i am very impressed.

You rolled over twice this morning, front to back, counter-clockwise. I'm pretty sure both were deliberate.

Labels: milestones

she's going to be referring to herself in the third person ALL the time. Like George. And that would be annoying.

Labels: mamadom

Pumpkin pie totally counts as a vegetable.

Labels: food

you're smiling lots.

you're chatty.

You like looking at the mobile above your crib. Haven't tried a nap in the crib, yet, but you like the mobile and will talk to it for a good five minutes. Or did this morning.

For whatever reason you don't at all mind lying on the changing setup in the bathroom. So for however long it was today you laid there and watched me sing to you and cut my hair. The nice thing about cutting my own hair is that afterwards one is unafraid of fixing it and cutting off anything that somehow got missed; when i used to go to a Real Salon it's always a little scary because what if they left that little bit longer on one side for a reason? But my hair was long and you were grabbing it and you're getting good at holding on, and that hurts mommy.

In a related note, i can't believe how fast your fingernails grow.

And you're still not accepting bottles. M thinks you're teething - there are funny ridges under your gums, and they're pointy, and we don't think they were there before, and when we put baby Ambesol on them then you're happy (but you make some crazy faces with the taste). Except you're not supposed to be teething for another month yet, if the average is "three to eight months," and eight weeks is not three months by a pretty good margin. But if one in a thousand babies is born with teeth already in then it can't be that uncommon to start early. But all the cold teethy frozen things are made for people with mouths that are larger than your mouth, so they don't really, um, fit. And that makes us feel bad for you.

Labels: baby, mamadom, milestones

So this morning was a massive snowing thunderstorm. M slept through it entirely. I just barely woke up. and that was just because E was thinking about waking up and making her little maybe-i'll-wake-up and-then-again-maybe-i-won't noises. Having been sleeping for six hours already one can't really blame her for happening to be considering waking up just then and i think it was a coincidence.

Hopefully there will never be a fire alarm.

Labels: family

multi-spoiler

and THEN, he dies and reincarnates and number Ten is Barty Crouch Junior!

Labels: media

and in which there is a ridiculous amount of food that i can't even pretend is "enough for two people" because the leftovers is the entire POINT and i don't miss the turkey dinner and the table and the football, i miss the leftovers and the sandwiches and the next day:

• two turkey breasts, since i can find entire geese and ducks at the store but not entire turkeys
• roast veg, incl. taters and carrots and onyons and pumpkinny bits and walnuts and kurbiskernol
• bread crumb dressing, which i did a pretty damn good job with, considering there is no such thing as Poultry Seasoning on this side of the planet
• corn
• green bean casserole
• store-bought preiselbeerens, which is as close as i could find to cranberry-sauce-with-lines (and, really, takes the place of it perfectly well; i can't even remember what proper lined cranberry sauce tastes like)
• fakey fakey pumpkin cheesecake stuff with these-aren't-graham-cracker cookies
• honey-waffle Amsterdam cookies

Labels: festivities

i should really get this for A Certain Special Someone. I've never understood how that could be somebody's favorite scene (after all, it doesn't feature Clemenza) but there you go.

Note: i'm not really going to buy it (not only because i think my PayPal account is completely borked; anything they don't have on amazon.com is gonna be too complicated this year, if we even buy anyone any presents at all, which isn't looking like the surest thing ever) but, Dad, if you want a giant dead horse head, there it is. Thought that counts, what what.

Also, another reason chunky peanut butter can kiss my butt is that these fakey saltine crackers are not sturdy enough to scoop it out of the jar. It's a conspiracy.

Labels: emptor

Socks.

I don't recognize the Christmas music they're about to start playing on the radio.

We didn't turn out to need help in the fertility department. We know multiple sets of people who really want a baby and are trying really hard, and it isn't working, and i feel awful for them and i hope it all kicks into gear very very soon, and it's way more common than anybody thinks it is to need help, since you always hear about people getting pregnant completely by accident. But it can take years and years and thousands of dollars. So.

The Neiman Marcus christmas gift book can be viewed for free online.

