Credit worthy baby

A+ received her first credit card solicitation on Saturday from American Express. I thought about applying for the card on her behalf and seeing if they would really approve a line of credit for a 10-month-old with no job, assets, or concept of money.

Monster-Sized Baby and Chicken Bingo

The picture on the left was taken at the hospital just before we put Baby A+ in the car to bring her home. She was two days old. The one in the middle was taken in the same carseat yesterday at nineish-months. And finally, the one on the right is in her new, big girl car seat (in Cow-moo-flauge. Ha ha!) that she will have until she's 3 or so. I can't believe she was so tiny! I really don't remember her being so little. And now, I can't believe she's so big. She's in the 50th percentile for weight at 18#11oz but the 90th percentile for length/height at 29" long. Basically, she's tall and thin. Sigh. She certainly didn't get that from her mom.

She's learned to clap and can wave but somewhat indiscriminately. She hasn't figured out that waving is a salutation so she just randomly waves from time to time. She's also starting to scoot on her tummy. She still hates tummy time but I am committed to making her do it everyday or else she'll be 14 before she can crawl. Daddy hung a swing on a tree branch this weekend and that's pretty fun. She sat in it this morning and watched the chickens rummaging around in the hosta garden.

Speaking of chickens, I let them out into the garden everyday now. After reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma" (I think I am the last person in the world to have read it--better late than never), I felt like they should be able to wander around the garden and do their chicken thing. So they do. The girls have also been invited to be the stars of "Chicken Bingo" at our food coop's Crazy Days celebration. (Crazy days is a town-wide sale and festival of sorts that happens in late July.) I'll be sure to post some photos here after the big event. In the mean time, I'm trying to figure out what to feed them and when so we can maximize their poopiness. It's really a crazy thing to want to do--make the chickens poop even more--but I suppose it's called Crazy Days for a reason.

Baby A+ vs. Green Peas, Part II

Success! No gagging and even a smile. Next stop, prunes and liver!

Belated happy birthday

I forgot to mention: happy birthday to the chickens! They turned one on Tuesday. Their gift was a pile of yellowing broccoli and mushy watermelon discarded by the Coop. I didn't sing to them, tho'. Our neighbors already think I'm a weirdo; I probably shouldn't push it.

Freebird

Baby A+, Beanie (the dog), Meep (the nice cat), and I were all out in the yard this week. Roaming around sniffing (Beanie and Meep), eating grass (Meep and Baby A+), and generally being content with Spring's arrival. Thinking that their 6'x7' area must get boring after a while, I decided to let the chickens wander freely around the yard. "What's the worst that could happen?", I asked myself. :o)

So, I caught Tallulah and plunked her down in the grass. Beanie made a b-line for her, and I growled "LEAVE IT!", so Beanie just ran figure 8s around Tallulah and didn't actually touch her. Then I scooped up Dixie and Sydney. Beanie was enthralled to have more potential playmates in the yard, and was soon walking around with the chickens eating grass along side of them. She showed no malice nor prey-drive response to the birds. I guess she is a terrible labrador but a fabulous dog. Meep, who a year ago was plotting ways to eat the chicks, took one look at them and decided that they were too big to hassle with and went on her merry way. Baby A+ tottered between interested/bewildered by the non-furry walking things and ignoring the chickens in order to laugh riotously at the dog running around with sticks in her mouth. So, all in all, it was a harmonious afternoon in the yard for the cat, dog, chickens, baby and me.

Once again, it is fun to have the girls. I'm simple-brained, I guess, but watching them peck around, strutting and scratching, is entertaining. They are just funny little creatures. And they eat dandilions. Bonus.

Here is a three-shot series of Beanie following Tallulah, sniffing her bottom, and then recoiling at the nasty peck that Tallulah inflicted for Beanie's sassy, fresh behavior.



And here are a couple of Baby A+ enjoying the fine weather.

I worry that our Baby might hurt our Pit Bull

When she's not causing TBI to our dog, she's laughing at Mommy hamming it up. I'll do just about anything to get her to laugh!

Funk

I spent over two hours doing a complete Spring cleaning of the chicken coop this weekend. We've just been adding fresh pine shavings over the winter without removing the old, dirty shavings; the shavings were at least 8" deep. The top layer was mostly poop. Under the poop, was a layer of funk. And, finally, the bottom layer was a layer of wet yuck that reeked of ammonia. GROSS! It's been shop-vacced, bleached, scrubbed and dried, and we're set for another 3-4 months.

So the chickens have not been very fun over the winter. Partly it's been cold so we couldn't be outside hanging out watching them. Instead, it's just been drudgery of going out in the dark, cold mornings to let them out and again in the dark, cold evenings to put them in. Hubby and I have decided that if we do not enjoy the chickens this summer, we will enjoy them on our dinner table before next winter.

Baby A+ vs. Green Peas

We've started with solids. Rice cereal mostly but last night we introduced green peas. I thought they had a mild enough flavor that she would tolerate, if not enjoy, them. My, oh, my, was I ever wrong.

