My perfect child has a bad habit...

Little Cashew has developed an awful habit...
First the back story...she babbles a ton these days and it's pretty much the cutest thing you can imagine. And I've been trying to get her to say 'mama' and 'dada' and when I say 'mama' to her, she almost like clockwork, breaks out into a huge smile that melts my heat and comes close to bringing me to tears.

I've caught her in a few "dada's" while babbling and playing, and it'd adorable. We aren't calling this 'saying dada' as it's a long line of syllables that comes out and 'da' and 'da' happen to come out back to back...but it's super cute none the less.

Now on to her awful habit...today every time she gets really fussy and crying, "mama" slips out in her wails...and it breaks my heart and brings me to tears.
I don't think I can handle "mama' being including in her repertoire of upset sounds...it's too hard...and kind of makes me feel like a mommy failure...

Happy 5 Months!

To my Dearest Little Cashew,
Happy 5 months my little Darling! I can't believe how quickly time has gone by...It feels like just yesterday we were bringing you home from the hospital. And it was a year ago this past week that Mommy and Daddy saw a picture of you on the ultrasound for the first time. The sight of your little heart fluttering away was the sweetest little thing.

Today was a big day for you my little one, Mommy and Daddy fed you rice cereal for the first time. The pediatrician said we needed to start by 6 months, and this is the last weekend mommy has off for a month. (I'm sorry!) Now Little Cashew....usually it is Mommy who can't bear to see you growing up so fast...it physically hurts me because I love you so much just the way you are...and it usually takes Daddy talking some sense into me and convincing me that it is okay if you grow up. But tonight Daddy had a hard time deciding if we should start giving you cereal or not...he likes saying you are made 100% out of milk!

So it was hard on both of us sweetie, to watch you grow up some more tonight. But we did get some cute videos out of it...ones that when you are older, you will probably be mortified that we took in the first place.

I'm getting a little sad myself thinking about how quickly you are growing up...man mommy-hood is rough! But I did just upload some new cute pictures of you...and I must say, if you have to grow up, at least you are staying ridiculously cute...thanks sweetie!
Love and Kisses
~Mommy

Oh the cuteness!

Taking a quick study break because I really want to win!
So I entered a giveaway and to increase my chances of winning, I am blogging.

http://katelynandco.com/blog/?p=9

Check out all of the cute little hair things! I heart!

Okay back to my regularly scheduled blogging study break

Quick Updates

1. I'm taking yet another part of my medical board exams in a week, so I am taking another blogging hiatus (hence me not posting this week)
2. I like round numbers...so instead of 13 dollars to the March of Dimes, I'm making it $50.
3. Little Cashew is Amazing...with a capital A... I'm just saying

Au revoir until February!

I'm a shop-a-holic

It's true...especially when it comes to baby clothes. Gymboree, why must everything you have be so adorable??? I want one of everything!

What brought on this shopping splurg you ask...I have GymBucks to spend! Yay for an excuse to shop. Now I have a unique style to my online shopping...i fill my cart with way more than I actually intend on buying, and then widdle (is that even a word??) it down to a reasonable amount. But I hit a new record last night..I've been perusing Gymborees site for a few days now...slowly adding things to my cart...and last night I broke $1000....crazy!!! Walnut has a similar shopping method on websites with computer parts and gadgets, and he hasn't even done that!

For all of you who don't know me, I have NO intention whatsoever of spending that much money...I was shooting for more for the $100 dollar price frame. But my goodness it is easy to wrack up a huge shopping cart when you are doing it from the comfort of your own couch.

I think I will splurg with a non-sale item though...the cute little pink giraffe outfit above is a cutie!

I've never wanted to graduate less...

That's not really 100% true...I want to graduate and officially be Dr. MamaPeanut...I just don't want to finish these last few requirements...all because of my wonderful Little Cashew. I'm in my last year of medical school...something like 129 (but who is counting) days to go until graduation, and for a good number of hours today I just didn't care. All I wanted was to spend my days at home with Little Cashew.

I left school early today, abandoned my research and studying...Medical Board exams be damned! So I could come home and see my little munchkin.

I had never wanted to be a stay at home mom...the thought never crossed my mind...of course I would have a job...a career, and a fabulous one for that matter. But today all I wanted to do was to stay home with my Little Cashew. And I'm not even working really hard this month. I'm doing a research month, which has flexible hours, and the only reason I don't work from home is that I have no self control and would get nothing but play time accomplished.

