Where to begin? Look at Miss Lady Girl! She sits! She sticks her tongue out! She has chub! It's unbelievable how cool she is. She's 8 months already, and just the best thing ever. Lots to update on: she's 16 lbs. now, moving up to the 23rd percentile. She eats all kinds of fruits and veggies, and if you let her, will roll from one side of the room to the other. She can sit up, and sticks her butt up in the air like she's gonna crawl, but I think she's just being a tease. She's got the rolling down pat, and it is much more efficient than trying to scoot, at least in her mind. She is a true blabber mouth, talking all the time. She'll wake up at 5 a.m. and just lay there talking to herself for an hour, totally content, taking the occasional break to suck on her feet. She's remained the absolute happiest baby, still only crying when she's exhausted. Still sleeping through the night, about 7 pm to 5:30 am. Two long naps (two to three hours) during the day. Not enough hair yet to do much with, except this pathetic attempt at a faux-hawk.
She has discovered the multiple uses of her tongue, which includes her personal favorite, "pretending to eat my food but instead spitting it so far that some lands on my forehead."
But I can't resist this face, even when I smell sweet potatoes on me all day at work.
In other exciting news, I'm writing this from jail as I recently got arrested for arson for burning down this house:
Just kidding, of course. While not as scandalous, I'm equally as excited to report that we bought our first house!! This has been a big part of what's kept me away from blogging -- all of my old pastimes have been replaced by HGTV. I can't believe we did it. It's about a year before we thought we would, but our pal Obama and the $8,000 first-time home buyer stimulus rebate were too much to pass up. And interests rates are SOOOOO low, and housing prices are finally reasonable (at least in Massachusetts, where two years ago you would have needed $350,000 to buy a trailer.)It's back to the City of Champions for us, good ol' Brockton, MA. It's a beautiful Cape on a corner lot, 4 br., big back yard, MUD ROOM (my favorite, reminds me of Maryland), totally renovated kitchen, baths, roof, hardwood floors, totally move-in ready (sans some nasty iridescent wallpaper), a big basement waiting to be finished. We're just thrilled. Jay and I, who rarely agree on anything right off the bat, both walked in and knew this was the house. We close June 15! It's been very stressful, mainly because we pretended for a month or so that it wasn't and then the reality caught up with us. And, we still struggle with our work schedules and the fact that we never actually get to see each other (still). Honestly, in the course of a work week, we see each other for a total of one waking hour (if that) four days out of five, and then on Tuesday, our night together, we get maybe 4. It's tough, really tough. Tougher than I thought. But we make it work.
All in all, things are great. My post-partum depression has radically subsided, although I still have many moments of panic and sadness at the thought that one day, something might happen to me or to her or to Jay. Inevitably, something will, and I'm getting used to the idea that that's just the way life goes. Work is fine (eh), although I've had two colleagues, totally great people, who've passed away in the past two weeks, both way too young to die, both tragic. I'm trying hard everyday not to internalize things like that, but it's hard for me to feel OK with just a quick moment of sadness. But I'm getting better.
Not pregnant with triplets, or even a singleton, and I haven't reached the point yet of wanting to shave my head. Check back again next week...
