There’s a great meme going on every Thursday over at Chookooloonks. The object is to share an image (or words) that represent love. Any kind of love.
So for my first contribution, I give you one girl’s immense love for her father; she was watching him play with the band when I took this shot.
LOVE I tell you.
It’s true that Breanna’s taste for food has wildly expanded, going from total disgust over anything that isn’t breastmilk to actually enjoying several foods. I mentioned the things she’s been eating in an update not long ago, but it bears mentioning again that she loves mango and cheese most of all. To add to the list, she also enjoyed hard-boiled egg yolk so much that she actually balled up her little fists and screamed at me in aggravation when it was finished. She also loves rice cakes and god forbid one of us eats a rice cake without sharing.
Even at George’s parents’ house the other day, she actually enjoyed nibbling tiny pieces off a plum that was almost as big as her head.
However, apparently her favorite thing to stick in her mouth besides her own hands and feet is something that is not actually meant to be eaten.
Yesterday afternoon we all went to the park for about an hour. After doing the rounds of the swings, the jungle gym, and the slides, Hayley and George were sitting up in the little house-thing with Hayley alternating between crawling through the tunnel and sliding down the slide. Since I knew Breanna would get bored quickly up there and would spend the rest of our time trying to throw herself down the stairs, I chose to sit in the sand with her. She sat for a full five minutes, very happily lifting up fistfuls of sand, then pouring it onto her own feet. A couple of times she tried to stand up but the uneven terrain made it too complicated so she settled for sitting and occasionally crawling around.
Then, completley out of nowhere, she got up onto her hands and knees, rocked back and forth, then lunged straight forward in a sandy belly flop, mouth wide open. From her prone position, she frantically started licking the sand, almost as though she knew I was going to grab her and ruin all her fun.
I scraped my fingernails along her tongue, pulling out as much sand as I could and tried to wash her mouth out with some of Hayley’s juice. I even wiped her lips and tongue with the edge of my shirt in an effort to clean her out.
No more than three minutes later, she was face down, licking the sand again. Clearly it’s her favorite item on the menu of things that can fit into her mouth. Delicious and full of fiber (and I try to avoid thinking what else it might be full of because I can’t disinfect her mouth with bleach anyway), yum yum!
Next time we go to the park I’m taking a bowl of Cheerios with me and when I see her arms spread out for her next swan dive into the sand, I’m going to shove the bowl in front of her so that at least she ends up with actual food in her mouth.
Contained in a swing, far from the sand:
Contained in the stroller with Hayley pushing:
When we went to that party on Saturday, aside from all the typical tasty BBQ food, one of Joanne’s friends brought a bunch of chopped up fruit – melons, grapes, pineapple, strawberries, blablabla. To go with the fruit, she also brought some kind of yogurt dip and some chocolate dip. Now when I serve up fruit at a party, I serve chocolate dip too, but by “dip” I really mean the chocolate syrup you buy to add to milk or squirt over ice cream. It’s yummy, sure, but it’s nothing fancy.
This dip that was at the party on Saturday was different. I don’t know if she made it herself or bought something special but it’s rich, and it’s thick. If you’ve ever made or eaten something with a ganache on it, it’s very similar to that.
Joanne sent us home with a bunch of food because she hates to waste food and they had more than they could possibly eat before it would go bad. She sent home several plastic containers of fruit, one yogurt dip, and two chocolate dips.
Tonight, every time I went to refill my water I saw the little cups of dip. I couldn’t stop thinking about the chocolate dip. Yes, I was having a stereotypical chocolate fit that only women can truly have. I figured there was no point in fighting it, so I finally gave in and decided to have some.
Not so bad right?
Except it should be noted that I have no fruit right now other than a banana that must be saved for Hayley’s breakfast. I do, however, have plenty of spoons. So I’m sitting here eating it like a pudding.
I’d be embarrassed if it wasn’t so damn good.
So if someone takes ELEVEN steps across the living room to get to the television because she thinks Pocoyo is hilarious, does that count as walking?
I think so.
So if you’re on a dial-up connection, you might want to go make a coffee before clicking to read the full entry because there are a ton of pictures, plus two videos. They’re all from Saturday. Our friends Dean and Joanne had a party to celebrate their 12th anniversary and it was a total blast. We arrived around 3:30 that afternoon and didn’t get home until after 11:30 that night. There was a full feast (I managed to polish off two cheeseburgers, two hot dogs, a ton of different salads, not to mention all the chips before supper and the piece of cake with coffee I had later that evening – yes, I AM a fan of eating).
