Mother's Day and Emma's 10 Month Birthday!

Well, yesterday was Mother’s Day. My first one officially.

Gene is notorious for ruining every day that I deem special – my birthday, St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, etc. I always end up crying because of his insensitivity (yes, he’s a man) and I expected my very first “real” Mother’s Day to be the same. So much so that on Saturday night I was sort of depressed. I mean, he knows how he is and yet he went out to the bar with his friends, and then when he got home at 11pm decided to play a video game until the wee hours of the morning. I just knew it was going to be a disaster… even more so when I was the one to get up with Em at 4:40am.

However, he surprised me. At 5am he got up and took care of Emma so that I could go back to sleep. At 6:30am I was awaken by a precious baby girl with a card (with a puppy dog on it), and then when I got out of bed I had found that she also had gotten me a bouquet of flowers, a bottle of wine and a brownie cake. I’m pretty sure Daddy was more excited about the brownie cake, but hey, it was a joint effort for them. Gene also told me later that I will be getting a package in the mail the next three months filled with goodies like perfume, jewelry, beauty products, etc. All-in-all, I was pleasantly surprised.

My cousin Kevin decided to come in from KC this weekend, and so we decided to go to the zoo and have a “picnic” lunch (on Mother’s Day because I had so many things to do on Saturday). So me, Emma, Gene and my Mom and Dad went to the zoo at 9am and then met up with Kevin and had an awesome time. The only downsides were the chilly wind and the fact that I left Em’s binky at home. She needs a binky for falling asleep and since we didn’t have one she didn’t take a nap until 1pm! She was a train wreck by that point, and she cried for 20 minutes straight until she fell asleep. I felt like such a bad Momma on Mother’s Day. Gene was frantically searching the park over for a store with binks for sale, and by the time he found one and paid for it, she was asleep. Lol, go figure.

 

 We left the zoo after Em finally fell asleep, so maybe 1:30pm and she slept all the way home and then longer; probably a little under two hours in total. We needed to run some errands so we had to wake her up and go. We stopped by Target (surprise, surprise), and then Walgreens and then Schnucks. By the time we made it home, Em was ready to go go go and I was ready to sit down for the rest of the night. Obviously that didn’t happen. We put everything away, BBQ’d, ate dinner, and then Emma crashed and burned at like 7pm so we did bedtime early and she was asleep by 7:30pm. Then Gene and I watched “Silver Lining’s Playbook” which we had rented and I ate some brownie cake and drank some wine until the movie was over and I made a bee-line to bed.

While it was nice to get the movie started early, I hate those early bedtimes because it makes for a rough night. She was up for about 10 minutes at 12:25, then a half hour at 2:30am, then up at 4:45 (I fed her at 5am, which is the earliest I let her eat) and then we slept on the couch recliner until 6:30am. If we would have done the regular bedtime without her being so frantic, she would have slept all night. Did I mention that once she gets up one time at 5am, she’s up the rest of the week at that time? By Thursday she’ll be back to 6am… I hope.

So that was my first Mother’s Day. It was a PERFECT day from the word go. Yes, I got exhausted and a bit cranky towards the end, but I couldn’t have asked for a better day. Now if only every Sunday could be that great!

So onto the Emma News… On Mother’s Day my sweet baby girl turned ten months old. My Mom says that the time flew by, but I feel like each day is three and this one year is taking at least two. I’m exhausted and it shows. I now have some gray hair, wrinkles and bags under my eyes. I’m getting off topic. Back to Emma.

My Dad likes to get on the scale with her at their house during the week, so he says she’s a little over 25 pounds. She had a growth spurt because in just a week’s time her shirts got a lot shorter… or maybe they shrunk. Idk. But if I had to guess I’d say around 30.5 inches long. Next month I will need to go have her weighed for her first birthday party invites. You’ll see. Haha.

She now lets go while standing and likes to walk around the house (or mall, or zoo, or wherever) while holding on with just one hand. She loses her balance a lot so if the ground is hard we still try the two-hand method. While it’s all so exciting and I cheer her on, it’s breaking my heart and causing me to worry at the same time. I guess that’s what mothers do though.

Emma has six teeth through the gums now. The top two are still only about half way through, but the bottom ones are either done or right there. She likes to grind her teeth too. It’s drives me batty. I tell her to stop, or stick my finger in there when I can, but she does it, oh like at 2am when I’m in bed and it’s like nails on a chalkboard. I’m told that it’s normal and there’s not much to do about it, but I can’t stand it and I don’t want her to break one… even if they are just her baby teeth.

