Dear Sailor,

Happy three months!  As promised, here is your monthly birth­day let­ter!  Oh my good­ness gra­cious have things hap­pened!  First, just so you know, you are get­ting way more fun by the day.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing (your offi­cial 3 month birth­day) started out with your dad and I in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. on a trip pro­vided by your dad’s hard work and the awe­some com­pany he works for.  It had been five nights since we saw you, and baby girl, YOU HAVE GROWN!  You are prac­ti­cally a dif­fer­ent baby.  Your head, arms, legs and eyes are big­ger.  You’re longer and you def­i­nitely weigh more.  Even your chatty noises are a lit­tle dif­fer­ent!  Oh, and I’d like to men­tion how ridicu­lously chatty the morn­ing makes you.  You MUST be try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate with the neigh­bors.  Or aliens on another planet.  Grandma calls it hit­ting your Mariah Carey notes.  She also says you have the Happy Gene because you are SUCH a good & smi­ley lit­tle thing.  I agree.  You only fuss when you want some­thing – namely food, sleep or a new dia­per – and once you get it, you’re all good!

One of my absolute favorite things in this world is when I come in to get you in the morn­ing or after a nap, you’re lay­ing there suck­ing away at those poor lit­tle fin­gers, star­ing at the side of your crib, and I say, “Hey Bear.”  And, with­out even look­ing at me, you know who I am and you get this gigan­tic smile on your face (you actu­ally give your fin­gers a few gasp­ing sec­onds of breath).  Then, I flip you over and you smile and STRECH — you are an expert wakeup stretcher with your hands over your head, your face scrunched up, stretch­ing out your mouth in a frown.  And then more smiles.  Oh, it’s so incredible.

The things you have done in the past sev­eral weeks are so amaz­ing and so much fun to wit­ness!  I think a list is most appro­pri­ate here:

• You have begun grab­bing objects, and are pretty damn good at it now.  And, you’re NOT QUITE putting every­thing you see into your mouth, but you have the hunger.  You’ll focus on an object in front of you with your whole body, eyes locked, legs stick straight and hands up on either side of the toy, shak­ing slightly as you fig­ure out the best way to ensure your hands’ con­tact with the toy.  Once you’ve got it, you try to bring it to your mouth, which is usu­ally only mildly successful.
• In terms of sleep­ing, you had your first night out of your rocker and in your bassinet and THEN, your first full night in your crib!  In fact, you’ve been sleep­ing in your crib now for about 10 days!
• Oh, and this is so funny to me.  You like to curl your hair around your fin­gers with your left hand, just like your daddy!  (Well, when his hair was long enough.)  And we know you’re sleepy when the right hand shoots to your mouth and the left goes to your hair.
• MAN is that hand slurp­ing loud!
• You are NOT a fan of Tummy Time.  You never have been, really.  It seems you think of it as chill time – a time to, shock­ingly, put your fin­gers in your mouth and observe the world side­ways.  That’s okay, though, because you get what Tummy Time is sup­posed to pro­vide by lay­ing on our tummies.
• On your Grandma’s birth­day you watched Sesame Street for the first time.  Up until then, you had only glanced at ran­dom HGTV shows that hap­pened to be on.  Oh!  And MY GOODNESS, did you love Sesame Street!  Your Grandma and I were CRACKING UP at you CRACKING UP!
• Speak­ing of crack­ing up, you smile and gig­gle all the time.  We’re not at full-blown laugh­ing yet, but the reward of a smile and a gig­gle keeps your father and I mak­ing the most ridicu­lous faces and noises.
• You have also started sleep­ing all. night. long.  And by “all. night. long” I mean ELEVEN and TWELVE hours.  And if that isn’t the most bril­liant thing ever, I don’t know what is.  You met your Great Aunt Lynn, too, and she men­tioned her mom (your great-grandmother) always said that 11 pounds is the magic weight for sleep­ing all night.  I’m pretty sure the day you hit 11 pounds was the night you hit 11 hours.
• And, at night, you enjoy scoot­ing your­self around in your crib.  That’s actu­ally the rea­son we went from your bassinet TO your crib – we had to get up about every two hours after hear­ing a lit­tle cry of, “Hello!  Kind of stuck here!” and we’d pull you away from the cor­ner that you had scooted your­self into.
• Every­one said your hair would fall out, but it’s get­ting longer.  And it’s so soft.  And there are the begin­nings of curls!

Today, ON YOUR THREE MONTH BIRTHDAY, you not only started using a medium flow nip­ple on your bot­tle (no prob­lems, I don’t even think you noticed) BUT YOU ALSO ROLLED OVER!!!  Front to back.  I had heard other sto­ries where babies’ reac­tion was one of WTF, but yours was more WHY, HELLO!  HEY!  SO NICE TO SEE YOU!  The ridicu­lous part, though, is that your dad and I were stand­ing over your crib as you were wak­ing up and I had wit­nessed ear­lier HOW you were going to roll over once you finally did it because I saw you when you went down for your nap start push­ing off with your legs.  So, what does your know-it-all momma do while your dad and I are stand­ing there? I GET ON THE FLOOR to show your dad how you were mov­ing your legs and all of a sud­den your dad goes, “Liza.  Come here.”  And I was like, “NO WAY.”  YES, WAY.  You rolled over as your mother was on the floor demon­strat­ing how you were going to roll over.  So, thanks for that.  But, dad is SO HAPPY he got to be the witness.

