Mesh Feeder FAIL

We've been pretty adventurous with the solid foods so far. I've let her gnaw on an apple I was eating. She eats straight from the banana. But after seeing her gag back up a piece of cantelope yesterday, complete with foamy spit up and all, I am officially a bit gun shy about giving her chunks of fruit.

So today I thought it would be a brilliant idea to break out the mesh feeders and fill 'em with some fresh apple chunks. A way to let her chomp on her favorite fresh fruit without me having to worry about her breaking off a piece too big to handle? Win-win, right?

Um, how about fail-fail?

She took one bite of the meshy bag and immediately gave me a "Why-The-Face am I supposed to do with this" look. I tried biting the apple myself, to show her how it worked and to get the apple juices flowing so that she' d be more easily rewarded with flavor.

Yeah, as you can tell from the pics below . . . not so much impressed with the mesh feeder.

Eh? What's This?

Boo! This isn't apples!!
I hate mesh feeders!!!!!

Yeah. So. Um . . . guess those are going in the goodwill box.

Toof!!

We have been told that baby girl has been teething since she was 8 weeks old. It's true. At 8 weeks I spotted two little white spots. I showed other moms. They confirmed. I showed our pedi. She confirmed. Teething. Baby girl drooled. She chewed on everything in sight.

Nothing happened. No teeth.

At our four-month appointment, our pedi observed the amount of drool covering baby girl's chin and shirt and again declared: teething! Baby girl drooled. She enthusiastically chewed on everything in sight. Soft things. Hard things. Smooth things. Pointy things.

Nothing happened. No teeth.

At our six-month appointment, our pedi stuck a tongue depressor into baby girl's mouth, saying, "Look! See the white lines?" We looked, but I was distracted by the screaming, hot-pissed baby who apparently thought that having a tongue depressor shoved in her mouth was tantamount to getting a shot or some other equally invasive, insufferable act. I kept checking every few days to see if I could spot anything, but baby girl thinks that me pulling her bottom lip down is the cue for licking my finger. Not helpful when I'm trying to see her gums.

I looked last night. Nothing.

I looked this morning. Something.

Something small. And white. And impossibly adorable.

Something that I can actually feel when I run my finger along her gums.

Houston, we have a tooth!! And praise be, it happened with no fussiness, no fever, no apparent discomfort at all. This.Kid.Rocks.

(Now please say a prayer of health and well-being for my boobies.)

No Love for the Lovey

Baby showers are wonderful things. Yes, the purpose is to equip the parents-to-be with the necessary equipment for successfully caring for a baby. But let's be honest. The only true necessities are a car seat, a place to sleep, and some diaper rash cream. The other 99% of the gifts consist of stuff that makes caring for a baby easier. Or more fun. Or stuff that is just so freaking cute that you can't pass it up. And merchants are onto this. They know that one sure fire way to get a baby item to sell is to put a baby animal on it. Another way: make it soft. And what is the magical combination of these two impossible-to-resist traits? That's right. It's the ever-popular, perfect-baby-shower-gift lovey.

We got a lot of loveys. Smooth loveys, textured, loveys, rabbit loveys, bear loveys, cow loveys, loveys that are pastel and loveys that are vibrant shades of pink and green. And with each one, I oohed and ahhed and imagined my sweet baby girl carrying one around the house, snuggling with one in her bed, the familiar soft fur and satin helping soothe her to sleep. We had such a variety that I took the tags off and washed them all, wanting to give her a choice in styles--would she prefer the long-eared bunny? The yellow cow that jingles? The cloud-soft textured bear? I stacked them neatly on the bookshelf in her room, waiting for the day I could give one to her and melt as she her chubby little fingers gripped the fabric, as she wrapped her sweet arms around it in the simple and honest embrace of baby love.

When she started daycare at 15 weeks, I slept with one of her loveys tucked into my nursing tank. Like all daycare mommas, I was worried about her and how she would feel being in a strange new place surrounded by strange new people all day. What better way to provide some familiar comfort than with a soft baby animal blanket that smells like mom? I put it in her cubby the first day . . . and there it stayed, day after day, week after week, month after month.

