Funny

This is a picture of the homemade frozen baby food. There are raw plums, cooked pears, beets, blueberries, carrots with orange tomatoes and cheddar cheese, spaghetti squash with orange roughy, and lentils. I also had asparagus and cauliflower, and apples and pears with cinnamon, but she ate all those already.

Last year, before I made all this baby food, I made some pesto and froze it in ice cubes just like these, excepts I didn't mark the ziploc bag. So, a little over a month ago I had to go to Kansas City to sell wine, and John was watching Cecilia for a couple days. On the last day I was out of town, he had a meeting in Cape, so Becky watched Cecilia. On my way home from Kansas City I called Becky to see how everything was going. She said everything was fine. She asked what the green food was that she fed her for lunch. I said if it was green, it was asparagus. She said it smelled so good, and Cecilia really liked it, but it smelled garlicy. It was then I realized Cecilia had eaten pesto instead of asparagus for lunch. Whoops!

watching daddy direct the band Tuesday night at practice

“There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.” –Albert Schweitzer

Requesting Some Enlightenment

Anybody ever work at a day care?

I'm looking for a place to take Cecilia a few days a week, and it's a harder task than I imagined. There are two openings at day cares in Ste. Gen, but I think I'm kind of anti-day-care. I would rather have someone watch her in their house who is licensed, but there are very few of those type of saints around, so so far we've narrowed it down to 2 day cares. So, my question is; if I have specific instructions, how well with the workers abide by my requests? The workers, or "teachers" have a ratio of 4 to 1 in the baby rooms, so 1 adult will be watching Cecilia and 3 other babies. How is this possible? I am kind of anal when it comes to her food, no, really? Will they really give her the homemade baby food I give them? Will they really make her cereal out of water when they make all the other baby's cereal out of juice? How sick is she going to get from all the other babies? How will they get Cecilia in their schedule; she doesn't gulp down her food real fast, sometimes she protests, and sometimes she doesn't want to take a nap, she needs some coercing, and she doesn't take a nap at the exact same time everyday. She takes a morning nap, an early afternoon nap and a late afternoon nap. I wish I could just find someone who is licensed and has an opening for a baby in their house...

I told John on Friday that all this was making me go crazy, and he insinuated that I might already be there.

lycopersicum

It's time for our annual question of what-are-we-going-to -do- with -all- these-tomatoes? This year we made salsa at the farm; three kinds including the super hot one Dad and I made this afternoon. We also made tomato sauce; 11 quarts. There are still 4 more boxes of tomatoes waiting for a purpose and more out on the vine. Think I can make tomato baby food?

More Matchy Matchy

Saturday we went over to Cori and Steve's beautiful house that is somehow out in the country, but close to a town at the same time. That concept is foreign to me, since the farm where I grew up is so remote, that I just can't comprehend open fields and a 5 minute drive to Walmart. My brain does not compute this idea.

Their daughters are just darling, Valerie pictured in the bottom picture steals the show over there. She has more energy than I do after 5 cups of Starbucks, and she's as cute as can be. Louise in the top picture is about a month (maybe 5 weeks) older than Cecilia, and she's also one of a kind. She has this way of getting around that looks like she is on the slip and slide. And that hair- so adorable.

The middle picture is on Cecilia and Louise together. They had on matching outfits. I guess every girl baby has this outfit right now. Right after I took this picture the camera battery died. So annoying. I'm sure there will be more side by side pictures of Louise to come, but for now you'll have to settle with 2 babies on the floor. This is pretty much the normal view of Cecilia anyway right now.

New Dress

I guess all her clothes are new...

Wave!

She can wave now. Last weekend at Jour de Fete we were hanging out with some customers after we closed, and they waved at her and she waved back. She's always flailing her arms around, but they pointed out that she waved back at them, and what do you know, she repeated it. It makes us melt, we spend half the evening waving at her and having her wave back. God knows how long she's been doing it, we never really taught her, she just picked it up. Next thing you know she'll be repeating my favorite word, better cut that out of my vocabulary now. So, there's the full arm wave, as seen in video #1, and then the extra cute finger wave.