I can’t wait to see what month four brings!

Love,

Mommy (say “mama” first, okay?)

How dumb is Liza?  THIS dumb (arms spread wide).

Before we left for Wash­ing­ton, D.C. I was plan­ning what clothes to bring and talk­ing to my mom about it.  We were dis­cussing what out­fits I’d wear to go sightseeing.  I expressed con­cern that I should bring close-toed shoes and a cardi­gan in case we toured some­where like the White House.  I was pretty sure they wouldn’t let you in with sleeve­less shirts and flip-flops.  My mom cor­rected me with, “No, that’s the Vat­i­can, Liza.”

AND THEN, while we were here we went and walked by the White House.  I seemed to remem­ber some­thing about a sign that would let you know if the Pres­i­dent was home.  I couldn’t remem­ber quite what it was so I texted my mom, know­ing she’d know, and I said, “How can you tell when the Pres­i­dent is home?  Isn’t it when the flag is up?”  and she texted back, “No, honey, that’s the Queen of England.”

I just thought I would share with you all the dumb­ness that came over me recently.  I have to say, though, I’ve always found Europe much more faci­nat­ing!  And, I had been to Italy and Lon­don much more recently than I had D.C.

Don’t you just *love* the dumb moments?  I do.

This is the man I am so crazy, ridicu­lously proud of.  Not to men­tion in love with.  And you know what?  He DESERVES that Blue Moon in his hand.

This morn­ing Tom and I left Sailor with my par­ents and hopped on a plane to Wash­ing­ton, D.C.  We are here because my hus­band kicks ass, loves his fam­ily and works like I’ve never seen any­one work. 

When I moved in with him, he was mak­ing $10/hour work­ing FOUR HOURS a day.  I know, that just screams “win­ner.”  By the time we got mar­ried, he was get­ting $15 an hour work­ing for an ass­hole.  So, I guess you could say he was upwardly mobile.  If by “upwardly mobile” you mean DEALING WITH ASSHOLES SO AS TO EARN JUST ENOUGH TO GET BY.  He still won­ders why my par­ents gave the okay for him to marry me.  My dad says that when Sailor gets older and we see that some­one truly loves her and wants to take care of her, Tom’ll understand.

Things turned around for us - mainly Tom and by default me - when we moved from Los Ange­les to TN. 

After work­ing on sub­marines in the Navy for 9 years, mov­ing to Cal­i­for­nia to work wtih satel­lites in the the Navy, pur­su­ing act­ing and drudg­ing through the afore­men­tioned bill pay­ing crap jobs, and after a brief stint as a per­sonal trainer, he now works as an agent for New York Life.  He works with insur­ance, invest­ments, retire­ment plan­ning and finan­cial ser­vices.  I know, you’re all, “You husband’s an INSURANCE SALESMAN!”  Well, yeah.  Although, he does a lot with finan­cial ser­vices, too.  But when he first got the job he was like, “Am I really going to be an insur­ance sales­man?”  And I was like, “Am I really going to be MARRIED to an insur­ance salesman?”

Well, this insur­ance sales­man got us this sweet trip where were greated by this:

In our hotel that looks like this:

He is UNBELIEVEALBE at what he does.  And, thank­fully, the com­pany is one of the best in the nation.  (For those of you think­ing it, it’s pri­vately owned so it wasn’t touched when every­thing went down with the econ­omy.  They paid the death ben­e­fit on Gen­eral Custer!  CRAZY!  — Cana­dian & other non-USA read­ers, that was in, oh crap, some­where around 160 years ago.)

But, seri­ously, my hus­band kicks ass.  This is his first cal­en­dar year and he made cer­tain goals that got us this trip.  It’s a work/business trip.  There are approx­i­mately FOUR THOUSAND peo­ple from around the county headed to DC.  But most of them arrived TODAY.  Why did we get to arrive YESTERDAY?  Because the best of the best (yes, kind of like Top Gun), the top 10%, get to come a day early and get a spe­cial recep­tion, din­ner and entertainment. 

I gotta admit, I’m pretty proud of my husband.

And, aside from the fact that his ded­i­ca­tion to his work has enabled us to have a house, have a child and just basi­cally breathe WAY eas­ier than we did in Los Ange­les, he’s given me this gift:

No, not the shoes.  REASONS TO WEAR all these shoes AND THE FANCY DRESSES THAT GO WITH THEM.  Ladies, you know what I’m talk­ing about.  And these are just the shoes I brought on our trip.

Mon­day night Sailor slept in her crib for the first time.  All night.  We tried it once before, but she was up too much and I just took her at 4am and put her back her bassinet.

That night I woke up at 12am to check on her.

