Pregnancy and Motherhood Archive

Forget the seven wonders of the world - I want to know what’s going on in that mischievous little head!

It’s the 25th of the month and you all know what that means! This diaper is presented by Kurt doing his impression of Borat. This picture was taken on the 21st.

There isn’t any special story to go along with this month’s diaper. It wasn’t even a blowout or any other sort of super gross poo. Nope, this was just a regular run of the mill poo. Kurt just wanted to pose with a diaper and I snapped the shot. I actually took a similar shot last month but then used the one which came with a special poop story instead. This month I made sure to use it because I thought it would be a fitting anniversary present for him. Yep, we’ve been through NINE years of shit. Happy anniversary Honey - I love you!

Tonight was bath night and I’m not going to jinx things by saying she likes baths, but she did tolerate it very well. Not only did she not cry, but she didn’t even fuss. She was curious about the water tonight. I use a little plastic dish to pour water onto her and she kept trying to grab the water. It was very cute and funny. I’m sorry I didn’t get any pictures or video of it - maybe next time.

After her bath I put her in her not-a-walker and Kurt discovered that we needed to raise it a notch because monkey butt is getting taller. She likes the not-a-walker a lot better than she did at first. I don’t remember if she was able to move the not-a-walker back and forth like she can now, but I do know it didn’t take her long after her first introduction to just sit back and use her legs to push it around in a circle. Now she’s proficient in standing up and pushing it forward as well.

Yesterday we noticed that she had figured out how to get her feet all the way up to her mouth and suck on her toes. I haven’t captured a picture of that yet. This will just have to do for now…

Oh what a joy it is to drive I-5. Yesterday afternoon heading home, we were almost in an accident. The driver in the lane to our right wanted to move further right. The driver looked to his right and at the same time turned his wheel left. I pounded the palm of my hand into the center of the car steering wheel; unfortunately, the horn is located on two tiny buttons on the sides. I’m going to have to write a letter to Honda about that. Anyway, this morning Kurt and I were talking about all the construction on I-5. They’re widening the freeway in some areas, but in order to do that they have narrowed the lanes while they’re working and they have try to gently navigate the traffic from one side of the pavement to the other without making lanes end, so it feels like you’re constantly turning one way and then the other. All the lines have been redrawn so many times it’s sometimes hard to tell which ones to follow for your lane. Talk about hazards! Also, as always, we never ever see anyone actually working. Seeing a road construction worker let alone one that is actually working is as odd as seeing a live opossum.

Even though she was wearing it yesterday, this morning Kurt noticed that Sophia will actually wear this hat. She used to hate hats, and I feared this one might be itchy to her. I suggested that maybe she tolerates it because she’s a little older. “Is that it?” Kurt asked Sophia, “Are you more mature now?” Kurt paused and then continued with, “Don’t blow bubbles it doesn’t convince me that you’ve matured.”

Before the whole ER and 911 fiasco Sophia had a pretty regular bedtime and wake time. She was doing well with naps and typically only woke up once during the night. That’s all gone to shit now. I’m not actually sure if it’s the hospital visits that did it or if it’s the teething. It could be the combo. Anyway since Kurt’s been home this whole week he has told be a number of times to go to bed earlier since I wasn’t getting much sleep since Sophia had got into the new habit of waking twice during the night and remaining awake precisely at the butt-crack of pre-dawn (5:30 am), which has forced me to take a nap sometime during the day.

Last night, knowing that I would be getting up to drive Kurt to work (no use disrupting a disrupted sleep schedule to visit daddy in jail for a DUI since he’s still taking painkillers) I went to bed at nine. The darling angel had gone to bed at 6 since she was dead set against a late afternoon nap. She woke up at 11:30, then again at 2:30, and a third time at three in which she decided it was morning time. I of course stayed up - I have no choice. I rocked her, nursed her, then finally I just placed her in the spare bed and laid down beside her. I think she went back to sleep around four. I put pillows around her and went back to my own bed. At 4:50 the cat thought it would be a good idea to tell us it was almost time to get up - he was gingerly placed in the garage by yours truly. 5:30 Kurt’s alarm went off and at 6:20-ish I got to wake the baby so that we could drive Kurt to work.

We are a grumpy bunch. Kurt went to warm up the car and I followed him putting his lunch in the car so he didn’t forget. “Now the light won’t go out,” he complained. “What light?”

“The light, the light,” he says pointing to the light that comes on when we open the car door. I reached in and flipped the switch from the middle setting to the “off” position and it went off. I put it back to the middle and it was back on since I had a door open. I slammed the door and the light magically went off. It was a little like the time a few years ago when he complained that I had too many red sweaters on the drying rack I use for things I don’t want damaged in the drier. Well, my red sweaters took all the space on the rack and there was no room to hang his motorcycle T-shirts. I told him to stop buying so many red sweaters for me.

There was another incident at Christmas time when his mom wanted to go to the mall to exchange the sweater I get her for the next size up. We arrived and Kurt announced that we only had fifteen minutes to spend there because he had to go pay a bill before the office closed for the day. His niece and sister wanted to shop around a bit so I suggested Kurt just leave us all at the mall while he runs his errand. “What? Do you want to spend all day here?” Umm no. He was insistent that there was only one way to do things, his way, the way that was stuck in his mighty melon head. We must all stay together and therefore we can only spend fifteen minutes in the mall. Ugg! I finally convinced him that he could go run his errand and meet us at the food court in an hour.

