What We're Doing. And Eating.

You know those weeks where you are just on your game? Your dinners are delicious and vegetable-laden, your work to do list is completely checked off, your thank you notes are written, your child is napping like a champ, and you aren't sitting around still in your pajamas and with a stain of questionable origin on your shirt at 11:30am. Yep, not one of those weeks around here.

I was trying to remember what we have eaten in the last six days so I could share it with you. Here's what I've got:

• The rest of our cheese from our date-night-in order from Murray's Cheese Shop.
• Five Guys. 
• A truly mediocre baked eggplant pasta dish from a website that had never before disappointed me with its recipe deliciousness. 
• Honey Nut Cheerios. I mean, really.  At least there was a banana in there.
• Carbonara. Still in love. The only upside from the fact that Hugh didn't get home until after 11pm was that I got to have my favorite dinner. 
• Takeout Mexican.

Awesome. You win some, you lose some, I suppose. Next week, I'll aim for a dinner recap that looks more like this. You know, a few meals that are not entirely composed of cheese.

I did manage to clean the house in 40 minutes (!) last night while Hugh was giving Pen a bath and getting her ready for bed. So, there's that. Because even if the rest of my life seems a little bit messy, at least my house is clean.

In other news, we are still over the moon for that baby of ours. One of her parents is more excited than the other about her latest babbling:

I realize that she is just making sounds and not intentionally calling me mama, but I would be a big liar if I didn't admit that it still makes my heart feel like it's going to explode.  I think this is officially the most you can love a person, right?

Check back next week for a homemade donut recipe (alternately named: sometimes I still feel like a kitchen badass), some motherhood musings, and, hopefully, a few dinners that are not going to make you fail a cholesterol check. 

Happy weekend, frinternets!

Everything's New.

Although it's still officially Summer for two more weeks (and it's still hot as blazes in Georgia), there is no denying that fall is right around the corner (especially if you are a Pinterest user, I mean goodness gracious are people on there excited about wreaths and chili and scarves). 

As much as I love the change of seasons and, especially, the arrival of Fall, I am finding it bittersweet this year. I could swear to you that it was just last week that on the most perfect Spring day of all time we were meeting our Penelope. And it couldn't be more than three days ago that my garden was in full bloom and the tomatoes were ripe and she was smiling her first smile. But, somehow, here we are surrounded by Halloween costumes and cinnamon brooms and recipes for pumpkin bread. With a four-month old.

It's just going by so quickly. I told Hugh last week that I am so deeply rooted in and in love with the right-this-minute that I don't do a lot of looking ahead to the future right now*. Not because I'm not excited about it, but because if I try to process how much I love now and how much I'm going to love what's ahead, well, I would explode. And also, the future is going to be here in a quick little blink, so there's no point in rushing it. 

I can so freshly recall when this child was an hours-old newborn that it seems impossible she's four months old:

Oh, Penelope. Tugging my heartstrings every minute of the day. 

But, as this busy little bee reminds me hourly with her rolling, laughing, squealing, trying-to-sit-up antics, she is going to grow up. And I am going to celebrate each minute and milestone and first.

As people love to tell you a hundred times a week when you are pregnant, a baby changes everything. What they don't say is that the change is magic. 

It makes everything brand new. 

*Which would explain why my child's wardrobe virtually stops at the end of summer. I started to unpack her 9 month clothes last weekend and I realized that this mama has some shopping to do, or P will be spending these last months of the year in a diaper and my rockin' baby-sized snowsuit from 1983.

Just In the Nick of Time.

Last night, Hugh and I were sitting on the couch chatting and I asked him if he felt like we were wasting the long weekend by not having visitors or taking a trip. Before I could even finish my question, he said, "No, absolutely not. We need a weekend where we don't have anything to worry about. No car trips, no company, no one getting ready to go back to work, no trying to find a nanny, no studying."

Well, alright then. 

Suffice to say, the last six weeks have been a little high on the stress around this place. Luckily, everything seems to have settled back down as of this week. Also, luckily, I seem to have given birth to a baby who has the innate ability to roll with the punches. Or, as her nanny put it, she's just the world's happiest baby girl. We'll take it. 

A couple of things that make me smile:

• She laughs! Don't mind the wonky angle. The child goes stone-faced if she sees the camera, so I have to be stealthy:

• Mama got a new lens:

Cheeky.

Our long weekend looks to be full of grilling, a trip to the farmer's market, and coffee in bed with our girlie. Hope yours is the peachiest, friends. Check you Tuesday.

