So far this week...

It has been a busy week for us around here, but most of all for Gabbie. (There are lots of exclamation points ahead; gird yourself.) So far this week she has:

• Gotten over a cold (finally!)
• Started crawling!
• Started waving bye-bye!
• Is working on two teeth. Two!
• And has slept through the night. Twice! (Oh, my word, I don't know what I'm going to do with this much sleep!)

So far this week, I have:

• Worked out once! Which is more than I've worked out (outside of taking walks) since probably October 2007. 
• I also made Lasagna Soup , which we enjoyed very much.

So, it's been an exciting week so far. It will be more exciting if Gabbie's teeth (her first) finally break through and we can quit it with all the miserable whining that she has been treating us to!

Flashback Friday: This Makes Me Giggle

It's Flashback Friday again! This week my task is to write about something from the past that makes me giggle.

Growing up, I always loved to look at my baby album, seeing all of the pictures of my mom's swollen belly that contained me, the pictures from the hospital when I was impossibly tiny, and all of the ones from the rest of my first year where I'm doing silly things. I have a few favorites; the one where I'm sitting in the middle of my mom's packed suitcase, pulling out her underwear and hairbrush; the one where I'm naked and have escaped, so I'm running around the house; and especially the one where I have slices of banana on my head. That last one was one of my favorite stories when I was very little: my mom sliced up a banana for me to eat while she was making dinner for us. Suddenly she heard me laughing really hard, and turned around to see me sitting there with four banana slices atop my head. My very first joke!

I've been wanting to start Gabbie on some finger foods, and decided some tiny chunks of banana would probably be a good place to start, since she always seems to be coveting my banana while I eat it in the morning. This past weekend, we cut up a small piece of banana for her to try out. She loved it! I looked away for just a second and when I looked back, this is what I saw:

I don't know if you can see it well, but there's a chunk of banana stuck to her nose. And she thought it was hilarious. Like mother, like daughter I guess. I can't wait to see if someday we have a similar picture of my baby's baby.

Now go check out all the other fabulous Flashback Friday posts!

Because I need to focus on the positive

Here are a few of my favorite (food-type) things as of late:

• Babybel cheese - on sale at Sam's this last week, this has been my daily snack ever since. So yummy!
• Lemon Meringue Pie - tart, sweet, and so easy to make. 
• Minute Maid Pomegranate Blueberry Juice - I have an unholy amount of love for this juice lately. I would drink it constantly if I could; it's really that good.
• Peanut Butter & Co. peanut butters (especially the cinnamon raisin swirl, which I've talked about before), even though peanut butter is causing troubles as of late (the whole salmonella thing, I mean)
• And lastly, something that is inspiring me to eat better lunches: Laptop Lunches. Seriously, go to flickr.com and type laptoplunch into the search bar and see all the wonderful things that come up . It all looks so delicious!

Tomorrow is another Flashback Friday, so be sure to check in for all the fun!

Flashback Friday: Feeling Red, White, and Blue

Today I'm participating in Flashback Friday, a new blog carnival that started this week over at My Tiny Kingdom. The theme this week is Feeling Red, White, and Blue, and since I'm working on under two hours of sleep in the last 36 hours (a long story I'm not ready to share without liberal use of the f-word, so I'll hold off until that urge passes), I'm going literal here and telling you the story of my favorite Independence Day as an adult.

First, I must explain that I, and this is also true of my family and friends, am a major geek. That being said, we often get together with my parents and some of our friends to play Settlers of Catan, which is a super fun strategy board game. We're also super competitive about it, and what better way is there to ramp up the competitive fun than with liberal amounts of libations?

So there we are, 4th of July, and instead of picnicking in the park or attending a backyard barbeque, we're in the dining room, playing Settlers, and drinking white russians like it's our job. At some point, we realize that it's gotten dark outside and, hey, come to think of it, that sounds like fireworks! Maybe we should go see if we can watch.

My parents live right down the street from my hometown's country club, which puts on quite the display every 4th. If you go out into the middle of the street that's perpendicular to the one my parents live on, you can actually watch the entire display. Which is how five loopy adults ended up standing in the middle of the street going "Oooohhh" and "Ahhhhh" (pre-requisite noises to make while watching fireworks, of course). We watched almost the entire show, before Aaron's best friend declared that standing was too much work and laid down in the middle of the street to watch.

It's a really good thing that my parents live in a small town and everyone that was out was already at the fireworks display. It's also a good thing that I have good bladder control, because the way he made the declaration and his flop to the ground was enough to send me into fits of giggles right then and for the rest of the night.

So, while we might not be 4th of July "Traditionalists", we sure now how to have a good time, and isn't having fun with family and friends what holidays are all about? I sure think so, and in that case, we're awesome at it.

Now, go read the posts by the other fabulous ladies participating in this week's Flashback Friday!

Memory Lane

There are so many great stories I have that happened before I had this website. Stories that would be a lot of fun to share, and that should probably be recorded before I lose the memories to old age or (more likely) sleep deprivation. I thought about this a while ago, but then promptly forgot again (see again: sleep deprivation), so it is a good thing that Anne at My Tiny Kingdom reminded me again.

She has started Flashback Friday , and I've decided to participate. I figure this will help get some of those stories recorded and also get my creative juices flowing again, as they've been lacking a little bit lately. The first post will be this Friday, with the theme: Feeling Red, White, and Blue. Should be fun!

