tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-236878112024-03-13T14:02:45.212-04:00Random Access BabbleUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger372125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-25788352269404215912017-10-11T16:56:00.000-04:002017-10-11T17:04:28.400-04:00Quincy, 1 Year<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Quinceroo, Milky Face, Incers, Goat, Goose-a-roo, Chunker, Sweetpea, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Happy 1st birthday!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh Second Baby, you’ll see here that the writing about you over the past year has been sparse. I promise that the joy, the giggles and the love have been plentiful. It’s not just that somehow two children is more than double the work but that on your second child the newness is less. So much of the blogs about Casper were really, it turns out, about </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>all</i></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> mamas and </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>all</i></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> babies. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your dad and I did get it together to take monthly photos of you in a white onesie so points to us for that! Looking at these I'm struck at how you never really looked like a squishy potato newborn. Even at one month you're a little man. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are a happy baby but not a goofball like your brother. I'd hesitate to call you serious but we have to work a tiny bit harder for the smiles and you're rarely overtaken by a giggle fit. You can communicate no with a gleefully delivered head shake that seems to say "no way, you fool!" Recently, you started asking for milk by tugging at my shirt only to smirk and shake out an emphatic "NO" after I get the boob out. Hilarious. Your "yes" is a happy full body bounce accompanied by heavy excited breathing. Yes, I want a banana. Yes, I want to be picked up. Yes, I want to go get Casper at school. Yes, I want you to turn my walker around so I can push it at top speed down the hall.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are figuring out that caps go on bottles, that socks go on feet, that blocks belong in a stack. So little of this knowledge can be executed on by one year old fingers and this is very frustrating. You know what you want and you screech when you don't get it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You have a fistful of baby tricks: waving, blowing kisses, clapping, peek-a-boo, raspberries. Most recently you’ve learned to point at my nose on command.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everyone still remarks on how much you look like your daddy. I can’t see it but I have to believe it’s true given the frequency of the comments. You're a big guy -- consistently in the 80th percentile for height and weight. We fear you'll pass up Casper soon (you already skipped over his first 2 pairs of shoes because your feet are gigantic). Your hair is a little bit red and a little bit curly. I'll take credit for the curl but the red is a mystery.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0Zyt62YUWf8/WdjjuUmgm-I/AAAAAAAABvE/YjHx2-3KR3EqI6lxn7h1f6E02DprrVPYQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_6983.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0Zyt62YUWf8/WdjjuUmgm-I/AAAAAAAABvE/YjHx2-3KR3EqI6lxn7h1f6E02DprrVPYQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_6983.jpg" width="213" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are a fast crawler able to escape being chased or quickly dart into your brother’s room to get at his toys. You started crawling for real on 6/21 after at least 6 weeks of rocking back and forth on hands and knees and then collapsing into a ball of grief when you failed to make any forward progress. You’ve been standing unassisted for weeks but have not really walked save a few steps that were more like falling forward than true locomotion. I theorize that you’re less motivated to walk because crawling works so well for you but I still suspect you’ll be toddling soon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are big eater. We call you Goat because you’ll happily clean up your brother’s (ample) leftovers. You love hummus on a spoon straight from the container no chip or pita or carrot required. You love bananas and applesauce and pancakes and tomatoes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You were a beast to sleep train. We spent two weeks of March trying in vain to get you to sleep through the night. You’d go down easily but awaken at some point to scream for milk for upwards of 2 hours each night. After 14 nights of even less sleep than I was getting when you insisted on being feed every 2 hours I gave in and returned to nursing on demand through the night. Once I was resigned to it I actually felt better. We had planned to try again when we moved into our new apartment and you into your own room in June. And then miraculously, we moved and you just slept. Night one, through the night, no wake ups. No effort required. Maybe it was the move out of our bedroom. Maybe it was the bigger home and being far enough away on a summer night when mom and dad left the window open in their room and the white noise from outside combined with the distance to drown out your screams. It’s possible that babies in large suburban houses are sleeping through the night only in their parents minds and that truthfully they cry a lot and no one notices. If a baby cries at night and no one hears him did he really cry? No he did not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">Your brother loves you very much. Recently he lunged at an older kid (his second cousin, Jackson) who accidentally bumped you screaming, “You have to be nice to him!!!” He gets on the floor to force you into a hug and coos, "I love him." On long car trips when you start to complain he leans out of his seat with comforting words, (“It’s ok Quincy, we’ll be there soon.”) and even instructs me to get you out first because you’re having a tough time. Very selfless for 3 years old. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You scream when you can't open your shape sorter, when you can't reach the balloon, when you see that there is food on the table and you're on the floor. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You climb on everything. Chairs. Your brother’s bed. The step stool. You do not know how to get down from any perch so you swan dive towards the floor unconcerned with the consequences until impact.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the past year whenever anyone would ask about the transition from one child to two your dad and I would respond, “The baby is easy. 3 year olds are hard.” But the calculus of which child is the hard one has now flipped. It's you. You’ll likely hold this title for at least a few years (maybe until Casper reaches puberty?) and you’re really owning it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yesterday when I got home from work you gave me a big hug for the first time. I hugged you back and kissed and kissed and kissed your little face. </span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-31948060376043826292017-03-24T09:22:00.000-04:002017-03-24T09:22:20.014-04:00Quincy, Months 4 and 5<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let’s call this months 4 and 5 even though month 6 begins on Tuesday. We’re combining months now and I would apologize but it’s all your fault. Really, you should apologize to me. Much like your older brother you decided to REALLY embrace 4 month sleep regression (“Why not all months sleep regression, am I right mom?!?!?”).</span></span><br />
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<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is how my babies work: </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cFzTCPf09iA/WNUaGocWKNI/AAAAAAAABgY/nmv5Vfs65nsg54k6tm1idCH8t_0EFniQwCLcB/s1600/Quincy%2B5%2Bmonths.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cFzTCPf09iA/WNUaGocWKNI/AAAAAAAABgY/nmv5Vfs65nsg54k6tm1idCH8t_0EFniQwCLcB/s320/Quincy%2B5%2Bmonths.jpg" width="208" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b><b>Months 0-1</b>: get up a lot at night, eat, go back to sleep pretty easy -- no need for bouncing or rocking or holding.<br /><b>Months 2-3</b>: steadily improved sleep, 7 hour stretches, one wake up to eat, set up foundation of baby lies.<br /><b>Months 4-5</b>: No Sleep TIL FOREVER. Wake up every 1-2 hours, demand boob like a starving animal. Any resistance = SCREAMS.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With your brother I put off sleep training, afraid of listening to him cry. But when we did it at 6 months it was pretty easy and then he just slept and it was AMAZING. My pediatrician recommends sleep training as early as 2 months and I know a few people who tried this with amazing results. I swore I would sleep train earlier with you -- possibly even before I returned to work. But I didn’t. You were sleeping ok-ish at 4 months and I thought maybe you would figure it out on your own -- no need to push you, no need to listen to you cry! WIN/WIN. Instead… you started sleeping less and less and I went back to work and I got more and more tired and so shortly after 4 months we decided to go for it and sleep train.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It did not go well.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We live in a 2 bedroom Brooklyn apartment and you have been sleeping in mom and dad’s room. The plan has been to move you into your brother’s room once you sleep better… so for now we’re sleep training you in our room. To make things easier on both of us I decamped to the couch.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first few nights were as advertised -- you cried a bit, it was hard but ok -- you seemed to </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">improve. I literally wrote down this note after a couple of nights, “Your sleep patterns have been exactly like Casper’s -- at 3 months you were consistently sleeping 7 hour stretches but by 4 you’re back to getting up every 2-3 hours and so the sleep training has begun. We’re only a couple of nights in but already there is progress and I am entertaining dreams that somehow you will be my easy sleeping child.” Jesus Christ, I’m a sucker.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You never got past crying from 4am onward until morning (6ish). After 4-5 nights of this we decided that you had to be fed at 4. This worked great for a couple of nights -- down at 7, a couple of short wake ups through the night then eat at 4, sleep until 6ish. Then you decided that your meal need to arrive at 2. Down at 7, sleep until 2, cry for TWO HOURS, eat at 4, maybe just get up for the day. It was hell. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I tried to stay strong and let you cry. Certain you’d figure it out. Certain that if we started going to get you all of the work we’d done would be ruined. But when you would wake up for 2 hours I would be up for 3 since it took me an hour to calm down from your being awake. I was, at best, getting 4 hours of broken sleep per night with at most a 90 min stretch of straight sleep. On the night you woke up at 10:30 and cried until midnight and then woke again at 2 I gave up. I felt like the biggest failure ever but we went back to letting you eat whenever which, even though this meant wake ups every 2 hours (or more) was still more sleep than I had gotten in the past 2 weeks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Happily, after a few weeks, we have managed to wean you off of the 12:30 feeding which combined with a dream feed around 10 has you sleeping from 7-2 and then from 2-4:30…. Which at this point feels like some sort of sleep heaven.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But you do other things besides wake up all night asking for the boob. Cuter things. Things that mostly make up for the bullshit you pull at night. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All of the crying has won us a baby who puts himself to sleep for bed and naps and who naps pretty regularly. This is something I think I never accomplished with Casper so we’ll take it as a small win.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You’re rolling all over the house -- I’ve recently had to rescue you from underneath a chair. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You’ve cut two sharp little chompers -- your bottom middle teeth. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Your brother likes to get right up in your face, resting his big old head on your chest and sing -song, “I just love this boy.” You think he’s hilarious. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Your hunger cues have evolved from pecking my face to opening your mouth as wide as possible and screaming “AHAHAHAH!!!!” When I arrive home from work and you spot me from across the room you are the angriest baby bird.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You want everything to get in your mouth and when something you’ve grabbed it too large to fit you slam it into your own face and scream at it -- so far this approach has not proven successful but you are undeterred. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9QYpmmJnIAU/WNUdP7tJtXI/AAAAAAAABg4/f6Ic4K7fFSYJAcTUdMkNPJhCByWnVnAxACLcB/s1600/IMG_4082.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9QYpmmJnIAU/WNUdP7tJtXI/AAAAAAAABg4/f6Ic4K7fFSYJAcTUdMkNPJhCByWnVnAxACLcB/s200/IMG_4082.JPG" width="200" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You love to have my hand fly down until my palm rested on your face and I grab and shake your whole head back and forth. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You have all the rolls that your brother never developed and I’m working hard not to stereotype you as my chunky child. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You remain an easy baby -- despite the sleep challenges -- willing to entertain yourself in the crib or on the boppy or or under your play gym grabbing your guys for upwards of 15 mins. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few friends with only one child have cautiously asked me if having 2 is a nightmare and I tell them honestly that it’s fine. It's difficult to describe how parenting is now both more complicated and more effort and somehow also easier. You let more things go. You have lower expectations. You let if be your whole life for now. You let the love fill you up and you cry because somedays that isn't enough. But most days it is.</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-54969897259277249032017-01-14T10:01:00.001-05:002017-01-14T10:01:45.133-05:00Casper, 3 Years<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lil’ Kanye, Tapper, Wild Man, Doodle, Taperoo, ‘Nuglaroo, Lil' Putz, Big Brother,</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BM9SXsIAQI-/" style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">A photo posted by Brianna Klemm (@babbletwit)</a> on <time datetime="2016-11-18T16:07:10+00:00" style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;">Nov 18, 2016 at 8:07am PST</time></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kid, you are a joy. I mean.... you are also exasperating. You lie immobilized on the ground when you don’t get your way. Between distraction and negotiation we have to budget 30 mins to get dressed in the morning. You insist on log rolling from my bedroom to yours at bedtime and double insist that dad and I walk behind you. We dutifully get in line behind you because we want you to go to bed so very badly and if we step over you we've committed to 15 mins of crying about how you wanted to be first. You have given me new understanding of just how Ritalin gets over prescribed. But you give me so many hugs and giggles and happy tears. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are a family of many nicknames and you have finally started to participate. You call me "my sweet girl" and you call everyone "You Silly" or "Silly Mo" or "Silly Billy." We are all very silly.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are a showman, in love with having an audience. You know when you’re being funny and can’t get through a performance without pausing to smirk and make sure everyone is noticing how hilarious you are. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You love building with LEGOs (DUPLOs… shhhhh) and magna tiles, riding your scooter, putting coins into every crevice of our house (especially into "the drink machine" aka the liquor cabinet) and watching videos of marble mazes, domino rallies and Rube Goldberg machines. </span><br />
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</span> <span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You insist on picking out your own clothing and refuse all shirts without pictures on them. You love your Monsters Inc sweat shirt and any and all shirts/underwear/socks featuring super heroes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You started Preschool in September at Brooklyn Treehouse. You’re one of the youngest kids in the 3s class ("The Stars”) but seem to be doing great. At your parent teach conference we heard about how you’re a leader who the teachers consider the go to for an answer if no other kids will raise their hands. The teachers listed 2 boys as your best friends in class which was a bit shocking as you only talk about the girls at home.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You became a big brother to Quincy on September 29th. I was very worried that you’d be a jealous older brother since you’re such a mama’s boy but you’re surprisingly gentle and loving with Quincy. At the end of my pregnancy when I was too giant to comfortably hold you in my lap or crawl on the floor to play blocks with you we spent a lot of time discussing how when the baby came out I could do those things again. Since Quincy's birth you’ve brought this up over and over again and seem happy to have him outside instead of in. You love to snuggle with us and tell me at least daily how much you love Quincy (parroting me you get right up in his face and whisper "I just love this sweet boy"). </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m a bit hesitant to admit this next bit publicly (and then secondarily embarrassed to admit that I'm embarrassed to admit it.... mama feelings are complex) but I had been allowing you one nurse per day ever since the middle of my pregnancy with Quincy when my boobs were too sore to allow more. In the morning when you would climb into mom and dad's bed to snuggle before getting up you would nuzzle up against me and ask "Can I have some milk-a-mama?" You would then nurse for a minute or two before getting on with the day. As sweet as this was it was making my oversupply issue that arose post Quincy worse and as you approached your third birthday I started talking with you about how 3 year olds don't have milk-a-mama any more. You seemed open to this but if I brought it up in the morning when you asked to nurse you would whine "but i'm not three yet!" Technically true, so I let you keep nursing right up to the morning of your birthday.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the big day you crawled into bed and snuggled up then said, "can I have...." I gave you a smirk. You smirked back and covered your mouth with your hand to hide your giggles, "I wasn't going to ask for milk-a-mama!" you declared. Then asked, "Can I have some milk-a-cup?" </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5763; white-space: pre-wrap;">We're now almost 2 months into 3 years old and you have not mentioned nursing again. Even though I'm tearing up writing this I could not have asked for a better, more consensual end to our nursing relationship.</span></span><br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-d2e85430-b63a-265a-8d5f-a2066e1e58b8"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I really wish I could say that your are consistently sleeping through the night but alas most nights you show up in our room at some point and your dad has to walk you back to bed. I feel a certain amount of failure around this but I’m at a loss to solve the problem. Recently, we've been offering up a mega bribes (trips to the toy store, chocolate cake, a movie with mama) if you can stay in bed multiple nights. There has been enough progress that I think this might be working but it's hard to say -- dad is more keen on sleep training you than sleep training Quincy.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You have mastered your scooter in true NYC kid style. You ride as if always in the middle of a very competitive race. Hands wrapped tightly on the handlebars, little foot pushing off with as much force as you can muster, head down to allow for optimal wind resistance. You fly on that thing. It's both scary and exciting and I do a lot of yelling "Ok! Wait for Mama!!!!!" </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over the past year you’ve become somewhat obsessed with pipes. In a new bathroom you love to crouch down to inspect underneath the sink pointing out the pipes and tracing the path of the water. You cannot pass up a drain or a pipe in the wild. Each one must be examined and discussed. “What comes out of this pipe?” “can you put a leaf in this pipe?” “Where does the pipe go?</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You went to your first movie in the theatre (The Secret Life of Pets) this past summer. You are an entirely not self conscious viewer and often exclaim your jump up an down shaking in excitement while watching. Over Christmas you got into watching the animated "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and at the beginning when the </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whos ride around on their music making machines you can't help but call out "whoa whoa whoa!!! look at that!" over and over again.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> You're prime age for Kids Say the Darndest things. Here are a few of your recent zingers:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After Quincy spit up on me: "Mom it's all over your arm! I<pause style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">t's ok you're tough."</pause></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While picking up toys as mama watched from couch: "If I was a grown up like mama I would hold Quincy and not pick up."</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Mama you've been doing really good listening so you get three presents.”</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You don't want to be called my baby any more -- even though it will always be true (big brother or not). You promise that you will always want to snuggle with me -- even though that probably will not always be true. You're a wonderful little guy and a huge huge handful. Everyone I know with kids says that three is the hardest and so far, I fear they are right. But that's ok -- even at your hardest (when you won't stop climbing on me, when you run back and forth through the house making some weird noise at top volume, when you get in trouble and tell me "I don't like your face!", When you won't eat any of the food on your plate, when you hit or bite or throw.....) you're still impossible not to love.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-19771037964006696202017-01-12T13:43:00.002-05:002017-01-12T13:43:59.192-05:00Quincy, Month 3 (ish)Quincers, Casper-I-mean-Quincy, Doodle, Junior, Cutie,<br />