At 1:08am my dog jumped on me so I fig­ured I’d get up to check on her.

At 2:08am I heard her on the mon­i­tor.  I went to check on her and noticed that her poor pjs were soaked, so I picked her up to change her and dry her off.  Whereas a 2am feed­ing wasn’t too ter­ri­bly unheard of about a week ago, she has been sleep­ing 11-hour nights for the past four nights so I decided not to feed her.  Didn’t want her get­ting any nutty ideas like we were going to EAT again at that ungodly hour.

After she was all clean and dry, I picked her up to soothe her back to sleep, fig­ur­ing if she cried like a crazy lady, I’d make her a bottle.

But, no crying.

No, just a con­ver­sa­tion with Mickey Mouse.

I stood up with her for a few min­utes and she was look­ing around the room all alert-like and all not-so-ready-to-go-back-to-sleep-like so I fig­ured I’d sit in the glider and see if she’d be soothed by the rocker.

Lit­tle did I know she and the Mouse had arranged a meeting.

Just over my shoul­der, directly in her line of sight sat a Mickey Mouse, the same size as my daugh­ter, bought by my endear­ing but not-so-practical hus­band when I was just seven weeks pregnant.

And MAN was Sailor excited to see him!

First, she just stared, as if lis­ten­ing intently to what he had to say.  Then, she gave him a HUMUNGO smile and then was all, “Mickey!  Hey!  What are you doing here?  I mean, what are you doing UP SO LATE?  Me? Oh, I peed all over my jammies…Oh, you’ve done that too?…No, I totally under­stand if you don’t want to go into it with my mom right here…I know, AWKWARD, right?  I haven’t seen you in a while!  You look GREAT!…Oh, thank you.  I’ve been work­ing on my neck mus­cles.  I mean, just LOOK at the eye con­tact you and I can have now!…hahahahaha!  You’re so funny, Mickey….Oh, hey, I think the buzz kill over here wants me to go back to sleep.  Give me a sec.”

And then she put her head on my chest and did her tell­tale signs that she’s tired – fin­gers from one hand in her mouth and fin­gers from the other hand in her hair.

And I thought, oh, yay, we’re going back to sleep.

And 30 sec­onds later she pops her head up, looks at Mickey and was all, “What?  I couldn’t hear you over the suck­ing noises I was making….Oh, yeah!  Hahaha!  I never thought of it that way!  You’re hilar­i­ous, Mickey….Ok, I’m tired now.  See you in the morning.”

And back to sleep she went.

Baby Prod­ucts: Bed­time Routine

Sailor is just about three months and although we had play­time in the begin­ning, we’re hav­ing more of it as she gets older.  Here are some of the things that we use to play (read: take up time until the next nap / take up time until the next feed­ing / take up time while mommy writes a blog post or takes a shower or washes bot­tles or washes pee-soaked clothes.)

I’ll also include WHEN she found each one inter­est­ing as she wasn’t a big fan of every­thing right away.

Prices are listed at the places where I bought the item.  There may be lower prices at other places.  And, I know Ama­zon always offers prices for used items.

Oh, and you might be think­ing that I have entirely too many rockers/bouncers/playthings.  You would be right.  I’m kind of addicted to them and the antic­i­pa­tion of watch­ing Sailor play on each one.

MOMS, FEEL FREE TO AGREE, DISAGREE OR ADD YOUR OWN FAVORITE PLAYTIME PRODUCTS IN THE COMMENTS SECTION!

1. Baby Ein­stein Around the World Col­lec­tion Play Gym $59.99 at Babies R Us

STARTED ENJOYING AT: age 2 weeks, still LOVES it
BUT: We would hold the bird and the panda in front of her from week one and she liked to stare at them.

WHY I LIKE IT: It’s got tons of fun, brightly-colored objects to hang on var­i­ous spots not only on the over­head bars, but around the edge of the mat as well.  Also, there are REAL pic­tures of each of the ani­mals on the mat so that your child gets to see what they really look like and not just car­toon versions.

WHAT SAILOR LIKES:  At 2 weeks she’d lie there and stare at the panda, the rat­tle and the bird for up to 30 min­utes at a time.  The first time she started to fig­ure out hand/eye coor­di­na­tion was on this mat when she started to hit the rat­tle.  I had hung it low for her near her right hand.

It’s got a mir­ror, too, with a lion head on it.  She was WAY more fas­ci­nated with the lion head for a while.  It’s only been the past few weeks that she’s started to enjoy the mirror.

SOMETHING ANNOYING: There’s also a globe that plays music with two vol­umes.  Although it’s great and she loves look­ing at it, the speaker in it blew out a few weeks ago and it will only very ran­domly play any­more.  I read the same thing on many of the reviews.

FINAL WORDS: Even though she doesn’t get the music any­more, she loves her play­mat more than ever.  She can now grab objects and will often stare at the one in front of her while simul­ta­ne­ously grab­bing each lit­tle ani­mal to her right and left.  Once she’s more com­fort­able on her tummy, I’ll turn her over and attach some of the ani­mals — and even a teething igloo — to the mat portion.