I have a well-equipped apartment in a pretty good location.

In Vienna.

I can still vote from abroad.

I had an incredibly easy pregnancy. Many people have awful issues here too: with the nonstop morning sickness that isn't just in the morning, no matter what they say, with the blood pressure and complications thereof, with pregnancy diabetes and preeclampsia, with Rhesus factors being incompatible, with backaches and headaches and joint problems, and all i had to do was wake up to roll over. Pregnancy is not a walk in the park, but all i got was a walk through the really not so nice district, rather than nine months of sheer black hell. Also i had nine months of it instead of having preterm labor and a preemie baby, which is simultaneously more common and more scary than you would think.

Pizza delivery.

I can fit a shower in most days.

Related: I have the bestest husband in the history of husbands.

There are people that i love and that love me literally all over the world. (I hope more of them visit.)

Our bed is very, very comfy. That mattress that was more expensive than i wanted it to be was worth it and we haven't even been sleeping on it a year yet. Nasa foam for the win!

The restaurant downstairs is yummy and not really expensive.

I got in almost two days of mostly-natural labor, which i wanted to try for. Birth did not go entirely according to plan, but i am happy with the choices i made and how it was under the circumstances. Having a second degree episiotomy, and the healing thereof, was not as bad as i was afraid (blankly panicky terrified) of. I didn't have to have a c-section.

Coffee.

There is an english bookstore downtown (or, well, three) if i get desperate.

Our kinda-central heating works.

Seriously, i have great fucking skin.

Red wine is considered good for you these days.

The dogs, being nearly-five and nearly-six, are quite calm, by now, most of the time, and unless they're ill only need two walks a day.

The fruit here really is better.

When i bought that pair of boots, i could donate two pairs of shoes that they were replacing - the pair of scrappy boots, and also the pair of warmer but cuter non-boot shoes. Seeing as how these were both (1) boots and (2) cute.

There is an Ikea nearby where i can get a warm fleecy throw blanket.

Cillian Murphy.

I have the cutest baby ever in the entire world. she's beautiful, and makes the prettiest little noises, and has the most adorable blond little eyelashes, and ten fingers, and ten toes, and a little pink birthmark on the back of her neck just above her hairline that'll be invisible when her hair grows in more.

I'm not a vegetarian and can therefore eat turkey this weekend.

The pregnancy weight (which there wasn't very much of to begin with) came off easily (by me not doing anything more than continuing to walk more than i have ever walked in my life). This is not normal.

Sometimes M makes me tea. (see also: bestest husband.)

The dogs are cooperative in making the bed warm before i get into it.

I can't tell anyone because it'll jinx it, but she slept seven hours in a row last night. I can put her down half awake in the bassinet, sometimes, and she figures it out and goes to sleep on her own. (Note: sometimes.) She is not colicky, we haven't had issues with breastfeeding (except some oversupply and some extra lipase, but that's like nothing!), she likes walking so i'm not totally housebound, she doesn't have awful painful gas, she's seven weeks old and healthy and gaining weight on target, she's not screamy, and she is utterly perfect in every way we have so far encountered.

Labels: baby, festivities, reflection, writing

i did blog yesterday, just not here. so there.

Labels: internet

You had your hearing tested yesterday even though i was pretty sure it was fine - "recommended for all newborns," so - and of course you passed, a little on the fussy side, sure, but not the worst baby the doc had ever seen by a long shot - and i say of course you passed because not only do you startle at noises, you have favorite syllables to practise saying. Nnnngggg and aawguh. And when i say to M that you made that sound that you make after you sneeze, he knows what i am talking about. Probably because it is the cutest sound in the entire world.

You have completely grown out of all the "newborn" clothes. We did manage to get you to wear most of them first. Also with all the laundry we have learned that it takes two days for the Ergo carrier to really dry, so it is nice having the sling as well. You get heavy. And while i'm sure we're building muscle picking you up and putting you down and mostly holding you all the time, you are also growing. Fast. Theoretically i could find one of these parent centers and they would weigh you whenever i showed up but it is still pretty complicated to leave the house, and while i manage to most days, it just sounds like an unnecessary challenge. You are growing out of stuff regularly and have lots of diapers: these must be perfectly appopriate measurements, no?