I started out typing this post one-handed because of a sleeping baby

I really wish that Gabbie would sleep all night like she does right when it's time to wake up. Alas, no such luck. We're getting desperate, though, for her to sleep, or at least to sleep in her own bed. Our current nightly "schedule" goes something like this: Gabbie goes to sleep around 8 p.m., wakes up sometime between 10:30 and 12:00, sleeps on one of us until about 12:45 or 1:00, then eats. She'll then usually go back down to sleep in her crib until around 3:00 (sometimes we're really lucky and she waits until 5:00), at which time she wakes up and will not stay in her bed after that no matter how sound asleep she is when we put her back down. She eats again at around 6:00 and sometimes then goes back to sleep, or alternately, gets up for the day.

We're tired. She's tired. We have no idea what to do.

I know I'm nowhere near original in my problems here, but it feels like the biggest problem ever.

Did I mention she doesn't like to nap? She naps for about 2 hours max at day care and then another 30 to 60 minutes right when we get home. She's like her dad that way - he doesn't need much sleep to survive (but he certainly needs more sleep than what he's getting).

Other than the sleep issues, she's absolutely delightful. I can't believe my little tiny baby is 7 1/2 months old! She is everywhere lately, getting into everything. She is still just army crawling, but keeps getting up on her knees (and then typically face-planting) and if we put her on her hands and knees she'll stay there and rock for a little while. Sometimes she gets on her hands and knees all by herself, but then will drop to her stomach to creep where she needs to go. She usually needs to go to the DVD player to turn it on, to the blinds at the patio door to bend them, or into the kitchen to play with her favorite crawling dinosaur (it only works on the kitchen floor). I'm thinking it's time to baby-proof the cabinets because she can already get there and it's only a matter of time before she starts trying to open them. I'm also thinking we have a couple of weeks, tops, before she starts crawling for real.

Gabbie loves, loves, loves food. Well, some food. She's not huge on green vegetables (so far just peas and green beans), but we can get her to eat some of them before she clamps her lips together, refusing to let the spoon in any more. She does like carrots, squash, bananas, apples, pears, and prunes. I think this weekend we might start in on avocado, but I don't know what to introduce, vegetable-wise after that. Something that makes me feel really good is that she prefers my homemade baby food to any of the jarred stuff. In that way, she takes after both her dad and I, who only eat out of a box if there's absolutely nothing else to eat and we're desperate.

She's started having a little stranger anxiety, but so far it's been limited to the nurse at the pediatrician's office, Santa, and the lunch-time respite lady at day care. She does take a couple of minutes to warm up to most people, but will eventually go to them. Those other people though? She screams bloody murder until someone she knows and trusts picks her up. She also is doing the thing where she cries when I leave the room. Double that if dad also leaves the room - usually we're both just around a corner, still really in the room with her. That's when the tears start flowing.

It's nice to be needed and loved like that.

This week, tomorrow to be exact, I have to go on a business trip and she's not coming with me. This is another big first for us. It will be the first time I'm away from her over night, and I'm not excited about it. We considered her going with me, but it's just going to be so much easier to go by myself. I'll be gone for a day and a half, getting back at midnight the second day. Aaron is a little nervous too, as Gabbie prefers to fall asleep on me and searches for me when she wakes up at night. It should be interesting to say the absolute least.

I'll be counting the hours, then minutes until I can get back home and get my baby back into my arms.

I could also be accused of sloth

I've been feeling pretty proud of myself since yesterday morning. Why? Oh, because I finished knitting my very first sweater! Sure, it's size 3 to 6 months (supposedly), but it's a sweater and I knit it, so it counts.

Here's my handywork:

And I say "supposedly" on the size because, while Gabbie may be petite, she's also wearing sizes appropriate for her 7 months in age (6 to 9 months clothing), and this thing hangs off of her.

Still, it feels good to finally get it done, since the start of this project coincided with the restarting of this blog.

Some Alone Time

A day off today has allowed me to have some much needed alone time. Aaron went off to work, I dropped Gabbie off at daycare, and then I had no idea what to do with myself. So I went and got coffee and read some of my book. Then I came home to put the finishing touches on a knitting project I started in June of '07 for my niece (who is now way too big for it), and which is now for Gabbie (who now might also be too big for it).

I also made a run to my favorite yarn store, and bought some materials to finally make a knitting project for myself (lately I've made two hats for my dad, a scarf for my mom, a blanket for Gabbie, and have started on a blanket for my best friend's baby). Since Aaron works right by the yarn store, I went over and took him out to lunch - our first meal out alone since Gabbie arrived. I've been knitting again all afternoon and watching one of my very favorite shows - Cities of the Underworld - on On Demand (one of my favorite inventions ever).

All this fun, and what am I doing? Watching the clock and wishing away the minutes until my self-imposed earliest time I can go get Gabbie. Even though I'm enjoying myself, I miss her more. However, alone time is one of my resolutions for the new year, which include:

• Get in better shape/finally lose the baby weight plus some;
• Have a date night with Aaron at least once a month;
• Plan healthier meals instead of all comfort food all the time;
• Do all the dishes and put away the toys before going to bed every night; and
• Take some time for myself every once in a while. 

I had heard it before I had Gabbie, but never realized how true and how hard it is to pay attention to yourself once you're a mom. I really need to work at it, because I know my daughter will learn from me how important it is to take care of herself from the example I set. It's hard work being a good role model! Now if only I could model how to not curse regularly, I'd be all set.