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It has been many days since you turned 3 months old; in fact you are fast approaching 4 months. Man am I behind - and I don't even have a great excuse. We were at Ama and Pa's for almost 2 weeks at Christmas where I probably could have gotten some writing done. Additionally, Kenesha comes to watch you and your brother 3 times per week even though I'm on maternity leave. And yet... here we are. Late. Likely this is something that I will have to start accepting a bit more as a mom of two.<br />
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You are full of giggles and smiles. You love fart noises and when I shake my hair in your face. You are developing a set of deep rolls of chunk on your thighs and arms. You wake up at 6am to talk to yourself so when I awake our dark bedroom is filled with the sounds of raspberries and coos. I am torn between hoping you fall back asleep (so I can do the same) and bouncing out of bed to greet a morning full of baby grins.<br />
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You have begun staring down many of your hanging toys as if to telepathically message them with a warning that you will be grabbing them as soon as your little hands start listening to your brain. Watch out! (Update: at 3.5 months toys have been grabbed and repeatedly admonished for not getting in your mouth).<br />
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I want to have sleep trained you already but I'm gun shy. Or cry shy.<br />
Listening to you scream in the back of the car a few times during our Christmas trips had me so on edge that I've been wimping out on night time crying. You've been sleeping 5-7 hour stretches and going back to sleep easily which all feels not bad enough to make me buck up and let you cry it out. Certainly you are saving the sleep regression for my return to work in less than two weeks.<br />
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I love you my doodle.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-84385252530339357292016-12-06T15:42:00.001-05:002016-12-07T09:26:44.913-05:00Quincy, Month 2<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chunker, Little Happy One, Quincaroo, My Baby,</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your acne has mostly cleared up. Your plugged tear duct must be unplugging because the eye booger situation is much improved. Sadly, your cradle cap is really starting to come in. I think you're adorable. You are a giant baby who is fast growing out of your three month sleepers because you're much too long. The rolls on your arms and legs are deep and plentiful. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You're so happy that you started smiling at 5 weeks and haven't stopped since. You wake up each morning with a grin. You love fart sounds and being on the changing table. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are easy. Your dad even commented that maybe... just maybe.... Casper was the hard one? After months of worry during my pregnancy that certainly we were due for a challenging baby I'm shocked and relieved to have such a contented little munchkin. At the very least I thought </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">that as a newborn you’d have needs that demand to be filled in short order. Yes, you want to eat when you want to eat, and you need to be changed when poop calls. But you’ll take a pacifier over the boob in a pinch and that poop is only coming on an every other day basis.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I hesitate to say this out of fear of sounding like an awful mother but sometimes I forget about you. You’re unformed and quiet and your brother is so loud. You're content to lie in your bed punching at the shadows or to bounce in the monkey seat or lounge on the boppy. You're good. You are my super easy baby. </span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bk9yYxnOzrg/WEca5SRqOgI/AAAAAAAABT8/kUXIPmvsxdYwpk4Ho_z1ZplyqSLz8YMMwCLcB/s1600/QuincyMonth2Bib.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bk9yYxnOzrg/WEca5SRqOgI/AAAAAAAABT8/kUXIPmvsxdYwpk4Ho_z1ZplyqSLz8YMMwCLcB/s320/QuincyMonth2Bib.jpg" width="204" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I feel a little bad that you are not held enough. For you and for me. I fear I should be cherishing what will likely be my last months with a newborn. I nibble your cheeks and smell your sour milk scent in between building giant towers of magnatiles and begging your brother to put his underwear on. I cover your face in kisses and tell you that you're my baby at least once a day. It will not be enough. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I've been going to a mom's group for babies your age (having learned my lesson during Casper's babyhood not to end up alone and isolated all winter). Most of the moms are first timers and my 2 babies make me a parenting guru. I want to tell these ladies that everything they are worried about is going to be ok. They are all so concerned, so frazzled, so strung out. I'm tired (we're finally getting 5 hours stretches of sleep) but I'm not stressed. We're all gonna be fine.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Second babies might be the real joy. I don’t feel the sense of panic over leaving you that made it impossible for me to enjoy even a trip to the grocery store alone when Casper was a baby. I didn't cry during your two month shots. I'm not dreading the return to work in late January. I'll miss lounging on the couch with you but I'll be happy to have Kenesha take over full time diaper duty and spit up catching 3 days a week. This new form of motherhood -- all the snuggling with none of the guilt -- is so refreshing. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-82507461302068447342016-11-03T10:39:00.000-04:002016-11-03T11:04:05.422-04:00Quincy, 1 month<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Quincy, Quinca-roo, Quincer, Stretchy, Milkyface, Junior -- Happy one month birthday and welcome to the blog! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I fear that I will not be able to do as much writing about you as I did about your older brother -- you can blame him for replacing my writing time with LEGO time, puzzle time and arguing about eating lunch time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But back to you. You arrived one month ago via the traditional exit a mere 12 minutes before your scheduled eviction. Everyone was shocked having resigned ourselves to a second c-section. 7lbs 12oz, 21 inches long, perfect. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You came out of the womb looking like your daddy -- so says almost everyone. I imagine it must be true even though I can’t really see it. I was similarly unable to see people’s claims that your brother looks like me. But you have blond hair and eyebrows and a round head so it is likely that a fair bit of daddy genes are shining through.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m happy to report that even though you were a real wild man in the womb now that you’re out you are a relatively chill baby. You don’t mind being left by yourself in your crib or bouncer and when you cry it’s almost always because you need something obvious. Mostly you need milk. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it also seems much of your crying is directly related to a need to burp, fart or poop. The cries are often preceded by long annoyed grunts which can go on for hours especially at night. I feel almost as bad for you as I do for my sleepy self.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are already the king of spitting up. I know this usually peaks around 4 months which is horrifying considering the volume of spit up that you already produce. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your brother loves to ‘nuggle us both -- sliding in under my arm on one side of me and reaching his own arm over your back as you sleep on my chest. He likes to trace your ears and tell me how small they are. On the day you were born he announced that your name would be Dinosaur Robot and he continues to bring this up a month later, thinking it a much better name than Quincy. He tell me how much he loves you on a daily basis. He also did your immune system the favor of bringing home your first cold before you were even a month old so you have a sad hacking cough that bothers mom much more than it seems to bother you or the doctor. So far so good on that big brother thing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am afraid of doing too much comparing of you and your brother but it’s difficult because he is my only other baby data point. So. You are calmer (we have almost never had to take you into the bathroom to chill out to the soothing sounds of the vent). You are fairer. You are less worried over. You are less photographed. You at bigger (94th percentile for height!). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-7a69226f-25dd-6530-e7ae-d3848c43db78"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am calmer. I almost never get up to check your breathing. I'm less sure that there is a method to baby madness and less inclined to google every whimper grunt or cry. I've learned that most of the time the answer </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to "Why is my baby _________?!?!?!?" is "Babies: </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">¯\_(ツ)_/¯"</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am also less overwhelmed and surprised by my love for you. Before you were born I had the usual second time mom concerns that I could not possibly love you as much as I loved Casper or that I would somehow love Casper less. But none of those fears have come to pass. You are both loved equally and more than I could have ever imagined.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-15589658673266420362015-12-27T11:55:00.000-05:002015-12-27T16:49:11.550-05:00Casper, 2 Years<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">You have been 2 for over a month now but since we’ve officially stopped counting age in months you’re still just 2 (and this blog post is by no means over a month late). </span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S3osPMYyXQE/VoAUcOKyEcI/AAAAAAAABJ8/pkTH7EYfrTg/s1600/CasperAge2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S3osPMYyXQE/VoAUcOKyEcI/AAAAAAAABJ8/pkTH7EYfrTg/s320/CasperAge2.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I write from just beside the fireplace at Ama and Pa’s (aka Grandma K and Grandpa Horst) house on the afternoon of your 3rd (!!!) Christmas. You’ve enjoyed this one most of all. You love playing with your cousins and opening presents and eating pudding (and cookies and chocolates and ice cream and sugar straight from the bowl if we’d only hand you a spoon). And mama loves watching you play (and the occasional nap…) too much to spend a long time formatting this rambling blog post.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hP97cd_HYEg/VoAU03ULoTI/AAAAAAAABKU/4GNq55evmc0/s1600/CasperGrinch.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hP97cd_HYEg/VoAU03ULoTI/AAAAAAAABKU/4GNq55evmc0/s320/CasperGrinch.JPG" width="212" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You want to do everything by yourself. If I lift you onto the bed I am thanked with enraged screams of, “Self!” If I reach down to carry you up the stairs to our apartment you panic and quickly tell me “by self! by self! by seeeeeeeelf!!!!!” I sometimes hear you whispering, “self, self, self” while playing alone. Practice for the next time your jerk mom tries to assist you with anything? It is amazing how many different ways you can refuse help.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My ears are still your comfort objects -- you grab at them when tired, when hurt, when snuggling. The inside of my ear is often tender and raw from your machinations. In the morning while we lie in bed with Mama on one side and Daddy on the other you like to reach over and hold an ear from either parent. Just in the last couple of days I have caught you fondling your own ear while napping -- independence.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are just starting to grasp pretend play. Sometimes you toss your stuffed rabbit, Claude, off of the bed and tell me “he crying. need hugs.” After you rescue him from the floor you tell me, “He needs Mama” and then instruct me to hold him and “Mama say, ‘it ok!’”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recently folks have commented on how verbal you are, shocking given how long it took you to speak, and yet it’s true. You’ve surprised me with what feel like complicated concepts. Asking, about a rock you found on your dad’s dresser, “where it come from?” Bringing me a block that matches the one I’m holding and saying, “this red also.”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You parrot everything you hear which has revealed just how often I use certain phrases. When I finally get Sesame St. streaming on the TV you’ll announce “Oh! There we go!” perfectly mimicking my own inflection. You walked into my bedroom the other day and out of nowhere announced, “Oh, that’s weird.” (It was never clear exactly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">what </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was weird -- life itself?) </span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TQdgYtnH2Ec/VoAVHKcRgSI/AAAAAAAABKg/jAihgHx7CFk/s1600/KidsChristmas2015.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TQdgYtnH2Ec/VoAVHKcRgSI/AAAAAAAABKg/jAihgHx7CFk/s320/KidsChristmas2015.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’ve started to grasp the concept of jokes -- your main attempt at humor is putting your wub-a-nub (pacifier) in your mouth and then trying to drink milk or water at the same time. You yell, “Mama! Mama! Mama!” and show me this while giggling uncontrollably. You also like to say things that are obviously not true (“Mama’s shoes? No!” while holding your own shoes) and then laugh hysterically. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’ve also recently realized the power of choice. A favorite phrase around our house is “a different one!!” You ask for different pants, a different show, a different snack. One night your dad and I were rolling on the floor laughing as you had argument after argument with yourself about if we would read books or put pajamas on first (“read a book! yes!... NO!!!! No book! Get dressed. Get dressed. NO NO NO!!!”). This past week you made an unfortunate discovery. We’ve often used the trick of giving you a choice between 2 items to force a decision but one evening I asked you if you’d like Mama or Daddy to perform whatever bedtime preparation that we were trying to move along and you replied, “Nothing.” This choice loophole is sure to cobble many previously smooth paths. </span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IUBhco1066Q/VoAVK_EusEI/AAAAAAAABKs/jv3Jb0qneAQ/s1600/CasperSnow2015.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IUBhco1066Q/VoAVK_EusEI/AAAAAAAABKs/jv3Jb0qneAQ/s320/CasperSnow2015.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’ve recently started singing songs -- mostly the ABCs (having mastered your letters in lower and uppercase! Excuse my Mama bragging…). We downloaded you an iPhone application that lets you drag letters into their place in a word and you’re ridiculously proficient.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You recognize numbers up to 9 and you can reliably count to... 2. However, you believe you can count much much higher, “1, 2, 5, 6, 9!” Recently when asked to count over Facetime with Grandmom and Granddad you managed “1,2,5,6,7,8,9,10,3,4” which seemed pretty impressive.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In October we took you to Switzerland, France and Spain because you are a very spoiled baby. You saw many fountains. You saw the Sagrada Familia which you knew from a set of architecture cards that your dad picked up at a stoop sale. You’re still talking about it months later -- building block towers and calling them the Sagrada Familia, reminding me of the stained glass inside (red and green circles!). </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are still nursing once in awhile -- most days a quick suckle in the morning but some days none at all. We’ve finally convinced you that milk can be drunk in a cup and at 2 years and one month you are off of the bottle -- this has lead to a small uptick in requests for “Milk-a-Mama.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I’m stripping you down for a new diaper you often look up at me and announce, “Little Nakes, coming out!” You find it hilarious when anyone is naked -- especially me. If you catch me coming out of the shower you squeal with glee, “Mama Nakes!!!” and then demand that I turn around so you can see my “naked booty!” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You love to color and demand that we draw things for you -- recently you’re requesting a fountain, an ipad an octagon and a Buddha.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On 11/7 you used the potty for the first time after peeing a bit on mom and dad’s bed during bedtime story naked time. You have refused to use it again. We have an exciting weekend of potty training/you peeing all over the house planned for 2016.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-24907712614040426512015-08-30T16:47:00.001-04:002015-08-30T17:11:04.154-04:00Casper SpeaksCasper, you were a late talker. At a year you had no words. At 18 months we told ourselves that you were saying Mama and Dada but it was a bit of a wishful parenting leap -- you mostly ran around chanting "bitta bitta" and "minna minna my" which might have been words but we never figured out their meanings. I'll admit here that I was just a little bit worried. Logically I know that talking, unlike rolling or smiling, was something with a huge range of normal. And yet.... what did it mean that you didn't talk when other kids did?<br />