How nice it would be to stay home with my little cutie pie (seriously...she's really cute!)...maybe I would get better at cleaning and cooking...generally improve on all of the Martha Stuart areas (minus the illegal ones). I might even wear something that isn't sweat pants or scrubs while at home...oh who am I kidding, that won't happen!

My aching heart and love for Little Cashew made me, for a few fleeting seconds, question my life choices thus far (ya know, minus the ones that involve bringing her into this world). I never imagined working with Little Cashew at home would be this hard. I feel like a terrible mom (hm, isn't this what I blogged about yesterday...must get out of this rut) I trust our nanny, but I hate leaving Little Cashew to be taken care of by anyone other than Walnut. On Monday she had the scent of the perfume the nanny was wearing on her...I couldn't stand it. I didn't want my little girl smelling like someone else...like someone else who carried her around all day...who sang to her instead of me...who soothed her when she got fussy and rocked her to sleep for long naps in the glider...I hated it. And I don't blame the nanny...I just get this overwhelming urge to be the sole care taker for my little one.

Walnut and I were looking at some of my med school loan materials yesterday and realized that my monthly loan payment would be more than our mortgage payment...so I need to work, not to pay for our oh-so-lavish lifestyle...but just to pay for my education!

It's like trying to be Indiana freaking Jones

Argh! Well here is a late night (I know I am getting old when I think 11pm is late night!) rant...

How could I possibly be so bad at putting my child to sleep all of the sudden??
It's like Little Cashew knew that Walnut had to work late this week (4pm-12am) and that I would be on bedtime duty myself and she thought it would be fun to rebel and not ever want to go to sleep...oh and of course cry a TON!

I don't know what it is, I can get her to go to sleep while I am holding her, but I can't put her down without waking her! Now sometimes it's clearly my fault...ie I hit her arm or foot or something on the railing of the crib while lifting her over. (I am jealous that Walnut doesn't have this problem...he's 6'7") But other times I swear I am so careful and she still wakes up! It's like Indian Jones and his bag of sand/idol switch-a-roo! Just a few grains of sand off and all of my hard work gets undone!!

And now that she is finally asleep, I am too stressed over her waking up for me to get any sleep! I can hear her making little noises over the monitor and I jump 8 feet at each one...please let her stay asleep.

Ugh, I would be the worst single parent...Walnut has the magic sleeping touch with our Little Cashew...I kind of think he is carrying around ether and knocking her out...okay well I don't actually think that...but seriously it's amazing.

Pop quiz Animal!

Which freezes first: Face wash, Shampoo or Conditioner?
Extra Credit if you know what TV-dubbed Movie the title of this post is from.

I can tell you from first hand experience...it's shampoo. How did I come across such intriguing information you ask? Apparently our bathroom window sill is cold enough to freeze things!

There are 2 reasons for this:
1. The bathroom is the "to-do center" of our place...with the most projects left to be done. And the window has 2 panes...well it should have 2 panes...the top part only has 1. This makes for a pretty drafty area (and some extra special challenges keeping Little Cashew warm during her bath!)
2. Yesterday it was colder in our city (which is in the South!) Than it was in Antarctica! Antarctica people! Now I get it, it's summer there, and our winters can't even come close to comparing...but still. This is a place only deemed livable by penguins...and it was warmer there!

Also I am jealous...I never got the VavaVa Voom pregnancy hair...or if I did it was hidden under a surgical cap all day and I never noticed it. But now my hair is shedding a ridiculous amount...seriously, I leave a trail of hair all over the place. I feel jipped...I'm paying the price and never got the reward...grumble. I hope it stops soon purely so I won't need to clean the drain several times during one shower!

So what if I like to stay in pink PJ pants all day??

Oh Thank goodness it is Saturday! Walnut is home and the whole nutty family gets to spend the day together! Well at least most of the day. We need to meet with the Priest Judgey McJudgerson to finalize the details of Little Cashew's Christening. And I need to work on some research today (I'm on a 'research month' this rotation...so I can work from home and have flexible hours...but since my nanny couldn't make it this week I haven't been as productive as I would have liked.) And Walnut is going to go meet up with some work people and see Avatar in the Imax theater.

But it's still more quality time as a family than we get all week. I totally got spoiled over the holidays having Walnut home all of the time. It's funny, I envision "family time" as trips down to the farmers market or to the library, but apparently I have under estimated parenthood. I'm happy when we just make it through the day! Maybe when Little Cashew is a bit older (and it's not so cold outside!!) we can have the more 'ideal' family time. For now I am happy with Saturday's in jammies and consider it a huge success for us to all get out to do ANYTHING (ie go see the priest)

If you haven't Commented on my previous post, please do so. I'm donating a dollar to the March of Dimes for every comment left! Thanks so much!