You have started getting more predictable as to what you will want. Quite often of course we're still wrong, but progress is progress. But you aren't ever going to want your fingernails done, are you? They can get pretty sharp and pointy, especially when you are feeling grabby and it is three in the morning ... i need to remember where the tiny nail file is tomorrow.

There is no longer any kind of bald patch on your head: while your hair is not done falling out yet it is growing in right back behind it. A bit lighter, but. There are two spots left where your hair is still, i guess, both birth-hair and baby-hair, and they're a little longer and denser. But i wouldn't call you mangy-looking at all, unlike dog no. 2, who we decided needed a haircut after missing his second shed - that haircut was, i have to admit, something of an amateur job. (Furminator still rocking the house.)

ooh, you have hiccups. i think you're waking up. and you're waking up all smiley. whee!

Labels: baby, milestones

Proper boots: black, waterproof, decent grippy soles, flat or near-flat heel. Preferably mid-calf, no fleece showing, leather.

Check, check (Goretex boots have an actual guarantee!), check, check (flat), check (zipper closure), check, part-check (part velour, i think). The wintery waterproof snowbooty-yet-cute selection in Vienna far surpasses that in Texas.

Labels: emptor

please, god, she'll sleep better tonight. And be sleeping tomorrow when she's supposed to be sleeping for the dr's appt, while we're at it.

also, what's with suddenly refusing the pacifiers and bottles? This is new.

And a heads up: you get more pictures on Flickr, for anyone who might be hungry for more pictures of baby, there are more. You just have to make a login and be my reciprocal friend.

Labels: baby, media

All my pants are too big.

The skinny pants, even. I have - i had - a pair of extra-skinny jeans, that i looked fantastic in, that i'd had since high school, and i donated them before coming here. I want them back, dammnit.

I am not happy about this. I DO NOT want to go clothes shopping just because i will otherwise have butt-cleavage remainders. Also, how am i supposed to go shopping with a baby? do i have to take the stroller? do i have to take M? do i just have to pump a whole bunch first and hope for the best? And these were all pants that once fit perfectly - am i obligated to get rid of them, or can i bet on them being the right size at some point in the future? Do nice pants get a different treatment than jeans? Why is this happening to me? And why now?

This isn't even touching the issue of what to do with maternity and already-outgrown baby clothes.

Labels: emptor

lemmings!

via S.

Labels: internet, media

so we have a camera, and many rechargeable batteries. And we have a video-dvd-corder, too, also with rechargeable batteries, and even with a rechargeable light. And you're perfect and beautiful and doing all these things, like grinning at me when you wake up and realize you're about to get picked up! whee! you love being picked up! so you grin and it is gorgeous, all rainbows and sunshine and birdsong. (Also, you like eric clapton. Good baby.) But we are so busy with the you that we aren't taking very many pictures. And ... the video-dvd-corder is still ... kinda ... in its box. We did get it out and play around with it a bit. But you're you! you keep needing US to do STUFF, and if you only need one of us then the other one is making dinner or doing laundry or cleaning the floor where mommy left a new bottle of dark, thick, sticky soy sauce on the counter and it fell over (thanks, dog no. 1) and broke all over the place, just for instance. And i'm not sure when we're supposed to have time to take care of you, and take care of us, and also use the video-dvd-corder. And that's without factoring in Skype or zombie flash mobs or christkindlmarkts or anything. And i can blog when you're sleeping, because is video of a sleeping baby really that exciting? And i can take pictures of you when you're sleeping. (and i do.) Plus both M and me, our parents had big heavy camcorders, and i think my grandfather had some thing that would actually take reels of film? And there were always people around that instead of doing STUFF were paying attention to the machinery and saying things like what? oh, i missed it, could you do that again? and that sort of ... seems silly. Because the way i take pictures, snapshots, it sort of prevents one from interacting with the subject - one is fiddling with the settings and trying to get the best angle instead of engaging at all. but so the video-dvd-corder is getting kind of dusty.