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Starting in May, you slowly found your voice. You said "bye bye" and "baby" and very slowly started picking up new words. For a long while, I kept a list.<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mama</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bye (first post mama dada)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">baby</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">me (“memememememe” when you wants something like a bottle of milk (said while hitting the refrigerator) or dad’s iphone)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">clock</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">dump (for dump truck)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hi (Kenesha taught you this on 7/14)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zayd (for Zayden)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">book</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bus</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">apple</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">good (7/21)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">dog (7/31)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hot (in reference to the beach sand in CT 8/1)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘dilla (quesadilla 8/4)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">nanna (banana)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pee (8/7)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not too shabby. In parallel you worked on your animal noises, mastering moo, hiss, peep peep and aroo (elephant). And mostly, you worked on your letters. You love letters. I blame the subway and books about the subway -- the first letter you learned was "F" for "F" train. At 21 months you know the entire alphabet save W (which I suspect you know but can't say). Often while walking the neighborhood or while riding the train you'll spot a sign and exclaim "A D! A D!!!!!" or quietly grin up at me to whisper "M. M. M." </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A couple of weeks ago you and I took our 4th solo trip to CA to visit family (your 10th round trip plane trip!) and the new surroundings seemed to inspire your speech. I quickly lost track of your vocabulary as you sputtered about bears and cows and bugs and rocks. Quickly renaming Grandpa Horst to "Pa" and Grandpa Kay to "Ama" and demanding they take you to the car, to the tractor, to the horse, to the cat. Requesting crackers and cookies and apples and bread and snacks (always "'NACK!!!"). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We came home after a week and the words continued to spill forth -- now in groups of two. "More book!" you yell. "Dada off," you demand. Frequently, you name things I had no idea you could identify -- this week alone I've heard toe, couscous, phone, on, light, read, meat, card, pig, goldbug, giraffe, yoga, all done.... Forget accounting for them all I can't even account for today. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 20.2399997711182px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Developmentally I believe this is called a leap. Welcome to the other side Big Talker.</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-62613192494945629822015-05-26T08:19:00.001-04:002015-05-26T08:19:25.210-04:00Casper -- 18 Months<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Speroo, My Milky Face, Doodle.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HRCmtub37oo/VWO7xO4NVjI/AAAAAAAABGU/Q8RfSCyh374/s1600/IMG_4708_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HRCmtub37oo/VWO7xO4NVjI/AAAAAAAABGU/Q8RfSCyh374/s200/IMG_4708_2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At officially 1 and a half years old you are silly and sneaky and serious. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After over a year of baby yoga you can now do a mean downward dog. You’ve also picked up a move called “toes to your nose,” and the answering of ringing foot phones (enjoy it while you’re still this flexible, kid).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You recently started pointing emphatically at your empty plate to indicate that more food (usually snacks) is needed. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’ve figured out that things can be hidden under our furniture -- you love to use your downward dog moved to search for stray toys under the couch. Or to shove your sandals, which you have developed an irrational hatred for, under Mom and Dad’s bed. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pacifiers are now only for naps and bedtime, a transition that was surprisingly easy to make. However, nothing is funnier than finding a paci during waking hours and showing it to mom before popping it into your mouth and running away squealing. You love to run away. Though our apartment is small and you usually find yourself trapped in a corner you have begun to master circling the couch or dining room table to evade capture.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3xgjSuCkCzU/VWO8FEIshAI/AAAAAAAABGs/7QBmKIsH3I8/s1600/IMG_4683_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3xgjSuCkCzU/VWO8FEIshAI/AAAAAAAABGs/7QBmKIsH3I8/s200/IMG_4683_2.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You like to point out everyone that you’re hanging out with -- meals around the table are peppered with finger pointing and roll call, “Mama, Daddy, and who else?” giggling you point to yourself, “and Casper!”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It has been weeks since you woke us up in the middle of the night. After a tough winter with my bed full of wide awake baby and one painful night of sleep training (AGAIN) (shout out to Grandma Kay for the phone support that night!) you are, again, a baby who sleeps well. Please let it stick this time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You have fallen into a toddler eating cycle -- 2 days of voracious consumption followed by 5 days</span></div>
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of refusing everything save bananas, milk and snacks (crackers, yogurt drops and dried fruit). Nothing angers you like being offered milk in a cup. Milk is for bottles. Water is for cups. This rules shall not be broken or cups will fly across the room propelled by your rage.<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are talking, finally. You said your first word besides “mama” or “dada” on May 2nd when you shouted “byebye!” from your stroller. A week later I caught you staring at a baby and mouthing the word “baby” to yourself. After watching for a moment I asked, “Do you see that baby?” and you yelled and pointed -- “baby!” You say “moo” for cows and “peep peep” for chicks. Kenesha taught you to raise your arm like a trunk and “arooooo” like an elephant. After over a year of reading the Subway book you can say “F!” to greet to F Train like a true Brooklyn boy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are still a little guy, finally breaking the 20lbs mark this month. You seem perfectly chubby to me right up until I take you out of town and you go from having a big round cloth diaper booty to a skinny little butt that won't even hold up a pair of 12-18 month pants.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You have lots of baby tricks these days. You can "do a little dance" by spinning around in a circle. You stomp your feet. You "do a jump" (which mean you bend your knees and sit in a squat for a bit before standing up quickly and throwing your hands in the air -- I have yet to see your feet leave the ground). You do hand claps and foot claps. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You love to play hide and seek. Like all toddlers you are the worst hider. You pick the same spot over and over again. You make no attempt to not be seen. You laugh super loud the entire time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You have started to get angry when daddy hugs me. You spot us cuddling from across the room and run over whining to hit daddy's hand. You are not comforted when we tell you that daddy loves me too. You do not find the option of a group hug acceptable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You have learned to climb. Yesterday I was using the stool to get a can from the top of the shelf and found you perched right behind me (*Gulp*)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You don’t want to hold my hand when walking down the street. You shake your head and squirm and physically try to peel my hand from yours. You walk ahead of me as if pretending already to be on your own. Right now you have a purple bump on your forehead and a scrape on your knee as if to prove to me that you are a little boy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-78892520074455503362015-01-25T09:14:00.001-05:002015-01-25T10:34:14.421-05:00Casper, Months 13 and 14<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dear Squirm-bot 5000,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As you get older, I get lazier (or is it more tired? Hard to say.). Welcome to this decade's answer to laziness -- the listicle!</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ljm83ZALKsQ/VMT5JDXwURI/AAAAAAAABEo/o1sHCH3rfBw/s1600/CasperBubbleWrap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ljm83ZALKsQ/VMT5JDXwURI/AAAAAAAABEo/o1sHCH3rfBw/s1600/CasperBubbleWrap.jpg" height="320" width="230" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Walk</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Like a penguin. Like a baby fawn. Like a drunken sailor. Like the most efficient and ridiculous version of all three of these things put together</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Refuse food</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Smirking, nose in the air, mouth clamped closed in a thin line, uttering a dismissive and bemused “uh,” as you turn your head away from things that just yesterday you devoured.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Find specific books and bring them to an adult to be read.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> A cute trick that sadly enables never-ending afternoons spent reading books that I’m fast getting sick of. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Find a way to shove shapes into the right holes in your shape sorter toys even though you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>for sure </i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do not know your shapes</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. You know that things can go into the holes and that if you twist them around and try all of the holes probably what you are holding will fit in somewhere. Trial and error plus determination are powerful tools. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Baths</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. So much so that I have to not bring them up until the water is ready in order to avoid tears of impatience. So much so that I have to physically restrain you from clambering over the side of the tub to dive face first into the water/dry bath tub.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Books</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I should be one of those parents who brags about her child’s love for reading but mostly I’m one of those parents who occasionally helps certain books go missing because she simply cannot read about lame-o </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Winter Friends </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for a 45th time in one day.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Empty carbs</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Just like everyone else. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Knocking down towers of blocks and screaming a loud and proud “Eeeeeeeee!!!!!”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> It’s rare that I can get even 3 block on top of one another in this house before destructor swoops in.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rolling off of the changing pad </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">in the middle of a diaper change </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and toddling your naked butt all over my house</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Giggling the whole time and looking over your shoulder to make sure you’re being chasing. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bananas, yogurt drops and graham crackers</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. All of which have to be hidden in the cupboard with our glasses -- you’re on to the pantry and the wonder is holds. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>My ear</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Months ago when you started having a hard time going to sleep we tried to introduce a small stuffed bunny named Claude as your love-y. At night we all say good night to Claude and then he cuddles up with us before bed. And then all night long you ignore him. There is little love for Claude. But as soon as I pick you up, when I rock you, when you're tired, when you're crying... you little hand paws at my face, pushing my head to the side, creeping crawling up to my ear. You knead the lobe and trace the outline </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">with your fingers before grabbing on and settling in for a snuggle. </span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yLXmk81qffQ/VMT26T5B-xI/AAAAAAAABEU/TFsg4pcm7n4/s1600/FirstSnowmobileRide.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yLXmk81qffQ/VMT26T5B-xI/AAAAAAAABEU/TFsg4pcm7n4/s1600/FirstSnowmobileRide.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Mama leaves</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Even my morning bathroom break requires reassurance that I’m coming right back. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having a fever and being forced to go sledding</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. (In my defense I didn’t *know* you had a fever until later and then I felt so bad that I let you sleep in the big bed with mom and dad all night).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Napping in his crib</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Currently banned from life. Big bed 4EVER!!!!!</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-19134324759638814652014-11-30T11:44:00.000-05:002014-11-30T11:44:22.107-05:00Casper, 1 Year<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0jfwF12blv8/VHs_iUrZJiI/AAAAAAAABB8/3JcM1AbdkQw/s1600/Casper1Year.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0jfwF12blv8/VHs_iUrZJiI/AAAAAAAABB8/3JcM1AbdkQw/s1600/Casper1Year.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is it considered bad mommy practice to start a blog post with an expletive? Oh well. One Year! FUCKING ONE YEAR! </span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-f7b5b7b7-016f-1115-0224-db9522870da0" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I feel like there is no way that one whole year could have passed since your birth and yet…. everything you’ve done, all of your changes, have happened in just this one year. Time is in fact relative. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You have grown from squishy blob to little man and this month has been a testament to you becoming a “you.” </span></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-anGo7gfAIwo/VHtEJG6GGLI/AAAAAAAABCs/9omJSBZ5CuM/s1600/CasperFirstHalloween.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-anGo7gfAIwo/VHtEJG6GGLI/AAAAAAAABCs/9omJSBZ5CuM/s1600/CasperFirstHalloween.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Your arms must be tired from all of the pointing and grunting you do everyday. “Take me to the pictures of the animals in my room.” “Take me to the books” “Take me to see your wedding photos,” you demand. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You have new nicknames after months of consistency. They honor the little boy that you are becoming. We call you Disast-a-roo. We call you Trouble Machine. We call you Big Walker.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You understand words now. You will clap on command. You know who your puppy is (a big red Clifford dog that you make out with most mornings). You know when I am saying “No,” I can tell because it makes you laugh and laugh and laugh. You squeal with glee when I mention a bath or puppies or milk (in that last case the squeals are often followed by somewhat embarrassing attempts by you to get the girls out ASAP).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwepmUURvCMl4R1LZYGQlJFTqVHJcaPak9kkmtCRc35MUtC8UaVwdyHC1msqiDrmCZ-RpfF4TJYGmU' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You wake up with a plan. You need to check out everything. You need to take the toys out of the toy box. You need to bang the cupboards. You need to pull the leaves off of the plants and empty the diaper bag and take your books off of their shelf. You are everywhere. You are a very busy baby. Or, I guess, a very busy toddler.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also: You toddle. Starting on October 29th you began taking a few quick drunk stumbles from your perch against the coffee table to my arms. You quickly took so many first falls that for weeks you refused to take any more steps. But by Thanksgiving your nerve was back and you were suddenly wobbling 5-10 steps back and forth between your dad and I. You’re still clinging to the furniture but, when properly motivated, you’ll chance a stroll.</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nHEhmT-WRG8/VHtHhbqHlVI/AAAAAAAABDE/VwPWCn4hJB8/s1600/CasperWalk.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nHEhmT-WRG8/VHtHhbqHlVI/AAAAAAAABDE/VwPWCn4hJB8/s1600/CasperWalk.gif" height="180" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You are easily excited and unable to contain your glee. When you see your baby doll or when I offer you a graham cracker you prance about on little dance-y feet, the joy taking over your legs.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You love books. Or, perhaps, you love turning pages. Your favorites are Moo, Where’s Spot and (a forever favorite) Carry Me. These are good stories... but they have become a bit tired around our house. Dad and I try to introduce you to new options with limited success. </span></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kQ06-bTHkJ4/VHtEU236jsI/AAAAAAAABC0/oM5qiqS2t-g/s1600/CasperYear1Swing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kQ06-bTHkJ4/VHtEU236jsI/AAAAAAAABC0/oM5qiqS2t-g/s1600/CasperYear1Swing.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You have become a big giver of kisses. I get a few. Dad occasionally gets one. But most of your smoochies are for the characters in your books. The kitties in Good Night Moon have been bathed in spit. The other babies in Carry Me are often greeted with a squeal and an open mouthed kiss (your dad thinks you have a thing for a certain brown little girl who appears being carried in a sling). I once caught you making out with the picture of a motorcycle.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You still don’t have any words to say beyond mama and dada but even without official words you are quite a talker. You argue and complain when you don’t get your way. You squeal and squeak when you spot doggies on our walks. You’ve started crying to show anger and frustration rather than just to express your needs. When I won’t let you climb stairs or if I refuse to sit down and read a book you scream and wail letting me know exactly how big of a jerk your mom is. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two lesser milestones were also met this month. Firstly, you broke the screen on my iPhone. This is a marker in the lives of all modern Brooklyn babies and I like to brag on the playground that you managed it before one year. The other moms are jealous; I can tell. Slightly more embarrassing and much more hilarious, one night, naked before bed, you reached down between your legs, hunched your little back over as far as it would go and tried (over and over again) to put your penis in your mouth. No amount of tugging or contorting proved successful. Welcome to the disappointment of being male. Your dad shed a few tears for you (in between the guffaws).</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MfLMqakKDg4/VHtA20LbbFI/AAAAAAAABCI/MnnzmN2HIUY/s1600/CasperCakeSmash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MfLMqakKDg4/VHtA20LbbFI/AAAAAAAABCI/MnnzmN2HIUY/s1600/CasperCakeSmash.jpg" height="187" width="200" /></span></a></div>
<span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Your birthday was bigger than we had planned. Both sets of grandparents and your Uncle Grant insisted on making the trip to celebrate with you. You surprised us all by being a quite delicate cake smasher -- poking at the frosting with one tentative finger and using your advanced pincher grasp (three cheers for Baby Led Weaning!) to sample tiny morsels of the chocolate cake that Gillian made for you. Later in the day you circled the room stealing cake from everyone’s plates.</span></span><br />
