The Vocabulary of Motherhood-Bean Style

squnch, stage 1

mid-squnch

full-squnch

Squnchler: (n) One who squnches

Squnch: (v) To curl up like a pill bug, to snuggle down, or snuggle up to someone or something

Snerk: (n) A wet hiccuppy cry made by a fussy baby that signals the onset of true crying, discomfort, rage, or general dissatisfaction, yet is none of those things. A forewarning.

mid-snerk

Slug: (v) to swaddle the baby, thus turning her into a larva/slug-type thing.
(n) a swaddled baby, usually expressed with a descriptive modifier for the type of blanket used. ie: a giraffe slug

The giraffe slug

To "get a new booty": phrase used for diaper changes, implying the changing of a dirty butt into a clean butt

Tooter: (n) one who toots, not to be confused with a Tudor, like Henry VIII, or a tutor.

"Squiggle and worm": Spoonerism for wigggle and squirm, quite apt as this modle of baby moves in her sleep in an inchworm type fashion, typically coming to rest at a 90 degree angle from how she was laid down

Strangely this list is mostly s words. I would say that I spend the majority of my time saying b words though. Boob, boobies, booty, butt, bonk, bubbles, baby, bring me that thing from over there that I can't reach because I'm trapped beneath a baby.

That's baby talk in this house.

3 months

Where does the time go? My baby is officially an infant!

The Vitals:
13 lb 1oz
24.5 inches (I think. She's a bit squirmy these days)

Highights
4th of July brought a couple of fun firsts. Her first sunglasses. Her first bathing suit. Her first dip in the hot tub (which was only heated to 98.)

Skills
Holding her head up. She's a bit wobbly when being picked up from lying down, but I'm calling it.
Laughing
Drooling
Babbling. I know she's just making random sounds, but trying to make out words is only human, right? She frequently makes noises that sound like "hello" and "Ella".

Works in Progress
Grabbing things. She can do it, but it's 50% luck rather than skill at this point. It is fascinating to see her trying though. She does want to put everything in her mouth, which is no surprise.
She shows no interest in rolling over yet
She does, however, want to sit up. She cannot do it unassisted in any way, but she wants to.

She likes
Zerberts
She loves her playmat and will kick and grab at the dangling toys.
The baby in the mirror
Motion, motion, motion-especially her cradle, the rocking chair, and the stroller
Rattles and soft crinkly things
Other babies

She dislikes
Getting out of the bath
Napping alone
Being hungry (she has hit her 3mo growth spurt like clockwork)

I like
Napping with her (see how that works out)
Making her laugh
Tiny shoes that perfectly match her outfit
The smell of the top of her head
That she has my toes (and for now, still her daddy's blue eyes)

I dislike
Plugged ducts
Mastitis

When nursing is going well, I actually enjoy it. Not just for the health benefits for us both, or the cost effectiveness. I like the closeness and the snuggles. This month has been really good. Just one rough day that reminded me not to take for granted how good things have been.

She had a very brief bout of reflux that has passed. She's back to sleeping for about 6 hrs when we put her down for the night, usually around 10. It's the only thing close to routine that we have. The days are still sort of a mystery. Mornings are usually better than evenings, but nothing I would bet money on. She has spent one night in the nursery. I hated it, but I think she did fine.

All in all, it was a good month. Tomorrow we're going to have fancy pictures taken. Giraffe socks. That's all I'm saying.

Slap-dash

Some random points, because that's what I've got right now.

I have had a really productive week. This is good for me to note and remember so when a rough patch hits, I can look back and see proof that I did stuff. Monday was a Red Letter, Gold Star day. I went to the post office, washed diapers, folded laundry, took a shower, vacuumed the bedroom and cooked dinner. While taking care of the Eleanor!

Tuesday I had a play date with my friend Natalie from book club, went back to the post office, to Target & Babies R Us. I was searching for an outfit for her to wear for her 3 month portraits. I have a coupon, so I'm going to have The Picture People take some photos. I have her socks all picked out, and now I need an outfit to match them. Sounds backwards, right? Usually you pick the outfit, then the socks. Well, these are special, ruffly giraffe socks given to Eleanor by her Diva Godmother.

I am in complete denial of how old she is. When people ask, my brain refuses to cough up "3 months." I keep trying to say she'll be a month on Saturday, instead of three months. I want to say it in weeks, because 13 weeks means someone else has to do the math and I can remain blissfully unaware that by all definitions, she's no longer a newborn. She's an infant.

Speaking of which, it's really official. She can't wear her newborn stuff anymore, cloth diapers or not. She's too long. I still put the dresses on her, because, come on! She's a baby. Her diaper is going to show anyway.

Also, people have asked if we'll call her Ellie or some other shortened form. If we do, I'm leaning towards Ella, since that was the original inspiration for her name, but honestly, I just call her Eleanor. That is, when I'm not calling her Squnchler, or Baby Girl, or Rumble Butt, or some other thing that pops into my head. I guess I sort of feel like I don't know her well enough to give her a nickname yet, of the shortened-name variety. Weird but true. We'll have to see what fits her as she grows.

I'm serious, people. If you have the ability to be in DFW on July 21st, you should come to my house. Kammah is making a jelly roll. Peach Melba something fabulous.

I'm learning to embrace spontaneity. Since Eleanor isn't exactly consistent in her scheduling of things, I never really know what's a good time to do anything. I can make some guesses, but they are just that. Some days, your guess is as good as mine. I've always been bad at spontaneous invitations. Well, no. I'm pretty good at responding favorably to spontaneous invitations, but I'm bad at giving them. It just doesn't occur to me that other people might actually be available at a moment's notice to hang out, go eat, do stuff. So, thank you to all my friends who are good at making spontaneous invitations. I'm hoping to join you by mastering that skill soon.