Labels: baby, house, media

It snowed here and somebody in the park made a snowman and by the time i took the dogs out for their evening walk most of the snow had melted but the snowman was still mostly there, though toppled over, and the dogs were very suspicious of it as i'm not entirely sure they've seen a half-melted snowman before, so we went over to it, slowly and suspiciously, and they sniffed at it and then it was fine. But it snowed! Lots! And the dogs are silly and fun.

Also there was a zombie flash mob on mariahilferstrasse on saturday but all the zombie flash mobs i have seen or heard of happened in places where it was warm, yeah? And the idea of getting possible blood stains on my winter coat - since it was, what, four degrees out - not so appealing. Hopefully they'll have another one in summer.

And the christmas markets have started.

Labels: dogs, festivities, vienna

we have been exclusively breastfeeding for six weeks. And while you have a stated preference for the boob, you've pretty well figured out most of the time that bottles have mommy's milk in them, too. (note: we have the Avent Isis, and it works well enough. Meaning i'm not sure a more expensive pump would work any better.) Time goes very fast. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with us having had other people around every second of the day

okay. hold on. Clearly there is something here i am bitter about. Look, i'm sorry. i didn't want to be right. really i would have loved to not be. But i wanted it to be Us Three, or Us Five if you Count the Dogs, and it hasn't been until now, and i wanted it to be our little family, you know? I didn't want unending help, i didn't want extended-length visitors, i didn't want to have to think about anyone except us. Only i did. So i don't know, now, what would have been different? I couldn't concentrate. I never can, with visitors. I think if i'd had you all to myself i'd have learned quicker that really you DO want to sleep twenty hours in a day, or more, and that it's worthless trying to sing to you or swing you or entertain you or postpone anything, that it'll just result in more tears, and instead there have been all these people around who have done this before and Clearly Think They Know What's Best, and it's just really, really frustrating at this point. I should have worded things more strongly. I should have put my foot down. This is my family. This is my one shot. And i feel like only now, you're six weeks old, and i'm only now starting to figure this out. Because i listened to them. All. And i really shouldn't have. Because this is a hell of a learning curve already and i didn't need to screw myself over extra.

Liz,

this is your get out of jail free card. You are responsible for this tiny person. You are going to have to defend her. Grow a fucking backbone. Some cojones. And if your mental health is at risk because of something, then fix it. For her sake at least. And whatever it takes will be worth it. What kind of feminist would raise a child without a strong woman for a momma? You need to be a good example and stand up to people. and, like, stuff.

Love, liz

All you want is food, or changed, or sleep. You aren't manipulative enough for much more and those things are challenging enough. And if you don't want food, and you don't want changed, but you are hollering, you probably want sleep. Sometimes you want to burp and sometimes you want to poo. But these are more transitory - and really i think you're getting to be proficient at burping on your own, in any random position you happen to be in. And pooing is usually over pretty quickly and is obvious while it is happening - you turn red, and grunt, and sort of scrunch your whole little self up. Anyway. You're waking up.

Labels: baby, mamadom, milestones

is that it is so damn delicious. (More things i have found in my house: diabetic low-sugar strawberry jam; raspberry and rhubarb jam; tuna fish; mayonnaise; oddly preservative-filled waffles; powdered mix for pasta sauce. Did anyone even know that last existed? Nope. i think there are powdered tomatoes in it and that is just wrong.) People come here on vacation and eat whatever they want, which is fine (tuna fish? seriously?) but then i get used to having chocolate and cookies and lovely, lovely, high-fat, cholesterol-ridden whole milk in my coffee. I don't want to get used to having whole milk, because then the regular stuff tastes like privation. Not even skim, but one percent, one and a half percent. sigh. Similarly i don't want to get used to having chocolate around whenever i want it. Now i want chocolate, see? When i did not have chocolate, i did not want it. Now i have to make a conscious decision to not buy more nutella. and what fun is that?