More recently I’ve been driving Miss Daisy eerr Mr. Kurt around and he insists I must take the route he would drive. I admit his routes are probably shorter and *maybe* faster (one can never tell in this area), but I’m the one driving and I do know where I’m going! So shut the hell up already!

Hhhhmm I think I got off on a bit of a tangent. I need a nap.

I started getting baby giggles when I attempted “singing” patty-cake. She still laughs at patty-cake, but we put a little twist in it now. More on that later.

Other things that make Sophia laugh:

• Holding her upside down
• Rubbing her feet together
• Turning my head away then bugging my eyes out (opening my eyes up as much as possible) while moving my face quickly towards hers. It’s creepy looking to most people, but she’s my daughter. She thinks it’s hilarious.
• Poking her in the belly
• Blowing a burst of air in her face - just enough to make her hair stand up even more
• Rubbing a washcloth on the bottom of her foot

Our neighbor taught us a slightly twisted version of patty-cake that Kurt and I took to immediately. We’ve had to modify it further since our child doesn’t like to cooperate when it comes to letting us move her arms for her, so we do patty-cake with her feet. Our neighbor takes care of a set of twins that are about two years old. Their mother was going through a divorce while she was pregnant and she has three other children, so our neighbors took in the twins as their “grandkids” to help out. Their version of patty-cake goes like this:

Patty-cake, Patty-cake baker’s man,
Bake me a cake as fast as you can; *Hit your self in the head (smack child in the head with her own hand or in our case foot)*
roll it, pat it *Hit yourself some more* mark it with a B,
Put it in the oven for baby and me.

Sophia finds this absolutely hysterical and giggles every time. We really need to buy a video camera and record this - mostly as evidence that she really does like it so you don’t call CPS on us.

I’ve been meaning to write this post about what makes Sophia giggle for quite some time, but due to unforeseen events I’ve put it off. I’m glad I did too, because I wouldn’t have had the chance to blog about what Kurt did today to make the doodlebug giggle. Since Kurt came home from the hospital (February 7th) I’ve had to do all the driving because of the prescription painkillers he’s on which means that Kurt now sits in the back seat with the baby (because of the car seat we have the front passenger seat is pretty much unusable while baby is rear-facing). Today I left the two of them in the car alone (I know I’m so irresponsible) while I went into the post office to check the mail. Upon my return I see a very animated Kurtie speaking into the car seat (Sophia is still a little too short to see). I open my door and hear him speaking to her in gibberish with the accent of the Swedish Chef. “Yorn desh born, der ritt de gitt der gue, Orn desh, dee born desh, de umn børk! børk! børk!” At the “Børk! børk! børk!” it’s like he pushed the giggle button. Then witty Kurt said, “And if we ate at Kentucky Fried Chicken it would be, Spork spork spork!” Again, mass giggles from doodlebug. Kurt continued with, “And daddy is a Dork dork dork!” Sophia and I agreed. She giggled even more. The freaky thing is, Kurt is like this even without the drugs.

On Saturday (February 2nd) we gave Sophia a taste of her first doctor and mommy approved solid food.

Tuesday (February 5th), Sophia learned to roll from her back to her side.

Wednesday (February 6th), she began pulling at her ears. I didn’t know what that could mean until a friend of mine suggested that it could be teething. The facilitator at our “living with baby” class confirmed that by saying about pressure building in the ears when their teeth come out and that it’s worse when they lay down. Well, last week it was sort of hard to tell if she would have trouble sleeping since I kept waking her up to go to the hospital. Last night she woke up at midnight to eat, but she didn’t fall back to sleep right away like she usually does at night. This morning she woke up at six am - about an hour and a half before her usual on time schedule. Her ears were red. She had scratches on the side of her face leading into her ears and blood inside her ears. Poor baby. For her morning nap I gave her Baby Orajel. Oh what a beautiful product. Sleep! She slept for two and a half hours. Hint for other parents of teething babies - don’t get the “nighttime” formula. The ingredient list is the same, the product amount is less, and the price is higher - talk about marketing.

We just got back from our “living with baby” class. Since Valentines Day is coming up the facilitator had some red paint to sponge onto the babies hands to make a hand print card for us mommies. Sophia, taking after mom, refused to cooperate and made a fist. She also started screaming when I went to wash her hand off. *sigh* Yep, she’s mine. Kurtie came with us for the class, which was nice. Sitting on the floor for an hour may have been a little hard, but I think it was good for him to get out and walk a bit (it’s a good little walk going from the parking garage to the class).

The inside of the card read,

Here’s my little handprint
Just so you can recall
Exactly how my fingers looked
When I was Very small!

It comes with hugs and kisses
On my first Valentine’s Day
So I can say I LOVE YOU
In a very special way!

I love you, Mommy!

Sophia is back to hating bath time again. Last night’s bath she didn’t like at all.  The following pictures were taken last week. Last week’s bath she was ok with. She didn’t even mind the hairdo I gave her.

It was when we brushed it the right way that she became upset…

“I don’t want my hair to look like daddy’s!” I guess she likes to look like Baby Don King.