George and several other people he plays with regularly played live music throughout the day and evening until about 11:15. Everyone enjoyed the music, especially the kids. Breanna had fun crawling around the backyard while Hayley ran around NON-STOP with one of her friends. When the grass started to get too damp for people who aren’t fully steady on their feet, I changed Breanna into her pajamas and stuck her in the Baby Bjorn. First I had her facing out so that she wouldn’t miss anything, and she seemed to really enjoy it. When I caught her rubbing her eyes with her fists, I turned her to face me and she fell asleep for over three hours.
Just like the last party they had two years ago, it was really a lot of fun. Keep reading for visual proof of that.
I had an awesome Saturday and I’ll write a post about it later. It will include a whopping 16 pictures, as well as a video of George’s band playing.
In the meantime, speaking of videos, I wanted to share two that I took last week. I’d also like to re-iterate that they were taken with my Nokia cameraphone, which I got for free from Matchstick, lest anyone get their knickers in a knot again over the false idea that I am rolling around naked in my huge piles of money.
Yesterday, Hayley did something brand new for her. George and I had to go see someone I’m doing some web design for. His sister is visiting,so Hayley decided she’d rather go to his parents’ house to see her. I packed a change of clothes, and just in case I also threw in her pajamas.
We took care of the stuff we needed (aside: I’m doing the site for a new and used baby store and I exchanged a bag of outgrown baby clothes – wah! – and old infant carriers for a Baby Bjorn. I am SO stupidly excited about finally having one to go with my wrap carrier and sling!) and stopped off to pick Hayley up. She was freshly bathed, very chatty, and determined to spend the night.
So she did. We made sure everyone knew that if she changed her mind at 3 am, it didn’t matter and she could come home at any time. And then we left.
It was so weird. Her bedroom door stayed closed all night to keep the cat out, and really it shouldn’t have felt much different than when she’s behind that closed door, sleeping. But it did. I knew she wasn’t there, and although I wasn’t sad about it, it was just strange. It was worse when I had Breanna and stayed in the hospital for two full nights without Hayley, but even so, last night I felt a bit like that wizard in that Dora episode, where I kept thinking, “Falta algo – something is missing!”
We spoke to her a little past 8 this morning and I know she was having some eggs and bacon for breakfast. Now George is off to pick her up and bring her home – even though it was really odd to wake up without her here, I am so proud of her for having her very first sleepover.
Edited to add: She just got in and I asked where she had slept; I thought maybe they’d sleep in George’s old room because there are two twin beds in there. She said they slept in Elsa’s room instead, where there’s just one bed.
Sherry: Where did Elsa sleep?
Hayley: She slept in her bed.
Sherry: Where did you sleep?
Hayley: On the floor. Because that’s what sleepovers are all about!
I guess she’s been taking notes when there are sleepovers on some of her shows!
There has been a lot of hooplah going on in the astronomy world about whether Pluto deserves to remain a planet or not. After much deliberation in Prague (sidenote – my dream vacation spot), the verdict is in.
Poor Pluto has been stripped of its planet status and is now just a dwarf planet
Part of it is due to its small size (aha, so size DOES matter!), its gravitational pull, and the fact that its orbit is not clear since it overlaps with Neptune.
Sometimes I wonder if I have a few post-partum issues going on; not so much depression but more that it has heightened my pre-existing anxiety. It’s gotten much better over the past few months, but I’m sort of glad I’m not in any kind of therapy because if I tried to explain my incredible sadness over the classification and demotion of PLUTO, a freakin’ flying rock near the edge of the solar system, I think my therapist would declare me a hormonal disaster and throw me a bottle of potent medication.
(Some people may be surprised that I have an interest in astronomy. To this I say: Hello? Have you noticed the name of this domain? That would be Andromeda as in the galaxy, not the highly sucky show.)
Breanna has been working on steps all day. This afternoon she made it for six steps in a row. There is something surreal about my nine-month-old baby stepping with that funny lurch, heading for my open arms while she chants, “Mama Mama Mama” at me.
Good lord.
I need a mojito.
On Sunday, Breanna hit the nine month mark. I don’t even know how that happened. She’s changed so much since she was born in November.
I only vaguely remember, thanks to pictures, that she once looked like this:
Or like this:
And these days she looks like this:
She’s doing so much now. She crawls like a pro, getting from one place to another so quickly that I sometimes have to run to catch up to her before she gets into something she should stay away from. She plays peek-a-boo, either by crouching behind the safety gate and popping back up again with a smile, or by peering over the couch. She started taking steps over the past couple of days; tonight she realized what she was doing and kept shrieking and laughing, getting herself all revved up over the excitement of almost walking. ALMOST WALKING. AUGH!
