Sugar and Spice

A caveat before I get going: this blog entry probably will not be very funny. This morning on my way to work the radio announcers were reflecting back on the year's headlines in preparation for the upcoming new year celebration and it got me reflecting as well. I spent the drive in this morning trying to find a word or phrase to sum up 2010. I tried out several from "hope" to "miracles", but the one that kept popping up was "grace." For obvious reasons, 2010 is a year I will never forget, since it is the year my sweet Pumpkin was born. As any parent can attest, that is a memory I am betting does not fade. Yet, 2010 and her birth were so much more. To fully appreciate my 2010, I had to go back through the pain of the years preceding it. It's fitting that Pumpkin's middle name is Hattie, because the grace that has embodied this year began with her great grandmother, for whom she was named. In 2005, I lost my grandmother. I was by her side for the...

It's your lucky week - call it a Christmas gift - but I am blogging twice in one week. The events of last night (er, this morning) warrant another post so none of us forget (and I remember to pay Matt and Samantha back for their "thoughtful" Christmas gift to Aly). The picture above is from last month, but I had to use it so you could get a good image of the culprit in last nights mystery (and no, not Aly). Read on for the Case of the Ghostly Games. Despite getting her third tooth in, Pumpkin was sleeping relatively peacefully last night. That means Aaron and I were also deep asleep. Suddenly, I am jolted from my slumber by these words: "Peek-A-Boo, I see you!" It wasn't Aaron's voice and Pumpkin doesn't talk. It was a high pitched, sing songy, creepy almost mocking sound, faint but clear. I never thought such childish words could invoke such terror. I sit up, convinced I must have been dreaming when, in that same awful voice I hear in the distance...

My, my, we've been busy getting ready for and celebrating the various holidays of the season! I hardly have time to blog because aside from work (which has been crazy), I've just been enjoying every little minute of Pumpkin becoming a full-fledged little person! At 7 1/2 months old, Pumpkin's made many milestones including unsupported sitting, two front teeth (one top, one bottom), and solid foods. She also has a full array of consonant sounds and freely expresses emotions - blowing = anger; laughter = music to my ears. She has likes and dislikes and she knows how to make them known. For example, when her hands start clapping if someone doesn't start singing Pat-A-Cake REAL soon there is going to be some blowing going on. And although we haven't quite gotten belly off floor yet, we are very, very close to crawling . Just the other day I thought my immobile child was sitting on her play mat and I looked over to see her squirming her way up under the television! After...

Last night was the opening night preview party for my Junior League's Mistletoe and Moss holiday market and Aaron and I used this week night event as an opportunity to test the waters with a non-grandparent babysitter. This was inevitable since the ladies at the daycare have literally been fighting over who would eventually get the chance to watch Pumpkin after hours. I've had phone numbers covertly slipped into my bottle bag, girls meeting me outside and talking in hushed whispers to get directions to my home, and even one lady doing a drive-by to make sure she knew where I lived. Sounds crazy but this is no exaggeration. I finally picked one and made the deal (in the hall where nobody could see, of course). I set the date with the sitter a couple weeks in advance and felt good about it. We "had a sitter" as I have heard parents say in the past. I tried those words out. Yeah, we had a sitter. Well, as the days started ticking down I started slowly freaking out. It wa...

The past week or so have brought lots more laughs and joy with sweet Pumpkin. I've realized, though, that she may have inherited some of my less than desirable qualities and some of my Type A personality. First, Pumpkin celebrated her first Halloween this weekend and she was the cutest little ladybug ever, if I do say so myself. All in all, she wasn't too impressed with the whole concept of Halloween. She was underwhelmed by the activity and less than fond of the costumes - hers and others. Since she couldn't appreciate the trick-or-treating or other festivities, I can understand her lack of enthusiasm and hold out hope that future years will bring lots of fun. Of course, I never really liked Halloween (and I still don't and I'm still afraid of mascots/things in masks), so we may be finding other ways to spend Daddy's birthday eve in the future. Halloween also revealed the strength of our dear Pumpkin's inner schedule. Despite the fact that she loves to star...

