BOOKS!

So, what did I do with all the time I was nursing and holding The Bean when she was a babe? Remember, I didn't read/finish a book for MONTHS back then. It seems crazy since I've been reading all the time since Miss Koala was born. Did you know I even brought a book to the hospital? N thought it was crazy, but actually there's quite a lot of down time after the labor is over. Day old babies tend to sleep ALL day and there's only some much Admiration of Sleeping Infant that I can stomach. I brought The Help, which was the perfect labor, post-labor, having a new baby in the house book. When they saw it, almost all of my nurses commented that they had read it too. It's a fun book---not great literature, but very readable.

Here are the other books I've read:

The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichel
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley
Little Bee by Chris Cleave

All were very readable. The Magicians I didn't really like because it was too much fantasy. N dug it though. Garlic and Sapphires was pretty good, but not the great book I thought it would be. After a while, I got a little tired of the device of the costumes Reichel uses. Dragon Girl was good even though I'm not into the thriller/mystery genre. Like every third person in America, I found entertaining. Get This Number was disappointing. I enjoyed Crosley's first book of essays I Was Told There'd Be Cake, but the second wasn't as funny or interesting. Little Bee was a page-turner and I liked it up until the last fifty pages of so, but I can't remember why exactly. I just started Lit by Mary Karr. And 1-2-3 Magic: How To Discipline Your 2-12 Year Old because The Bean has been on the ATTACK lately.
What are you reading?

Two Months!

Sweet Girlie Girl,
Today you are two months old, Miss Koala! And, you are rocking the percentiles: 95th% in weight, just over the 75% in height, and the 90th% for your big ol head. You had your first taste of things other than boob milk today: the Rotovirus vaccine which is a sweet liquid administered orally and some Tylenol administered by mama this evening. You liked both quite a lot! You also got a huge number of vaccines in the form of three shots, which made you quite fussy tonight. I felt so bad for you. You were really miserable--over tired and probably feeling quite yucky. It took a lot to get you to go to sleep and I ended up putting you in your swing even though in talking with the doctor we decided it's better to get you more used to your bed. The swing is okay if we're desperate though and tonight just didn't seem like the right time to force the initial sleep in the bassinet. You are capable of falling asleep in there---I haven't had to put you in the swing in the middle of the night. So now we just have to work on breaking the habit. For both parents and baby.

What else other than your tremendous growth? You're cooing more, we think we've seen some smiles, you've had some ENORMOUS poops (conveniently all over your dad and not mama), and when you are awake you're definitely taking in your surroundings. It seems like you can get over stimulated in the evenings---we're still trying to figure out when exactly is a good time for you to go to bed.

You seem pretty easy going although the day after I said that to N last week, you got a bit fussy. But you don't seem to really cry unless you're tired or hungry or like the other morning in some kind pain. You're up regularly, every 2-3 hours, in the night---that first week when you went for four hour stretches (and that one 6 miraculous one) were teases. Your favorite eating time seems to be around 3 am.

Oh, and this month, right at week 7 you FINALLY accepted the pacifier! Interestingly, it's the same (and only) kind your sister liked.

You've been hit by sister around 600 times this past month. Luckily, it's not usually very hard, but she has, on a few occasions, caused you to cry. So, just between you and me, when you're 2 and she's 4 and you whack her because she takes your toy or won't share her snack, I'm going to fake yell at you and give you a fake time out. Cuz just that one time, she might deserve it. You gotta get a little revenge somehow, right girlie?

Oh, and when it's not a 8000 degree humidity heat wave, one of the best things about this month has been snuggling with you. You seem like you're getting pretty snugly. Here's to lots of snuggling for month #3!
Love, Mama

Twelve Days!

For some reason, perhaps I was inspired by N's pledge to (mostly) go off the internet for the next few weeks, I decided to give up Facebook AKA The World's Biggest Time Suck, for the month of July. So far, it's not painful. And I spend SO much less time on the computer.

I won't give it up forever, but maybe when I go back I won't feel compelled to check it multiple times a day.

Heat Wave

Yeah, I know you know. But are you nursing a 12 + pound super sweaty swaddled up baby? I'm gonna be so happy when it breaks. So is N if just that it means I'll stop moaning about the heat.

Speaking of N, do you know that he made the world's most delicious salad for dinner tonight? It was SO GOOD. Greek and summery and he shouldn't change a thing when he makes it again.

Maybe the heat has gone to his head, but he also made dinner last night. That's TWO nights in a row, y'all. Hooray for Jamie Oliver's $5.00 iPad app!

Today Miss Koala is 7 weeks old. She's such a sleepy girl. I don't know how much of it is her, the heat, or us. Basically we swaddle her and stick her in a swing in our room, which is moderately air conditioned and she sleeps...oh, all day. She'll wake up to nurse a little bit, but after an hour or so she wants to go back to sleep. I've actually had to wake her a few times because I was worried she'd been sleeping too long and would get dehydrated. Miss Bean wasn't like this at all. It was impossible to get her to nap, but maybe that was because we didn't to the swaddle/swing method during the day. We crazily tried to get her to sleep in her bassinet. Silly parents. Miss Koala does spend part of each night sleeping in her bassinet, but she starts off in her swing and ends up in our bed. Luckily, our pediatrician said nothing you do it really "habit forming" in the first three months.

Oh, and Miss Koala has finally come to terms with the fact that sometimes all life offers is a plastic nipple. Yesterday was a MAJOR breakthrough with the pacifier. And today she had some good long spells with it too. I predict in no time that she'll be an addict like Miss Bean was too.