My mornings are sort of like this:


And this has started happening:

If you bring her, they will come

My friend Elise is a baby whisperer. She has whispered babies in multiple states. I once saw her whisper a cranky, stopped-up baby into peaceful slumber. She has patience and skill, so of course I want her to come visit.

She lives in the Far North, which is very far from Texas, so of course, her visit is very exciting. However, I'm not the only person she knows in Texas. Those other people want to capitalize on her relative nearness and come visit her. Since she's staying with me, that means that I have invited the internet to my house.

It's very last minute and pretty slap-dash, but, Internet, if you want to come hang out with me, The Squnchler, and Elise, you can do that.

July 21st has become "Jeans at Beans!"

Open house from 10 am to 10 pm (and possibly later, depending on how much fun we're having). Snacks and drinks and places for butts will be provided. So, throw on some denim and come visit!

Growing

I do not have a green thumb. I suck at keeping plants alive. I have managed to slay succulents and african violets. I murdered a diffenbachia. Heck, even my lawn is sketchy. Plants are not my thing. I love them, but in a distant "other people's gardens" sort of way.

That being said, a sweet friend told me every nursey should have something homemade and something growing. Homemade we've got. From the cradle made by my father to blankets, quilts, hats and booties, many wonderful people have used their talents and time to bless our little girl.

Now for the growing. This sweet pot is a little pink cradle. Inside grows an ivy plant made from a clipping from our friend Shannon's ivy plant. Shannon loves plants and plants love her. All her fingers are green. She works hard and spends quality time to ensure that she has fresh herbs and vegetables for her family. Her gardens are decorative and functional. I did not want to disappoint her and I certainly didn't want to lose the "growing thing" for the nursery. I was hopeful that I might do better than I had in the past. See, Shannon gave me an amyrillis bulb for Christmas and I managed to care for that little plant well. It gave me 3 huge red flowers in the middle of winter. It's still alive, but flowerless at the moment.

My little ivy plant has survived pretty well thus far. I've been caring for this little plant since January. It's still growing strong, getting new leaves and dangling about. I've relocated it several times to keep it away from tiny kitty teeth.

Right now, it rests on our mantle, next to a glass pumpkin Shannon gave us at an Autumn dinner party years ago. Next to that is our wedding cake topper, that Shannon's husband Allen made for us. I think it's in good company. Mostly it's someplace that I see it and remember to water it, so that's important. I hope I can keep it growing. I want to have to re-pot it, and someday tell Eleanor how to care for it, the little ivy from our friend Shannon.

Wish me luck and a green thumb or two.

You fall within a bell curve

So, at Eleanor's 2 month check up, they did their official measuring, and it turns out The Squnchler is in the 90th percentile for height, weight, and head size. At her 2 week check up she was 50% for everything, so this really puts my mind to rest about her getting enough to eat. Is there a woman out there who nurses and doesn't worry that her baby is getting enough to eat? As much as she's been nursing recently, I was worried that she was going hungry. No, not at all. She's big, but proportional. Also, really stinkin' cute. Look at her tiny shoes!

the calm before the shots

I went to a La Leche League meeting on Tuesday and was pleasantly surprised by how reasonable the ladies were. I attended one meeting while I was pregnant, which was informative, but it was so much better this time around. I mean, I was actually doing this thing that everyone was talking about. It was so encouraging to hear other stories of moms who struggled with the exact same things--fast let down, tongue tied babies, engorgement after a growth spurt, plugged ducts, leaking, bad latches, cracked & bleeding parts. Also, these ladies weren't anti-formula or anti-bottles, which I think is what I thought of when I first heard of LLL. While there was talk of attachment/natural parenting (which I will not comment on as I know both diddly and squat about it), co-sleeping and baby wearing, there wasn't a feeling of "you must do these things to be a good mom" which was nice. I did get some help putting Eleanor in the sling that I have, so now I have hope hat I might be able to grocery shop one day. I even got to try on (and put Eleanor in) a Boba carrier too. Everyone was so nice and helpful. I even felt like I had something to contribute.

So, I want you to look at something that is totally weird to me:

This is me, age... wee, having a bath. Yes, I just posted a nude picture of myself on the internet. Craaazy.  Anyway, so you see that face? It's hard to see, but you know whose face that is? That's Eleanor's face. As she grows she looks more like herself and less like a mini-me, but sometimes, she gets a certain look or I see her from the right angle and I see all my baby pictures in my mind. Yet, I still can't quite process the fact that I helped make her, carried her, and she's mine. My baby. For real.

Baby Bean

Bean Baby

Bean Baby

Baby Bean

So, you know, not an EXACT double, but she's definitely mine.

I made cookies, as you saw from my last post. It was exciting. Tonight, my husband made his beer cheese soup. He says he modified the Pioneer Woman's recipe, but for the life of me, all I can find is her recipe for Welsh Rarebit... because apparently when he says "Pioneer Woman" what he really meant was "Art of Manliness." Right. Anyway, this got started because K asked on Twitter about the most wonderful thing to come out of your crock pot, and the two things I thought of were both cheese-based creations that J makes. O'Quinn's O'Queso and this soup. Though this soup isn't actually made in the crock pot, just served there, because he always makes it for work pot lucks. Anyway, J makes this soup and it is super good, and he tops it with crumbles of peppered bacon, and I'm making him blog it up, and you should make it, or make someone who loves you make it for you, because it's soooo good.

Food and boobs and babies. That about sums up my life right now.

