1. I guess everyone has a unique scent. Breanna’s? Her head smells like fresh bread. My favorite is after I’ve washed her hair and then I curl up with her and stick my nose right in her hair and she smells like faint Johnson’s and warm, fresh bread. I have no idea why and George thinks I’m a little crazy. It’s entirely possible that he’s right. But I still think of a bakery when I sniff her head.

2. Today we went to the park again and I was sitting with the girls in one of those playhouse slide things. It has two connecting sections with a tunnel to crawl through in the middle. Hayley was peering over the side at the outside of the tunnel and she said, “Hey there’s a word here! It has an M. M for Mommy, Mommy. I think it says Mommy!”

Later, when it was time to move on to the monkey bars, out of curiosity I looked over the side. It did indeed have an “M”. In actuality though, it said, “Motherfucker”. Eh, close enough.

Today I had an interesting experience with Breanna, one I had never had with Hayley, and by “interesting” I really mean “GOD I hope that never happens again, please and thank you”.

She was sitting all nice and serene on my lap, having a leisurely Sunday morning nursing session. When she was done she looked up at me with big smiles and waves of the arms. It was a pleasant moment, a true bonding connection.

After a few minutes of saying “ahhh” in response to my commentaries, she flashed her hands at me, the signal she gives when she wants me to either pick her up or help her to get into a sitting or standing position; it looks a lot like the sign for milk, except that instead of holding her hand up facing me, she keeps them facing up, almost like she’s saying “come on come ON”. She learned it because I inadvertantly did it while trying to get her to give me her hands, not thinking about how this could become confusing when I try to teach her how to sign for milk. Alas. Anyway, that’s not the point.

So she’s flashing her “help me up” hands at me and wriggling in my lap. I put my hands under her arms and started to ease her up into a sitting position so she could look around or perhaps better reach my glasses to rip them from my face. That’s when I realized she was quite possibly wriggling because she had pooped. And although we usually have little to no trouble with our brand of diapers, something went horribly wrong, like “Houston, we have a PROBLEM” wrong, because I’d guess that approximately 75% of what should have remained IN her diaper was in fact ON MY LEG.

Did I mention that she ate a great deal of banana yesterday and that babies-on-solids have far more frightening poops that breastfed-only babies?

Did I also mention that I was wearing shorts and her butt had been positioned over my bare leg?

Did I mention that you might have wanted to skip this post if you were eating? No? My bad. Oh well, if you’re a mom you probably aren’t bothered in the least and have carried on with eating your donuts.

I’m so happy that Hayley was here and co-operative. I got her to bring me the changing pad, a blanket, and a roll of toilet paper. Then I sent her into the bathroom to get the cream baby cleanser that doesn’t require water (I can’t tell you enough times how useful no-rinse cleanser is for diaper blow-outs). I sat on the floor, with Breanna standing on the changing pad wondering how to navigate this disaster. Finally I just laid her down and did it as fast as I could. I must confess though, I cleaned my leg off before I went near her. Then I kept one hand cleaning and tearing off more toilet paper, the other frantically putting one toy after another into Breanna’s hands so they wouldn’t wind up in her scary diaper.

It took some effort, but in the end I got her cleaned up quickly (while Hayley alternated between wanting to see what was going on and being horrified). I swear she looked up at me from the floor and smiled broadly as I then used the cleanser to clean my leg a little more. She was very happy after it was all over. No kidding, I would be too.

I remember reading over on Amalah’s site about how Noah had pooped all over her jeans and the couch and oh, how I laughed at the great way she told the story. And I made the horrible mistake of being grateful that although Hayley had pooped on my pants once or twice, it was just a little and such a thing of epic proportions had never happened to me. Karma is a bitch, baby. And Amy? Just breathe a sigh of relief that it was your jeans. Bare leg SUCKS so much more than fabric.

(Also, I wonder if I should confess that I couldn’t remember when she wrote it and thus found it again by doing a Google search for “Amalah poop pants couch” or if I should not say anything at all and let her wonder what kind of sick lunatics troll her site.)

There are some things that no one tells you about being a mother. And there are some things that no one tells you because you just wouldn’t believe it if they did.

For the most part I think Breanna is already growing up too fast. Already her wobbly and precarious sitting has been replaced by an ability to sit without any help for a really long time. This morning she sat and played ball with Hayley for ten minutes before she leaned too far and toppled over; Hayley would roll her the ball and Breanna would pick it up, scratch it, taste it, chew it, and then she’d drop it and flail her legs until she kicked it back. Other times she can spend at least ten minutes “walking” – I’ll hold her hands, she’ll pull herself up and start marching while I help her move around thhe room.

So I keep looking at her and wondering what happened to the baby who barely even moved and wasn’t aware of much other than being hungry or being tired.

But there are a few phases I’m looking forward to saying good-bye to. I can live without the hair pulling phase. Even with my hair in a constant ponytail, she manages to find some to yank on. It’s a completely normal baby thing but holy ow. Another one? The rip the glasses off Mom’s face and toss them phase. Also perfectly normal baby behavior but my poor glasses! I’m not used to it either because when Hayley was a baby I wore my contacts most of the time; my contacts are so old that I only wear them if I’m going out so my glasses are on most of the day (except when they’re being flung across the room).

But most of all I look forward to the end of the spit-up days. It’s certainlly not her fault, but wiping up spit-up milk from the floor and the chairs is getting old, as is putting on a clean shirt only to have it puked on minutes later. Yesterday the poor thing was all of two minutes out of the bath when she spit up all over her nekkid self. Sheesh. It’s not as bad as Hayley’s spitting up; when she was a baby, she spit up so much that I took her to the doctor three times before I finally believed that she was perfectly fine and I compulsively kept an eye on her weight gain to make sure she wasn’t losing what with all the milk that was constantly coming back up. And I only ever bother with a bib for Breanna when she’s having solids, whereas Hayley could deasily go through five or more bibs in one day (and outfits. And receiving blankets. Oh, the *laundry*.). Still, it’s frequent enough with Breanna that I look forward to it ending.

It’s funny how we want them to slow down with the growing up yet we can’t wait to move out of certain things. Please stay my baby except for this small list of things.

I wish someone could explain to me why the hell my six-month-old baby is currently wearing a set of overall shorts for an 18-month-old – not to mention that the straps *just barely* fit her height.

Who the hell are these Amazon children I keep giving birth to?!

You know, I understand that Breanna is trying REALLY hard to learn to crawl (and she’s so close that if she does it within the next week I won’t be surprised – first she tries by lifting her butt up and moving her legs. Then she tries by lifting her chest up and moving her arms. As soon as she figures out that she needs to do both at the same time, she’ll be off like a shot.) and it consumes her brain most of the time, unless she’s thinking about how to get me to hold her hands and let her walk all wobbly-like around the living room.

I get it. It’s a near-constant obsession. Great.

BUT WAKING UP AT 4:15 AM IS NOT THE TIME TO PRACTICE. MOMMY IS SLEEPING AT 4:15 AND WE DO NOT TRY TO CRAWL FOR OVER AN HOUR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.

She was still awake when George got ready for work and then she fell asleep shortly afterwards, so that means about 5:30 or so (our power went out for about one minute last night so my clock wasn’t working; the only way I could tell the time was to check the weather network on tv and by then I just didn’t care what time it was but George leaves by 5:30 so I had a rough idea).

Luckily Hayley didn’t get up until just a little before 7 so I got a bit of sleep but holy hell, I feel like a zombie right now. Good thing I accidentally fell asleep at 10 last night because I needed that extra hour or two of sleep to deal with the spontaneous wake-up.

YAWN. Can someone make me a coffee?