11 Months: New Pics, New Tricks, New Teeth!

My, what a difference a week makes! Somehow my little girl has gone from baby to toddler almost overnight! It began with a serious nap boycott at the end of last week. I was at my wits' end trying to figure out what was going on, and suddenly, there was my answer: 4 (count 'em) new teeth! She had declared nap amnesty when she got her first two, so I should've figured it out sooner this time around. Like Nanny says, "my forethoughts come after."

Nursing is fun with the new teeth. They have rubbed me raw and I find I'm gritting my own teeth at every feeding. She's not trying to bite me or changing her latch or anything. It's just that there are teeth where for so long there were none. Nasty, pointy teeth! But bless her, Caitrin is being an angel, all things considered. Mouth pain stinks and I know I wouldn't be anywhere near as sweet as she is if it were happening to me.

I got a big, sweet surprise on Monday. Caitrin was eating her beloved Gerber peach puffs and I was sitting with her at the table, when she picked one up and fed it to me! I made a HUGE deal about what a good girl she was to share with Mama, and then she did it another half dozen times! Now she's progressed to sharing tortilla pieces, chex, cheerios, cheese...everything but her Little Crunchies. She actually seems to prefer feeding me now. I don't think I've ever seen her grin so wide!

And the new thing I'm proudest of, and most exhausted by, is that as of a week ago Caitrin is cruising BIGTIME (see photo). In fact, on Tuesday she was holding onto the end table, forgot what she was doing and let go, and she actually stood all on her own for 2-3 seconds! All this from my munchkin who wasn't even crawling like a "normal kid" two weeks ago! At this rate, we figure she'll be walking by the time we go to Canaan next Thursday.

Which is gonna be a fulltime job to get ready for. I have a whole new level of respect for my parents, who drove 8-10 hours with three of us and ALLLLLLL our stuff to see my Nanny and Papa twice a year. We just have one, and we're only making a 4-hour drive, and somehow it already looks as if there'll be no room for anything but her stuff. Yet Mom and Dad always did it, and we never had anything bigger than a small station wagon. Wow, I am in awe.

Well, I've got dipes to finish washing, and Caitrin's afternoon nap appears not to be happening. Gosh, I am worn out. Must go. God bless all!

Little Girl, Big Day

Every now and then, I forget that my life, what I'm doing by staying at home to raise Caitrin, is a choice. A little voice in my ear has really been getting me down, telling me I'm not as important as mothers who have children AND work outside the home and definitely not as important as mothers who are also actresses or celebrities of some other type. This voice wants me to think that if I dropped off the earth today, no one would even notice, let alone remember me. I've been plagued by these feelings of worthlessness for a few weeks now, and it's kept getting progressively worse.

Then yesterday, when the weight was getting so heavy I could barely breathe, Caitrin had a day that reminded me that I'm EXACTLY where I need to be. First, she has two new teeth coming! It's funny, she got her first two relatively early, at 6 1/2 and 7 1/2 months, but then no more in all this time! On Monday I noticed the top front right one had broken through, and then yesterday while we were playing "airplane" I saw the top front left!

Second, Caitrin's been doing the "wounded soldier" crawl since she was 7 months old, but had never done "normal" knee-hand crawling. I wasn't worried because the "wounded soldier" is actually recognized by pediatricians as one of several acceptable forms of crawling. Then last evening, I was getting ready to put Caitrin in the bath and instead of trench-crawling behind me into the bathroom, she got up on her hands and knees and went all the way from the floor by her crib and into the bathroom as far as the tub! Afterward I showed her now to stand up in her crib by holding onto the front rail. I kept my hands on top of hers to catch if needed, but she did all the work.

So I was bouncing off the walls when Sean came home, telling him about all of Caitrin's antics, and she decided to show off for Daddy! She crawled for real all through the kitchen and living room, and when we were sitting in the living room playing with her, she suddenly grabbed the end table and stood up by holding onto it all by herself for over a minute! If I had been doing any of the things the world considers "important," I'd have missed it all. I'm so happy I made this choice.

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Think I'll just take 'em myself from now on

Hello all. Hope this finds you well. It has been a long week in Heelenville. I guess it's just her age, but Caitrin's suddenly FAR less even-tempered than she's been heretofore. She's still mostly a sweet girl all day with me, and she talks about "Dada" nonstop! But for the past couple weeks she freaks out as soon as he gets home in the evening. She adores him...in typical fashion I'm the enforcer in her life and Sean's the fun one. So we are thoroughly perplexed by this. She cries and screams and assumes full tantrum posture. I sort of wonder if she maybe doesn't realize how much she misses Daddy all day, and then when she sees him at night it catches up with her and it's overwhelming. Just my theory. It's better on the weekends, sometimes, sorta. Not tonight. This, too, shall pass...right?!

Caitrin's at such a precious stage right now, what with her "wounded soldier" crawl, endless chanting of "Dada" and her new favorite word "naynay," and her utter fascination with toys. It was this that led us to decide our family needed to make a return visit to Sears portrait studio. Type A that I am, I spent hours on their website planning backgrounds and props, and then I went shopping and bought us all coordinating outfits. I was expecting this major family bonding experience where Caitrin would just charm the pants off everyone like she always does and we'd get some great photos of the three of us interacting. As with so darn many things, that was not to be. The studio was overbooked and we had to wait even though I'd set up our appointment several weeks ago. There were two very young ladies posing as photographers. Very sweet but not very experienced or ready to deal with a baby. Which was odd because the entire clientele seemed to be parents and little babies. I'm sure it doesn't help that Caitrin didn't nap terribly well this morning and was uncharacteristically cranky. And it seems that stranger anxiety is really hitting full force right now. Well, at first the photographer sat us all down to do group shots, and she kept poking at Caitrin with what she called a "tickle stick" (an industrial feather duster) to try to get her to laugh. No surprise to me, that didn't cut it. We sure don't do anything approaching that to get her cracking up, but then, she just randomly gets the giggles with us.