Oh, in other AMAZING news, today is my grandparent's 70th wedding anniversary. 70!!

Cookies

Grandma Jonte's No-Bake Butterscotch drops
These cookies are not pretty or healthy. They are, however, easy and delicious!
Ingredients:
1/2 c butter
1/2 c milk
2 c brown sugar (packed*)
2 1/2 c quick oats
1 c chopped nuts
1 package butterscotch chips
Melt butter in a sauce pan. Add milk & brown sugar. Bring mixture to a boil, boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Add oats, nuts & chips. Stir, stir, stir until everything is melted. Drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper. Let cool (20-30 min in fridge, about an hour at room temp).
These are very rich little cookies, so keep them small. If you're feeling crazy, you can substitute chocolate chips, either milk or semi-sweet. I used walnuts as my nut of choice in this batch, but use whatever floats your boat. If you want nutless cookies, add another 1/2 c (or so) of oats so the texture is right. Right being firm enough that they don't spread out all over the wax paper, but still softish.
Enjoy!
*is there ever a recipe that calls for unpacked brown sugar?

2 months

The Vitals:
11 lbs
22in
She's growing, but still feels tiny to me. Due to cloth-diaper-butt, we've moved out of the newborn onesies and she's wearing 0-3mo without looking like I hit her with a shrink ray. I have 2 dresses and one onesie left that she hasn't worn. That's two months without repeating an outfit. I say THANK YOU TWITTER, FAMILY & FRIENDS for clothing my baby!

Highlights:
We went to Scarborough Faire and she got made a Lady of the Court by the Queen.
I learned how to use the stroller
We had dinner with Aunt B at Jorg's Cafe Vienna
Spent Memorial Day hangin' with the EDGE group babies

Skills:
Smiling
Frowning
Rolling Over: Belly to back only, but can do it both directions, with cloth diaper
Drooling
Waste Production in high volume (What? It's totally a skill!)
Sticking tongue out (she'll even mimic you if you do it first)

In Progress:
Laughing (she does it in her sleep--so cute!)
Rolling over: back to belly She's done it once, and I don't think she even knows that she did it, which is sort of fine by me
Holding her head up--Still working on it! She can do it for more than 30 seconds at a time, fairly consistently, but she's still pretty wet-noodle like at times. If I hold her in a sitting position, she's pretty good, just a little wobbly still.




She likes:
The dangling toys from her activity mat and chair (because she can SEE them now)
Bath time
Eating
Me (even when she's not eating, which is nice)
Her musical swing
Being slung over a shoulder like a sack of potatoes
Music & dancing
Ooching herself around the co-sleeper

She dislikes:
Being hungry
or wet
or cold
or tired
or bored

I dislike:
Cradle cap
Leaking diapers
She's started pinching me while she's nursing

I like:
Watching her watch things
Watching her sleep
The magic moment where she sees me and smiles
Figuring out what's making her cranky and fixing it
All her adorable clothes. Yes, she's my little doll (for now)
I think her eyes are getting lighter. They might stay blue
Smooching her all the time. All the time. All the time.
J singing & playing guitar to her
Nursing is going SO MUCH better


We still haven't found the zen of nursing, but we're getting there. Right now, I feel like an example of dysfunctional economics. She eats all the time, like there's a shortage, then the next day, she's back to every 2-3 hrs and there is a surplus, and that's uncomfortable too. It's a learning curve. The best part is we're doing it. She's getting fed and I'm doing it. It doesn't hurt anymore which makes me feel like a whole new person.

I'm also enjoying her more. I mean, I spend all my time with her, but she is awake more. I think I can kind of sum it up with this: she's more interactive now. She sees us, and responds. We can make her smile. She's not reaching for things yet and rattles aren't very interesting, but it won't be long now.

0 months

2 months

1 month

In a minute

Just some quick, non-sequitor notes

*When I vacuum, I think our house could be used for Dyson before and after commercials. Only the bedrooms have carpet, but it's that ubiquitous shade of beigy grey that was probably lovely once. They might have called it "Silvered Almond" or "Toasted Twilight" or something equally bizarre. Now it's just a magnet for the black dog hair that accumulates everywhere. 3 grey/brown tabby cats don't shed half as much as this one Australian Shepherd/Border Collie mutt. Or if they do, they shed fur the color of toasted twilight.

*I've been puked and pooped on. I don't mean just "in my life" because, you know, infant. I mean just today, by Eleanor. The glamour of my life!

*Glitter-hippieness continues! I haven't had much time to wash my face with oil, and I'm still using shampoo and conditioner, but we're using the laundry detergent I made, and we're cloth diapering, and I'm about to install a clothes line/drying rack outside. Watch out world!

*There was a discusson on Twitter a while back about what to put on a corn dog: mustard or ketchup. I like both condiments in general, and like both on my hot dogs at the same time, but for some reason I thought I liked mustard only on corn dogs. But we were out of yellow mustard, so I had ketchup, and now I think I like that better. Someone from that Twitter conversation should tell me whether that makes me "Texan" or not, because I don't remember.

*I made a Disney station on Pandora and it is eye-opening to me how many songs I don't know. Mulan? Tarzan? I'm right out. Little Mermaid, Lion King, Beauty & the Beast? No problem!

*Thursday, for about 30 minutes, I had the bed all to myself. No husband, no baby, no cats. Just me and 8 pillows. It was wonderful.

*I painted my finger & toe nails with this fun UV color changing stuff. It's a cheap thrill. Indoors my nails are a silvery pink. Outside they're...a darker pink. Pink and pink. My nails are blush and bashful, one id much deeper than the other.