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<span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This year has been so different than I imagined and better than I had hoped. You are an easy, happy, lovable guy; exactly the kind of baby who tricks you into having another (we shall not be fooled so easily!). Your dad and I love being three. We love having you as the center of our family. Happy birthday my little Casperoo. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-70832671832349248502014-10-18T15:42:00.001-04:002014-10-18T15:43:53.057-04:00Casper, Month 11<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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11 months is a weird little spot -- so overshadowed by the looming end of your first year. But this month has been its own little bundle of highs and lows. You're fast outgrowing baby-dom and it leaves me desperate to savor it. I often feel panicked that I have not captured enough of the baby you (though a quick glance at my gigs of pictures would indicate otherwise). I am torn between forgetting what my baby was like and excitement over meeting my little boy. I try to be in the moment. And so here is this moment, 11 months.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Back in month 7 we sleep trained you. Silly dad and I thought that was it -- you were trained, you went to bed, you slept, you woke up in the morning. It was bliss and we were so proud. So sure that we had cracked the baby sleep code. Such naive newbies. Some other mother wrote in her blog that she had thought that she had beaten the sleep training game and then was shocked to discover that she only passed the boss on world 1. We arrived at a new level this month and it is like one of those bullshit underwater levels in Super Mario. The ones where you have to flap Mario’s arms at just the right speed to keep him above the stupid fish floating near the bottom but below the dumb flying fish ready to gulp you up at the surface. And just when you think you’ve found that perfect balance you run into a column of those mystery bubble that push you upwards and slam you into a jellyfish -- then you’re fish food. Many nights this month I have felt like fish food. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">As with most things baby I’m not exactly sure what was going on with you. It could have been teething, it could have been the discovery of object/mommy permanence, it could have been a bit of hunger since the world is often too interesting for you to focus on nursing during the day. But I think the main problem was that you have figured out how to pull up to standing in your crib. This makes sleep protests so much more dramatic. In addition you have really upped your screaming game. Gone are the infant mews and fusses. Now we have howls worthy of horror flicks. You don’t know how to talk yet but somehow you’ve managed to communicate expletives that would make a sailor blush. Many times at the </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">beginning</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of the month we gave in and brought you into our bed where everyone could sleep -- me with a baby foot in my face but it (mostly) beat trying and failing over and over and over to put you down. Whatever the core issue eventually mom and dad brought the sleep training hammer back down on you and we cried it out together and now, again, we all sleep all night (separately).</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Remember last month when I said that you loved me most of all? I had no idea. You love me more. Or, rather, you hate not being with me. Unfortunately, loving your mom the most does not mean you are always happy when you are with me or that you greet me with only snuggles and compliments about how thin I look. It means that you are a royal asshole whenever I go to the bathroom alone. It means I sometimes have to hold your hands while dad changes your diaper. It means I scream the words, “I’m RIGHT HERE.” from every corner of the apartment in a futile effort to stop the whines. I’m flattered, I guess. I love you too. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You started properly crawling at the beginning of the month. You prefer a lopsided creeping motion with one foot pushing off behind you and acting as motor. Between this and your brave cruising between the furniture, you are everywhere. There is a lot of falling. This is the month that you can look back on should you ever worry about childhood bumps to the head having caused permanent damage. To make matters worse you managed to make real your dream of diving head first off of mom and dad’s bed. No obvious damage is visible at this time but I will personally look back on that moment one day when, as a surly teen, you forget to take out the garbage for the fifth time in a row. It was cold comfort that you took this moment to whimper out a sad "mama" for the first time.</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5-BckeYlsZs/VEJ0X7K7VWI/AAAAAAAABAQ/JFXVjXHFUM4/s1600/Casper%2BGlasses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5-BckeYlsZs/VEJ0X7K7VWI/AAAAAAAABAQ/JFXVjXHFUM4/s1600/Casper%2BGlasses.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the war of Casper vs the baby proofing you are losing.... but just barely. Despite vigorous tugging and banging all but one of the cupboard locks has held (you can now access the pots and pans, if we had to lose a lock that was arguably the least necessary one). You did end up victorious in the battle of the corner covers -- none remain on the coffee table or the entertainment center. There is something poetic about turning around to see you crawling towards me with something that we bought to protect you hanging out of your mouth like a chew toy. </span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6AklkzmhZ9k/VEJzMiY_qtI/AAAAAAAAA_8/dFTSNRAorlk/s1600/CasperandGeoffRain.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6AklkzmhZ9k/VEJzMiY_qtI/AAAAAAAAA_8/dFTSNRAorlk/s1600/CasperandGeoffRain.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’re much more vocal this month. You’ve become a bit of a mimic -- willing to play little call and response games with your screams or lip smacks. You’re saying Dada with meaning. As mentioned above, you also, seem to be saying mama… but there is no glee in it. “Dada” is for laughs, for silly screams, for prideful babbling. “Mama” is only to be used when sobbing. Beyond actual words your nonverbal communication is blossoming. You can whine with intention to let us know when you want to walk, when you want a cracker, when you don’t want to be held. You've developed an impressive back arch to say, "I do not want to be in the stroller, I do not want to be held, I do not want." You've also become quite the little smoocher - offering wet kisses to me and dad and your reflection in the mirror and all of your stuffed animals.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’re finally really into books. You’ll sit still through multiple stories and tolerate a diaper change if you can hold a book aloft in your two little fists gazing up the pages. You like to caress the faces of all of the characters, you like to help turn the pages. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You remain a happy little guy. When we took you in to get a flu shot the nurse pronounced you jolly which seems especially apt given your ever growing Santa-like belly. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You love bananas and can easily put away a whole one grabbing slice after slice and using both hands to shove it into your mouth. You love </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">kicking balls, walking with your walker, animal noises, Grandpa’s dried pears, drinking water from a sippy cup, hiding under the blankets in my bed, when daddy gets your hinny, when I sing “Gray squirrel, gray squirrel, shake your bushy tail,” and when I steal your paci (this is, perhaps, the height of comedy). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Onward we go to even bigger milestones. </span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-51559830700974300612014-09-18T14:13:00.000-04:002014-09-18T14:13:13.149-04:00Casper, Month 10<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are still a baby but this month, for the first time, I see glimpses of a little boy and it is freaking me out. Maybe it’s that mess of hair that is fast growing over the tips of your ears. Maybe its your insistence on being upright as much as possible. I had my first and second cries over your growing up this month. Never has time moved so quickly. Never before has 1 year, 5 years, 18 years felt like not long enough.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KzWousFR6K8/VBrwzQk2dKI/AAAAAAAAA-o/dcJJFsGIhBg/s1600/SaratogaFamilyShot2014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KzWousFR6K8/VBrwzQk2dKI/AAAAAAAAA-o/dcJJFsGIhBg/s1600/SaratogaFamilyShot2014.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">November and your first birthday are painfully close. I find myself regularly wishing that you would stop growing, stop aging and then scolding myself because getting bigger and older is what healthy babies do.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PNj-HDMSkF8/VBr4o1PTNjI/AAAAAAAAA_E/mZxJRPovsiM/s1600/P8300178_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PNj-HDMSkF8/VBr4o1PTNjI/AAAAAAAAA_E/mZxJRPovsiM/s1600/P8300178_2.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It has been, once again, a month full of milestones. You started clapping on 8/24 -- I have never received so many rounds of applause for so little actual performance. The next day you surprised me by cruising from the ottoman to the entertainment center -- a leap of only 5 inches, but a leap all the same. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On 9/2 your nanny, Kenesha, showed us that she has taught you to do an indian call which left me feeling super non-PC for the rest of the month as I tried to explain the trick without explicitly calling it an “Indian call” (“You make an “ahahahaha” noise by bouncing your hand on your lips? Do you know what I mean?”). </span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pt7zq9RP1PE/VBrwzvfWr-I/AAAAAAAAA-s/nOrI4WuIn4Q/s1600/CasperSwing9months.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pt7zq9RP1PE/VBrwzvfWr-I/AAAAAAAAA-s/nOrI4WuIn4Q/s1600/CasperSwing9months.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’ve continued to put off traditional crawling and we worry that you’ll forgo it entirely in exchange for early walking. You are a pretty proficient army crawler -- swimming across our hardwood floors when motivated to chase a toy train or snack on some electrical cords. On 9/4 you started getting up onto hands and knees and revving your engine by rocking back and forth but you revert to the tummy crawl when you actually want to go anywhere.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By 9/6 you were pulling yourself up on the edge of the bathtub or onto the ottoman and on 9/8 I officially lost my happy sitter. Gone is the baby who would stay quietly on his blanket immobile and playing with toys. Suddenly, you are everywhere. Under the jumperoo. Sampling dead leaves off of the doormat. Pulling the power strip out from behind the armchair. I will never be able to sweep enough to keep the outside out of your insides. I have already, multiple times, considered the cliche of taping a swiffer pad to your belly to exploit the free cleaning opportunities that an army crawling infant presents.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rKKW843saag/VBr9jnzq_LI/AAAAAAAAA_U/wSJvXZq0Wso/s1600/P9150066_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rKKW843saag/VBr9jnzq_LI/AAAAAAAAA_U/wSJvXZq0Wso/s1600/P9150066_2.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You want, very badly, for someone (anyone, really) to let you hold their fingers so you can walk around all day long. Often when I move to set you down you lock your knees to try to force me into a walk-a-thon. If I do manage to detangle my fingers from yours and step away I must endure cries of outrage followed by rivers of baby tears. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This probably doesn't count as an actual milestone but you have also discovered my face this month and have taken a real conquistador approach to the exploration. You push my head to the side so you can fiddle with my ear. You force your little fingers between my lips to feel my teeth. In the morning when you're lying between your dad and I in our bed you seem to wait until one of us starts to drift off before shoving your pointer finger up into our nostrils. This is not my most favorite thing about you.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PKN9tP67UtQ/VBrwzTxudxI/AAAAAAAAA-k/74u2TuSOotg/s1600/Casperhammock9months.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PKN9tP67UtQ/VBrwzTxudxI/AAAAAAAAA-k/74u2TuSOotg/s1600/Casperhammock9months.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Despite the nose rape you've made morning my favorite time of day. Before you were born I slept until 8 and couldn't imagine enjoying a 6:30am wake up call. But you are so joyful after a good night of sleep. I can't help but look forward to your snuggles and giggles even if the sun has yet to rise. All three of us get a solid two hours of hanging out together before the day really begins and it feels like truly stolen moments. It's 7am. No one ever calls or texts. No one expects us to be anywhere but home. These found hours are just for you. I'm more tired at night than I used to be. I go to bed at 10pm and feel like kind of a loser for doing so but being lame is worth it.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-82999446106475089412014-08-20T10:47:00.000-04:002014-08-20T10:47:05.494-04:00Casper, Month 9<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every month I am shocked again that, somehow, a whole month has passed. Here we are at time number 9 of feeling this exact same way. 9 month dude. 9. </span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0hPkGviGC8s/U_Sxvh_Gl7I/AAAAAAAAA9o/y0j0sq647gY/s1600/CasperFreedomTower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0hPkGviGC8s/U_Sxvh_Gl7I/AAAAAAAAA9o/y0j0sq647gY/s1600/CasperFreedomTower.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You love eating and standing. You love when daddy comes home from work. You love looking at yourself in the mirror. You love to scream. You love the swings at the park. You love animal noises and tickles. You love peek-a-boo and hiding under a blanket. And you love your mom most of all. I’m flattered, if a little sick of the whining. If only I would carry you around all of the time life would be perfect and you would never have to sit alone on the floor surrounded by toys (THE. WORST.).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This month you grew a lot of hair -- a mass of straw. Just the type of hair we imagined that you would have. It seemed to appear suddenly over the course of a few hours. One day, I went to work, leaving my mostly bald baby with his nanny and I returned that evening to a child with a full head of blond hair.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’ve developed a weird snorting hiss that you perform, paired with arm flailing and clasping hand </span></div>
<span style="line-height: 1.15;">motions, when you get very excited. It’s both adorable and the nerdiest thing ever.</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pq8Kn-NMjUM/U_Sxv3IkcFI/AAAAAAAAA9s/-anJ4ERCS4A/s1600/Casper8monthEat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pq8Kn-NMjUM/U_Sxv3IkcFI/AAAAAAAAA9s/-anJ4ERCS4A/s1600/Casper8monthEat.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You remain stuck when it comes to crawling -- you push with your feet and snow plow your head into the floor then push yourself up with your arms, but alas, never at the same time. After two or three tries you collapse onto your belly frustrated. You’re adept at army crawling around in a circle and can drag your body forward across mom and dad’s bed -- usually to grasp dad’s iPhone (Aka “black rectangle”).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Early in the month I captured the following tale of woe for posterity...</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was morning -- 8am, but you’d been up since 6:20. You’d just enjoyed a breakfast/bath of pineapple and were sticky enough to warrant a shower with Dad. Sticky enough that I decided to strip you down in the bathroom rather than get pineapple juice all over your room. Off came the onesie, the diaper cover, the <a href="http://www.greenmountaindiapers.com/snappi.html">snappi</a> -- Dad joked, “hope there’s no poop in this diaper!” -- obviously this jinxed everything. Poop. So much poop. A cloth diaper filled to the brim with orange mush speckled with undigested apricot skins. For a moment I was frozen, unsure how to proceed. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For those unfamiliar with the cloth diaper routine allow me to describe how a normal poop should go. Baby is on the changing table (aka, "the floor" because we live in a small NYC apartment and obviously don't have enough room for an actual changing table.) -- dirty diaper is folded up and moved to the side. Baby is re-diapered. Soiled diaper is taken into the bathroom and clipped to the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spray-Pal-Diaper-Sprayer-Splatter/dp/B00B2AZJH6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408539390&sr=8-1&keywords=spray+pal">Spray Pal</a> then hosed down in the toilet with a diaper sprayer so all poop can be flushed. (Yes, we do this for every poop. Yes, I assume Mother Earth herself will greet me upon death and personally escort me to heaven as thanks for all of the non-biodegradable diapers that I did not deposit into a landfill.) Diaper is then squeezed out into the toilet (again with SprayPal on the assist) and deposited in diaper pail. The SprayPal step is, technically, optional -- you could hold the diaper while spraying but this causes poop water blowback to hit you and I prefer as little poop water on my person as possible. It’s also possible to forgo spraying and dunk the entire diaper into the toilet but then your hand is literally taking a swim in poop water. Dad and I are big fans of the SprayPal</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Back to the story. Dad springs into action, removing the diaper full of poo from my hand (“oh god there is poop on my hand!”) and proclaiming that we will spray the baby's butt off directly into the toilet. This is… unconventional... and possibly dangerous. Baby butt, being an uneven surface and unpredictably wiggly; the spray back could be lethal. BUT! This it still sort of seems like a good idea. In fact, it *IS* a good idea. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You were not on board. I held your legs up and pointed your derriere down into the toilet bowl then dad started spraying your bottom side off while your tears sprayed your face (at least that was helping a bit with the pineapple juice?). After that it was into the shower with Dad -- something you only sort of tolerate on a day when you’re not already tearing up from your butt-only, pre-shower shower. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was a tough morning for everyone involved. When you recount the details under therapist induced hypnosis 20 years from now try to remember that I had to touch poop.</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j7JclAtNfqU/U_SwOIHLcoI/AAAAAAAAA9U/H2vuPKr55GU/s1600/cousins8months.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j7JclAtNfqU/U_SwOIHLcoI/AAAAAAAAA9U/H2vuPKr55GU/s1600/cousins8months.JPG" height="288" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You and I made another trip to California this month. You, once again, rocked your 4th roundtrip plane flight -- sleeping through half of it in both directions. Your cousins, Dalanie and Zayden, were much more impressed with 8 month old you than they had been with 2 month old you. You got many tickles and peek-a-boos. Grandpa Horst called you “Little Putz” and carried around to meet their dog, Annie, who licked at your feet and Gino, one of Grandma’s horses who, somehow, didn’t freak out when you stuck your entire hand into his nostrils. Grandma Kay rented you a cabana at the pool in Vegas -- we all used it but it was decidedly for you. She has never even </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>considered</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> renting me a cabana.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DWiydpv8CO4/U_SwTiY-b8I/AAAAAAAAA9c/lhz5Wk0JJGM/s1600/CasperandRoz.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DWiydpv8CO4/U_SwTiY-b8I/AAAAAAAAA9c/lhz5Wk0JJGM/s1600/CasperandRoz.JPG" height="200" width="200" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We had a couple of playdates with my cousin Mallory’s daughter Rosalyn who is 3 weeks older than you. There was tandem chewing and frustrated failed attempts to crawl. Rosalyn made me much more aware of your personality. She is a serious little girl -- all scowls and resting bitch-face (the cutest possible resting bitch face). I had to work hard with silly faces and cootchi-coos for just one smile. This is never the case with my little golden retriever of a baby. You also tried so hard to get Roz to jabber and smile with you -- you did all of your best dadadas and screams. You bounced and squealed all to very little reaction. Seeing the two of your together reinforced that you are huge, huge goofball. Not because all babies are, but because </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve set myself up over the last few months with expectations of a touching end to each of these posts. It’s not that I don’t have it in me this month -- I love you more and more and more. But I’ve nothing new to to say. Perhaps I’m getting used to things and can no longer be shocked by this overwhelming love.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-66789644330619837742014-07-19T18:17:00.000-04:002014-07-19T21:47:51.126-04:00Casper, Month 8<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SLWtXc9kLhQ/U8rnS0Ade8I/AAAAAAAAA7g/mXSfqq11UQs/s1600/Casper+8+months.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SLWtXc9kLhQ/U8rnS0Ade8I/AAAAAAAAA7g/mXSfqq11UQs/s1600/Casper+8+months.jpg" height="320" width="199" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hello my 8 month old boy! My Big Chompers. My Poop Machine. