Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Return of the Big Headed Baby
Ok, let's update the stats for all 1 of you eagerly awaiting. Julia had her 4 month check-up on Friday (shots for Christmas, what fun!) and she weighs 13lbs 2 oz. She is now 21.5 inches long. She has more than doubled her birthweight but only gotten 4.5 inches longer. So, she's still chubby and short. She's a little cherub. She's a little cherub with a big head. I think it's because she's so smart (see post below for examples). She is still in the 3% for length, and the 25% for weight, but now her head is in the 75%. 75% of babies have smaller heads than she. And most of those are longer and weigh more. I must say, she hauls her humoungous head around wonderfully. And it's such a cute head. I'm so glad it's big, it's just absolutely perfect.
Caution: One Could Slip on all the Sap Around Here
(The pictures look all digitized and funky, but you can still see them. If you want them to look clear, all you have to do is click on them.)
I don't know if I've spoken enough about how blessed my life has become lately. And here is where I reach a blank space in my mind. I, the writer, the woman who has words for everything, can find no way to express this -- oh, please Goddess, let me find a better term... no, no I can't right now, oh I can't -- profound love I feel for my daughter. And as I write that I can see/hear/taste every sappy book and Hallmark Card on Motherhood (notice the capital M) that was ever placed in my path. Next I'm going to tell you all what lessons she has taught me. How I'm such a better person now. Well, I'm not. I'm still depressive/depressing, occasionally effervescent, quite often lazy, and very judgmental in my heart toward people with missing teeth. So you can see that I am definitely not a better person. Julia has not been pulling her weight in ridding me of all these personality flaws. Really, I do think she could try a little harder, don't you?
She's just so damn cheerful.
Over the last two weeks she completed her transition from Newborn to Baby. She sits. She plays with her toys. She talks at us. I know I've been blogging about how she's begun to do these things, and she has, but in between her spouts of doing them, she was spending most of her time sleeping and eating and excreting and generally acting like a vague newborn. Now all the vagueness is gone. She reaches for things. She's begun to understand our words. Yesterday she was fussy and Kristin asked her if she would like to go to her momma (me) and Julia stopped fussing at her sentence and I walked over and she held up her hands to me. She reached for me. And she laughed when I picked her up. She's so responsive to the world all the time. Everything fills her with delight. She is a child who is unafraid of anything new. She opens her eyes in the morning, smiles, and laughs "Bring it on!" People keep warning us that soon she will develop object permanence and stranger anxiety, and oh though I do hope she develops some sense of caution, I also hope that she retains her open good-naturedness and her willingness to explore independently.
Several weeks ago I took the What Kind of Freaky Mother Are You test. The test informed me that I was the Punk Rock Momma who delights in her children's independent spirits. I've never had an internet test be so accurate (though I don't really care for punk music itself). As Julia begins asserting her personality she is showing herself to be both cuddly/loving and independent. She knows what she wants and she's not afraid to ask for it. When she was three months old she told us in no uncertain terms that she was ready for solid foods, but we held off until her 4 month birthday (the earliest doctors say you can give a child solids) to begin feeding her cereal. Now we've started her on Sweet Potatoes and she can't get enough of them. When it's meal time she hollers at us if we pause too long in between spoonfuls. But the hollering isn't angry, she's not throwing tantrums, she's just reminding us of her needs. Another example: the other night I brought her to bed with us to try to make her night feedings a little easier. In the middle of the night she began hollering. I tried feeding her and she ate a couple of ounces and then again, she hollered. She got louder and louder, more emphatic until she was crying and we got up from the bed. I took her back into the living room and said her name firmly. She stopped crying when she heard her name and looked around, noticed that we were in the living room and smiled. I put her in her swing and turned it on. She laughed once and fell asleep and slept through the rest of the night. That's pretty clear. No more co-sleeping for Julia.
She's also decided no more breastfeeding. When Kristin's milk supply dropped enough that Julia began getting most of her nutrients from bottles of formula, we had thought that Kristin was done with breastfeeding. But several times a day, even when she wasn't hungry, Julia insisted on nursing. Kristin was happy to oblige and nursed Julia every time she requested it. This last week, however, Julia has decided to wean herself. She is still cuddly, still likes to be held close to the chest and skin to skin, but wants her face out where she can see what's going on. She's a girl who knows what she wants and she's very effective at communicating her needs in ways other than crying. For Julia, crying is a method of last resort. She prefers to talk things out.
