Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Powered by sour milk

Honestly. Sometimes I wonder how first children survive.

The first kid is The Practice Child. The one we get to test out our brand new wobbly-legged parenting skills on.

Which is what I did this morning. Although, I didn't realize that's what I was doing at the time.

What I thought I was doing was making Anna her breakfast. Just like every morning. I took some mixed cereal (oat, barley and rice), put in a dollop of yogurt and mixed in some leftover breast milk I had in the fridge from the weekend.

I fed Anna about 6 spoonfuls before she got some on her chin that I wiped off with my finger. Not having a napkin handy, I did what I normally do... I licked my finger.

And that's when I tasted it.

A vile, sour, nasty taste that I can only describe as "vomit-like". (For a moment I assumed that Anna had had some spit up on her chin and I accidentally got it on my finger). Then I investigated further and realized that her entire bowl of cereal smelled the same.

Oh yes, dear Internet, I made my child's cereal with sour breast milk and FED HER 6 SPOONFULS OF IT.

Mother of the Year? Yes, that's me.

I had to eat a whole banana and several bites of toast just to get rid of the taste from that one, itty bitty portion that I licked off my finger.

Poor Anna. (Did I mention... 6 SPOONFULS!?)

I immediately fed her some banana (in case the sour milk gives her the shits... thought I should help stop her up a bit) and some toast.

Thankfully, she seemed pretty fine. Didn't seem fazed at all by it.

Of course, then I gave her one last bite of banana and she immediately puked up the sour smelling milk, mixed with banana. All over her shirt. Anna is now playing in the basement with me, still wearing the sour milk puke-stained shirt.

Oh my goodness, can you stand how amazing I am as a Mom?

So, yeah. I think I'll take Anna upstairs to change her out of her nasty smelling jammies.

Just as soon as I finish my cup of coffee, that is.

Don't want to go spoiling the kid.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Milestone

Anna is officially and truly crawling now.

I watched her a few times this morning when she didn't know I was looking. (If I'm sitting right there next to her, she sort of gets mad and frustrated instead of trying to crawl. She'd rather me pick her up and do it for her, the lazy bum.)

So I think it's time for me to start baby-proofing. She's already got a love of pulling open drawers and chewing on absolutely everything she can get her hands on. (One of the drawers in our end tables downstairs has miscellaneous computer wires in it. For some reason, Anna loves to grab wires and chew. Awesome.)

I'm sure I'm getting into a whole new stage of Mothering now. The "exhausting Mama out" stage. But hey - maybe now I'll lose that extra baby weight from all of the chasing.

Look out world, here comes Anna and her cute crawly bum.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Pray for mojo

I've lost my mojo when it comes to writing lately.

Not quite sure why, though. (Actually, I was down in the dumps pretty much all day yesterday for no real reason... Just having one of those "meh" days. Which begs the question: Can you get a case of the Sundays when you don't go to work on Mondays??)

Anyway. It's important for me to remember that this blog is also for Anna. I want to record her milestones and write about every little cute thing she's doing. Which is why I must find my mojo and keep on keeping on, dammit.

(Anna's going to think I'm very cool. How could she not when I use terms like "keep on keeping on"???)

So. Things that are new:
  • Anna is SOOOO close to crawling. She's 8 and a half months now, and on October 21st she pretty much crawled her first crawl "steps". She did about 2 and a half to 3 crawls. Since then, she hasn't done it again... However, she gets up onto her knees, rocks back and forth and then yells angrily at me to come help her move.
  • I'm officially unemployed. I gave in my resignation at my job so that I can give freelance writing a try. Despite not having any work officially lined up for when my mat leave pay runs out, I'm oddly calm about the whole decision. Andrew and I agreed that it's best for our family, best for Anna and best for our overall happiness in general. I think Anna's pretty lucky. Then again, so am I.
  • Andrew and I have been married for 4 years now. We quietly celebrated our anniversary last week by going out for dinner. We talked and talked and talked about everything... Work, movies, Anna, what we were doing 4 years ago, books, what we did that day... It was really, really nice. We haven't had time to just sit together, without any distractions, and just talk. Afterwards, we went to Chapters and browsed some books. I bought Anna her very first "Twas the night before Christmas" book to read to her every Christmas Eve. All in all, it was a pretty great night.
  • Anna had her first cold last week. Now, here's something that I find very interesting... you know how everyone has something that just makes them gag every time it's mentioned or talked about or seen? My thing is snot. Just the word snot makes me almost vomit. I'm not kidding... it makes me so frigging sick. (I think this can be related back to an early childhood traumatic memory of a boy in my kindergarten class eating his boogers... ugh - have to stop now. Going to vomit.) Anyway - point is, Anna's been really stuffed up and can't breathe. So I had to go out and get this device that pretty much requires you to suck the snot out of your baby's nose... thankfully, there's a contraption that catches the snot so you don't get any in your mouth. Now, here's the interesting/bizarre part: it doesn't make me sick at all to do this! Not in the least little bit. I find I'm almost proud when I get a large amount of goobers out of her nose. Who knew Motherhood could make you immune to disgusting, disgusting things. (This must be why my Mom could clean up my puke and not bat an eyelash whenever I was sick as a kid.) (By the way - thanks Mom!)
And on that note, I'm going to end the discussion. No more talk of boogers or vomit.

