A long time ago I used that app "morphthing" to see what our baby girl would look like. It came up with the picture below. Under that is our actual daughter. The face shape is pretty close. The chin is pretty close. The eyes are pretty close. Interesting.

Almost Ten Months Old

It's been a wild ride in mommy land lately. E's development comes in leaps and bounds followed by pleateaus, and we've been in the midst of a giant leap. As many others will attest, these developmental charges lead to lots of sleepless nights. I'm tired. A few weeks ago she slept through the night 4 nights in a row. Last night I was up for hours. It's so interesting to see how she's changed, though. Right now she's incredibly into cause and effect. She likes switches, buttons, etc. She likes to turn things on and off and see what they do. The first thing she does in her room now is turn her music on and then go about her business playing. She doesn't need me to show her. She knows. You can see the little wheels turning in her head when she's trying to figure something out. She's "talking" constantly to herself, and making new sounds. Her vocabulary has stalled at mama, dada, hi, no, and kitty, but I feel some more are on the horizon.

Hubs and I have been doing a good job of splitting duties. He's not working right now, so he takes care of the baby all day 2 days a week, and the other three he has her half the day, and my mom has her the other half while he looks for jobs and goes on interviews. He's ready to hand her over when I get home from work, but that's OK. She's a handful, and I am ready to cuddle when I get home! He's doing most of the house work, and wakes up with her most weekend days. I get up with her in the middle of the night, watch her most of the day on the weekends, and have her when I get home from work. But he's ready and willing if my kidneys have tired me out and I need a nap, and yesterday I got to go see The Hobbit! We have family playtime before bed sometimes, and he insists on wrapping her up in her towel after I bathe her. It's a nice system. It's great that he's so involved and that he wants to be there. I don't think he needs to be around her quite the same way I do, but he wants to be, and that's pretty awesome. We fought the other day over who got to comfort her when she was crying. He picked her up and I was mad because he'd been with her all day, but really my mom had had her and he'd been looking for jobs, so he won that battle. Little miss is lucky - we fight over who gets to hold her when she cries!

It's been a while, but we're finally settling into life with a baby. It's harder but more amazing than I could have imagined. Andy's getting more and more confident in his skills, and I'm getting more confident in him. I can't wait until it's warm again and we can take her to the zoo and the aquarium and all of those things we've been looking forward to. I'm very lucky. I don't forget this.

She's pulling herself up every chance she gets. She stands really well. Actually just before I took this, she let go, balanced herself, then grabbed back onto the handle. She's getting better at standing alone. She closed her eyes here expecting a flash. She loves the camera and now she giggles when she sees it!

One of her favorite things to do is pull all the books off her shelf and "read". She likes to turn pages and look at the books and feel them. She picked this one herself. It's from when I was 3!!! Momma's girl.

We went to the mall to buy shoes for her Christmas dress. It was nice out so I decided to take a selfie!

The sun is like a halo. She should probably have one because she's an angel.

She has the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen. They're like.. turquoise. And huge. Note to mothers of baby girls: jumpers are so impractical. I had this on her for like ten minutes and had to take it off. Every time you want to put her in a car seat, stroller, high chair, etc., it bunches up. And her butt is always sticking out because they ride up. Jumpers are for babies who walk!

Hammin' it up for the camera.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like... A One Year Old!

I can't believe that in less than 3 months my daughter will be a year old. She had her 9 month appointment on Monday and she's grown so much. She's now 18lb 3oz, which is still only the 38th percentile, but she's 28 inches, which is the 71st percentile for length! I was waiting for that to happen as tall as I am.

She's really become a pro at getting to a sitting position on her own, and we often find her sitting up playing with toys when we get her after naps. She pulls up on everything she can get her hands on (except her crib for some reason). She's still really wobbly, but she does pull to stand. She can crawl some, but doesn't like to. She prefers to roll around. She's been so incredibly talkative recently. She has always been a talker, but now it's getting even more fun and word-like.

Her sleeping patterns have been crazy for about two weeks. She spent 5 days waking up a lot, then 5 days mostly sleeping through the night. And the last three nights she's woken up a bunch very early. She goes to bed at about 7:15, and last night woke up at 7:45, 8:30, and 9:30. The last time I just peaked at the monitor and saw she was OK. She cried for maybe a minute and then went back to sleep. I usually give her some time before going in to get her because she tends to fall back asleep on her own, and I distract her too much.

I've been worrying about getting the house done in time for her birthday party. We still don't have real countertops and it's starting to make me nervous. I have so many ideas for her Bubble Guppies theme and I want everything to work out the way I see it in my head. And that requires having the house done. At least we're painting next weekend.