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2. Fisher Price Deluxe Infant to Tod­dler Com­fort Rocker $44.99 at Babies R Us

STARTED ENJOYING AT: 2 months (but that’s when I got it), still loves it

The photo is from Sailor’s first time sit­ting in it.  She’s so happy!

WHY I LIKE IT: In the photo on the left, you can see a kick­stand under­neath.  It pulls under and out to recline the rocker, keep it from rock­ing and turn­ing it into a sleeper.  The bar of toys pops out eas­ily, too.  We bring this over to my parent’s every time we go.  It also vibrates, but we don’t use that fea­ture much.  No rea­son, really.

I also like this because as she gets big­ger (this is the “Infant to Tod­dler” part) it becomes a lit­tle rock­ing chair where she can sit and play, look at books or watch some tele­vi­sion.  Actu­ally, she’s started to sit in it and watch Sesame Street.

SOMETHING ANNOYING: The only thing I DON’T like is that the base where her feet are is hard and every time she kicks in delight you can hear her heels go THUMP.  But she doesn’t seem to care and you could always put some padding in it.

USEFUL NOTE: When we first got it, the dan­gly toys were a lit­tle hard for her to reach.  My hus­band took some toys from her play­mat, hooked some play­mat rings together and hung toys lower for her.  She loves the toys that she can reach and eas­ily grab.

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3. Lamaze Jacques the Pea­cock $10.50 Amazon.com
Lamaze Buzz the Bug $15.00 Amazon.com

STARTED ENJOYING AT: Right when we got them (about 6 weeks old), still loves them

WHY I LIKE THEM: The review­ers on Ama­zon went CRAZY over Jacques.  I got Buzz mainly because some­one had given me a gift cer­tifi­cate for Ama­zon for Sailor and I was look­ing for toys that she would enjoy at 2 months old.

Both toys are brightly col­ored, which keep her inter­est for a while.  Also, they both have parts that squeak, rat­tle and crin­kle.  Jacques has a mir­ror and Buzz has rings.  I often put Jacques on the han­dle of her car seat and she’ll stare at him.

WHAT SAILOR LIKES: When she first saw Jacques, he got a HUGE smile.  I’d have to say, though, that Buzz is now her favorite.  The photo above shows her on her Pack n’ Play at my parent’s house.  My dad hung Buzz over the chang­ing table and she LOVES it.  Before she could grab any­thing, she’d stare at him and laugh and bat him around and laugh.  Also, two weeks ago on August 7th was the FIRST time she grabbed onto an object BY HERSELF and held it for a while.  It was one of Buzz’s rings!

FINAL WORDS: I think both these toys are great for new­borns on up to tod­dlers, and think she’ll enjoy them more and more as she’s able to grab and squeeze with both hands.  Lamaze has A TON of toys, too, so if you like the looks of another one, I’m sure it’ll be fantastic.

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4. Noisy Peek­a­boo: Roar! Roar! $11.04 Amazon.com
Noisy Peek­a­boo: Choo! Choo! $11.04 Amazon.com

STARTED ENJOYING AT: age 1 month, still loves them

I actu­ally got these at Costco, but Ama­zon has a bet­ter price.  (But you’ll have to pay for ship­ping, obviously.)

WHY I LIKE THEM: As you can see in the photo, on the left of each page there is a “real” pic­ture with a baby, which Sailor (and most babies) really like to look at.  On the right is a series of flaps that you have to look under to find what­ever the ques­tion on the right wants you to find.  Once you find it and lift the flap, you hear the noise that the object makes!

I first bought the Roar! one and she loved it so I went back and bought a sec­ond one.

OTHER BOOKS: It would be a lit­tle ridicu­lous to list all the books we have, but I’ll let you know what she likes.  We’ve got a “Five Silly Mon­keys” book (you know the song that goes, “Five silly mon­keys jump­ing on the bed / One fell off and bumped his head…”).  She likes it when her father and I sing it.  Also, books that have lit­tle hand pup­pets attached are good.  Basi­cally, any­thing that’s sim­ple and has a lot in terms of visu­als are all good.

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5. Infan­tino Surf­board Tummy Time Mat $19.99 at Tar­get (I got mine at Marshall’s for $12.00)

STARTED ENJOYING AT: Well, I’m not so sure she’s enjoy­ing it yet.

HERE’S THE DEAL: When I saw this I thought, “Oh, SUPER!  Some­thing fun to do the dreaded Tummy Time on!”  I say ‘dreaded’ because, when placed on her tummy, Sailor would either instantly fall asleep or get very frus­trated by her face being planted in the ground.  I thought this would be great because there were swimmy things to look at, a crab and a potato to play with (there’s a crab with some­thing on it and my hus­band and I can’t fig­ure out what it is and it looks like a potato so we call it the potato), and a pil­low to help keep her propped up.

