WWZMD??

For those of you unfamiliar with Blogger, there is a feature called "Stats" which gives you statistics about who views your blog.  The greatest number of hits on my blog comes from people's random Google searches.   The best part?  Blogger lets you know what search words lead to your blog.  I always get a good laugh from this information.  

Here are some of my favorite search-words-that-lead-to-my-blog so far:

"Fudgie the Whale" - If you put my pregnancy photographs side by side with pictures of Fudgie the Whale, you'd have a hard time picking out the real me.  If you put pictures of me from this morning next to pictures of Fudge The Whale, you'd have a hard time picking out the real me.  (Hint: I'm the one with the red hair.)

"Chewy baby" - Surely there are better ways of getting enough protein in one's diet than eating chewy babies!  I assume my blog came up because of this post in which I wanted to see what my baby would look like if Chewbacca were the father.  I'm such a nerd.

"Afraid baby will have big ears"-  Apparently this is a big worry for a lot of people in the universe. Poor Madeline has been cursed with Mumma's large ears.  It's okay if your baby will have big ears, she will still be cute.  My baby is living proof.

" Throw up in mouth while pregnant" - Boy do I miss the days when throwing up in my mouth was a daily occurrence.  Much to Eric's chagrin, I still make an announcement every time I throw up in my mouth.  Woo-hoo! I did it!

" Baby looks like a pig in sonogram picture" Excuse me?!  My baby does not look like a pig in any of her sonogram pictures!  Is Google passing judgment on my child?  Unless the Internet is trying to tell me that my baby is ugly, I have no idea why this led to my blog.  


 "What Would Zack Morris Do?"  Bwahahaha.  This one made me laugh.  At first I thought someone might legitimately be looking to Zack Morris for life lessons, but when I Googled this myself, I found out that it's a whole thing.  There are Facebook pages dedicated to it.  Awesome.   P.S. My obsession for all things Saved By The Bell has taken a turn for the worse lately after reading Behind The Bell, by Dustin Diamond and "Being Zack Morris," an essay from Chuck Klosterman's Book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto.   I still Hate You, Zack Morris! You too, Kelly Kapowski!

"African American life-sized dummy- mannequin" - Uhhhhhh what?  I don't know why this brought someone to my blog.     

25 Weeks

Happy 25 weeks!

Madeline is finally getting over her cold....which means...it's time for another bunny picture!

She continues to be a joy each and every day, even when she's sick. 

Madeline now loves to grab at our faces.  She sticks her fingers in my mouth so that I can nibble on them.  She thinks it's great fun.  It's not so fun for Mumma when she gets a hold of my lips.  Gal's got quite a mighty grip for such a little peanut.  

She's now able to sit up on her own pretty well.  It's cool to watch her figure out how to keep her balance.  I swear you can see the pride on her little face.  Whoa, look what I can do!  

Meanwhile...Madeline is still not interested in rolling over.  Remember when I wrote about how close she was?  Like, a whole month ago now?  Well, apparently she's given up on the idea because she doesn't even try that much these days.  I'm starting to think she may skip that skill all together.  

She can scoot around by using her legs, but she still doesn't seem to have much strength in her arms.  It cracks me up going into her room at night only to find her in a completely different part of the crib than where she started.  Last night, she did a complete 360 before the sun came up.   

I also think we're going to see some teeth soon.  Her gums are red and swollen, she's drooling like a mad woman, and yesterday she screamed bloody murder when she accidentally chomped down on her spoon too hard.  I think it hurt her teeths. :( 

I can't believe we're heading into her sixth month.  Six months?!?  Nah.  It can't be.  

Mom News

As usual, I found myself perusing the Internet the other morning in an effort to put off my responsibilities...mainly paying bills (shudder) and doing laundry.  I'm actually caught up with grading, which is a holy miracle, but we'll see how long that lasts.

These articles struck my fancy, and I thought they may tickle yours as well: (Although, by now, a lot of this is old news.)

http://www.boston.com/community/moms/articles/2011/02/07/toddler_obesity_tied_to_introduction_of_solid_foods/?camp=obinsite

This first article discusses new research that links the early introduction of solid foods with lifelong obesity.   The author suggests that it's probably not the introduction of solids alone, but a variety of factors.  Sounds logical to me.  I really don't think you can blame childhood obesity on a single factor....there are a whole host of issues to blame here.   After all, I'm pretty sure my parents', generation were fed solids way earlier than the babies of today, so why are we fatter now as a society than we ever have been?  I also have the same question when the recent rise of allergies is linked with the early introduction of solid foods.  Why don't previous generations have similar rates of allergies when solids were introduced a lot earlier??  Still, what do I know?  I teach Shakespeare for a living, and I'm pretty sure Romeo and Juliet were neither obese nor allergic to peanuts.  

http://www.fastcompany.com/1733627/mit-scientist-captures-his-sons-first-90000-hours-on-video

This second article is a lot more fun.  A scientist from MIT videotaped his son constantly for five years in order to study how children acquire language.  THEN, he condensed the video footage into short clips so that you can see the evolution of his son learning words such as "ball" and "water." This guy is not a nerd at all.  It's pretty awesome.

