first things first.

I said I would blog about our recent trip home to my parents' house, and I never did. boo on me. I posted a lot of pictures on facebook, but here are some favorite photos that didn't make it (and some that did):

baby's first carnival. she was STOKED.

family photo with giant beverages

ferris wheels are loaded with fiber!

Mo wields a corn dog.

magz and yaya.

mama and kevin.

mama and magz.

meeting great grandma.

paw paw and his grandgirls.

cousins playing bingo.

magz and marmee.

daddy reading to a rapt baby.

best. photo. of. grandma. LOVELY.

favorite people.

precious.

a girl who loves the ranch.

another girl who did really well on her first big trip out of town, all things considered.

-m.y.

hello, body. it's me, the lady who steers you around.

today marked my first time back in the gym since the baby doctor told me to lay off exercising. I was honestly nervous, not of working out again - okay, I was a LITTLE nervous about that - but mostly of leaving little M down in the kid's area. what if she screamed the whole time? what if she caught something from the other kids?? as it turned out, the new kid's zone down there is flipping awesome, and the little babies and toddlers have their own separate area full of wonderful swings and things. apparently, Miss E put my baby in one of the swings and she slept until I walked back in the door. plus, seeing those ladies and the number of kids they oversee made me think they know what's what and wouldn't be fazed by mine if she cried...

it felt good to move my body again, and today was the first time I really felt how changed it is. my ultimate goal, aside from losing about twelve pounds, is to get back in the habit of enjoying the ritual of caring for my body and eventually feel strong again. there was a totally comedic moment involving an attempt at sit-ups on a stability ball... my abs are so weak and flabby and my balance is so wonky I totally fell off the side of the ball. oh yes, I'm hott that way. so there's lots of room for improvement! we got good groceries at the store last night, so here's to a new week of moving and making better food choices...

speaking of groceries, the baby melted down at Central Market so we went outside while Daddy finished shopping. as I pushed her in her stroller up and down the sidewalk, she'd calm down and then burst out screaming like she was being skinned alive. oh, the looks I got. it was exhausting for both of us. as I fell asleep last night, I had a vision of doing a timeline of my day. the bare bones of it would look something like this:

- wake up, get the baby up, marvel at her
- spend the next number of hours feeding, burping, changing, lugging baby gear around, and putting her down to sleep
- when she doesn't sleep, troubleshoot by trying out various tricks
- when none of them work, listen to her scream in my ear while I robotically murmur 'I know, I know, it's okay, it's okay...'
- when she does nap, hastily do some laundry/load the dishwasher/take a bath/mindlessly surf the 'net/think about the calls I need to make/cards I need to write/magazines and books I'd like to read/zone out
- by 6p when M comes home, pass her off for awhile and plot the order of feedings/baths/etc. to get her to bed for the night
- maybe get her to bed smoothly, maybe not.
- creep in multiple times to look at her when she's finally asleep to make sure she's breathing and isn't too cold (since she likes to kick out of the blanket). marvel at how long she looks to me now. which makes me want to cry and stop time.

we've been trying to introduce her to a variety of music since she was in utero, but here are a couple of recent clips... these were both taken this weekend as we were setting up our new fun music storage in the den (and ultimately getting rid of the brown wooden shelves):



-m.y.

TWO.

that's the number of times we got up last night. TWO!!!! I hate to bore people with baby stuff ad nauseum, but this is heady, heady, celebratory stuff! we've had a somewhat rough week with growing pains/fussiness/gassiness/constipation?/micro-naps around the clock/who knows what/normal six week old behavior, but last night after a bath and some good second (or third?) dinner Magz went down around 9:30 and didn't wake me up until 3a with little grunts and coos. can you count how long that is?? I can, and compared to the rest of the week it's a freaking eternity! and THEN she went back to sleep around 3:30 and sweetly woke up again around 6, when she ate an early breakfast and entertained herself in her crib while mama took a bath, did some dishes, and made coffee. then daddy went in and played with her awhile before heading off to work, mama changed her clothes and fed her again, and now she's contentedly ensconced in her swing while I type this. guess what was absent from everything I've just described? INCONSOLABLE CRYING. EVEN FUSSY CRYING! there's been none of it and I'm so thankful, for her sake as well as ours. I think we all needed a little reprieve. when people described their baby's crying jags before I had one of my own, I honestly thought, 'huh, how bad can that really be? I mean, they cry and then you, the confident and cool adult, do something soothing and they stop, right?'

