oh grandma...

Last night my grandmother called. We discussed the unfortunate situation of the babies in China poisoned by the formula. I lamented how I didn't understand why so many women in China use formula, and my grandmother replies (I kid you not):

"They probably have to use formula in China. All they eat is rice over there. They get no nutrition*, that's why their skin is so yellow."

THAT'S WHY THEIR SKIN IS SO YELLOW???????????? OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She honestly believes this!!! I don't even get it, kids.... I am at a loss.













*of course!

Ello!

I'm just checking in to say hi! Things are going pretty well here. The gnome has started reaching and grabbing, which is great, except for when she tugs on my hair. She is still very cheery and agreeable, which i guess is the calm before the teething storm.

She has been very into her busy beads lately, and jams everything you give her into her mouth- including fingers. Yesterday we went to lunch with my friends from work and while riding in the back seat with her one of my friends, Katie, said that the gnome was trying to sneak Katie's hands into her mouth! She does it to me, too. It's funny- she's very sly about it. She'll slowly and calculatedly bring your fingers up to her mouth and then before you know it -bam! I'll be riding in the back seat with her and let her hold my hand and all of a sudden my finger will feel all wet and gooey and I'll realize she has jammed it into her mouth! Silly gnome!!!

What else, what else. Oh! So I did give a preemptive call to my mom about Sarah Palin. My mom doesn't always follow politics, and I didn't want her to see a woman and think "Oh look, a woman! I'll vote for her!" I know John McCain is counting on just that sort of woman, so if you know one, for fleck's sake clue her in! My mom would have voted for Hillary, so i had to be sure, but sure enough, trusty old mom said a guy at her office told her "women will vote for Palin because she's a woman, not because of her politics" and my mom told him he was an idiot. Go mom!

Speaking of Palin, if I were a republican woman, I'd be as offended as f**k. I mean jeez. At least pick someone with SOME experience who doesn't suck. To incinuate that women are that shallow... Ugh.

Well, some are, but those are the ones that are usually too self involved to vote anyways. Who needs 'em!

Oh, the other night we went to this record/bookstore down the street and I bought this book. An instant classic, and yes I will read it to the gnome! She needs to know!

How it Went...

Well, gnomer had her 4mo checkup yesterday! She weighed 14.8 and is up to 24" long! She is doing great!!! I'm really happy :D

I finally decided since my mom was there that I'd just wait outside during the vaccines. Apparently, though, the gnome only cried @ the last shot and was done almost instantly! So maybe I *do* stress her out.

She did not develop a fever, and slept quite well afterwards...

Today, however... Today was one for the record books! After we dropped my mom off @ the airport, we went to the office for our weekly meeting. Gnomer ate @ 9:45 and *should* have been good 'til almost 1pm, but she instead decided that noon was lunchtime and a horrific meltdown (perhaps the one she didn't have yesterday) was in order. She was screaming so forcefully she wasn't inhaling and I could see her tonsils vibrating!!! She was so loud the entire company heard her, and they actually sent someone upstairs to the conference room to make sure everything was ok!

Once we got home gnomette was a bit less fussy, but generally she's been a crank all day. She got like this last time she had vaccines, too, so I guess we can expect this for month 6, also...

Anything but this.

So today is four days shy of the gnome's 4 month birthday, which of course means what else but the four-month checkup.

The horror.

The checkup is admittedly a few days early this month, due more in part to what's available at her pediatrician's than my or my husband's schedule. I am excited to see her height/weight and to hear if she's doing well or if I'm failing miserable with the nursing, but I am decidedly NOT excited about the end of the exam. AKA, the vaccines.

She is due for four more shots -two in each thigh- and maybe another oral vaccine, which is just liquid droppered into her mouth which doesn't bother her (though she spits it out as fast as it comes in...). The part everyone hates is the needles, of course. Luckily for me my mom is here until tomorrow and can go with us. I think I need the moral support more than the baby does! My husband has already insisted that I wait out in the waiting room til the shots are over. I want to be able to, but part of me feels insanely guilty about leaving her alone in there. Not that her father and grandmother won't be there, but as mommy it's my job to comfort her... I just feel so conflicted.