It was fortuitous that the camera was rolling and captured the hijinx and hilarity that ensued.

My favorite part is when she lets forth an audible gag. I've laughed every time I've watched it. (I'm a terrible mom, I know.)

Frostbitten chickens

The chickens have frostbite.

Dixie, in particular, has a frostbitten comb atop her head. (The grayish area shown in the photo.) During the really cold days (negative temps) this month, we've kept them locked in the coop or let them out for maybe a few hours each day because, otherwise, they don't have the sense that God gave a cantaloupe to stay indoors. Chickens are not the brightest creatures but I thought that, at minimum, they would have a sense of self-preservation like most living things do. Apparently not. The frostbitten bits will hopefully just slough off without getting infected, and life will go on for the now cosmetically deformed chickens.

They are still laying eggs: about 2/day. They've slowed down a bit but considering the cold and the dearth of sunlight we get these days, they are doing well.

A handy feature

It would be really great if Baby A+ had a sleep button.

Notice anything different?

Word on the street is that there are a few optically-challenged geezers reading this blog, so, just for you: bigger, bold type. :-P

Oh Ye of Little Sleep

A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all thirteen of our devoted readers. :-) We had a very nice holiday; Hubby's folks came to the Frozen Tundra from Sunny California (they are certifiably crazy), and there was a lot of time with both families. It was very nice.

The downside? I thought Baby A+'s head was going to start spinning like Poltergeist by the end of the week. She was so out of sorts and overtired from all the going to and fro, family and happenings. And when Baby is unhappy, ain't nobody happy. Or well-rested. Her nighttime sleeping went from a blissful 8pm-6am, maybe getting up once or twice to nurse to a choppy no-rhyme-or-reason sleeping in a few hour blocks and then screaming in between. Last night was the first night in a week that she was able to sleep from 10p-6a, getting up only twice. I got 7 hours of sleep last night. Hoorah!

Before anyone leaves a snarky comment that we are lucky that she has been sleeping well at all, babies are sensitive, hard work, "my baby didn't sleep through the night until he was 27 years old" or anything else of that nature, let me say that I know, I know, I know. Still, it's PAINFUL--physically and mentally. Especially after she had been sleeping so well, so we knew she could do it, it just stunk to High Heaven that she was sleeping so poorly. I felt terribly for her that she felt and was so disrupted, and I felt guilty for wishing the little stinkbug would just go to sleep. In fact the lullaby I sing to her each night changed this week from something like "you are my muffin, my sweet little baby; I love you so, I don't mean maybe" to a mandate of "Go to sleep and stay asleep; your parents are tired".

I was so desparate that on Friday I went to the library and checked out every book on babies and sleeping that I could find. If it had "happy", "baby" and "sleep" in the title, I checked it out. I didn't even look at the content to see if it was worth reading; I was so tired that I wouldn't have noticed if I checked out, "Make Your Baby Happy: Drink a Few Pints of Guinness and She'll Sleep for Days!" Heck, maybe I did check that one out. (For any concerned readers out there, we would never and have never given Baby A+ alcohol. I don't even know if we have more than a bottle of cooking wine in our house.) I have been very anti-sleep training; I figure babies are fairly self-regulating and if we give her gentle and loving care, a safe environment, and as much consistency as possible, she will regulate herself. Eventually. And in the mean time, we, the parents, suck it up. As I said very inarticulately to another mom in a new mom's group who had her three-week old on a sleeping and feeding schedule (horrifying!) when she asked me, no joke, "How do you, like, meet her needs all the time?": I didn't have a child so that my life wouldn't change.

I accept that I don't get to sleep, nap, go out, do whatever I want when I want to now. It doesn't mean that I practive self-abnegation either, but small babies need what they need when they need it. All that said, I understand why people let their babies "cry it out" and "train" them to sleep, or at least, accept being ignored/abandoned in their crib. I understand. I thought about it this week. I thought about putting her in her crib and going into another room to sleep. And if she cried, oh well, she could deal because I needed some sleep. But the problem is, she can't deal. She is working on learning to self-soothe and she is leaps and bounds ahead of where she was even a month ago, and when she wakes up in the night, sometimes she can get herself back to sleep now. But sometimes she can't. And sometimes she can calm herself down when she's upset. But sometimes she can't. And my job is not to abandon her, or in less damning terms, leave her, to figure it out. My job is to help her figure it out. And that means reading her cues, paying attention, and not swooping in too quickly but not leaving her to struggle much beyond her abilities right now.

I didn't have a child so that my life wouldn't change.

I really wrote this for myself as a reminder. I feel really strongly about this but stong feelings or conviction can be tested by pain and sleep deprivation. That said, if you feel judged or criticized by what I wrote, and you are over the age of one, you can kiss my patoot, suck it up and deal. If you feel judged or criticized by it, and you are a baby, cry all you want and I will come give you a snuggle.