The Day from Hell and Infant Experiments

So this morning, Stella and I went to the Children's Research Lab at UT so that they could conduct an "experiment" on her. It was fun! Stella enjoyed having all that attention lavished on her and of course I did too. She got a brush, a t-shirt and a bib, as well as lots of cute pictures in this silly hat thing that measures brain waves. Basically, they showed her pictures of women's faces and registered her brain activity. They are trying to judge if infants find the same faces attractive that adults do, or if they just react to all of them as a "face". Do they recognize more attractive faces as a face more easily? But apparently Stella did extremely well. Not only was she very cooperative and smiley, she looked at the faces for 7 and a half minutes before losing interest. Apparently most babies only go 3 and a half, and even adults only go 8. So I guess she has a better attention span than her parents! But it was really fun, I hope they ask Stella to do it again.

Then the crappy part of the day began. I was supposed to pick up boots and some gloves for Le for Zombie. I called Ashley and Anna, the holders of said boots, after the experiment and they were unfortunately not home. So we headed home, Stella sweetly sleeping in the backseat, and I put her down for a nap when we got home. No cigar, she wasn't going to sleep. And then I let the dogs out and noticed that Roxie left a trail of blood all the way down the stairs and out the back door. Nice. She had this problem in May, on our anniversary. Bloody diarrhea. And they never figured out what was wrong with her, even after we spent $700 on her. Although they were kind enough to point out her teeth were rotting out of her skull and charge us over $300 to fix that in a separate visit. So it's back. And we don't really have $700 lying around to fix it again. Especially since we just spent $650 on plane tickets to visit Tim's family in Michigan. And we have a house full of people coming this weekend for Stella's Baptism Sunday. Roxie has really impeccable timing. So instead of helping Ian out with Zombie, I spent the afternoon at the vet's office. They couldn't get us in until 2, and they ran the tests for $244, and once again they showed nothing, all her blood work was perfectamundo. The doctor thought it could be a bunch of stuff, and basically filled Roxie full of fluids, sent us home with a bunch of expensive medicines and food, and told us that if it didn't work, we'd probably have to bring her back and have her hospitalized again. And that we should probably have a $200 test to test her steroid levels to see if she has Addison's disease. We got these results after we'd been there 2.5 hours. Stella was such a trooper, I can't believe she made it. As soon as we got in the car to come home, she was out like a light. Of course, once again, this didn't translate into a nap when she got home. I was starving and ate "lunch" at a quarter to five. Ah, fun, fun, fun. And I still need to go to the run-through tonight. Not that I want Roxie to die, but why can't she be like most dogs and just live a long, healthy life until she peacefully dies in her sleep? Why does she have to need annual $300 teeth-cleanings and quarterly $700 hospital stays?

Wow, Stella is really cracked out. Her eyes are so pink, she looks like she has pink eye. Of course, she was ina really good mood until about 30 seconds ago, so I'm not complaining. Guess I better switch into "entertaining fussy baby mode". I may have to pull out the big guns again: the Rent soundtrack. Shudder!

Stella at 6 months

We had Stella's six month checkup today. Everything's still fine, but the doctor wants us to up our solid feeding to 3 times a day. Fun, it's already a challenge to get 2 in! Stella is 26 1/4 in. long (75th percentile), 16 lbs 9.6 oz (just below 75th) and 42 cm head circumference (25-50%). Apparently the doc thinks they just over-stretched her at her first visit, which is why she started in the 90th percentile on height. Too bad, I was expecting her to be longer. Don't know why I get such pleasure out of having a big baby, but I do. So the doc gently admonished us to give Stella more sitting up and tummy time to round out the right side of her head and to feed her more solids. She said that you shouldn't need to be breastfeeding every 3 hours anymore at this age, apparently only feeding 4-5 times a day. I don't think I believe that, but I do agree Stella needs more food. And I would not complain if it meant she needed to be fed less often. And slept longer at night. The doc said that once they have teeth, they don't want to them to be fed at night because the milk stays in their mouth and can cause cavities. I knew that was a problem with babies being put to bed with a bottle, but I didn't know it was a problem with breastfed babies. Sometimes I think the docs just make up new things for us parents to worry about. Stella also got her vaccines, plus the flu shot. She's out like a light right now. I expect that to last a while. After her last vaccines, I think she took a 3 hour nap!

