mountaineer musings

I was nursing Buttercup this morning, and she suddenly stopped, looked up at me, and actually sang, in key, “Moo, moo, moo.” So I started singing “Moon, Moon, Moon” to her. When I got to the end of the song, she again stopped and sang to me. “Moo, moo, moo.” I sang some more, adding new kinds of pies for the moon to resemble. Over and over, when I would stop, she would urge me to continue. “Moo, moo, moo.”

I can’t think of a better way to start my day.

That’s when Buttercup does her cutest things.

Last night, Buttercup was at her grandparents’ house playing with her cousin for a few hours while I put Frank to work cleaning bathrooms and I took on the living room. Frank went to pick her up while I vacuumed, and when he got her home, she was sleeping. She still doesn’t weigh enough for her convertible car seat, so Frank just brought her inside in her infant seat and put her in her room. I went in to transfer her to her crib, and when I picked her up out of the seat, she lifted her head, looked at my face, threw her arms around my neck, squeezed tightly, and said, “Awwwww.” I about died. She’s been awwing recently, because any time she hugs a person or a stuffed animal, I aww, and she picked up on it. After that, she stuck her face in my cleavage to signal that she wanted to nurse.

I nursed her and changed her diaper and put on her jam-jams, and then Frank came in so we could both say goodnight. When we put her in her crib, we usually sing Laurie Berkner’s “Moon Moon Moon” before leaving the room. So last night, I laid her down, and before either of us could start, she sang, “Moo moo moo. Moo moo moo. Moo moo moo.” And she was still singing it after we finished and left the room. “Moo moo moo. Moo moo moo.”

She’s squeezable.

I don’t feel well. It’s day 7 of my sore throat, and I feel like I was up all night, probably because I was. Buttercup’s nose got runny yesterday, and by bedtime last night she was all sneezy and snotty. Also, she’s teething molars right now, and she does not handle teething very well. So she was up quite a bit, which means I have a sleep-deprivation headache.

Combine that with last night’s idiocy at Penn State (I’m speaking of the students rioting over the firing of someone who covered up child rape, NOT the firing), and it could all make a mom a little cranky.

But I’m not.

Because my little munchkin has been entertaining me.

When she woke up from her morning nap, I drilled her on her animal sounds (that sounds a little harsh, but all I did was say, “Buttercup, what does a cow say?” etc.). She got an A+ on cow, kitty, doggie, duck, horsey, sheep, and monkey (“Ah! Ah! Ah!”).

We snuggled on the couch, me wiping her relentless nose over and over, her trying to eat toilet paper and feed me peanut butter crackers (“cack-caws”, if you ask her). Occasionally she would lay her head down on my chest for a few minutes. It’s sad but very, very sweet when my baby is sick.

Then, out of the blue, while smearing peanut butter all over her face with one hand, she raised the other arm straight in the air and said, “Daaaaaaaaahhhhh!” I raised both of my arms. “Touchdown!” She raised her one again. “Dah-daaaah!” Later, she raised them both. “Dah-daaaaah!” She kills me.

She chased various balls around the living room, all the while exclaiming, “Baw! Baw! Baw!” She stopped by to put a couple of puzzle pieces in their places (correctly), and continued her chase. “Baw! Baw!”

Then she got distracted and sat down with a book (“Boo!”) in her lap. A few minutes later, she sounded like she was whining, and I looked down to see what was up. She wasn’t whining, she was pretending to read the book.

She grabbed her stuffed lemur out of my arms, hugged him, and said, “Awwww.” This cracked me up. Because she does the hugging thing, yes, but I’m usually the one who says, “Aww, that’s so sweet.” She went ahead and awwwed for me.

And now she’s napping again, but only on and off. Now and then she wakes up and practices singing or says, “Rowie!” Then drifts off again.

She’s the most wonderful little thing.

In music class, our teacher plays the flute near the end of class, during lullaby time. Buttercup is always mesmerized by the flute. It’s the only time during class that I know she will sit still and focus on one thing. She usually crawls up in front of the teacher and sits and stares at her. At the very least, she sits in my lap and stares. We had class yesterday morning.

So last night after dinner, we were playing on her mat, rolling balls around and drumming on things. She has this little Melissa & Doug harmonica that’s black and chrome, I guess. The chrome-ish part is shiny and metal-looking, like a flute. Normally, she picks up the harmonica, tries to blow into it, doesn’t get any sound, and then hands it to me or Frank with the expectation that we can coax some sound out of it.

When we were playing last night, she picked up the little harmonica and put it up to her mouth. But she held it wrong. I was just about to reach over and show her how to hold it when I realized how she held it. Her mouth was at the very end of it, and she was blowing on it, trying to make sound. She held it very gently, with her left hand cupped under the harmonica, fingers spread out a little. Her right hand came over the top and held it near the end.

She was trying to play it like a flute.

Somewhere in her wonderful little fascinating brain, she made the connection that the harmonica is something you blow in to make music, just like the flute that teacher plays during class.

She is a most amazing little creature.

Buttercup took her first two steps on her birthday. And now she’s walking a little. Sniff sniff.

1 year since this.

1st yell. She had to be suctioned first by the NICU team.

It was 10 minutes before I got to hold my burrito baby. Well worth the wait. Yes, I'm tweeting.

Proud daddy.

Brand new family. Brand new adventure.

Now she's my big girl.

