Friday Misc.


We’ve been sleeping. The past two nights have been a dramatic improvement over the days before; she’s been waking up only twice--around midnight and around five. We’ve been able to soothe her without picking her up or feeding her at the first wakeup, and then I feed her at the second. We moved her bassinet away from my bedside, to the other side of our bedroom, so perhaps that was the key. Who knows? Now if we can just dissuade her from that first wakeup, we’ll be on the road to a baby who sleeps through the night.

Needless to say, we feel much more human. And it was an eventful week. We had our final “marriage class” on Tuesday, with the deacon; we had to do homework beforehand, which involved choosing a conflict and going through a ten-step process to resolving it, as well as defining financial and other goals. In our session we discussed these things, handed over my baptismal certificate and some witness forms, and that was that. The baptism, and our marriage ceremony, will be on March 31. I feel like I should be able to register again, or perhaps get a second run out of my wedding gown; instead, we’ll go out for brunch with Mom and Dad, who will be in town serving as both godparents to Lucia and witnesses for our wedding. And then…done. It’s been a bit of a haul getting this baptism underway, but I feel good about having done the legwork.

This morning, Lucia and I went for a walk and popped into Starbucks for a cup of tea. As we sat there, a guy stopped by my table and asked how old Lucia was. When I told him, he proclaimed, “Wow! My kid dwarfs your kid.” His son was eight months old and, presumably, much chunkier than my slender, delicate baby. What, exactly, is one supposed to say to that? “She’s in the twenty-fifth percentile for weight,” I said edgily. Andrew suggested I should have responded, “Oh; is your wife a big woman?” Being pregnant or having a baby really does seem to give people the license to say anything.

Tonight we went to a friend’s house for dinner. It was a gorgeous evening, and we sat outside and had a lovely barbeque. Lucia sat on my lap for part of the meal, and at one point she reached out and grabbed a piece of roasted potato right off of my plate, squeezing it in her tiny fist. Next week she’ll be six months old--and I think we’re ready to move beyond her beloved rice cereal. I can’t wait to see the look on her face at her first taste of--gasp--carrots! or squash!

When I fed her today, we managed to get rice cereal all over her clothes, my hands, my arms, her face. I’ve never encountered a substance so intent on spreading and spewing. In her excitement over eating, she also waved her arms around a lot, managing, when I wasn’t paying enough attention, to whack the spoonful of cereal out of my control. Cereal, cereal everywhere.

Comments

Sara said…
Glad the eating and sleeping is going better! And brace yourself, because from now on other people are going to be comparing their kids to yours--sometimes subtly and sometimes not so (like Starbucks guy--like it really matters if his baby, who's older than yours, is also bigger?). It's like when you're pregnant and everyone feels the need to tell you scary pregnancy/birth stories (even if they haven't been through it themselves). :)