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-db7b0f8b-5096-986c-ddf1-26b5231b77ce" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I recently reviewed your newborn pictures and discovered something alarming. You were not that cute. You had baby acne and baby-patterned baldness. You didn’t know how to smile. This raises serious questions about my own objectivity since I distinctly remember wondering how my newborn got so adorable. I also remember your father commenting at 5 weeks the he was afraid you had peaked for cuteness. In retrospect, this is insane. So while I want to report that, at 8 months, you are the cutest and always getting cuter, I cannot honestly assess the situation. To my eyes you are dangerously good looking, but in reality you might be a troll.</span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CLzd0hqMmi4/U8rn2d1cZMI/AAAAAAAAA7w/yQa74ZRwtQA/s1600/cookie-monster-eating-o.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CLzd0hqMmi4/U8rn2d1cZMI/AAAAAAAAA7w/yQa74ZRwtQA/s1600/cookie-monster-eating-o.gif" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your nanny, Kenesha, says you are "very advanced at eating." I'm sure that's code for, "a little piglet." You love food. You devour sweet potatoes, grilled zucchini, bagels, blueberry pancakes, cherry tomatoes, cheese and avocado toast. In most cases you take the Cookie Monster </span><span style="font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">approach to eating -- fistfuls of noms head toward your mouth, 10% consumed, 90% turned into directionless projectiles. Sometimes it seems that all we’ve done this month is eat and bathe. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nrv6ewU8rr4/U8rnkTzQssI/AAAAAAAAA7o/gvzIxwVihic/s1600/CasperMonth82.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nrv6ewU8rr4/U8rnkTzQssI/AAAAAAAAA7o/gvzIxwVihic/s1600/CasperMonth82.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We’ve been taking the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby-led_weaning">baby led weaning </a>approach to food (a poor name for “give your baby food and let them eat it” -- we are by no means weaning you off of breast milk) and I cannot recommend it highly enough. However, I am no longer able to quietly snack around you -- as soon as you spot anyone eating, you unleash a chorus of whines until all food is shared. What a little communist. On one occasion you dive bombed your dad’s hamburger. Another time you stared so hard at a stranger on the subway as he munched on peanuts that I felt I had to apologize for the death glares being sent his way.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A5nqIJz04e0/U8rsIeF4JDI/AAAAAAAAA8g/zB8CvxpBvRE/s1600/CasperBrunch.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A5nqIJz04e0/U8rsIeF4JDI/AAAAAAAAA8g/zB8CvxpBvRE/s1600/CasperBrunch.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eating adult food is messy business so we prefer to feed you out on the patio clad only in a diaper and a bib. Our bib of choice includes a handy trough where the food that didn't make it into your tummy can commingle into a half chewed soup. At month's start you didn't know about the trough but by early July you had discovered this exciting repository of back up food. You are happy to reconsider all trough options from plum coated in avocado to pineapple basted pasta.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are now capable of sitting in a highchair at restaurants which has opened up scads of brunch options for your dad and I (no longer restricted to the occasional NYC venue big enough to house your stroller). Your happy to accompany us for the small fee of a croissant here, a fried potato there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’re not talking yet but, perhaps in preparation, your mouth has become very active (even when not eating). You’ve learned to smack your lips to produce a satisfying popping noise. You move your little mouth around like a ventriloquist dummy -- all motion and no sound. You bababa and dadada. </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">No mamamas yet, which I hear is to be expected.</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NAYkJS1zitM/U8rpIFSlHQI/AAAAAAAAA8E/5ETE_8GubMk/s1600/CasperMonth81_rotated.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NAYkJS1zitM/U8rpIFSlHQI/AAAAAAAAA8E/5ETE_8GubMk/s1600/CasperMonth81_rotated.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’ve become a screamer -- gleefully screeching like a little baby car alarm. I constantly have to reassure others that you’re not upset, just loud. I worry that our neighbors are unamused. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I come home from work you attack me with opened mouthed drool-y kisses. Your lips banging against my cheek, head shaking back and forth, “Ah! Ah! Ah!” you shout.</span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--PoqC55u_fk/U8rr__eks-I/AAAAAAAAA8Y/tLk3MlSTke8/s1600/CasperandDad7months.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--PoqC55u_fk/U8rr__eks-I/AAAAAAAAA8Y/tLk3MlSTke8/s1600/CasperandDad7months.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All of the kisses are for mom but the guffaws are all for dad. That dude cracks you up without even trying. In the morning while you’re nursing in bed you crane your head back to gaze at him and giggle till the milk dribbles out of the corner of your mouth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are full of motion. You, "throw your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care." You flap your arms about in glee. Your little fists playing open/shut them on repeat. Drool streaming down your chin and soaking the front of your shirt. You </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">absolutely</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Do. Not. Care. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9nyr3Zwqbvg/U8rpQNuf9YI/AAAAAAAAA8M/ZDXxrBmPlW0/s1600/CasperMonth83.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9nyr3Zwqbvg/U8rpQNuf9YI/AAAAAAAAA8M/ZDXxrBmPlW0/s1600/CasperMonth83.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’re showing your first real interest in books beyond tasting the corners just in case books turn out to suddenly be edible. You reach out while we are reading to grab at the pictures and slap your palm at the characters faces. Your favorite book, by far, is </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Carry-Babies-Everywhere-Bright-Books/dp/1595721800/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405453781&sr=8-1&keywords=carry+me" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Carry Me</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Your dad and I joke that you view the 10 pages with pictures of babies being carried in different ways (in a pack, on your back, etc.) as more bible than story. A convenient list of suggestions for ways your parents might consider executing the sacrament of carrying. You reach your own arms up out of the jumperoo or your crib -- jazz hands screaming, “Carry me! Carry me! Carry ME!”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My constant lesson is to focus on appreciating you as the baby you are today rather than panicking that you won't ever be this little ever again. It’s difficult at times. I don’t quite understand moms who want their baby to meet his milestones early. Being an advanced crawler doesn’t seem worth rushing through babyhood. I am much more worried about not having time to savor your babiness than I am concerned about having a gifted child. As much as I loved you as a newborn I am consumed with you as a chubby bundle of baby. I want to eat you. I cannot kiss you enough. I whisper in your ear as you nurse, "You're my baby. Mama loves you. Mama loves Casper."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Month 7 has been all smiles from both of us. I’ve finally eased into work (gone are the moment of panic when I think about leaving you) and motherhood. You continue to be a happy, flexible, easy to love baby. But the main difference between last month and this month -- the one thing that probably makes everything else seem great -- is that you are sleeping.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I-pSjr5946U/U6SPbYfL3uI/AAAAAAAAA6M/yIHSxdoGgF4/s1600/CasperBath6Months.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I-pSjr5946U/U6SPbYfL3uI/AAAAAAAAA6M/yIHSxdoGgF4/s1600/CasperBath6Months.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We had to force the issue -- after 2 months of frequent waking we felt we had no choice. Sleep training is controversial. Many parents think it’s cruel to let a baby cry all alone. I was worried about this as well. It’s tough to hear your baby cry, but just because something is hard doesn’t make it wrong. The key question is at what age is a baby assumed to ask for things that he does not need? Certainly most people acknowledge that 2 year olds are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">always</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> demanding shit they don’t need (candy, permission to hit, etc) and most agree that a 1 week old never asks for anything save necessities (they need food, sleep, cuddles and diaper changes and ask for little else). I think that you, at 6 months old, were asking for food and cuddles at 3am, but you didn’t need them. What you needed (and what I needed) was sleep. Letting you cry it out helped you to learn to put yourself to sleep and that has been a most valuable lesson for both of us (and dad too!).</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Truthfully, the sleep training wasn’t that hard. We moved your crib from our room to your nursery on the same night that we started sleep training (hoping that some of your sleep issues were due to smelling me across the room and thinking "Hey, mom is here! I would love a snack!"). We didn’t have a hard plan on night one -- we thought we might go in and comfort you at some point or we might leave you to cry on your own as advocated by our pediatrician. In the end, as tempting as we were to go in and rock you, I felt like having me comfort you would only make things worse -- so, we went cold turkey. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You didn’t cry anywhere near as much or as hard as I had expected. In my imagining, crying it out meant listening to you wail until you had no energy left and passed out. In reality, the cries had fits and starts, you would work up to wailing and then get distracted by your crib mirror or thump your legs and whine for a few minutes before rubbing your eyes and slowly drifting off. Having a video monitor was immensely helpful for my own peace of mind.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You often sleep through the night now. Sleep through as in: down at 7:30 and up at 6am with no wake ups in between (or at least none where you cry loudly enough to wake your parents, if you’re in there awake and playing by yourself that’s fine too). Often you doze back off for another hour or two in the morning (almost always in bed between dad and I, one hand on each of us). </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are, of course, exceptions. You’ve been teething and we did have to go in for midnight tylenol dosing a couple of times over the past 2 weeks. Last week you started sleep rolling onto your belly which often wakes you up -- you seem very angry that someone came into your room and rolled you over (“Who was that jerk!?!?!”). For some reason you won’t roll yourself onto your back choosing instead to scream for 30mins and then fall asleep exhausted with your face pressed straight down into the mattress which leaves your dad and I to stare at the back of your head via the video monitor, wondering if you’ve dropped dead. </span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Your dad’s paternity leave came to an end this month so we’ve replaced him with a nanny. We jok</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">e that we had to pay someone to be your friend since you’ve made zero effort to go out into the world and make </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">friends of </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">your own. Kenesha’s strong suit is telling us over and over how cute you are. She also seems adept at reading you books, taking you to the park, feeding you and wiping your behind; but it’s the </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px; white-space: pre-wrap;">never-ending</span><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> baby praise that won us over. Smart nanny work. You’re always excited to see her walk through the door -- your face lights up with a grin and, as if the joy is too much to take, you turn your head and smash your face into my shoulder before peeking up at her again. It’s comforting to leave you with someone you so clearly like to be with -- I hope stranger anxiety doesn’t set in an ruin this good thing.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I miss you while I’m at work and spend my time waiting for meetings to start checking the baby tracking app for updates from the nanny. Your dad and I text each other during the day to alert one another to any opportunity to spy on you via the video monitor when you’re asleep in your crib. On the subway I daydream about you -- you at the park, you making a huge mess while eating. It’s not unlike the way I used to daydream about your dad when we first met. I’m amazed that you exist out in the world without me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">And yet, I find myself really glad to be working. I feel freed and refreshed by getting out of the house, having challenges that are not baby related and seeing other people. Three days a week in the office feels like a perfect balance for us and I feel so lucky to have a flexible career that allows me to make tradeoffs between being a mom and being a breadwinner. </span><br />
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<span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Despite thighs that seem covered in rolls you remain a little guy -- only in the 15th percentile for weight and still rocking your 3-6 month onesies into month 7. You’re moving up in height though -- all the way to the 83%. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has been a month of milestones.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’re eating real people food -- pineapple, yogurt, sweet potatoes, kiwis, beets, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">avocados -- all of it has been used as paint, makeup and occasionally sustenance. It is a glorious mess. You’re a joy to watch, making breakfast and mid-afternoon snacks an occasion for uproarious laughter. The morning poops, on the other hand, are only for groans, gags and tears. So gross, Buddy. So. Gross.</span><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W9CFMqdlxtU/U6MXvxvaKRI/AAAAAAAAA5o/EoFbTs5HwkY/s1600/CasperSit.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W9CFMqdlxtU/U6MXvxvaKRI/AAAAAAAAA5o/EoFbTs5HwkY/s1600/CasperSit.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W9CFMqdlxtU/U6MXvxvaKRI/AAAAAAAAA5o/EoFbTs5HwkY/s1600/CasperSit.JPG" height="200" width="150" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first of your teeth, your left bottom one in the middle, cut through your gums on 6/3 followed almost immediately by its neighbor on the right. You required a few doses of baby tylenol, many mesh feeders filled with frozen fruit and lots of cuddles to get through the pain. Now that both teeth are half up, jagged little sawtooths, your mouth is a danger zone. We’re banning chewing on mom’s fingers. You have recently starting to signal that you are done nursing with a hard chomp and my boobs are becoming Casper-shy. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You’ve started sitting up unassisted -- I wrote down 6/6 as the official milestone date but its been a slow progression over the last few weeks. People tell me that you are now in the ideal baby stage -- capable of being set down to play and yet incapable of going anywhere unassisted but I still find you too wobbly to leave unwatched on the floor for fear of head bumps. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Despite the stinky poop, the wails at 3am and the biting of my nipples your dad and I think we have gotten lucky with you. You’re such a happy baby. People comment on it constantly (when they aren’t telling us how pretty your eyes are). For us you are the baseline -- the only baby we have ever known. I often assume that all 6 month old babies are, if not just like you then, at least variations on the theme of golden retriever in human form -- all drool and dopiness, ready to be everyone’s friend. But folks tell me that not all babies are so affable and then I wonder if biology is trying to trick me into having a second child -- I’ll let my guard down thinking I’ll get another easy happy little ball of giggles and end up with that other type of baby -- whiney, angry, clingy.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-G_0LSI1MNJE/U6TJ-S_NNaI/AAAAAAAAA6w/3Qyd9bEen_o/s1600/CasperToss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-G_0LSI1MNJE/U6TJ-S_NNaI/AAAAAAAAA6w/3Qyd9bEen_o/s1600/CasperToss.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was prepared for motherhood to change me. Prepared for less me time. Prepared for (or at least resigned to) less sleep. I was not prepared to have my pop culture world rocked. For years I have harbored a lowbrow love for MTVs <i>16 and Pregnant</i> and <i>Teen Mom</i>. The parade of train wrecks exactly the kind of accident that I could never look away from. Until now. I tried getting into the latest round of girls unexpectedly in the family way, but, this time around, reality TV felt too real. The moms too unprepared. The babies too helpless. The situation suddenly eliciting more watery eyes than eye rolls. You are turning me into a sentimental mess. I recall the day sometime in the mid nineties when I caught Grandma Kay tearing up over a Kleenex commercial and worry for my future.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here you are, the baby I was looking forward to -- plump and goofy and ready to be friends with everyone. You are easy with the smiles. A lover of fake sneezes (ahh! ahh! ahh-choo!) and boogedy-boogedy-boos. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’ve discovered your feet and found them to be delicious. I once caught you with both feet pulled up to your mouth, motor-boating your toes. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are finally able to consistently find your thumb and I foresee a day in the future when we have to smear that awful tasting goop all over your nails. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The nickname that seems to have stuck is, “Doodle”. “Doodle Bear Casperoo” (aka, “The DBC”) when we're feeling verbose. “Grosser,” still gets tossed around when appropriate, as does, “Lil’ Nakes” and “Nakerson”. We’re a family who loves nicknames so we’ll keep switching this up but I like that you have a standard now -- you are my little Doodle. </span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F1LKY3PoBhs/U3q4EjKCBQI/AAAAAAAAA4M/26NWrtJCu2Q/s1600/CasperGrandparentsKacemWedding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F1LKY3PoBhs/U3q4EjKCBQI/AAAAAAAAA4M/26NWrtJCu2Q/s1600/CasperGrandparentsKacemWedding.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This month I actually found myself wondering if you might turn out to be too attractive and then I mentally slapped myself for falling under the influence of crazy mama hormones.That said, your dad and I have had actual conversations about our worries that you could grow up to be very attractive and we would have no idea how to deal with this. Nerdy awkward dork? We feel prepared for the challenges that plague that kind of kid. Popular and handsome? We’ve no tools for that. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are still working hard on the back to belly roll. We know you can do it, having found you at least once in your crib on your belly, but I don’t think </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> know that you can do it. You spend a lot of time on your back twisting your hips and then looking up at us forlornly. On April 25th you rolled from back to belly while holding my finger and pulling for leverage. You do this a lot but your dad says that it doesn’t count as actually rolling over. That dad is a stickler. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On April 23rd you became mobile. Unfortunately the specific motion that you chose was leaping the 4 feet from the changing table to the floor. I had looked away for the cliched one second (to wash the poop off of your onesie, obviously) when I heard *BANG* *CRY* and I knew exactly what had happened. I ran into the bedroom expecting to find you at the base of the dresser, having finally mastered rolling from back to front. But there was no baby to be found there. After a millisecond of wondering where exactly you could have gone (rolled under the bed? under the dresser? jumped up and walked over the the liquor cabinet for a much deserved shot of bourbon?) I found you face down to the left of the dresser. (see my super awesome diagram below).</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lEGtV-rtsFA/U3q43AGu4OI/AAAAAAAAA4c/aE_YjX2pJus/s1600/Casper+Falls.