*As you can tell by the corn dog comment above,  I haven't gotten around to doing real meal planning yet. I want to. I have plans to plan. I just haven't figured it out yet. Also, grocery shopping with The Squnchler is... not very efficient. I need to figure out how to make her more secure in the sling so I don't have 3/4 of my basket taken up with her car seat. She spends our grocery trips snuggled up to the frozen vegetables and that seems awkward.

*I have a fussy baby. Not an inconsolable colicky baby (thank God, and by the rules of the Internet, I have just jinxed myself and colic will show up tonight). She settles down at night and sleeps (knock on wood, cross your everything) well, but during the day, she is really only content for short periods of time (5-10 min) unless she is asleep or eating. She naps during the day. She likes her playmat with the bright colors and dangling toys, at least for a little while, then the fussing starts. It's mild fussing, no tears, no screaming, but it is fussing. It seems unconnected to the state of her belly, diaper, or gas bubbles. I walk her about. We dance. I sing. She likes being tossed over a shoulder best. I don't know. Mildly fussy baby. Could be so much worse.

*Cloth diapers have only been a challenge at night. I haven't found the magic setting that has snug enough leg holes and enough padding to handle her 6hr stretch.

*My musical baby swing plays 2 songs that I just don't know. I find that odd. It plays "Rock-a-bye baby," "Fur Elise," and "Baa-Baa Black Sheep" (which J tells me is actually "Twinkle Twinkle") and then these other 2 songs that are a total mystery to me.

That's all.

Oh, here's a picture of my baby:

Weight. Wait, don't tell me.

With all the various doctor appointments I've had recently, there have been lots of scales to step on. Thankfully, the numbers keep moving down (thank you breastfeeding). But oh the numbers! Currently, I'm about 10 lb under my pre-pregnancy weight, which is about 20 lb less than what I weighed on E's birth day, but 20 lb heavier than what I think of as my "normal" weight, which is about 20 lb heavier than my goal weight, which is about 20 lb heavier than the BMI chart says I should be. But my jeans fit, so, you know... there's that.

Also, thankfully, I'm done with doctors for a little while. All pending appointments are for The Squnchler.

I read a book! A whole book! In The Woods by Tana French. It was good and suspenseful, but left one of the two mysteries that made me want to read the story completely unanswered. We all know how I feel about unsatisfying endings. Still, I managed to read a book while Eleanor was sleeping or eating.

We've made the switch to cloth diapers. It's going pretty well. There is a learning curve at the moment--figuring out all the different kinds of diapers that I bought and their various inserts to avoid leaking. Also, I really need a clothes line to dry these suckers on. One, Dallas is basically a giant hot air tumbler in summer anyway, so I'd love to take advantage of that, for my pocket book. Two, I need the sunshine to do its work, bleaching away stains and whatnot. The problem is there isn't any spot on our property that isn't shaded. Which, again, is great for my pocket book in terms of keeping the house cool, although we do have to turn a lot of lights on during the day in our cave-like living room. Still, I need to find a spot for my clothes line.

 My parents adopted another kitten, a friend for their beautiful tortie, Moki. This is Bandit, snuggling down to take a nap in E's car seat. She is friendly and sweet. I'd forgotten how much fun kittens could be. Watching her go tearing around the house, with her tail straight in the air! Moki is getting used to the new addition pretty well. There is hissing and chasing and arched backs, but not much. I don't think it will last for long. And yes, my parents now have cats named Moki & the Bandit. As you can see (example: the title), the penchant for puns comes completely naturally to me.

Oh, and Eleanor is smiling a lot more these days. She's smiling in response to us, to me, which pretty much just makes my day. She has also learned to frown, which I have yet to catch on camera, but believe me, it is equally exciting!

Interesting Times

May you live in interesting times

J once told me that was an old Chinese curse or blessing, depending on how it's said. I don't know if there is any truth in it, but things have definitely been interesting, though not in the Firefly/Serenity* sense. 

A couple of Fridays ago, J called, from Canada, where he'd spent the week training at the home office, to say that his early morning flight home had been cancelled. He wouldn't be getting home until 5pm instead of 9am. Bummer. Silver lining: if he gets home at 5, he won't go to faire for the day, so I get to see him for dinner and stuff before bed, instead of just for a few minutes between feedings. Hooray!

I got to the airport right on time, with The Squnchler sleeping in the back seat, which felt like a major accomplishment. She started fussing when I parked, and from the smell, needed a fresh diaper. I grabbed her in her car seat, a diaper & the wipes from the diaper bag and set all of that on the ground next to the car. I set my purse on the back seat, closed the door and went to the front seat to change said diaper. Only the front door was locked. And so was the back door. And all the doors. With my keys safely in my purse. Also, J's keys which he had given to me while he traveled. Yep. Locked out of the car. Thank God I had the baby with me. My cell phone was inside, so I grabbed the baby, the diaper & wipes and headed to the terminal to meet my husband. It was not the joyful reunion I'd hoped for. I felt like a giant failure and crazy lady. 

I have a very long rant where I tell you all the things that are wrong with A-1 Locksmith, but I will sum up with this: It took them an hour an a half to show up, an HOUR of which was after they told me they were just 15-20 minutes away. 

We had glorious plans of dropping the baby off with my folks and having a little pre-Mother's Day dinner, just the two of us. By the time we got back into the car, it was already 8pm, so dinner became the three of us at Olive Garden. Which was really nice, despite all the crappy feelings of a night's plan gone completely to pieces. 