Sorry people. This blog started out much nicer and gentler, didn't it? Just goes to show - when you're home all day and not interacting with the world as much as you used to, the only thing you've got left to talk about is your child's snot.

(Sorry. I promised I would stop.)

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Libraries: Old fashioned or fantastic?

Anna's keeping me quite busy lately, and so is the Moms group I joined (have I told you how much I adore the Moms group? It's awesome, yo. I have real grownups to hang out with!)

So anyway, I find I have less and less time to write. Which is sad, really - as I should always make time for writing. But, hey. What can I say? Contrary to popular belief, I ain't perfect.

Today we're going to a library with some other Moms to check out the play area and to browse the books. Libraries (though I haven't been to one in ages) seem so old-fashioned and antiquated... and yet, they have this kind of awesome quality to them.

When I was a little girl, I absolutely loved going to the library. I loved browsing through rows and rows of books. I loved the crinkly sound that happened when I opened up a book with that protective plastic covering on it. I thought that getting a new book to read was on par with eating tons of candy or having a sleepover.

I read Ramona Quimby, Age 8 and The Berenstein Bears. I devoured Clifford books and The Littles series. I read every single Babysitter's Club book. I read and reread Are you there God? It's me, Margaret over and over again. I loved Roald Dahl books, especially Witches, The BFG and Matilda.

Reading, for me, was intensely exciting. So, as nerdy as it may sound, libraries had this kind of magical quality to me.

I have no idea if Anna will feel the same way. Will she be like me? Or will she be more like her Daddy (who reads, but would probably laugh at me if he knew I thought of it as magical)? I read to her every night to inspire that love at an early age. In the end, if it's not her thing, that's okay with me.

But, man, what a fantastic world she'll be missing.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

You're the one

Halloween's coming. (Just in case you didn't know).

Are you excited?

If you're not excited yet... I'll give you a very good reason to be.

Here it is.......

Are you ready?

Are you sure?

(Really sure??)

Okay. I won't drag this out any longer.

Here it is. A sneak preview of Anna's very first halloween costume....



Stay tuned for the real thing.

If you can handle extreme cuteness, that is.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Will she love Boney M as much as I do?

Yesterday I almost burned the house down while making brown rice. I also put a bag of fresh baby carrots away in the freezer.

I was really on my game.

I suppose it could be due to the fact that I went for a 10k run yesterday morning (yay me!) and also took Anna out in the afternoon, which resulted in an accidental hour-long walk. (I didn't mean to take her out for an epic jaunt around the neighbourhood. It just sort of happened. Mama's legs were achy. But Anna liked it.)

Anyway, so I was tired. I kind of crashed on the couch around 7:30/8 o'clock last night... but I managed to stay up until 9. (Woo!! They call me the Party Hez... Woooooo!! Party!!!)

I think Anna wanted to torture Mama last night because she didn't wake up once to eat. She woke up twice.

Sigh.

I'm not going to focus on the fact that Anna is 8 months old (today!) and still waking twice in the night to eat. Instead, I'm going to think about happy things.

Like the holidays.

It's cool out today. We have the heat on. So it's starting to really feel like fall now. Which means I'm getting all excited. This is my absolute favourite time of year. Especially since the holiday season is about to be kicked off with Thanksgiving. The eating holiday. Perhaps the best holiday of all.

So, it goes Thanksgiving. Halloween. And then... Christmas. My favourite time of year. (Still. At 31 years old.)

I was telling Andrew the other day that my excitement for the holidays is now going to be times a million, due to the fact that we have Anna to celebrate with. I've already purchased her halloween costume and a bib that says "My first halloween".

Just wait for Christmas. Oh... Christmas. I can hardly wait for all the "My first Christmas" paraphernalia. And the cute little holiday party dresses. And showing Anna off to family. And baking cookies with her. And going for winter walks to look at the Christmas lights.

Sigh.

Whatever Andrew and I do during the holidays - starting right now - that's going to be what Anna remembers when she's a grown up. All of her fond memories. And we get to start making them.

Really now. Christmas with Anna.

Can you tell me how life can get much better?

Friday, October 1, 2010

Whatcha doin'?

This is good.

All you Moms out there that get asked "What do you do all day?!?" Here's a good answer.

Enjoy. And happy Friday.