Half a Year

If you ask ten moms, at least nine would likely tell you about how the first year of life with a new baby goes by so fast. The time does fly by, or at least it appears to based on the rapid development that occurs in that first year. Babies change so quickly: from tiny, helpless, red-faced lumps to actual people with their own interests and personality quirks, able to interact with you and make their needs known without always resorting to crying.

I’m sitting here a little stunned that today marks six months since I gave birth to Mira. Half a year. Where has that time gone? It didn’t go by so fast with Cordy, I think. I remember each month and each milestone slowly drifting by at a leisurely pace. Mira’s first six months have resembled a high-speed chase – blink and you’ll miss it. I’m sure some of it has to do with being the second child, and my not having as much time to devote to only her.


I’m proud that we’ve made it six months with practically no formula. While breastfeeding didn’t work with Cordy, I’m thrilled that Mira’s growth so far has been nourished by something I can provide. (Besides, we’re saving gobs of money by not buying formula!) She’s losing interest already, though, and weaning may be coming sooner rather than later. But for now we’ll keep going as long as she wants to.

I wanted to wait until this time marker to begin solid foods, but like many children, Mira made sure not to follow the plan I had for her. From nearly her first day she was interested in my food, eventually working up the dexterity and coordination to attempt stealing food from my plate. With the speed of a slight of hand artist, she slapped her hands down into my three bean salad at Thanksgiving and came up with two fistfuls of green beans. Since we started solids, she’s been a champion eater – I’m not sure there is a bottom to that stomach.


The same can’t be said for sleep, though. Like Cordy, she seems to have inherited some inability to sleep from her father. It has to be his fault, because no child who takes after me would disrespect sleep like this. I think I now understand the popularity of those “Party in my crib – 2am” onesies that Target sells. Even as I write this she is next to me, rubbing her eyes furiously and fussing because she refuses to take a nap. She never wakes up happy – almost as soon as her eyes pop open, she lets out an enormous wail, announcing her cranky awakeness to the world.

(but she’ll sleep for her Uncle Adam)

Bits of her personality are really shining through now. The feeling of bouncing in the Jumperoo is one of her favorite things, and she giggles when we spin her around or “fly” her through the air. She hates being put down, and complains if she thinks you’re not giving her your entire attention. (Diva)


At home, she is a grumpy monster, bored with only me to look at all day. In public, where there are new people and new things to look at, everyone coos at her and remarks on what a charming, sweet baby she is. She smiles, perks up, and I swear she performs when you applaud her – future actress, thriving on the applause, perhaps?


She will not take a pacifier, no matter how much I beg her to at times. The television also holds little interest for her – she will glance at it on occasion, but no amount of Baby Einstein or Noggin can convince her that it’s OK for mommy to go to the bathroom without her. When I put her in front of the TV, she actually cocks her right eyebrow up and rolls her eyes at me, like, oh, mommy, that passive-yet-flashy form of entertainment will simply not do for someone with my sophisticated tastes.


The sound of her daddy’s voice stops almost any cry. Seeing her sister always brings a smile.


Mira can hold her head up well, even sitting for brief periods on her own before toppling over. She moves across the floor by rolling, but only to the right, requiring me to turn her around when she hits a roadblock. Or a cat. Rolling to the left is never an option – apparently turning left is offensive. Let’s hope she gets over that by the time she starts driving. She occasionally will stand up while held, but generally prefers her feet as chew toys.


But her real magic lies in those moments when we lock eyes, and she gives me this goofy grin as if we’re sharing some big secret. I grin back at her, knowing that the next six months are going to be so much fun as she continues to explore her world and share more of her secrets with us.

And hopefully sleep more.

Party at my crib, 2am


I Miss The School Pizzas

I had mentioned my not-so-nutritious high school lunches in a meme a few weeks ago: Snickers bar and fries. It’s true, it was my primary lunch in high school. Truthfully, I learned how to work the system with school lunches from an early age.

In elementary school, we didn’t have variety when it came to lunch. You had one meal, no a la carte options, and the only choice you had was white or chocolate milk. And half the time the chocolate milk was gone before you got to the cashier. As a picky eater, I generally scoffed at most of the food I was given. Vegetables? Never. Fruit? Only if it was the mixed fruit swimming in syrup. No soupy noodles, no meatloaf, and chicken patty sandwiches only if I could drown it in ketchup. If my mom knew how much money was wasted on food I didn’t eat, she’d probably make me start paying it back with interest.

The only days I was guaranteed to eat were the days when french fries or pizza (or both) were served. Oh, how I loved those little institutional rectangular pizzas! The little chunks of highly processed pepperoni, the greasy cheese that came off in one piece…even the slightly cardboard crust was heaven to me. No other food, at home or anywhere else, could compare to the school pizza.