I'm sorry. I'm sincerely sorry, everyone, I'm a fool.

I don't want to make it sound like all she does is cry... it's not true at all. I think when you're sleep deprived it's easy to focus on the negative things you're trying to fix and sort out, but since I got ALL THAT SLEEP last night I'm all about the positives this morning. this girl's a great baby who's got a lot going for her...

- she's got a consistently fabulous appetite (only this week have I really felt that my milk production is starting to actually meet her demand)

- is a very flexible eater between mama's beloved breastusez and the occasional breastmilk or formula bottle (and sometimes tolerating the annoying teaser of the pacifier)

- will enjoy (and sometimes sleep in) her play gym, swing, and vibrating chair when she's in the right mood

- is smiling and starting to laugh and respond to peek-a-boo games and such

- can focus on, study, and drunkenly reach toward some of her rattle/crinkly/musical toys and gloworm

- is beginning to entertain herself for longer periods of time on the floor and in her crib/pack n' play, and is probably close to moving into her room for good

- does really well with slings and the baby bjorn (even if she wails a little going in)

- happily falls asleep on whatever chest she's laying on/against

- loves to be held upright on your shoulder, preferably while you're up standing up and moving around.

current dislikes mostly involve pulling things over her head and face (so be sure you really want her to wear THAT onesie, because trying on multiple outfits will seriously test her good humor), being strapped into her car seat, and laying her down anywhere when she wants to be up and held (which is a lot of the time). all of these things can make her scream like you pinched her, and if she's hungry, too, look out.

'shhhh, tell no one of this conversation, you have to trust me!'

'everyone who thinks Pixar is better than Disney raise their hand!'

'this is how we drink our tea, pinky out!'

'one-eyed peek a boo, yo!'

sweet.

fashion-forward on a Friday morning while mama blogs:

lest you think I'm incapable of writing about anything other than our baby, here's a little rug I got yesterday at the local Marshall's that makes me so very happy just looking at it:

it's thicker and more plush than I think you'd normally do in a kitchen, but the colors are really great and it feels so much better to stand on this while doing dishes (a chore I've never loved).

things I'm currently jonesing to do:

work out at the Y
thoroughly enjoy the steam room at the Y
do yard work and work in the beds. I love to get yard-dirty.
fit into one pair of my pre-baby pants
read something all the way through
print some new photos to put in frames and hang them

things I just need to do:

finish unpacking these last, straggling boxes
sort my clothes and pack up the maternity-wear I was loaned
file all of the papers in my 'IN' basket
cut down on my soda and sugar consumption. stupid cravings for sweet things.
up my real food consumption.
back-strengthening exercises... I feel mine being tweaked a lot lately with toting the baby around and whatnot

baby stirring, almost time to head out to the store and the bank. happy Friday, everyone!

-m.y.

pictorial of a six week old nap

mama put me down in my crib to take a little siesta.. those are my friends rabbit and womb-bear, and the red bird I really haven't noticed yet:

I'm not really asleep yet, though. mama's trying to encourage me to fall asleep on my own:

maybe I could drop off if I wasn't in this BLANKET...

though who could sleep with these soft fuzzy things in here with me?! maybe I'll just try to roll over there and reach them...

what, mama, you didn't think I'd try to get at them yet? boo on you, woman, I'm trying even harder, then:

foiled this time. tired. I'm gonna totally roll over and get at them soon, though, so you might want to start clearing the crib (subtext: I'm not a newborn anymore, mad skills coming your way)...

so sleeeee.... py...

what?!... did I fall asleep for ten minutes?! TEN WHOLE MINUTES??!!!

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

mama... it's you!

STOP LAUGHING AND SPRING ME NOW!!!!

I'm sorry, but this is better for me right now... really, I'm cool hanging out on mama as much as I can at this juncture. does this make me difficult? I think not. I'm little still. get over it.

I mean, I've got months to sleep in that crib... and c'mon, it's not like the woman can't blog with one hand.

