I'm back

Excuse.  Excuse.  Apology. Apology. Picture of preturnaturally cute baby. That about sums up this post, n'est pas?

Her Mother's daughter - learning the importance of cheese, croissants and wine mulitculturalism.

I'm back, and I have been properly shamed, but I can offer a few million excuses to break the ice if you would prefer. Let's start with the fact that in addition to taking care of this sweet little cherub, life has somehow been even busier than usual. If everyone's life is like this, please excuse me, but sometimes I feel like they gave the lead horse on my merry-go-round uppers.

Over the holidays, we hosted Thanksgiving, a pre-Christmas Christmas, Christmas Eve, New Years Eve and New Years Day. Oh yeah, and immediately following the holidays we had a good friend come to stay with us for the past few weeks. A good friend who does not make a very good houseguest. (read - NEEDY.)

I've also started planning for AG's birthday party, since it is now less than two months away! I'm not sure how I'm going to handle having a full fledged toddler, but her party is giving me an outlet to not have to think about that yet. Denial and crudités, anyone?

I am going to attempt to stay on the (blog) wagon this time.  I have lots of things to share - including some wonderful new recipes I've tried and many, many more pictures of above cute baby.  Wish me luck.

Ahem...

*ahem* 

*hangs head in shame*

Mrs. Lovely here - currently still alive, also currently a failure at blogging.  Back soon with updates and a ridiculous amount of pictures. 

For now, its back to enjoying the little things - like real, live Sophie giraffes. 

Mommy Misgivings

It's Monday Tuesday, and we're back from another whirlwind trip around the state. We had a hectic but wonderful weekend, and it got off to a great start when we got to see some good friends who live in Charleston. We all went out to dinner together (including AG) and I found myself in an unfamiliar situation.

I was the Mommy expert.

Ha! So far I've managed to keep AG mostly unharmed (more on the choking incident over the weekend some other time), but I would never go so far as to classify myself as an expert. But there we were, and the Mrs. half of our friends started asking me questions. How did I like motherhood? How had it changed our lives? Was it everything I thought it would be?

That was me a few years ago. As our friends started having children I began to grow more and more curious. I would grill them ask politely what having kids was really like.  How had it changed their lives? Was it worth it?

I came to discover that even after my twenty questions sessions, I still had no idea. At all. I had rarely been around infants, and the Captain never had. I was wrong about so many things. It's so much harder than I thought. And it's so much better than I could ever have imagined.

I now can understand how Mom jeans came to be. You spend your time, and your money, on your children. I never realized I could (mostly happily) pass up a new pair of pumps so that I could afford a tiny pair of patent leathers. Heaven help me, I hope I don't ever get to the fashion abyss that is mom jeans, but I can see how some end up there.

One of my biggest misconceptions was how much time I (thought) I would have. Seriously. I had a good seventy four things on my maternity leave to-do list. None of these were related to the actual said maternal product. They were more along the lines of "organize bathroom cabinets" instead of "provide care to completely helpless new creature". You don't have to look underneath my bathroom sink to know which won that little contest.

The main thing though is that somehow, you manage to figure it all out. I remember, before I had AG, looking at one of my friends with her daughter and thinking how natural she looked, and being a little jealous. I didn't realize that somehow you just become that natural when its your own child. Somehow it all makes sense. Somehow, you figure (most) of it out.  If you don't,  you have your parents and friends, pediatrician, and the all together frightening internet to help sort everything else out.  Who knew?

Seven Months

Happy Seven Months AG!

You are still my sweet little girl. More and more of your personality is starting to come through, and I think you might have a little spice to go with all of the sugar we've seen.   You think everything is wonderful and exciting, except for solid foods. You have tried rice cereal, oatmeal, bananas, apples, sweet potatoes and plums. You didn't like the bananas, and you really didn't like the plums!

Plums

You are turning into a true social butterfly. We have play dates at the park and the zoo, and you charm everyone you meet. You love to ham for the camera, and you grin every time I try to take your picture (which is often!). If you are starting to get a little fussy for any reason, once you notice someone new around you turn on the charm and quickly become happy again.

Your first teeth are starting to come through on the bottom. It went from one, to two, then four very quickly! Once you sat up on your own everything has happened even faster. You started pulling up right after you turned six month and crawling the week after that. No one believed you could crawl yet until I put you on the ground with your Daddy's iPad at the other end of the room!

You weigh 17 lbs and are wearing nine month clothes and size three diapers.  You still don't have much hair, but I can see where its slowly starting to grow on the back of your head.  That's ok with me though - I tell everyone that you are using all of your energy to grow your brain and hair can wait!

Your Daddy and I love you more and more every day, sweet girl.

Love,
Your Mama