I've been inspired!

This post has inspired me:

http://armandosgirl.blogspot.com/2010/01/blogging-for-babies.html

So I am joining in! You should too!
One dollar for every comment left on this post in the next 10 days will be donated to the March of Dimes. I too will need to make a cap on how much I can donate...with all of the med school debt and such...but $300 sounds about right.

So drop a note internet stranger and say hi and help me Blog for Babies too! Just leave your name or screen name in the comment section and let's save some babies!

Waiting to Exhale...or explode or something like that

So here is your upfront warning....this post is about:

poop.

So if you are still reading...Little Cashew is a breastfed baby...and like breastfed babies, she no longer necessarily poops every day. Theoretically she should be settling in to a schedule...and its different for every baby. For a few weeks it looked like our schedule would be every 3 days. And then on the poop day...watch out! Her record for a poop day was 10 poops...it actually spanned overnight as a 3 and 7. Her single day record was 8 over Christmas.

I don't really mind this...it means I go days without changing a poopy diaper and when the time comes...bam...and it's over with. The problem is that she isn't really on a 3 day schedule and she is a gassy baby. Not like crying gassy...she's a happy gassy baby. But it leaves us guessing when "poop day" is going to be. And the build up (no pun intended) to poop day is nerve wracking. Like I don't want to take her on a run to the grocery store because what if that is the start of poop day?? I should also mention once poop day starts, it's not many poops over the course of the day, its usually more like: put her on the changing table and don't button up her outfit because the poop just comes and comes for like an hour.

And the problem with her being gassy you ask? I can no longer tell when it's dry gas and when its poop! Walnut had quite the refined ear for this in the beginning, and I slowed honed my ear over time, but now we are both lost.

So I have been stressed for DAYS because this is currently DAY FIVE! Of no poop...I mean today has GOT TO be the day...but who knows! And to make matters worse, on our last poop day...it wasn't even a poop day, she had one poopy diaper in the morning...so it wasn't even a real poop day.

Although I want to get it over with, I kind of hope she waits until Walnut gets home, so he can witness the ridiculousness I am sure it's going to be.

The last of my night time posts...

So I am going to try and make this the last of my night time posts...so we will see how much blogging Little Cashew lets me get done during the day.
Why you ask??
I'm going to try to devote more time to Walnut once we get Little Cashew to sleep...it's too easy for me to sit at the computer and blog or Bump away until it's time for bed. And we have so little time to ourselves as it is, I don't want to eat into that with blogging.

But since I am here a little blogging won't hurt...

We are having some sleep issues...doh!
Little Cashew "sleeps through the night" as in she will consistently give us at least a 7 hour stretch, but the last few nights shes has been super difficult to get down. She just cries and fights Walnut SO MUCH when he tries to get her to sleep...I'm hoping this is not a new habit she is developing.

And the other sleep issue is ME! I got up at 2:30am yesterday and could not fall back asleep for the life of me! It's like I'm a glutton for punishment! Hopefully I will get some better sleep tonight, otherwise tomorrow is going to be REALLY rough...it will be another nanny-less day where I need to also study and get some research done.

And I am pretty sure she has a little hematoma on her thigh from her vaccines on Monday :(...It's just a red bump, and it doesn't seem to bother her...but I hate seeing anything wrong with my Little Cashew!

Getting another hat on!

Well my "vacation" for residency interviews is over...booo!
And yesterday officially started my research month...yay!
My nanny can't start until next week...booo!

So for this week I'll be full time mommy, wife and med student....anyone want me to do anything else...ask me and I just might say yes.

So I've got all my hats going this week...oh and did I mention that I am taking another one of my medical board exams at the end of the month? So I am a wee bit overwhelmed right now.

Luckily my research can all be done from my computer...just waiting on one more set of access codes so I can get to all of the data I need. And much of my studying is at the computer via USMLEWorld....I love those people!

Now I just need Little Cashew to give me some time during the day to do this stuff. I feel so rusty, I have only done one clinical month since August! It's amazing how easy it is to forget so much....I'm hoping for the whole "it's like riding a bike..." thing to be true.

And my favorite little nut is up...I would just save this and finish later and then publish, but who knows if I will actually get time to finish. So this is all I've got right now!

Splish Splash I was taking a bath...

So I realized I don't actually know the words to this song...when I start singing it I end up singing the lyrics to the Liquid Draino commercial that has the same tune years ago. The past 2 baths that Walnut and I have given Little Cashew we start singing and he doesn't know all of the words, and I end up singing "Liquid Draino to the rescue I cried!" Note to self: Learn words to this song for future bath times.