Month Three

Penelope Catherine, 

I am pretty sure, in a total motherhood cliche, that I am going to declare each of your months my favorite. Your personality has surfaced even more these last four weeks. You are such a joy - smiling and chattering away all day long. 

Month three was calmer and quieter than your first two months. Although we still had visitors, this month it felt like things really settled down and we had a chance to adjust to our new normal as a family of three (or five, if you ask your brothers). Our life seems both very much the same and completely different with you here. Your Dad and I were such a unit before you were born, and you have just squeezed right in like you were here all along.

Speaking of visitors, Aunt Mandy, Uncle Matt, and Charlie came to visit for our third annual Fourth of July celebration. Not having spent a lot of time around babies, you were fascinated by Charlie and spent much of our visit watching his every move. Your Dad and I joke that every time you see another baby you seem a little bit surprised that more than one of you exists in this world. Such is the life of a first-born child, I suppose.

At the beginning of the month, you had your two month well-baby visit. You were a little model baby the whole time, cooing and smiling and charming the whole office. Dr. H answered all my neurotic, first-time Mama questions (which your Daddy had already answered) and assured me that you were doing great (which your Daddy had already done). You got your first round of shots at this visit; they seemed to knock you off your feet a little, and you spent the whole next day sleeping, waking only to nurse. As sad as it made me to see you not feeling like yourself, I did enjoy lots of this:

No real changes this month in the eating and sleeping categories. So far, you are just a great nurser and a great sleeper, and have, I'm sure, hopelessly spoiled us as parents. You eat six times per day for about fifteen minutes each time. I so love these moments with you; you hold my finger with your tiny hand and become completely relaxed and, toward the end, you give me such sweet and contented smiles and sighs. You are awake for about 1.5 - 2 hours at a time now and typically take two long morning naps (1.5 - 2 hours) and then two short afternoon naps (30 minutes - 1 hour). You're down for the night around 7pm, get a dreamfeed around 10pm, and sleep until 7am the next morning. We are still going in a couple of times per night most nights to find your pacifier for you if you start to stir. You are still being swaddled in the Miracle Blanket to sleep.

In development news, you rolled over this month! The day after your two month birthday, you rolled over from your stomach to your back. I was sitting at the table pumping and your Daddy had just laid you on the floor for tummy time when, within five seconds, you gave a push with your arm and rolled right over! In my surprise and excitement, I yelled out and scared you a bit. It took you a few days to do it again, but I was armed with the video camera during all of your tummy times, so I was able to capture it the second time. 

You also started smiling without prompting, squealing, and talking even more, which entertains us to no end. When you wake up, we hear you over the monitor immediately start talking away to yourself, and then it's a race which one of us can get to your room first to soak up the sweetness. You have the biggest grin that stretches across your face and crinkles up the corners of your eyes. We make fools of ourselves to see that smile.

You also started intentionally reaching for things this month and sometimes even grasping what you're reaching for. You aren't quite able to get your hands to go just where you want them to yet, but it fascinates me to watch you learning and figuring it out more and more each day. I can literally see your little mind working as you get a look of deep concentration on your face.

The sweetness of your personality is coming through, too. You will hang on to us tightly when we hold you, and snuggle in close when you're sleepy, burying your face against our chests. It seems you already know you are the apple of our eyes, and you are at your happiest when you have both of us in front of you, giving you all of our attention.

Without question, bathtime is your favorite part of the day. You splash and kick and wriggle all around, squealing as loud as you can. And you love lying on the changing table and talking to us for as long as we will stand there (spoiler alert: we will stand there talking to you for a very long time). This month, you have finally started to like being in the carrier (Moby, Bjorn, Ergo), and have been going for lots of walks with us in the Baby Bjorn. You are no longer content to be held in a cradle hold very often or to ride in a carrier facing in. You want to be facing forward, staring out at the world all the time and checking out what's going on around you. 

At the end of this month, I had my first day back in the office. I was dreading being away from you all day. Thankfully, Daddy was able to stay home with you and we both did just fine. And, it made me feel even more grateful than I already was that I get to be home with for the majority of each week.

My darling girl, I blink, blink, blink, some days and think you are growing up right before my eyes. You are changing every day; learning new tricks, making new sounds, and looking a little bit taller and less and less like my newborn baby. I spend most all of your waking moments just trying to soak you in. I tell your Daddy that I stare at you so much because I want to memorize every part of the baby girl you are right this very minute - all round, rosy cheeks and long, straight eyelashes, roll upon roll of baby chub and drunken milk face - you are utterly perfect to me. 

