Cute Baby Photo Friday

I love the little tongue sticking out.  

She's always such a happy giggly baby in the mornings!

Middle of the Night

Last night was one of those nights that every parent has experienced.  Eliza woke us up at her usual time (which I won't write down because Shawn doesn't like knowing what time it is when he gets up in the middle of the night) and I was strangely in a deep sleep.  I didn't know that I could sleep that deeply any more.  Shawn got up and changed her diaper, and it took me a few minutes for my body and mind to come together so that I could get up, walk down the hall, and take Eliza to nurse her.  She was crying by the time I took her from Shawn, she was hungry.  But she latched on quickly and quieted down and snuggled herself into my body.  I held her warm body close and rocked her.  Her small hand was cold and was restless, one minute hitting my cheek, the next fumbling with the cloth of my pajamas. I held her hand in mine to warm it up and to calm her down.  She finished eating and was wide awake, just looking around, so I sat her on my lap and sang our lullaby. I sat with her on my lap and she seemed the calm for a few minutes and then would talk and giggle and wiggle.  Where did this energy come from in the middle of the night? Usually she only nurses on one side in the middle of the night, but I put her on the other side as well, hoping it would calm her down, help her to fall asleep.  I put her lovey in her hand so it wouldn't explore like her hand on the first side.  It seemed to work, she fell asleep. But as if she was reading my thoughts as soon as I decided to move her to her crib, that she was asleep enough that she wouldn't wake and cry, she turned her head, looked at me and smiled, as if to say, "Ha! I fooled you! Silly Mommy!" And then she started to giggle and talk.  Oh, my sweet, adorable girl.

But, Mommy was tired and needing to get back to sleep.  I looked at the clock, we had been at this for well over an hour, I wanted to go get Shawn, to tag out, to tell him it was his turn.  But I waited and rocked, and held her hands and stroked her head with my cheek.  But she was still awake, still giggling, talking, looking around, happy.  I looked at the clock again and decided that I would give it 13 more minutes, and if she wasn't sleepy in 13 minutes I would tag Shawn in.  I stood up and started to do my best Momma bounce, the one that works to put her down for a nap every day.  And she didn't like it.  She started to get fussy, upset.  And five minutes later, with eight minutes to go, Shawn came to get her.  And we wordlessly passed her between us. Eliza loves her Daddy, I didn't hear another peep from her, she calmed down as soon as I put her in his arms. I handed him her lovey and softly closed the door behind me.  It had been 90 minutes.

Things I was Wrong About

I'm what they call a picky eater.  I think I have a good reason for being a picky eater, being allergic to nuts and all.  If food is unfamiliar I need to ask questions about it and inspect it to ensure it won't send me on a trip to the hospital.  So, I've always been a picky eater.  But in some ways I've taken that picky status a bit too far, and now as an adult, I'm trying to amend that.  I'm working on liking vegetables more and on trying new food. Here are a few foods that I was wrong about:

Stuffing

This is the first Thanksgiving that stuffing has graced my plate.  I've always been turned off by stuffing. I think it was the olives in my Mom's homemade stuffing.  And then a few weeks ago I had the realization that stuffing is basically bread and herbs.  I love bread.  I love herbs.  Why wouldn't I love stuffing?  So, I tried some that Shawn made and guess what, I loved it!  Sure, it was the cheap stuff that comes from a box, but my eyes were opened.  I was wrong about stuffing.

Pickles

Technically pickles may need stay on my list of things I don't like because there's only one kind of pickles I like and that's the kind I make myself.  I've always been dubious of pickles.  I think it's because on hamburgers they are flimsy and taste bad and ew, gross.  But my sister in law, Barb, makes her own pickles, and in an effort to, I don't know, impress my new family, or not be so weird to them, I ate some of Barb's pickles.  And surprisingly I liked them!  So, when Shawn suggested we make our own pickles the first year we were married I was on board as long as it was Barb's recipe.  (Funny story, we made pickles and ice cream the same weekend, and no I wasn't pregnant yet, but it sure did spark rumors when I shared it on facebook.) I still don't like store bought pickles, and especially don't like the pickles that come on hamburgers.  And don't ask me if the ones we make are dill or sweet, I don't know the difference.  But I like my homemade pickles and I was wrong about them.

Chocolate Cereal

I'm not kidding when I say that Shawn has 10 boxes of chocolate cereal in his food storage. And when we first got married he offered me a bowl of "Cocoa Dyno-mites!" and I said, "Ew, gross, no, chocolate cereal is disgusting." And I have to confess, I made that assumption without every trying chocolate cereal.  It's something my Mom told me every time I asked for a box in the grocery store as a kid, and it stuck.  But then one day we ran out of non chocolate cereal in the cupboard, and I was feeling both particularly lazy not wanting to go downstairs to get more cereal, and having a chocolate craving, so I dipped into the Cocoa Dyno-mites and guess what, it was delicious!  I was wrong about chocolate cereal, and I actually had to tell my husband "You were right and I was wrong."

