Sugar and Spice

Or should I say, Danger Pumpkin Brown. Although I don’t think that is what I put on the birth certificate, there were drugs involved in that transaction and, as it would seem, danger appears to be her middle name. Or more like a concept she has absolutely no appreciation for whatsoever (go ahead and add that to the list with reading and long division). Anyway, I believe it says something about Pumpkin’s charmed (read: sheltered) infancy that she has no fear. Literally. NO FEAR. She is confident that no matter what move she makes, mommy or daddy will be there to catch her – literally. I never realized the danger in Pumpkin’s utter lack of understanding of danger until she became daring and…in a word…dangerous. That happened, oh…about two days ago. It all started on Maundy Thursday. I picked her up from daycare and got the news that she had been having some tummy issues. No problem I thought, a few extra changes may be in store but we’ll be fine. We went home and enjoyed our la...

Aly is my child. Really. I just discovered this. MY child. Now I didn’t get results from a maternity test or anything (I think that is called childbirth) but I still finally realized that she is MINE. It’s only taken me 11 ½ months to figure this out. For the past almost-year I’ve crept around doctor’s offices and daycare wondering what I should do (should being the key word). She didn’t come with a handbook, so this was a little tricky (and a lot maddening). I drove myself crazy trying to figure out what I should do. I worried that if I didn’t bring in her in to the doctor early enough I was a terrible mother. I worried that if I brought her in too often I was a terrible mother. I secretly wondered whether there were flags on Pumpkin’s file at the Children’s Clinic alerting the staff that I suffered from Munchausen By Proxy and to put the folks at the Tin Tower with the white jackets on stand-by to take me away (ha, ha). Finally, I got to my breaking point. I stood up to th...

I admit (while secretly hoping my bosses aren’t reading this entry) that I am addicted to the webcam at Pumpkin’s daycare. I think Aaron thought that was just a “new mommy” thing I did when I first returned to work because he was quite shocked when I made reference to the webcam the other day – like, “you still use that thing?!?!?” So yes, I admit, I am the overbearing mommy who checks in on her throughout the day and can generally tell you within a 15 minute tolerance what she is doing at any given instant. In fact, most of the time the screen is minimized on my computer, ready to be called upon at a moment’s notice. Anyway, in addition to easing my still-relatively-new mommy anxieties, the webcam also provides lots of entertainment – at least as long as you can supply all of the dialog yourself AND fill in several second increments of time for yourself (it is not live action, but has a 20 second delay between posts). The 20 second delay can be particularly difficult since one mom...

I’ve been feeling a little like Marvin Gaye these days. Instead of “mother, mother” it’s more like “mamamamadadadada” but I’ve definitely been asking “what’s going on” and there’s definitely far too many of us crying. All joking aside, things haven’t really been that bad. I will say, however, that the one black male chanteur that I do NOT feel like is Ray Charles because night time is NOT the right time for Pumpkin. During the day, life with Pumpkin is a dream – we laugh, we play, we “talk” and sing and dance and all is right in the world. The picture of her in the kitchen shows her latest and greatest game of pulling out all of the Tupperware in the cabinet (and, as you can see, she even knows what to do with it) and bath time is still a favorite. But when the sun and the baby go down, it’s literally (and figuratively) like night and day (pun intended). We still cannot figure out what is causing it but I think – with the help of the almighty internet – that I have narrowed it do...

As is Pumpkin’s MO, this is “sick” week, after a healthy stint last week. We have had our obligatory bi-weekly visit to the Children’s Clinic and have been given another arm (and wallet) load of medicine that Pumpkin refuses to take peacefully. This week’s medical “guess” at her condition is allergies, though apparently they will not test her for them until she is two. I guess they just figure we’ll sleep in a few years. So, I took Pumpkin’s three prescriptions to the pharmacy and literally choked when I was given my $493 total. Among the various medications that were prescribed this week was a diaper rash cream that alone cost $245. Once I was informed that it was basically a mixture of Desitin and Monistat 7, we promptly removed that from the total and I picked up $10 worth of the OTC creams and mixed them myself. Also amongst the meds-of-the-week is a once-daily Singulair for her undiagnosed “allergies.” As if shooting liquids into her mouth with a syringe is not hard enough, this m...

There were birds in the sky, but I never heard them singing...until we went to the Audobon Zoo. That's right. The most excitement came not from the monkeys or elephants or even giraffes, but from the birds. Seriously, birds. I mean, we have those in our own backyard. We traveled hundreds of miles and paid admission fees to see birds. Oh well. As for the rest of the mammals, I'm pretty sure she just thought they were all different varieties of dogs. Funkle Jess put it best when he said "puzzlement was a recurring theme." Other than uncertainty, the day was absolutely gorgeous and it was fun to have one of our first family outings. It was also incredible to watch her eat the world's biggest pancake (see photo). That may have actually been the highlight of her day, even over the birds. Lots of other things to brag on since the last post. Although she still isn't walking, Pumpkin is cruising along the furniture and trying a few hands-free moments of sta...

Pumpkin celebrated her first Carnival the way any little Louisianan would – being pelted in the head by plastic beads that were being lodged at her from a moving trailer full of drunk revelers! That’s right, we took Pumpkin to the Children’s Mardi Gras parade yesterday to celebrate her 10-month birthday. Happy Mardi Gras, y’all. As we anticipated, Aly definitely enjoyed her first parade. The decision to go was not an easy one – Pumpkin has had a touch of a cold for the last week, hasn’t slept too well, and just generally was not in the best of moods on Sunday. She wouldn’t nap, wouldn’t eat, and wouldn’t really smile most of the day. Add that to the fact I wasn’t sure what she would think of crowds or loud music. Well, we finally decided to go meet some friends and no sooner did we arrive then a smile crept across her little face. We danced to the music, shouted “Throw Me Sumthin’ Mista’” and caught and wore lots of colorful beads. She did actually get pelted in the head at lea...