moving

Adam has convinced me that having an anynomous blog is all the rage and I’m really “behind the times” if I don’t do one, so I’ve moved my parenting blog to: http://edgeofthesunshine.blogspot.com/

Just in case you were wondering why I haven’t written, thats way. Its really fun. I get to use an alias (Solar Dancer) and Ilya is “Alice”.  So, for all two of you that read this blog, hopefully you will find more exciting updates on our life at this new location – plus you can feel important and powerful because you know my ture identity 🙂 Just like a superhero.

Bragging rights

I don’t mean to brag but I have a brilliant daughter. This morning she rolled from her back to her front all by herself!  It was so exciting. Just now, she did it again! Does life get better than this? I think not. I say she is brilliant because rolling from back to front is a 6 month milestone and she is but 4 months old. Go Illy! She has yet to concore the front to back milestone (a 4 month milestone) but no pressure. Its like she just passed calculus without finishing algebra.

In other news, we have been walking around Greenlake everyday (a goal of ours) for the past 11 days. Thats 3 miles a day – which puts us up to 33 miles so far (ahh math, how do I miss thee…seriously, I was watching terminator last night and one of the characters said, “each file is taking me 5 minutes to hack and there are about 1000 files, you do the math” and I did! I’m such a dork). Ilya loves the lake. She smiles at everyone we pass and everyone loves her – they smile and talk and tell me what a cute/happy/wonderful baby I have. Don’t I know it – she can roll from her back to her front all by herself 🙂

Oh yea, she is also reading!

One more update

I have one more very important update – its called, ILYA DOESN’T SLEEP AT NIGHT ANYMORE!!! I was literally up all night with her.  Every time I started to doze off, she would kick or fuss or flail her arms about her as if warding off invisible ninjas. At 8am, I broke down and cried. I could hardly stand up, the world was spinning, and Ilya was happy as could be waiting to start a new day.  Adam saved the day. He took her downstairs and let me sleep for two hours (of course, given the opportunity for sleep, my body would only let me rest in half hour intervals). Poor Ilya is as exhausted as I am. She is crashed out on the sofa (the fact that she is sleeping somewhere other than on mommy’s chest should tell you something about the depth of her tiredness). I don’t know how many people out there actually bother to read this blog, but here is your chance to talk to me (and my chance to figure out who actually reads this). Tell me all your tricks and little bits of wisdom to get a baby to sleep through the night.

I know that if I put her in her crib, she will probably sleep longer, but I couldn’t stand to do that – so, when sharing your ideas, keep in mind that Ilya sleeps right next to me.

updates and milestones

wow, its been a long time since my last post. i’ve got a sleeping baby pinning down my right arm, so please forgive the shortness of this post as well as the lack of capitals.

updates: ilya is amazing…ok, i guess this is nothing new, but i wanted to throw that out there. we have joined two parent groups so that she will have lots of friends and mommy will get lots of support. we have gone to the zoo several times and we visit daddy once a week at work. ilya has finally decided that the car seat is not such a bad thing and will even allow herself to be pushed in the stroller once and a while.

milestones: ilya can now grab and play with toys (aka shove them in her mouth). She consistently rolls half way over and has rolled all the way over once or twice. she laughs all the time and talks to anyone that will listen to her.

that’s it for now, as typing with one hand is exhausting.

mornings are a gift

I’ve never been a morning person.  I’ve stumbled into my 10:30am classes bleary eyed with a double shot of espresso clenched firmly in my fist as if it were a life line to reality.  Becoming an “adult” did nothing to alleviate this problem.  My co-workers – all around my age – would spring into the building with exuberant smiles on their faces wishing me good prospects for the coming day.  Some of them would even talk about what they had accomplished BEFORE work.  That is just crazy talk.  I would plaster a smile on my face and repeat the same phrase over and over in a vain attempt to fit into this sick pre-dawn world “Good Morning.”  Conversation was beyond me and I think my co-workers secretly laughed at me behind my back.

All this changed once Ilya was born.  Morning took on a whole new meaning.  “Early” became a relative term.  5am isn’t really all that early when you were up at 2am and again at 4am feeding and soothing a hungry baby.  The best part about mornings is Ilya.  I will never know how two die hard night people could produce this incredibly happy morning person, but when I roll over and drowsily open my eyes to see the smiling face of my baby, the world is instantly a better place.  All grumpiness of the previous night has been forgotten and replaced with this bundle of happiness and joy. Ilya stares directly in my eyes and when I close them, she thinks we are playing a game so that when I open them again, she is not just smiling, but full out laughing.  If I could somehow harness this joy, there would be no more war in this world.