I was right about the food situation; she just wasn’t fond of the texture. We started giving her some table foods and her interest in actually eating just exploded. She’ll eat bite-sized pieces of chicken, pork, mango (oh, she loves the mango), apple, banana, peas, bagel, cheese, puff cereal, pasta, and will now even eat applesauce. She doesn’t eat a ton at once, not as much as Hayley did at this age, but she eats and enjoys it, and it makes meal time much more bearable since she’s a participant instead of just being an observer trapped in a high chair.
She laughs frequently, but nothing makes her laugh as much as Hayley. I have a great video to upload later of Hayley chasing after her with monster growls, and Breanna is just cracking up. Tonight we had spaghetti and Hayley dangled a spaghetti noodle over her face like a crazy mustache. Before I could even open my mouth to ask her to stop playing with her food, Breanna looked over and started screaming with laughter. I foresee some interesting dinners for the next several years.
Other things she enjoys doing with Hayley include rolling a ball back and forth, following her big sister everywhere, playing tea party (though she perfers to chew on the tea pot spout rather than holding the cup), dancing, and sharing bath time.
She’s started doing something cute over the past week, something that I guess she picked up from me and from George. When she’s upset (and usually upset means either she’s tired, hungry, or I’ve left the room and triggered separation anxiety on a nuclear disaster level) and I pick her up, she wraps her arms around me and starts patting me on the back – the same way I pat her on the back to calm her down. It’s the sweetest thing.
She also tolerates kisses and even gives them if you hold her over your face, but every so often she takes the initiative and she’ll grab my chin or my mouth and pull me over, opens her mouth wide, and then she gives me a big slobbery baby kiss. I love it.
She responds to Breanna, Breebles, Brebleens, and Breeble-ina. She doesn’t pay much attention when I call her Puffin, but I still do it anyway. And when she’s annoying me I call her Bongo-Head; she ignores that too.
She still hates diaper changes with the fury of an explosion. Once in a blue moon I can distract her long enough with a remote or a funny song (she likes the Yeti song from the Backyardigans) but most often she just tries to flip over or twist away from me, eventually bursting into tears. She has an equal distaste for getting dressed, especially anything for the top half of her body. Pants aren’t so bad, but if I have to put anything over her head, she cries, and she thrashes angrily and wails when I put her arms through anything.
On Saturday she decided to have eight months finish off with a bang. The day before she had been lying in my nap nursing, except by “lying” I really mean she was twisting her body from left to right, trying to stand up, and generally fooling around. At one point she lost her balance and apparently pinned her arm under her own body. She cried momentarily but seemed fine. She was unsettled all evening and cried a lot when she woke up at night, but she was also in the process of teething, so I gave her Tempra and assumed that would be it.
In the early morning, around 6 am, she was crying and when I sat her up I noticed that she wasn’t using her left arm at all. When I tried to move it for her, she’d cry harder. George took Hayley to his parents’ house and we decided to take Breanna to the emergency room. Before leaving, I put her on the living room floor and we put the television remote, the phone, and George’s cell phone on the floor with her. They’re all things she can’t resist so she tried to crawl towards them but couldn’t put any weight on her arm at all, and she started crying so pitifully.
Although we spent four hours at the hospital (!) the fix was fast. The doctor said it was a popped ligament (I later found out it’s often referred to as nursemaid’s elbow) in her elbow and that it is something that happens frequently in young children. He assured us that we shouldn’t feel bad about it because it wasn’t our fault, and then he explained that he would twist her arm to pop it back in.
That part was awful. Her whole face turned red, and she opened her mouth in that dreaded silent scream; once she finally caught her breath, she just wailed. It was horrible. On the other hand, he was right – he told us she’d have her arm’s mobility back 100% within a couple of minutes, and as soon as she stopped crying, she was lifting her arm up, holding George’s cell phone, and back to her normal self. By the time we got home, she was completely fine. I put her down and within a few minutes I had to put the gate up again to keep her out of the kitchen because after only a brief hesitation, she was back to crawling at top speed again. The only proof of her ordeal was the bracelet on her wrist, the bruising from the doctor on her elbow, and her utter exhaustion as she passed out on George.
Then that night, despite a late nap, she was so tired she looked like this, and then went to sleep within five minutes of bedtime.
Still, quick fix or not, I’d prefer to avoid going through it again, thanks.
It’s just all going so fast. I thought it went quickly with Hayley but it’s even worse this time because with two of them to take care of, time flies by at an unbelievable pace (except on bad days where I just want it to be bedtime; those days drag on forever). I can’t believe she’s already nine months old. We just came home this time nine months ago.
I can’t believe that she once fit so well in the crook of my arm like this:
And these days she most often does this:
Happy nine months Breebles.