How­ever, at 3 months, she’s still not the biggest fan of this.  Doesn’t mean your baby won’t be.  I think she’s more of a thinker at the moment and gets bored if she’s not intel­lec­tu­ally stim­u­lated.   Tummy Time seems to be only phys­i­cally frus­trat­ing.  For now, she either sucks on the pil­low and looks around, leav­ing behind a nice pool of drool OR she turns her head to the side, sucks her fin­gers and thanks me for the great place to relax.

WE HAVE HIGH HOPES: BUT, she may like it as she gets stronger.  Her favorite Tummy Time right now is when she’s on my chest.  She has the whole HOUSE to look at that way!

CHECK BACK: (I’ll update this as she gets older to let you know if she starts to enjoy this mat.)

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6. Bright Stars Rat­tle & Shake Bar­bell — Pink $2.99 at Babies R Us

STARTED ENJOYING AT: Week 1, has always liked the noise and colors

I have found this rat­tle over all her other toys has been great to do those eye excer­sises that all the books talk about.  It’s bright, sim­ple and it makes noise.  A great com­bi­na­tion to keep the atten­tion of a baby.  She’d fol­low it up, down, left and right.

SOMETHING I SUGGEST YOU NOT DO: I also put it in her hand one day shortly before turn­ing 2 months — when she could hold things, but only if you put them in her hand.  And she promptly SMACKED HERSELF IN THE FACE AND YELLED AT ME FOR MAKING HER DO SUCH A HORRIBLE THING.

MORAL: When amus­ing your­self by giv­ing your baby things to hold, use sim­ple things like the rings from your play­mat, okay?  Or wait until she’s got bet­ter hand coordination.

YAY FOR EATING THINGS: Once she stars putting any­thing con­tain­ing mat­ter in her mouth, this will be good because it’s too big for her to choke on, but it’s easy to hold and has no sharp edges.

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7. Fisher-Price Papasan Cra­dle Swing — My Lit­tle Lamb $149.99 at Babies R Us

STARTED ENJOYING AT: age 2 or 3 weeks

While this isn’t 100% in the PLAY cat­e­gory, per se, it is in the KEEPS BABY OCCUPIED category.

WHY I LIKE IT: It’s SO COZY.  I want my own.  It’s also makes var­i­ous nature sounds and plays music, the lit­tle ani­mals spin in a cir­cle if you choose, and the area just above baby’s head is a mir­ror.  Although, it’s a con­vex mir­ror so baby will look like she’s look­ing through a peep­hole at her­self.  BUT, Sailor is really start­ing to enjoy that mir­ror.  You’ve got to wait until your baby has some sem­blance of next mus­cles because she has to tilt her head to look straight up, but it’s great once she can.

I also like this swing because it swings left to right AND you can swivel the swing in either direc­tion to have it go for­ward and back­ward.  Some­times Sailor is NOT in the mood for left to right, but will calm right down when I switch it to back and forth.

The toy bar is remov­able and the seat has a sit­ting up posi­tion and a reclin­ing posi­tion.  So far I’ve almost exclu­sively used the reclin­ing position.

THE BEST PART: Plus, it has lamb ears.  LAMB EARS.  Can you get any cuter?

DON’T REPORT ME: (Oh, and as you can see in the photo, I don’t strap her in.  I know I’m not sup­posed to do that, but seri­ously, look how teeny she is in there.  I’ll strap her in when she gets more mobile.)

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(I know I should have put in a photo of her actu­ally PLAYING with the bouncer, but this was just so cute…ok, fine, here’s a photo where she’s play­ing with it.  And, I know, shame­less cute­ness with the hat.)

8. Fisher Price Rain­for­est Bouncer $64.99 at Babies R Us

STARTED ENJOYING AT: age 2 months, likes it more at 3 months and lik­ing it more all the time

WHY IT’S NOT SO GREAT AT FIRST: Ini­tially she would smack her knees against the mon­key and par­rot that hang down.  While her knees are still around the same spot, she can slide down a lit­tle now and grab onto the toys.  It’s been the past few weeks that she’s REALLY been enjoy­ing this bouncer, play­ing on it up to 45-minutes at a time — occa­sion­ally stop­ping to gig­gle at me or the ceil­ing lamp.

WHAT SAILOR LIKES: It’s got lights, music and a lit­tle mon­key and tree frog that move for her to watch.  It’s sim­ple and great.  The more excited she gets, the more she moves around and the more the bouncer bounces!  Plus, she can now spin the par­rot around his perch.  So excit­ing.  Oh, and there’s a vibrate option on this, too, but again, we don’t use it much.

SEE, BABIES LOVE IT: Before Sailor was born a friend came over with her then 5-month old nephew and we put him on the bouncer.  Appar­ently, he had never been on a bouncer.  He loved it.

Hope this list has been help­ful!  I’ll update it as she gets older, let­ting you know if/when she enjoys things more and when she starts to grow out of some­thing.  Again, feel free to add your own in comments!

“Anx­i­ety” is the word I would use to describe the past few days.  In vary­ing degrees.

And for a num­ber of reasons.