Friday Flicks Answers

And I thought the theme was really easy. It is Books made into Movies (points to Beth).
1) Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley
points to The Holmes
2) Cher in Clueless (based on Emma by Jane Austen)
points to Jay
3) The Virgin Suicides
points to The Holmes
4) Bridget Jones’ Diary: Bridget (Renee Zellweger), on phone, while in bed wth Daniel Cleaver
points to jeana (i thought everyone would get this, since it was in the preview)
5) A Christmas Story the Dad (based on In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepherd
points to Kelli
6) Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Aslan
points to Kelli
7) The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Necie, Sidda and Caro
points to Jeana
8) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Ron
points to Carrie
9) Lolita, Humbert Humbert
points to MamaChristy (isn't that a great book, even though it's so hard to read? I've never seen the movie though)
10) About a Boy, Will (Hugh Grant)
points to Jeana

points for showing up to all youse guys. Now, Kelli, did I do this right?

Friday Flicks!

Hope you enjoy. I tried to do some variety to give everyone a chance.
1) “I always thought it'd be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.”
2) “Miss Stoeger, I would just like to say that physical education in this school is a disgrace. I mean, standing in line for forty minutes is hardly aerobically effective. I doubt I've worked off the calories in a stick of Carefree gum.”
3) “What are you doing here, honey? You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets.”
“Obviously, Doctor, you've never been a 13-year-old girl.”
4) “________ ________ wanton sex goddess, with a very bad man between her thighs... Dad... Hi.”
5) “Fra-gee-lay. That must be Italian.”
6) “Do not cite the Deep Magic to me Witch. I was there when it was written.”
7) “I wish you could've known your momma back then, you would've loved her.”
“Necie, me not loving momma was never the problem.”
“Her not loving you was never the problem either.”
8) “Neville, you're supposed to stroke it!”
9) “A normal man, given a group photograph of school girls and asked to point out the loveliest one, will not necessarily choose the nymphet among them.”
10) “The thing is, a person's life is like a TV show. I was the star of The Will Show. And The Will Show wasn't an ensemble drama. Guests came and went, but I was the regular. It came down to me and me alone. If Marcus' mum couldn't manage her own show, if her ratings were falling, it was sad, but that was her problem. Ultimately, the whole single mum plotline was a bit complicated for me.”

Sweeeeeeet Potatoes!

So Sweet Potatoes = 1 hour of sleep for Stella. We gave her vegetables at dinner last night and she woke up at 4:30am instead of 3 or 3:30. So she technically slept through the night. Yay! As I ambled to the bathroom before changing her I had running through my head, "I'd like to thank the Academy for this wonderful honor..." As you can probably tell, it's been a while since she slept that long. She still got up at 6:30, though, unfortunately. I think that is just how her body works. So Stella ate two meals yesterday: cereal for lunch and sweet potatoes for dinner. Stella was not crazy about the sweet potatoes. She'd eat them, but every few bites she'd give a little shudder like, "okay, I'll eat this because I'll eat anything, but this is kind of gross." She's definitely her father's daughter. He'd shudder and then eat them. I'd shudder and then throw them at the person who served them to me. In this case, however, I thought the sweet potatoes were pretty good. And I normally don't even like sweet potatoes! So perhaps if Stella doesn't eat the rest of the sweet potatoes, I'll just eat them. Wow, this post is probably going to come up number one in google when you search for sweet potatoes. I think I've used that phrase about 300 times in one paragraph.

Dude, baby food is expensive! The sweet potatoes (reference # 301) were two for $1.29, and they were the cheapest veggies they had! Granted, they were organic (nothing but the best for our little monkey), but still. Totally ridiculous. I once had this grand plan to make all of her food from scratch with vegetables I grew myself in my garden. I thought I'd sew all her clothes and even my own. What a joke. I still haven't sewn the curtains for our room despite having bought the fabric about 3 months ago. My goals for each day now are a shower, two meals and cleaning the kitchen. And usually laundry. Usually lots of laundry. I totally don't mind doing laundry though, but I do think it's funny how some days the washer seems to be going constantly!

