It’s only Wednesday, only halfway through the week and it’s just been one of those weeks. Part of it is a teething baby with no end in sight, part of it is a three-and-a-half-year-old continuing to be, well, three, and part of it is just being tired. And thus, yesterday:

George: I brought you some chips.
Sherry: Yay! Now if only I had a beer to go with them. I could seriously use a beer.
George: Sorry. I’ll get you a beer tomorrow.
Sherry: That will be too late. By tomorrow I’ll need a bong.

Today was a beautiful, hot, sunny day. It felt more like summer than spring, and all that was missing was a pool and a BBQ. We went out after lunch and took the girls to the park where Hayley and I played on everything and George watched over a sleeping Breanna in the stroller. From there we walked through the woods to Grandma’s house (no, really, we went to visit his parents for a bit and cut through the woods). Once we got home, he had an errand to run and Breanna was asleep in her seat so I left her in the bedroom while Hayley and I took the baby monitor out on the balcony to enjoy some more sunshine.

When Breanna woke up, I brought her out too, covered her noggin with a sun hat, and noting that she was hungry, I fed her. Up on the fourth floor balcony. Overlooking the street. From the FOURTH floor. Way up here.

Two women in their 40s or 50s were walking by and they looked up, saw us, did a double take and then a triple take. I actually glanced down to see if I had forgotten to put on pants, but no, I was fully dressed and although it was quite obvious as to what I was doing based on the way I was holding Breanna’s body, I wasn’t even remotely close to flashing anyone. And in case you missed it, like I said, we were up on the FOURTH FLOOR balcony.

I thought I was being paranoid until one woman loudly said to the other that I should “cover up to do that”.

Oh no you didn’t. NO YOU DIDN’T.

I responded like so:

“This is my baby. She is hungry. If you were hungry right this second, you could reach into your purse and pull out a sandwich and eat it right down there on the sidewalk, and you would be perfectly within your rights to do so. Even if happened to be, say, a sardine sandwich, which friggin’ disgusts me, you would still be legally allowed to eat it and if it was bothersome to me, it would be expected that I should simply look away so as to not offend my poor eyes with your sandwich.

“Likewise, my daughter is hungry and in the province of Quebec, both she and I are legally protected and thus allowed to partake in breastfeeding. It is not against the law for me to feed my daughter while sitting on my own damn balcony. In fact, I could go sit on the sidewalk directly in front of you and feed her right there if I wished. I may also feed her in a park, a mall, a parked car, the front steps of a building, and a restaurant.

“Also, there is nothing obscene or immoral with this act. I am feeding my child in a way that is completely natural. I am neither required by law nor social etiquette to pump my breastmilk into a bottle in order to feed my daughter in public. I am not required to cover her with a blanket, hide inside my living room, or hide out in a bathroom when she is hungry.

“If you are so delicate that you are shocked and bothered by the thought that I am using a breast to feed my baby and the fact that although you can’t even see anything from way down there that you are nonetheless aware of what I am doing, all I can do is suggest that you look away.

“After all, I’m way up here, four stories higher than you are. It’s for your own good, really; if you keep looking up here, not only are you going to continue to be horrified, but keeping your stuck-up snooty nose so high in the air is certainly going to cause you to trip over something. I wouldn’t want you to fall on your ass because I might be so distracted by a need to laugh at you that I just might accidentally unlatch my daughter and I’ll end up spraying you with breastmilk.

“Have a fantabulous day! Bitch!”

And the best part is that since I didn’t have a lot of time to say what I wanted to say, I managed to convey all of that in one single gesture, courtesy of my middle finger.

How to have a perfect Spring day:

Get out one Mei Tei carrier and wrangle an octopus a baby into it. Get a pre-schooler’s coat and shoes on. Grab a ball, bottle of water, and camera. Go outside. Walk around for a long time in the sunshine, enjoying the hidden nature spots in the middle of suburbia, the surprisingly melodic harmonica-playing of the pre-schooler, and silly conversations.

For best results be sure that you are indeed bringing one Very Happy Baby:

And one Nature-Loving Tree Hugger:

Repeat as often as weather permits.

(More photos on Flickr.)

Just a few snippets from recent days:

What’s making me giggle:

Hayley has a doctor appointment today, just a regular check-up. The receptionist always calls a day or two before any appointments to confirm.

*ring, ring*
George: Hello?
Woman: Can I speak to Hayley please?
George: … Uh… May I ask who’s calling please?!
Woman: I’m calling from Dr. M___’s office to confirm her Thursday appointment… Oh. Oh jeez, I just looked at her file; I didn’t realize she’s only three, sorry about that!

What has given me just a little bit of guilt

Hayley is a jumper. Approximately 5790643 times a day I ask her to stop repeatedly jumping because of the people downstairs (blast this top floor living!). It’s certainly worse when weather keeps us indoors but even if I let her out to run like a wild animal for six straight hours, she’d still jump within five minutes of walking inside.