Last time I stayed and cried just as hard as she did. It was horrible and heartbreaking, and I have at least one new mom friend from my baby class that has her husband take their son to get his vaccines so she doesn't have to be in the same BUILDING. So I know its not just me and I'm not alone in being a bad mommy abandoning my baby in her darkest hour. Last time the gnome cried so hard she didn't even open her eyes so its not like she would have seen me and felt better. I tried telling her it was okay, but I doubt she could hear me over her own screams- she certainly didn't listen to me- my comforting words did nothing to calm her down.

I probably will not know what I'm doing until right up to the minute the shots are administered. As hard as it is for me to see her in pain, I am still her mother and I have to be the adult. But at the same time, I've only been a mom for less than 16 weeks. I'm new at this, so maybe someone could allow me a little leeway? My instincts tell me to protect my baby from harm and stop her from hurting- it goes against nature to just hand her over to a stranger and let them stab her repeatedly.

I just don't know what to do.

It's happening.

So the shedding thing that everyone warned me about? Totally happening. Lucky for me I have a ton of hair so I probably won't miss most of it, but its SO weird to see it all coming out into my comb. I've been finding my hairs in the gnome's balled fist for a week now, but it's really starting to fall out these past few days. It just looks scary. Ugh.

The gnome is doing well. Right now she's lying in the play yard and babbling away. She has really been trying to roll from her back to her belly, so we'll see if that happens soon. I am also sad because she's getting too long for her bassinet. I measured her today and she was 23"! I think she has another inch or so to go before she's simply too long for the bassinet and has to use her crib, which is in her own room. I'm really not ready to keep her so far away from me yet. I know I'll be up all night listening for her, and worrying about what might happen in her room without me there.

I know I need to let go eventually, but why is parenthood so damn hard????

It happened.

So everything I prophesied about the gnome getting hungry during breakfast yesterday came true. No sooner did my meal arrive but I was out in the car nursing her. Fabulous. Then we went to dinner last night and the screaming started again. I tried nursing her (on the floor of the handicapped stall, natch) and she'd alternately drink and scream. I guess the tears weren't from hunger... I still don't know what was wrong, but it does seem to happen whenever there's company... I think she senses my stress level and acts accordingly. Anyways, the restaurant drama was terrible. My husband sent my MIL into the ladies room to look for me, and she told me she was there but then I thought she left, and for fifteen minutes I stayed with the gnome, feeding her and then dancing with her until she slept. and as I'm about to finally leave, my MIL is suddenly there saying "I'll take the diaper bag." Good timing, right?


Then we get out of the bathroom (me trailed by the MIL) and my husband ambushes his mother about where the hell she'd been for 20 minutes. Um, 20 minutes? She was there THE WHOLE TIME and I didn't know it. I mean, who knows what I said in my tear filled frustration. I was very quiet, but I believe pleas for help were issued to both gods and dead relatives... Oy. I thought after she finished talking to me, she left the room and came back, but she was there all along being quiet as a mouse...

Anyway my husband was FURIOUS that she didn't come back out and tell him what was going on, and he thought I knew she was in there and just didn't have the sense to send her out to check in with him. I don't know... His parents turn him into a different person sometimes. He loves them, but they make him a little jumpy. I guess a lot of peoples parents do that, though (or in my case, my grandmother). But he wasn't mad at me, and he apologized after we left the restaurant.

Everything went okay, I suppose. I think my MIL is really excited to be a grandmother, so sometimes she lets that get in the way of her better judgment, like when the baby is crying for food and she wants her to stay for one more kiss or to try playing on the play mat and maybe that will make her feel better. She also wanted me to keep putting different outfits on her, which gnome hates, but we obliged a few times to keep the peace. I know I should have refused, but the gnome was agreeable most times, so I just played along. They want to come back this winter, so hopefully by then gnomer will be feeling better and be more game for dress-up and all of that.

I will say, though, it was really hard at times. It's still hard for me to hand my child off to others for long periods of time, and its really hard for me to ride in the car and not be the one sitting with her in the back seat. I can now definitely say that I know how those mother tigers feel when they kill people for getting too close to their cubs. I wish it weren't so, but it is. I'm just not ready to let her go yet!

Vicious Cycles.

Never are the inconvenient patterns of nursing ever so apparent as when there are guests. I shouldn't even "blame" it on nursing, really, but this is how it goes.

-I need to eat to make milk
-I need to feed the baby every 3 hours
-If I don't eat between those hours, I don't have enough milk for the baby.