My how time flies when you're Raising Pumpkin. I honestly feel like each and every day - between the time I drop her off at school and the time I pick her up - she has grown and changed so much. In the last week or so we have had lots of developments in Pumpkin-land. First, and most happily, I can report that we have finally found out the source of her sleepless nights and persistent cough - a double ear infection on top of sinus infection. The reason I say "most happily" when referring to my poor Pumpkin being sick is that she has beens sick for TWO MONTHS. We've been giving her breathing treatments (which she has hated) twice every day and were finally told that we have basically been beating our heads against a wall. I'm glad that she is finally on the RIGHT meds and that we can quit torturing her with the darn nebulizer. In less dramatic, but equally if not more exciting news, Pumpkin has perfected the roll. Where she once despised "tummy time," I ca...

Despite having gone to both college AND law school, I had never pulled an "all nighter" before my little Pumpkin arrived. The past week has been a complete blur of little faint cries, searching for pacifiers in the dark, and rocking, patting, and shushing. It honestly hasn't been this exhausting since the early, early newborn days. I'm a bleary-eyed mess and wake up each morning thinking there is no way I will make it through another day...but then I see that beautiful little smile and know that I could never sleep again and be just fine. I'm not sure what is causing her lack of sleep. It all started when I went out of town for ONE NIGHT last week for work. Aaron let her sleep in the bed that night - for her benefit, of course (wink, wink). Well, she was up and down all night (presumably because her big bear of a dad was grunting and snoring next to her). So we chalked that bad night of sleep up to Aaron. But then the next night, and the next, and the next. She ha...

My mother-in-law sent this to me as an explanation of why we call our sweet baby girl Pumpkin...I thought it was wonderful and wanted to share (along with a picture of Pumpkin in her new high chair from Nana): Being a good person is like being a pumpkin. God lifts you up, takes you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. He opens you up, touches you deep inside and scoops out all of the yucky stuff -- including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc. Then He carves you a bright new smiling face and puts His light inside of you to shine for all the world to see.

Every day with Pumpkin is better than the last. She continues to define her personality a little more each day and I have decided that she is going to be a shy but flirty type. She is coy and absolutely adorable. She will flash you that killer smile and then hide her face, peering out only to see if you're looking. Her laugh is soft but full-bodied and her smile will literally take your breath away. Okay, okay, so I'm a little biased and a lot in love with this little girl, but in addition to her budding and beautiful personality, I have some objective accomplishments to report. First, we have continued with eating and she seems to prefer squash to everything else we've tried. This is odd because, although I am not a picky eater by any stretch of the imagination, I despise squash in all of its forms. It is the one food that I simply will not touch. So, our little flirt loves squash. Go figure. In much more important news - she can roll over!!! The doctor told us not to be d...

As a follow up, we tried sweet potatoes without rice cereal and it was tolerated. I won't go so far as to say she "liked" it, since (as shown above) more of it ended up on our shirts than in her mouth, but at least it gave me hope I won't be sending her to high school weighing in at 300 pounds with a bottle of formula in her lunchbox. Also, we had our 4 month checkup and shots yesterday. She is in the 90th percentile for height (25 3/4 inches) and "off the charts for weight" at 17 pounds 8 ounces. Once again, the doc used the term "perfectly healthy," or as we like to say "practically perfect in every way" :)

This was it - the day had finally arrived...Pumpkin was going to eat REAL food (or at least as "real" as you can call that disgusting jarred baby food). We were going to wait until the doc said to do it, but Friday night we were sitting at the restaurant where she was all but drooling over my baked potato and the waitress was appalled that I was not yet giving her food. So I tried a couple bites of plain baked potato and it was not a total disaster, so we decided the time had come. I woke up early Saturday morning and almost skipped (if I knew how to skip) through the grocery store picking up plates, spoons, sippy cups (as if), snack packs, baby food, rice cereal - you name it, if it was on the baby food aisle, it was in my shopping cart. I got home and we didn't even finish unpacking the groceries before we had her strapped into a high chair at the table (teaching her good eating habits early is important) with a plate and spoon. We started with plain rice cereal (a...