Debating Resolutions

Do you make New Years Resolutions?  I don't always make resolutions.  And sometimes when I make them I just know that I'm not going to keep them, so I only do it half-heartedly.  One year in high school I made a resolution to not eat candy for an entire year.  And I actually made it!

This year I'm debating some resolutions, and maybe I'm just resolving to do better?  I want to take better care of myself.  To me that means taking better care of my skin, taking better care of my teeth, and moving more.  Part of me would love to make resolution to work out, but I know that in order to really make that happen I need to truly commit, and right now, this year, I'm not ready to commit I guess.  I want to be more focused on Eliza.  I don't want to get distracted by facebook and the internet when I am with her.  I want to do something unique with her every day, maybe read books, or find a way to play together every day.  I want to record our life this year. I want to write down what life is like with her in this first year.  I want to record her firsts. Maybe I'll do that on the blog, maybe I'll write in a journal, maybe I'll take pictures.

Sometimes I have grand ideas about blogging more.  Part of me thought "I'll blog every day in January and since it's just one month it will be easy."  But here it is the second of January and I've already missed a day.  Oh well.

What about you?  Do you have New Years Resolutions?  Or New Years ideas? What do you want to change, fix, do better?

Cute Baby Photo Friday

I like to call this photo "Hey look!  There's a baby in the mirror!"

Alternate title: I Can Sit Up!

Or: Momma Did Not Pick This Outfit

I Love You THIS Much

The following conversation happens three or four nights every week, whenever Shawn is the one to check on Eliza right before we go to bed. The lights are out and we're laying in bed just about to fall asleep.

Me: Is she OK?

Shawn: Yes

(pause)

Me: Is she breathing?

Shawn: Yes

(pause)

Me: Is she beautiful?

Shawn: (sigh) Yes

(pause)

Me:  Does she know how much we love her?

Shawn: Yes, now go to sleep.

It feels so important that Eliza knows how much I love her at every minute of the day.  I hope she can feel the love that is coming out of my every pore.  I adore that little girl, everything about her, and I want her to know that.  I think this must be genetic, or maybe a Mom thing because I recently found a Valentine's Day card my Mom sent me three or four years ago.  The line "Please know how much we love you" was repeated four times.

Thank you, Mom.  I now am beginning to understand how much you love me.  But you can keep telling me anytime you want.

Five Months

Dear Eliza,

You are five months old! And you are getting more and more fun every single day! You can now roll over from your back to your belly!  And now you LOVE being on your belly!  So much has changed!   You love Christmas Music!  Momma has a strict no Christmas music before Thanksgiving rule, but when we found out how much you love it she had to change her rule.

You love standing on your feet!  You are so close to sitting up.  We put you in your Bumbo but are more interested in leaning over to eat it than sitting up and looking around!

Momma is working on helping you sleep and it's working!  You are back to waking up once or twice a night (so much better than 3-4 times!) and napping is getting better.  Momma added reading a book to our pre-nap routine and that seems to have made a huge difference.  You will now nap for over an hour at least once a day rather than just 30 minutes at a time.

It's hard to get up in the middle of the night, but I secretly love it too.  I love holding you close as you nurse and fall back asleep.  I snuggle you a little tighter and kiss your sweet cheek before I put you back in your crib at night.

Daddy is your best comforter. If you don't want to eat it's Daddy you need in the middle of the night to help you sleep.

You smile at anyone who smiles at you.  When we go someplace new or different wether it's a store or Grandma Harrell's house you love to look around to take it all in.

You love Scooter.  And now that you are learning how to reach and grab you are more likely to reach out and grab for Scooter.  You can reach and grab things on purpose now, not just accidentally or in passing.  Momma loves to give you things to hold onto as we walk around the house, sometime's it's a clean diaper, sometimes it's a toy.

You love your cloth diaper burp rags. You love to hold them and grab them and pull them into your mouth.  We play a game where we cover your face with the cloth and I say "Where's Eliza?!" and then we uncover your face and you giggle and smile when I say "There she is!"  Now you are starting to move the cloth yourself and find me!

In the morning we sing "Oh what a beautiful morning!" and you always find my eyes and smile at me. And sometimes when you are sad I can sing that to you and you will smile at me.

Everything goes into your mouth now.  You put Momma and Daddy's hands in your mouth, all of your toys, anything you can grab.

You are still happy and sweet, a content baby.

We love you so much! We love spending time with you, how sweet you are, watching you sleep.  We love watching you learn and grow!

Love,

Momma