Thursday, May 12, 2005

A milestone! She has been outside longer than she was inside.

Hi internet! It's been ages.

I do have an excuse, though.

I've spent the last few weeks prone, trying to push the thought of food, nauseating food, out of my head, and stop the ceiling from spinning quite so fast.

"OH MY GOD!" you're all thinking. "How horrible! You must be so upset. What happened? Have you been binge drinking to dull the pain of American Idol refusing to die a painful, reality television death? Did you travel to Mexico for illegal breastfeeding drugs and acquire some sort of exotic amoebic dysentery?"

No, internet! I am thrilled! We all are! We have acquired a fetus. Figgy the Fetus* is due in late November or early December, but if Figgy is anything like its sister**, we can expect arrival sometime around President's Day.

Claire Helen has no idea how her world is going to be rocked. She is too busy remaining busy to notice. It is a physical impossibility to take a picture of her while still, as you may notice below. I am not sure it happens while she is conscious. Toddlers, they are hummingbirds, only larger and more destructive.

She is talking quite a bit, and took a step a few weeks ago, though the latter was completely accidental and will likely not be repeated for months to come. She does not rush the movement related milestones, technical ability or no. It's just not worth risking. Her interests remain fairly static, with kitty chasing being a high daily priority. When she sees one, she will immediately change course from wherever she had been headed, and crawl toward the target, suddenly transmogrifying into a drill seargent. Or African bushman. "Ah! KEE! Ah! KEE! Ah! KEE!" she chants, punctuating each crawl step. She's all business, and very intimidating. She never catches them.

She now possesses a glass shattering scream, and though we studiously ignore it most of the time, she has found it useful for waking us up when she decides one or the other of us has been napping too long. She crawls into the bedroom, pulls up on the bed, and screeches as loudly as possible into an ear, and then giggles, "heh heh..mmmmm" and crawls away. She loves the power.

She has not adopted a lovey, exactly. She does, however, consider all the socks of the world her comfort objects. Baby socks, only, but she generally has one in her hand while going about her baby business. She likes to chew on them, and drag them around the cat hair covered floor, and "share" them with the dog. It's all very sanitary. She's also willing to share her socks, and if you ask her for one, and she can't see one, she will crawl into her bedroom and retrieve one from the dirty clothes hamper for you. Everyone needs a good sock now and again.

She very much enjoys a good stacking session, and putting things in their "place." If an object has a divet, she has a smaller object to fill said divet. Books, however, she is more than willing to take out of their place, and relocate to the floor. She would do this ad infinitum, if presented with an endlessly replenishing bookshelf. Which would be pretty cool. I would actually like to see that.

We had her mouth surgery last week, to remove the bump on her palate, and though it all went fine, it was absolutely horrible. I hope never to see the inside of that children's hospital again. I do not recommend it, as far as family activities go.

And now, pictures. 10 month session and earlier today, when she had been quiet for just a bit too long.


*Named after my favorite fruit, which is coincidentally the size of an approximately 12 week old fetus.

**Or long awaited cousin, Mara! Welcome Mara. We look forward to sweet, feminine calls of "MOM! SHE TOUCHED MY TOY!! GET HER OFF ME!!" for many holidays to come.

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Baby Nirvana Posted by Hello

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This is a good representation of what she really looks like, lately. Not exactly a little baby anymore.
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Tuesday, May 10, 2005


Claire's brand new smile. Posted by Hello