Kisses
Published May 5, 2010 | 
With Chris back at work, I’m once again a full-time mom. Not that I ever stopped being a mom, but I didn’t have the pressure of being the one and only caregiver 40+ hours a week for the time that he was laid off. Now I do.
It’s kind of amazing at the same time that it’s terrifying. I mean, what am I going to do with this little person all the time? She’s so demanding! She needs so much attention and yet she’s independent. She doesn’t want me to do things for her, but she wants me to encourage her to do those things. And I have to TEACH her stuff. Constantly. It’s exhausting.
But there are so many sweet moments that I get to share with her now, and maybe even ones that I hog to myself. Like morning kisses.
She leans in and gives me little kisses, then just pushes her mouth to mine while saying “Mmmmmmm!” I stare down at her with my eyes crossed, her dark shining eyes all I can see, until I get dizzy… and when I pull away, she laughs and laughs.
We do this every morning now. And sometimes in the afternoon, too.
Especially after I share my Starbucks with her.
I’m guest posting over at Exuberance Beauty‘s blog today as part of their Exuberant Motherhood week! Check out my post, “A Gift to Myself“.
Practicing her theatre
Published April 19, 2010 | I’ve often noted what a melodramatic baby Maia is, and she likes to remind us of this facet of her personality at every chance she gets. Sometimes this manifests itself as crazy, endless giggles, sometimes as many kisses, but usually as a temper tantrum.
Yesterday, I’m sitting on the couch trying to read the newspaper, and she’s attempting to crawl all over me. I tell her no and hold my arm up to keep her off my lap. Well, she freaks out, standing up on the couch and wailing as she falls over against it, face red and angry. She climbs down to attempt to use my legs to pull herself up, but I repeatedly tell her, “No, Maia,” and prevent it. Again, she starts with the falling over thing, but this time she whacks her head against the coffee table, hard.
Of course I throw the newspaper down and sweep her up, snuggling and soothing her, telling her “It’s okay, it’s okay, baby,” and such. A minute passes, she calms down, wiggles out of my arms, and goes for her juice.
So I pick up the newspaper again. And AGAIN she flips out, wanting into my lap. I try to get her to sit beside me so we can look at the paper together, to no avail.
Finally she climbs off the couch, grabs the table with both hands, slowwwwwly lowers her forehead to press against it… and starts to fake cry. Chris and I both stare at her, so she repeats the action. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time!
Connecticut
Published April 16, 2010 | After visiting my mother-in-law in Florida, we flew back to Connecticut to see my family. Our flight got in at 11:45pm and we weren’t back to her house until an hour later, which meant that poor Maia didn’t get to sleep until 1:30am and then ended up sleeping really badly for the next few nights in a row. Fortunately though, that was about the only “bad” thing that happened during our vacation (and we will never, ever accept such a late flight again).
The first thing we did the next day when she woke up was head outside and explore the huge yard.
My mom has chickens, which Maia was absolutely amazed by. This one is named “Murderface” (I don’t know why… they were named by my 20 year old brother…)
You know the best thing about chickens? FRESH EGGS. Oh my gosh. They blow away those pale yellow store-bought things in texture and flavour. Delish.
We used some of those chicken eggs to dye for Easter. Watching Maia dye eggs was pretty much one of the funniest things that has ever happened. She kept throwing the eggs into the dye buckets, which were coloured tablets mixed in vinegar…
… and then trying to eat the hard-boiled eggs!
Seriously, Maia? Vinegar-coated hard-boiled eggs? GAG.
Eventually, the Dora shirt was soaked and so we stripped her out of it. Next thing I knew, my sister, Katie, had given Maia a cookie to help her get some of that vinegar taste out of her mouth…
… of course, she promptly showed her auntie the proper way to eat it:
Soon enough, though, we were all out of the sun and dressed up again…
… to go to the Polish church for the Easter basket blessing.
The blessing was on Saturday and Easter, of course, on Sunday. My mom’s side of the family came over and hung out with us, while Maia raced around making trouble and being adorable.
Monday we decompressed, and then Tuesday morning, it was time to pack up and leave. Maia’s such a trooper, and handles the 8-9 hour car ride home with more aplomb than even I can manage. We’ve been home for just under two weeks and I miss everyone already.
Florida
Published April 10, 2010 | In a strange twist of fate, shortly after I moved in with Chris and began pursuing my Canadian residency, his mother fell for an American, moved to Florida, and began pursuing her US residency. Regardless, we see her a few times a year, but at the end of March we brought Maia down to Florida for the first time.
The first thing we did was go for a walk in the warmth. This walk started with all of us in sweatshirts and jeans, but within half a block the sunshine reminded us that this ain’t Canada, folks!
Aside from taking walks, we were able to go in Grandma’s swimming pool. Maia wasn’t really too sure about it at first:
But she sure as hell looked adorable, right?
Once we got her into the water and began pushing her little floaty around, she realized this was kind of fun!
Another day, we went to the Sarasota Jungle Gardens. This was a fun little place with lots of birds, bugs, and reptiles to see. Most of their animals are donated by pet owners who can no longer take care of their exotic animals, not realizing the time and money commitment necessary. There are (paved) trails winding through tropical foliage, with occasional placards to let you know what type of plant you’re looking at and where it’s from. This was my favourite plant there, although, of course, it didn’t have a placard.
One of the best features of the Gardens was the flamingo park, a wide-open area with a small pond nearby and something like 40 flamingos wandering around. And those birds are fearless. Fortunately, so is Maia (until one of them actually pushed her away from a kibble she was standing on, at which point I’m not sure she actually became scared of them so much as REALLY ANGRY).
