park (except you can get away with those stories in LA because no one has kids - they have dogs, too). But what I was not prepared for was how fast the change happened. How Murphy went from beloved pet to walking allergen, to a nightmare of sharp claws and shedding fur and behavior problems. The problems had started before we had moved - the rising aggression, the lack of respect on his part, the rising neglect on ours, but then there was the baby, and suddenly, here was this dog who tried to kill whoever rang the doorbell and wouldn't stay or behave on a leash who was constantly ignored. A BORDER COLLIE who had nothing better to do than herd the cats because he wasn't being taken on long hikes and exericed properly.

So it really should not have come as a surprise when he tried to bite the kid at doggy day care. The kid was fine, no skin was broken, but my heart was. Murphy is a good dog. We were warned by more than one trainer that due to his intelligence and stubborn streak that he was not the easiest dog for first time dog owners. But we didn't care. He made us really happy. We were a great fit as we were avid hikers and dog park aficianados and had access to kickass doggie day care. And now we have none of that, and it makes us sad because he is sad. He still gets morning and evening walks, but it's not the same. We are trying harder, looking into agility classes and working on commands and just simple time spent. But the bottom line is that we do not have the time we used to, and Murphy is suffering because of it.

Screw Polka Dots

You know what?

Stacey was right.

Screw the polka dots.

Flickr Rocks

Milestones

An interesting funfact I've picked up from those evil, evil parenting books is that when babies cluster feed, i.e. demand dinner on average every 1-2 hours for, ooh, what, the past week or so? It's in preparation for a growth spurt - which could be physical (and I'm sorry sweet babe but really? You? Needing a growth spurt?) or a mental one, as if they are preparing for a developmental milestone. With Harlow crazy for hunger this past week and to my eye not appearing to need much in the way of poundage, I got all excited wondering what she was going to be pulling out of her tiny bag of baby tricks. Rolling over? Pulling up? Teething? The teething thing has been on our minds lately with the sudden manifestation of howling banshee shrieks when she's hungry, but today when I was feeding her next to a Missouri soybean field - more on that later - I swear I saw the tiniest white fleck on her gums. There's no mistaking that there actually IS something tiny and white on her gums, but if it is a tooth remains to be seen.

Milestone recaps of the week:

1. She cannot be contained. She's been sitting in the bumbo, building that core and neck strength, and now she can (briefly) pull her self up by her neck when she's in her stroller.

2. She giggles. Usually it's at the ghosts that hang out in the ceiling, but today, she looked right at me and giggled. Twice. And I didn't even do anything funny. Being the eternal straight man in my romantical pairing, I rather enjoyed being the funny one for once.

3.She met her uncle, cousins and cousins' cousins.

Caleb's family reunion was this past weekend, so we had our first roadtrip up to Southern Illinois, and Harlow could not have been more fabulous, sleeping and hanging out in her seat like a seasoned veteran. Aunt Lara had told us how excited the boys were to meet their cousin, but privately I had my doubts. How excited could a 5 and 7 year old be about a baby? Apparently massively. They could not get enough of her. They hated it when she was asleep because it was less time they got to spend with her. They fought over who could hold her, competed over making her smile, brawled over who could carry her carseat. And the first thing Thomas said when he laid eyes on Harlow?

"Wow. She has a lot of muscles."

The ride home was a little trickier, not because of Harlow but because I was feeling charitable and offered to drive part of the way home so Caleb could hang out in the back with the bebe. We munched on m&m's, laughed, talked politics, and listened to the sweet song Caleb improv-ed on his guitar to his daughter, when he realized we - or I - was lost. We had driven about 30 minutes in the wrong direction because like the cliched girl driver I have become, I just assumed Caleb would tell me where to turn. So that kinda messed up our feeding schedule, which brings us to lunch next to a soybean field off the interstate somewhere in Missouri. Which leads me to my top 10 favorite places I've breastfed so far:

10. The aforementioned soybean field.
9. BBQ Fest
8. Inside a private plane
7. The backseat of a moving car doing donuts around a gas station.
6. The beach
5. India Palace
4. The Lodge in Giant City, underneath the giant elk head
3. in what used to be my old bedroom at my parents' house
2. Mothersville

And my #1 Favorite place I've breastfed?

