Princess Life

At one point in time, I thought I was going to be able to keep Brigid away from the evil clutches of the Disney empire. I thought I would be able to protect her from annoying 16-year old mermaids that were willing to throw away their entire (very nice, I might add) lives for some stupid boy they'd never even exchanged ONE SINGLE SOLITARY WORD WITH. I thought maybe I wouldn't have to try to explain to her why Disney hates mothers so much. I thought there was a chance that I could send my child to college AND retire some day, instead of spending one of those funds to keep said child ensconced in all things Disney-logo-ed.

I was wrong.

And honestly, I haven't been too upset about it. I mean, yes, I still have ISSUES with that mermaid, and Disney's hate has spread to all parents now, not just moms. But the rest of it? Well, Brigid looks pretty cute in all things Disney, so I don't mind that she's going to have to rely on her looks in life instead of her brain when we can't afford to send her to college in 14 years. (Because you'd better believe that retirement fund is not going ANYWHERE, mkay?) I want to go to Disney World for Halloween this year, then back for Christmas again next year. I have a hula dancing Olaf on my desk, and I just barely talked myself out of buying a singing, stuffed version of him for myself, as well. I think it's safe to say I've had my fair share of the kool-aid at this point.

My only regret? The Merida wig.

I have nightmares about this wig. I don't know why...it just scares me, and she scares me in it. Thankfully, she doesn't wear it often, and I'd sneak it out and into the garbage if I wasn't 100% sure that the moment I did, she'd ask to wear it again just to spite me. And then there'd be yelling and crying and fussing and somehow Steve would end up buying her a new one just to appease the beast. And nobody needs to be spending money on a 2nd creepy wig around here.

So. It sits. On the shelf in her closet. Where she will hopefully forget about it for awhile. Until she remembers she has it. And my nightmare starts again.

Further proof I'll probably never really know what I'm doing...

Caitlin's sleep has been a little...let's say uneven...lately. She's never really been a sleep-straight-through-the-night baby, but, I don't know. I guess I thought she would have outgrown that by now. Unfortunately, the more I talk to people who have raised children, the more I realize she might not outgrow that until she's something like 15, but still. I dream of the days when I can sleep through the night without at least one shriek-fueled wake-up call to disturb me.

In the meantime, I try to comfort myself with the thought that babies do grow up, most of the time quicker than you actually want them to. And eventually, Caitlin will change her sleep habits. And until she does, at least I get to cuddle her while she falls asleep, which is something she would NEVER allow when she's fully awake, as she must be free during all waking hours to wander the house and destroy each and every thing she can get her hands on. And even when she does wake up at 2am, it's usually just because her pacifier has fallen out of the crib, and giving that back to her sends her immediately back to sleep.

But these last few weeks? Well. We've had PROBLEMS here in Georgia these last few weeks.

There has been screaming. And hours long middle-of-the-night comfort sessions. And just general unhappiness when it comes to the sleeping time. Lately, we've been trying to let her cry it out to a certain extent, checking on her when she starts to cry, returning her pacifier to the crib, then leaving her to fall back asleep on her own without ever taking her out of the crib. And it's been working. For the most part, anyway. But two nights ago? I got less than three hours of sleep, total, because she REFUSED to put herself back to sleep, and the angry screaming come from her room was reaching epic proportions, and I caved in getting her out of the crib to rock her back to sleep.

It turns out, she wasn't opposed to sleeping, she was just opposed to sleeping anywhere but on my lap, as I found out when she woke up again an hour after I'd gone back to bed, trying to act like she was up for the day. At 12:30 in the morning. I finally managed to get her back to sleep as we were closing in on 3am, and while my alarm goes off at 4:30 in the morning, Caitlin seemed to be sleeping just fine at that point.

Last night, she was inconsolable. Again. She fought bedtime with a fierceness that was bizarre, even for her. She wouldn't calm down, even when I was holding her. I could not get her to quit crying and squirming long enough to notice how tired she actually was. And then I remembered...

Right around the beginning of January, I'd noticed it looked like a molar was pushing through on the left side of Caitlin's gums. And it looked like there was a matching lump on the right side that would be a tooth soon, too. And maybe there were a couple coming in on the bottom, as well. And apparently I am incapable of putting two and two together, a week later.

