• Buddies,  Bug,  party party

    First First Birthday Party

    Toby, Baby Bug and I attended our very first birthday party as a family yesterday. (No, it wasn’t Baby Bug’s First Birthday. She’s advanced but not that advanced.) We went to the birthday party of a baby of some friends of ours. Their little boy turned one. I think this is the start of the season of birthday parties as Laid Off Dad so eloquently wrote about.

    It’s funny. A couple of years ago one of our last single friends got married and Toby and I decided to buy them a smashing gift. It cost us a little more than we had but we justified it by the fact that this was our last single friend and therefore the last of the big smashing wedding gifts we would have to buy. Or so we thought.

    We were so wrong. After weddings come babies and baby showers and then smashing first birthday parties. We will never ever be done buying presents or attending social events. We should just suck it up and factor it into our budget along with the electric bill. Present giving is a fact of life.

    I actually love giving presents and attending social events. It’s just the funds and the thoughtful card making that gets a little tough sometimes.

    On the flip side to the never ending gift giving…what’s cool about having so many friends get married at the same time is that now all our friends have babies. We are such a bunch of breeders. I don’t have to join mommy-and-me groups so I can sit around and discuss boobs and poop and prunes with total strangers. I can discuss it with my old drinking buddies. Well, not that I drink but you know what I mean. These are the people we like to hang out with. Instead of discussing the latest camera gear and software upgrades we can now discuss the latest camera gear, software upgrades AND baby poop!

    So yeah, we went to a birthday party yesterday. It was a hoot.

    The birthday boy is adorable and has amazing red hair just like his dad. It was super cool to watch a giant baby toddle around and stick wrapping paper in his mouth. I couldn’t help thinking, this is how big Baby Bug will be at Christmas. And that means she’ll understand presents and eating wrapping paper! The FUN that will be had! I am so excited I can’t wait.

    Speaking of birthday parties… Today is Toby’s birthday and I have a cake to make! I am domestic goddess, hear me roar! Stay tuned as I’m sure I will be taking pictures of the hilarity (of the cake making).

  • Bug,  movies

    Two Months Movie


    Baby Bug turned two months old yesterday. So we made a movie (1mg quicktime).

    I know everybody always says this, but she is growing up so fast! She’s already turning into a big girl baby. I picked her up one night and I thought, Wow! She’s really solid! It’s like she gained five pounds in her sleep. Her cry is more grown up now too. She’s learning how to tell mommy exactly how she doesn’t want to be put down in her crib. She doesn’t cry much. Mostly just grunts and makes silent crying movements. Sometimes when I’ve neglected her for a minute, I come and find her with her lower lip quivering. Oh! It breaks my heart! How could I let the little baby girl get so sad!!!?? Bad Mom! Bad Mom! But when I pick her up, she forgives me with a big gummy grin.

    The breast feeding is going so much better. I think we have an understanding of each other now. I won’t force her to eat when she doesn’t want to eat and she won’t arch her back and spit at me. I think all this time I thought she was starving when actually she just wanted to suck on something and it really pissed her off when milk came out of the nipple and choked her. She really just wanted her pacifier. So in the pacifier goes. I keep worrying that I’ll miss her hunger cues with her sucking away on a plug all the time but I guess no baby ever starved to death from too much pacifier. If they did, then it would come with a warning label.

    As a new mom I guess I just thought: “I am mom. I have boob. Must feed baby.” So I tried to feed her and feed her and feed her. It turns out she really just wasn’t very hungry. She just likes to suck on things and those mouth movements weren’t always hunger cues. So confusing! I could and should keep a schedule and solve the madness but you know me, I’ve never been very good with numbers. I’m home all day with her anyway, I feed her whenever she wants to be fed. Schedule Schmedule.

    Sleeping! Here is where I am the luckiest mom ever and will probably be cursed with a collicky nightmare baby for a second child, if we ever have one. I think she’s been “sleeping through the night” since she’s been born. I read all about these poor sleep deprived parents and how they try everything under the sun to sooth their shrieking baby at four in the morning. I never experienced that. I wake up with her in two and three hour intervals but I don’t think she ever really wakes up completely herself. She can eat in her sleep. We are a picture of motherly romance. Her sucking and grunting away with eyes closed and me hunched over nodding like I’m an eighty-year old woman falling asleep in church. The other night… she only woke me up once to eat! Wowie Zowie! I practically have a toddler already!

    Speaking of advancement, she is learning new things. She’s sort of figured out that her fist works pretty well for sucking when the pacifier isn’t within reach. Sometimes I pull her thumb out of her vice-grip fist and show her how good it works too. It practically kills me with the cuteness. Her thumb! She’s sucking her thumb like a real baby! Hurry grab the camera! But then it falls out and she quivers her lip until I give her back her pacifier. I was kinda hoping to teach her to use both because I don’t want to be like some of you warned me, hunting and searching for the pacifier all night long. It would be smart if she learned to sooth herself now and then. Even better would be if she would just eat a big old milkshake from the boob and fall contented to sleep without even needing anything more. But I’m keeping my goals realistic.

    She does hold her head up pretty well. When I’m holding her upright in my arms, her head never wobbles or threatens to bob over and face plant onto my shoulder like it used to. If anything she’s always trying to look around so hard, I’m afraid she’s going to swan dive backwards onto the floor. She loves looking around. And if she can arch her back and look at things upside down, even better. She’s a goof ball already.

    I love my little goof ball.

    I know there’s more I wanted to include in this update… but you guessed it, the goof ball calls.