Monsters

We are an offbeat family.

So far, Emelia has only about ten stuffed animals and half of them are monsters. Before she was born, I got her the alien and the Loch Ness Monster because they were cute and unconventional. I meant nothing by them. I just liked them. It wasn't until Aaron's cousin Jeff got involved that the monster thing took on meaning.

Jeff decided that Emelia should learn to embrace monsters rather than be afraid of them, so he got her a C'Thulhu puppet and a C'Thulhu Christmas tree ornament (not pictured, but it has a Santa hat and golden balls on its tentacles). I've never read any H.P. Lovecraft, but I'm told that C'Thulhu is basically the most evil of all monsters that ever were and ever will be. But he makes a cute stuffed animal.

My sister Susie then got into the game by getting her a monster toy, as well. She thought Jeff was right on the money. The monster she got has eyes that pop out, and you can open his mouth, torso and head and pull stuffed pieces out. He has a brain and a bat in his belfry; a frog in his throat; a foot in his mouth; a stomach and a heart; and a toe that comes off. It sounds strange and gross, but it's really completely non-offensive and kinda funny. I actually think Emelia will love it when she gets old enough to actually notice it.

My mother didn't know she was contributing to a trend, but she provided the coup de grace with a spider baby toy. I know it's not exactly a monster, but it's something that people are usually afraid of, so I count it among the monsters.

So Emelia's monster collection is well underway, and she sure looks cute surrounded by them. I'm sure some or all of them will be her friends as she grows up, but who knows if they'll keep her from being afraid of scary things. I can't imagine there are many babies out there with monster collections. I've decided, though, that the C'Thulhu puppet will make a good constant to show her growth, so expect to see more of him in the future.

With us as parents, the poor kid was sure to be a little unusual. This is certainly only the beginning . . . .

Christmas in Connecticut

I've been negligent for more than two weeks this time! Sorry about that. The thing is, I haven't really found anything interesting to write about. Emelia is a joy to be with, but she's doing the things babies are supposed to do, which just doesn't give me much fodder for blog posts. I guess I'm just not very creative. Aaron also beat me to posting about how hard it was to put Emelia down awake, rather than holding her until she fell asleep.

We are now in Connecticut spending a week with my family. My parents and only sibling (sister Susie) live in southeastern Connecticut, where I grew up, and we spend our Christmases with them. Aaron's family is Jewish, so Christmas just isn't as important to them as to my family.

We always have a great time in Connecticut, and we are fortunate that this year my sister's kids Callumn, Acacia, and Branwyn are here for their holiday vacation, rather than in Maine with their dad. Alas, we don't see them nearly enough. We don't see any of our nieces and nephews nearly enough. They all keep growing and maturing, and we miss SO much of it!!

Emelia is having a great time being held and cuddled by her cousins, all of whom adore her. Callumn and Acacia (Cassie) are ten year old twins, and they both love babies. Branwyn is eight, and she likes Emelia, too, but she's not quite as enthusiastic about holding her. All three are great with Emelia, as they've been practicing with their one year old sister (their Dad's new daughter), Madeline.

Because she's having such a good time, however, Emelia is getting a tad overstimulated. She's not sleeping as much as she does at home, and we're having a bit of trouble getting her to go down at night. Once she's down, though, she's been really easy the rest of the night. She's not sleeping through (four hours, tops), but she'll wake and nurse for only a few minutes before going right back to sleep. This is making life much easier for me!

I've posted a few new pictures of Emelia, as well. Enjoy!

Emelia at One Month

Sorry I've been incommunicado for more than a week! We hosted our annual holiday beer tasting party on Friday, and I spent most of my "free" time last week preparing. That all is fodder for another post. I hear the party was fun, though. I spent most of it in the nursery trying to get an overstimulated baby to sleep. Now I need to find a way to tell my father in law that he was right without losing face . . . . Again, another post.

What I wanted to do in this post is to provide an update on Emelia's first month. She was one month last Thursday, December 7. Time flies! Here's the scoop:

1. She has, of course, grown. She just started wearing 3-6 month clothes because she was too long for most of the 0-3 month things we have. We haven't weighed or measured her lately, though.
2. She's smiling. We've tried to get pictures, but haven't been successful. You can ask her grandparents and Goldschmidt aunts, uncles, and cousins about the smile, too, 'cause they'll back us up. We're all convinced that she's been doing real smiles for at least a couple weeks now.
3. She seem to be a fairly easy, good natured baby. When she's awake, which is more of the time these days, she often just looks around or looks at us and smiles. This, of course, is when she's not overstimulated, which has happened a couple of times. Then she cries.
4. She loves to be held, and would prefer to spend as much of the day as possible in someone's arms. Unfortunately, I seem to be the only one who can sit down while holding her. Everyone else seems to need to move around to keep her satisfied. When she's not being held, she'll usually be content in the swing.
   
5. Yesterday, she turned her head to look at Aaron when he spoke, which we found pretty exciting. She was between us on the bed, and she was looking mostly at me, but when Aaron began speaking to her, she turned her head and looked at him. Then she turned her head back and forth when we were each speaking. It was neat.
   