Because when I stuck my finger in her mouth to check her gums, you would have thought I was pulling off her fingernails or something. She screamed until she couldn't breathe, throwing her head back and arching as far away from me as she could get. Of course she's pissed off. Of course she doesn't want to sleep. She has molars cutting through on both sides of her mouth. She is miserable. Poor baby.

A dose of Tylenol and twenty minutes later, the poor kid had quit screaming and was fast asleep in my arms.

Parenting is ridiculous.

Real Life

Poor Brigid was hit with the fever o'mystery this weekend, which went unnoticed until she fell asleep on the couch for two hours on Sunday afternoon, and woke up feeling approximately one million degrees warmer than she normally feels. We thought it might have just been some leftover heat from sleeping under a sheepskin lined blanket, but...no. Mild fever, it was.

Of course, this meant that she had to stay home from school on Monday. I kept everyone in their pajamas all morning because Brigid was sick, and Caitlin was fussy, and I had a two and a half hour conference call to contend with, so naturally Steve called at 12:45 to tell me that people were on their way to see the house, which went on the market over the weekend, and how soon could I have everything straightened up and all of us (two dogs, two cats, two kids, myself) out of the way?

Flash forward to me, unshowered and make-up free, carrying a pajama-clad Caitlin, complete with poop-filled diaper, and leading a nightgowned and barefoot Brigid across the front lawn to the neighbors' house (they told us we could hang there during the showing), with Steve following behind me, trying to contain two barking dogs on leashes, while the realtor was walking up the front walk with the lady who wanted to see the house.

Wouldn't you want to buy a house from the neighborhood rednecks?

Whatever. Brigid was just excited that the Powerade we were making her drink for fever hydration purposes had turned her tongue blue.

 Because THAT doesn't add to our redneck aura at all...

I need a road map...

Caitlin still won't crawl, as her preferred mode of transportation involves rolling around on the floor until she gets close enough to reach whatever it is she has set out to destroy, and she doesn't seem interested in learning how to get herself into a sitting position on her own, either. She can feed herself finger foods, sort of, but she can't do it quickly enough to satisfy her need to have food shoved in her mouth constantly, if there is food in her line of sights. The very real possibility that our heads will explode from the indignant screaming if we're eating and she's not seems to outweigh our desire to reach that particular milestone, so we mostly don't even bother with trying to have her feed herself. She doesn't use any consonant sounds, which is something the pediatrician called our attention to in the last check-up (not in an 'I'm worried' way, just in a 'does she do these things' way), but then again, neither did Brigid. In fact, we were a little worried Brigid was never going to talk, and now she never STOPS talking, so it is what it is, I guess.

AND she still wakes up at least once on most nights, which isn't terrible, but is also something Brigid had already stopped doing by this point in time.

I'm not worried about these things, because I know all babies are different, and SERIOUSLY, she is only nine months old, and NO I don't expect her to act like anything other than a baby at this point, and OF COURSE Caitlin will develop at her own pace, but...I don't know.

It would just be easier if there was a set schedule for when babies hit all of these milestones, so you didn't have to waste so much time and energy wondering when things would happen. That's all.


(Of course, we remembered we needed to lower the crib mattress, because this started to happen:

but whatever. SHE SHOULD BE WALKING AND TALKING BY NOW WHY IS SHE NOT DEVELOPING SLEEP FOR 12 STRAIGHT HOURS ALREADY PLEASE.

My mind can be so idiotic sometimes, I swear.)

(She is cute and happy and lovely and perfect and I love her more than just about anything. The end.)

They're Real

I feel like I spend so much of my time trying to get actual, photographic evidence of Caitlin's dimples, that the whole process could pass for my own personal search for Bigfoot. I mean, I could tell you until I was blue in the face that she has them, but if you've never seen them, do they actually exist?

But she does have them! I swear! Look! You can kind of see a hint of them if you squint just right...

WAIT! I promise! They're coming! We're getting closer...

 GOTCHA! Dimples. My baby has dimples when she smiles, and it's adorable.

(Sort of not pictured: Me, making the worst of all silly faces into the camera, in order to get her to smile. I did the best I could to crop it out, because nobody needed to see that. I apologize for what was left behind.)

Dimples. Finally.

Baby's First Banana

I tried to feed Caitlin a bit of a banana earlier this week, and she was, uh, a little less than sure about the whole thing.
Then again, last night, she kept me up for two hours while she took almost 10oz of formula, so...kid's gonna have to get on the solid food train reeeeeeal quick at this point, because a) Hanging out in the nursery from 2am to 4am is not my idea of a good time, CAITLIN, and b) 10oz bottles, on a regular basis, means I'm spending this child's college fund on formula, and...no. Just no.