1. A restaurant called Booby's.

Rockstar Babies

When my husband is not playing the part of sweet, studly baby-raiser, mower of grass and putter of things on high shelves, he can often be found with a guitar in hand or with pen to random scraps of paper, breaking off little pieces of song that put my writerly notions to shame. It's been a tough year with a new town, a new job, a new baby, and a new CD that needed some love and care whenever he found the thirty minutes of free time to devote to it. And last Saturday night all that sweat and angst paid off as he released his badass CD into the world at Otherlands in front of devoted fans.

It's a shame Harlow wasn't really in the mood to celebrate.

The little lady has been seriously cranky as of late. I know we are the last parents who deserve any pity as she has been -and still is - a sweet, mellow baby doll. But the cranky has come from nowhere we can determine. Teething? Is it something to do with that rash on her leg? Memphis?

The likely culprit from those polled?

It's her personality emerging.

But what if we liked her personality before?

I finally found a window of time to get my hair done last week, and after about two hours of blissful head rubbing and trashy magazine reading, I got a frantic phone call from Caleb. He was in the attic, the one place he thought he might not be able to hear our baby screaming while her Nana tried to coax her to take a bottle of mom juice. 7 minutes later, I sprinted through the front door and swept up my red-faced, tear streaked exhausted little screamer and peace reigned throughout the kingdom. For a bit. The screaming seems to be centered around feeding - the timing, the amount, the force of the letdown - all of which are mysteries wrapped inside the enigmas that are my boobs. I think it's time we go back to Breastfeeding 101 at Mothersville.

I also think it's time to clean off the dried poop on my leg.

Florida

Why is Harlow crying?

Is it because she is preparing for her first ever swim lesson?

Is it because she has already fallen in love with the sugar white sand, the sound of the ocean, her Nana and Pop's undivided attention and will be leaving soon?

Is it because her mother looks like she should be working the pit crew for Formula Un?

Florida was warm, caloric, grandparentastic and over way too fast. Like the rockstar baby she is, Harlow smiled, ate and napped on the plane and turned on the super wattage for Nana and Pop who were beginning to wonder if their grandchild was perhaps a reincarnated narcoleptic. Caleb and I managed to steal a few blissful soaks in the ocean - as blissful as keeping one eye open for bull sharks can be - and had a lovely dinner out with Lauren and Tommy. Sans baby. For the first time ever. We got a nice soaking our last afternoon there, and the ocean got really still and tangled up with algae. It kinda looked like the earth underwater.



Back at home, Harlow has decided that things would run much more efficiently if she told us what she wanted, so she has been using those brand new vocal chords to coo, la, gah, screech and what we can only guess is a pretty good Stephen Hawking impression. She turned 3 months old a week ago, the date that the fourth trimester ends and things start to "get easier." As much as I like to deny that I am a superstitious person, the very fact that every baby book I've read has insisted things get better after week 12 meant our super sweet, easy , mellow baby was getting ready to reveal her true nature. Which, apparently, is still very sweet and mellow but with a couple of Glenn Close-worthy I WILL NOT BE IGNORED freakouts when dinner was not ready fast enough. That was new and the staff quickly took note.

Ooh - last night? 9:30 PM to 5:30 AM. And right back to sleep until 7:30. Hell. Yes.

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.

And that's why my baby is a genius

I'm throwing my hat in the ring. Just like every parent who pounces on a syllable and predicts their 2 month old to be a linguistic savant, I can't help but just come out with it.

Harlow is a genius.

My girlfriends are taking a trip to Croatia this summer - without me. As Caleb and I were talking about it while playing with Miss H, I said Croatia and Harlow said "Cr." Caleb and I stopped and looked at her. Then at each other.

"Croatia" said Caleb.

"Cr" repeated Harlow.

"Croatia," I whispered.

"Cr" she insisted.

Then she started cooing and smiling and moving onto some other pertinent topic like pacifiers. We just sat there in awe. Surely not, we thought. But there was the other night when we were saying goodbye at dinner and Avery started waving goodbye and Harlow and Harlow looked and slowly started opening her hand in direct imitation of her cousin. I had never ever seen her open her hand like that.

But then, it's probably just baby gas.

But I think she's a genius.