Around that same time, I started giving her a lovey at home, in the mornings when she was fed and dressed and watching her daddy and me rush around like crazy people trying to get us all out the door on time. She showed about as much interest in it as she does the burp cloths we have strategically placed around the house. She grabbed it, lifted it over her head, pulled it off her face, and pushed it aside in search of toys that sing or spin or bang when she whacks them on the table.

Eventually we brought the daycare lovey home. Eventually we stopped giving her the cow lovey in the morning. We never let her have any loose blankets in her crib, so there isn't even that exposure. Her plethora of loveys, of cute, soft, cuddly baby animals with blanket skirts, sat on a shelf in her room. I just figured loveys weren't her thing. Kind of like pacis. Some babies dig 'em. Some babies need 'em. Others never do.

It wasn't until talking to a friend that I started to wonder if I should be encouraging some lovey-love a little more enthusiastically. Her son had apparently "forgotten" how to suck his thumb--he had been congested and needed to mouth breathe for a week or two, and so had gotten out of the habit. She was wondering if she should introduce a lovey to him to give him a new way of self-soothing. After talking to her, I started thinking about my friends' kids. Most of them have some kind of attachment to some soft item--a lovey, a favorite stuffed animal, something. But not baby girl. In fact, I haven't really noticed a preference for any one item other than Sophie, her so-very-worth-every-penny chew toy giraffe that she throws her arms out for, grabs, and then ruthlessly gums into submission.

That's not a problem, right? Is "forming attachments with toys" some kind of emotional developmental milestone that I'm supposed to be watching out for? Somewhere in the back of my mind I think I remember reading one time that sociopaths tend to have been children who had difficulty making emotional connections. Am I making that up? Is this the first red flag, the thing that we'll be talking about on the news 30 years from now, "Well, she always seemed like such a happy baby, but she never did like her loveys. We should have known."

I think I'll pull some of them back out and give it another go. Well, at least the ones that are left after I gave a bunch away to Haiti orphans. Anything to make sure that my baby doesn't grow up to be a sociopath, right?

And if she still prefers her toys that sing and spin and bang when she whacks them on the table, well, that's fine, too. I guess that counts as an attachment, doesn't it? And her poor, much-nommed Sophie--lord knows she lunges for that anytime she sees it. (sidetrack: sometimes I think about what her toys would say if they could talk, a la Toy Story. I don't think Sophie would have a very happy tale.) And really, it's just one other thing that we won't have to wean her off of in the future.

Gah. This parenting thing is tough business. It's such a fine line between "emotional crutch that you'll have to break them of in the future" and "emotional development so that they don't turn into sociopaths." Tough business I tell you. Tough.

Barf

Yet ANOTHER email from the baby picture contest folks.

Subject line: You must be so in love with Alina
Beginning of the email: Only someone totally in love with their baby would bring out so much beauty in one great photo. A photo that led to Alina being selected to be in The Most Beautiful Babies in America book! Nice. Preserve this.

Aside from the poor grammar--fragments are fine for informal blog writing, but official business correspondence??? And really, evaluative commentary??--this has taken the whole "targeting a mother's emotions" to a blatant, lame, and quite frankly offensive level. Since when does amount of love = photographic talent?

Excuse me while I throw up a little in my mouth.

And yes. I've learned my lesson.

My Pride and Joy

In an undergrad psychology class I once took, I was one of ten students who got extra credit for bringing our boyfriends or girlfriends to class. We all stood up on the stage at the front of the auditorium in a large group, and the class tried to match us up. The theory was that people tend to gravitate toward the familiar. You select a mate who looks similar to you. Couples look alike.

I was paired with nine other boys before, by default, I was finally correctly placed with TH (my boyfriend at the time). They tried me with every other guy first. That should tell you something about our appearance. We look nothing alike. Nothing. I am athletic. Fair. Sunny. I have a tiny nose. He is lean. Dark. Intense. His nose is . . . not so tiny.

