Laughter adds years to your life

Have you seen the Kaiser Permanente commercials? I so badly wish I could find some of them online and add links to them from my blog, but I can't.

In case you haven't seen them, the message is "laughter adds 8 years to your life" and there are a bunch of them that show babies just laughing uncontrolably about random things. One shows a baby holding a piece of newspaper and his dad pulling the other side. As the paper rips, the baby giggles and giggles and giggles. Another one shows a mom making a funny animal sound and the baby is giggling uncontrollably. I think there are 4 or 5 laughing baby commercials and they're all so incredibly adorable!

Maybe you should go watch TV until you see them! Go. Go now! They're worth the wait! If you have TIVO, just fast forward through those annoying TV shows to get to the commercials quicker.

Storm Tooter

My little one has been tooting up a storm today and coincidentally, today's word seems to be Toot. She laughs every time I say it.

Toot! Toot!

This made me think of my good friend. You know who you are. For all the other readers, please try to believe me that it's not what you think.

Toot! Toot!

October Pictures

No lectures please. I swore I would never become one of those people who didn't have time to take 5 minutes to post picture updates, but then again I didn't realize I would ever become one of those people who had so many dang pictures of their baby! I try to force myself to only keep 175 pictures each month... those are the keepers! That's just about 6 pictures per day. Trust me, limiting myself to that many is a feat.

Anyway, here you go...

October Baby Pictures

October Pictures

No lectures please. I swore I would never become one of those people who didn't have time to take 5 minutes to post picture updates, but then again I didn't realize I would ever become one of those people who had so many dang pictures of their baby! I try to force myself to only keep 175 pictures each month... those are the keepers! That's just about 6 pictures per day. Trust me, limiting myself to that many is a feat.

Anyway, here you go...

October Pictures

What do you do when...

... your baby's favorite toy is the yummy chewy choking hazard that comes with her sippy cup? As my husband said, there are some people who think they know how to design a good baby toy and then there are those who just have the natural talent without even trying.

Today's Deep Thought

Brought to you by the letter G...

Did you know that there are actually babies out there who are YOUNGER than my little Ellie?!? No, really! There are!

Where is Niffer?

You'll have to excuse the silence but I have been busy. I would tell you why but I can not. Sorry. Those of you who know me best could guess, but those of you who don't will have to wait to find out.

So don't you go worrying about whether or not I've been attacked by the booger sucker. No, that's only Ellie's latest worry. Not mine. She's decided that the booger sucker is just plain evil and was probably invented by the devil himself.

As for me, I wish it were that simple.

Daddy's Little Girl

My @$$

There have been many days in which Ellie wants nothing to do with the loving man in her life. She wants Mommy and she wants her now. It's physically draining for me and emotionally draining for him.

At what point does she realize that the rule is DADDY'S little girl and MOMMA'S boy?**


** Enter this into the "be careful what you ask for" category.

Pump Station

I'll try to keep this short because no one wants to read a long post talking about bathrooms. Getting straight to it, I wish the "mother rooms" at work were not all located inside bathrooms. For those who do not know, a "mother room" is a little sanctuary (ha ha ha) that I can go to when I need to pump during work. The problem with them being located inside a bathroom is that it implies that pumping is a "dirty" thing. I just wish I could disappear behind a closed door for 15-20 minutes (keep in mind, that's every couple hours) and not have people wonder if I'm constipated or fell in and in either case, shouldn't someone call for help?

Location location location... or maybe not...

Parenthood affects real estate...

Not too long ago we were driving through a neighborhood that we used to frequently drive through (when we lived in the condo). It was strange because I know I once made a comment about how I didn't like any of the houses in that area because they were all ranch style houses, yet this time I found myself saying "there are so many pretty houses in this neighborhood." I suppose that subconsciously my mind was thinking "oh, look! That house has would not require me to carry a heavy baby up a flight of stairs, let alone two flights! I like it!"

No longer in the running

I'm no longer in the running for Mother of the Year Award. I forgot to feed my baby this morning. Sigh. There's always next year.

The magic touch

Daddy has an amazing ability to calm Ellie back to sleep. When she wakes up crying and doesn't seem to be able to put herself back to sleep.

First, he will go into her room and pick her up.
Then he will hold her and gently rub her back.
Next, he will sit in the glider and calmly sing to her in a very relaxing voice.

And she hates it! She screams bloody murder.

Finally he will put her back into the crib, and she is so grateful to be back that she falls asleep peacefully. Works like a charm. I don't know how he does it.

What they don't tell you about breast feeding

If you're thinking about taking up breast feeding (like I keep recommending), there are a few annoying things that they don't tell you in the books...*

1. You never know how much Baby eats. Really, the only way to determine if she is getting enough food is to verify she's gaining weight. Trust me, regardless of how much you try to reassure yourself, this is always in question.

2. Your baby will most likely not sleep through the night without waking for 1 or 2 feeds until (enter unknown age here), even though his bottle-fed babies do at a much earlier age. Babies need about 30 oz of milk a day, and it's easy to make sure a bottle-fed babies get this amount while the sun is out. If only the breasts worked the same way.

3. Even when your baby DOES finally sleep more, you will not. You will be in lumpy pain. And if not, you will be lying in a wet puddle. Neither are as much fun as they sound.

4. Teething is more painful for the baby. What? Huh? Yes. You heard me. Apparently sucking at the breast makes the already sensitive gums hurt more than a bottle does. I guess it makes sense because sucking at the breast is more difficult. It requires more effort, so maybe more suction? Either way, your heart will be broken when your baby looks at you with the "Mommy, I'm hungry, but it hurts!" look.


* and of course, subject to my own opinion.

Proper sandwich eating etiquette

I told Ellie's daddy that he eats his sandwiches wrong. Everyone knows that you are supposed to eat the crust first so that you are left with a crust-free yummy sandwich. Once I reminded him of that, he said "well then in that case, yes I am eating my sandwich wrong." His improper method was to ensure that each bite had a piece of crust in it. Silly boy.

I wonder what method Ellie will adopt. What sort of silly little traits is she going to get from her Daddy and which normal* traits will she adopt from me? Will she eat her entire apples like he does, core and seeds included? I mean, come on! Who does that??


* Disclaimer - Everything I do is normal and I'm sure there are studies out there with statistics to prove it. Don't believe me? Just ask me.

Another comment on the hat...

We wore our funky cute hat to daycare today and there was a little girl (age 3) who saw us come in and said "Look, Mommy, doesn't Ellie look a-door-bell with that hat on?"

Are you still alive?

The other day Michael was admitting to me that he often wonders if the baby is still alive. This made me feel so much better because I was thinking it was silly of me to wonder that myself as often as I do.

I used to think that parents who worry about their baby still breathing at night were just over-reacting. That may still be the case, but I'm one of them now. Most of the time I don't actually go in and check because I do acknowledge that the chances of something going wrong are slim.

But the thought "is my baby still alive?" does go through our heads more often than we'd like to admit. I guess that's one good thing about teething... it removes any such doubt. lol.