Missing My Girls

I've been embedded in bachelorhood for going on five days now. Ellen and Safia have ventured to Baltimore because Ellen was giving a presentation at the American Studies Association Annual Meeting.  Ellen's parents, being pretty darn close to there, made it logical for her to extend her trip just a wee bit longer. 
However, now that Ellen and Safia have been gone for a number of days, now, there is something glaringly obvious: The house has been very quiet for too long.   I miss my girls.  Ellen has been very good at sending pictures to keep me updated on everyone's progress, but I still miss them.  I find myself scrolling through pictures and reminiscing.  The further back I go in our picture album, the more I am amazed at how much has changed through the course of 6 months.  Below is a run-down of the pictures in our album that bring big smiles to my face.  Note: pictures may, or may not be repeats from this blog (they're oldies, but goodies) and they are in reverse chronological order. 

One-day old: getting ready to go home from the hospital

amazement - 1-day old

hours old

Interestingly, after scrolling through those pics, I think I miss my girls more, not less.

How are Things?

Safia at 6 months

Safia checking out a picture of Ellen's family

It's been so long since I've sat down for a blog post that I hardly know where to start.  Safia is getting bigger and bigger and more fun and more fun everyday.  I know Ellen said it previously, but it bears repeating: Safia seems to have turned a major corner, and is soooooo much easier, and I'll go right ahead and say it....fun to be around.  The lion's share of the credit goes to Ellen, as she did the hard work of getting Safia on schedule with naps and eating and bedtime, and it has resulted in a drastic reduction in frustration, confusion, and disgruntled-ness.  Countless friends and supportive advice-givers assured us that 6-months was a "golden age," and although I thought it would never come, here we are, and it's pretty sweet.

Some notables:

1.  Safia grabs at everything.  We now have to clear everything from her radius of reach lest it be thrown on the ground or stuck into her drool-tastic mouth.

2.  Safia is very clingy right now.  Her preference is to be held by Ellen, of course, but she'll tolerate me if Ellen's not around.  Put her down in a swing?  Put her on a playmat to roll around?  How about the bouncy chair with toys?  Nay!  She must be held.  A google search for "clingy 6-month old" turned up a plethora and an abundance of similar quandaries regarding this phenomenon.  Turns out she's at an age where she is developing her sense of object permanence and is grappling with separation anxiety.  Whoa.  Tough to be 6-months old.

3. Safia is an eating machine.  She devours carrots with conviction, eats squash with spirit, ingests green beans with gaiety, and feasts peas with passion.  The quantity of food this little girl can pack away is impressive.

4. Safia has discovered Zoey (the dog) and Zoey has discovered Safia.  Whenever Zoey saunters into the room, Safia goes nuts - laughing, lunging, and flailing around for her.  Zoey, predictably, loves to give Safia kisses during feeding times.  I think this is going to be a wonderful partnership between these two little puppies.

5. Safia went to doctor for her 6 month check up, she's healthy and growing well.  She's 16 pounds, 7 ounces (in the 50th percentile), she's 27 inches long (in the 90th percentile), and her head is 17 and 1/2 inches around (95 percentile).

I often get asked, "How are things?"  I'm really pleased to respond, "Things are great!" and to know that I'm being honest.

Cute Photo Shoot Outtake #1

Cute Photo Shoot #2

Happy Half Birthday to you and to me.

On Saturday, Safia turned six months.  So much has changed in the past six months, it’s hard to get our heads around it.  I think we can officially say we’re on the other end of the longest shortest time.  I never thought we were going to get here, but I’m so glad we’re here.  So much has happened in the past six months and it’s all a blur, I’m not sure I can really get my head around it.  I guess that’s a good thing because I told Rube we weren’t going to have any more kids if the first few months were etched into my brain.  I guess sleep deprivation is good for something!  Safia has come so far in the past six months and so have we.  She’s more comfortable in her skin and we’re more comfortable in our skin.  I thought it was time to celebrate, so I made a cake.  We shared with friends, but Safia didn’t get any, we haven’t reached that milestone yet!

My dad came for a visit.  We had a great time playing and talking.  

It was too short of a visit, hopefully next time will be longer!  

My cousin Anna made Safia an amazing blanket.  

She is throughly enjoying it! 

Safia has now officially discovered Zoey and Zoey has
discovered Safia.  I see the beginnings of a long, fruitful friendship.

Our friends Jesse, Helen, and David came over to play.  

Safia and David don't know it, but we're already planning their wedding. 

Our friend Elizabeth came for a visit, and even gave Rube and me a break, so 

we went out for a delightful breakfast.  It's so nice to have such great friends!

The other side of normal

When Safia was about two months old a friend of mine asked me if all the challenges of parenthood were worth it.  I have to admit that I hesitated before I said, yes, yes they are.  I finally feel like I can stop hesitating when I answer that question and say unequivocally, yes, yes it’s all been worth it.  Maybe I’m getting more confident in my role as mother, maybe Safia’s starting to figure out this whole baby thing, maybe we’re getting more sleep, maybe we’re (finally) at the end of the longest shortest time, or maybe there is no rhyme or reason.  Regardless, it’s a really nice place to be.  That’s not to say there are no more frustrations…believe me there are still lots of frustrations, but they seem to be less frequent, and I seem to be better equipped to handle them.  I guess we’re all doing lots of growing.