Last night we were in the bathroom to brush her teeth before bed and she noticed the crack in our floor that goes from one end to the other. Our building dates back to the 70s I think and it’s the original (ugly) floor. We also live in the land of really cold winter and really hot summer, so everything expands and contracts a lot. Thus, the floor crack is not a surprise.

Hayley: Mommy, look! Look at this big crack in the floor!
Sherry: I know!
Hayley: Why is the floor cracked like that?
Sherry: Well, it’s because…
Hayley: Oh! I know why! It’s because I always jump and I broke the floor!
Sherry: Um, well actually…
Hayley: I won’t jump anymore. I don’t want the floor to break all the way to downstairs.
Sherry: But you didn’t… Um. Okay, that’s a really great idea!

Yeah, yeah I’m a terrible mother for letting her believe she cracked the floor. But she hasn’t jumped since last night so I’m just going to enjoy it for as long as it lasts.

What’s irritating the hell out of me:

The upcoming made-for-tv movie on ABC, “Fatal Contact: Bird Flu In America”, where millions of people are dropping dead from a nightmarish pandemic. Great. Just what we need, a movie to create fear-mongering in a general public that already works itself into a tizzy over things that haven’t happened. The promo calls it “one step ahead of the headlines”. I call it “utter crap useful for scaring the shit out of people”. Perhaps by mid-summer we can see a movie where half of North America dies from the mumps! Yay!

Something else that’s making me giggle:

Mildly related to that mini-rant, every time I serve chicken for supper, I refer to it as Avian Bird Flu Surprise. Delicious and nutritious, tastes just like, uh, chicken!

Hmmm, maybe I should get dressed unless I want to go to the doctor’s office in my pajamas.

Breanna’s gone through a sleep strike over the past few days (developmental milestone? Teething? Growth spurt? Total anarchy? That’s the fun part – you just never know!) and Hayley hasn’t been sleeping well either, going down easily but waking up in the middle of the night or getting up as early as the sun. As a result, since Sunday I’ve been totally tired. Today I’ve felt mildly like a zombie. I had two coffees this morning and seriously considered a third but three cups will usually make me feel queasy so I backed off and switched to water.

Anyway, all this fog in my brain means that aside from getting confused about my glasses (see below), I don’t have anything to say right now. Actually, I do have a few things worth writing but not if I try to make them the slightest bit coherent now. Maybe if I get some sleep tonight I can string a few paragraphs together; as it is, I’ve had to hit the backspace key more times that I can count to fix typo on top of typo.

Have some imagery instead.

My new favorite picture of the two of them:

But these two come in at a close second with the two of them lying in Hayley’s bed for storytime:

See what I mean about tired? I could barely even keep my eyes open to take this.

And since Amanda requested more video, here are two for you. I only wish my camera recorded sound too; I have a real video camera but no functional video capture card so I can only share sound-free video from my digital camera for now. Just imagine lots of giggling in both.

First, Breanna is trying to teach herself to crawl. She has the right idea, sort of, but lacks the co-ordination and strength (but oh, if desire was all that mattered, she’d be crawling everywhere!). Also, she needs to learn that you aren’t supposed to use your FACE to drag yourself along the ground. But hey, at least she’s happy about it.

And Hayley wanted me to take a video of her. I asked what she wanted to do and she immediately climbed on the bed and got ready for one of her favorite indoor activities – jumping on the bed!

Okay, that took all my energy reserves (though these pictures and several more that I didn’t link here are over on Flickr too. I think it’s time to watch the news in bed. Good night.

How you know you’re sleep deprived:

At 1:30 am, gently place your full, sleeping baby in her bassinet. Attempt to place eyeglasses on arm of couch. Knock glasses OFF couch. Feel around on blurry floor. Reach up on to end table and then couch, cursing because you can’t remember where you put your damn glasses. Realize you’re looking for your glasses so that you can find… your damn glasses. Finally locate them under table and sigh heavily. Put them on and search for another 30 seconds before remembering (again) that you already found what you were looking for. Give up all hope of ever locating missing brain cells as easily.

If I could just sleep for three straight days I’m sure it would get better.

Breanna is currently nursing down (well, at least I hope so) and she’s helping the sleep process by thwacking herself, with her fist, in her forehead. Repeatedly.

It’s a little distracting.

What is it that makes a three-year-old figure the best time to have a lengthy conversation with me is when I’m sitting on the damn toilet? Seriously. Every time. If I’m just peeing then she rarely disturbs me. If I’m, er, NOT peeing though, that’s when she wants to discuss things like where the pipes from the tub go, what the walls are made of, and how the washing machine works.

Is it the captive audience factor? Yeesh.

