Umm. . .

Nineteen pounds, ladies and gents. Ninteen!

Hopefully the Ultimate Baby Wrap will work its magic so that Lisa doesn't end up with damaged arms or anything of the sort from holding beefy Gazes all day long.

Side note: when I was showing Gaz "the baby in the mirror" while I demonstrated how comfy and secure the aforementioned UBW is, I saw the beginnings of understanding dawning on my daughter: the momma in the mirror is the same one who talks behind her, and the "other" baby is . . . well, one step at a time. It was hilarious and amazing to watch her go from staring at me in the mirror to trying to twist her head around to see me, like she wondering how I could be in two places at once.

Very cool. It's the science experiment that keeps on giving.

'twasn't long at all

Last night Gaz decided to roll from her tummy to her back! It was very cool. She looked a bit confused; it was hard to tell if she was more bewildered by the rolling or my carrying on about the rolling.

Anyway, pictures were taken and can be viewed here.

We haven't been able to capture the teething angst yet, but never fear. We have a 1GB card in the digital camera.

Turn, turn, turn

As if the month wasn't full of enough growing madness already, I believe it won't be long before Miss Gaz is rolling from back to tummy. Now that she's found her toes, she's often found in a rolly-polly sort of ball, toes in hand and listing this way and that every time she turns her head. I watched her roll from her back to her right side while she napped this morning. I'm sure the rest of the rolling will happen soon.

giant baby attack

Did I say that she's wearing 6 month clothes? Make that 6 - 9 month clothes. The 9 mo. stuff is a little baggy, but just a little. Next month that stuff should fit fine. I'm also just realizing that we don't have enough fall/winter clothes, including things like pants. Thanks to a recent visit from Grandma Cel and Grandpa Charley, we now have trousers! We had to go to the boys' section to find pants without tons of embroidery, but we've got green cargo pants and khaki cords and jeans and, of course, camoflage! Also cardigans and hoodies and other things in unisex colors. We're hoping our next one is a boy, and we're not the only ones in the family hoping for a boy so I figure I'm shopping for the future just as much as I'm shopping today. Don't fret. She's wicked cute whatever she's wearing.

I just can't believe how big she is. Especially since she's now beginning to teethe. You read that right. She's developing so fast it's about enough to make a gal dizzy.

Gaz at the Zoo!

Sunday we took a little trip down to the Lincoln Park Zoo. It was a lovely autumn day. Gaz loved the black and white tamarins and leopards but pretty much ignored the rest of the animals. She fell asleep just in time for us to find the children's zoo area (a recent addition) then we all had popcorn and went home.

One interesting thing--it was breastfeeding day at the zoo. Gaz needed to refuel twice, we saw another lady near the seals, and in the new ape house there was a breastfeeding couple among the chimpanzees. It's almost as if the universe was saying "I condone public breastfeeding!" At least that's what I like to think. I'm getting more comfortable nursing her away from the comfortable pillows at home. I've got to start feeding her sans support cushions at home every now and again so I don't have so much of that initial awkwardness as I try to remember how I did it last time.

If you ever need a good laugh and have a baby handy, try to get your hands on some baby sunglasses. I swear my daughter looks like Bono. It's hilarious.

Mr. Stumpy is Dead! Long Live Mr. Stumpy!

Today Mr. Stumpy, Gaz's beloved umbilical cord stump, was painted with silver nitrate. He just wouldn't leave on his own due to Gaz's belly button having sunk in faster than we expected so that it was impossible to keep the bottom of Mr. Stumpy completely dry. Dr. C. said that Gaz just wanted to keep her ticket so she could get back in. Well, about seven hours after the silver nitrate, Mr. Stumpy popped right off! Our baby has a genine bona fide unmarred belly button now for all to apreciate as one of the cutest tiny belly buttons in the world.

blog interrupted

Imagine that--tending to an infant taking up all a person's spare time! Such is life these days. Gaz continues to eat up hours and hours, and all she has to do is be cute in order to get me to drop everything else for her. That or cry, but we try to keep that to a minimum.

She's two months old as of yesterday and she's quite the large child. She just weighed in at 14 pounds 14 ounces today and she's 25" long now. She's currently wearing mostly 6 month size clothes and stage two diapers if anyone is considering buying anything for her. I've already started a box for the clothes she's grown out of and then had to upgrade to a larger box. I know we didn't get her in everything we were given, but I had no idea that she would (a) be so big at birth or (b) grow this fast. Hopefully there are some more girls waiting to be born into the family somewhere that can use some of this stuff.

So basically Gaz is wonderful, all hugeness aside. She smiles and giggles and coos, especially first thing in the morning when I'm changing her diaper. The gal loves her brief naked time. Her waking up so happy makes those few days when she's generally inconsolable easier to take. I can't remember or imagine life without her now; she's taken over my higher brain functions and I don't care one whit. I'm beginning to wonder if the reason I never had any particularly monumental career ambitions is because some part of me knew that this was going to be the really important work for me. I still love being a secretary and I really, really love copyediting, but if given the option I would choose Gaz over everything. If only that job paid.

I went back to my part-time office job last week and it was pretty rough on me. Gaz fared better, although for a while she was dead set on not taking the bottle from Babysitter Lisa. Now that she seems to have figured out that she can get milk out of a bottle when Mama's not around, hopefully she'll develop a more normal apetite. I pump on the days I'm away from home enough to keep my milk supply up and since Gaz hasn't been taking bottles well I've been filling the freezer with bags of expressed milk.

Right now she's sleeping off the angst of having four shots this morning and I'm trying to maybe catch up on email and blogging. I'm going to go back and fill in some of the blanks now, like with labor and delivery and such. Soon I'll be sleeping off the angst of trying to figure out where to get a flu shot. Tis the season.