Ever since I read Candice’s post (from Book­ish Pen­guin) about a seg­ment she sat in on at BlogHer 10 about women blog­ging through per­sonal strife, I have been a wor­ry­ing mess.  Even more so than what comes with the ter­ri­tory of hav­ing a child.  She talked about Loralee Choate from Loralee Looney Tunes who had a son who died in 2003 at the age of 3 months – THREE MONTHS – of SIDS.

Sailor turns three months in 11 days.

I can barely han­dle it.  My brain, again, has jumped on the crazy train.  At times, the crazy train slows down enough for some­one to run along side while try­ing to hand me water, and at other times it’s going so fast I might start charg­ing for 30-minute trips to the moon.

Yes­ter­day wasn’t so good.  For a num­ber of reasons.

A friend of mine and her 6-month old daugh­ter decided to make a trip to an out­let mall (woo hoo!) that’s an hour away from here that I never knew existed.  They have a Gym­boree, The Children’s Store, Baby Gap AND Carters – among other, less impor­tant and less excit­ing stores for adults.  It was to be at least a half-day out­ing, if not longer.  I will pretty much only do long out­ings with this par­tic­u­lar friend because she is the most amaz­ing mom to see in action while trav­el­ing.  Her hus­band is on the road a lot and she has been haul­ing her daugh­ter around the county since she was 7 weeks.  This lady is NOT AFRAID of air­line pas­sen­gers who hate kids, of being on a bus for days at a time with sev­eral 20-something fame-ish charged boys, NOR of chang­ing poop dia­pers on the floor of a shoe store.  And she does it all look­ing so unbe­liev­ably styl­ish.  (Kate, for the record – and if this para­graph didn’t make it clear — I think you rock.)

But, that’s not my point.  We were chat­ting on our way to shop­ping won­der­ment and she told me how, right around three months, she started to get pretty para­noid about SIDS.  Well, about ANYTHING hap­pen­ing to her daugh­ter, really.  And, I’m in the same spot.  It’s crazy.  Here’s kind of how my crazy train goes:

Every time I check on her when she’s sleep­ing, as I’m walk­ing to her room, I won­der, what if she’s dead?  What if I go in there and she’s not breath­ing?  What if she’s just lying there, life­less?  Part of me would die for­ever.  What would my par­ents do?  How would my hus­band be?  And, some­where in the back of my mind, I think of the hor­ri­bly depress­ing and sad turn my blog would take!  (Like this is much better.)

When we’re doing her last feed­ing of the night, I won­der, what if this is my last feed­ing EVER with her?  What if this is it?  This bot­tle, her eyes look­ing around the room, her sweet com­plex­ion made sweeter by her pink paja­mas, her eye­brows pop­ping up and down like her mama’s – what if this is my last mem­ory of her?

Oh, God, and it’s AWFUL!  It’s JUST. SO. GODDAMN AWFUL.  And I can’t be alone in this, right?  This love so sharp and all-consuming that the slight­est sliver of a THOUGHT of the loss of its source can deliver a momen­tary fatal blow?

And then – and this now seems so triv­ial com­pared to the above wor­ries – two days ago I went from being a dark brunette for 30 years to being blonde.  No real rea­son.  Some­thing I thought would be fun to try some day.  I’ll go into it more in another post – one that will have pics!  No pic­tures yet, as we’re not done with the whole process.

Any­way, being that we’re not totally done, it’s not yet the color I wanted.  That and, obvi­ously, strip­ping the hell out of my hair has left it, well, less soft than it used to be.

So, yes­ter­day was shop­ping all day and then we took Sailor to din­ner with my par­ents (our first out to din­ner expe­ri­ence with her) and, although she was over­all great, it’s still stress­ful.  Then I got home and start­ing think­ing, what did I do to my hair?  Did I strip it of all its glory?  Should I have just left well enough alone?  Did it just need adjust­ments?  Is it my dark eye­brows that make it look kind of like a wig?  Or just the fact that I’m not at all used to it?

And I wanted to cry.  And I wanted sleep.

And then I started to real­ize that, hey, I haven’t been focus­ing on keep­ing myself GROUNDED.  At all.  I’ve been tak­ing care of baby, of my house, of my hus­band, try­ing to feel bet­ter about my post-baby body by bleach­ing my hair, but I haven’t really con­nected to WHO I AM lately.  All things spir­i­tual have gone out the window.

Once I real­ized that I instantly felt bet­ter.  Not let’s-go-dancing bet­ter, but…better.

Check­ing in with ground con­trol.  Need to keep that on my daily to-do list for the crazy train is in no way a good time.

Who knew this was part of bring­ing a life into the world.

Raise your hand if you have good friends. Ok, nice. Raise your hand if you have good friends who live far away and you don’t get to see them very often. Ok, got it. Now, raise your hand if you PURPOSELY AVOID ANSWERING THE PHONE when that per­son calls for fear of a con­ver­sa­tion last­ing longer than Meatloaf’s “I Would Do Any­thing For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” (I still don’t know what “that” is).

That’s what I thought.

We all do it. Don’t be shy about it. You haven’t talked to your friend in weeks, months, maybe even years.

Your phone rings.