One thing that has sustained us through the beginning of this insane journey we’re on has been our friends and family.  The ones faraway that are there for a phone call when we need it or come for visits, or the ones that are close that drop by, provide us with entertainment, and even on those rare occasions, babysit for us!  A few events in the past few weeks have made me really thankful for our friends. First, a good family friend, who also happens to be a sleep doctor reached out to us to try to help ease my major frustration: nap time.  Seems that I’d consolidated naps too quick (I thought consolidated naps meant two naps, not three, which I now know is what babies her age really need) and wasn’t properly reading Safia signs of tiredness, resulting in a cranky, exhausted baby, and therefore, a cranky and exhausted mama.  With her insights and suggestions, nap-time has become soooooo much easier, which has made me soooooo much happier!  Thanks Janet! 

Second, Rube’s good friend Kurt came for a visit.  It was a short visit, but full of love and warmth.  We watched the Badgers slay NIU, and lamented the Bear’s sorry performance against the Saints.  We also stuffed our bellies full of the best food in the land, imbibed some choice bevies, and filled our hearts with all of Safia’s giggles and smiles. 

Third, in the past few weeks a bizarre set of instances of long-lost friends re-entering our lives have kept us on our toes.  In one such instance, a friend/collegue from when I worked in Colorado (seven years ago) moved to Athens with her husband, who just happens to be in my program, and just happened to offer to watch our dog when we went out of town.  Also, we bumped into friends of ours from California at the farmer’s market.  Turns out they bought a farm in nearby Comer, Georgia.  The world is feeling a little smaller, and Athens is feeling a little more like home. 

Finally, now that Safia is actually going to bed pretty consistently at 6:30, I feel a lot more confident about getting a babysitter.  So last night, Rube had a show in Athens, so I decided to go.  It was so nice to be out and about without a baby in tow, catching up with people and feeling a little more like myself, whoever that may be these days!  Thanks Michelle!

As the weather’s gotten cooler here, and Safia continues to grow like a weed, it was time once again to change over her wardrobe.  Sometimes I feel like I’m playing dress-up with a doll, but the results are so much cuter!  Below is a sampling of my favorites.

Just when we thought we were getting somewhere . . .

Safia at 5 Months

Just when we thought we might have figured this whole parenting thing out . . . well not figured out, but at least had it under control that we felt like somewhat normal people . . . Safia decided to go and grow some teeth.  Needless to say it has been a rough week.  I hear that some babies cut their teeth with no fuss at all, or just a little bit of fussiness.  Well, our daughter is definitely not one of those kids.  She’s been fussy, pretty miserable, and driving both Rube and I up the wall.  I know that I should feel sorry for her because she does have two large teeth cutting through her gums, and I did feel sorry for her… for the first three nights.  Then the sleepless nights got the best of me.  To top it all off, she also got her first cold.  I have no idea if it is teething related, or just rotten luck, but between the teething and the runny nose, we had an unhappy baby for a couple of nights.  She (so also us) didn’t really sleep for three nights, and then things got better, but all that we had accomplished in terms of going to bed seemed to fly out the window. 

 

Bedtime has once again been our on-again-off-again struggle.  We felt like we were getting somewhere in the bedtime battles, but teething regression has put us back at square one, or so it seems.  There have been lots of tears (on her part and my part), but hopefully it won’t take us too long to get back on track.

In the past two weeks the three of us took a trip to Naperville to see Rube’s mom.  That’s when we first noticed Safia’s runny nose.  We had a lot of fun, all things considered.  We took a trip into Chicago and walked around the city.  It was finally cold enough that we could break out some of Safia’s fall clothes.  I am sad to see the cute sundress go, but I am so glad that the weather is cooling down.  Cooling down is a relative term though, by most standards, it’s still hot in Georgia.

We also went to Augusta for the day to go to a friend’s wedding.  We even managed to get a picture of the three of us all dressed up.

Safia continues to get bigger and cuter as the days go by.  I know I’m biased, but after the nights we’ve been having, she’s lucky she still makes me smile.  She loves eating.  She now eats carrots, butternut squash, peas, avocado, sweet potato, and rice cereal.  I think we’re going to try chicken next.  She’s becoming more independent, playing for longer periods of time by herself.  She so desperately wants to crawl, but fortunately for us she hasn’t quite figured it out yet.  And she and I went swimming for the first time!  It took her a little while to get used to the water, but we had a lot of fun.  No pictures of swimming yet, we’ll have to go with Rube one day so we can document that process!

Last week we went to see a friend of ours who has a one-month-old baby.  It was pretty amazing holding her thinking that Safia was like this four short months ago.  It seems like forever ago, and I can’t tell if time is moving incredible slow or incredible fast.  The baby-time-warp is in effect again.  I am trying my hardest to live in the moment, to savor each stage, and to relish in the everyday joys of this crazy journey.  But it is oh so hard to do when she’s screaming.  All I can do is do my best.  

Found my toes

Now I'm going to eat my toes

And tell you all about it!

When I was pregnant I told Rube I was
going to dress our child in nothing but
pigtails and overalls.  It's finally cool
enough for overall, can't wait until she
has enough hair for pigtails!

Gazing up at her Daddy

All dressed up.