I ask my own Momma on a weekly basis if it is possible to love you any more than I do right this moment. She always laughs a little bit and tells me to just wait. It is hard for me to believe our time with you can be happier than it is right now, but it makes me look forward to every new day I get to wake up and be your Mama all over again.  

The moment you were born, the song "The Luckiest" was playing in our hospital room. I couldn't have chosen more appropriate words to be sung as you entered my life, because you have made me feel every day since then that I am the luckiest in the world.

I love you,

Mama

Three Month Stats

Weight: 13lbs (estimated)

Clothing: Depends on brand, but mostly 3 month and 3 - 6 month.

Diapers: Cloth - 2 middle snaps open

Eating: 6 times per day, 15 - 20 minutes per time.

Things you love this month: Riding in the Baby Bjorn facing forward, bathtime, playing in your pack-and-play, talking to us.

Things you don't love: The end of bathtime.

Rolled Over (Front to back): June 29
First shots (and, correspondingly, first fever and tylenol): July 5
First morning in the garden with Mama (in the baby bjorn): July 9
First day away from Mama: July 24
Milestones: rolling over tummy to back in both directions, smiling without prompting (at toys, mobile, Fletcher, etc.), clasping hands at midline, reaching for objects, grasping objects (still with pretty low accuracy), squealing.

Everything I Ever Wanted.

Oh, motherhood. Such a humbling process, foiling my well-laid plans.

It has not been a good week, my friends. Not good, as in I ugly-cried not once or twice but three times on Wednesday. Thank goodness for Hugh and my mom and their endlessly patient listening ears. And thank goodness for my sweet girl; she is a trooper. 

Fortunately, next week promises to be a happier one. Not least of all because my birthday is on Monday; the big 2-9! And, as you probably know by now, birthdays are my jam. 

For the last two weeks, Hugh has been asking me for a list of things I might want, and I've been hemming and hawing and not really giving him any guidance. Finally, he asked me why I was having such a hard time coming up with a birthday list this year. And I realized it's because I have everything I ever wanted already. 

My little White Hot cup runneth over:

Favorites.

On the agenda for the next three days: balloons, birthday cake, a family walk, and a champagne cocktail or three. Hope your weekend is just peachy.

What We're Doing. And Eating.

Well, I just feel like we are best friends this week with all this hanging out together we've been doing. Don't you? Here's what our little family has been up to the last seven days:

• Learning new skills to pay the bills:

• New skill not pictured: yelling. Further proof that we are a mess over this child: we can't get enough of her, even when she is literally yelling at us. Yesterday, Penelope was not having a banner nap day. After waking up early from her third nap, I went in to get her and, while she was stretching, she was looking up at me with a furrowed brow, just yelling away. Then Hugh walked in the room and poked his head over the crib. Wouldn't you know, she broke out in a huge smile and started cooing. I reminded her that I am the one who grew and birthed her (in all her 97th percentile at birth glory) and am now acting as her sole source of sustenance. Isn't it too early to pick a favorite parent? 

• Oh, you want to see another picture of her cuteness? Twist my arm...

• Studying. No big surprise, Hugh is a studying machine, up at 5am to get through his material while the rest of us are still asleep. We're very excited for August 24th to come and go around this place.  

• I'm working on post for next week about new mama style. It could alternately be titled What To Do When You Wake Up and Hate Everything In Your Closet. 

• In other fashion-related updates (seeing as I am blogging while wearing four-year-old yoga pants and a t-shirt I bought for $1.99 that Hugh calls my "on sale for a reason t-shirt", clearly you are coming here to read about fashion), apparently my feet grew while I was pregnant. Awesomely, I realized this the night before I had to go to work when I started trying on my shoes and they were all too small.

• Had to order some supplies for daycare. Made myself feel less sad about it by ordering darling girl some new books:

• Falling asleep with toys in our mouths:

The day we picked Fletcher up from the breeder, she brought him out (and he was so freaking cute) and commented that she had never seen a puppy who loved toys like he did. Three years later and not much has changed.

• Cooking up a storm. This week, I was kind of a rockstar of making dinner. See evidence below. 

Here's what we're eating:

• Thin Burgers - I could not bring myself to use 70/30 ground beef. I think I used 85/15, and these were still delicious. If I had one in the fridge, I would be eating a hamburger for breakfast. 