I've gotten her so many toys for Christmas, and I'm excited about the world of possibilities that opens up for her birthday. It's the end of February so it'll be almost time to head into Spring, which means I can get her outdoor toys (like a slide, a water table, and a ride-on giraffe!). Plus she'll be a year old and I can start getting her into things like Little People which are SO cute!

I just can't believe how fast time is passing by. It feels like I like every new age she hits better than the last, but I still miss her being a tiny baby. I was looking at pictures yesterday of her as a newborn and I can't believe that was this year. She's growing up so quickly and I'm not ready for it. Of course this has brought talk of baby number 2, which we're planning on transferring next Fall. I really want E to have a sibling, and I want to be pregnant again, so we'll see how that goes. I still need to lose 50lb and get my kidneys under control. I keep thinking I have time, but then I look at how fast this year has gone and think "Wait a minute. Next October is only 11 months away!".

We're gearing up for the holidays and I'm going to post some fun pictures of the house after this weekend. For now, please enjoy my little girl in her reindeer sleeper! Apologies for the second one being blurry. She was moving a lot but it was SO cute I had to post it!

9 Months

Yesterday was a big day for us. Not only was it Thanksgiving, but it was my birthday, and E turned 9 months old.

She's such an amazing child. We spoke yesterday about things we're thankful for, and my husband pointed out that he's thankful for E, and for Me for carrying her, and explained that he really had no idea how much he could love another person. "I thought I loved you" he said to me, which illicited laughter from the family. We knew what he meant.

At 9 months she's still the happiest baby. She's begun sleeping through the night and happing well. She says "Mama, dada, no, and kitty (dit-dee)". She can crawl a bit, though she prefers to roll, she pulls up on shirts, hands, and legs (but only part way on furniture). She loves music and dancing, when I pretend to eat her fingers, and puffs. She loves puffs. She still doesn't have any teeth, and therefore isn't eating a ton of foods. She likes things that can get easily mashed, so we're building up to more things. It's nearly impossible to change her diaper these days. She's learned how to sit up without help, which just makes things even more difficult.

Every day I love her more, and I don't know how it's possible when I look back on how much I loved her the day before. Every fiber of my being aches when I'm away from her at work. I feel like my life's purpose is known - to be her mommy. I never imagined having E in my life could be this amazing. She's the best thing, by far, that has ever happened to me, and I will do anything and everything to make her life everything she wants it to be. I truly believe my daughter is perfection. She is a beacon of joy to everyone around her. She's so incredibly easy to fall in love with because she's so incredibly amazing. In just 9 months she's done so much for my family. I will never, in a million years, be able to express to her, or anyone else how I feel about her. The words that describe my love don't exist. That's the most I can say.

I can't believe that in 3 short months my tiny girl will be 1. All I can do is thank her for giving me purpose.

Here are some pictures from yesterday's trifecta of awesome.

Here she is with my dad. He still has a blood clot in his leg after 9 days in the hospital, so he couldn't move around much but he was so happy to hold her.

She loves my camera. And I love her eyes. They're so beautiful. They always look brown but they're decidedly not brown, as you can see here. They're grey and amazing.

Flirting with daddy.

Making uncle Matt and aunt Jo want kids.

Chillin'. What?

Here we go with the eyes again. They're like a gorgeous blue here.



Catching Up

As usual, it's been a while, and there's a lot going on in our house. Evangeline is developing so quickly these days I fear she'll be in college before the next time I blink my eyes. She's pulling up some and sort of crawling and with mobility comes hilarity when you're talking babies.

Last night, I helped her to stand. She still hasn't perfected pulling up (you can see below that she's pretty close), but she loves to stand. I have to hold down her play table because it's not particularly sturdy. After a few minutes I felt a tiny little hand on mine, pulling it up and off of the table, then dropping it. At first I thought she was just curious. I then realized she was making a very clear statement with the motion, which was so delicate, yet so incredibly filled with distaste. I imagine that in her little baby head, the thought was something like "Excuse me, mother, but this is my toy, and you do not have my permission to touch it!" (which I imagine in a brittish accent even though I'm not sure she's ever heard a brittish person talk).

It was hysterical, and she followed it up by letting go of the table and just standing. Not wobbling... just standing. Then she grabbed it again and continued on her way.

Sleep has been interesting. She was afflicted by the 9 month sleep regression last Friday, and has had myriad troubles since then. I attribute this to her new skills. We find her sitting up in the crib on her own, or crawling around instead of sleeping. Last night we made a lot of progress when she slept until 4:15am. Except that when I woke up, she was not on the video monitor, and I had to run into her room to make sure she was OK. She was just hiding (damn that mobility) but it woke her up. I think we might have made a full night if it weren't for her clumsy mother.