Sunday got off to a wonderful start. Eleanor slept pretty well, I had waffles for breakfast and my folks & I got on the road to Scarborough Faire. We arrived just in time to catch the last song of J's first set. After saying hello to some friends, I took the baby backstage to feed her. La-di-da, everything is fine. Mom & I are walking back down the stairs to go meet J & Dad at the Queen Anne's Lace show. Mom is holding the baby, I've got the diaper bag and purses. I made it all the way to the last step. Then... I don't know. My foot slipped, my ankle rolled, there was a loud pop and I fell. First Aid was called. I was taken in a cart up to the front gate where they iced and wrapped my ankle. Mark, my favorite EMT, suggested I get it x-rayed. I thought my day at faire was over and ruined. It's my right foot, so driving was out of the picture, meaning I was going to have to ruin my parents' day too. Then my dad drove up in a little motorized scooter and the day was saved! I got to do all my visiting and sightseeing from the comfort of my little hot wheels. Spending the day with my mom and showing off Eleanor was just what I wanted. Oh, and I got to attend my brother's wonderful wine show for the first time. It did not disappoint.

The good news is after an x-ray, all I have is a bad sprain and some really ugly bruises. Oh, and this:

It's an unpopular opinion on my Twitter stream, but I do like heart-shaped jewelry. Especially lockets and pendants. This one is pale, pale, pale pink Swarovski crystal, and I love it. 

tiny hands

So, to sum up: locked keys in car, sprained ankle, pretty jewelry. Taking care of a baby with a gimped ankle isn't as bad as I thought, mostly because I avoided the use of crutches and that makes me extremely grateful. I must say though, getting to my doctor's appointments those first two days was pretty funny. My friend Heather, who is Eleanor's Diva Godmother**, came to drive me, which was wonderfully sweet...but funny too, seeing as how she's got a bum ankle due to an Achilles Tendon thingy. We were Gimped & Gimpy.


Squnchler has made it past the 10lb mark, weighing in at a hefty 10lb 4oz yesterday morning. She is smiling in response to stimuli now, which makes my day. She can see & focus on things much better now & is starting to take an interest in the toys dangling from her reclining chair thingy. I've figured out to shower when it's just the two of us. We're making the switch from disposable diapers to cloth by way of some GroVia hybrids--reusable cloth shell, disposable liner. It's pretty neat. I just want to be able to walk a little better before I have to start the extra laundry stuff involved in the cloth diapering.  

The 6 week growth spurt kinda kicked our hiney, but after one of the roughest nights we've had--she slept, but the feeding thing was so very, very painful--we had a wonderful snuggly morning. All of my parts feel a million times better and things are looking up. Also, more smiling is happening, so that makes everything better!


*"Define 'interesting'." "'Oh God, oh God, we're all gonna die.'?"

1 Month

A month! Where does the time go? That's actually something I spend most of my days wondering. All I do is feed and change the baby most days and yet I'll often look up at the clock and realize it's 8pm and I have no idea how I got from morning to night.

The vitals:
9 lb 4 oz
21" long
That's almost a full pound and a whole inch gained. I'm impressed. She's still wearing newborn everything and her 0-3mo stuff is long in the leg and sleeve, but it's too cute not to wear.
She has yet to wear anything other than sleepers/nightgowns twice, so, you know... Diva! Most days she only wears one outfit, which tells you that we've had no catastrphic diaper failures and only a few incidents of way too much spit up.

Highlights:
She's gotten to meet all of her great-grandparents on my side of the family
Her first at home bath was a success. I mean, she didn't really enjoy it in the "smiles and giggles" sort of way, but neither did she fuss, scream, cry or make it a miserable experience. Also, she gave us some really cute skeptical looks.

Skills:
Busting out of a swaddle to get her hands to her face
Being ridiculously cute
Eating (see above growth stats)
Sleeping for 4-5 hours at a time at least once per 24 hrs (which helps me do things like shower & eat)
Making suspicious-sounding noises two seconds before I'm about to fall asleep
People watching--she's tracking faces and objects better now

Works in Progress:
Holding her head up--she's got some strength, but lacks coordination & stamina
Rolling over--she's gone from belly to back twice, but not with any consistency. She can go about half-way from back to belly, but hasn't managed the full shebang yet.
Having enough hair on TOP of her head to put a bow in.

She Likes:
Car rides
Sleeping with her hands by/under her face
Trying to claw her eyes out
The giraffe pillow (I'm pretty sure just the high contrast pattern)
Being sung to
Being swaddled
The swing/sling/vibrating chair thingy

She dislikes:
Traffic (seriously. If the car is moving smoothly, she's happy. Stop and go? She fusses.)
Cold wipes (can you blame her?)
Sleeping alone

I like:
The crazy faces she makes (my 2 favorites are The Marlon Brando and the Winston Churchill)
Her velcroable swaddle sacks. When she's swaddled, J calls her the little slug. I like that too.
Her smiles (don't care if they're gas bubbles, it makes me happy)
When she reaches out to hold me
Frilly socks and headbands (ok, in general I like them, but right now I mean hers, not mine)
Her eyes are the exact same color as J's right now--a really pretty blue grey. I hope she keeps them, but I'm also excited to see if they change to any of the hazel/green from my side of the family. I don't think we'll get the pretty whiskey brown of my brother's eyes--apparently he was born with those.
When she falls asleep with her head on my chest
Covering her in smooches
Her fuzzy baby hair that sticks out all Einstein crazy after naps or feedings

I dislike:
Her reaction to me eating broccoli or fried okra
That she cries real tears
When she spits up (what looks like) everything she just ate & then smiles about it
Losing baby socks in the wash (just 1 so far, but it was the purple one. I've got to use the advice of putting them in a lingerie bag)
This baby acne thing. I know it's normal and nothing to worry about, but I still have irrational guilt that somehow it's my fault and her sweet face is messed up for life. See, irrational.
That feeding her still hurts. It's been a long month, and I love that I'm able to feed her from my person, but the ouch factor really puts a damper on things. I've tried every home remedy and cure listed on the internet, in books, and passed down from your grandma's great aunt's second cousin's neighbor's friend. At least, that's what it feels like. A chat with the lactation consultant seems to point to the problem being Eleanor's tongue--that slight tongue-tie thing isn't keeping her from eating or gaining weight. It's just keeping my parts from healing. I want to keep feeding her. I want this to work. So, we talked to our pediatrician about options and we have an action plan now. Keep us in your prayers, k?