One thing in particular struck me today after I changed Breanna’s first diaper of the day – how big she’s getting. I remember this picture where she looked so small in the bassinet, partly because she WAS still small (though at 8 lbs 5 oz, she was never small), and partly because at only five days old, ,she still spent most of her time curled up like a little ball. I remember what a shock it was to see her practically floating in this bed because the pack & play’s bassinet is double the size of the ones at the hospital.

And in comparison, at five months, this is how she looked in it this morning. Also, you’ll notice that now that she realizes she can roll on purpose, she prefers not staying flat for longer than necessary.

She won’t be spending many more nights in there. At four months, she weighed 14 lbs and the safety limit is 15. I figure she’s pretty close so this weekend we’ll try her out in the crib. Eep. We’re going to move the crib to the bedroom; I’m too nervous about having the girls sleep in the same room because I’m afraid Hayley will wake up early and decide to climb in there with her. She wouldn’t mean any harm, but.. just no. I would never get any sleep from the stress.

Other things going on at five months:

She can now sit for brief spurts. She wobbles but hangs in there!

She still sleeps best swaddled even though she’s rapidly outgrowing her blanket.

She thinks Hayley is the funniest and greatest person ever; unless she’s already upset, she almost always smiles and laughs at her big sister.

Although we haven’t formally introduced her to television yet, it’s on at various times throughout the day. She has shown some interest in Barney and Rolie Polie Frickin’ Olie. Two of my least favorite kids’ shows. GREAT.

She still loves standing (and occasionally looking like she’s dancing when she starts wiggling) most of all. I try to just pull her up to sitting but she always pulls my hands until she hauls herself straight up.

We have a game and I love it; she does it on occasion to George or Hayley, but mostly me. It starts with me loudly kissing her cheeks, jaw, and neck (“mwah mwah mwah!”) and then she’ll swiftly whip her head around, mouth wide open, and she clamps down on my jaw or chin, and starts chewing wildly. I then start shrieking in mock terror, and it ends with both of us laughing. Lather, rinse, repeat until one of us gets tired (hint: it’s never me).

I think she’ll be happy next month to try solids (and it’s very hard to resist the urge to start now) because she’s so excited by food. I remember Hayley looked like she was watching ping pong because she’d watch the fork go from plate to mouth to plate; it was similar to a pet hoping something might fall into her mouth. Breanna looks like a bird. She stretches her neck as far as she can, bulges her eyes, stiffens her whole body and starts flapping her arms up and down while saying, “mmm, mmmmm!” Poor baby. I don’t ever want to eat another popsicle in front of her again after she nearly gave herself an aneurism watching me eat one yesterday.

She has chunky turkey legs and when she falls asleep and I see one sticking out, it takes every ounce of willpower to keep from chewing on it.

Every night I read to Hayley at bedtime and Breanna loves it. She lies there with us, smiling at the pictures and patting the books. One more bookworm in the family?

When she’s tired she lays over my shoulder moaning and groaning and saying “ahhhhhhhhhh” like that last drunk at the bar telling sob stories to the bartender.

Her favorite toys are a soft bunny George got for her, most dolls but especially a little baby in pink that she holds with both hands while chewing on the head, and mostly that damn spatula. Good thing I own several because it may be awhile before I get it back. I should have gotten George to take a picture after supper – Hayley was using a spatula to mix brownie batter, I was using a smaller one to spread margarine in the baking pan, and Breanna was in her car seat slapping herself in the head with hers.

(See the spatula love? We visited George’s parents on Easter Sunday and I couldn’t even get a picture without the spatula being involved.)

Tonight she celebrated being five months old by staying awake until 10:30 pm, after a loud car in need of a muffler woke her up at 8:30 (one more positive thing about moving her out of this living room). I didn’t mind since she was in fine spirits, watched The O.C. with me, and then laughed for about 20 minutes straight just because I was playing the startle game with her (like a slightly more hardcore version of peek-a-boo, which causes her to jerk her whole body in surprise, and then she laughs like a loon).

She also celebrated her five month birthday with Hayley this morning. Hayley asked me if we would have a cake and when I said no, she borrowed a mixing bowl, got all the play food from her kitchen, and made Breanna a “cake”. So we all ate some. My piece had cabbage and eggplant, my favorite kind of cake!

I celebrated her five month birthday by crying a little, marvelling in how much she’s grown and changed, and fondly remembering that five months ago I had orderlies bring me food every few hours.

Happy five months, little Puffin! Let’s not rush too much, okay?

Breanna is 5 months old today. She’s not even born yet. This time five months ago I was in tremendous pain, mangling my mother’s hand at each contraction, and pushing just a little to relievethe pressure even though I was still only9 centimeters. I was half an hour away from pushing for real and less than an hour from holding an 8 lb 5 oz. baby in my arms.

I can’t believe how quickly time can fly.

A longer post and pictures to come later.