The other problem is that i get used to having this honest, real bread. That i look at these funny waffles in their plastic package, which has been open to the air for some days now because i ate a couple and it's not resealable, which by the by i don't think has been invented yet around here, actual resealable packaging - they try to put it on bags, but it doesn't ever actually work. And the waffles, they're not stale, and they're not moldy, unlike every other self-respecting bread product would be, and i wonder what in the world is wrong with them, what they did to those damn waffles. And, shit, that i ate a few. And then i get a little sick to my stomach. (But that might have been the milk.)

Labels: food

equal parts:
oyster sce (or, presumably, hoisin sce)
sweet chili paste
peanut butter
water
and possibly some lemon juice (lime might work better.)

Works well on crispy crispy tofu.

Labels: food

i made M reinstall warcraft.

Labels: media

things i have not purchased, that have shown up anyway in my kitchen:

spaghetti
peach juice
strawberry juice
clementines
eggy soup noodles
a cheese grater
sugar
chunky peanut butter
weird bread rolls
pastry assortments
rosehip jelly
apricot jelly
strawberry jelly
apples
funny ham spread
tiramisu
absinthe
flour
whole milk
non-seedless grapes
frozen vegetables
and more frozen vegetables
a wide assortment of frozen vegetables
pears
gigantic blocks of cheese
chocolate bars
chocolate bars with hazelnuts in them
chocolate bars with caramel in them
chocolate bars with bits of orange peel
chocolate bars with strawberry foamy stuff
a whisk
buttermilk
wide egg noodles
soup packets of decent soup
dysfunctional soup packets of dry creamy soup
decaffinated Earl Grey tea
ice cream

I could color-code it by source, but that would be work.

Labels: house, people

my god. not that i don't like people. but TIRED.

Finally.

Labels: people

however, No idea here what that is in Eu. but still. i really ought to connect my itunes to a bank account that hasn't been cashed. hee.

new stuff on itunes: MOTHER, the movie. (link will open your itunes store right up for you! so convenient!) Support your short-film art scene! (And also my rockstar directorial-type cousin!) and she's won prizes and stuff for it, so it's not just me that thinks it's worth a watch. (Dooo itt!)

No, like, pressure, or anything. (Dooo itt!)

Labels: family, media

so with the two dogs we have a lot of dog hair. And dog no. 2 - or, well both of them - they shed twice a year. On schedule. Only dog no. 2 missed his spring shed this year so he has been extra fuzzy. And so our floor is always fuzzy, and now that we have hardwood floors instead of carpet you notice it a lot more, and also now that we have no yard for them to be outside in for a large part of the day, they shed more inside, obviously. Our floors here are much hairier than our floors were in texas. And so we got this new thing, a furminator, which is like a pointy little metal comb thing. Most dog combs are metal, i guess: but this one is very pointy, and does not cut hair, but pulls out all the undercoat stuff. And it is wonderful on dog no. 1, the shepherd-heeler theoretical mix. On dog no. 2, the spitz-chow-coyote-god-knows-what theoretical mix, we currently have a wide stripe down the middle of his back de-undercoated, but he still has, um, a lot of fur in other places. It works best on unmatted hair, of course, and we got all of that out in the first twenty-four hours of owning said furminator (it's kinda fun to say: try it. The process is apparently termed furmination). And now it's uncovered mats that, honestly, we suspected a bit but which no brush or comb has ever proven the existence of before. We had never actually found one. Like a black hole. So in that sense - also in the spectacularness of how well it works on dog no. 1, and in the Muppet-holocaust scene of lost fur we've been leaving behind us at the dog parks, which of course is fur that won't end up on our floor - the Furminator is a success. And worth the price tag, though i'd be shocked if they're not making a zillion percent profit on each damn one. It's just a fucking comb.

But since the MIL is visiting i can't tell if our floors are comparatively cleaner or not, because with all of us sweeping i haven't got a feel for how often we're cleaning and how fast the dog hair is reaccumulating. It seems like there's less of it but it might just be her. Either way it's a pleasant thing.

