My Name Is Now Mom

We had a busy weekend!  On Saturday, I had a dentist appointment and then we were going out to meet some friends, so the whole family came to the dentist with me.  Wonder Baby is a pro at taking her socks off The plan was to drive to the dentist and then I'd feed TerraDactyl so that she shouldn't need me while I was occupied.  However, she fell asleep in the car on the way there, so DH figured he'd just drive around and keep her asleep.  Well.  I had a relaxing dentist appointment (I love the dentist).  DH was far from relaxed.  TerraDactyl woke up like 10 minutes after I left and started crying.  She did not stop crying until I texted DH that I'd finished and he could come pick me up.  So while I fed TerraDactyl in the parking lot, DH took a long walk and tried to find his zen.  Dystopian onesie decorated by Nearbad at our baby shower I was concerned that TerraDactyl's rough start to the day was foreshadowing of the day to...

We had some friends from LA stop by for a visit yesterday.  One of my friends from back when I was doing gymnastics, oh...  nearly 25 years ago.  Sheesh!  I hadn't actually done the math on that one till just now.  I'm so old!  Anyways, my friend came with her husband and 3.5 year old daughter.  It was great to see them, since I haven't seen my friend since she moved to California several years ago. TerraDactyl playing with her hands.  I half expect her to "Mwahaha" while she's doing this The last couple of days I've discovered how I can sneak in an extra hour of sleep in the mornings.  If TerraDactyl is too alert to fall back asleep in her bassinet, I can lay her in bed with me and she's totally chill just staring at the ceiling fan or me for a while.  Sometimes she even falls back asleep, too.  I guess she gets bored staring at her sleeping mother.  :D  I often struggle to stay awake when I'm holding her while she...

I've been working on strengthening my transverse abdominals and I feel like I'm pleased with their progress.  But my rectus abdominals (the six pack muscles) are still non-existent.  So I've added some extra exercises to try and work on those.  It's weird, I'm basically trying to build them up from scratch.  I can't remember a time in my life that my abs have been so weak.  So the typical workouts I would do to work on ab strength don't quite apply.  These terrycloth footie pajamas remind me of 70's lounge wear.  I think it's the neckline. I decided to add push ups to my routine.  I figure they're like planks, but with extra arm strengthening added in.  It's a two for one sort of thing.  ...  I did three push ups.  Three.  And it wasn't even my arms that gave out, it was my core.  So I broke down and did knee push ups, for like, the first time ever.  This moment was probably the most "this is not my body" ...

TerraDactyl has recently been discovering her hands.  She's started holding her hands and moving her fingers independently.  And grabbing things.  It started with my hair and my shirt when I'd hold her.  But it's progressed.  To car seat straps (when we try to take her out of it), her own clothes, blankets, and...  dirty diapers when I'm changing her.  That's a fun one.  I have HANDS!! This is a problem.  Now that I've fully committed to dresses, TerraDactyl wants to pull them up over her head.  ;)  Here we are with a bit more decorum, but not much She's also been sucking on her hands quite a bit.  Which can be a messy proposition.  Sucking leads to drooling.  As does blowing bubbles.  We're getting a handle on the giant spit-ups, those have been reduced quite a bit by making sure she stays upright for 15 minutes after eating, but now TerraDactyl is just straight up drooling.  So, still messy....

This past weekend was quite busy.  We started watching Stranger Things season 3, in an attempt to outrun spoilers.  It's good stuff.  We always enjoy it.  And so that I don't give you any spoilers, that's all I'll say about that.  When DH was in Target, he found these pillows: Oh, Steve... On Saturday we went for a long walk.  TerraDactyl was doing well, so we just kept going.  We ended up discovering this whole hidden neighborhood only a few streets away from our house.  It's a pretty cool area.  Both DH and I think I'm back to walking at my pre-pregnancy speed.  Yay!  Also...  I wore a pair of regular pre-pregnancy shorts for the first time!!  They have an elastic waistband, so it's maybe not a huge achievement, but it was exciting to start wearing some of my normal clothes again. I'd like to point out that this next picture is not proper car seat safety-wise.  We were just going on a walk, so we didn't cin...

I end up getting up at odd hours of the night and early morning (I know, totally unexpected).  At 4 am the other day, I came out of my room after feeding TerraDactyl to see this: Why can't I snuggle my dad? Yes, that is Riley waiting patiently for DH to wake up and open his door.  I'm not sure how long he'd been there when I saw him, but Riley was still there when DH woke up at 6:30.  Poor pup. TerraDactyl is growing so big!  I've been removing clothes from her closet when they get too small or are difficult to put on/take off.  The number of clothes in there had dwindled down significantly, so I figured there was enough room in the closet for me to open up the next size of clothing.  So all her 3-6 month clothes are now in the wearable rotation!  It's crazy. Checking to see if these 3 months clothes still fit...  I love this pose. As I've eliminated more and more clothes, the things I choose not to dress TerraDactyl in become more...

(I'm still about a week behind on blogging here...)  After spending the 4th of July with Grandma and Grandpa, we stopped by my parents' house (Oma & Opa). Bath Time at Oma & Opa's The drive from DH's parents to my parents' house was probably the roughest of the whole trip.  TerraDactyl didn't even make it out of town before she started objecting - LOUDLY.  We stopped at a gas station where I fed her, and then had to change her.  Thirty minutes later, DH got TerraDactyl buckled up while I went to the bathroom.  TerraDactyl was just fine chilling in the car, but as soon as we started moving she got upset (this is backwards of normal).  She pitched a fit for quite some time.  Until we just couldn't stand it.  But we're out in the middle of nowhere at this point, so we ended up pulling off the highway onto a little gravel dead end.  After another 45 minutes of eating, uprightness, diaper changes, TerraDactyl fell asleep and made it...

We're still about a week behind, so I'm going to summarize a few days to try and catch back up to real time. Bath time with DH and grandma! Since DH's family is big, MIL had a party for everyone to come out to and meet TerraDactyl.  It's a good thing DH's parents have a big place, cause there was a ton of people!  FIL grilled burgers and dogs and everyone brought sides to share.  And then we played "pass the baby". TerraDactyl was the life of the party TerraDactyl actually handled it really well.  I was a little nervous, since TerraDactyl hadn't been in a situation like that, I wasn't sure how she'd handle all the people and noise, but she was a party girl.  She was happy pretty much the whole time.  And we haven't hit the age of separation anxiety, so she was totally cool being passed around. This might be the highest she's ever been There was a little while when TerraDactyl wasn't too happy, but DH's cousi...

Whew!  It's been a while since I posted.  Things are good, everyone's fine.  Life just happened.  Let's play a bit of catch up.  Sooooo Big! After visiting my family, we continued on to visit with DH's family.  This broke up a 7-hour drive into two 4-hour drives.  As this was our first attempt to bring TerraDactyl such a long distance, I thought it was important to limit the drive time of each day.  Because while she can do a 4-hour drive pretty well, I could see a 7-hour drive turning into:  4 hours of sleeping and then 10 hours of stopping every 30 minutes to feed and change diapers with TerraDactyl screaming the whole time.  I'd rather ease her into long car trips.  Great grandma and TerraDactyl's great aunt loving on her This was our first visit to DH's extended family.  Which means it was also the first time most of the family had a chance to meet TerraDactyl.  DH has a pretty big family, so there were l...