I say over and over, to anyone who will listen, that I don't know how we ended up with such a cheerful baby. My first reaction to almost anything is sorrow and anxiety. Hers is laughter. Though I'm not yet becoming a cheerful person in her company, I am learning how to act cheerful. And what's that old saying? Fake it till you make it? Oh, I'm faking it all right, baby. I just might make it, too. Oh look, I did end up writing a Hallmark card. Damn.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
unhappy milestone (and something maybe happy)
I am sorry to say that it appears Julia has her first cold. The poor thing is all stuffed up and this morning began a phlegmy little cough. She's such a cheerful baby, though, that she's remained in relatively good spirits about the whole thing, she's just been getting tired more easily, and since she really doesn't like to fall asleep, she's been a bit crankier than usual around her normal sleepy times.
Kristin is also sick, which makes me the only non-mucusy one in the whole household.
On another, related (I'm sure) note. Last night we realized that if WE are cold in our house, then our baby is probably cold. Yeah, we're brilliant over here. And it dimly occurred to us that her reverting to wanting to be held all night might have something to do with said chillyness. So last night we dressed for bed in: a onesie, socks, a heavy cotton nightgown, a long-sleeved sleep sac with the sleeves pulled over her hands, a hat, a receiving blanket, and a partridge. Have you ever seen the movie "A Christmas Story"? She looked just like the little kid in the snowsuit. Yes, we realize that the partridge might have been a bit much, but he just looked so left out sitting in his pear tree all alone... and yes, we know that overheating and excess cloth around the baby are sids risks, but it's not like we were covering her in a down comforter on a waterbed, and besides, she sleeps propped upright in her swing. Anyway, I finally got her to sleep around 10 PM and she slept all the way until...
4:15 am! and then she woke to drink 2 oz and go right back to sleep. I was back in bed by 4:30! Woo hoo! And I had to wake her at 7:00 because we thought I would be taking her to A's, but then she had the cough and we decided that I would stay home from work with her so she can rest and hopefully start back on the mend. So then I regretted waking her, cause I could have slept in! Oh well, now she's down for a nap, so I can tell that she is definitely not feeling well, because she slipped off without even a minor struggle.
Let's hope that it was the bundling and not the virus that helped her (mostly) sleep through the night!
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Great Day
Julia had a wonderful day yesterday getting her pictures taken and then spending the rest of the day with Grandma and Katie and then Grandpa. We picked up a very happy and very tired baby last night.
New developments...
Julia has started drooling like crazy and biting on everything. Feeding has gotten to be an adventure since she just gnaws on the nipple (both of the bottle and of the mommie) a big part of the time. We were thinking that she must be teething, but it seems a little early and she doesn't seem in pain yet. But grandma stuck her fingers in there yesterday and says she can feel where a tooth might be working its way up, so it looks like she really is teething. Of course, it might take a while before the tooth breaks through. Still, we're going to pick up some baby orajel and throw her teethers in the fridge.
And, Grandpa says that Julia buzzed her lips at him last night. This is pretty cool, because though she is very vocal, she's primarily stuck to vowels and restricted her consonants to back-of-the-mouth velar, uvular, and glottal sounds, (g's and trilled r's and a lot of sounds that English doesn't utilize) and hasn't really used her lips or the front of her tongue and mouth to make any noises yet (though I keep demonstrating the ba, sound -- one of the easiest labial noises to make). So we're hoping that this signifies great babbling to come.
Finally, she has figured out that if she kicks the arch of her Baby Einstein play mat the singing star will turn on. So that's exactly what she's been doing. No inefficient squirming around for her! Nosiree, she sticks one leg out and with an economy of movement prized in dancers and boxers, kicks the arch to get the star started again and then relaxes into singing along...
So, here are some of the pictures from yesterday's photo shoot. We got some really cute ones of Katie and Julia together, but since I don't have Katie's parents' permission to post pictures of her, you'll just have to imagine them... 