Also, apologies if you've got a crick in your neck from looking at all the sideways pictures. She doesn't spend her entire life lying down, but most of it.

The EQ

So, naming a child is a bit of a daunting task.
But a fun one.

I admit, I'm the kind of girl who thought about the eventual "what ifs" of baby naming long before there was ever even a possibility for a baby. At one time I had the idea to name a son Orion Xavier. Yeah... his initials would have been OX. I got over that.

Anyway, when we discovered that "we" would soon mean "me & J & a BABY" I started thinking of names pretty much immediately. J & I had some ideas. Such as, if the baby were a boy, we wanted to name him after our fathers. We'd use J's dad's middle name for the middle name, and find a G name to honor my father whose initials are GW, well, GWB technically, but the point is that our last name starts with  W, so we would be making another little GW. So there's that. We settled on G names pretty quickly. By like week 9 or some such. Had this baby been a boy, the naming thing would have been in the bag.

So of course the ultrasound tech says "girl." Kind of just like that too. "I'm going to say girl." Her exact words. You can understand then why I kept saying, "so they say" whenever we would reveal the baby's sex. "A girl, so they tell me." All the way up until they pulled her out. But I digress.

Girls names were much harder for J & I to agree on. We both liked the same type of names, but couldn't seem to find one name that we both really liked. I had the idea pretty early on that I wanted to use "Ella" as a middle name. It was my great-grandmother's middle name. Rose Ella. Pretty. Of course, as my grandpa says, because she was from Oklahoma, it was really "Rose Eller" but that's not really the point. Of course, my middle name is my mother's middle name which in turn was given to her to honor her grandmothers--that whole first initial thing. So, the family connection there really appealed to me. This is also why we liked the name Quinn, for either a boy or a girl. It's J's grandmother's maiden name. Well, O'Quinn. Or oQuin. Or something. I think the story goes that there are 7 or 9 siblings of that generation and none of them spell their last name the same. The presence or absence of an "O" (and the subsequent capitalization of it), an apostrophe and a second "n" are all contested. Regardless, we with with the "O'"-less-double"n" version.

The problem was finding any name that sounded good with "Ella" as a middle name. Names that end in "a" just don't flow right. Names that end in "n" wind up sounding like medicine or bacteria.

We decided to try Ella as a first name, but I wasn't really happy with the nickname-feel of it. I guess I tend to like more formal-sounding names. Also Ella is pretty common and while I don't mind names that are easy to recognize, spell and pronounce, I do also like names that are a little more... unusual. Even if that's because they're more classic and have fallen out of favor. Hence, Eleanor. Old-fashioned, classic, pretty, keeps the idea of Ella and also Ellen (my middle name), and even a little bit of a hint towards my grandmother's middle name, Nyra.

But we still weren't convinced, and couldn't decide on a middle name, so we narrowed our choices down to 3 names that we both liked and decided that we'd wait until we saw the wee Freckle with our own eyes before deciding upon her name. This drove many of my friends & family a wee bit crazy, but it was the right decision. It's also the reason for this:

One look at her (even when she was periwinkle blue and a tiny bit cone-headed) and we knew. She was Eleanor. Will she stay Eleanor? Will she become Ella as she grows? Will we continue to call her Freckle? Dunno. Right now, she remains The Squnchler.

Two Weeks

Tiny feet with tiny socks

Two weeks ago it was Easter. Four generations of my family sat together in our hospital room and oogled this tiny baby in a dress her cousin had worn to my wedding and booties that I wore when I was her size.

It's been two weeks and...I don't even know. The days are a blur. The nights are a blur. Eleanor is doing all three of her duties with gusto. Eat. Sleep. Poop. I feel like that's all I've done too. My mom has been staying with me which is the only reason I've been able to shower, the only reason there is clean laundry, clean dishes, food in the fridge and the animals haven't revolted. She goes home tomorrow. I'm terrified. Thankfully J starts his 2 weeks of paternity leave tomorrow, so I won't be all alone just yet.

Of course, the end of those 2 weeks is the beginning of his first week long international business trip. He's going to Canada to learn how to do the job he just got promoted to. Bad grammar, but I can't think well enough to fix it. Anyway, I'll be flying solo for the first time ever with my baby, one month old. Yikes. Thankfully, "solo" actually means "with lots of help from my friends & family" so I'm not too worried. Worried, yes, because keeping a tiny person alive is a daunting task, but you know... there's help and there's hope.

But enough about me. You're just here for baby pictures. Eleanor is doing really well. Gaining weight and doing...newborn stuff. I take a million pictures a day of her sleeping. I'm not very good at sleeping when she's sleeping yet. Sometimes she gets her night/day thing mixed up and she's actually making tears when she cries. That's not fair. I thought I had more time before the real tears.