When I was pregnant, we joked that we would either make a really cute kid, or a really, really, really weird-looking kid.

Turns out we made a really, really cute kid.

In the beginning, I wasn't even too confident of that. I thought maybe it was the whole, "I'm her mom and she's the most beautiful thing in the world . . . to me" thing. But after having everyone tell me how beautiful my daughter is--friends, people on the internet, my pediatrician, random strangers on the street--I started to think that maybe she really is just drop-dead gorgeous. Time and again I got the exact same comment: "She's a Gerber baby." "Oh my God, she looks just like a Gerber baby!" etc.

Do you have any idea how good it feels to have people compliment your child so much? My mommy-heart swells with such unbelievable pride and joy. My child is beautiful!

Eventually it all went to my head, and I did what any ridiculously proud, look-at-my-gorgeous-baby parent would do. I sent her picture into an online baby photo contest.

The first one I entered (yes, the first one. There have been more than one. I'll get there.) cost $20 to enter but you get all kinds of free gifts and your child's photograph is judged by industry modeling experts! Oh my, I thought. My baby is going to be judged by baby model experts! They will swoon! Cue more swelling of pride and joy and entering of credit card information. One of the free gifts was an 11 x 14 canvas of the photo I submitted. Of course they tried to upsell me with bigger sizes, fancy frames, and nifty photo effects, but I was too smart for them and just stuck to the basic free version. 'Til I got to the end and realized I have to pay shipping. But just think of how awesome it's going to be to have baby girl's amazingly cute picture on a big canvas on our wall, free for the oohing and awing and gushing of all who enter. Cue more swelling of pride and joy and entering of more credit card information. So this first free contest ended up costing me $40. I felt a little suckered, to be honest, but managed to justify the $40 with the "free canvas print" we are going to be receiving, the subscription to the parenting magazine, and the fact that my daughter could win $25,000! ha!

I found a second contest to enter that same day that was truly free. Score! (In order to get your baby to win, you have to garner the most votes from viewers. I posted the link here and on the various message boards I'm a member of, only to discover that voters have to register with the website before being able to vote. Lame. As much as I think she's cuter than any baby ever alive and would win the contest hands down, I'm not going to expect people to put their email address out there for another company to have and sell.) It was after entering her in this contest that I started to wonder if I wasn't pimping my daughter out. I mean, child beauty pageant moms all start somewhere, right? And that is probably somewhere along the lines of "my baby is so gorgeous, I'm going to enter her in a photo contest." I felt like it was wrong on some level, and yet I just couldn't help myself from doing it. She IS gorgeous. She COULD win. My baby could WIN a baby photo contest. Cue more swelling of pride and joy. And entering of photo into contest.

Then my sister sent me the link to a third contest. This one actually said "Gerber Baby" on it--how could I resist?!? It's perfect! She IS a Gerber Baby! Everyone says so! There were two options: a free contest that works on viewer votes and a "professional" contest--judged by industry experts!--that cost . . . you guessed it . . . $20. Ha! I thought. I'm onto them! I entered her in to the free contest. I was proud of myself. I resisted getting suckered into another $20 fee. I didn't resist getting suckered into entering her into another contest completely, but I mean, come on, my baby is gorgeous and could win! (If you are eye rolling at this point, you're right on cue.)

Then the emails started. Your baby's photo was reviewed by our editors and she was picked to enter the professional contest! (Cue swelling of pride and joy) Just pay $20 . . . (argh!!). And another one. Your baby's photo was reviewed by our editors and picked to be published in this beautiful hard-bound book, The Most Beautiful Babies in America! (Cue swelling of pride and joy) For only $20, you could own your very own copy (argh!!). And another one. Don't you want to remember the time your baby was selected as one of the most beautiful babies in America? For only $20, you could have this gorgeous commemorative plaque . . . Argh, argh, argh!!