And I can't believe she's turning her nose up at my banana offering. I feel like that HAS to taste better than anything else she's eaten before now, right? Honestly, I'd forgotten just how frustrating this whole feeding-the-kid thing can be. At this point, I'm just about to hand her a slice of pizza and tell her to have at it.

Maybe I'll give that a shot this weekend. I'm sure she'll be fine...

*whispers*

Don't look directly at it, don't talk about it out loud, just pretend it never happened.

*Caitlin slept for 9 1/2 hours last night. And now I know she can do it, and now I'm afraid she'll never do it again.*

Seriously. Last night, I went to bed at 10:00, and I didn't wake up again until Brigid came to get in bed with us around 6:15 this morning. That's over eight hours of sleep. I don't think I've had eight straight hours of sleep since about my second month of pregnancy.

And then? After getting Brigid settled in bed with us and checking on Caitlin to make sure she was fine (because who DOESN'T frantically check on her baby when said baby goes from getting up every two to three hours the night before to sleeping four times that long without waking?), I WENT BACK TO SLEEP FOR ANOTHER HOUR!!!

So, you know, if you need me, I'll be over here running a marathon while carrying a car on my back. Because you can totally do that on a full night of sleep...

Baby's First Photo Shoot

We have this amazingly wonderful photographer that we've been to several times, for solo pictures of Brigid over the last few years, as well as family photos from last fall. And even though we already have more pictures in our house than space to display them, I'm going to try really, really hard to keep Caitlin out of the second child zone (you know...been there, done that, take pictures of yourself, kid, because I wore myself out with your big sister...). So, we scheduled a newborn photo session.

And while Brigid's session lasted something like four hours, and while she, in her naked, newborn photo shoot state, peed on me (and worse) five or six times, Caitlin's session was a breeze. Two and a half hours (and one pooped on moment each for Steve and I) later, I'm pretty sure we ended up with some of the cutest photos ever taken in the history of baby photography. Not that I'm biased, or anything...

(The actual photographer's pictures are on Facebook, and they look much better than this, I swear...this is just one I snapped with my phone in between scene changes...)

I've seen three of the pictures so far, and I want them all, which I think means I might be in trouble when our photographer gives us the other 10 or so proofs she's working through. I'm thinking a bigger house might not be out of the question at this point...

And my youth wept...

I have a confession to make...

My husband and I? We are officially minivan people.

I don't know how it happened, or when I became my mother, but there you have it. I own a minivan.

(Side note: There is nothing wrong with being my mother, I swear, because she is exceptionally awesome, and I love her very much, but it's still a very jarring moment when you realize that you are officially the adult in your own life, and apparently, getting a job, buying a house, and having a kid didn't do that for me. It was the freaking minivan that pushed me over the edge. I am a slow learner, it seems.)

The saddest part about all of this? The minivan might be the coolest car Steve and I will ever own. It has navigation and a back-up camera and an air-conditioned snackbox and an entertainment system and voice controlled EVERYTHING and more buttons than a spaceship. And I love every inch of it.

And I'm jealous that it's Steve's car to drive for the next few months, because we traded in his car to get it.

See, my mother-in-law (who will be watching Brigid and child-to-be-named-later three days a week) has the same small, two-door car that won't accomodate two car seats as I do, so Steve and I will apparently be a three car family, come next spring. I have my car to drive to work, we will look into getting a smaller car for Steve to drive to work in early 2013, and then we will have the minivan that stays with whoever is responsible for the kids on any given day. It all makes my head hurt, really, but the bottom line is what it is...

I own a minivan. And I couldn't be happier about it.

(Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go console my 22-year old self while she does shots of vodka and weeps about what an old lady she's become...)

First Day of School

We took Brigid to preschool for the first time this morning.

We walked into the classroom, she held onto my purse straps for 30 seconds, Steve asked her if she wanted to go play with the toys...

...and off she went. We barely got good-bye hugs out of her before she became too busy to deal with us anymore.

And just like that, she's too cool for her parents, now. It was a good (almost) three year run we had there with her, I guess.
Kids, man.

