loved from the start

These last 8 months that I have been doting over my daughter, I have often thought of the other babies in the world...

In the moments that I am with my baby, I am kissing her, singing to her, tickling her, and absolutely adoring every little bit of her. And when she cries, I rush to soothe her. And when she is hungry, I feed her. And when she has a dirty diaper, I change and clean her so she is fresh and comfortable. And I keep her warm, and take her places, and keep her close to me.

And I know that there are children left in soiled diapers, on the brink of starvation. Children who lay screaming with no one to hear their cries or hold and comfort them. There are children that are not kissed and sung to, and held and hugged and loved. And it breaks my heart.

I wish all children were loved as much as my Gillian is loved.

Every child deserves to be adored, to be the middle of somebody's world. That is the best start that you could hope for, for every person to be loved from the start.

Baby Ringworm

Yes, you read that correctly.

My baby got Ringworm. From what? We really don't know. We assume that it is from her little blow-up swimming pool. Although we changed the water almost daily, we never scrubbed down the sides of it during the 2 or 3 weeks we used it. But that's just a guess. I told her pediatrician that she wasn't wrestling with any highschool boys - "where could she have possibly gotten it!?" She told me that she could have gotten it anywhere and that it is pretty common.

Common? I have read all sorts of rare and awful things that your baby could get whilst reading articles online and chapters in my baby books. Never had any mentioned Ringworm.

By the way, be rest assured that Ringworm IS NOT A WORM. It is a fungal rash.

This rash started on her left shoulder and just looked like a little flakey skin, so I didn't worry about it. Within 3 days, her back looked like this! I text messaged the above picture to my pediatrician. He thought that she just had some eczema, and told me to treat it with hydrocortisone cream and a moisturizer. Since we were leaving town, I made an appointment to see a pediatrician the next day to be sure. She thought it looked like Ringworm. 

So we conducted a little experiment, and I treated the right part of her back for eczema and the left part of her back for ringworm. The next day, we noticed a considerable improvement on the left side. By day 3, the rash was nearly gone and the right side looked the same, so we are sure it was ringworm. I treated her whole back for ringworm for another week and it cleared up easily. The rash never bothered the baby at all.

How strange.

Just a little video

So, 8 of the last 10 blog posts I've written haven't been published. They remain as "drafts" in my composition folder.

Either I'm insecure (which could be the case), or I never have the time to actually finish a blog post (which is certainly the case some of the time).

So this one, I am keeping brief and determined to post. One of my buddies has been posting videos of his little guy recently and they are just SOOOO much more fun than pictures. So I thought I would post a video of the Bean today for you to enjoy.

She loves to see her "reflection" via the camera on my phone. So here she is talking to herself before her morning nap last week.

Each moment is it's own

Yesterday my daughter discovered that she could roll over from her back to her front. It terrified me. I heard what sounded like her muffled cries after I had laid her down to sleep and when I ran into her room, there she was, laying on her belly and crying into her crib sheet.

I know it's a little late for her to finally be rolling from her back to her belly. We weren't stressed because we knew that she could probably do it, but that she just lacked the incentive.

Starting today our life is different. I tried to lay her on our bed for her nap (when i lay her in her crib, she fusses. Sometimes our bed fools her into a happier nap), and she completed 3 complete body rolls almost off the edge.

So starting today, we can't leave her unsupervised on the bed anymore. Which isn't that big of a deal except that is where we place her whenever we are with friends so she can nap. Now we'll have to tow around the pack-n-play. Which is why we bought it in the first place, I guess.

Whenever the Bean lays down to sleep, she simply rolls over onto her left side and sucks her left thumb and journeys off to slumber-land. Now that she has the roll down, she is having a hard time rolling onto her side and instead rolls completely over. She is roused from almost-sleep and is seriously pissed off. Replay this over and over and over  for over and hour and that is where we are at this very moment.

And I am sitting in the chair in her room watching her because she keeps getting herself stuck on her tummy against the edge of her crib (she can't roll back onto her back in both directions, just one) and I don't want her to suffocate or something. So I pick her up and lay her back on her back. But I try to fight it. I know she has to learn for herself so that I don't have to sit beside her crib every time I lay her here. But I hate seeing her struggle. And she REALLY needs to get some sleep.

Right now she is screaming in hysterics. This is really rare for my kid. the Bean just doesn't cry much at all, and if she is "crying", it is just a fussiness, not a scream-and-bellow cry.

It is amazing how quickly my child learns and grows. Where yesterday was an ordinary day, today has it's new challenges. When she got her first tooth 2 weeks ago, i told her, "from now on, you will have teeth." As with this change, "from now on, you will have control over where you want to go and you will never stay where I place you." As a mom, nothing is predictable. Each day is new. Each moment is it's own.

P.S., now an hour and a half after I laid her down, she sleeps.

(with her left thumb in her mouth)

First time sleeping on her tummy.

And I've walked into her room 5 times in the last 10 minutes to make sure she is still breathing. She is.

Joy

Precious baby enjoyed swinging for the first time while visiting family. 

And in her joy was ours. 

These teary eyes can get whatever they want from me.

Luckly, Baby doesn't know this yet.

And by the time she does, maybe I'll conquer their pull. 

I doubt it.

Having a working-mom's heart in a Stay-at-home-mom's world

It's been two weeks since my last day at work.

I don't miss it. I don't.

I had a generous 11 weeks of maternity leave after Gillian was born and then I was back at work for 14 weeks, the last 3 of which were part-time.