I guess the first girl felt like she was the problem, so she excused herself for a moment and said she'd be right back. Five minutes later, in walks the other girl, who seemed more comfortable with babies and reshot everything the first girl had done. Caitrin never really cracked one of her megawatt smiles, though, and got pretty spooked if Sean and I moved more than a couple feet away. Still, we did get some very cute shots that capture who she is at this point in her life. But I was really disappointed...they just used a plain white background and didn't offer us the option of any others or of using props. Worth it insofar as I'm unable to get shots of all three of us since I don't have a tripod, but since I know my girl and the expressions that best capture her character, I'll probably mostly do photos at home now. So Bug, if you're reading this, a higher-res camera might be a birthday idea.

Nana (Anne) babysat last night so we could see XF2 again. Want to be sure I do my part to encourage a third installment. Have had the closing-credits theme cranially tattooed ever since, and not complaining. Tomorrow is the third installment, incidentally, of our Hunt for the Heelen Fridge. Soooo interesting, I know. Should be in bed now, but Ephemeral beckons and I'm craving a brief mental flatline. Till soon. God bless.

Wow, it makes ice?! Great, but is it babyproof?

One of myriad experiences that no one warned us about with regard to new parenting was babyproofing. I'll admit I thought it was a gate or two in a doorway and some of those little plastic outlet thingies. Ten months and countless trips to Babies R Us later, I've learned that it's garbage can locks and cabinet locks and oven locks and TOILET locks(!), in addition to the $60 gate, the $75 gate, and the $110 gate, all of which you have to jury-rig because nobody's doorways are actually square or the size the gates fit.

But the one that floors me, that I never saw coming, and that, God willing, will be the biggest financial outlay in babyproofing history, is the new refrigerator. Oh, there's nothing wrong with the one we have. Nothing except it was sold by the now-defunct Montgomery Ward, ergo no replacement parts exist, and the geniuses we bought the house from broke the grill at the bottom. As a result we've always had a rainbow of wires adorning the otherwise dead space between the floor and freezer door. An eyesore, sure, and one heck of a catch-all for cat hair, but that was the extent of it. And then, at 7 months, Caitrin became mobile and apparently began her apprenticeship as the Maytag repair girl. Mind you there are toys three feet deep as far as the eye can see all over our house, but my little Inspector Gadget wants those fridge wires. I thought I was brilliant when I covered them with electrical tape, but apparently in Babyland this makes them look even more like a teething toy.

So we weighed our options and quickly realized we had but one: replace the fridge or might as well head for the emergency room now. Oh well, an expensive venture but pretty simple. Unless the previous homeowners, when faced with having to replace what I'm sure was the original fridge with the current one, CUT INTO THE WALL instead of ordering one that fit the hole that was there. Oh, yeah, it's a bloody mess and it results in us having a maximum of 67.5" in which to fit a new one. One major problem: all the fridge manufacturers got together after Harry the Handyman turned the wall into Swiss cheese, and decided never again to make a model fit the carefully planned cuts he made. We're going to lose at least 2 cubic feet and have a gap between where the countertop ends and the fridge begins, because we've gotta shove the newbie into the "custom" notch in the adjacent wall.

We thought we had bitten the bullet and put this mess behind us on Sunday. After church we headed to Sears with the measurements we'd taken and made a choice between the 2 models that would've fit. Installation was supposed to be Monday. And then we got home and Sean measured again, and realized that it wouldn't fit after all...too tall. So we're back to square one, with very few options. But hey, what would life be if not convoluted?

I gotta run, Caitrin's napping and I've got shelves to put up. This also falls under the umbrella of babyproofing, did you know that?

El Bodeguero

Hi all! I had no idea what to call this post, and the first thing that popped into my head was the title of Caitrin's favorite song (from Songs for Cabriolets and Otros Tipos de Vehiculos by Karl Zero, for those that were wondering). At right is my new favorite photo of Little Miss, taken last Saturday. She is so precious!

Let's see, our latest is as follows: Monday marked a month that we've been cloth-diapering, and it's great! I'd heard this from those who encouraged me to do it, but didn't believe it myself till we tried it: we HATE disposables now! They actually seem more of a hassle than cloth does. I still want to trade my diaper pail for a step-on plastic trash can that is easier to maneuver dirty dipes into, but I'm not paying $15 for it. But no rant about the cost of things, I'll just leave it at that.

Our Internet is spotty lately; we think it's some kind of problem with our wireless network. We're having a phone jack installed in the office so we can just plug the modem directly into the computer, but the soonest Verizon could do it's not till August 19th. So we never know when we can get on here and it's QUITE exasperating. But there is a silver lining...I'm actually taking the time to learn Photoshop Elements now, since I can't usually get online. Can't do any sophisticated graphic work yet but getting fairly proficient with its photo editing capabilities. That's all I really wanted it for anyways, the other stuff will just be icing on the cake!

Our little family unit is getting our own place when the Heelens descend upon Canaan Valley later this month! I'm so excited! It'll be crazy to be down there with Caitrin...but in a good way of course. Can't wait to share with her something that's become such a part of who we are, and to take her to Sirianni's, of course! Cannot wait to repair to the mountains. I SO need the break.

Wow, it is nearly time for Sean to get home and Caitrin's just woken up from her afternoon nap, so must close here. All the best to everyone!