Well, we survived our first out-of-state travels with our little Pumpkin. Although I have fallen asleep at my desk a couple of times today, I am here to say that our little Pumpkin has all the makings of a fine world traveler, though, as you will see, not sure the same can be said for mommy. So the plan was to go to Florida to visit Ganny for the Labor Day weekend. Of course, the night before our trip I got absolutely no sleep. It was a combination of "did I pack absolutely every single thing I may possibly need for Aly because there is a possibility all the stores in the entire state of Florida have closed" panic and "ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod is she going to scream on the flight and anger everyone on the plane" freaking. I should have had more faith in her and gotten more sleep. It would have made the day a LOT easier. We plan to leave the house at 6:30 to make a 10:15 flight out of Baton Rouge (2 hours away). At 6:20 we are walking out the door and I ask Aaron if...

Pumpkin got her first cold and mommy had her first broken heart as a result. It was so extremely sad to watch her struggle to breathe and to wipe crusties from her little eyes. I laid awake for two straight nights just listening to her cough. And you guessed it, I went completely psycho-mom worrying about her. The first day of full-blown sickness Pumpkin was grumpy, wanted to be held, was tired but wouldn't (or couldn't sleept) and just generally had the ickies. I tried to accomodate her and love on her as much as possible. Late in the afternoon, however, something happened and I couldn't figure out what it was. She simply would not stop crying. I held her, I walked her, I offered her toys, I kissed her. As I was frantically bouncing her from room to room in my arms, I realized that for some reason she stopped crying when I got near the kitchen. It didn't even dawn on me WHY the kitchen made her stop crying. I was just convinced she had some serious internal ...

I have used the word "love" before many times in my life. I love God, I love Aaron, I love my family and friends, I love diet coke. I had experienced all these different kinds of love. And particularly since I was an English major and consider myself somewhat well read, I was certain I knew all about love - I had read it, written it, said it, and lived it. Little did I know that on May 6, 2010 my entire world would change in one little 6 pound 12 ounce instant. I will tell you up front that what I'm going to discuss here is something that cannot be explained. Parents know it, the rest can only imagine. To paraphrase the late Justice Stewart, it is one of those "you'll know it when you see it" kind of things. However, I will make an unavoidably weak attempt to explain it for purposes of filling up Blog space. The enigma to which I refer is the love of a child. From the minute her dimpled face was on my chest for the first time, still covered in goo and scream...

Our first out-of-town trip with Pumpkin to the Big Easy this weekend was just that. In fact, it was downright fun and it was pretty hard to drop her off at school this morning after such a wonderful weekend with her. First, in the car she was an absolute angel and slept the ENTIRE way both there and back (including during all three stops that Aaron and I had to make on the way back). On the way there I was afraid she might wake up, so I stuffed myself in the back seat next to her carseat. Of course, she slept the entire way so I was stuck in the backseat alone while Aaron was driving Miss Daisy up front. When we arrived in the Big Easy, we took her out into the Quarter in her Snugli. She LOVED all the new sights. And I have to say, it was a succesful trip to the Quarter despite the fact that I had to change her on the floor of a restaurant bathroom (on a pad, of course). Hopefully this is the LAST time she is laying on a bathroom floor in the Quarter! At the hotel, she couldn't hav...

Just when I thought she couldn't get any cuter...she went and developed the most adorable personality in the entire world! Before Pumpkin was just an eating, spitting, pooping, crying and occasionally sleeping miracle and I loved her more than I thought possible. I didn't think there was a cuter kid on Earth and I certainly didn't think SHE could get any cuter. Boy was I wrong. I don't know exactly what changed, but all of a sudden this little amazing being became a PERSON. I mean, she was always a person, but now she has a personality. And, in my completely objective opinion (ha), if I didn't already know and love her more than life itself, I think Pumpkin is going to be the kind of gal I would choose to be friends with because she is not only cute, but pretty darn funny too. Her person-ness all started in her bath Thursday evening. I was showing her the rubber duck toy and saying the word over and over with exaggerated dictation. All of a sudden she started splash...