I Can See A Lot of Life In You

She's such a happy baby. She makes me happy just thinking about her. Quick Update: I'm pretty sure there are two teeth, not just one; both on the bottom. They look exactly the same, just little daggers poking out of her gums, I guess maybe they both came at the same time? I know you said they would come close together, but I guess I imagined a week or two in between. She does seem happier now, and she's sleepy better, which makes everyone happier. She is also crawling. She's got her knees up under her, her belly off the ground and she moves in a forward direction, just a tiny bit at a time. She has also pulled herself up off the ground and stood holding onto the ottoman. I see a baby gate in our near future.

Gentle

My 2 Favorite Sleepy People

Friends or Enemies?

Java is the only cat that will come anywhere near Cecilia. He usually lays down next to her when I am also next to her. I think he is trying to get attention anywhere he can lately, even if that means letting Cecilia maul him. She especially likes to put his tail in her mouth. I have a feeling when she starts crawling things will get much worse for Java. I'm sure the moment in time will come where Java will lose his patience. I'm not looking forward to that day.

I want to thank Katie and Terry and April and Cori again for all the advice. I think I expected some of you to answer some of the questions, not every single question. I feel like you all gave me a big hug. Things are definitely still trying. I have tried the frozen banana, it worked so-so. I can't seem to find Zwiebach or individually wrapped Gerber teething biscuits. I forgot to buy oragel. I like the Jack Daniels idea, but I'm not sure John wants to share. I also tried freezing a washcloth. I remember Heather giving Jack a celery stalk to teeth on. Maybe I'll try that. I pinched her back a day or two ago, and used a "mom" tone with her, and that seems to have worked. Now she grabs my skin, but I use the tone and tell her not to pinch mommy, and so far she hasn't actually pinched me again.

One for me.

She is still fussier than normal, and she still clings to me like saran wrap. I know the time will come when she hates me, and so I try to remind myself of that. I didn't come equipped with a whole lot of patience, so the clingy thing is going to take some extra deep breaths. I also remember what it feels like to be lonely and miss my mom, so that helps me be more empathetic.

I have also started feeding her more, which I think might be helping a tiny bit with longer naps, and entertaining herself. I also tried the wait before you get her advice after taking naps. Twice she played in her crib for 10 minutes and fell asleep for another 10 minutes, so that was an extra 20 minutes for me, and a little bit more rest for her. Woo Hoo! I will have to say I misspoke about the length of time she plays by herself. It's not 40 minutes, it's more like 15. It must have just seemed like 40 because 15 is better than none at all. She is very very close to crawling, she gets up on her hands and knees and rocks, or she does this inch worm thing where she reaches as far as she can with her arms, and then bends in half, and moves her legs up. It's cute. This has helped with the self entertainment, she is constantly rolling, and inching, and doing this inch-worm-army-crawl thing all over the floor. I have started weening her which is a whole nother post in itself, but I think I didn't have as much milk as I thought I did, therefore she was more fussy and slept less. So, now I offer her formula after almost every meal, and she usually drinks at least 4 ounces.

Stay tuned for cute baby sleeping pictures, more flailing when the next tooth comes, and I'm sure there will be a video of her crawling any day now.

Oh, the advice is so comforting. Thank you all. I'm going to try all this, especially the teething suggestions, and teaching her not to pinch me. I feel better already just knowing something other than what I am already doing might help.

I just have a short update because it is 12:23 a.m., and the alarm goes off at 5 a.m. I fed her more today, and that just might have helped. I am in the process of weaning her, so the feeding stuff is really hard right now because I don't have any real way to know how much milk I have (or don't have.) I gave her formula after every "cereal" feeding today, and at dinner she ate tons of pears, oatmeal, and then 6 ounces of formula. Good God, that's a lot of food for her, but I'm going to go with it. She was definitely happier today, she played by herself for a good 40 minutes or longer at a time before realizing she wasn't attached to me. She only did that once or twice, but it was sure nice. She didn't sleep a whole lot more though. From 8 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. she slept a total of 1 and a half hours. Granted we were out and about tonight, but the naps during the day are virtually nonexistant.

Gotta go put some bagels and bananas in the freezer and then try to fall asleep. Want one more question? I have some pacifiers that say 6-12 months. When and why should I switch? She's actually 7 months old now, I guess she needs those other pacis for some reason?