In middle school, those pizzas were still on the menu, but now we had an a la carte line, and desserts! Fries were always on the a la carte line, so I’d always have a serving of fried spuds, but I’d save extra lunch money for pizza days, when I could get not one, but TWO pizzas! Each lunch was always finished with an ice cream sandwich, also.

I wonder if they still serve those little rectangle pizzas in school? I remember going to college and being slightly disappointed that the dining halls didn’t have these little greasy treasures. Do they sell these pizzas to the public?

Looking back over my school lunches, I know I made a lot of bad choices. Nutrition wasn’t exactly a concern for me – it had to taste good. And while the school did their job of providing balanced meals, they couldn’t make me eat the parts that were healthier than others. Of course, the addition of the a la carte line in middle and high school, plus the further addition of a soda machine and student-run snack store filled with candy bars and chips in high school didn’t exactly further the cause of healthy eating.

I know I won’t be able to make my daughters eat healthy in school, however I hope I can encourage them to do better than I did. My eating habits led to worse eating habits which led to weight gain and poor self-esteem. And I hope the schools will continue to look for new ways to encourage healthy eating as well, such as removing the soda and snack machines or forbidding their use during lunch.

But you can bet I’ll still encourage them to try the pizza.

This post is part of the Blog Blast hosted by Parent Bloggers Network. Check out School Menu and its parental counterpart Family Everyday, two sites that work together with School Food Services Directors to provide and promote healthy eating and physical fitness for kids and their parents.



I Still Don’t Have A New Shirt

Last week, I spent a little time to go out shopping for myself. Knowing I’ll be able to ditch the maternity clothes soon, I wanted to grab a few new summer t-shirts. I do have several older t-shirts in my closet, but many have been stained thanks to the serious efforts of a toddler I know to drop things on me and use me as her personal napkin and tissue. I figured I deserved a little something new for myself.

I walked into Old Navy, started to look through the summer specials on the tables in the middle of the store, examining all of the new summer colors and thinking about what I could pair different shirts with. But then I absentmindedly wandered away and soon found myself in the section of the store that doesn’t fit anyone larger than 4T. I browsed the sale racks, looked at the new tank tops, and oohed over the cute summer dresses.

Twenty minutes later, I left the store with two t-shirts and a tank top – all sized 4T. Oh, and just to make sure I didn’t forget anyone, I also bought a sleeper for the new baby, too.

What happened to my plans to buy new clothes for myself? I wish I could claim this was an isolated incident, but this is often how it happens. I have every intention of splurging on myself, but then my “mommy brain” takes over and suddenly my wants are in the back of my mind, and replacing them are the needs for my child.

A few weeks ago, I sorted Cordy’s clothing and found that my Amazon child had outgrown 99% of her clothing from last year. That left her nothing for this summer, requiring an entire new wardrobe. I bought her a few things at a local used clothing store, but it still wasn’t much. I didn’t even have an entire week’s worth of outfits for her.

So naturally, when I walked into Old Navy last week, that little subconscious part of my brain directed my feet back to the children’s clothing section of the store, and I left with nothing for myself and more summer clothing for Cordy. Eh, I guess new clothes for me can wait. I’m not the one changing sizes every season.

This ability to place my child’s needs above my own is only one part of what makes me a mother. And thinking about this topic reminds me so much of my own mother. My parents divorced when I was a baby, and we had very little when I was growing up. Yet my mom always made sure I had new clothes for school, and even occasionally let me buy brand name clothing that cost way too much. One year, she even bought me one pair of Guess jeans – I was in heaven.

However, as a self-absorbed teen, it didn’t occur to me that my mom never had new clothing. It wasn’t until college, when she showed up for my honor society induction in a dress I wore to a dinner my freshman year of high school that I realized that I could recognize every outfit she ever wore. All of her clothing consisted of gifts, really old and well-worn jeans, or clothing that I had cast off in favor of clothing that was more “cool”. She never bought herself new clothing, because she felt she needed to provide for me first.

And now I see that the same instinct is alive and well in me. It’s not just my love of cute clothing for toddlers that keeps me from buying more for myself – it’s all part of being a mom.

Parent Bloggers and Light Iris are having a Blog Blast asking everyone, “What is it that makes YOU a mom?” They’re giving away a $100 Spa Finder gift certificate to one lucky writer who addresses this question in a blog post. If you want to enter, you’ve got until midnight tonight.

Edit: This post was one of the winners in TheGoodBlogs Mother’s Day contest – yay!