Cabbage Patch face

We call her "The Squnchler" most of the time, as she rarely unfolds herself*. I only really use her name when talking about her, and even then, I think about her as "the baby." She's beautiful and I can't stop staring at her. I can't connect this squishy, mostly sweet-smelling little person I spend my day holding with the baby I carried on the inside for 273 days. I also can't quite grasp that I'm a mom.

I guess the bottom line is that everything is normal. Eleanor is growing. I'm able to feed her from my person. I'm also surprised at how tiny she is. I know she's almost 9 lbs now, but all her clothes just hang off of her. Newborn stuff is baggy. 0-3 months is all long in the arms & dangly in the legs. She's only 20" long, and at her check up she was 50% for both height & weight, which makes her roundly average, but...she's tiny.

A rare moment of un-squnching

J & I spend time dividing up her parts. She looks remarkably like me as a baby. She has my fingers, or at least fingernails, complete with the cuticles that peel & snag on everything. She has light brown/dark blonde hair that looks vaguely reddish in the light, but not at all like my hair when I was a carrot-topped baby. Her eyes are the same color as J's, but that could just be because they're that newborn shade of blue grey. She's just the tiniest bit tongue-tied (which thankfully hasn't affected her ability to latch) and that she gets from her dad. Also, potentially his chin, though it's hard to tell with those cheeks in the way. Those cheeks she gets from me.

And this little whirl? No idea where that comes from

*Which is hilarious, since she sent most of her time in the inside insisting that the fetal position was for chumps.

Awesome Saturday

I have lots of things I want to tell you about Eleanor. I want to tell you all about her name and why we picked it. I want to tell you about her funny faces and smooshy cheeks. And I will. I'll get around to it, but after a week, I still have some thoughts rattling around my brain about her birth, some stuff I've been trying to put into words.

So, I went into labor on Good Friday. At some point in the evening, I was sitting in the room, on drugs, having contractions, but chatting with my folks, my brother, his wife and my husband. We were talking about Good Friday and the importance of it, and pre-conceived notions that we have about Christ and Christianity from popular culture versus what the Bible actually says. It was interesting conversation to be having during labor.

I really wanted to have my baby on Friday. I really wanted to have her "naturally", although in retrospect, I think what I really wanted was to be given the opportunity to try, which I had, and that's good. I knew at 10pm that this was going to be a Saturday baby, which was ok, though again, not what I wanted.

Ok, but the point that I've been trying to distill is that Friday was a hard day. Physically, it was draining. Emotionally, it was draining. Along the way from "hey, I think that's a contraction" to "did my water just break" to the eventual trip to the O.R., there were some hard decisions that had to be made. The path that I was on wasn't the one I wanted. I had lots of time in those 23 hours to pray that things would go differently. They didn't. I had to face down some of my biggest fears (as far as birth is concerned), and while I am not trying to say that my suffering was in any way as great or as meaningful as Christ's, in light of it being Good Friday, I was very mindful of the fact that even though things weren't going the way I wanted, I was still in God's hands. He wasn't going to let me go or abandon me.

It made Sunday just that much sweeter. While *the* Good Friday changed my life forever, this Good Friday did too. It was a hard day, but I emerged on the other side changed. I'm a mother now. We had an awesome Saturday. I got to celebrate Easter with my parents, grandparents, and all my nieces and nephews. It was an explosion of life, of celebrating life, and at the heart, that's what Easter is about--celebrating the gift of life, eternal life.

Also, I got to put my baby in a basket. So, there's that! 

If everything goes well

"If everything goes well..."

I found myself saying/typing that quite a bit on Friday. So here's the story of how The Freckle, our internal baby, became Eleanor Quinn, our external baby. First, the pictures, because that's the important part, right?

8 lbs 7 oz, 20" long

The short version is I went into labor early Friday morning and she was born early Saturday morning, roughly 23 hours later. And now, the long version of what happened.

So, Thursday I took some suggestions from the Internet and drank some castor oil. Mixed in Diet Coke. I also had 3 cups of red raspberry leaf tea.  I told J that I'd done some "kickstart your own labor from the comfort of your own home" stuff and if everything goes well we might have a baby on Friday. Did either of those things actually tip the scale so I could go into labor? I will never know, but there's my loose, anecdotal evidence.

Because go into labor I did. I had been worried for most of the third trimester that I would be completely clueless about going in to labor, I wouldn't recognize contractions or know when my water broke. Turns out there was no reason to worry. I had classic "monthly cramps" style contractions at first, which of course didn't stop me from second guessing myself. Neither did it stop me from taking a shower, just in case, you know? I wanted to start fresh. Then I went to bed for a couple of hours, and when I got up for my typical mid-night bathroom break, I noticed that the light was still on in the living room. Surely my husband, who knew that he would be either going to work at the relatively-wee hours of the morning as per usual or with me to the hospital, wouldn't still be awake at 2:30 in the morning? Oh, surely he was. He curled up on the couch and was asleep 15 minutes later just as I was Googling "how do I know if my water has broken*?" In this case, Dr. Google was very helpful and informative. I started timing contractions, watched an episode of Grimm, french braided my hair, changed clothes and put on some make-up. By then, I'd reached the magical number of contractions between 3-5 minutes apart for an hour. So I woke J up to tell him I was going to call the doctor and he should get ready to go. We left the house at about 5:45 and were admitted to Labor & Delivery shortly after 6 am on Friday, April 6th where, if everything goes well, we would have a baby before the day was done.

Because my water had in fact broken all on its own, the proverbial clock was ticking, so after determining that the contractions were the right amount of time apart, they switched me to a different kind of monitor to see how strong the contractions were. I had felt that they were only mild up to that point. Nothing I couldn't get through with just a little bit of focus and some breathing. Well, the new fancy monitor confirmed that they were consistent, but not strong enough to get the job done. So, the "as naturally as possible" portion of our birth plan now included Pitocin to keep the ball rolling. At 7 am, I started at a dose of 2 of whatever measurement Pitocin comes in these days.