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lEGtV-rtsFA/U3q43AGu4OI/AAAAAAAAA4c/aE_YjX2pJus/s1600/Casper+Falls.png" height="230" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Only you will ever know how you managed to move in this direction. I’m pretty sure you didn’t stand up and belly flop off the edge of the dresser but I also don’t think you rolled over. After much discussion with Grandma Kay and Dad we think you torqued your hips and caught the side of the changing pad with a foot and then used that leverage to heave yourself over the edge. You were fine, by the way. Shockingly fine. I picked you up, you nursed for all of 2 mins and then you popped off all, “Hey! What’s up! That was crazy!” I checked and rechecked you for marks but there was nothing. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It would come as a huge shock to my pregnant self that this has been my most difficult month as a mom (and not just because of your suicide dive). I had built up a lot of dread around the newborn months, sure I would be a hormonal mess still recovering from major surgery with bleeding nipples and severe sleep deprivation. And then months 1-3 turned out to be mostly a joy -- not even the weeks on end of subfreezing weather could get me down! But just when I thought I was out of the woods and psyched to enjoy spring with an adorable baby you surprised me again.</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-baXutB1tEkY/U3q6HVQcUaI/AAAAAAAAA4o/re0qZCt-0ew/s1600/CasperProfile6Months.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-baXutB1tEkY/U3q6HVQcUaI/AAAAAAAAA4o/re0qZCt-0ew/s1600/CasperProfile6Months.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From around 10 weeks through to 4.5 months of age you were a sleeping machine -- 6, 7, even 8 hour stretches of conked out sleepy baby would pass from 11pm onward. It was glorious. And, because I didn’t want to brag or jinx it, I said nothing to much of anyone. And then it stopped. So much for the power of not jinxing. You woke up twice a night. You woke up every 3 hours. Every 2 hours. Every 1 hour. You want the paci. You want the boob. You want to drive me to an early grave.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In one particularly irrational moment during a midnight crying jag (mine, not yours), I thought, "I should just stay up. I should not go back to sleep and thus avoid the awful moment when you wake me up again." This seemed like a good idea that was totally workable. I felt I had stumbled upon the answer: Just never sleep again. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your remaining saving sleep graces are: 1) You can put yourself to sleep if we lay you down drowsy and 2) You go back to sleep pretty easily after waking in the middle of the night. Pop in the boob, suck for 3mins, back to dreamland. I also go back to sleep pretty easily, so though being awoken multiple times a night to baby distress is… distressing... I’m still (in theory) getting a decent amount of sleep. Things have improved from the low point a few weeks ago but you’re still waking 2-3 times a night and your future may hold some crying it out. You have been warned.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am lucky to have mom friends who tell me that it is ok if I do not love every moment of being a mom (despite all of the Facebook shares claiming otherwise, you are not legally obligated to cherish every moment). I am doubly lucky to have truly enjoyed and cherished my time with you. Until this month. Casper, you are clearly going through some baby shit and, I get it, but I really need some sleep. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In light of the above Dad and I really needed a vacation, so we took you to Jamaica for a week (in fact I am writing this from our bungalow!). I can highly recommend traveling with an almost 6 month old. You discovered splashing and were all grins as we floated you around the pool. You tried your first food, a piece of pineapple, over the breakfast table one morning. You took many naps in the big bed, went for your first hammock ride and made friends with all of the hotel staff. </span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8Astg-Xsp5k/U3q4Yn3L3rI/AAAAAAAAA4U/HpYA99A0spE/s1600/CasperSplash.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8Astg-Xsp5k/U3q4Yn3L3rI/AAAAAAAAA4U/HpYA99A0spE/s1600/CasperSplash.gif" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
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Half a year is unreal. Impossibly, it seems like I just brought you home and, at the same time, like you have always been in my life. Shortly after you were born Grandma Kay mentioned that being a mom was a love affair and she was right. My love for you often feels like a new discovery and I have to hold myself back from trying to explain it to others as if I'm the first mom to ever love her baby. I have to wonder occasionally if this love qualifies as an abusive relationship. Even after your worst nights when I'm teary and tired at 2am I look into your goofy face at 7am and all is forgiven. I let you get away with clawing my face until I bleed. I don't really mind when you pee on me. Babies are the ultimate deadbeats and mamas the most pathetic of victims. </div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-75760519592390968962014-04-16T21:55:00.002-04:002014-04-17T13:12:22.843-04:00Casper, Month 5<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y__Oyh1q8Ng/U08vCEbT4NI/AAAAAAAAA3Y/3VEXomdFW-I/s1600/CasperMom1stSwim.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y__Oyh1q8Ng/U08vCEbT4NI/AAAAAAAAA3Y/3VEXomdFW-I/s1600/CasperMom1stSwim.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This month you have desires. When these desires are not met you have complaints. In the past, your complaining was all encompassing, the world as a whole disappointed you, and there was no way to fix it. You were so sad. Now your parents disappoint you. When you want to be walked around (always) and we insist on sitting the cries are no longer forlorn, but angry. You make an awful grunting noise and then the whimpering starts. You want to stand. You want to grab my nose with your drool covered fingers. You want to lie on the changing table and kick as hard as your little legs can. You want to baby rape my face with french kisses that send your tongue deep into my nostrils. You do not want to take a nap. You do not want to put on clothes. You do not want to sit in the car seat. You do not want to cuddle on the couch.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Aa5iPNnsjIU/U08uyeyeIeI/AAAAAAAAA3I/RdBCNu5U8Nc/s1600/Casper5MonthBath.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Aa5iPNnsjIU/U08uyeyeIeI/AAAAAAAAA3I/RdBCNu5U8Nc/s1600/Casper5MonthBath.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For all of this you are, generally, our happy little guy. You’re an easy audience for silly noises, tickles and bounces. Your open mouth toothless smiles turn me to mush over and over again. You are a sucker for your daddy -- he is, perhaps, as much your goofball as you are his. We ask you, “How did you get so cute?” No answers yet.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When you were a newborn my favorite Casper face was your pursed lip “oh” face -- your little mouth puckered into a tight “O” as if you would start to yodel at any moment. Inspired by you I’d sing, “ooooo” to you at different pitches. Now your face is a ball of grins, smirks, pouts and scowls. My new favorite Casper face is your "surveying" face. Your lips pursed in a tight line, your little nose held up in the air and your eyes scanning your empire (mostly finding it wanting).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve thought you were on the cusp of rolling from back to belly for weeks but you seem forever stuck with only your bottom half flipped over, your torso twisted and your face a combination of confusion and frustration. Your legs have mastered the kick and your hips the twist but your arms and head won’t get with the program, so you lie there stuck half way between up and down. </span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KsfuBcom-XQ/U08u5tO82mI/AAAAAAAAA3Q/pBRqGPkpJFg/s1600/CasperComesToDinner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KsfuBcom-XQ/U08u5tO82mI/AAAAAAAAA3Q/pBRqGPkpJFg/s1600/CasperComesToDinner.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the end of a day when your parents had failed to meet your expectations over and over again your dad held you seated on the edge of the dinner table and said, “This is my Casper impression, ‘WAH WAH WAH!’” Your little face shook in shock and your lips started to quiver. For perhaps the first time ever, you were scared! I grabbed you and hugged you close and surprisingly the crying ebbed. I have whispered, "Mama's got you, you're ok," countless times over the past 5 months but suddenly it felt like the words had sunk in. I had you and so you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>were</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ok. This was the first time that I felt I had comforted you and that love was coming from you to me (instead of only in the other direction). I am a new kind of mom. No longer just your own personal cow I have just started to become your sanctuary. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-89471936588736439862014-03-18T07:36:00.002-04:002014-03-18T12:07:30.394-04:00Casper, Month 4<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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</span> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Y</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">ou are our little Goofball; our little Disaster; our Doodler. The Grossest Baby in the World.</span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-e15e3c42-d180-7ac3-d5f0-cb991ccf9f04" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b> <br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even though you are only 4 months old I can no longer remember having a newborn. At Mommy/Baby Yoga I marvel at the 7 and 8 weeks olds and then I marvel at how I could forget so quickly. But surely you were never so tiny! You are solid. You have lost all of your newborn floppiness. We are no longer afraid of breaking you. We joke about how fat you are but despite your copious rolls you’re still well below the 50th percentile for weight. You’re </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>above</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the 50th percentile for height so we’re hoping some Wundrow genes snuck into our baby and someday you’ll tower over mom and dad. </span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-S4stnKnxy4s/UygqECb0s5I/AAAAAAAAA2E/6jUKG1QNid0/s1600/nakedbaby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-S4stnKnxy4s/UygqECb0s5I/AAAAAAAAA2E/6jUKG1QNid0/s1600/nakedbaby.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When dad and I left the hospital with you we were given a pamphlet on all the ways not to shake your baby and we had followed the rules up until this month. Shake the baby is suddenly a fun game. I hogtie your ankles and wrists in my hands and roll your body back and forth. I grab you by your hips and shake your little bum. Dad rolls you up in a towel and lets you fight your way out. You love being roughhoused. Your dry skin defies all “baby soft” cliches so in the evening your dad and I strip you down to lather you up with coconut oil and Aquaphor. We call this “the four hand massage” and we like to joke about the day in preschool when we get a call about your propositioning 2 other kids for the same treatment. (“First I get naked and then Sally puts the oil on my balls!”). Afterwards we let you squirm around naked on our bed. Nothing makes you happier. You’re twisting your hips and pushing your butt up off of the bed and will soon be rolling over from back to belly. For now you make do with mom and dad forcefully flipping you over which you find hilarious. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b> <br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’re so active that it seems even when asleep or nursing you can’t quite calm down. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">My chest is covered with tiny baby scratches from your hands grabbing, kneading and clawing me during all meals.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> At night I hear you across the room beating your legs against the mattress. We’ve been waking up to your flailing arms escaped from the swaddle, and fear the day we can no longer lock you down for the night as our little Casperito. You’re a master grabber with a singular goal: put this in my mouth. My fingers, burp clothes, your entire fist, my nursing pads and all of your toys seem equally delicious. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b> <br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You have lots to say. You’ve discovered babbling and screaming. In the morning, after a 10 hour rest, you’re in your best mood. You wake us to the happy coos of you chatting with your baby friend (aka the mirror in your crib). When I walk over to your crib, I get a big smile followed by my own verbal update on your night. After I free you from your swaddle you use both of your hands to grab my cheeks and begin making out with my face. Your little tongue vigorously spelling out “FEED ME!” over and over on my skin. I try to get the boob in your mouth before you decide you’re starving to death and the screams begin. After a couple of minutes of panicked nursing you pull off with the biggest grin, ready for our morning conversation. You goo and gaa, oooh and aww, squeal and squeak. It goes on and on punctuated by quick sucks. It’s endlessly adorable but I feel like a bit of fool sitting there with my bare boob hanging out in the morning air getting cold.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am a less sappy mama this month as you and I do more playing and less gazing at one another. You are becoming the fun, silly baby I was looking forward to while pregnant and though I am sad to have said goodbye to the newborn you I am thrilled with our new games. With less time to contemplate the magnitude of motherhood and more time spent giggling I am left with no pithy yet touching ending for this post. We are laughing too hard to be poignant. </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-21483612531486207342014-03-07T09:21:00.003-05:002014-03-07T18:24:39.841-05:00Lil' Data<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is a different kind of post about Casper’s first three months. Less lovey-dovey. More facts and figures. Less cuddly, but easier to hold. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Since shortly after his birth I’ve been tracking Casper’s eating and excreting via the </span><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/baby-connect-activity-logger/id326574411?mt=8" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Baby Connect App</a><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for iOS. In the hospital we were asked to record this information on a piece of paper (like cavemen!) which the nurses would check periodically. We could not abide such prosaic data collection. Luckily I had researched baby tracking apps before my water broke (‘natch). When we were discharged we were asked to continue to record this information for a week primarily because Casper had lost almost 10% of his body weight since birth. And then… I kept tracking him. I have a hard time stopping data collection once it has begun. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Data is often useful and fun! (Yes, I said, "fun." #coolkid). I use Casper's data to gauge things like which boob he ate from last, just how bad the coming poop is likely to be and to extrapolate how much sleep I might get tonight. I've managed to extract a few fun facts that are great for shock value over brunch and which will most certainly be hurled at 13 year old Casper during one of our coming parent/son battles. Watch this space.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;">So.... On to the data! </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><span id="docs-internal-guid-3689de55-79bd-e4b6-3330-c08ddfcff2a2"><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But first! Data caveats: I stopped my excel import on Feb 17 since I had to cut off at some point or keep reimporting forever -- this gave me exactly 3 months of data. I have not, however, stopped using the app (who could stop?) so the graphs from the app itself represent more data (most pictures were taken on the morning of Feb 24 when Casper was 14 weeks and 2 days old). I’ve also used the app data for some figures when adding up the numbers in the app proved easier than parsing the csv export.</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uJb_i43nv4s/UxDnY6noMoI/AAAAAAAAA04/0-mvwqIM3Ko/s1600/CasperWeight.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uJb_i43nv4s/UxDnY6noMoI/AAAAAAAAA04/0-mvwqIM3Ko/s1600/CasperWeight.png" height="189" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So yes, data is fun. And I find all that follows to be fun but... data is also scary, especially in aggregate. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New parents, avert your eyes! I’m about to reveal the total number of diapers changed in just over 14 weeks of Casper’s life. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline;">Total Diapers Changed: </span><span style="color: black; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">785</span><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline;">. (roughly 8 per day). </span></span></div>
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</span> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact that I see this number and think “huh, not too bad.” is evidence of the kind of crazy thinking inspired by postpartum hormones. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5HhOXWrXLe4/UxDWdO3kGqI/AAAAAAAAAzs/DZk3YIArpJo/s1600/PoopyDiapers.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5HhOXWrXLe4/UxDWdO3kGqI/AAAAAAAAAzs/DZk3YIArpJo/s1600/PoopyDiapers.png" height="320" width="240" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5Gzowjv7y9U/UxDWdWyPubI/AAAAAAAAAzw/XhiFdccm99U/s1600/WetDiapers.png" imageanchor="1" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5Gzowjv7y9U/UxDWdWyPubI/AAAAAAAAAzw/XhiFdccm99U/s1600/WetDiapers.png" height="320" width="240" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As you can see Casper has recently decided that pooping is super uncool. Sadly, every few days he's forced to debase himself (and the entire family) with a huge poo. This leads to much groaning by mom and dad. For each diaper Baby Connect gives you the option of recording quantity, color, "open air accident" and diaper leakage. We rarely used these features until February when we needed them for passive aggressive data collection purposes. ("Young man, this disgusting mess is going on your permanent record!"). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Total poopy diapers awful enough for mom or dad to manually apply a “large” label: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">22</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (</span><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">18 of which resulted in diaper leaks.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I would have very much liked to include a mommy/daddy diaper off here but sadly my husband is much less of a data nerd than I. When he changes diapers (which he does a lot of including all of the 5am diaper changes) I’m left to do most of the recording on my own. Thus the “caretaker” log is riddled with data errors. Alas. Perhaps this is for the best lest we start comparing our diapering score and end up divorced. For what it’s worth all of the nursing has been done by me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; text-align: start; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Total time nursing: </span><span style="color: black; font-weight: bold; text-align: start; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">224 hours 45min </span><span style="color: black; text-align: start; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">otherwise known as </span><span style="color: black; font-weight: bold; text-align: start; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9.36 DAYS of my life</span><span style="color: black; text-align: start; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This stat shocked me much more than the diapers. To think that I have sat on the couch or the bed, boob in baby’s maw for almost a week and a half is amazing. Thank god for my iPhone.</span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I have no idea what moms did while nursing before the invention of the smart phone. I know that the “right” answer here is “just gazed lovingly down at their baby.” But I suspect the REAL answer is “watched TV and tried not to die of boredom."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The app also makes it easy to remember which boob was offered to baby last so we consistently alternate to try for evenness, the baby could still show a preference for one boob over the other by eating longer on the favorite boob. Casper, however, shows no favorite loving both righty and lefty equally.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-miviAAOuTAY/UxDWzFt9TMI/AAAAAAAAA0E/1XayhL_FKkM/s1600/NursingLeft.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-miviAAOuTAY/UxDWzFt9TMI/AAAAAAAAA0E/1XayhL_FKkM/s1600/NursingLeft.png" height="320" width="240" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cUQ0vBOCqzA/UxDWzIV3ImI/AAAAAAAAA0I/NJKnNLMBGv8/s1600/NursingRight.png" imageanchor="1" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cUQ0vBOCqzA/UxDWzIV3ImI/AAAAAAAAA0I/NJKnNLMBGv8/s1600/NursingRight.png" height="320" width="240" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Longest amount of nursing in one day: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">11/18 -- 338min (5 hours 38 mins)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m tempted to call this log user error -- certainly Casper could not have nursed as frequently as recorded here, especially since the data shows that he basically nursed from 8am until 6 pm with almost no pauses. And yet.... the more I stare at the excel the more I'm convinced that there is no error and my baby was just super into eating. For all his effort he likely didn't get much reward. My milk almost for sure had not come in yet so much of this was just time Casper was spending telling my body to hurry up and FEED ME!!!!!. A more average day in the first few weeks of Casper’s life involved 3 hours on the boob. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We never bothered to record Casper’s sleep. Considering how worried I was before he was born about never sleeping again this is, in retrospect, a bit strange. Perhaps I was too afraid to stare this data in the face. You can, however, use the data I have to extrapolate night time sleep blocks since upon waking Casper is always immediately changed then fed and (thank you to the baby gods) goes right back to sleep. This is how I know that we are regularly getting 7 hours sleep stretches in the past few weeks. This is also reflected in our eating intervals which show consistent growth over time. This data is especially encouraging when you consider that during the day Casper still eats every 90-120 minutes so almost all of the interval growth is due to extended nighttime sleeping. </span></div>
