Great Deal!

So I have been eyeing baby leggings for a while but I am wayyy too cheap thrifty to plop down $12 for something that I am not sure I will really use. I mean they definitely look cute, and I can see the practical uses, but one thing I have learned in my 5 months as a mama is that you never know what works or not until you try it.

Luckily, I got an email today from Sydney So Sweet, the same website that I ordered bows from not too long ago, with a great offer of 6 pairs of baby leggings for $10! Making this deal even sweeter, you can get an additional 15% off of your entire order by using the code valentine15.

I ordered  6 pairs and with shipping it came to only $11.75, even less than one pair of some of the pairs I have seen.

They have a lot of bright colors that should be awesome for spring. Enjoy!

formspring.me

So, I have been slacking lately, mostly because I have been trying to tie up loose ends before my new job starts. I have interviewed and found a sitter for Gemma AND a potential for backup, gotten the rest of my law school applications together, shopped for some work clothes, and other odds and ends. I can not believe that my life is going to be so drastically different in a week or so. I have been so used to staying at home I don't know how I am going to feel. I don't even want to think about what it is going to be like to be separated from Gems, at least not yet!

I digress, but what I am meaning to get out (eventually I promise!) is that if you notice on the sidebar of this blog there is a box that says "Ask Me Anything" and it is really for just that. If you are interested, uou can ask me any question you want, anonymously if you choose! I will probably answer all questions. Unless they are really inappropriate or offensive of course. But I trust y'all!

So, ask away! And you can read the answers to your questions here  and if I get enough I will be sure to dedicate a post to them.

Have a great weekend!

Happy 5 Months Gemma

Happy 5 months my dear sweet Gemma! I am so glad I got to spend the day with you (as always!)

January has been the first month with you that I can truly say feels like it flew by. Being your mama really became so much easier this month. You and I have synced together into a routine that is cozy and familiar to us both.

You are still my little night owl. I am not sure if I like it or not but it seems to be working, and that is enough for me. Well, that it works and that you are happy is enough for me. I have become a woman who is easy to please. So bedtime is midnight or so and we had been sleeping until 11, or even later, but that doesn't make me happy so I am slowly trying to make wake up time a little earlier. You sleep well but from time to time I wake you up from moving around in my our bed. I act like I hate it but secretly I feel so comfy with you beside me...it just feels right. Maybe not for forever, but this month, it worked.

I never replaced your swing seat so you didn't play with that at all this month. You do really seem to like your Excersaucer. You have a love/hate relationship with the book toy. It seems to be your favorite but you get MAD when you can't seem to grab it just right. You also hang out on your play mat or a blanket on the floor. You scoot yourself around a lot and end up 90 degrees from the way I laid you down in the first place. You roll a lot but usually not all the way over. The arm that you need to put over your head to make it the rest of the way over is usually preoccupied as you grasp some toy or shove your fist in your mouth. Deep down, I think you can do it but that you just don't want to. Doesn't every mama think that?

When I weighed you on the home scale (by holding you and subtracting my weight) it said that you weighed 14 lbs and 2 oz and that doesn't seem too far off. We have actually been nursing more than we did last month but your diet is still predominately formula. You haven't tried any solids yet, mostly because your mama is a chicken.

You are wearing 3-6 month sleepers, and 0-3 and 3-6 months clothes. You are surprisingly tall, so your 0-3 month pants are quickly becoming high waters. Poor thing.  You are still fitting in to size 2 diapers pretty well.

I think that your hair loss has finally stopped and I your hair is growing slowly but surely. The Mohawk you had at birth is coming back...not nearly as cool but it is there.

Your eyes are still...strange. They look brown in the middle but green from certain angles and then it seems like they are still ringed in blue. So maybe they are still changing? Or maybe they will be hazel?  Isn't that what people usually call eyes where the color is not easily distinguished?

I have noticed recently that you are definitely the observant type. You take in a situation and absorb the possibilities before you react. Your granddaddy and I laugh at you as you study something because you can really see how deeply in thought you are. I wonder if this is a trait that you will continue to have as you get older and I look forward to finding out. Since the day you were born I have noticed how alert you are and I really think you just look out on the world and drink it in.

You have also proven yourself to be such a happy baby. Everybody who meets you comments on what a happy baby you are. Lots of things make you laugh. It makes my heart melt to think that sometimes all I have to do is look at you and you brighten up. It makes me want to stare at you all day, everyday.

As I type this you are laid across my belly sleeping and I am trying to think of what else I don't want to let myself forget. I am thinking of little things, like how much you like to play with your rings and how you seem to have started to like music more this month but really what I really want to remember is how much I love you, and how much you love me, and how much we totally love each other.

I am so blessed to be your mama.

I love you forever and always,

Mama

Here are a few more pictures from your monthly photo shoot (which I still need help with, any suggestions?)

With a Bow

Without a Bow

Arial View

Focused

Bahaha!

The Secret Life of the American Teenager

45.

That is the number of times they used the word sex in last night's episode of the show, The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

I am no prude or anything, but really, 45 times? In an hour long show? Once you subtract commercials from the hour long air time, the word sex was used about every 60 sexonds seconds (oops!)