(Seriously, I am glad there was no drama in the preschool process...she went in, she loved it, we left her there for three hours. It was much less painful than I thought it would be. Of course, that didn't stop me from weeping to Steve as we got back to the car about how 'Brigid didn't know we were leaving! In ten minutes, she's going to look for us and realize we're gone and OH MY BABY!! She's going to be so upset!'

To which Steve replied, 'Honey? She knew we were leaving. She's just OK with it.'

Oh, fine. Whatever. She had fun. My ego is bruised. Everyone is happy. THE END.)

School Days

Last night, Steve and I went to a parent orientation meeting for Brigid's preschool (a small class of almost three-year olds run by the church right across the street from our house).

Tomorrow, Steve, Brigid, and I are all heading to that preschool (again, small class, two teachers, a tenth of a mile away from us) for an hour of teacher/classmate meet-and-greet time.
Friday, we will be expected to drop Brigid off at that preschool (right across the street, seriously), and LEAVE HER THERE FOR THREE WHOLE HOURS WITHOUT US AND WHAT WERE WE THINKING AND OMG HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DEAL WITH THIS?!?!?!?
You guys...

This is NOT going to be a good experience for me, is it?

The Bump: (almost) 25 Weeks

I've done an absolutely terrible job of documenting this pregnancy around here, what with my all-consuming desire to just get these nine months over with already, so I can move on to the sweet and squishy OMG LITTLE BABY YAY FOR BABIES!!$#*&!*%! portion of the party, but yeah...
Let me introduce you to Big Hoss, my very pronounced baby bump. BH and I aren't exactly on speaking terms at the moment. I mean, she's doing what she needs to be doing, what with all of the healthy baby growing and whatnot that's happening right now, but did we really need to get THAT BIG, THAT QUICKLY, there, buddy? I am NOT exaggerating when I say that I know three people who are due before me (INCLUDING ONE PERSON WHO IS HAVING TWINS, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD), and I've got them ALL beat on the size of my stomach.

Fifteen weeks to go, kids. Fifteen weeks to go.

Now, who wants to start taking bets on how many times Hoss and I get stuck in our beach chair while we're off on vacation next week?

Many Faces

Brigid had a dentist appointment on Monday morning, and she was a total superstar, with only one minor breakdown when the hygienist rubbed the flouride stuff all over her teeth.

And really, if you've tasted that fake bubble gum flavored crap, you really don't blame her for that small crying jag, do you?

Anyway...what better way to celebrate a teeth cleaning than by undoing all of that hard work in the dentist's office with a trip for gummi bear topped ice cream?

I still taste that flouride. I sure wish my mom would do something to make this all go away...

GUMMI BEARS!!!! ON ICE CREAM!!! Score.

Gee, mom! You're totally the best.

I am the luckiest girl in the whole wide world. With the best mom, ever.

Wait? WHAT? I have to SHARE this ice cream with you? That's total BS, mom.

Total. BS.

Baby's First Haircut

We took Brigid to get her hair cut this weekend, and although I had my brief moments of 'what happened to my baby?!?!?!' hysterics, I really didn't need to worry.

Because we went from this....

To this...
To this...
And let's be honest...that? Doesn't really count as a haircut at all, does it?

Next Steps

Well....I'm having a second girl.

And I'll be 19 weeks along on Friday.

Up to this point in my pregnancy, I've been putting my to-do list off with the understanding that once I found out what I was having, I'd really get to work on making sure things were ready around the house for December.

Piles and piles of clothes around the baby's new room? Can't do anything with them until I find out what I can and can't use.

Potential names that Steve and I might like? There's really no point in going through that process until we can eliminate half of the names.

But now, I know what I'm having. And seeing as how Brigid came along around 38 weeks last time, I could technically be halfway through this pregnancy.

That's a thought right there, huh?

(Side Note: I don't know if this baby will be as early as Brigid was or not. She was measuring around 7lbs with about three weeks to go, and her head was LARGE, so my doctor decided to do what she could to 'hurry the process along' at my 38 week check-up. Considering B was 7lbs 11.5oz at birth, I appreciated the help, because I didn't want to try to deliver a 9lb baby at full -term. I think, though, that it made the labor process a little longer than it would have been, because I'm not sure Brigid was really ready to come out. I just imagine that this kid could end up being a 40 week baby, if left to her own devices. I guess we'll see...)