I sooooo wish we could do experiments on Madeline.   For example, what if every time we spoke to her, we covered our eyes with our hands??  Or, what if we taught her that "yes" means no and "no" means yes??  Or, what if we introduced baby sign language...but with rude hand gestures instead of legitimate signs??  Poor Madeline.  She wouldn't understand why she had to sit in time out at daycare every time she asked for another bottle.

Slow Cooker Sunday

Salsa Chicken Rollups

 Chicken breasts and a jar of salsa....cook on low for six to seven hours.

Shred chicken.

Scoop chicken into rollups.  Top with sour cream, lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese....whatever you want really.  Eat and enjoy!  The true lazy woman's dinner!

What's in your slow cooker???

I took a picture of the chicken in the crock pot, but hunks of shredded meat do not photograph well...

Sicky McGee

Remember last week how I wrote about my baby dumping me by moving to her own crib?

Well, she came crawling back.  They always come crawling back.  (Although, to be honest, Madeline isn't even close to crawling yet, so technically, she was carried back by Dada.)

Madeline has been sick since Tuesday when she was sent home form daycare with a fever.  The doctors tested her for RSV at her appointment yesterday, and it came back positive.  She's all stuffy and coughing up a lung.  This has made sleeping through the night very difficult for the little baby since she can't breathe so hot.

On Thursday night, we decided to move her back into the co sleeper in our room rather than wake up every five minutes to check on her like I had the night before.  We even placed the co sleeper right next to my bed again....just like old times.

Madeline was so happy to be with us while she wasn't feeling good.  She spent a long time staring at my face and trying to reach for me.  Finally, she fell asleep while grasping tightly onto my index finger with both hands.  My heart melted all over our down comforter right then and there.  It's nice to be needed.

Meanwhile, Madeline has been getting a lot of quality time with her daddy this week.  Eric had to take two and a half days off from work to watch the peanut since I have no sick time left.  (Grammy was nice enough to spend the day with Madeline on Thursday so that Eric didn't have to take three and a half days.  Thanks Mom!)

It's good for Madeline to spend time with Daddy because she always learns new tricks.  I came home from work on Wednesday shocked to find the baby staring at me from the middle of our bed where she was sitting all. by. herself!   Eric doesn't get as nervous as I do watching Madeline timbeeeerrrr onto her side, so he just kept propping her back up until she learned to stay there.  Our gal still can't roll over worth a damn, but at least she can sit up now.

Eric teaches Maddie to sit up...

And to play Farmville!

 I'm really glad that it's finally Saturday so I can spend the day with my little baby while she is feeling yucky.  We're just going to keep her cozy and hope she's better by Monday!

A Tale of Two Cankles

"Did you see the new Old Navy commercial for ankle pants?"  My BFF, Ms. A, asked not-so-casually the other day while perusing the mall.

"Yes!"  I responded glumly.  I knew where this was headed.

A. giggled to herself, "I saw it and thought of you."

Oh A. she knows me so well.  Not twenty-four hours earlier, I was sitting on my couch, pounding my fists angrily in to the air.

"Why!?  Why, must you torment me with your cute ankle pants?!?"  I angrily shouted at the Old Navy commercial that was gleefully mocking me from my TV screen.

Eric barely glanced up from his crossword puzzle.  He chuckled and muttered, "I'm sorry, baby."

I didn't need to explain what had angered me.  Eric knew.  The same way A. had known when she saw the commercial and thought of me.

Embarrassing confession?  I have cankles!

Cankles: a serious condition where poor unfortunate souls, such as myself, lack ankles.  Instead, my calf goes straight into my foot thus making my legs look like pasty, white tree trunks.  Exacerbating the situation even more?  I have teeny-tiny feet, which only make my cankles look even more enormous.

Due to this embarrassing condition, I can not wear ankle pants, capris, most shorts, or most skirts.  Also, unless I am wearing (ankle-covering) pants, I can not wear flats.  If I do wear a skirt, I must try to disguise my cankles by  wearing the highest pair of heels I can muster without falling flat on my face.

 Which is why I get angry every two or three years when ankle pants come back in style.  I find them too adorable to resist.  Each time I delude myself into thinking I can pull off the look.  I try to channel Audrey Hepburn, but instead end up with Ms. Piggy.

I haven't always had cankles.  At one point my legs had a shape. (Other than log shape that is.)  But for some reason, once I passed age 15, my cankles sprouted.

Many people associate cankles with heavy-set women.  I'm living proof that this is a fallacy.  Even when I weighed 110 lbs, (ha ha!) I had cankles.  Although I must add that pregnancy brought my cankle situation from a code yellow to a code red!

After the latest Old Navy mockery, I searched high and low for a solution to my cankle problem.

I found this:  www.byebyecankles.com

Thank the Baby Jesus for inventing the Internet!  Maybe this year will be the year of the ankle pants after all.

Don't you love my ankle pants?
Too bad! You can't wear them!
Sucker!

Will She Eat It???

 Baby apple sauce is, like peas, ridiculously easy to make.  Chop up apples, cook with some water for 8 minutes, puree, freeze, tada!  I chose to peal the apples, but as long as there's no waxy chemical-y stuff on the peals, you don't have to.

But, will she eat it???

 Good Lord, yes!  I think she likes apples even more than she likes bananas.  I couldn't shovel the stuff in her mouth fast enough.  See how she's all hunched over the bowl?  That's because she kept trying to stick her face in the bowl...like a dog.