The New Improved Me

DG took this photo at 11:15pm last night in the bathroom when I was getting ready for bed. Even though you guys were no help at all, I got a new shorter cut for the summer with some lighter highlights including a honey, blonde, and an auburn tint. (Sometimes a girl just has to try and feel pretty.) Hard to see the lovely colors in the bad bathroom light. DG got his haircut too, and our hairstylist at Grand, Jessica, lives near us and gave me a ride home after so I didn't have to take the light rail. Now that's service!

I proceeded to go out and strut my stuff at nine 75 to celebrate Meaux's big old 40th birthday! It was great seeing all of my old friends, who mostly now have kids. Three of us have babies just 2 months apart.

We had goat cheese ravioli, won ton tuna tacos, chipotle lobster tacos, and flash seared yellowtail sashimi to start. Then I had the shrimp and scallop risotto. I highly recommend this fun restaurant. Now I just need to go try and make it around the park again today though I'm still a little sore from earlier this week.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

Today you turn 6 months old. Already you are such a big girl. You can lay on your back and roll side to side, and when we have you sitting on the floor, you can balance on your own for 10 seconds. After several weeks, you've finally started to talk again. We love to hear you cackle. Everyone also wonders how you have red hair, and why you are so tall and skinny? Who do you look like we ask ourselves? You are 100% pure Hadley.

Glasses Cleaner

As it turns out, babies do more than just eat, cry, and poop.

Seriously, you need to go out and get one of these. They make the perfect glasses cleaner.

Now if I could only start teaching her how to do the dishes?

Rice and Banana Casserole

It has officially been one week since I started Hadley on solid food. And by solid, I mean soupy. It's like feeding her cardboard flakes (organic of course) soaked in breastmilk. Even though it is not much, she is so eager to please that when I say the word "Open" she kicks her feet, grins and opens her mouth up wide. She's such a quick learner that after the first few feedings, she just sees the spoon coming and opens her mouth. It is so cute, in a cute and amusing way that only a mother could love.

I am going to attempt to make all of her food instead of buy jars at the grocery store. The book I am using that Jinnie passed on to me is Super Baby Foods. It is a wealth of knowledge. Yesterday she ate banana for the first time! Even though she furrows her brow at the taste and acts like I've just fed her something Gibson barfed up on the floor, I continue to smile, encourage her, and act like she's eating the most scrumptious lobster dinner. Next week we will try sweet potato and the week after that avocado.

I'm a Whore for Yarn

What a girl won't do for a skein of some awesome yarn.

I have a new ad on the blog for Vickie Howell's podcast about all things craft and knitting. Remember when I talked about her here? I just downloaded all the podcasts from ITunes and can't wait to listen to all of them myself.

If you enjoy knitting, you need to check out her blog too. She has tons of free patterns and recently has been giving away lots of fun knitting accoutrements.

I'm Not Ready

I always told myself that I would breast feed for 6 months and then assess the situation and go from there. I'm not sure where I came up with this number. I must have pulled it out of the air. Well, Hadley turns 6 months old in 7 days and even though my milk has substantially subsided, I am really not ready to be done. Yes it would be easier for me to stop because I could finally go on a diet, stop pumping every couple of hours, and take my body back. But emotionally, I'm not ready to give up our bond. When I feed her, and nourish her from my own body, and she stares up at me, it's like nothing I have ever felt. I don't mind getting up in the middle of the night to be with her because it is our special time together.

Ok, and there's one other thing, and it's kind of selfish. It's my one trick in the bag that no one else has. If she's over tired and having trouble getting to sleep, pop a boob in her mouth. If she's fussy and nothing seems to be working, pop a boob in her mouth. It's like magic calming juice. If I don't have the magic juice, I'm afraid I'll just be that old broad in the corner with her shirt pulled up.

Etsy

It's called Hot Dog Bee Print by Liz Adams. Two great tastes that taste great together.I found this on my new favorite site: Etsy which is like Ebay for crafters. Everything is handmade, from jewelry to prints, photos, pins, clothing, furniture etc. The prices are so reasonable too. DG bought this print for me for Mother's Day for our office. See that green eyed girl in the corner, she looks just like me...10 years ago. Hot! And for those of you who don't know my bee theme, it comes from my maiden name: Allbee. I've turned into my grandmother, embraced the name (which I kept as a middle name), and love all things bee. In fact Hadley's room has quite a few Bee pictures as well.
Etsy has some of the cutest cleverest ideas. Take these little tags for example. So cute and I'm sure I need them for something. Maybe to wrap gifts. And how about these pillows made from original vintage fabric? I'm so excited because today I FINALLY found the crib bedding that I've been looking for. I ordered the bumper, bed skirt, and quilt picking the fabrics shown above. Custom made. I can't wait!

Mommy Blogging

The new buzzword these days is "Mommy blogging". There has been a recent media blitz about mommy blogging, including on Nightline and NBC.

The queen of the mother bloggers is Dooce. And by queen, I mean that she and her husband quit their jobs and make a living off of her blog. The Wall Street Journal and other recent media have estimated the amount to be about $40,000 a month. What the?!?! I make .40 cents on Google Adsense and I giggle like a school girl. "Oh my mom must have clicked something." $40,000 a month! DG and I look at each other, sigh and start dreaming.

So the question that I ask myself is, "Gasp, Have I Become a Mommy Blogger?". And the answer is, well, um, ::foot shuffling::, sort of.