And, of course, what fun would a jungle garden be without the opportunity for a touristy snapshot of a daddy feeding his baby to an alligator?
On this vacation, Maia lost a huge advantage over us. We realized, finally, that she understands a lot of what we say. We realized that she learns very quickly, and when she’s interested in what we have to say, she listens well. For example, in Florida, she learned the words “bird”, “cat”, and “squirrel” — all of which are creatures she decided she loved quite a lot. Her love of “bird” was our main reason for going to the Jungle Gardens in fact, and also our motivation behind eating lunch another day overlooking the water:
Bird watching is a hobby she takes very seriously.
All too soon, though, it was time for a different type of bird, one that flies thirty-nine thousand feet in the sky…
Maia the Bedbug
Published February 24, 2010 | A month or so ago now, we moved Maia into her own bedroom. Prior to that, we’d had her in her bassinet (and then her crib when she became more mobile) in our bedroom, on my side of the bed. But we hit a point where she began waking up and wanting to nurse for just a few seconds every 1.5-2 hours, and I was pretty much losing my mind — especially when I’d lay her back down to sleep, crawl into bed, and the creaking mattress or rustling sheets woke her right back up.
As much as I liked having her in the bedroom, right there when she wanted to nurse, I knew it was time to make our bedroom ours again, and give her space of her own. Maybe, I thought, if she woke up lightly from sleep and I wasn’t lying right there, she would soothe herself back to sleep. And I mean, I missed having conversations with Chris as we snuggled into bed.
The first night was horrible, but in a really understandable way. Having not really slept in the nursery in a long while, Maia woke up and freaked out over not knowing where she was. It looks and smells different in there, and Mama & Dada aren’t right next to the crib… so every time she woke up (yep, every 1.5-2hrs) she would start sobbing in this deep, heart-wrenching, ohmigod I’m scared kind of way. I felt horrible for her, but once I picked her up she would calm down quickly, and she only needed to nurse two of those times.
The second night was still a little rough, but less so; a few less wakings (already a victory!) and more of a complaining, angry tone to her cries (“really guys? you still have me in here?”) meant that overall, we all got more sleep. I won’t lie, the fact that I have to get out of bed and walk into the other room, nurse her, and walk back to my bedroom is an annoyance, but it’s something I’m willing to deal with.
By the third night, we were down to her waking up thrice a night, and there is where we’ve generally stayed — and yes, this is a victory. Maia goes to bed reliably at 7pm, nurses sometime between 9-11pm, wakes up at 1:30am and 5:30am for a feeding, then gets up for the day between 7 and 8am. I would desperately like to eliminate that 9-11pm feeding, or barring that, the 1:30am one, but for now I’m stumped as to how to do that. There are nights when she’ll skip one of those on her own, and once she even slept straight from 7pm-3am before wanting to nurse, so at least I know it’s something she can do.
My goal right now is to reliably get 6 hours of sleep in a row for myself. I know that’s asking a lot, since it’s happened once and that was the night she wasn’t even home, but I would pretty much fall over myself with happiness. I don’t usually go to bed til midnight, so if she were to wake up at 1am and then 7:30am, that’d be good enough for me.
Overall though, moving her into the nursery has been really successful and we’re all getting more rest, which is important… especially because she DOESN’T STOP MOVING all day long!
I know, what a boring post, right?
Goodnight kisses
Published February 6, 2010 | I am usually the one who puts Maia to bed. It’s our time to read and snuggle and reconnect with one another, and even though I’m pretty sure nursing her to sleep is a no-no in terms of what I “should” be doing in order to get her to sleep through the night, well, I do it anyhow. And sleeping through the night will happen when it happens.
In any case, before I take her to bed, she must give goodnight kisses to Daddy. I always flop her over in my arms to do this so she’s hanging wildly away from me, swinging towards him with her head upside down, laughing and giggling. She doesn’t kiss him so much as he kisses her and she squeals, generally.
That is, until a few nights ago. She leaned forward to kiss him, then pulled herself up and kissed me. Then back to him, and back to me twice more, AND THEN I MELTED. It was the sweetest thing, as if she wanted to be certain that she got us both with her love.
Moments like that are the highlights of my life. I never thought that an open-mouthed, drooly, sloppy kiss from a baby would be such a wondrous thing, but it is.
Books & Trickery
Published January 29, 2010 | Maia loves to be read to. It’s not uncommon for her to take a book in both hands, run over to me, and plop her butt in my lap, all the while babbling. She particularly likes turning the pages for me — sometimes before I’m ready for them to be turned! And although I adore reading to her, I like it even better when she brings the books to her daddy. There is something that melts my heart about the two of them with their heads bent, focused on the pages of a board book, Chris raising his voice to princess-ly levels, growling with the ferocity of a dragon, and then adopting a nasally tone for the bum of a prince.
Sometimes, however, when Maia brings us books, she has something more devious in mind than using us. She settles down into my lap, talks to me in her wordless way about it, then as soon as I start reading she stands up, grabs the coffee table, and hauls herself up onto it. Now, I know I shouldn’t let my daughter climb on tables, but the way she casts a triumphant grin at me over her shoulder is kinda charming, and she’s pretty damned proud of herself. And she is apparently part monkey, because you would not believe how fast she climbs up there. I guarantee it’s faster than you read that sentence.
She’s a mischievous one, my Maia.