Oh, yay! My phone is ring­ing! Per­haps it’s some­one telling me I’ve just been hired for my dream job / my debt has been erased / I just booked that gig / I won a pony (because really, why WOULDN’T that be the sub­ject of the phone call?).

And you look down and it’s your long lost friend. So long lost, in fact, that you don’t even have a photo ID for her when she calls because the last time you saw her your cell phone resem­bled a freighter.

There her name is. Blink­ing at you. Taunt­ing you. “Don’t you want to talk to me? Aren’t you my friend? What if I’m dying?”

CLICK HERE to read the rest and learn my solution!

Sailor,

Today you turn 10 weeks and 4 days old.  Why a let­ter now?  Why not a two month let­ter?  On August 2^nd, I thought about it.  And I thought, well, I don’t want to overdo it.  A let­ter a month is a lit­tle ridicu­lous, isn’t it?  I mean, she knows I love her.  We don’t need to over indulge here.

Two nights ago my brain went a lit­tle crazy.  All of a sud­den, shortly before your last feed­ing for the night, my left ear went out.  I could hear out of it, but not well.  It’s hap­pened before, but it usu­ally bounces right back. Five min­utes in to feed­ing you and about 90 min­utes in to my weird ear thing, it started to freak me out.  Look­ing at you, my brain started down a twisted path.  What if what­ever was hap­pen­ing to my ear was related to this other thing that hap­pens to my jaw and what if it’s all caused by a brain tumor?  What if some­thing hap­pens to me and I’m not around to see my daugh­ter grow up?  What if some­thing hap­pened early in your life where your only mem­o­ries of me were through pho­tos, videos, sto­ries other peo­ple told you and…

…let­ters.

That was it.  It was decided then and there.  You are going to get TONS of let­ters from me.  You are the light­ness in my heart and although every­thing should go as things should go, life is unexpected.

It was in that same moment that I under­stood your father when he says he couldn’t bear the idea of not being around to see you grow up.  My thought about going early was always what would hap­pen to YOU with­out a MOM?  I hadn’t really thought about not being able to see you expe­ri­ence life.

So, today you turn 10 weeks and 4 days old.  Cur­rently, you are nap­ping in your crib.  On your tummy.  I know I’m not sup­posed to do that, but you sleep so much bet­ter and your doc­tor told me we should lay you on the left side of your head dur­ing naps to help the mild flat­head case you’re sport­ing on your right side.  (Sorry about that.)

In the weeks since you turned one month you have begun smil­ing like crazy, hit­ting objects, and suck­ing on your fin­gers like they were the only thing that could pro­vide nour­ish­ment.  And it’s so loud!  Last Sat­ur­day you grabbed an object for the first time – the rings on Buzz the Bug that Papa has hang­ing over your Pack n’ Play at their house.  You’re still not an expert grab­ber, but grab­bing is not out of your grasp. (ha)  Oh!  And you went in the pool for the first time two days ago!  Fit­tingly, it was in Nanny’s pop-up pool.  You didn’t seem to mind it.  You’ve also begun enjoy­ing being lifted high over our heads.  No longer does the space between you and the ground and you and your holder scare you, no, you gig­gle and SMILE!  Boy, do you smile.

You have rocked your father’s and my world in the cra­zi­est ways – open­ing our hearts to a love we never knew, aid­ing in mak­ing us sleepier than we’ve ever been, and plant­ing a gar­den of worry in our heads.  I have never wor­ried more about los­ing some­thing.  If I ever lost you, I would crum­ble to the ground in a pile of rub­ble.  And, like the 5,000 piece, two-sided puz­zle of a blue whale under the sea that I once worked on with my Pop Pop, I don’t know if putting it back together would be a task I could take on with success.

And, every time those wor­ries pop up, I try to put them out of my mind.  Because, in this moment, I DO have you.  You’re teach­ing me to be more in the moment and to enjoy it – even when you’re tired, cranky and cry­ing.  Each moment with you is spe­cial.  It has its own life, its own energy.  Each moment lives, some more briefly than oth­ers, and then ends to give birth to a new moment.  No mat­ter what each one brings, they are moments that we will never get back again.

So, my dear, beau­ti­ful, obser­vant Sailor Bear, please know that I show up in those moments with you as your mom and as some­one who loves you with all her heart.  I show up as present as I can be in each given moment know­ing that you can ONLY show up fully present because you know noth­ing else.  It’s a beau­ti­ful, mag­i­cal, awe-filled place to be.

Happy 10 weeks and 4 days.  Mommy loves you.

This is my first meme!  Woo hoo!  I’m so excited.

This meme is from MamaKat at Mama’s Losin’ It.  It’s her weekly Writer’s Work­shop.

The prompt I chose is:  The cra­zi­est rea­son I ever got in trou­ble as a child.

Except I’m going to write about the cra­zi­est rea­son I ever THOUGHT I was going to get in trou­ble as a child, but didn’t.