Little Cashew is not exactly a fan of bath time...in fact after a few disastrous attempts Walnut and I will only bathe her as a two person expedition...unless absolutely necessary...think monstrous poop explosion. And tonight with Walnut holding her and trying to keep her entertained, and me trying to wash her we had a moderatel successful time.

Although for some reason with this bath she was like clamped up in a little ball...legs and arms both in super tight...it was like trying to bathe a rock! I wish they gave a class in medical school on how to successfully bathe a baby by yourself...I need it!

I'm a shrimp and Walnut is a a bean pole...

...and so far Little Cashew is taking after Walnut...in terms of height that is. She was born at 21.25 inches long, which is above the 97th percentile for a girl. Now I stand at a whopping 5'4.5" and Walnut is 6'7"...so it seems she will be taking after him. At every pediatrician appointment we have had since she has been off the charts in terms of height....like literally off.the.charts. And because I'm a little nuts this worries me. Sure there are all of the basketball and volleyball scholarships to be had, but it seems like being a really tall girl might be rough. Now clearly at 5'4" I don't know the perils of being a tall person, but Walnut hits his head on things, can't fit into beds without his feet dangling off and buying clothes is a nightmare. And of course I want Little Cashew to have everything go wonderfully her way in life, and I worry about her height...

Like being able to wear heels to her high school prom and still be able to dance with her date.
I know this all seems silly and inconsequential...and trust me I know the most important things are that she is happy and healthy. It's not like being the tall lanky girl is in high school is going to be the end of her world, but it's amazing how these potential worries she may have in 15 years are giving me gray hairs now...it's all in a mothers love I guess.

oh PS this post was started because my cousin (who is in High School and tall) joined the facebook group "It's awful being a tall girl"...so really I'll blame her for my gray hairs on this one

Goodnight my angel now it's time to sleep...

Oh sleeping...I feel like infant sleeping is one of those things that most parents fear...or at least I did...I guess because little babies doesn't do a whole lot of it. But in all actuality Little Cashew is a pretty good sleeper. When it comes to naps she has never been one for sleeping on her own. When I put her down for a nap during the day anywhere (crib, bouncy seat, pack and play...you name it) she is up within 30 minutes. Now 30 minutes for a nap is not sufficient at all...but it's something. Little Cashew loves to fall asleep while nursing, and to be honest, I love it too! And she will sleep for a solid hour and maybe 90 minutes on my lap. And it's such a wonderful feeling...am I making "bad habits"...mmm probably. But I don't know if I care all that much. I mean the most important thing to me is that she sleeps...she needs it, and when she doesn't sleep she gets so incredibly unhappy, and it pains me to see her that unhappy.

So yes I admit it, I am a nap bad habit forming mommy, and I am proud of it!

Overnight sleeping is another story. Initially we swaddled up our Little Cashew to sleep every night and put her down to sleep in the bassinet feature of her pack and play next to our bed. And that's how she slept for the first few months. Slowly increasing the long stretches of sleep she had for us like a good Little Cashew. Then we decided we would eventually need to de-swaddle her...she's a tall little lady and was already starting to break out of her swaddles. Here is where Carter's fleece sleep bags come into play...I've already blogged on my love of these. And she slept in her pack and play in her fleece bag through the Holidays.

And then came the crib transition. We figured it was time for our lovely Little Cashew to be sleeping in her crib in her own room. So we put her in her fleece bag, fed her and put her down to sleep in her crib and it went as well as one could hope. She slept for 7+ hours and has been doing so consistently since. Now I am thrilled to have our bedroom back...it's much less cluttered without the pack and play in there and Walnut and I can talk without whispering and fearing a burst of laughter from a funny story will wake her. But a piece of me is sad when I see this empty place in our room. Again I am mourning the loss of my little new born who needs to sleep right next to mommy. But I am so proud of her and how well she is doing...I just miss her.

And now for my crazy mommy moment...last night Walnut went to hang out with some friends for a few hours and I put Little Cashew to sleep (I think it was the first time Walnut wasn't there to put her to sleep) and after several attempts (partially due to mommy clumsiness and partially due to noisy neighbors) she was sleeping soundly...and I stood over the crib watching her, and I decided to lay down on the floor next to her crib. It wasn't because she was fussing and needed someone in there with her, it was completely for me...I wanted to be near her while she slept.

There is nothing quite like the peaceful sleep of a wonderful little baby.