Not only is the word sex used WAY too frequently, it is also used awkwardly.

Example:

A. Hi. How are you today?
B. I'm good, just thinking about sex.
A. Sex? Why are you thinking about sex today? You should be thinking about our test today not sex.
B. How can I focus on my test when I keep thinking of having sex. Having sex with you.
*Awkward pause made more awkward by bad acting*
A. You only want me for sex. Go take your test and try to think about something besides sex. Because sex is fun but sex isn't a future. You saw what happened when Amy had sex. She had sex and now she has a baby. Do you still want to have sex, even though having sex means you might have a baby from having sex?

That actually might be less awkwardly written. In fact, if this new job doesn't work out, I have a back up plan :)

As I digress, you are probably wondering why on EARTH I would watch a television show I can't stand.

I found out I was pregnant in a grocery store bathroom on January 4th of last year. When I came home I was in complete shock. I brushed past my dad,  went upstairs to my room, turned the television on and there it was...

The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

I didn't watch intently. I am pretty sure if I had paid much attention I would have ended up turning the channel, but it provided the background noise while I digested the most life changing news I had ever gotten. I had heard of the show before and I had a general idea of what it was about and I think that maybe in some small way I was comforted by this fictional character who I had something in common with now.

I was pregnant.

I was shocked. I mean, just a few days before I had been enjoying the last few days of winter break and I saw only what was right there in front of me. All of a sudden I was confronted with the future I would have had and the future I would have and my mind just couldn't wrap itself around either.

I was scared.

Later that day I told a few friends and had a couple of "really?", "yes, really" conversations as I paced back and forth in a parking lot a few blocks away from my house. Learning of a pregnancy is supposed to be a joyous occasion, a celebration of life, a proclamation of the love that two people share. Instead of being one of the best days of my life it was one of the hardest.

One of the hardest days of my life led me into one of the hardest months. I went back to school and started the new semester and kept my "news" a secret from my family. I went back and forth while I tried to decide what to do with it and wondered how something so stupid, and simple, and meaningless, had led me to...

This.

I was pregnant.

My life was going to be different now.

Just like hers.


One year later, as I lay 5 pounds heavier and 10 times wiser beside the best thing in my life, part of me still feels sad for me in that moment and in that month, when I was so unbelievably scared and confused and alone and part of me is mad at me in that moment, at my selfishness and the cigarettes I smoked and at the things I considered.

And on Monday nights, when that silly show comes on, a show about a girl who I pretty much have NOTHING in common with...

I feel like I am with an old friend. Maybe not a close friend, certainly not a best friend, but still a friend... who was there when I needed the friend with the most.

And that is why I watch The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

Panic

I went to the grocery store with my dad yesterday.

 As usual, he was pushing Gemma in her stroller while I pushed the cart full of groceries (proud Granddaddy.)

While we were waiting in line, he decided that he would take Gemma and walk to the butcher, which is about a block away. I said "really?", he said "really." I said "okay, I guess." and off they went.

About a million years later (25 minutes), I finally made it through the line and got my groceries packed into my car and off to the butcher I went.

They weren't there. She wasn't there. MY BABY WAS NOT THERE.

I asked, "Have you seen (insert my dad's name)?".

She said, "They just left."

My heart jumped out of my chest. My eyes welled with tears. I got back in my car.

How dare he.

I assumed he had just walked the extra 3 blocks from the butcher to my house, but still.

I was so mad. I had never not known exactly where my baby was and I hated it...

Big News!

I got a job!

I am excited.

And nervous.

But excited!

More details to come :)

Hilarious

Many moons ago, when I was still pregnant,  (well 5 or 6 moons ago) I swore to myself that I would take in every memory of Gemma in her babyhood and that I would keep scrupulous record of every milestone and achievement that she met. 

Since she was born, I am realizing it isn't quite as easy as I had thought. Not only because life with a young baby is a strange combination of hectic and lazy, but also because these milestones aren't quite as cut and dry as one might think.

At some point in the past month or so (maybe longer?) Gemma began to laugh.

I didn't realize it at first. I dismissed it, saying that she was "trying" to laugh. At some point she went from trying to doing and I don't know when it happened. Officially that is.

 According to her baby calendar, it happened December 25th but mostly I just put that down because...well, you have to use the Baby's First Laugh sticker somewhere, right?

I wanted to post tonight to remind myself of some of the very first things that Gemma finds hilarious.

As the not-so-great-but-working-on-it-even-if-it-is-not-really-possible keeper of all memories and milestones,  I promise, all of these are true.

Things that crack Gemma up:

• Peek-a-Boo
• Toe Kisses
• Strange Teeth Sucking Noise
• Yanking Mama's Hair
• Patty Cake
• Belly Rubs by Someone's Head
• Tickles...Anywhere
• Random, Unexpected Eye Contact
• Certain Toys
• Bella and O.J. (my Dad's Dogs)

I look forward to seeing this list grow.

Even if I do forget to write it all down.