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I went through months and months of pregnancy. Which you all had the pleasure of co-experiencing.
The most profound experience of my life. Parts: 1, 2 & 3
Sadie nearly lost the use of her back legs.
Sadie re-gained the use of her back legs.
We celebrated two years of a crazy, but amazingly happy, marriage.
We learned through not a few tears, how to parent a baby.
We joined Costco.
And bought a couch there yesterday.
Dear Truett,
Today you are five months old. Hang on a second while I pick my jaw up from the floor and re-think all of those days and nights not so long ago when I used to look at chubby several-month-olds and think, "WOW, I feel like those days will never come." You are slowly creeping towards a half of a year old and it's kind of scary. Sure, I look forward to one day leaving the house with your father to, say, go out to dinner and you stay home eating chicken nuggets with a babysitter - maybe when you are twelve years old or something - but I also want to capture these heady, delicious baby months with you before they are something of the past. I know I hammer on the he-won't-be-this-little-long subject on this...this BLOG...this personal website of self-centeredness, but I can work myself into a seriously depressed lather thinking about the day you leave for college. Oh my God, excuse this post while I go cry my eyes out.
Never to worry though, this entry is not all unicorns and butterflies. Somewhere in your fourth month you decided to begin skipping your morning nap. In fact, right now, you are on my lap complaining that I won't GET UP ALREADY YOU ARE BORED. I used to cling to your three hour morning nap like a homeless person and a warm bed. Or maybe some really great drugs. Either way, it was what kept me sane. Don't read this in twelve years and get me wrong though, I could snuggle and hold you just about every daylight hour and not mind. But my God, mama needs an hour or two with her coffee and internet.
We just got back from a Christmas visit with family in Virginia and when we first got there my anxiety level about your safety reverted back to RED ALERT MODE from your newborn days and I don't know if it had to do with all of the people you were around or the fact that I cannot control my family members no matter how hard I might try, but as your dad and I crawled into bed that first night he was all, "WHOA Hope, you had better calm down or they'll have even more ammunition." I think what he was trying to say is, THEY'VE ALREADY GOT A LOT. It still ended up being me who cried first at the family gathering, saying something like, "No one hiccup! will listen to me. No one snif! respects me." right after I'd loudly SHUUUUUSHED my tenth family member as Truett slept. PS TO GEORGIA, wait until you have a baby and I give Bud a loud tour of the upstairs of someone's house. BAM!
Truett, you also sadly have your first cold, something that just began in the past few days and your father and I were up most of the night trying to comfort you, suck snot out of your little nose without hurting your precious nostrils and generally making very little headway. Not surprisingly I finally nursed you to sleep and let you sleep in the bed the second half of the night. You twisted my arm, I had to do it, it has nothing to do with liking to snuggle you, I promise.
It is 1:30 in the afternoon and I have been awake for eight and one half hours. Welcome to the world of new babies!
The best part of the day so far has been that after trying unsuccessfully to get Truett back down to sleep at FIVE IN THE A.M., we decided fuck it! we'll go for a hike. So we bundled our bundle and Copper (Sadie gave us the middle finger when we asked her if she'd like to go. Plus, she's still recovering.) into the car and headed down the short drive to a pretty little hiking site. We parked and then glanced back at Truett. WHO WAS SOUND ASLEEP.
The non-sarcastic best part of the day so far is that I actually saw the sun rising outside of our bedroom window this morning. Oh and also that this day, along with so many others in the near-past, has been filled with a new certain someone who lights up my life.
Last night we installed a bigger carseat for Truett and this was on the top of my priority list because recently every time I cram him into his little pumpkin seat I end up apologizing seven hundred times for the tight fit and then reminding myself that I need to remind Bud to get this done.
So we ended up in the basement for an inordinate amount of time, and when I say we, you know I just mean I sat there and laughed while Bud became increasingly frustrated with the big, new, bulky seat. I also helpfully kept chirping, "Why not read the directions?" Because REALLY, why NOT?
We eventually got it set up but during the process I took a super cute video of Truett not really laughing but more...hm how do I describe this noise? He sounds something like those scary-ass velociraptors in the movie Jurassic Park and now that I write that I'm pretty sure I've referenced those scary-smart-beady eyed dinosaurs before which makes me think that movie left QUITE THE INDELIBLE SCAR. THANKS MOM. He sort of makes a creaky noise and of course it is the cutest thing you've ever heard but I shot the vide SIDEWAYS. And unless I'm ready to fork over some software money, I can't edit it myself.
Instead I bring you some vaguely fuzzy pictures from last night's milestone.
What is that SYMBOL YOU ARE MAKING WITH YOUR HANDS? A baby gang? Out to steal BREASTMILK*?
All those noises daddy is making? All those curse words? He's funny.
*Boobies giving milk! Whee!
Yesterday I made Christmas cookies. It was very trying as my almost-five-month-old meowed in the background nearly the entire time while mama kept saying things like, "Okay Truett, one more minute," and then realized what a gigantic LIAR she is because making these cookies took more like ten more hours. I kept thinking how lovely the whole thing would have been if Truett would only take a nap these days ohmygodampullingmyhairout. Either dude is cutting some early teeth or...I don't know, he just likes to mess with my mind.
I did finally finish the cookies but there was MAJOR gnashing of teeth and things like that. Not by me, no, but by Truett and then Sadie decided to get in on the act.
Here I am innocently blending butter and sugar together and two things: Truett woke up about five seconds after this picture was taken and Is there any greater mixture than butter and sugar? I tried mixing in the raw egg, right? Thinkin it would dissuade me from eating chunks of the stuff? Yeah, DIDN'T WORK.
Ah yes, here we are HOURS, nay, DAYS later, cutting out the shapes. Candy canes and Christmas trees because those are the only festive cookie cutters I own, apparently.
Here they are, all daring me not to eat them. I won that battle but lost the fight...after eating several.
Cute little candy cane with a pinkish stripe because I am not trying to kill anyone with red dye. YOU'RE WELCOME.
TA-DAAAAA (five days later).
Here is Sadie on the blanket I spread out for Truett. Note that he is NOT on the blanket. He is in my shaking arms as I take a picture of my little dog who is not amused because she is not getting any of those buttery cookies.
Imagine, if you will, my super strength willpower that I did not eat all of these.
My birthday ended up being an entirely pleasant day mostly because I got to tote my chubby four and a half month old baby around with me everywhere, which is something that happens every day isn't that weird? I must have entered into some odd world where it's the non-material things that matter and I really didn't think I'd ever get there. Don't get me wrong, I just ordered new boots with some birthday money and am THIS EXCITED about them. But putzing around with Bud and Truett all day Saturday proved to be pretty much as fun, if not better.
I also got a couple of Facebook messages that reminded me of the people I love and miss daily and that also sort of made my day. What has happened to my identity. I don't know, I think I left it in the hospital along with my placenta. You can freeze dry yours, make it into pills and use them later as anti-aging antidotes but I will do this one particular thing the old fashioned way - straight into the garbage. In this one way Bud will not have to apologize for his hippie wife.
Never fear though! I did receive a gift I want to share on here. A gift that I was all SQUEEEE when I opened. A gift my mother in law bought me after I SQUEEE-ED about it at the boutique where we shopped when I was in Texas.
Behold my new ring:
Proof that while intangibles are in fact priceless, sometimes you just want something pretty.