As many of you know, when Pumpkin was first born I was a frantic mess. Every time she inhaled, I timed it and then Googled it to make sure it was "normal." I did not have time to nap, even in those early exhausted days, because I was constantly checking the Internet to make sure that both she and I were doing everything "right." Unfortunately, I realized too late that the Almighty Internet is a wealth of knowledge...and of useless crap. Anyone who wants can post anything they want on the Internet. Take this Blog for instance - I have no particularized knowledge about anything maternal, but I could start writing exclusively about how if your child is not snorting five packets of Kool-Aid each morning, she is doomed to be a terrible speller. Of course this is not true (or at least there is no scientific evidence to back it up), but I could write it here and, based on my writing about my own "experience" some new mother would be at Sam's stocking up on t...

Literally. We dealt with a lot of crap this weekend. Pumpkin has been on a fairly decent BM schedule. One or two good ones a day and now, luckily for us, most of them while she is at school (YAY). This weekend, however, she was moving like crazy...and as you'll see, she wasn't the only one! Friday night we run into a "we ran out of diapers at the restaurant" emergency. Luckily, we were done eating and close enough to home we could basically hold our breaths till we got here (and, boy, did we need to). Unfortunately, we weren't close enough to home to prevent the entire car seat from being saturated with the contents of her diaper. We get home: I grab baby and make bathwater, Aaron rips the carseat apart and starts washing. Once she's clean, it's late, so I decide to dry the carseat in the morning, which I did. Too bad it wasn't as easy to put together as it was to take apart, particularly early in the morning. We do eventually get it - 15 minu...

I learned today that July 14th is Pandemonium Day. A day to celebrate chaos and disorganization - two things I have tried to avoid my entire life and two things that now, with a 10-week old, are inevitable. The day started like any other, I drag my lifeless body out of bed and begin getting ready. No sooner has the mascara brush hit my lashes then my Pumpkin wakes up with a scream as though she hasn't eaten in weeks. In reality it had only been three hours, but that is neither here nor there because my baby was starving. The morning continues like any other in this new mommy life of mine, nothing too exciting or stressful. At this point, I'm still unaware that it is, in fact, pandemonium day. We get out the door without too many tears (from either of us) and arrive at the daycare. When we pull up I see lots of mommies and kids leaving the daycare. I check the clock, realizing in my exhaustion that it is not beyond me to be arriving at closing time without remembering I had bee...

Aly laughed this weekend! I am the only one who heard it and she was half asleep, but I swear she laughed. Just a little "hahaha" and a big smile, but it was a laugh and it made my day...heck, it made my whole weekend. And I am just tickled she has a good sense of humor, because I also learned this weekend that I will soon have no friends. It sounds sad, but honestly I can't blame anyone for not wanting to be my friend. I will explain. My soon-to-be-friendlessness is not the result of those obvious things that one might think. I'm not going to be friendless because I either have to find a babysitter or, in the alternative, tote her along with me to dinners where she will inevitably, somewhat remarkably know exactly 60 seconds before the food is to arrive, resulting in me eating with one arm, chin holding a bottle, food dripping out the sides of my mouth. My friendlessness is also not going to be the result of my tireless tales of Pumpkin's latest achievements (no ...

I'm calling this blog "Raising Pumpkin" because Aaron calls our little girl Pumpkin Head. I started this blog for several reasons, one of which is to keep my mother-in-law up-to-date since she lives 1000 miles away. Another is that as I came into the office this morning near tears and frazzled, one of the ladies said my woes gave her chills and that I needed to keep a journal to remember all these things that I would laugh about one day. This is that journal. I hope it can be both an outlet for me as a mother/wife/daughter/sister/friend/lawyer and also bring some comic relief to these days when I just want to scream. So this was my first week back to work...and even though it was a short week, oh how long it felt. Day one was met with tears and nausea as I dropped Pumpkin off at her first of school. I was so worried that she would wake up and not know where she was. Aaron assured me that it wouldn't matter because she never knew where she was. So much for comf...