In the last 24 hours, I have gotten more than ten emails from this contest, each with a slightly different approach, but all essentially hell bent on getting that $20 out of me. They are using a variety of tactics, but all of them blatantly target my maternal pride and joy. Your baby has been selected. Your baby is beautiful. Your baby is being recognized. And so on and so on and so on ad nauseum.

I have to hand it to the marketing team. They know the way to a mother's wallet. There is no better, quicker way to get a usually-smart-and-savvy woman to part ways with her cash than to connect it to her sense of maternal pride. And several times they almost got me, even though I KNOW it's all just a marketing ploy. My pride would whine, It's only $20! And how cool would it be to have baby girl in a BOOK of American's most beautiful children!?!

The thing that eventually saved me was not arguing against that voice, but giving in and following the train of thought to the end. Okay, so she gets in a book. So what? Do I need a book to tell me my baby is beautiful? So she wins a contest. So what? Would I ever really let her become a child model? Would we move to any of the cities it says we have to live in for her to pursue this? The answer to all of these was a resounding no. I don't need a book to tell me my daughter is adorable. I see that every time I look at her, every time she smiles or squeals, every time she gets that mischievous twinkle in her little eye. I don't want my daughter growing up with such an emphasis placed on her physical appearance. I would never want her to be a child model. I want her to play outside and get dirty and not take herself too seriously. I want her to have a healthy disregard for the way her hair looks or what size clothes she wears.

Realizing this--or remembering that I already knew all this--was what helped me overcome my 48-hour battle with my pride and joy. I hit unsubscribe on all the emails telling me that she was picked by the editorial team. There was still a momentary sense of panic when I wondered if they would be able to get a hold of me if they were serious about her . . . but then I remembered that I didn't care.

I looked at her, there on the floor, slobbering all over herself, rolling around, sticking everything she can find into her mouth, messing up her hair, grinning wildly and with complete abandon, and knew that this was the baby I wanted to keep. The innocent, happy, and yes, totally gorgeous little baby that she is. And it's enough just to know that myself.

World's Cutest Leprechaun

'Cause we can't have that sad post be the ONLY thing I post today . . .


Damn this kid makes me smile.

Getting this out of the way

I have so much I want to be blogging about--all baby girl's new, amazing skills, how uncontrollable I am when it comes to buying things for her, our adventures in solid foods. But I just can't seem to focus on any of those fun nuggets enough to develop them into full-fledged posts. My mind keeps coming back to another topic, one that is decidedly less fun. My hopes are that by getting it out of my brain and into the blog, it will somehow help me process the news and unclog the creative juices. So here we go.

After 33 years of marriage, TH's parents are separating. (It's funny. I can know that news, know it to be true, and be seemingly unaffected by it, but just putting it into type made me cold and anxious.) They told us this last weekend while they were down here visiting.

No, it's not a surprise. In the almost-15 years I've known TH, they have been talking about divorce the entire time. They have . . . had . . . an unhealthy marriage, a toxic relationship. Neither of them respected the other. Neither of them was polite to the other. They were always loud. Always argumentative. But they never followed through with any of their threats. They come from a culture where you stay together no matter how miserable you are. I'm not sure if it's the Russian side or the Jewish side, or a perfect storm of both, but for them, suffering is a way of life, an art form, a badge of honor. One of them, usually TH's dad, would call TH every other year or so and bluster about divorce. But they trudged through, unhappily married, all this time.

Until now. We knew we were going to have another "talk." No one was surprised. We always have "talks" about their marriage, about what each of them want the other to do, how they want the other to change. They were in fine spirits all day, caught up in the euphoria of seeing baby girl. When it was time, we all sat down, and I noticed my FIL looking . . . tired. Not just tired. Haggard. And then my MIL read us a letter he had written her three years ago, threatening to leave her. But then she had gotten sick. Had a mental breakdown. And he stayed. And took care of her. And now that she's back, now that she's recovered, they are back to their old ways, and she has finally had enough. She was the one to say it. "I want separation." She cited the letter, reminding everyone that this is what my FIL has wanted for years. That she's not doing this TO him, that she's simply finally agreeing WITH him.