So, I guess it's time to start on that list, maybe? The first item on my list is going to be make a list, because between bottles and baby gear and diapers and all other manner of newborn paraphernalia, I'm not even sure what all it is I need to do before December. So I'm focusing on the organizing and laundering of Brigid's old clothes, because that is a problem staring at me every day from the bottomless pit of mess that used to be the floor of the nursery, while adding some time for an over-dramatic wailing about how THERE ARE NO GOOD NAMES LEFT IN THE WORLD!!&#!sadface!#$! because Steve and I have tried ONCE to come up with a list of names, and we weren't able to really agree on anything that we liked.

But pregnancy is not the time to be rational, people, so I will do my best to avoid any semblance of sanity at all costs. You may want to avoid me for the next few months, if that's an option open to you...

(Sorry, Steve, that most definitely does not include you. Love you and stuff!)

I blame Steve...

No, YOUR daughter's Easter dress came from the merchandise tent at Augusta, complete with the little yellow Masters symbol on the chest...

 

Whatever. They make cute stuff, and she wears it well, I think...

Remember that whole vacation thing?

So...

Yeah...

Remember how Steve and I were going away for a week, and I was so concerned because I'd never been away from Brigid for that length of time, and I was going to be in an entirely different country, and OH MY POOR BABY!!!!, and other such nonsense?

Right.

Well, it turns out that I might as well have saved myself the worry (which, yes, of course, I knew before I even left that it was stupid to worry about leaving her because she'd be fine, but still...see 'MY POOR BABY!!' above...), because I'm not entirely sure Brigid even realized we were gone. We talked to her every day over Facetime (hooray for wonderful hotels with free wi-fi), and on every call, after the initial excitement of seeing us on the screen, and shouting 'HI MOMMY!! HI DADDY!!' in our general direction, she'd be off on some other mission much more important than talking to her parents, who obviously missed her much more than she missed them.

And then...

AND THEN!!!

When we did get home, was she excited to see us? NO!!*

In fact, when my sister-in-law heard the garage door open, and she turned to Brigid with a 'guess who's home!!' excitement about her, my dear, sweet daughter (so I've been told) guessed grandma.

Not mommy. Not daddy.

Grandma.

So, while I could take this to mean that a week here or there in a kid-free manner is not ever out of the question now that I know Brigid is perfectly able to get along without us around, I'm choosing, instead, to take the route of never leaving the house again, because if I'm not getting a dramatic 'don't ever leave me again' kind of homecoming out of that kid, then I'm just not going to give her the satisfaction of leaving at all.**

I win. So there.***


*Lies. All lies. Well, most of it, anyway. She was excited to see us, once she realized that it really was us coming home. And, if I'm going to be completely honest, I guess it is understandable that she'd think it was the person she'd just spent the last five days with coming to see her, and not the parents that abandoned her for a week to frolic on tropical beaches.

(Please, take a minute to imagine Steve and I frolicking, tropical beach or not...

Ha! Ok. Sorry about that...

As you were...)

**Also a complete, bald faced lie. If I get the excuse to tropical beach again? I AM TOTALLY TAKING IT!!!!

***I'm guessing Steve is experiencing a moment of pure joy at the realization that I can, in fact, out-immature a toddler.

I. Am. Awesome.


PS: The trip was wonderful. The wedding was lovely. My sister was beautiful. My family members are my favorite people to vacation with. And my in-laws were great for taking Brigid on for a week while we were gone. I'm a pretty lucky gal, you know?

In the bathroom...

Because where else would you want to hang out while playing games on your dad's phone?

In Brigid's world...

...Cinderella is a cat.

I wonder how all of those mice and birds that are running around Cinderella's room all of the time would feel about this version of things?

See the pretty fish?

Do you know how you top a morning in which your main triumph is getting to preschool registration early enough to score the #1 spot in the registration line, thereby ensuring that your child WILL HAVE A SPOT in next year’s already almost full two-year old class, and leading to a sequence of events in which you take a picture of said line ticket to text to your husband, while narrating your actions with an internal monologue that includes shouting WINNING! to yourself, but in a crazy-Courtney-from-The-Bachelor voice, and not a crazy-Charlie-Sheen-from anything one?
(Not that this has ever happened to me, or anything…)

Well, you don’t top it, really. But if you can follow it up with a couple of hours spent chasing a ‘keep walking, keep walking, keep walking’ toddler around the aquarium, you can come pretty darn close…

That kid, man...she is A LOT of fun to hang out with these days.