She claps like a pro now! And we’ve taught her the “so big” game too, which she loves. My Mom-friend Liz posted about how her son loves to knock over his blocks, so I stack Emma’s now when I clean up, and she races to them each time she sees them stacked to knock hers over as well. While she waves at random people, she’s not at the point where she waves on cue. She also points at people (which we tell her isn’t nice), but she doesn’t know why she’s pointing… I think she just does it to be doing it.

This is Emma doing her 'sooo big!"

My favorite update is that Emma has taken an interest in books. She loves to sit down and “read.” I have a big book of words that I leave on the floor and when I see her flipping the pages I’ll sit down and point out words to her, and their equal in the room. So if there’s a ball in the book, I’ll point at it and say “ball,” and then grab one of her toy balls and say “ball” again. We do that with every word in the book that has an “equal” in our house.

Now the frustrating things:

The temper tantrums are worse now. We handle it much better as parents and grandparents, but she now will throw herself onto her belly and scream into the floor. It only lasts like 10-20 seconds, but can you just imagine this happening over a dozen times in a day?!? She does it each time you take something away from her, tell her no, move towards her while she’s playing like you’re going to pick her up, pick her up, etc. I don’t think she has a handle on her emotions yet.

She wiggles and squirms and flips over during diaper changes. Yes, we are still using the changing table because it’s convenient. And while she hasn’t tried to get off the table, she has tried to look over the edge after she’s flipped to a crawling position. This is so difficult because it’s nearly impossible to change her diaper this way. However, at the zoo I did see a lady change a girl’s diaper while the girl was standing. I might just have to quit trying to get the diaper on perfectly and just get the diaper on her, period.

I feel like some of my Mom friends have calm babies. Actually, I feel like all their babies are calm and I got the wild child. I can’t do arts and crafts with her because she just wants to play with it or chuck it onto the floor. I never get to cuddle unless she’s asleep because she hates to sit still. Shopping is a two-person job most of the time because she can only tolerate the cart for so long. I don’t think I was like that at all, so she must have gotten it from Gene’s side. Lol.

Food is an issue for me. While she can have anything but milk or honey, I’m finding it hard to find things for her to eat. I feel like everything that I decide is soft enough for her to handle is just carbs. Pancakes, cheerios, french fries, pasta. We’ve also done avocado, sausage, chicken, hamburger, pears, grapefruit, orange, banana, strawberries and blueberries. She has also tasted cake and ice cream… but she didn’t really eat those, just tasted. Make sense? A lot of people just say to feed her what Gene and I eat, but we eat so bad! Frozen pizza, canned veggies, frozen “for two” meals. It’s not something I imagine Emma eating. I try to cook healthy so that she has some yummy stuff to eat, but when I do it’s a crap shoot if she likes it – like last night we had BBQ chicken, beets, and wild rice with broccoli and carrots in it. She spit everything out! She was also tired and grumpy though which I think may have played a part in her reluctance to eat.

In other news:

I finally remembered to call the Parents as Teachers program to get Emma signed up. I’m waiting for a call back from her “person.” I have no idea what they are called. I plan to ask them about her temper, although I’m not sure they even talk about things like that. I think she’s developing just fine, so I’m hoping for an A. Do they grade? Haha.

I am going to sign Emma up for a class at the library. Since they only have daytime classes for one year olds, and they only do them on Tuesdays, I thought it would be the perfect “Daddy and Me” activity for Gene. It’s just once a month, and she will start those in July. J I think it’s mostly story time and activities. I don’t know how Gene will handle it on his own, but it might be a good chance for him to interact with her around other children.

Emma has two birthday parties to attend this month. She did so well at her first one, but I think that’s because my friend Michelle was there to play with her.  This time though I won’t have a 5K beforehand to wear me out so I should be good to go! I’m so excited for each party because I get to see my Mom friends. I feel like I’ve lost touch with my non-Mom friends since I first announced I was pregnant, and now I feel like I have nobody really. Yes, my non-Mom friends would be there for me if I really needed them, but my Mom friends can relate to me more and I feel like we have more to talk about now. I’m dying for some Mom talk… I mean it’s on the verge of an obsession.

My vacation starts on the 25^th (so does Gene’s and my Mom’s)! We are planning a trip. It was going to be to Florida, but with the realization that Emma wouldn’t last that long in the car, we are now shooting for KC to meet up with family, and then to the Lake of the Ozarks. I’m so looking forward to this vacation because it’s the first with Emma since maternity leave. So the 25^th is the Irish festival, the 26^th is Desmond’s b-day party, then KC for the 27^th, then Ozarks 28^th through the 30^th, then home the 31^st with a Card’s game that night, a free day Saturday to get everything back in order, and a book fair on Sunday. Obviously things can change, and probably will, but as of today that’s the agenda.

So, that’s it, that’s everything going on (I think). Each day seems like an exciting journey with Emma, and I thank God each night for her. I can only imagine the possibilities.

Jenni