The problem with guests is that they don't understand this, so for example, this morning, everyone was up before me, but decided to take their time getting dressed and showered. Most days I don't get a shower because I have too much work and getting the gnome ready takes up any free time I have. (This is partly what caused the cyst, but I digress). So what happened is, the guests decided to wait until AFTER I finally got ready to get ready, and before they even started were like "lets go to breakfast!"

I love going to breakfast. Unfortunately, though, and hour had already passed and so now its less than two before the gnome needs to eat and we have 3 people needing showers. Meanwhile i've been ready to go for 30 minutes, and I'm starving. So if we wait much longer not only can't we go because the gnome will be hungry, but I'm starving and probably have no milk whatsoever to give her. I hate to be a bitch about it, but it's really not fair.

Yesterday we went out and my MIL made the comment that since I'm not pregnant anymore, the fact that I'm hungry isn't as big of a deal, because I "can wait." In theory, yes... But it just shows how little people "get" breastfeeding. Milk doesn't just magically appear. As much as my grandmother drove me crazy during her visit, she had a point. When you're nursing you need nutrition- you need food to create milk, and the healthier the food the better. So now I have about 90 minutes before gnome wakes up screaming for food, and we still have one shower to go before everyone is ready. Then watch- I'll have to put the gnome (who is now sleeping peacefully in her bassinet) into the carseat and everyone will huff and puff at me for being so slow. WTF?

Yesterday had its own challenges. The gnome has been hungrier than usual. It's weird how she goes in cycles. For a few weeks now she's barely wanted any food, and yesterday she got fed three times in as many hours because she was literally screaming for more. It's scary. I guess she must be in a growth spurt. We took her to the flea market yesterday and while she was there she got hungry. I didn't want to do it, but i packed formula just in case, and i tried giving it to her there but she flat out refused it. I tried it again and again, and nothing. She will NOT drink that stuff anymore, which i guess is flattering. But we ended up at a baby store across the street from the flea market and used their nursing room so I could feed her in some semblance of privacy. They also had scales there, so we weighed her- she was 13.13. I guess that's big. Explains why her diapers are too small, but I still think it seems low. She gained 3 pounds in a bit over a month, though, so that's probably good. But I would hope she was closer to 15 pounds by now, but I guess since she was eating so little before...

Usually in the mornings I'm so full she only needs one side before she's done eating, but this morning I gave her both sides and she didn't stop me. Hopefully she'll be satisfied a bit longer today, if I can generate enough milk by then. It's now 9:26 and she's going to want food at 11... We're waiting on my husband, who knows all of this. It's not his fault, and if he doesn't think we can make it he'll say something before we go, but at this point I'm so hungry I'm going insane. I am one of those people who wakes up starving and *has* to eat, or all hell breaks loose. I am more of a morning person, just as the gnome seems to be. Lucky me! She's as cranky at night as I am, which is more than anyone deserves! My poor husband. If he weren't taking so long right now I'd feel bad for him...

New Stuff

As predicted, my entries are getting fewer by the day. I have the day off today, though, so I figured I'd try to get caught up while I wait for my in laws to return from the store (yup, they're here). So a few things have been happening this week. First, my cyst returned. I had it when I was pregnant and a year or so before that. This time its FAR worse, but last night in my sleep it burst and I woke up soaked in blood- and i do mean SOAKED. So it feels a lot better, but the bleeding continues. It's horrible. It's never burst before- just sort of decreased and disappeared, so this has been quite an interesting day. I just want it to die already. Ugh. I am taking antibiotics already for it, so hopefully it will finish draining and just heal and let me have my life back. I had to stop working early yesterday because the pain was so horrible, and I felt even worse letting down my team. This thing is quite the menace.

Last night the in-laws arrived. They were happy to see the gnome, and they held her as soon as they arrived, but she was hysterical until her mommy took her back. It was so sweet. I felt good. It didn't last long, though, because later that night, we went to dinner (I got to sit on a fun hemorrhoid donut *in public* for the cyst) and as the meal was coming to a close the gnome woke up and started SCREAMING like never before. Well, she did scream like that when she got her shots. So long story short, my husband and I had to run out of the restaurant with her and i had to nurse her in the back seat of the car. Thank god for nursing covers! At that point, though, I didn't give a rats behind who saw me, I was just so desperate to get her to stop screaming. When I thought she finished, she looked at the leaves above the car moving in the breeze. She does the same thing at home. I think she'll be a botanist or something.. Anyways, no sooner did I get her back into the car seat so we could go home (she hates it) she starts SCREAMING again, this time all the way home. All ten minutes of the ride was screams and tears. I felt horrible, and i got her out of the seat the second the car stopped in the carport, and just carried her into the house and fed her some more. Then she was fine, and she slept, well, like a baby.