(happy six-week birthday, baby! we love that you can smile at us now between the cries!)

-m.y.

growing... (both of us...)

okay, babies really do change so fast... I'm trying to capture what I can while not living behind my camera and missing being here. it's just wild to see her transforming in front of us... she stretched out last night and I was struck by how LONG she is now. Magz is actually 6 weeks old today, as I type this, but here are shots of her that haven't made it into blogs yet:

wide-eyed with a fun rattle toy given to us by the production company that shoots the Fiesta spots (they also gave us an adorable onesie we haven't grown into yet):

learning to play with Daddy:

hanging out on Mama... disregard how huge my belly looks, it's honestly really not that big. for real, it's the way I'm slouching on the couch and the shirt, you guys, the SHIRT

adds ten pounds! :P

I've been actively conquoring my fear of going out in public with my not-yet-trainable offspring by hitting the farmer's market, Marshall's, Ross, Stein Mart, Target (we've currently cried in Target twice, something about that red bullseye makes the baby wail), JC Penney, the Y, Audio Access, my talent agency, Miss Laure's, Aunt SuSu & Laura's, Dr. H's, and a big trip to Hico with a carnival and everything (which will be detailed in another post)... oh, and here's us at Central Market!

bless baby slings. seriously, I have two (plus we have a baby bjorn) and they're fantastic.

one of the pros of being me is that I have a husband who comes home most nights and, after spending some time with the baby, goes into the kitchen to make our dinner. this was last night's meal, courtesy of Christian Cattle Co. and the awesome Alton Brown cookbook Linda gave him this past weekend... thanks, sister!!:

someone else excited about the prospect of her dinner:

and the other member of our family who deserves a shout-out, if only because he's the coolest, sweetest dog ever and has handled this baby thing better than we could have hoped:

-m.y.

wicked

so much to catch up on! let's start with the night we kissed our babe goodbye and headed out to see Wicked at the Hobby Center. we'd gotten tickets as an anniversary gift to one another. M had downloaded the soundtrack to his ipod at Christmas, and we listened to the first act for the first time on the way back to Houston from my folks'. afterward, it became one of our favorite things to sing to, renovate to, etc... M joked that he'd be shocked if our baby didn't come out singing that first act. :) I say first act, because we listened to that half the most and I still believe it's the musically strongest of the show, with more numbers that stick with you (though now that I've actually seen the show the second act doesn't seem quite as disjointed/cheesy as I previously thought based on the music alone).

the show was so much fun! now I'm going to play critic: I understand the technical/fundamental problems critics have had with it, but I think the story is just strong enough that it attracts people and it's easy to forgive places where the music seems overwrought. the two leads did EXCELLENT jobs... Jackie Burns as Elphaba was flipping brilliant, easily out-singing Idina Menzel, her Broadway soundtrack counterpart. I thought Chandra Lee Schwartz's Glinda was also fabulous - my friend C.M. was annoyed by a nasality in her vocal quality, but I thought she was hilarious and a wonderful singer - let's face it, it's tough to compete with Kristin Chenoweth's otherworldly chords and C.L.S. owned it so much that, after a short period of scrutiny, I forgot to compare the two. I also really appreciated how each played their character arcs... it was all very clean and clear. I remember thinking that Glinda's song at the beginning of Act 2 was done so well both vocally and dramatically, as she wavered between her cheery 'everything's fine, I couldn't be happier!' exterior and the confusion and vulnerability of things really not working out with Fiyero as she'd planned, to finally ending on a determined 'I'm going to make it work no matter the cost!' note. everyone in the cast was good, really, which is to be expected for a tour like this - if I was nitpicking, I'd say Fiyero's first scene was a little flat just because he wasn't projecting/enunciating well enough, and Larry from Three's Company, while a fine and genial wizard, didn't have the energy or chops that I imagine Joel Grey did when the role was originated. but all in all, what a fun night of theatre!

our view of the stage... we were so close! these were awesome seats!

Uncle Jeff & Grammy saw the show the next night and brought Magz a souvenir:

it's fun to think about taking this little one to her first play someday. :)

-m.y.

one month old

VOGUE.

words that describe her right now: cute, fun, cheeks, sweet, demanding, fussy, hungry, loud. would write more but too sleep-deprived. :)