every morning.

I wake up and it's the baby. She is whining, kicking me, scratching me, cooing, or loudly practicing her consonants. It is 6 AM. I try to tell her that it is still sleeping time, but since the sun is up and she is full of energy, she doesn't believe me. I point to her dad, who is still sleeping. See? Sleeping time. She happily kicks her legs and grins at me. I pretend to go back to sleep, but when I peek at her she is staring at me intently. She sees me open my eyes and she kicks with excitement and lets out a squeal. Mike is still asleep. She knows she has won and starts to get louder, so I take her out of the room so that Mike isn't woken up.

I get out her playmat, litter it with toys and place her on it while I put the coffee on and maybe wash my face if she doesn't start to cry. Coffee brewing, I pick her up for a diaper change and then carry her around the house turning on the fans, the computer, the internet router. I want to read the morning news. I pour a cup of coffee and carry the baby over to the couch for cuddles as I read.

My first cup of coffee is finished and I start to feel awake. Definitely awake enough to play with a baby and definitely awake enough to not fall back asleep. We have been up for half an hour. The baby, though. She is back asleep.

The Teether

Bumble's been gnawing on anything that gets near her mouth lately. She's like a little Labrador nomming everything she possibly can. I gave her a teething ring, which remains the only toy she deliberately grabs. In that video, I am not pulling her up in the slightest. She is propelled by her great desire to chomp my fingers and she lunges forward. This was going on for about 5 minutes before I thought to take out the camera. She was like a Great White shark, ruthless and vicious.

Now she sleeps, dreaming of future nomming opportunities and the ones that got away.

Happy 3 Months, Bumble!

Since I showed Mike the cat yodeling video on youtube

()

he likes to sniff at the Bumble like an overly interested dog.




Bumble thinks it's weird.

CLAW

Remember when I was pregnant and I asked the Universe to tell me something about my future child and the Universe very dutifully and deliberately sent me the message

?


It didn't really make sense to me at the time, but it sure makes sense now. It was a warning. The Universe was trying to tell me to stock up on nail files, clippers, Neosporin and baby-sized mittens because the child I was about to spawn would have the littlest, sharpest, most destructive fingernails in history. She is Bumble Scissorhands.

I give her a daily manicure. The nail file tickles her fingertips and she smiles and coos. I smooth out the rough edges and make sure I can't feel her tiny talons when I push on her fingertips. Five minutes later, though, her nose is bleeding because she scratched it and she has two new suspicious claw marks on her cheek. I pick her up to cuddle her while I dab at her nose with a wet cloth and she uses my chest like a scratching post.

I keep threatening to declaw her, but I know it's too cruel to follow through on since I've heard that babies use their claws like humans use their fingertips. I might just have to use Soft Paws until she's 2.

baby talk

This morning I was carrying the baby around in the usual manner when she suddenly scared the crap out of me by shouting "HIIIIII!" right in my face. It sounded more like the Japanese "hai" than an American "hey, what's up?" so I'm pretty sure it wasn't the result of my regular suggestions that she "say hi" to everything from Daddy to the toaster.

A couple of weeks ago, she also replied with an enthusiastic "OKAY!" when Mike asked her if she would go in to for work for him. These kind of coincidences are bound to happen when she spends all day yammering out new vocalizations. Indeed, it is an essential part of the learning process that we react and praise her when she does actually make sense. But for the most part, our household sounds like we are trapped in a perpetual conversation with the SIMS.

aaaaaaand obligatory baby photo:

My precious

It's been a few days since we got back from our trip to Atlanta and we're all still feeling like this:



We had a nice vacation though. It was good to visit with friends and family. I just wish we had more time to spend with everyone.

Naturally when we came back from our mini-vacation, we needed to go grocery shopping. While perusing the cheese aisle, a woman approached me and the Bumble. We are used to this now, it happens a lot. Bumble is like a celebrity and I am her exhausted handler who keeps her out of trouble or at least out of the tabloids. People LOVE babies, obviously, but I had no idea to what extent-- strangers will tell you their whole birth stories as soon as they see you holding a newborn. Anyway, the lady approached us and gasped, "What a beautiful baby! She looks just like you!" I smiled and was about to say "Thank you" when the woman suddenly took a step back and frowning, studied us further. "Well, she has your eyes..."

Yeah, okay. I know she doesn't look like me. And I know I spend most of my time looking like this



but MAN. It's hard to get even five minutes to myself each day, so I don't really get to spend all that much time getting pretty. I consider myself lucky if I get to wash my face AND brush my teeth. When I get to take a shower? That is precious to me. Of course holding the baby and playing with her and all that... that is precious, too. What I have is an abundance of precious moments. Every single moment of my day is precious and it's making me feel a little Gollumy-crazy-pants.

love for baby

I love the Bumble so much, it is amazing. I know it is cliche-y when parents say they never knew blah blah blah until they had a child, but I totally never knew blah blah blah until I had her. Unfortunately my new profound emotions come at the expense of my eloquence, or I would try to explain it better. At best, I can tell you... dude, you gotta get one of these!