Labels: dogs, emptor, house

You have almost learned to smile: or you did, and sometimes you forget. Yesterday morning you smiled at me a dozen times in an hour - and at M, too - only you haven't done it since. We haven't replicated the exact conditions for you. But, oh honey, it made me cry. What can i get you? A pony? Ruby slippers? You really want to try peanut butter before you're two? If i never sleep again - i can say this now, and regret it later - that smile makes it all okay.

But this. You. Something about this is so natural, so easy, so familiar. Like a favorite old pair of jeans i'd forgotten. This is the new normal so fast.

Labels: mamadom, reflection

and you have gained three pounds and an inch and a half, to 4.5kg/10lb and 55cm/22". You are smiling more often, and more pointedly; you are looking across the room; and you are holding up your head for longer and longer. You are not, unlike baby-me, a tiny extra from The Exorcist, being that you have so far had a total dearth of projectile vomiting. Not that you don't spit up, it just doesn't go anywhere. Also, not pea soup. Just baby-cheese. Sometimes we call you our little cheesehead. Someday you will go to Wisconsin and see why this is funny. Other times we, meaning me, call you our little frog, or our little rosebud, or just our little. Even though you are rapidly becoming Also Very Big.

Your clothes are really starting in on being too small. I have to sort through them! You are an above-average length, according to the growth charts, and so you aren't going to be wearing "zero to three" for much longer. And maybe you just have big feet, but it's been a close thing to not misplace any socks yet. I think you are in the middle of a growth spurt - since Tuesday or so you you have been eating what seems, even now, even after you have been eating nonstop all month, now, you are really eating nonstop. Your daddy's family is here visiting and they keep saying, you think she's hungry again? and then, you're hungry again. I'm right. Mostly it is my first guess because of the timing; but you do this head-bobbing thing too. You have a distinctive staccato cry, too, but I haven't figured out if there's a particular context for that yet. So we are starting to work on this thing called communication. I think it will take a while.

In a TMI moment, you have become a pretty reliable once-a-day, or sometimes-every-other-day, pooper. They say your baby's shit won't stink but they are wrong. Maybe it doesn't stink as much. I asked my mom if she thought yours did, to see if the your-baby's-doesn't, if it was somehow heritable, and she said she didn't think so. But she is in love with you, so she is biased. I haven't asked M's mum yet but she does call you my baby. My mom did too. Anyway. Worth a shot. It makes for less messy diapers most of the time, which means cloth diapering is going much easier than i thought. However that one, when it comes, is big. The other mamas in the vienna babies' club are always impressed.

And we bought you some new pacifiers, because you so clearly prefer our fingers to the old ones. The new ones are not symmetrical - they're ergonomic, or tooth-friendly, or promote good gum health, or something. Not symmetrical. Still super cute. Also now we have, with this one purchase of a two-pack, doubled our pacifier supply. Much more likely there'll be one in reach. See? Your parents are learning.

Twice, you have slept during the night for five consecutive hours. There is no clear pattern as to what we can do to encourage this. A friend swears by the foie-gras treatment, but we tried that, and you spat up. No dice.

Also, you have just begun to giggle in your sleep. Or that's what it sounds like to me. Giggling in your sleep is much better than the drowning, coughy, congested noises that are apparently normal for newborns but make M and i freak right on out. I think the pediatrician has to answer that question for every single new parent he gets, his response was so practiced.

And your hair is falling out, starting on the very top of your head. Also normal, along with your dry skin, along with your not being colicky, not really. So for a moment you were like a little bald man: but now i think you are getting M's white-blond hair. It's very light, and hard to see, but it's there.

Labels: baby, mamadom, milestones

i do not think i have ever met someone before who did not like Nutella.

Shouldn't that be in the DSM-IV?

Labels: food

*not very factual on motorcycles either

:anmut: :annika: :chin: :dooce: :ewok mama: :food: :little frog school: :lj: :longform: :low odysseys: :natalya: :rich: :salon: :slate: :this is how: :unique yn:



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