I did not like being away from my baby.

The best thing about working full-time was that it gave my husband a chance to be a stay-at-home full-time dad. This is not something that he ever wanted. But he was soooo good at it. Every day he and Gillian came to see me for lunch and I got to feed her in the front seat of our car while Landon listened to me talk about my day. See, he is not only an amazing dad, but the best husband I could hope for. So Gillian wasn't suffering for one second once I returned to work. She took to the bottle easily, and I was able to pump twice a day while working, which was important to me. So my child has never had anything touch her lips except for breast milk.

I was so blessed to see Landon taking over the roll of primary care-giver in Gillian's life, even though I wished so badly that it was me. He taught her to roll over, and had her on a nap/feeding schedule. Every evening when I would get home, he would place her into my arms and she would be all mine until her bedtime, which was 2-3 hours later.

I lived for those 2-3 hours all day long. While I was working, Landon sent me pictures of Gillian playing with her toys, and video of her being her cute self and I looked at them over and over. This sounds desperate and pathetic, certainly, but that was exactly what I was. At 2 months old, I hated leaving my baby. Sitting in the hall closet with a "do not disturb" sign outside of the door twice a day while I saved my child's life source in plastic bottles felt so against nature, so contrary to everything I felt within me. I ached for her.

I remember her 4 month appointment, her pediatrician directed several questions at me: "what is her nap schedule like?", "how much is she eating?", etc... and I had no clue what the answers were. I just differed them to my husband. and I left with a weight of guilt and a broken heart.

These last 2 weeks have been heaven. I got to see her roll over for the first time. I am experiencing several "firsts" and I have felt like I have gotten to know her so much more! Although, there have been times that I have found myself looking forward to her next nap - I can't believe that. I remember the not-so-long-ago life I lived where I wanted her present with me always. So I decided to do my best to apply my perspective as a working mom to my new stay-at-home lifestyle:

1. Be fully present as much as possible, not distracted.
2. Every moment is a bonding moment.
3. Every moment is a teaching moment.
4. Every moment is a chance to love her.
5. Savor every second

With a baby as precious as this one, it's not difficult at all to follow this creed.

my Sweet Pea, playing and laughing with puke on her face.

Is there food on my face?

I am a momma. I can't help but document my little girl's life. And she is growing so much and experiencing so many new things. At this stage of her infant life, it seems that every week brings new "firsts", and I snap and scribble and post and share each one as I rejoice in my mommy heart that my girl is thriving and exploring and learning.

Yesterday was the Bean's first time trying "solid" foods.

We decided to start slowly, with a little rice cereal mixed with breast milk.

I think this precious reaction has more to do with the texture than the taste. Because, honestly, it probably tasted mostly like breast milk (but i don't actually know because I didn't try it).

Still thinking about it....

(P.S. we decided that this super expensive bib was totally worth for how functional it was.)

Realizing that it tastes vaguely familiar, and all of the sudden, she becomes ravenously hungry. Landon couldn't get the food in her mouth fast enough. 

Even tried to eat the bib.

She became unhappy by the time they were in the bottom of the bowl.

From all of the reading I have done, I did not expect Gillie to eat anything at all the first few days. I was so amazed at the way my girl scarfed her meal. She continues to uphold her reputation as an "easy" baby. 

Baby's beautiful hair

I don't put bows in Gillian's hair often. They look big and silly. But I do love headbands and barrettes in her hair. She doesn't mind them at all, so far. They usually bug me eventually because they don't stay in place, so she never wears them long. And if she is handed over to her father with some hair adornment, it is promptly removed. But she does have such beautiful hair, it is fun to dress it up a bit.

This scrunched up nose is her whiney face. This is a new thing. Sometimes she whines without crying, just whining. She is able to express her varied emotions in varied ways these days instead of just smiling or just crying, she is learning to communicate better. So now we have the scrunchy complainey face. And I love it just as much as her pooched-out-and-quivering-bottom-lip cry and her ear-to-ear toothless smiles.

Her hair is thick and long in the front (as you can see from the first picture). It is less thick in the back, where she has managed to rub it off with her vigorous head movements on her sheets and in her car seat. But cutest of all is this little "Alfalfa" curl on the top of her head. It is absolutely precious.

The cuteness never ends

Gillian went "swimming" for the first time yesterday.

All ready for the pool!

It was 102F yesterday and 103F today, so I sunk (get it..."sunk"?) $4 into an itty bitty inflatable pool so Gillie-Bean could enjoy a new first (except I think we enjoy firsts more than she does), and cool off.

This is the first moment Landon put her feet in the water.

Our baby has been in nice warm baths in the sink and the tub. Although, we are always scrubbing or rinsing her. She hasn't been able to enjoy much of her own free movement and exploration in water. Also, she has never been in anything cooler than body temperature. When Landon first put her feet in she let out a little squeal. She wasn't so sure about it all at first.

This is Gillian's concentration face. She wore it almost the entire time.

She really got into it eventually and splashed at the water with both hands.

Startled herself several times with water in her eyes and on her face

Look at the concentration on this little face!!!

Baby bottom is so precious.

She was so tired after playing that I had to rouse her 6 or 7 times while I was feeding her. I laid her down right afterward even though it was 30 minutes before her bed time and she fell asleep instantly. She even slept longer last night than she ever has before. 

Landon and I had so much fun with her in the pool, and if you can't tell, Gillie enjoyed herself as well.