• Reese's Peanut Butter Brownie Cups - Easy. Tasty. Prep box of brownie mix according to package directions. Divide batter into 12 muffin cups lined with paper liners. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Press a mini Reese's cup into each brownie. Bake until brownie cups are cooked through, about 10 more minutes. Makes 12.

• Coconut Banana Bread with Lime Glaze - Eat it up.

 

• Bagel topped with cream cheese, lox, red onion, capers, arugula, and a squeeze of lemon - Yum. Also, came home and, while I was toasting a bagel, realized Hugh ate the rest of the lox while I was at work. Cried. Hugh told me it was a little ridiculous to be crying over food when I wasn't pregnant (see: Hugh ate the last cheese danish when I was pregnant and I sat on the floor in the kitchen and cried and then didn't speak to him for six hours.). Realized he was right. 

• Annie's Frozen Burrito - A working lunch. Hugh would, in particular, like you to note my work phone in this photo. He calls it the world's oldest Blackberry. When I am getting ready for a call, he inevitably makes a joke about needing to manually crank up the phone first.

• Thai Steak Salad - So, so good. Served over rice noodles. 

 

• Kale Salad - The other half of this meal was gross. You win some, you throw some in the trash. So I ate Kale Salad for dinner. And had another glass of wine. A balanced meal, if you ask me.

Hope your weekend is full of good food and sassy babies.

Post Script: Tried to write a whole post without using the word cute. Failed. Should have birthed an uglier baby, I guess.

Dear Self.

Three months ago today was Penelope's due date. Obviously, that day came and went and she stayed snug as a bug in my (gigantic) belly. This is how we looked on April 26th:

Three months ago, I was equal parts impatience, anxiety, and excitement those final days. I truly felt like she was never going to get here and I was going to be pregnant for the rest of my life. 

Here's what I'd like to tell my 40-weeks-pregnant self:

• Relax! She's coming, I promise. In 48 hours, almost to the minute from the time this photo was taken, she'll be out of your (gigantic) belly and into your arms.
• Your birth plan is going to go to hell in a handbasket. But, turns out, you are pretty good at giving birth, even without your plan. You will surprise yourself and, halfway through pushing you'll be thinking, Holy shit, I am doing this.
• Your house is not going to go to hell in a handbasket after she is born. I know you are really concerned about that right now. Which is why Hugh found you attempting to dust the blades of the ceiling fan while standing on a chair yesterday.
• Remember last month when you got a Charlie horse in your calf in the middle of the night that was so bad your calf was sore for three days? And remember how you told yourself that that was probably only a fraction of what labor was going to feel like? You are right. That Charlie horse was approximately 1/1000 of what labor is going to feel like. But you'll survive.
• All your stress over breastfeeding? You are wasting your time. Turns out you and Penelope are pretty good at that, too. 
• Go get a pedicure. I know, you just got one yesterday. Get another one. And get a manicure, too. Then go walk around Target for five hours by yourself. Alone time is about to become a precious commodity.
• You love being a mom more than you even hoped you would. Which is saying a lot, given the crazy high expectations you have right now.
• Food has never tasted as good as it will one hour after you give birth. You will eat a hamburger, a baked potato, a granola bar, two glasses of apple juice, a salad, a bowl of pineapple, a brownie, and a carton of milk. You will still be hungry.
• You think you love Hugh right now. Oh, you just wait, my friend. You are going to be February 2005 falling-in-love giddy over that husband of yours all over again in about two days.   
• Your Momma makes it just in time to see you become a Mama yourself. Right now, you don't realize how important this is. You will get it about ten seconds after you lay eyes on your own daughter for the first time.
• You're going to cry for a solid two weeks after she's born, for happy reasons and sad reasons and no reasons at all. You will think you are the only person who has ever felt like this, until you call Sarah after one week and she tells you it's totally normal.
• Oh, what was that you said? You're tired? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. 
• This is how we look now:

• Spoiler alert: she's pretty cute.
• Oh, and that thing everyone keeps telling you about how you just can't imagine the love you are going to feel? They are correct. You will be changed in an instant. 

Love,

The-Carbonara-and-Turkey-Sandwich-Eating, Stomach-Sleeping, Wine-Drinking, Able-to-Go-More-Than-Five-Minutes-Without-Peeing, Looking-At-Her-Own-Toes-While-Standing-Up-Right-Now, Mama-Version of Yourself.