Parenting Isn't All Bad

Lest anyone think that I don't love being a mother. I do. And it isn't all bad. And in the past 13 weeks of motherhood I have learned a great deal! So I dedicate this weekend to the good:

I have for example learned that E is an overachiever. The first milestone E achieved early, was loosing her umbilical cord. She was only 5 days old when it fell off. I was terrified. I googled and read endlessly, everything said 7 days. Was this 2 days ahead of time dooming her to some horrible infection? Was this a big problem? Should I call the emergency hot line to find out what I should do? I called the Dr. during regular hours and was ASSURED it was PERFECTLY fine! Well, ok, fine then. The next developmental milestone was far more exciting. Rolling over. She did it for the first time at 7 weeks and 2 days. She did it twice more that evening for Daddy to see and she did it a couple more times the next day. Then she stopped doing it. When I told the Dr that she rolled over at 7 weeks and 2 days, the first thing she said to me was "but she didn't do it again did she?" I said, sure. And explained. The Dr then said, Ok then, let's see what other milestones she's FLOWN by. I WAS SO PROUD! She rolls over all the time now. I found out the reason she stopped doing it was that the tummy time mat was too slippery. But a couple weeks ago I tried to put her down on her tummy right on the carpet. She took, one look at me, and then FLOP, onto her back she went. I was so excited. I jumped up and down and clapped every time she did it for several days, now it's old news! The only bad thing is I now can NOT keep her ON her tummy for "tummy time". But that's ok. She'll be walking by next week anyhow! I've also been told her head control was far before her time, but as I have nothing to compare that to, I'll just have to take others words for it. My husband and I call her our little bobble head because when she gets tired she tries so hard to keep her head up, but it starts to bobble all over the place.

Anyway, onto the next thing I have learned about E. She's impatient. When she decides she can't wait another second for dinner, she starts screaming bloody murder and won't stop until she's getting food. Which can be a little entertaining because 1 second she'll be a happy content baby and the next screaming bloody murder, and then back to smiling and eating. Honestly, she came by this trait naturally, both Daddy and I are like this about food. But it's really hard to rationalize with a 3 months old. "listen sweety, Daddy and I heard you the first time. You're about to get food in just 1 minute." Nope, doesn't work. Daddy always says from the other room "HEY - Stop pulling her toenails out with pliers." Really, you'd think it's something horrible. It's not. just 30 seconds too long. Oh well.

She LOVES bath time. Some people talk about having trouble with baths for young babies, but she always liked bath time. When she was a little over a month we started taking baths in the big bathtub. She loves it. She starts to look all around the bathroom when we go in. And she wiggles her feet and legs around in the water. She's such a good girl about it that she'll even lay back and wash her hair under the faucet. This should prove to be a good thing in the future!

She's already Daddy's little girl. I can hear him in the nursery with her. "Open up, no? Please? Open up?" He'll come back down telling me she was just laying there smiling at him, refusing to let him put the pacifier in her mouth. Or he'll be trying to put her clean diaper on and she won't put her legs down. And he'll be going "put your legs down, come on, down, please? down." She finds it thoroughly funny that she can control herself at this point. So until she's decided it's time to put her legs down, they won't go down. Or my favorite, if he's trying to get her in her PJs for bed, and she won't bend her arms so he can get them in the sleeves, I'll hear "COME ON, WORK WITH ME WOMAN!!!" LOL. Or when she had a big poopy diaper he'd declare to her "youa stinka lika caca," and she'd break out a big grin and start laughing, but he has since stopped this, as I pointed out that she'll some day repeat this, and perhaps, stopping while we were ahead of the game was a big idea.

So Parenting isn't all bad. It's good to remind myself of this. As I sit here, and eat my turkey sandwich (no mayo, no cheese). The bread is gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free and guaranteed taste-free. But really. I'd make any sacrifice for E. So as always. I hope all the Mommies and Daddies had a restful and productive weekend, that the naps were longer, the nights were sleep filled and as always, come on! Can't anyone figure out who dropped the pacifier?