She is doing better today- lots of smiles for the grandparents and parents, but I'm wary of taking her anywhere in that carseat. The weird thing was, when she "started" last night it was just barely time to feed her. By the time we got home and fed her from the other side, she was all of 12 minutes late eating, but she'd already eaten. I think at night she just gets cranky, so if things don't go "just so" there's no appeasing her until circumstances are ideal.

She also has a bit of a rash in her neck fold, which is probably from spitup I've missed. Who knew babies had so many folds, and it was so hard to clean them? She also gets lint in her fingers, toes and leg rolls! I never knew! She also has a minor diaper rash, too, but I doubt she even notices either rash. Between my cyst and her rashes, we're quite a pair.

OT: Global Warming

I just bought some stuff on Etsy and the woman who sold it to me has a blog link on her site. I decided to check it out, because you can meet the most interesting people on etsy. According to her blog profile, this woman, while perfectly sweet and nice, does not "believe in" global warming! How do you not believe in it? It's not like the tooth fairy! It's real! There's proof! Even the President has acknowledged it, and you know that when *even* the dumbest segment of our society knows something is true, well, it's pretty much law.

Do you know how the whole global warming denial movement began? It was started by the tobacco companies- I'm serious. They were looking for a way to take the heat off of smoking, so they created a fake think-tank and made up fake experts and started publishing reports about how global warming isn't real. It could have been any issue- the killer bees are coming, breast cancer is caused by deodorant, dogs cause blindness- anything- but they chose instead to pretend global warming was a myth. Well, they did a GREAT job, because now TONS of people believe this to be a fact. Unfortunately for the tobacco guys, almost everyone on earth knows smoking is awful, so it only really did half the trick. But what bothers me is that even though the fact that they made up the lie about global warming is no longer a secret, people still don't believe global warming is real. It's real! How many times do we have to say it??? What do we have to do to make people understand??? If reading the news still doesn't hammer it home, I guess there's no point trying. The point is, we are DESTROYING the world as we know it. If people aren't going to do anything to stop global warming, the least they can do is acknowledge they're contributing to it.

Ugh. It just makes me crazy! It's like trying to get someone to switch political parties. Impossible!

I have a feeling...

... That these posts are going to get fewer and far-between in the coming months. I'm just so busy!

So what's been happening:

Well, the gnome has been having really bad gas again this week. I have come to the conclusion its from the walnuts I've been eating, and the last time she got it it was from the peanut butter. Nuts are the only things that the two instances have in common. Anyway, it got so bad one night that she woke up with an ear full of blood from scratching and pulling at her ear in frustration all night. It was horrible, but she hasn't done it since, and her ear is healing nicely. you can only see one tiny scab now- i think the rest is inside her ear so you can't really see it. The gas is still here- last night was particularly terrible, and I wish I knew how to make it stop. Mylicon does nothing, or so it seems. I did spend about an hour just massaging her tummy, which she seemed to enjoy.

She did give us quite a scare yesterday. She was sleeping in her swing and I went to wake her for her feeding, and I had to practically yell to get her to wake up. I said her name three times without a twitch, and she felt cool to the touch. I was terrified she had died in her sleep, but she finally squirmed a bit and outstretched her arms (its so weird to me that babies are born knowing how to stretch!). My husband had this look of terror on his face that didn't go away for an hour after that. It's scary.

A cute thing happened, too. I was sitting on the couch with her on my lap, and I was eating yogurt, and I just happened to look down at her, sure she was looking at my husband or the tv, and lo and behold, she was actually looking, head tipped back, up at me, with these huge blue eyes, just watching me eat my yogurt. It was so cute.

She has been getting along great with the dogs, too. She'll stare at them and suddenly smile. It's very cute. Speaking of smiling, sometimes she'll catch me smiling at her when she's nursing, and she smiles back while she's latched and then sort of blush and turn away. Its so adorable. She's shy!

Last night I couldn't fall asleep and just lay awake thinking about how much I love her, and I had to fight the urge to get her out of the bassinet and hold her. I'm completely smitten! I guess you never really know when it happens, but it's not just that she's "mine" or that I'm attached to her because I created her, I truly, genuinely love her so much, separate of the fact that I created her and that she's my offspring.