Her favorite thing to do aside from standing is grab my eyeballs and scratch the shit out of my face with razor thumbnails (no matter how often I trim them!). This part can end whenever it would like please.

She's still hellbent on saying "Dada" but the "Mama"s are coming a little more often. The other day Andy handed her the phone and she said "MAMA!!" but mostly she says it when she's feeling needy. She also shakes her head and says "no", and eats puffs like a champ. And she said "kitty" but people would debate me on that. I would if I wasn't there to see the cat jump up on the couch, Evie lunge for her and scream "DIDDY!!". She hasn't done it since, but she did it once prior when my parents' dog (who is the size of a cat) walked in the room.

Here's last night in pictures.

Happy Halloween!

Finding My Way

This little darling was 8 months old on Monday. I can't believe I have an 8 month old. I can't believe I have a DAUGHTER. She is so amazing in every way. I feel so silly to question God. Of course he knew what he was doing! She's the perfect child for us!

Husband and I are still having growing pains. We're still struggling a bit to find ourselves in our life after baby. Plus he's without a job right now which is such a struggle for him, and our house is still a mess and unfinished. We love each other very much, though, and I'm glad we have all of our previous struggles to carry us through this. I know that sounds strange, but it's like each step was a preparation for us to be able to work through this time. I don't know if we would know how to support and encourage each other and deal with our shortcomings if we hadn't had trials and tribulations of an important nature before. Just another strange way I see God working in my life. I will continue to pray that we find our strength and work together. We both have things to work on but we are committed to and love each other and our gorgeous girl.

One of the things I've been struggling with is me and finding myself. Andy is having difficulty communicating/connecting to me these days. He says I am "Mom" where I should be "Erika, who is a mom". If that makes sense? It's very deep. I like being mom. But I realize that as E gets older, I need to have interests to share with her, and also to keep me busy when she decides that mom is just SO lame. I guess he's afraid I'm losing part of myself. I always see it as gaining a new part, but I have completely neglected myself as well. Being a mom can be very isolating. Most of my friends have abandoned me and it's depressing. It's hard to be a working mom, so I want to spend all my free time with her. But that leaves nothing for my husband, and I have to have time for him so we can build the best relationship to be the best role models for E. And I need to take care of me and encourage my own wants and needs as well.

I think one of the big issues is my kidneys. I'm so tired all the time that I put E to bed at 7:30 and I'm asleep by 9. I wake up at 7 and go right to work. In that hour and a half I have to shower, eat, and get ready for bed. I barely see my husband. 10 hours of sleep should be more than enough but I'm still exhausted because of my kidneys. We're going to talk to the doctor about that. I feel like if I could combat the exhaustion and get 7-8 hours a night I'd open up so much time for other things! And it's not like E is a bad sleeper. She normally goes down at 7:15, sleeps until 2:30, is back asleep by 3 and wakes up at 7. I think I need to exercise and get healthier as well as do whatever the doctor says so I can go to bed at 10:30 or 11 and have some time every night with Andy.

I'd also like to start doing things again on weekends. Either as a family, or with my friends. I want to take E to museums, the zoo, the aquarium, play dates, the park... all sorts of things. I can see friends and involve her in all of my interests. She gets bored easily in the house so it will make both of us happy. I need to spend time doing things I love, but I'm not willing to sacrifice time with E, so I'll bring her. I want to get into photography again. She and I can go on nature walks and go to the city and shop and I can bring my camera. She's such an easy baby there's no reason not to go have fun with her and pursue my interests. I feel like that might bring some spark back to my relationship with my husband.

I also miss music. Music was what connected Andy and I in the beginning and it's like I don't have time for it, and he feels like he's lost part of me. I don't like that.  I always wanted to share my love of music with my baby. I always thought about playing her music and singing songs and taking her to outdoor concerts. I still want that. I guess I'm just trying to find my new self. Trying to balance "Erika" with "Mommy". Mommy always comes first. But I still need parts of Erika to show E who her mommy really is. And to teach her the things I grew up loving. So I guess my plan is to allow me to be me a little. And to bring E into my world of music and photography and nature (I love nature) and exercise. We can bond and get healthy and I can show her a healthier lifestyle and some fun hobbies.

I do need to make more time for my husband, so this kidney thing needs to be fixed. He deserves a wife that's there, and not asleep. And E is going to deserve a mommy that's not exhausted all the time too!!

I guess I just needed to get this out to think about it. In all honesty, life is doing ok. I have the most amazing child, a loving, supportive husband who wants to work through issues with me, a great support system in my family... I need more friends, but that's OK. E is enough for me. She really is. I just need to be the best me I can be for her.