He is going to move out. Find an apartment. She is going to stay in the house. Alone.

Neither of them has ever lived by themselves. EVER. They are 60 years old. She doesn't know how to work a computer. He has never been in charge of paying bills.

I'm sad. I come from a divorced-parents home. In fact, I never knew my parents together. I am the first one to say there is absolutely no reason to stay together "just for the kids." I know that people can be healthier, happier when they are divorced, on their own, than when they continue to trap themselves in an unhappy marriage. But still, I'm sad.

I'm sad for the time they lost while forcing themselves to stay together. Starting over at 60 is not something that will be easy, and I hope that their chances at individual happiness and at finding comfortable companionship is not lost. I'm sad for their misery all these years. I'm sad for the reality of a failed marriage, of two people who were mad for each other in the beginning, who lost that somewhere along the way, somewhere along the journey of poverty and refugees and immigration and building new lives in a new country.

And I'm sad for the implications this holds for my own family. Two daily phone calls to TH instead of just one. More complaining. More problems to vent about. More loneliness to seek refuge from in our family. More help needed to solve problems their spouse could have helped them through previously. I have struggled all along with the strain TH's parents put on him, on us, how much they lean on him (on us), how much they are a constant presence in his (in our) life. And now that is only going to be compounded.

And when they're old? 20 years from now? And can no longer live on their own? I refuse to think of the implications. Refuse.

It's not that I think they're making a mistake. Their marriage was like an gangrenous limb. Infected. It had to come off. But I am fearful of what life is going to be like, adjusting to the amputation. Of the new problems it will create in all our lives.

I found out this weekend they were engaged after knowing each other only 3 weeks. Three weeks. She had been dating a wealthy man who had no clue about romance. She asked him for flowers, and he told her he would give her the money to go buy whatever she wanted. My FIL was coming out of the army. They met, and he was everything her current beau was not. Impulsive. Emotional. Intense. Artistic. She was beautiful. He told us this weekend that he proposed to her while drunk.

Such a tragically beautiful beginning. Swept away in a whirlwind.

Such a tragically beautiful journey. Determined to provide a better life for their children, they fled their home as refugees, living homeless, taking care of only each other for six months as they wandered through Europe, looking for a way to America. Starting a new life from scratch. Not speaking the language. Eking out a life slowly, tortuously.

Maybe they were never designed to last as a couple. An ill match from the beginning. Maybe it was their journey that killed them.

No matter. It was their tragically beautiful story that gave me my husband. And my daughter. And for that I am thankful to them. For everything they went through.

And now I can only wish them the same happiness they have allowed me to find.

That, and pray that their fall does not bring us all down.

Is this a Milestone?

It's true. Add me to the ranks of adoring parents everywhere. I think I have the cutest kid ever. So I did what any proud parent would do: I entered my baby in an online cute kid contest.

This has to be some kind of parental milestone, right? You fall in love. You think your kid is the cutest kid ever created. You make decisions through the haze of the perma-fog that exists somewhere between the sleep-deprived state of newborns and the well-rested glory of a baby who sleeps through the night because you are still getting up in the middle of the night to pump. What? That's just me? Oh. Anywho, I did it. I took the plunge. Made the leap. Followed in the footsteps of doting parents everywhere. I submitted baby girl's photo to an online photo contest (okay, okay, TWO online photo contests. But one of them offered a free canvas print, so total score on that. Okay, not "FREE-free" since I had to pay $10 (cough$20cough) to submit the photo, but THESE ARE MERE DETAILS.)

She needs your vote, loyal readers! So take a sec and peruse these adorable baby pics online. And if my baby girl so moves you (and if she doesn't you have a heart made of STONE!), please give her a clicky vote.

Here's the direct url: http://modelsearch.parenting.com/contests/showentry/212188

And here's the nifty voting thingy the site provided for me to post to my blog:

Vote for me in this contest!