In third grade two of my friends and I were into codes.  Namely, writ­ing notes in codes so that other peo­ple couldn’t deci­pher them.  The code we had going at the time was numer­i­cal.  We had a num­ber for each let­ter of the alpha­bet.  Clev­erly enough, it went like this: A=1, B=2 (I don’t need to do fur­ther, do I?).

AND, not only was I inter­na­tional spy-like in my clev­er­ness, I was also Type A-like in my orga­ni­za­tion.  I made up decoder charts that had a flap that closed and tucked into the cor­ners.  If I could have fig­ured out how to attach a reti­nal scan­ner and still have it fit in my pen­cil box, I would have.

Shortly after start­ing our secret ring of numer­i­cal secret­ness, we dis­cov­ered that we could spell all kinds of things with­out hav­ing peo­ple know.  Namely, curse words.  And even more namely, the F word.

F=6
U=21
C=3
K=11

Six, twenty one, three, eleven.

We wrote those num­bers every­where.  We wrote them so often I STILL recall those four num­bers like a nurs­ery rhyme.  Then we got bold and started writ­ing them dur­ing recess in chalk on the paved parts of the play­ground.  There they were, for the WORLD to see!

Six, twenty one, three, eleven.

For the TEACHERS to see!  Ha!  Look at all these teach­ers with their unknow­ing ways as they paced over SIX. TWENTY ONE. THREE. ELEVEN.

I was such a good kid and this was SO bad.  So, so, so bad.  I started to get ner­vous and anx­ious.  What if they found out?  What if they found out my friends and I were writ­ing FUCK all over the place?  Oh, God.  What if they found out that I was the one who cre­ated our code?  What if the MASTERMIND BEHIND IT ALL WAS EXPOSED?!

It got so I couldn’t sleep.  I couldn’t con­cen­trate in class.  I tore up my decoder chart.  But there were still two oth­ers out there.  How could I get my hands on them before the teach­ers did?  Before they called my par­ents?  BEFORE I WAS SENTENCED TO DEATH BY BEHEADING?

A plan was hatched.  I would offer to clean out my friends’ pen­cil boxes — like I said, I was very good at orga­ni­za­tion — and I would take their charts and tear them up just like I had my own (which was a shame because I had done SUCH a good job on them).  But, what would they think when they got their boxes back with no chart?  Would they ask me about it?  Would I tell them I didn’t know what they were talk­ing about?  If I told them I destroyed it, they might tell on me and I’d be fac­ing the guil­lo­tine again.

I had to risk it.

They handed over their boxes, no prob­lem.  Ha!  My plan was work­ing and they had no idea.  I emp­tied out the boxes, care­fully slid­ing the charts in my desk and swiftly brin­ing my hands back to table­top level as if noth­ing out of the ordi­nary was hap­pen­ing.  My mas­ter plan com­pleted with two highly clean and orga­nized pen­cil boxes ready to go back to their own­ers — sans decoder charts.

I handed them back with a steady hand and a ner­vous heart.

I waited.

Noth­ing.

I waited longer.

Noth­ing.

I kept waiting.

Hadn’t they opened their pen­cil boxes by now?!  Jesus!

Noth­ing.

Noth­ing ever hap­pened.  I never got in trou­ble.  But really, why would I?  My friends never men­tioned about the miss­ing charts.

But for a solid week, I was scared 19–8-9–20-less.

Ever have one of those days where you find that your emo­tions have formed their own ter­ror­ist cell and that YOU are their per­sonal 9/11?  And that they have also hijacked the behav­ior of those around you INCLUDING YOUR DOG using high tech fin­ger­print pass­codes and reti­nal scans all designed to help them in their nasty plot?

Ever wish the tears com­ing out of your eyes could be used to fill the koi pond that doesn’t exist in your back­yard so you had your own serene oasis to retreat to?  And wouldn’t it be great if one of those koi was a yogi and you could med­i­tate with it and it would shove a paci­fier of wis­dom straight in your face leav­ing you bug-eyed and all OH, OK, I’M OK AGAIN. THANK YOU.?

Ever have one of those weeks when your stub­born post-baby belly (or any remain­ing unwanted chunk of yuck­i­ness) seems to have planted a flag for a new Roman Empire?  And you’ve gotta believe that one day it’ll fall, but for now it’s the most pow­er­ful empire on the planet?  And every­one knows it’s there because Yahoo posted the satel­lite pho­tos of it on their home page?

Ever have one of those months when you only cycle through four pairs of remain­ing unwanted chunk of yuck­i­ness pants as if they were the pop­u­lar crowd and you des­per­ately wanted to be in the pop­u­lar crowd, but they just don’t get your sense of humor and you want to go back to the peo­ple who GET your sense of humor but you ditched those peo­ple and now they think you’re a sell­out and it’s going to be a while until you can earn their trust?  And until then you’re stuck in SWEATS and CAPRIS?

Ever have one of those times where you need a nap so bad that you think it’s your call­ing?  That God Him­self sent you a mes­sage via cloud sym­bol­ism let­ting you know that you could best serve human­ity by grab­bing a soft throw and falling asleep for a few hours?

Uh huh.

Me, too.

Wanna share about one of those days for you?  Please do!