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</span> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One wonders what might influence the up and down nature of a baby's eating. Sure, doctors claim this is mostly due to "growth spurts" but shouldn't other possibilities be considered? Like, for example, is Casper influenced but the full moon (is he, in fact, a werewolf?!?!?) ?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Guess not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">After this exercise in data analysis I'm sure all readers are wondering exactly what the point of all this is. <span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ll admit to a slight case of paranoia that someone might challenge me on my parenting skills and I’ll respond with data to back up the case. Look! I am, in fact, a good mom who totally feeds her child (this is never going to happen, and if it did a punch in the face would be a more valid response than, “But look at this excel graph I have!”). Mostly my data obsession is nonsensical. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When my brother laughed out loud as I recorded information on my son's poops I could offer no clear reason to explain exactly why I am doing this (blog fodder?). Data collection has become religious. Data is comforting. It makes tangible what might otherwise be amorphous. The recording of facts its own sacrament. Like church, data offers comfort, direction, sometimes misdirection and often, indifference. Despite how important collecting data on Casper has felt I know that so much of what I have gathered here does not matter. And yet, I can't stop. </span><span style="line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The weight of existing data that isn’t being recorded often feels needlessly heavy. It implies importance for things that might actually be inconsequential. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.15;">Of course, nothing feels inconsequential when you have a baby. I know that Casper's every new discovery has already been discovered by every human baby to proceed him and yet a celebration still seems in order. This data shows what it's like to have a newborn. He poops. He eats. He pees. He sleeps. Nothing new. And yet his mom is </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">mesmerized</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.15;">. </span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-88373762452372973582014-02-17T18:18:00.002-05:002014-02-17T18:19:30.060-05:00Casper, Month 3<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-50f75a75-3d68-8546-2b4b-70aac6de33ff" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b> <br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This month you have fallen in love with the world. You have met so many new animate and inanimate friends! We turned on the light-up mobile on your bassinet which you greeted with wide eyed amazement. Your shocked little eyes saying, “Guys! Why have you never showed me this before!?!?!” You also started showing interest in toys, particularly a stuffed bug with black and white patterns on his wings who we call, “Butterfly Friend” and who is singlehandedly responsible for you learning to track objects. You are generous with your smiles and just starting to giggle. You love to kick on the changing table. You love to be naked. You love baby fireworks shows (despite my performance in the video below you have your dad to thank for inventing and documenting). </span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/86842383" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> <br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/86842383">Baby Fireworks Show</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user2116024">Geoff G</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b> <br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We call you Chunker, Lil’ Fatty, Boob Monster, Mama’s Baby. We still call you all of your 1 month and 2 month nicknames as well… we almost never call you Casper.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sJ7c-tNXSnE/UwF2gzInrbI/AAAAAAAAAyw/Tbw6dOEhIZM/s1600/CasperSmiles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sJ7c-tNXSnE/UwF2gzInrbI/AAAAAAAAAyw/Tbw6dOEhIZM/s1600/CasperSmiles.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You and I took our first plane trip out to California to meet family, friends, temperatures above freezing and huge mountains (though not <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCgQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMount_Whitney&ei=HhYCU5a1C-qSyAGJrYGoDw&usg=AFQjCNEt7sffW_S0x21w3HGyy-TFNau1fQ&sig2=iQOfcAPGF0MYAKDLKzyQcg&bvm=bv.61535280,d.aWc">the mountain of your middle namesake</a> -- soon!). I had been wound up about the prospect of flying alone with a 10 week old for weeks, but -- as so many other moms predicted -- it was pretty easy. I carried you in the Moby wrap and you slept for most of the flight. The only turbulence (literal and figurative) occurred while we were in the bathroom, you half naked on my lap with your butt covered in poo. You were a bit more of a handful on the flight home when you refused the wrap, insisting that I hold you while you clung very tenuously to sleep. I spent the flight listening to podcasts and staring down at your little face. Much of that time staring specifically at your inner ear which I noticed was caked with scaly earwax and your nose where a huge booger was dancing its way out onto your face. I wanted nothing more than to reach down and clean your ear and pick that booger but knew that doing so would wake you. This is what mama torture feels like.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span> <br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your grandparents were, of course, thrilled to see you again. Your Uncle Kurt turned out to be much more of a baby lover (and helper) than I knew. Your cousins, Dalanie (8) and Zayden (4.99), we so excited to hold you, coo at you, shake your butterfly toy at you and generally get up in your grill.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of your first interactions was this conversation:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-50f75a75-3da8-880e-f174-2d14d7ae5fc6" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zayden</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Can he say your name?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: No, He can’t say any words yet.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dalanie</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: But what about in his head? Does he think about words?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Great question! No one knows exactly what babies think about because you can’t ask them but I think he probably thinks about pictures more than words.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xueWQDE5XEw/UwF2PIuXSkI/AAAAAAAAAyo/yi8_hhThTbc/s1600/Cousins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xueWQDE5XEw/UwF2PIuXSkI/AAAAAAAAAyo/yi8_hhThTbc/s1600/Cousins.jpg" height="230" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Dalanie noted that you looked a bit like me because we had similar marks on our faces. She was referring to your baby acne and my acne scars. (Thankfully, she didn’t get around to comparing our chubby thighs). As if this wasn’t enough of an unintentional slap in the face she also chose to stay home and babysit you (with Grandma’s help) rather than go out and about with me. I sighed that I wasn’t her favorite any longer and she replied, “You’re still my favorite grown up.” I suppose if I have to lose favorite status to someone, I’m happy it’s you.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Zayden refused to help with your bath because, “it might be disgusting,” and he had a point -- you only get grosser by the month. While the subsequent bath was clean enough those that fear bodily fluids should steer clear of 3 month old babies (obviously). You have developed a soaking drool habit. Every couple of weeks a huge white whale of a booger peeks out of your nose, moving in and out of your nostril with your breaths. Early in the month you spit up ON MY FACE. Later you spit up on your own hand and stuck it in my mouth. We have to make a special point to regularly pry your various rolls apart and clean inside of them lest you start a baby cheese factory in your neck and thighs. And then there is the poop situation. Because I am a cliche mom who cannot stop discussing my baby’s bowel movements the entire following paragraph is about poop. Zayden and others who fear disgusting babies should skip ahead.</span></span></div>
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<span style="vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">While on our trip you went on a sudden poop boycott. Up until that Wednesday every diaper was graced with the Casper special of “pee and a smear” with the occasional upset of a slightly larger poop. And then for 3 days just pees over and over again. I said many prayers that the coming poop (which I assumed would be massive) would not arrive mid flight home. Thankfully, my wishes were granted and I brought home to Brooklyn a baby who only dirtied his diapers with pee. After reuniting with dad and ordering some dinner I jumped in the shower. I can only act as secondhand reporter for what occurred while I was getting clean. According to your dad you were lying on his chest getting some cuddles when he heard a rumbling from below. When he glanced down at the back of your onesie he saw an orange spot begin to radiate up your back. Dad took you in for the change to discover poop all the way up to your neck and a lake of it filling your diaper. He was half done wiping you down when the doorbell rang -- dinner was here! So he slapped a new diaper on your still poop-flecked body and answered the door, grabbing our food from the delivery guy just as you unleashed a rain of spitup down his back. At this point he opened the bathroom door to tell me that I had picked a great time to shower. He was right. I had. </span></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hO57fPyJcfI/UwF2rED7XuI/AAAAAAAAAy4/sgKrVdVMIJ4/s1600/CasperSerious.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hO57fPyJcfI/UwF2rED7XuI/AAAAAAAAAy4/sgKrVdVMIJ4/s1600/CasperSerious.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">This month was wonderful, but there was one really awful part. Things are going to get scary and real in the next couple of paragraphs. I’m going to shed some tears writing them and not the normal schmoopy mommy kind either. I’ll just spoiler alert right here that everything turns out fine in the end but we had a bad day on the 21st of January. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">It has been a very cold and snowy winter in NYC. There is this weather thing called The Polar Vortex that has turned the city into a walk in freezer. I’m no longer fazed by temperatures in the teens and consider the high 20s an excuse to get outside. But we’ve seen more teens than 20s and as a result mom and baby have seen very little of the outside world. We were headed into another string of sub-freezing days so your dad and I thought we’d take advantage of the balmy 20+ degree weather on January 21st and take a walk in the pretty falling snow.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">It is only three blocks from our place to the new Whole Foods, where we’d planned on grocery shopping and lunch. (We dream big around here with our fancy plans to have lunch at a grocery store…). We put you in the wrap and I pushed your head down against my chest to keep you warm. You hate this. When in the wrap you want to stretch your head back away from me to take in the world from your favorite star gazing position. You greeted my forced cheek to chest cuddling with screams. You were so mad at your stupid mom’s attempts to keep you warm. The scream continued for the whole walk. But when we arrived at the store they suddenly stopped and were replaced with a strange whiney grunt. We pulled you out of the wrap and watched as your lips and face lost their color and began to turn blue. Casper, I was so scared. I held it together and asked another customer to call 911 and then I put you over my shoulder and hit your back until you let out one loud cry before returning to you whiny grunting. Your face was no longer blue but it wasn’t your normal rosey pink either. At least the awful noise let us know that you were breathing, even if you were listless and pale. </span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">You continued to grunt and loll in and out of sleep for half an hour. You wouldn’t nurse. You wouldn’t suck on your pacifier. As I sat there staring at your yellow face, my hand glued to your chest to verify that your continued to breathe I thought, “If he dies, I’ll just die too.” I’m sure that isn’t really true but right then I felt it with all of my self. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Around 15 minutes after the 911 call the paramedics arrived, verified that you were breathing, and advised us to go to your pediatrician rather than the ER. After a hour of observation the doctor decided that in your temper tantrum you probably breathed in a bit of your own drool and aspirated. As long as you returned to your normal hungry, perky, rosy-cheeked self in a few hours there was almost for sure no harm done. </span><br />
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<span style="vertical-align: baseline;">After a long nap, my baby was back. In fact, that night was the first time you showed interest in toys and started really tracking objects. You are just fine. I, however, might never again be the same carefree mommy. I lie in bed at night listening for your grunts in the crib across the room. When you’re sleeping in the carrier I stop every few blocks to hold my breath and feel for your chest rising against mine. If you nap for too long I sometimes poke at you, risking an angry wide awake baby, to verify that you’re still alive. </span><br />
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</span> <span style="line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline;">We took you to the cardiologist 2 weeks after your breathing incident to confirm that there were no heart issues. By the time this appointment rolled around your dad and I were unconcerned. We're not as resilient as you but after 2 weeks of your coos, laughs and bright eyes and we were mostly back to being parents of a normal healthy baby boy. (It also helped that you were breathing every single time I checked). We got to see your perfect little heart beating away on the ultrasound and the doctor officially pronounced you healthy and unlikely to have any other incidents. He also looked at your fleshy rolls lying on his examination table naked and said with a smile, “He’s clearly a good eater.” You know your baby is chunking up when even the doctor feels compelled to comment. You are a </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline;">great</span><span style="line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline;"> eater, and a lover of just hanging out on the boob. While you can go over 7 hours at night without eating (while asleep!) during the daylight hours you’d prefer to nosh every 90 minutes or so. You’re putting on ounces every day and even though people on the street still marvel at how little you are to your dad and I you are a giant. I imagine this is how it will always feel as we three go always forward never backwards, as you grow and grow, always bigger, never smaller. The constant shock of it will never wane.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-91867400830331633852014-01-16T21:19:00.001-05:002014-01-16T21:20:10.885-05:00Casper, Month 2<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In December, when we met with the pediatrician for your 1 month appointment she assured us that over the next few weeks we would meet a new baby and that prediction has come to pass. You are no longer a newborn. Instead, you are coming into prime baby-ness. All of your stretching has finally unsprung your body from the fetal position; you are long if not lean (The chub! Oh, the adorable chub). Not content to spend your days curled up in a sleepy little ball the world is now yours to stare down, to punch, to claw, to kick, to yell at. You are suddenly wide awake to all of it. Attacking the world with gusto is tiring and you’ve just started occasionally giving your parents 5-6 straight hours of sleep at night (And we thank you. Why not go for 7? You can do it!).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This month you are Caperoo, Caperini, Caspernacus, Carperito with Cheese (when you got your swaddle on), Doodle, Gross-y, Gross-er Puke-y, and King Baby. Every song we sing is about you (Dad does an version of On Top of Old Casper that, if not sensical, is at least catchy). I made up a metal ballad called “Throw the Paci on the Floor” to sing when you are very angry. Sadly, I do not have the GarageBand skills to produce a recording.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To my surprise (and terror) when I put you down on your stomach at just over 4 weeks, hoping you’d take to tummy time, you immediately rolled over onto your back. I am hesitant to even mention this to too many other people out of fear that I sound like one of those crazy parents who are constantly insisting that their child is super advanced. I managed to catch you on video a week later so I have proof that I am not delusions/making things up. As impressed as I am with everything you do I’m sure this early rolling foreshadows not genius but just a higher likelihood that you’ll end up rolling off of some perch, land on your head and leave me to worry about brain damage for years to come. Thank god you cannot yet roll from back to front.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I like to ask you to tell me what’s wrong when I know you’re hungry just so I can be amused with your vigorous rooting on my cheeks. You have your mouth open and ready way before the boob is out and often lose patience with my lackadaisical pace when it is clear that you are starving to death. The screams are very angry and very loud. You’ve also occasionally been putting on a hilarious play during feeding called, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Suck, Suck, Scream</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I understand. Sometimes when you are eating it’s hard not to think about a time in the future when you might not be eating. I try to remind you that everything is ok, and the boob is in your mouth *RIGHT NOW* and you tend to calm down.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f4hXKM_vybE/UtgkrR5vBfI/AAAAAAAAAx0/bf9f33Zx_nk/s1600/CasperSmile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f4hXKM_vybE/UtgkrR5vBfI/AAAAAAAAAx0/bf9f33Zx_nk/s1600/CasperSmile.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You rang in 2014 but peeing all over your mom during a diaper change but quickly made up for it by smiling at us for the first time on New Years Day. You’ve been generally charming us with little baby grins every since but life is not all joy -- you are plagued by a few baby demons. The most evil thing in your world is gas. The number of times I’ve stressed over what could be wrong with my screaming baby only to have a big fart turn you into a smiler again are too numerous to count. The second most awful thing ever is pulling your own pacifier out of your mouth. When you need to be calmed down you like to be walked around the apartment to survey your domain -- mostly to greet your subjects, “recessed lights” and “black frames against white walls.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All this info about my boobs and your farts might be TMI but who am I kidding? These posts are not really for Future Casper they are for Future Mom and nothing is too much information for that old broad.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For all the sweetness in this post our day to day lives are quite silly. When you’re mad we ask you to please register your complaints by mail and someone will contact you in 7-10 business days. We go over all of the things you hate (the bassinet, being held wrong, putting on clothes) and how you have the worst parents ever. We tell you how disgusting you are with all of the poop and spit up.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Casper, you are so much fun. Before you were born your dad and I had prepared ourselves for a baby who might (temporarily at least) ruin our lives. We had been told so many times that babies were hard, that they make people fight and cry and can ruin relationships. We took these warnings seriously. We were scared. The reality has been a pleasant surprise. Sure, I’d like more sleep and less time telling you that I have no idea what is wrong. But it’s not awful and it’s not hard…. yet (?). (That said, I encourage everyone to believe that babies are a disaster. I understand that many babies ARE, and if you get lucky, like we have, being pleasantly surprised is great).</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-380290f0-9c48-c5dd-0611-b2de5af1d6c0"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You continue to grow too quickly and like all moms I bemoan this fast forwarding, but the baby I have today is as lovable as my newborn. Would I trade big smiles for a tinier, cuddlier bundle? How could one choose between those apples and oranges? I cannot imagine that I ever loved you any more than I do right now or that I ever will love you any less. You are a recipe for being in the moment. Bring on the sitting up, the teething, the babbling, the walking and the learning to give mama a foot massage. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-44226254102912982802013-12-30T15:50:00.000-05:002013-12-30T16:08:57.215-05:00Mother's Milk -- A Restaurant Review by Casper<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xkKM39G5o0Y/UsHamIVThdI/AAAAAAAAAxQ/3XPnNE2nyZU/s1600/threestars.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="46" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xkKM39G5o0Y/UsHamIVThdI/AAAAAAAAAxQ/3XPnNE2nyZU/s200/threestars.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div>