6. Speaking of turning her head, she has amazing head control and upper body strength. She has since she was born. She can turn her head and look around with little support. I'm convinced it's because she "dropped" about eight weeks before she was born, so she had to support her whole body on her head and shoulders. It's a theory.
7. She loves her hands and she loves to suck. We're pretty sure she's going to be a thumb sucker, but she hasn't found her thumbs yet. She sucks her whole hand, instead. She'll sometimes take a pacifier, and she has a great suck for nursing.
8. She sleeps 3-5 hours at a time, most of the time. None of the 5 hour stretches have been at night, but we have had an occasional 4 hour stretch.
9. Aaron and I are doing well. I do most of the nighttime stuff, since Aaron's working, and I would have to be up, anyway. I'm so happy still that I'm not having too much trouble with the lack of sleep.
10. Emelia is still the most beautiful baby either Aaron or I has ever seen, and others sometimes agree with us!

I think that's Emelia in a nutshell. She's lovely and amazing, and I'm already having a little anxiety about the thought of going back to work in two months. I know I'll be leaving her in capable hands (Aaron's) for three months, but I'm just so in love with my daughter that I can barely stand to be in a different room from her, let alone be somewhere she's not for a whole day! I assure you, however, that my neuroses have not yet manifested themselves in overprotectiveness . . . I encourage others to hold her, and I do move freely about the house without her. I might even be willing at some point to leave her in Aaron's care when I leave the house, but that remains to be seen. I just wanted to let you all know that I'm not smothering her. I'm just completely smitten.

Baby Swing

I have friends and family who swear that a swing is the only way to calm a cranky baby. It even became a joke over Thanksgiving because one of my sisters in law kept mentioning over and over that I might want to consider getting a side to side swing. I got a REALLY old front and back swing as a hand-me-down, and I wanted to try it out before giving in and buying something ELSE new (or letting someone get one for a gift -- I'm all for recycling, after all). I kept assuring Rebecca that I was taken care of in the swing department, at least until I tried the hand-me-down.

Well, I've tried the hand-me-down, and I'm a baby swing convert. So far, Emelia doesn't seem to mind that it only goes back and forth. It calms her in a way that I -- much to my regret -- cannot (unless she's hungry). As a result, she's spending a fair amount of time in the swing instead of in my arms. I'm glad there's a way to calm her (and rest assured that I do try to calm her myself before resorting to the swing), but I feel a little inadequate that the sheer presence of my body and my soothing voice and movements can't compete with an ugly, battery-operated contraption. *sigh*

Dogs

Aaron and I were dog parents before becoming kid parents. In fact, we met walking our dogs on Capitol Hill. As a result, we have every confidence that we know our dogs and that we can handle being parents of all three of our babies with no problems whatsoever. We may be deluding ourselves.

Today is the first day I'm home alone with all three. My friend -- and our dog walker -- Bryce has repeatedly offered to keep the dogs for a couple of weeks while we get settled into this kid parenting thing, and she smiles wonderingly (and knowingly) every time I decline. My reasoning is that I want my family to be together as much as possible during this time. Plus, how hard can it be to take care of all three?

I'm finding out.

At this point, the dogs have interacted with Emelia enough that they seem comfortable, and I've had no reason to be concerned about them, so far. Nora has been curious and clingy, but not in a worrisome way. Junebug sniffs around, but mostly she seems indifferent. Emelia, though too young at three weeks to really process her relationship with the dogs, doesn't seem to mind their attentions. They are all behaving exactly as I'd envisioned. What I hadn't really given much thought to in my vision, though, was me.

Having given birth a mere three weeks ago, I'm not entirely at 100 percent. Add to that the lack of sleep that comes with being a new parent AND a cold, and let's just say I'm a tad less than fresh. I'm still a week away from being allowed to lift more than ten pounds (according to my hospital discharge orders), which means I can't lift our 23 pound stroller. Whenever I go for a walk, I have to put Emelia in a sling and carry her. No problem. Until you add dogs to the equation. The walking part was easy. The dogs pulled this way and that a little, but I could handle it. The part I couldn't handle, though, was scooping poop.

Living in a city comes with a variety of social responsibilities, which includes cleaning up after your dogs. You do it and you get used to it. It's really a very small price to pay for the loving companionship of a dog, and you get really good at doing it without any mess or fuss. It becomes second nature. But strap a baby to your chest and add weak stomach muscles (you try stretching your stomach muscles around a bowling ball for a few months!) and overextended leg muscles (apparently, to birth a baby, you have to put your knees behind your head during contractions in order to get any leverage at all -- after three hours in this position, leg muscles tend to get a little sore), and the process isn't as easy. Suffice it to say, I re-injured my right leg on our walk this morning.

This provokes a dilemma. If I can't pick up after the dogs, I'm pretty useless on a walk. Either I live with the injury and run the risk of doing further damage or I call Bryce and take her up on her offer to take the dogs. It seems stupid and pig-headed to do the former, but doing the latter would be to admit that I can't handle all of my parenting responsibilities (yet). This seems like a no-brainer, but I haven't yet made up my mind what to do. I'm hoping that a brilliant third option will occur to me . . . .