I should stop and post an update about Mia. A few minutes to reflect on my rapidly growing beauty of a child.
She’s eating solid food now. Or rather mushy food. She likes sweet things more than other stuff, so to get her to eat vegetables, I mix pears with everything. Pears with peas and spinach (strangely, this is pretty good). Bananas with beets and pears. Put pears in something and Mia thinks it’s a gourmet meal. Or breast milk. She’ll even eat lentils with breast milk. That is a big hit.
She weighs 20 lbs, 3 oz as of yesterday when I took her in for her fifth eye infection* I took her up to see the nurses in the birth center where she was born and they oohed and aahed over how big she was.
She’s teething pretty badly right now. Her upper front teeth are coming in and they are causing her no end of agony. I tried every natural remedy known to man other than the stuff containing belladonna (dude, no way am I giving my kid belladonna, no matter what some homeopathic idiot says). I gave up and got the baby oragel so that she could sleep for more than an hour. Her front bottom teeth are really out now and have dulled a little (hurrah… she can no longer draw blood with little razor sharp teeth!)
She can sit up really well and prevent herself from falling over.
She smiles a lot when not in teething agony.
She only wants mama. My friend L, who is our regular babysitter**, and who loves Mia to death has been a little at loose ends this week because Mia has screamed both days when I’ve walked out the door. I had Mandarin yesterday and a doctor’s appointment today and both times, Mia didn’t find L acceptable and she isn’t too keen on her dada, on other friends or pediatricians or ANYONE who isn’t mama. I love my chicken but mama needs to make a bit of money right now. Well, screw it, I went without sleep in grad school. It’s contract work, so I can do it after Chickie Boo*** is asleep.
We got her a crib. It’s assembled and next to our bed. She slept in the co-sleeper the first part of her life happily, so we are going to try with the crib. Our plan is to put her to nap in the crib and then put her in the crib when she first goes to bed at night. During the first wake up, we’ll grab her and keep her in our bed thereafter. This seems sort of a happy medium because I like snuggling with her, but honestly I miss sleeping next to J and there isn’t enough room for a rotating 28 inch baby, me and a man who is 6 foot 4 even in our queen sized bed. J and I are in weird positions by the end of the night and it’s resulting in my hips being almost debilitatingly painful and J’s back almost going out. It’s doable half or less of the night, so that’s what we are going to shoot for.
Mia also got into the pool for the first time last weekend. She LOVED it. I think the fact that her kicking and flailing that she does when she tries but fails to crawl or move around on the floor works smashingly in the pool and it’s a relief for her to be able to move her limbs so freely (with mama holding her, of course). It’s also fun to be around the other babies and singing such traditional songs as “Old MacDonald Had a Pond”****.
So that’s the Mia update. I can’t believe my girl is almost seven months old and how amazing my life has been with her.
*You would think after three, the bloody pediatrician would figure out, hey, there’s probably an issue with her tear ducts. It’s not like I didn’t guess already by the help of Dr. Google. Finally a medical student at the public health clinic said the words “blocked tear duct”. New pediatrician on Thursday, hurrah.
**Due to needing regular care and our babysitter’s habit of going to Austin to abuse her liver on a regular basis, we are now seeking a part-time nanny. Hopefully a Mandarin speaking one.
***Chickie Boo, or Chicken. J’s mom commented at Christmas that she is probably going to think her name is Chicken when she grows up.
****In this pond he had a duck, a starfish, a frog and a dolphin.
miamegamoo 