Contest details

Thanks, and happy voting!

6 months!

Dear baby girl,

Today you are six months old. SIX MONTHS. Half a year! Let's pause for a moment while I shake my head in disbelief.

I don't even know where to begin telling you all the ways you make our lives wonderful. In fact, I've started this post several times already and erased what I had written. My thoughts are all jumbled today. So much has happened in the last month. Where do I start?

Six months is my favorite age so far, hands down (didn't I say that last month, too?). You are so fun, so sweet, so smart, so energetic.

Your smile lights up your entire face. It starts first in your eyes. They get a little twinkle in them, and then crinkle up around the edges. Your eyes are eternally amused by what you see. Your eyes smile. Your eyes laugh. Then the smile jumps to the corners of your mouth and tickles them upward, first one side, then the other. And once your eyes are twinkling and your mouth is open and grinning, the smile erupts across your face, exploding through your cheeks, until every muscle in your face is engaged, dancing, singing in euphoria. Your smile lights up the entire world.

Okay, enough poetry about your smile. Let's talk about what you're like as a six-month-old (SIX MONTHS!!). Happy. The first word that comes to mind when I want to describe you is happy. You are discovering more and more of the world, and you are gaining the ability to interact with it more and more adeptly, and this delights you to no end. You love picking things up, studying them, turning them this way and that, and then sticking them straight into your mouth. Pretty much everything goes into your mouth these days. Partly because you're teething (you can see two little white lines just about to break through the surface of your gums--exciting stuff!), but also because putting something into your mouth is just another way of exploring it, of learning about how it tastes and what it feels like.

Since we're on the subject of things that go into your mouth, let's talk solids! That's right, baby girl, you now eat real food. Grown-up food. We were in no rush to start you on solids, but in the last month you became more and more aware of us eating. Then you started staring us down like a ravenous wolf. Seriously. The most intense stares ever. You mastered sitting independently way early. You were old enough to stop nursing when you got full. All signs pointed to ready, so one day at the park, I let you suck/lick/gum on an apple I was eating. You went crazy! Every time I pulled it back you squealed and reached out for it. After that the gates were opened and we let you try bananas and avocado. So far avocado has been your favorite, and only a week into solids for dinner, you eat an entire 1/4 of an avocado by yourself. You love it! You have also tried sweet potatoes (started off kind of iffy, but you like them more every time you try them) and mango (we just tried that one last night--you weren't a big fan). Next on the menu: squash! Yum! We also started giving your a little oatmeal in the mornings now, so you are officially up to two meals a day.

I love the fact that you are eating real food. Love it. But a part of me was a little sad the day you got your first taste of avocado. That signaled the end of an era, the era of you getting all of your nutrition just from me. For five and a half months, you subsisted on only the milk I gave you, and you grew into a healthy, thriving, happy, chubby, gorgeous little girl. What an amazing thing we were able to do. I officially made it to my "super happy with myself" goal of breastfeeding you for six months (with no plans to wean any time soon!), and I am so, so, so incredibly thankful we had the time that we had together.

You do all kinds of funny things now. You are experimenting with the tone and pitch of your voice. You go from loud squeals to deep laughs, from fake coughing to repeating your favorite syllable, "da." When you get mad at us, you scold us, saying, "DA-DA-DA" with an indignant look and tone of voice. You are sitting unassisted like a rockstar, rolling both directions, and you already know the word "kitty." You LOVE our two cats, and when we say, "Ali, where's the kitty?" you look wildly around the floor until you find one of them, and then you break into a big smile. Speaking of rolling, I had just about come to peace with the fact that you weren't going to be a very big roller. You were closing in on six months and not only hadn't rolled from back to belly yet, but have never really shown any interest in rolling belly to back once you mastered it. Then a couple of nights ago, your dad heard you crying over the monitor, and when he looked at the screen, lo and behold, you were on your stomach, holding yourself up, and looking around in sleepy frustration and bewilderment. You had rolled onto your stomach in your sleep! Now you roll back to tummy with ease (it really is incredible how quickly you learn something once it clicks), and you are a tummy sleeper. It kind of makes me nervous because you tend to face-plant straight down into the mattress. But I guess now that you are growing up there are going to be lots of things that make me nervous and I'm just going to have to hold my breath and trust you.

