Calendar Girl, 7 Months

My friend, Stacey, reminded me tonight that we hadn’t posted the calendar girl for the month yet. Here it is. I really did take it on or about Oct. 8 when Silvie was 7 months old.

Two Months Old

Dear Silvie,

It’s hard to believe that 9 weeks have already passed since you were born.  It’s gone so quickly and I still think of you as a newborn until I look at the pictures from those first few weeks and I see that you have grown so much already.

You still have your papa’s coppery-colored hair although you lost the front half of it and it is growing back a soft fuzz.  Your eyebrows are very pale but your dark eyelashes frame your eyes beautifully.  Your eyes still haven’t announced their final color but they are too muddy to be called blue anymore.  Lately several friends have said that you are starting to look like me with the shape of your face, nose, expressions, etc. (sorry, little one).  So you are currently looking like a good mix of both of us, not like the “calico kitten” that we’d joked about before you were born (half red head, half dark).

In the past month you have unfurled yourself and filled out your skin.  The other day, you weighed in at 11 pounds 13 ounces…3 pounds more than your birth weight.  Although you’ve filled out some, you are still long and slender except for your “milk belly” (beer belly for babies).  You have very long fingers and they dance through the air as you wave your hands and kick your legs.

You have daily floor time and you can now hold your head up really well when you’re laying on your tummy.  About half a dozen times in the past week you’ve rolled over.  Usually, this startles you and makes you cry, but I’m sure purposeful rolling about is not far into your future.

The most fun baby feature the last week or so has been your increased engagement with people.  I took you to school to meet my colleagues, and you were totally alert and charming for hours on end.  You were delighted to have so many people making fools of themselves over you.  You especially liked C., a 16-year-old guy who used to be a student of mine.  He was ga-ga over you and you were completely charmed by this lanky, pimply teen.  Of course, it could be that you liked his bright yellow hat as well.

You are engaging in entire cooing, oohing and ahhing conversations with me.  You fully expect reciprocity.  You are also grinning at yourself in the mirror and talking to yourself.  You don’t like any toys yet, EXCEPT for your “peeps”–the black and white smiley faces on foamcore that you smile at and talk to during floor time.

This is my last week of maternity leave.  I have liked being home with you more than I thought I would.  But I like my job and I’m ready to get back to it for the last four weeks of the school year.  I probably wouldn’t be going back so easily if I knew I had to leave you in daycare.  Fortunately, your papa is taking leave from his job so he can stay home with you for a couple of weeks, and your Grandma Mary is coming to hang out with you too.  I know that I’ve felt these last nine weeks have let me develop a strong bond with you, and I’m glad your Papa will get some alone time with you too.  I’m anticipating that you will be a real daddy’s girl.  And I’m ok with that because your Papa is my favorite person in the world and I’m happy to share him with you.

Love,

Your Mama

When the Sun Shines…

The other weekend it was absolutely gorgeous here…sunny and in the 70s.  The gardening bug bit bigtime.  Nate “tilled” our three raised beds and added some composted chicken poop.  Our beds are 3 x 5 feet and about 8 inches deep.  I try to follow some of the Square-Foot Gardening tips, but I am by no means a good vegetable gardener.  I’m grateful that I don’t have to count on our garden to supply our food needs.  But it is nice when we can supplement our diet with truly locally-grown food.

I planted one bed full with radishes, carrots, mesclun mix, and green beans.   The radishes and mesclun (lettuces) sprouted up within a week.  On Easter weekend I planted another of the beds with basil, cilantro, dill (I LOVE fresh herbs) and two kinds of chard.  We could still get a killing frost but I’m counting against it.  Even if it did frost the first bed would probably be ok and I have enough seeds to replant the second bed if I had to.  I’ll wait a little longer before planting the last raised bed with more “salad”–lettuces, radishes, carrots, etc.  And maybe I’ll try my hand at growing some brussel sprouts this year.

Nate’s just cleared another area in the side yard where I’ll put some tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.  I’ll wait another couple of weeks until frost danger is truly over and then I’ll buy the largest starts I can find of these plants at the nursery.  I only want 2 or 3 plants each so it doesn’t seem worth it to try to start them from seed.

While Nate and I gardened, Silvie obliged by sleeping in her car seat/seed holder (see post below).  Abe found a place in the sun where he is nearly the same color as the gravel…he likes camouflage like that.  Keegan has figured out how to roll her ball under the new gate so that it lands out in the garden area.  Then she whines until one of us throws the ball back into the backyard.  Repeat three hundred and eighty-five times.  That dog truly has obsessive compulsive disorder.

How to Amuse Yourself with an Infant, Vol. III

Garden Gnome

One Month Old

Dear Silvie,

You reached the one month mark on Wednesday.  I intended to write this letter to you on Wednesday night but you decided otherwise.  For the first time you launched into an extended time of crying inconsolably from about 6 p.m. until midnight when you were so worn out that you essentially passed out.  Your papa and I took turns trying to comfort you and make you comfortable.  You wore us both out.

Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be your normal demeanor.  During the day you wake up, eat, get changed which takes about half an hour, and then you have another half an hour or so of happy time before you need to be put back to sleep.  You coo and grin and flap and kick with great vigor.  It is my favorite time of the whole day.  After “happy hour” we have yawning, complaining time.  Because your hands flop uncontrollably about your face which startles and awakens you, we usually swaddle you up into a little burrito before trying to put you to sleep.

During the day time you have a hard time getting to sleep.  You like having a pacifier but when you start to relax, it falls out of your mouth, and you fuss until someone (me) reinserts it for you.  While we try to get you to sleep in your co-sleeper during the day we don’t have much success.  We often resort to wearing you, putting you in the swing or sitting you in the bouncy chair for your naps.  Motion is your favorite calming mechanism.

You are a much better sleeper by night when the house is dark and quiet.  You generally have 3 to 4 hour sleeping cycles which is really great for your mama!  When you do wake up at night you usually go right back to sleep once you’ve been fed.  Often we both fall asleep with you in bed beside me.

You are growing and changing in front of our eyes.  You are chubbier and your eyes are so much more focused and expressive than they were even two weeks ago.  You make all sorts of grins and grimaces some of which seem to actually be purposeful.  You’ve lost some of your hair on the front half of your head–a little male-pattern baldness perhaps?  And, as I mentioned before, you are active, very active.  When you are unswaddled, your hands rarely stop moving.  We have lots of pictures where your hands are just a blur.

I’m glad babies start out as infants and develop quickly into little people.  It’s no secret that infancy if my least favorite developmental stage.  We are doing fine and I am not going to crazy being at home with you every day, but I can’t wait for you to grow a little more.  Each day you move a tiny bit closer to developing your own personality and engaging a little more with the world.  I look forward to exploring your world with you.

Love,

Your Mama

Calendar Girl, 1 Month Old

Silvie, 1 Month