Hello!

Sorry its been so long. Work is definitely keeping me busy, but that's a good thing!

So what's new...

Well all the mom's and babies from the childbirth class I attended finally met up! We had only seen pictures of eachother's little ones, so it was nice to see each of them in person. It was even better for me to in a sense "compare" babies with everyone else, so I could see how gnomette sizes up. Surprisingly (and I'm not sure *why* it surprises me) she was perfectly average! Some babies were fatter, some skinnier, and some were even about her size! She's completely normal! Good to know- very reassuring.

I also went to the dentist this week. Ugh.

Right now gnomie is sleeping on her boppy on my lap and snorrrrrrrrrring away. She's so funny.

Good News/ Weird News

Well she did it! Tonight no sooner had I placed the gnome down for tummy time, she was lying on her back with what I swear was a smug look of satisfaction that seemed to be saying "take that, tummy time!" She just rolled right over like a little slinky! It wasn't a full circle yet, but she keeps doing it every time I put her back on her tummy!!!

Now for the not so good. I have recently begun to notice sometimes when her hand is behind her head she is pulling on her own hair. I'm afraid she's going to rip it all out or hurt herself. All references I've seen to hair pulling in babies online is either pulling other peoples hair (which she also does but I don't care about) and hair pulling in toddlers, which doesn't help. Gnomette will only be 12 weeks this week.

Getting There.

The gnome's progress in regards to tummy time is astounding! After not really playing on her tummy much this week, she had two sucessful tummy times last night and this morning. She is now all of a (the?) sudden able to hold herself up on her arms and her head up straight, facing outward!!! I for one am amazed- I thought it would never happen!

As if that weren't cool enough, she has also started to push to the side and can lie on her side. She is thisclose to being able to roll from her upright tummy position to her back. I am going to make sure she has tummy time daily now so she can get the rolling down, asap. I don't want to push her, but I do want her to develop on schedule! Thankfully now that she can hold herself up, tummy time has received a much warmer reception, too!

In other growth news, I am proud to say the gnome has outgrown all her 0-3 stuff, and is now able to wear all the supercute size 3-6 clothing waiting in her closet, including the dresses her mommy bought her from gymboree (they were on clearance, with coupons, gift cards and on ebay, 'cuz mommy isn't made of money, you know...). Today she is wearing the cutest coral-colored dress w/ butterfly and flower embroidery. Yesterday she wore a yellow dress with tiny bees! I am even bidding on another 3 gymboree dresses, including one from the "girl dtective" line that is sooooo cute.

Tag!

Nissa tagged me, so... Here's how it works

1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.
5) Make sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting what you did.

A. I hate most words with the "oo" sound.

B. I am fascinated with the inner ear.

C. I still have weekly nightmares that I am failing Hebrew

D. I once annoyed my mom's a-hole boyfriend so much he left her and moved back to MN.

E. I never told my MIL that my then 6 month old puppy peed on her decorative bed pillows.

D. My husband and I call eachother horrible, horrible names as terms of endearment.

That's what I *can* tell you- at least on here... Since this blog has a whole 2 readers that I know of, Sarah you're "it" again.

Comfortable.

So the other day when my in-laws called, my MIL also mentioned something that I didn't give much thought to at the time. I was telling her about how the gnome has been sleeping through the night, and she asked me, "Is she still sleeping in the bedroom with you?" and I answered yes, and she replied "Well you need to start putting her in her crib now- she's ready."

Okay, so, I was kind of annoyed, but its okay, because I don't really care what anyone else thinks. The gnome doesn't sleep in our bed- she has a bassinet, which wasn't cheap, and I feel as though I should get my money's worth out of it, because her crib will turn into a twin bed eventually. Anyways, it holds babies up to 20 pounds, which the gnome is nowhere near, so she's fine in it, and even though she's been sleeping through the night, she sometimes wakes up and fusses and its easier to reach over and help her than having to get out of bed and find her. Also, when she starts teething she will likely start waking up again,, I'm told, so this is by no means a permanent thing.

Co-dependence day.

I am having a rare moment of insane frustration right now. I got up at 8, fed the baby, bathed her, showered (not the hair and in less than three minutes), spent some time with my husband taking care of his "needs", and now it is almost 11 and I've had no time to actually eat breakfast. I am one of those people who wakes up ravenous and MUST eat immediately or things go south pretty quickly. My husband promised we'd go to breakfast since I'm out of cereal anyways, and per his usual MO, he took his sweet f'ing time getting ready, and now the baby will need to eat in twenty minutes, which means we don't have time for breakfast or to go to the store and get more cereal. As a result, I will get breakfast around NOON.