This morning, Stella totally crawled. Well, I guess creeped, but she was moving her legs in the proper way to be crawling. It was so cool. Well, what I saw of it was cool. She was playing on the floor next to me while I was reading other people blogging about their daughter and when I looked up Stella was no longer lying perpindicular to me on the blanket on the floor. She was lying parallel to me and half her body was on the tile and half was on the blanket and she was totally trying to move herself along. I'm embarassed to say I missed it, both with my eyes and my camera. But she only seems to do these grand things when I'm ignoring her. The first time she rolled over I was totally not paying attention, and she does all kinds of exciting things in Yoga while I'm not focused on her. So I ignore her when she plays ON PURPOSE! That's right, yep, that's it, I'm pushing her.

By the way, you should totally read the blog I linked to, Sweet Juniper, it is fantastic. Juniper's parents are great writers and really inspire me. I wish I could be as eloquent. Actually, Tim and I were discussing this because a friend of ours has an awesome blog where every month he writes these really beautiful letters to his daughter, talking about all she's done the previous month and how much he loves her. They make you get all misty eyed. And Tim was saying he just can't write like that, not honestly anyway. And I thought that was funny because he's a writer. He can write fake situations with people saying those sort of things, but not real ones. And I don't think I really can either. I guess we all have different gifts, and being able to write about our feelings for our loved ones is not a skill we have. I did used to write poetry, perhaps I should try that as a way to express myself. Although I'm sure as hell not going to do it on my blog, I don't want to get laughed at!

The Newest Winston Arrives!

My cousin, Trey and his wife Lisa just had their baby, Joshua Owen Winston. I'm so excited that there is another Winston in the world! He's absolutely adorable. He was just born Monday and look at how alert he is! He looks a lot like my Uncle (his grandfather), in the picture at the left. I'm not sure exactly when these pictures were taken, but he's at the most 3 days old. My cousin is also a professional photographer, so I'm sure that gives him a leg up on the rest of us and our newborn snapshots:) Welcome Joshua, can't wait to meet you!

Sounds like someone's got a case of the Mondays!

Today has most definitely been a Monday. I didn't think I would still have crappy Mondays once I was a SAHM. But Stella gets totally wonky on Mondays. I think it's because her Daddy's not around and she's off. This morning she slept until 9, so it may be my fault since I didn't wake her up. She normally gets up at 7:30 and hasn't slept until 9 in eons. But today I've spent most of my time trying to get her to sleep, then she'll only sleep for half an hour. It's exhausting. My shoulders and arms hurt from trying to rock her. And she cries hysterically whenever I try to put her down for a nap. Like I'm physically hurting her. It's awful and definitely a new development, she's been much better at going down for naps lately.

Icing on the cake: this afternoon after spending 30 minutes failing at trying to get her to nap, I came downstairs to find Roxie eating the baguette I had bought for dinner tonight. I had left it on the floor because I didn't have time to put all the groceries away (just the cold stuff), before Stella got hungry. Argh, that damn dog! Then some weird lady with a really thick accent calls about Zombie tickets. She needed me to recite all the dates and then asked, "are you a student at UT?" Uh, no. She called twice more while I was nursing Stella and didn't leave a message. Dude, I cannot deal with you today! I don't even know where she got the number. The show doesn't open for two and a half weeks!

Now I'm trying to decide if I should be responsible and finish putting the groceries away, or stare at my computer in a catatonic state, which is what I really want to do.

To Sell or Not to Sell

I had to go to the post office and "on the way" home, I decided to swing by The Children's Orchard, a kid's resale shop. I found an adorable skirt that I almost resisted, but then didn't, for only $3.99. So adorable and I just need the right top and it'll be a little punk. I totally would wear it if it weren't in Stella's size. Anyway, it got me thinking about selling some of the stuff Stella has outgrown. I'd originally planned to keep almost all of it because we are planning on having more children, but I realized today, would our future daughter/s want to have the exact same wardrobe as their older sister? Wouldn't it make you feel pretty crappy if all your pictures were of you in the same clothes your sister had? It would be weird, wouldn't it? I am the oldest and only have a brother, so I never had to deal with hand-me-downs, but I understand they suck. My father periodically reminds us to treat any future children just as well as Stella. I think his concern in this area might have something to do with the fact that he's a middle child. Maybe I should sell the clothes, then keep the cash in a safe place to purchase clothes for the future child. Yeah right. The other thing is that there's no way I could buy a wardrobe for a new child with what you would get from reselling Stella's clothes. I think I might pick out some of the more heinous things that I don't like that Stella got as gifts from well-meaning people whose taste I don't agree with and sell those. I mean, Stella has clothes that she has never worn, or only worn once!