You have always been energetic, but now that you have more control over your limbs and are capable of doing more with them, it is exciting to see just how energetic you are. You twist and turn and look at everything in sight. You are rarely content to just sit still--you want to explore! I know that mobility is right around the corner for you, and while I'm so excited to see you grow and learn new things, part of me is relishing this last bit of immobility. I know that once you can get around on your own, we are going to have our hands so very full!!

Perhaps my favorite new thing that you have learned is the ability to give kisses. After you nurse, I always pick you up and kiss your sweet rosy cheeks. I say, "kisses!" and then smooch one cheek, and then "kisses!" and smooch the other. Back and forth. "Kisses!"-smooch-"kisses!"-smooch-"kisses!"-smooch, and so on. Well one day, you turned and planted your big, wet, open mouth right on my cheek. I thought it might have been a fluke (remember, you put everything in your mouth these days!), so I gave you kisses again, and after about four, you leaned in and planted another big, wet, open-mouthed kiss right on my cheek. I thought my heart would burst. Now after you nurse and I pick you up, you are often the first of the two of us to go in for kisses. I love love LOVE your sweet baby kisses.

You are gorgeous. And sweet. And energetic. And funny. And easy going. And loving. You are the baby I would have built if I could have picked out every individual trait separately. I have no idea how I got so incredibly lucky, and you should know that I am thankful for every single second.

Happy six months to my sweet baby girl,
Mom

Five on Friday

Yep. This is a repeat from our family blog. But it's a good one. So you'll just have to deal.

1. She finally ROLLED!! The hard way! Back to tummy! Hooray ALI!!

2. She rolled in her sleep. Which prompted her to wake up at 10:30 p.m. and cry in confusion and sleepy frustration. I would cry too if I got stuck on my stomach when I'm used to sleeping on my back.

3. When it clicked it REALLY clicked, because she was on her tummy again by 3 a.m., again by 6:15, she rolled again when I was taking her sleep sack off of her, and again in the 10 minutes it took me to finish getting ready. It is AMAZING to see how quickly they learn something when the light bulb finally goes on.

4. I'm not too thrilled with this rolling-in-her-sleep business because when she's on her stomach, she doesn't turn her head to the side. She face plants. As in, forehead, nose, mouth, everything . . . right into the mattress. Alex got up to flip her back over to her back at 3 a.m. (once I had seen her face down in the monitor, there was no way I was going to be able to fall back asleep), which had the unfortunate side-effect of waking her up. Grrr. New skills = new challenges and new things to worry about.

5. Not related to rolling, but check out these I snapped this morning. Ali's got her fun Friday outfit on. Seriously, have you ever seen a cuter baby??

These two make my world go round. Love love love.

I'm a Bad Wife

We had a bunch of family in town over the weekend, so we gave up our bedroom for my brother, sister-in-law, and two nieces to sleep in, and TH and I temporarily moved into the guest room. Even though I reminded him repeatedly to transfer everything he might need out of our room and into the guestroom and guest bathroom, I guess he didn't really take me seriously, because every ten minutes there was something he needed.right.then out of our room, and it was usually when one of the girls was taking a nap in there. One of these "emergencies" came when we were getting ready for work on Monday morning and he didn't have his razor for shaving his patchy facial stubble. So he borrowed my razor.

That night, he was feeling his face and mused aloud, "My face feels like legs."

Thinking this was just another of his endearing-yet-inevitably-kind-of-awkward roundabout ways of complimenting me, I asked, "What do you mean? What does it feel like?"

Smooth, lithe, muscular-yet-slender? Nope.

"You know. Stubbly."

That's right. Stubbly. That's what he thinks legs feel like. Insert horrified.