After 3 hours, I was up to a dose of 8 units and I was tired. I wasn't handling the stronger contractions as well, but I was hopeful that I was at least moving things along. When the nurse checked, she told me I'd made minimal progress. Progress enough to keep going, but they were going to need to up the dosage, and it was looking to be a long day--probably 8 more hours if everything goes well. The decision to get an epidural was a hard one for me, but it was the right decision to make. As the day progressed, that became more and more evident. So, with drugs keeping me from feeling the increasingly stronger and more violent contractions, the day continued. Because I wasn't in pain, I didn't mind having some visitors. It was a nice distraction from the fact that I was doing some of the hardest sitting on my butt that I've ever done in my life.

By 5pm, I'd made it to the halfway mark. Everything looked good and Dr. H** said that if everything goes well I should be able to move on to the pushing phase by 10pm and we'd have a baby before midnight.

Not to spoil the surprise, but everything did not go well. Nothing really went wrong, but some things just didn't work out the way we hoped. Even though the contractions stayed strong, and Freckle's heart rate stayed in the acceptable zone, and my blood pressure was still awesome and my temperature was steady, progress slowed down. Freckle just wasn't moving down. I stayed on track for the first two hours, slowed down to half speed the next two hours, and inched along for an hour after that. By midnight, I'd made no progress at all in 2 hours. I was still 2 cm away from being able to push. I'd been having contractions for almost 22 hours. I was tired and discouraged.

That's when we (J & I) had the hard conversation with Dr. H. She told us we could keep trying. She was confident that both the baby & I were handling things well enough to keep going and even though we were approaching 24 hrs since my water had broken, there was no sign of infection so she would be perfectly willing to let us keep trying. She was encouraging and supportive, but she was also honest. She said that in her opinion all the waiting wasn't going to get us any closer to a baby. She recommended a c-section.

J told me later that when she said it my face sort of crumpled. I will admit that it was my absolute least favorite option for having a baby. It still fell within our "as naturally as possible" plan, because sometimes intervention is what makes birth possible, but it was low on the totem pole. Not only that, but c-section after a long labor was somehow worse. All that work, and still a surgery. Yet, when Dr. H checked me at midnight, I knew. I had held on to hope all the way until the end. I got sick to my stomach right before that last check, and I said "That's a good sign, right?" remembering something from our Lamaze class, and Dr. H was very positive about it (maybe the only time anyone can feel positively about puke). She confirmed that it was often a sign that the pushing part was very near. Then she started to check and I just knew. I knew before she looked down and said a bad word, then excused herself for swearing, which, honestly, wasn't even a bother to me. It sort of made me feel like she really was on my team, you know? She wanted things to go well just as much as I did.

It didn't take long for J & I to decide to go ahead and have the surgery. At that moment, it felt right. Not what we wanted, not what we'd "planned" or hoped, but right. Then everything was a blur of J getting handed a bag of paper scrubs & being wheeled into the O.R. (where "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" by U2 was playing--a good sign I thought. An appropriate song by one of my favorite bands). There was more anesthesia and I fell asleep while they finished doing whatever it is they needed to do before the surgery began. J came in, looking dapper in his blue scrubs. I think I told him he was pretty when he sat down next to me. I was a little out of it.

Then, just a few minutes later, Dr. H is saying, "Oh my God, she's HUGE!" I was suddenly worried that all estimates had been off and instead of an 8-8 1/2 lb baby we were well into what I call "Welch territory" where babies don't come any smaller than 9 lbs. Jeremy went to go watch our little girl get cleaned up while I lay on the table feeling them move stuff around and finish things up. He did come back to tell me that she was 8lb 7oz, which wasn't nearly big enough to qualify as "huge" in my head, but you know, it's pound larger than the average newborn. I'm still not sure what the official reason for the "failure to progress" was, even after talking to the doctor. She never really dropped far enough to move things along. She was possibly turned the wrong way. Her head was very large and may have been too big for my pelvis. Honestly, once the decision to do it was made, the "why" mattered a lot less to me.

At some point, Dr. H mentioned to the other doctor, or a nurse, or someone (other than me) that her brother (I think, maybe husband?) worked in the "Wine & Spirits business." So of course, then I had to butt in to tell them that my brother was a Sommelier and we got to talking about what kind of wine we liked best, and I may or may not have said that I would gladly shank a nun for a glass of shiraz.

The rest of the story is pretty anti-climactic. Jeremy went with the baby, who we were both pretty sure was going to be Eleanor, to the nursery but wanted to get a good look at her once she was clean and not screaming at the top of her lungs. I got stitched up and taken to recovery where I started to shake as some stupid side effect of the anesthesia. They gave me Demerol to stop the shaking, which made me loopy and then sleepy. When I woke up, we moved up to our postpartum room and I got to meet my little girl. Ok, so that only sounds anti-climactic when you write it. It was pretty much the best part of my day.

I'll tell you all about her, but first, I'm going to go nap.

*the grammatical phrasing of that stumped me for a while. I'm going to blame lack of sleep, ok?
**Not my usual doctor because even though it was a Friday, and thus a normal business day, it was in fact Good Friday, which also happens to be the first day of Passover, so my doctor was out of the office to spend time with her family. No big deal, the doctor-on-call was really great too. Actually, I've now met 3 of the 4 doctors in the practice (an all lady doctor practice too, by the by) and liked them all.