Boundaries

As a young child, I roamed my neighborhood in my small town daily with my best friend. We spent many of the warm days of the year outside for much of the time.

I remember the old woman across the street. She never said anything to us – just shot us dirty looks when we walked by her section of the sidewalk. We thought she was a “witch”, and as the sun would go down each evening, her dark outline was visible through her front window, slowly rocking in her rocking chair.

Knowing she was watching, the temptation to perform for her was too much. I can’t even imagine what she was thinking as two young girls would occasionally go dancing by her window down the sidewalk, doing our best Michigan J. Frog impression and acting as goofy as we could. Who knows, maybe she got a good laugh out of it?

Looking back, I think she was just waiting for one of these energetic seven year olds to step foot off the sidewalk into her yard, putting her flower beds at risk, so she could do more than scowl at us and instead yell at us. She was too old to do her own yard work, but her grown children would come by each weekend to see that her yard looked lovely. Knowing how much pride she had for her yard, I can’t imagine what she would have done if someone hurt a single flower petal.

But I would never find out, because there is no way I would have set foot on her yard. No matter how much we laughed at our nightly performances, I understood my boundaries. Some kids might have ran up to her door and rang the doorbell and then ran away, but I refused to break that invisible line. My mother had drilled the concept of respecting others property into me. I would often run through my next door neighbor’s yard to visit my friend, yet this was only because our neighbor had given her permission to play in her yard.

So of course, now that I’m grown and that old woman has certainly passed on, I wonder if she’s now looking down at me and laughing at the situation I find myself in.

Spring has finally shown itself again here in Ohio, and as usual the kids are out in force. I’ve mentioned before that the next door neighbors have four children under 10, and that these children are often outside playing with no supervision. They have no understanding of boundaries or respecting the property of others. While my child self would dance in front of the house on the sidewalk, the younger two of these kids see nothing wrong with using our yard as their play area. Our driveway is their bike path. This is part of the reason we built a fence in the backyard – I didn’t like our backyard serving as their football and baseball field, as balls bounce off of our siding.

Tonight, as Aaron was mowing the backyard and I was getting Cordy ready for bed, I looked up to see a little face peering through the glass of our storm door, checking out our living room. Our eyes met, and I expected that to be enough to send him running away, but he continued to stand on our porch and take a good look at everything. Then his older brother came running up, also taking a good look into our house, and the two ran around to the front of our garage.

I walked into the kitchen and opened the door to the garage to find two little sets of hands going through the items in our garage (the garage door was up because Aaron had the lawnmower out). “This isn’t your house. Go home.” I told them, and they paused to look at me for a moment before walking back to their own porch.

But by the time I was back to the living room, I saw the youngest peering in our front door again. I pointed to his house and told him to go. He again ran around towards our garage. At this point I heard the oldest shouting at him to come back. I closed the garage door to prevent them from going through our things again, and I closed the front door, even though I was enjoying the sunshine streaming in.

Cordy noticed everything at this point, and said, “No! My friends!” as I shut the door. “No, Cordy, those are not your friends,” I replied. (She’s actually never played with them before – she just calls any other kid her “friend” right now.)

I am the mean mommy. While these kids are playing outside late into the night, my little girl goes to bed by 8pm. While they play out in the street, Cordy is limited to playing in her fenced-in yard under our supervision. But I know I won’t have to worry about the cars that drive too fast around our curve, or worry about where she might have run off to. And you can bet as she grows older, I will continue to teach her about respecting the property of others.



The Era of Bad Bangs

Kristen has thrown down the gauntlet, challenging others to come forth with visual proof of their bad bangs. Thankfully, I gave up bangs in favor of layers years ago (at least, I consider them layers and I’m sticking with my story), but her timing for this photo project couldn’t be better.

Just a few weeks ago, my mom brought me a photo album of pictures from high school. After reading Kristen’s post, I took a short walk down memory lane, and quickly ran screaming from the mountain of permed hair and hairspray that assaulted me.

I present High School: The Era of Bad Bangs

Pre-9th grade: The comb-over bangs (please excuse the Brooke Shields power eyebrows – I had yet to discover tweezers)

9th grade – the overgrown jungle of bangs cascading down half my face

10th grade – trying to grow them out, going for the comb-over method again (and check out the Hypercolor tee!)

11th grade – so much for growing them out – now they’re wispy and stuck together thanks to too much Aquanet

And finally 12th grade…

Proof that no one escaped the early 90’s without bad hair (my bad poodle hair with thick bangs is on the left, second row from the bottom)

After looking at all of that hair cut carnage, suddenly my childhood, late 70’s feathered cut doesn’t look so bad after all. Look at those lovely swept-aside bangs!

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