I know nothing

I think that people only tell new parents that things get easier to mess with them.  Either that, or they are thinking in the really long term (yes,  when Illy is 20 things will be much easier).  Just when I think that I have Illy figured out, everything changes.  We had a glorious sleep routine for about 1 week and now it is a free-for-all.  Last night she woke up every hour and howled.  When she wasn’t awake, she was thrashing her body like a berserker – destroying all that she came in contact with.  It was not a fun night for anyone, and I actually – for the first time ever – wondered why she was doing this to us.  I am a rational person and I know that she is just a tiny baby doing what she needs to do to meet her needs, but I was so tired last night that I convinced myself that she was purposefully trying to keep us awake.  I felt so bad about these thoughts in the morning that if she was able to eat solid foods, I would have taken her out for ice cream.  As it was, I figured if I ate the ice cream she would get it by default and understand the depth of my regret.  How could I possibly have thought that my precious Illy would do anything manipulative.  Squakers is calling.  More later.

Our Weekend

Busy weekend.  Adam and I had our third date since the birth of our dear daughter.  We got pedicures and ate sushi.  One of the benefits of being married to a man as secure and free thinking as Adam is that I get to do things like get pedicures with him.  Don’t tell him I told, but he even got his eyebrows waxed 🙂

Ilya had a blast with grandma Mel until the very end when she got hungry and wouldn’t take the bottle.  I’m beginning to get a bit worried about this whole no bottle thing.  After feeding her and reassuring her that mommy and her boobs will always come back and give her as much as she wants, we went to Alki beach for the art walk and then off to Brendan and Stina’s to play games.  I’m really going to miss those two when they take off on their busking adventure.  Their plan is to pack everything up and travel the country busking.  I guess I missed the time in my life where I could do that.  Not really sad about it – just an observation.  I actually couldn’t be happier with the choices that I have made in my life.  I think this is the happiest that I have ever been.

Super Mom takes on the hair salon

So, Squakers (aka Ilya) and I decided to try to go to the hair salon to get super mom a much needed hair cut. As glamorous as it is always having my hair quickly thrown back into a ponytail, finding that rubber band in the mornings is just one more thing to worry about. I had decided to chop it all off. This is a huge step for me and I wanted to do it before I changed my mind. We arrived at the salon (a training salon none the less) with squakers firmly attached to my chest in the Moby. The 14 year old behind the counter wearing way too much make-up took one look at me – with stringy hair that hasn’t been washed in days, pants that are too big (yea, but it is hard finding pants that fit right now), spit up running down my left side, and a baby attached to my front – and coldly asked me who was going to watch the baby. Saying the word “baby” like it was some sort of disease. Luckily Squakers was sleeping or I would have had her practice her projectile vomit trick right then and there. “no one” I replied. “I figured I could hang on to her” I was just trying to get a hair cut after all. It wasn’t like I was going to run an obstacle course. “Oh, we don’t allow that.” “Why not?” “Its too dangerous.” I kid you not. This is the reason why a child is not allowed to sit on my lap while I get a hair cut. Its too dangerous. I imagined wayward scissors flying through the air accidentally stabbing innocent bystanders while harsh chemicals were being flung around like water in a wet tee shirt contest. Then I began to think. If this place is too dangerous for a child, what was I doing in such an establishment. We made our escape and returned home.

mirrors

Ilya has discovered her reflection in the mirror or rather she has discovered the little girl that looks exactly like her trapped on the other side of that glass.  She must not be too concerned for her new friend because she can’t help smiling and cooing every time she sees her.

2 months

Ilya had her two month check-up on Monday. Our doctor never tells us the percentiles that she is in, but I’m sure if you are interested, you could look them up online. She weighed in at 13 pounds and was 24 inches long. Her thrush has officially cleared up and she is just as healthy as can be. This was a hard appointment for Adam and I because we had to decide which vaccines to give her. Normally at the two month check-up they get 8 shots! That seams like a lot for a little baby’s system, plus there is all this controversy over the link between vaccines and autism. Now, I’m not saying that I believe it, but I’m not sure that I don’t believe it. There are just so many things to worry about. We talked about all the different vaccines options with our doctor before deciding to give her just one of the vaccines now. We will probably end up giving her the other vaccines later, we just wanted to wait on them a little while since they didn’t seam to be as urgent (Hep B, for example – I didn’t get that vaccine until I was 16 years old). I don’t know if we made the right decision or the wrong decision, I just know that it was the decision that I felt comfortable with. I know all the pros and cons – I think I have done more research on this issue than I did on some of my college papers. Ilya was so brave when she got the shot. She only cried for a minute then was fine for the rest of the evening. I know I’ve said it before, but I really lucked out. I have the most perfect little baby.