Happy birthday, Buttercup.

p.s. Here’s the highlight reel.

I just did the whole comfort-baby-then-go-laugh-in-the-other-room thing. Buttercup does pretty well drinking out of a cup without a lid on it. But with recent travel and house guests and such, we hadn’t tried it in a while. So this morning, while I was making the oatmeal, I put her in her high chair and gave her half a cup of water, without the lid.

She threw it back SO fast. Got a face full of water, coughed, sputtered, cried.

It was so funny. So I hugged her and said I was sorry and then went into the kitchen and laughed silently while I finished the oatmeal.

It’s been a month since I last posted here. I know it looks like my blog is dead, but it’s really just in a coma. Babies will do that, I guess.

So Buttercup is 10.5 months old now. That’s crazy. I don’t know how she got to be so old without my permission. She does have a little mind of her own.

My little princess is 17 pounds, 2 ounces now, and 27.5 inches long. She crawls everywhere, cruise walks a little, stands up on everything, and sometimes forgets and lets go. Then falls promptly on her tush-tush.

She can still only sleep if she’s in her car seat or being held or sleeping next to me.

Thank God for that car seat, which at least allows me to use the bathroom now and then. I still don’t get to shower much, but that’s life.

Buttercup is an inquisitive little monkey. Seriously, she has to know how everything works, what everything sounds like, what everything tastes like. People are constantly freaking out when they see that I let her chew on my shoes, but she’s never been sick, as I’ve realized that her 2 ear infections were actually teeth coming in. She’s an aficionado of both patty-cake and peekaboo.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can!

Where's Buttercup?

She has 4 teeth.

Teething makes me sad.

And high heels.

And the best disposition. Seriously, I can’t tell you how many friends and random strangers have told us that she seems like the happiest baby they’ve ever seen.

Either she was born that way, or she just really likes how her parents aren’t afraid of being extremely dorky and goofy to make her laugh (not pictured).

She tries to climb everything now. Everything. She spends most of her time with one foot on the ground and the other up in the air, trying to find something to put it on.

Her hair is starting to grow, and she’s getting teeny curls. Makes my heart all full and melty.

Anyway, she’s the best gift.

Buttercup.

Our family.

Mom starts freaking OUT.

Buttercup has this horrible grunt-yell that she’s done pretty much since she was born, so I hardly notice it as special when she does it. I just tell her that it’s so prim and ladylike and laugh at her.

Meanwhile, I went to a baby sign language mini-class about 5 months ago or so, and occasionally I’ll try to teach her the few signs that I learned. I haven’t been very persistent with it, but there’s one sign that I’ve repeated more than any of the others.

Tonight, Frank was standing near the dog, who was splayed out on the ground. Buttercup was there, too, gently patting the dog on the head (read: using the dog as a drum and a climbing perch). Frank pulled Buttercup off the dog and kind of held her as she stood on her little baby feet. Then she caught sight of me in the kitchen and let out her ladylike grunt. I raised my eyebrows and looked at her and noticed she was clenching and unclenching her fists as she yelled at me. She looked like she really had something to say, so I said, “Is that so?” Again, she yelled, clenching and unclenching her little fists. Then it hit me.

“Buttercup, are you saying ‘milk’? Do you want milk??” The sign for milk is hilarious–you act like you’re milking a cow. And this is something I’ve done sporadically over the last several months. Ask her if she wants milk, act like I’m milking a cow. Repeat. I realized this was what she was doing clenching and releasing her fists. We had laughed a month or so ago when she started doing this, yelling while making little fists (the fist thing was new). We thought it was something to do with teething, which makes her a little crazy.

She looked so excited, grinning hugely and raising her arms in the air.

“Milk? You want milk?” She kept grinning and looking expectantly at me.

I picked her up and offered her the boob. Sure enough, she wanted to eat!

Now I just have to teach her to to that in public.

Frank reading to Buttercup at our hotel in Utah on the way home from Thanksgiving in TX. Buttercup was 2 months old. Frank was 31.

When I was pregnant, I wore a t-shirt with a monkey on it and “little monkey” written across the belly. Had I but known.

This morning, we went to the park for my workout, and afterwards, I sat and talked to my friend L while we both fed our babies. We talked for a while, and Buttercup, who just learned to crawl properly on Saturday, grabbed her stroller wheel and pulled herself up on it. She’s been pulling up and sitting on her knees for a while and does occasionally pull up onto her feet, but she’s always seemed pretty unsure of herself. So this morning while I was talking, she just stood up with her hands on the stroller wheel (it’s a jogger, so tall wheels), and boy did it seem like the most natural thing in the world. I’m not ready for this!

So later we walked back to our cars and kept talking. For the short walk back, I sat Buttercup in her stroller but didn’t strap her in. Ah, how the laziness teaches us things. I stood chatting for quite a while, and the Cup happily played in her stroller. I wasn’t watching her; she was in front of me, and L was to the side several yards away, and I was looking at her. After a few minutes, I heard a noise that sounded like Buttercup kicking the tray on her stroller.

L said, “Um, Buttercup just scooted out of her stroller.” I looked over, and my child was on the ground, on her butt. I rushed the 2 feet over and picked up my baby, who was still quite happy. I asked L if she fell. Nope, she kind of scooted under the bar and climbed down, landed on her butt on the ground.

I am in so much trouble.

Buttercup thinks the Japanese number six is high-larious.