NOON.

I blame my husband for this and quite honestly I want to punch him right now. To make matters worse, I've had no food, and am really wondering how exactly my body is going to produce any milk since I haven't eaten since about 6pm last night. So the baby probably won't be satisfied anyways, and will need to eat for a full hour. Great. Great, great, great. I asked him if I should go to the store and get the cereal myself, but he said we could go out, so I stayed in.

Men!

Two steps forward, two steps back.

Developmentally speaking, the gnome is ahead of the game in some areas, and noticeably behind in others. I'm sure they're all my fault, but now I'm beginning to panic a little. For instance, the whole "tummy time" thing is not really her forte. She fusses and cries whenever I put her on her belly, so she doesn't really go on it for very long. This has naturally set her back in the whole 'holding her head up on its own' department. She is doing okay sitting up when I prop her up in my arms and her head seems pretty sturdy then, but a woman from my childbirth class circulated a picture of her baby pushing herself up with her arms, and she's only about two weeks older than the gnome! Damn it! I guess I have to do more tummy time with her or something. What have I done?? I know you're not supposed to "compare" your child's progress to another, but how can you not?

On the flip side, for the past three nights the gnome has only gotten up ONCE each evening! ONCE! Last night she slept from about 10 pm to 5 am, and that was the only time she got up! Of course, I should be rejoicing, but part of me is worried that she's not going to get enough food now.

Why is parenting so hard???? Gah!

In other horrible news, my husband's company is having some financial difficulties (seems no one is buying their software at the moment) and they're talking layoffs. Since he just took this job when he was laid off in December, he'd probably be on the short-list of the first employees to go. Great. It was scary enough when I was pregnant- but no money and an infant? Not good. I guess I'll have to get WIC or something, or go back to work full time and he could watch the gnome. We'd be homeless, but at least I'd have trustworthy childcare. Okay, I am not going to stress out about this. I am not, I am not, I am not. Think happy thoughts! Yeah, I'll think about babies, white wine and puppies. The finer things in life.

The cutest thing!

Last night the whole family (dogs included) was lying on the bed just hanging out. I was lying with my back inclined and knees up, and had "miss-gnomer" sitting on my belly with her back inclined along my legs. She was sitting propped up, staring right at me, when suddenly she started smiling. As if that weren't cute enough, suddenly, out of nowhere she squealed with delight while she was still smiling!!! She only just started the squealing this past week, but to see it along with a smile AND directed at me was just too much cuteness to handle! And too prove it wasn't just a fluke, she did it two more times all in plain site of my husband.

It's those kind of moments that make my life in general completely worthwhile.

Why the gnome needed a bath.

So I took a picture of the gnome in her bunny towel (it has ears!) and sent it to my mom. She replied back "Looks like she had another bath!" and I was like, 'uh, yeah...'

There's a reason the gnome needed that particular bath. It all started when the gnome got fussy one morning last week and would not go back to sleep on her own. I had to get her out of the bassinet and keep her in the bed with me in order for her to settle down. I was snuggled up with her head against my cheek, and all was going well, but I guess I slept with my mouth open, because -oops- I drooled a little in her hair.

I explained this to my mom, who told my (good) grandmother and they both thought it was the funniest story ever. I guess it's pretty funny. I hope the gnome thinks so some day. I couldn't help it. She has a soft little head and she smells so good, and I just wanted to cuddle with her... I didn't mean to drool on her. Poor little strawberry. Good thing she's washable.

Weird...

It still really hasn't hit me that I'm a mother. Most of the time I feel like the gnome is just this cute baby someone forgot here but will eventually remember and come back for. At best she is on loan, a lifelike doll, or part of a dream.

Maybe its my subconscious trying to tell me that she is a little person and thus not really "mine" but her own, or maybe that she won't be tiny and helpless forever- someday she'll grow up and feed herself, bathe herself, and leave me behind as she ventures out into the world.

In other news...

I am wondering what's up with the boppy pillow. You can buy all sorts of replacement covers for it, but none of them are waterproof. Mine is constantly soaked with milk drips and spit-up, so when when I wash the cover the pillow is still dirty. You can wash the pillow, but it takes so long to dry. What up, boppy?