In the late 90's, every Monday morning, I would draft a "Monday morning email" to all my girlfriends detailing my lascivious rambunctiousness of the previous week-end. At the time, it was my own version of Sex in the City. It was the standard stuff, you know like drinking excessively, having guys pick up your tab and then take you to a strip club and give you a hundred dollars in $1 bills for the ladies, taking a cab home at 4am only to have the cab driver recognize you from the week before, going out at 10:30 am for a bloody mary and stumbling home 12 hours later wearing a 1/2 eaten candy necklace, or one of my personal favorites, going home with a guy I liked, only to have his girlfriend waiting for him outside of his apartment. Oh the good old days.

Anyway, I've always said this blog is ABOUT ME, so when I went and got engaged, my blog was about weddings. And through a natural progression of life, we now have a baby, so I blog about her because she's the cutest freaking thing I've ever seen. But now, instead of fun urban hip girl, I am suburban Mommy Blogger. I've gone from Girls Gone Wild to Girls Gone Child.

I'm not sure where this is leading other than to say that I post pictures of her so people out there, her grandparents mostly and my friends who are so far away can feel closer to us and watch her grow up. But have no fear, I'm sure I'll try to fit in some more sex, drugs and rock and roll. And by drugs I mean Vitamin C and Ibuprofen; and by sex, I mean watching Gibson hump Tica; and by Rock and Roll I mean GO buy the new Death Cab For Cutie album because it is awesome.

What Motherhood Means

On my first Mother's Day, I realized that I do not yet associate myself with being a mother. I mean I do know that by all technical use of the word that I AM a mother. I do all the standard things that new mother's do, like panic over the details, check to see if she's still breathing in the middle of the night, try to make sure her socks match etc. But just being the milk machine and chief soother does not make me a Mother. I think motherhood is deeper than that. It is a level to which I have not yet achieved.

That being said, one thing that I am really excited for in Motherhood is the passing on of tradition, something that my mother passed on to me. So it is with great excitement that this week-end we introduced the annual planting the pots.

Ok, Hadley, the first thing you do is buy a bunch of pretty flowers. Next year, you can help me pick out all of your favorite colors.

Now we talk about each of the flower names. These are pansies. They are your Nana's favorites! Today we picked out white and purple ones to be different from last year.

And finally, here is where we will let you get your hands in the dirt and make lots of mud and then chase Gibson and Tica screaming and smear it on them. But since you are not old enough yet, we'll let you stare for a little while longer at the pretty colors.

Ask and the Lord Shall Giveth

And on the 11th day, the Lord sayeth "Let Hadley poop"!

Now why didn't I think to make a shout out when I was pregnant, eating bran/flaxseed muffins, chugging Metamucil, and throwing down 7 prunes at a time with a Milk of Magnesia Chaser?

On the Pooping Prayer Chain

I've been beginning a lot of my posts with "When we were in the Hospital". Here I'll just say, during our unfortunate stay with the delightful staff at Children's, Hadley's name and our family were on quite a few prayer lists throughout the country. My mother had all of Connecticut covered with every American Baptist Church in the state. My aunt informed me that the Catholics in San Antonio, Texas were praying for us. I believe we had quite a few shout outs from Iowa, Colorado, and Arizona as well. With that many people talking to God, no wonder God listened. Even though we have been home from the hospital now for over a week, we remain in people's prayers and Hadley's face has been inserted into many the church bulletin.

Just tonight, my dad informed me that he has some Catholic friends in Connecticut now praying for Hadley to poop. (Note: She has not pooped on her own since April 9, and it has now been 9 days since she has gone at all. The stimulation, massage, and suppositories are not working. We have moved on to Milk of Magnesia, which I have a case of left over from my pregnancy.) It warms the cockles of my heart, (and not just because I LOVE poop talk) to think that the bowel movements of my baby girl are in the prayers of people across the country. A pooping prayer chain, no request too big or too small I guess.

And so, we are now in countdown to poop mode. Come on poopy diaper.

One Big Happy Family

DG just got this picture of us from 2 months ago at an engagement party. It was so warm in the room we were in, that the little nugget just cashed out. Even though this picture is pre-botulism, nothing much has changed. We are still smiling, she is still cute when she sleeps, and that black sweater is still my standard "I'm going out and need something without spit up on it" look.

Splish Splash We Were Taking a Bath

Knock-Knock


Who's There?


Dwayne


Dwayne Who?

Dwain the bafthtub, I'mb dwowning.

The Weight of the World

While we were in the hospital, I didn't eat much the first couple of days, and then I ate salad for every meal for a week. From day one, DG ate donuts, hamburgers, french fries, coke, and ice cream for EVERY meal. I will tell you a gazillion times, I am not exaggerating. Ask him. It got to the point, where I had to ask him to stop because the french fries were flying off his plate and jumping into my mouth, two at a time. Then we got home and he informs me that he lost 2 lbs while we were in the hospital. Hrrumph.

UPDATE: I've started getting phone calls from Hadley's fan club because I haven't been posting enough updates! Hadley has been eating very well on her own, but when we went into the doctor last Tuesday she had lost an ounce. The doctor is not overly concerned, but we are trying to bulk up on calories by giving her more concentrated formula along with the breast milk. But as far as I am concerned, every day is great progress. She is holding her head up nicely, and though she can't do this anymore, we are working towards it every day with our own form of physical therapy.