Admittedly I haven't been awesome about keeping up with a normal shaving routine since baby girl's arrival. I was thankful she was born just at the beginning of pants season rather than swim suit season, as it bought me a solid six months of not having to worry about finding an extra five minutes in the morning to shave.

But here we are, coming out the tail end of those harried winter months (see what I did there?), and my husband thinks that something that feels prickly feels like legs.

You better believe I shaved this morning. And I plan on wrapping these smooth, lithe, muscular-yet-slender legs around him tonight so that he remembers what legs are supposed to feel like!

To My Little Woman

To Alina, my sweet woman-to-be,

Today is International Women's Day, a day to celebrate women across the world. I look at you and think with excitement about the woman you are to become. The journey will not be easy; being a woman is hard. You must be strong without being hard. You must be gentle without being soft. You must be independent without being cold. You must be loving without being needy. You must be intelligent and confident without being intimidating. You must be gracious and and generous without giving away your self. You must strike a balance between the expectations placed on you by others and the voice that comes from within, that defines you. You have to deal with things and worry about things that men don't have to deal with or worry about.

Yes, being a woman is hard.

But it is the most wonderful experience ever. The payoffs make the cost, the effort . . . nothing.

Welcome to the world of women. It is a stronger, funnier, friendlier, more beautiful place with you in it. I hope that I am a worthy role model to lead you on your journey.

With love,
Mom

Milestones-Schmilestones

Sometimes I think it would be easier if we all lived in a giant information vacuum. Down with the internet, down with instantaneous knowledge. Back to the dark ages, if you will. You know, the whole "ignorance is bliss" mindset. Because it's only when you know something, like "most babies are rolling consistently by six months," that you can realize that you are "behind." It's only when you have a ruler to hold up and measure things against that things like "inadequate" can be defined. This is what allows worry to set in. And competitive instinct. And dissatisfaction.

Do away with the ruler, do away with all the mind games that accompany it.

If you haven't guessed by now, she's still not rolling. I hate having to type that. Part of it is my own inner competitor, my own inner over-achiever. I want her to be the first and the best at everything. But part of it is my Mommy heart worrying about her. If you'll remember, she rolled early: belly to back at 2 months. But even though she learned that trick early, it's still not a consistent part of her repertoire. In the last three-and-a-half months, she's only done it another 10, maybe 15 times. It's like she was all, "Hmm . . . that was fun. Check that off my list!" and lost interest.

And back to belly? Nada. She gets over to her side--she's been doing that for a month now? six weeks?--plays a little bit, reaches for things . . . but eventually just rolls back to her back. No amount of cheering or coaxing or tempting changes that. We've tried showing her how to move her arm, showing her how to roll her hip over. I've put her down on her side and she's rolled to tummy. But never all on her own, from back to front.

At her 4-month pedi appointment, the doctor showed us some exercises we could do with her to encourage her rolling. And I'll be the first to admit that we have not been diligent about doing them. I get 90 minutes of play time with her in the evenings; TH gets less. We just haven't been willing to sacrifice the time we do get with her to drills and training. And now here we are, two weeks shy of her next doctor's appointment and I feel like we're going to get in trouble, like we're the students who didn't do their homework. I dread seeing a look of concern on the doctor's face. Concern that my sweet baby isn't doing something she should be doing by now. Maybe we should have been practicing with her more. Maybe learning to roll is more important for her development than loving snuggles and unstructured playtime with mom and dad in the evening. And now that she's sitting up, she's so much happier sitting and playing with things than laying. Do we make her lay down, just so she can practice rolling?? See, even typing that I know how stupid that is. But this is what these dumb milestones are making me think!

In the past I was always the one telling others not to worry. That all flowers bloom in their own time. That their kid isn't going to go to college without being able to roll. But now even these quips, meant to provide support, seem flippant. Now I'm the one worrying.

Freaking milestones. Dumb rulers.

It's possible she's just not a roller, right? Right?

Feel free to jump in, anyone . . .