I'll state off the bat that I have mixed feelings about this place. On one hand the food is AMAZING and you cannot beat the price on the all you can eat special. Additionally they offer (off menu) "free refills" to regulars if you ask (I usually just scream really loudly after I finish my first course). Unfortunately I feel that something has to be said about the service. At times it can take five whole minutes to get a table and after that you'll often wait up to 30 seconds for your meal to arrive. A baby could starve to death in that amount of time! I myself have almost wasted away to nothing on many occasions. I have spoken at length to the proprietor about these issues and she never seems to take my concerns seriously. I'd stop going there all together but the place is so convenient (open 24 hours!) and honestly the ambiance cannot be beat (I think you dudes know what I'm talking about *nudgenudge* *winkwink*).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-9466536490067349902013-12-18T10:44:00.000-05:002014-04-17T13:16:32.406-04:00Casper, Month 1<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 2pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hey Casper -- You’re 1 month old! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My thoughts on our first month together are a bit jumbled and unformed and I suspect you won’t allow me enough writing time to mold them into a cohesive essay so enjoy this mishmash of unorganized mama babble.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-2da463a9-0656-57ee-38a0-8de7d2655088" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I cannot believe that all of that time when I was pregnant it was you who was inside of me. Some moms say they know their babies before they are born but I had no idea and now I’m consumed with getting to know you and it is so much fun. That said, I know that no matter how new and special you seem to your mom and dad you are probably very much like every other 1 month old baby and so this blog entry might be very boring to everyone who is not me. C'est la vie.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am, so far, lucky to have such a happy sleepy baby but when the world gets to be too much and you scream and scream your dad discovered a little baby hypnotizing tool: the white noise of the bathroom vent. You love the bathroom vent so much that I’m a bit worried that you think it might be your mother. Jealousy aside, having such a reliable baby charming device right in our home is both a godsend and a hilarious party trick. Stepping over the threshold into “Casper’s Calm Down Room” (as your dad calls it) takes you from inconsolable screamer to passed out drunk almost immediately. Unfortunately the powers of the vent are contained to the bathroom and leaving, even when you seem completely zonked, often returns the maddest baby in the world to my arms. This has resulted in many nights spent hanging out perched on the toilet considering if moving your bassinet into the bathroom would make me a bad parent.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You were born with long sharp nails and since we’ve been told to put off cutting them until you’re one month old this has been a month of scratches and what we have come to call “hand jail.” I used to see onesies with little attached mittens and think they were made to keep baby fingers warm, I now know that the little cuffs are meant to keep baby and mom from being stabbed to death.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yCrphGyt408/UrHAX0mOUgI/AAAAAAAAAw0/PIQC6mWjad8/s1600/photo+(6).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yCrphGyt408/UrHAX0mOUgI/AAAAAAAAAw0/PIQC6mWjad8/s320/photo+(6).JPG" height="320" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your dad and I have so many nicknames for you: Stretcherson, Mr. Grumpenstein, Big Pooper, etc -- a name for ever one of your faces. Your granddad is trying hard to make you a Cas and one of dad’s friends is pushing to call you Whit. It’s all in love, everyone wants to have a special name just for you, we’ll see if any of them stick.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When you’re in a good mood and looking around the room you want very badly to hold your head up. For a one month old you’re doing a pretty good job of picking up your huge noggin, we wonder if your womb position helped you build a little extra neck muscle. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Both sets of grandparents are in love with you. “Of course they are!” says everyone - but your dad and I expected a more laid back performance. Our brothers already have kids so you’re not the first grandchild and all of our parents don’t really seem that into babies. Throughout my pregnancy everyone was very calm and unimpressed with having a new grand baby… but after you were born everything changed. Grandmom Gruetzmacher can hardly hold back from grabbing you out of my arms. Grandpa Horst has already promised you a pony (you have proof in writing here so if no pony shows up feel free to cite this blog post). We receive constant complaints that we’re not uploading enough pictures to the CasperVision photostream. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your cousins are smitten with you too. Dalanie and Zayden have visited you on FaceTime at least once a week. Zayden, especially seems to be in love -- he’s only 4 so he shows his love by yelling at you through the phone, singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and mooning you. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I remain sad that you’ll be growing up even though I know 3 months and 6 months and 1 year will bring so many exciting new things. I can’t help feeling like you’re perfect right now and I want to keep you like this forever (yes, even with the 4am feedings, the occasional inconsolable hours and the poopy diapers). When I was little I found it so annoying when adults would talk about how fast time was moving when it seemed like the wait for the end of the school day or Christmas or summer vacation was taking eons but parenthood has made time fly for me too. How has it been a whole month since you were born? How can we slow down time so we can spend endless days cooing at each other on the couch while watching the snow fall?</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SW3c-iLiBiM/UrHAeMVXIaI/AAAAAAAAAw8/9SygbSF3rQw/s1600/photo+(5).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SW3c-iLiBiM/UrHAeMVXIaI/AAAAAAAAAw8/9SygbSF3rQw/s320/photo+(5).JPG" height="240" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23687811.post-49938500077915511962013-11-29T14:50:00.000-05:002013-11-29T17:00:33.105-05:00Welcome Baby Casper<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Baby and I spent <a href="http://randomaccessbabble.blogspot.com/2013/10/bottoms-up-kid.html">the last nine weeks of my pregnancy</a> bopping between lying upside down, having needles poked into my feet and failing an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_cephalic_version">ECV</a> attempt. The specialist trying to perform the baby flip first examined the little dude </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;">via ultrasound. But after confirming that his little</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> face was still staring up at my own sadly declared that she didn’t think there was much chance of getting this particular baby head down. We were resigned to the scheduled c-section. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wasn’t thrilled about picking the boy’s birthday for him but otherwise I was glad to be done with the (apparently futile) baby turning ridiculousness and move on to the baby having. With the fetus eviction scheduled for November 21st I embraced the project management beauty of a planned delivery. I scheduled my last day of work for Nov 15th. My parents rescheduled their visit so they could be here when we returned from the hospital. My husband scheduled a last fancy dinner out as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DINKY">DINKs</a> for a couple of days pre-surgery. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-12091e3c-a55b-438b-9766-010d2766da44" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In birth class and maternity books and all over the internet pregnant ladies are reassured that the way labor and delivery is portrayed in Hollywood is completely unrealistic. Labor takes a long time. Babies are pretty much never born in cabs. Almost no one has their water break spontaneously. All of this is doubly true for first time moms -- the message is clear. You won’t be surprised. You will have plenty of time. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My water broke around 12:30 pm on Nov 16th 2013 -- I was 38 weeks and 3 days pregnant. This was no trickle down my leg. At no point did I optimistically wonder if maybe I was just peeing myself (this suddenly being a more favorable option than the idea of having a baby that afternoon). Luckily I was at home and not actually living out some awful sitcom plot. I was chatting with my husband while organizing a few nursery items when I felt a pop, a gush and a pool installing itself in the gusset of my panties. </span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I rang the doctor from my perch on the toilet where amniotic fluid had gotten into an established pattern of gush, replenish, gush. I had tried to stop the flow with a pad but that had lasted all of 5 minutes before my pants were soaked through. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I dialed my doctor I somehow wound up connected to a doctor’s office in Pennsylvania. Odd. I tried a second time. PA. A third. Very annoyed woman in Pennsylvania. This is when panic started to set in -- how was I dialing a New York City 212 number that I'd dialed myriads of times and ending up connected to another state? After 15 mins of looking up alternative numbers for my doctor and trying to call other doctors in the practice all of which continued to result in the twilight zone Pennsylvania experience the annoyed but ultimately nice lady on the other end of the line figured out that the doctor’s call service was forwarding incorrectly. By this time I was (obviously) crying and my husband had already called a cab but the Pennsylvania lady was finally able to get us a working number and the on call doctor (not my personal doctor, but my favorite of the others in her practice -- a spunky lady who always referred to fetuses as "munchkins") called me back while we were enroute to the hospital.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Initially the doctor wanted to wait a few hours before they performed the c-section since I’d eaten breakfast 2 hours before my water broke and surgery is safer on an empty stomach (due to reduced risk of my vomiting all over myself). But once at the hospital an ultrasound confirmed that the baby was footling breech with a heel resting on my cervix. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">This position made it possible that he might stick a toe out into the pool of the real world as soon as my cervix dilated enough. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">The baby extraction would have to happen ASAP. I was told not to get up from bed, Geoff was handed some scrubs and we waited for the doctor to arrive. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Things were going great: I was cracking jokes with the nurses, laughing at my pathetic little contractions (easy to do when you know you won’t be sticking around for the big ones). I was generally in a jolly mode right up until they walked me into surgery. Everyone who has a c-section notes that the operating room is scary medical experiment time compared to the floral wall paper and cheery baby welcoming posters of the rest of Labor and Delivery. The transition to fluorescent light bouncing off of gleaming white tile and metal instruments is jarring.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had expected the insertion of the spinal to be pretty painful so when the time came I steeled myself but surprisingly it didn’t hurt much at all. I barely felt the needle though I did feel a weird rush afterwards like a hot tidal wave filling up my body. It wasn’t painful but it wasn’t pleasant. Once I was numbed up they brought my husband in and sat him on a stool by my head. They did not strap my arms down to the table which was a nice surprise. I could feel some movement below the wall of the sheet but no pain and once I got Geoff to talk to me was mostly distracted enough to not obsess over the fact that my insides were being exposed to the world.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Geoff tried to peek over the curtain to watch the surgery he was chastised and told to sit back down which was surprising since we’d heard of many other daddies watching the procedure.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At one point during the surgery the doctor called out calmly, “cord times 2” -- indicating that the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck two times. This accounts for his position -- with the placenta at the top of my uterus and the cord wrapped around the baby twice there was simply not enough slack for him to get his head down (insert “just enough rope to hang yourself” joke here). My husband later admitted to being confused by this announcement -- assuming it meant that somehow the baby had two umbilical cords and possibly also two belly buttons, he assured me that he has already committed to loving him anyhow. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Casper Whitney Gruetzmacher was born on November 16th 2013 at 4:04 pm, he weighed 6lbs 9.8oz and was 19 inches long.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ton7Rd2JF4Y/UpjtTRxT_xI/AAAAAAAAAv4/p3qdpHCQvJg/s1600/CasperDay1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="319" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ton7Rd2JF4Y/UpjtTRxT_xI/AAAAAAAAAv4/p3qdpHCQvJg/s320/CasperDay1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He screamed like crazy on his way out and all through being checked out by the pediatrician. We were later informed that the doctor had nicked his thigh when making the c-section incision -- the whole hospital seemed very worried about dad and I possibly freaking out about this but the actual injury was no worse than a paper cut and neither of us felt a need to get worked up. The doctor claimed he had a full head of blond hair -- this must have been a mistake because his hair is shockingly dark for a child born to two blond parents. We expect it to lighten up as he ages but who knows. Geoff was able to go over and hold him within a few minutes of birth and he brought him around so I could nuzzle his little cheeks and say hello while being sewn back up. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I spent 3 hours in the recovery room waiting for enough feeling to return to my bottom half that I could lift up my butt (this was the very scientific test they used… ). The nurses brought the baby in and tried to help me nurse but while Casper was doing his part (opening his mouth wide, making sucking movements, etc) I was still numb from the chest down and we couldn’t get him to latch on while I was lying down. The hospital was very pro-nursing and assured me he wouldn’t be given formula and would be plenty hungry when I regained feeling.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those nurses were not lying -- once we got into our room around 8pm; Casper nursed like a little sucker fish and was quickly full of colostrum. Shortly thereafter I was full of sushi (nothing tastes better than formerly forbidden fruit eaten after 10 hours on an empty stomach).</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At this point everything felt unreal. I had so little time to process the birth (I mean, besides the preceding 9 months…) that even sitting in my hospital room with the baby next to me I was still working through the shock of my water breaking -- never mind the whole getting cut open and having an actual baby that is actually mine for life thing.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Vzyrp6PjFxA/UpjtY84Pf2I/AAAAAAAAAwA/_urC-165N40/s1600/CasperComingHome.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Vzyrp6PjFxA/UpjtY84Pf2I/AAAAAAAAAwA/_urC-165N40/s320/CasperComingHome.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The c-section was much less painful than I’d feared. The pain meds did their job and I was up and walking to breast feeding class the next morning at 9:30am. Recovery overall has gone great. We came home on Tuesday November 19th after a small bit of last minute hospital drama about Casper having lost 9.8% of his body weight. We were asked to supplement at home with a crazy contraption involving a small tube taped to my boob feeding formula while he nursed. Casper declared war on the tube from the start arching his back, screaming and refusing to latch so after 3 attempts, a good cry and a long chat with a friend who happens to be a lactation consultant we gave up until our pediatrician appointment the next morning. Luckily my milk must have come in overnight because by the time we went to the doctor the boy was already up 5 ounces and we were told to ditch the silly supplementing. Breast feeding and baby life in general has been mostly smooth sailing since -- we feel very lucky.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here comes the schmoopy part; get ready. I love him so much. I was never really worried about loving him but it’s also true that when asked on the first day of birth class what I was most excited about my honest response was, “having a 6 month old.” I’ve never been that into newborns -- they seem so needy and floppy and boring. But the hormones kicked in and I find myself sad that Casper will get bigger. That he won’t always be the perfect little compact baby that fits right on my chest (squishing himself back into his womb pose, legs crossed, knees bent, pushed over to my right side, gazing up into my eyes). Sometimes when his little grunt-y cries wake me up at 3am I feel a little jolt of excitement that soon he’ll be awake and I’ll get to hold him. He is my baby.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TLqH3IsMytg/UpjtgrEyr8I/AAAAAAAAAwI/daJvdZhwfz0/s1600/Casper5daysold.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TLqH3IsMytg/UpjtgrEyr8I/AAAAAAAAAwI/daJvdZhwfz0/s320/Casper5daysold.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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