Limping Along and Cruising Forward

Apparently I angered the breastfeeding gods when I was so bold as to declare that I expected to make it to my one year goal. Since that declaration my milk supply has tanked (at the same time that Lorelei has decided to drink record amounts while I'm at work) and the little lady is getting one or two top teeth and has decided that I make a good teething toy (ouch!).  So now I feel like I'm just barely limping along and am not sure if I'll make it to tomorrow, nevermind May 26th.  We shall see...

In happier news, Lorelei is cruising (that is the baby-lingo word for walking while holding onto furniture or a walker).  Check it out:

I love how proud she is, I love how proud Brian is and I love how she falls down but gets right back up.  That's our girl.

Overheard

When the father of your children is a sex crimes prosecutor you hear conversations like this more often than I'm guessing is average:

Dada:  Who gets to touch your body?
Rhys: NOBODY!!
Dada:  And what do you say if somebody does try to touch your body?
Rhys: NO!  NO!  NO!
Dada:  And who do you tell if someone tries to touch you?
Rhys:  MAMA OR DADA!!

99% of the time we're telling Rhys to quiet down but during this conversation he gets to YELL so he loves it!  It's a win-win for prosecutor and kid.

Lorelei - 9 months!

It's been far too long since I've given a good, thorough Lorelei update.  Here we go!

Our sweet little lady is 9.5 months old.  She continues to be a skinny little thing, but it really doesn't bother me at all anymore since she is clearly healthy and thriving.  She weighs almost 18 pounds, which puts her in the 35th-ish percentile for weight.  She's in the 90th percentile for height. 

Having never really loved the bottle, she has happily transitioned to a sippy cup. When I am at work, she takes most of her breast milk that way.  Katie offers the bottle before naps, and Lorelei will humor her with a few sips, but that's it.  She's continuing to do really great with solids.  She eats a wide variety of foods and so far hasn't really rejected anything we've offered.  It's clear that she loves watching Rhys eat and mimicking him.

I nurse her when I'm home with her and she does fine but, except at night, it's not exactly a calm, leisurely affair.  She's squirmy and pulls my hair and grabs my face, etc.  Since it doesn't take long, I don't really mind and I think I'll make it to my goal of nursing for a year.  I am really sick of pumping at work, but I'm so close to my goal, I won't give up now!  On May 27th, I plan to smash my pump with a hammer and never look back.

She's been giving us some decent chunks of sleep at night, but she is certainly not consistently sleeping through the night.  In fact, she's only really slept through the night a handful of times her whole life.  I did not think I'd still be dealing with this much sleep deprivation with a nine-month old.  I really hope it changes soon.

Lorelei started pulling up on things just a week or two after she started crawling.  She's not really cruising yet, but she will take some steps when you hold her hands.

"Mama's girl" is an accurate phrase to describe Lorelei.  She is super attached to me and while it's very sweet, it can be overwhelming at times.  It's also really difficult at night because 95% of the time she'll only accept me for comfort.  That is extremely frustrating for both me and Brian.

Generally, Lorelei is pretty good-natured and chill.  That being said, she will most definitely let you know when she is unhappy.  We're glad that she's willing to stand up for herself.  We do wish that she'd understand we are not trying to torture her when we change her diaper.

It's been really different having a baby in a large house.  At our townhouse, Rhys was never out of our sight and never more than five feet away from us.  Here at our new house, that is obviously not the case and it's quite nice!  I feel like it's helping Lorelei to be more independent.  She's willing to play by herself a lot more than Rhys was (and is!).  

Lorelei says "mama" and seems to know that it means me.  She doesn't say it consistently nor is she consistent with the signs we've taught her.  To be fair to her, we haven't been particularly consistent in our efforts to teach her!

It's not PC to say, but I am excited for Lorelei to be done being a baby. She's about as sweet as they come, but the baby phase just isn't my thing.  I am excited for her to walk and talk and to be able to do fun mom-daughter things with her.  (I won't lie, I hope she's not as much of a talker as Rhys is).

And, now, on to the good stuff...the pictures!

Not necessarily in this picture, but more and more I think she looks like Brian.

We played in the backyard on a recent sunny Saturday.  The girl is not afraid of dirt - yeah!

She does the tongue thing quite a lot.

She's trying to take steps while holding onto things and the steps just turn into the splits, which does not make her very happy. 

The back is just as cute as the front.

Preschool!

In early February, Rhys started preschool!  For various reasons, it's not where he'll be for the long-term, but it's great for now.  It gets him out of the house two mornings and week and is teaching him the basic idea of school:  you go do your own thing for three hours, pepper someone else with all of your questions and we'll be back to pick you up when, hopefully, you're tired and ready for a nap.

First day of school:

In the meantime, Brian and I have been exploring a longer-term preschool solution.  We've applied (yes, "applied" this is Seattle after all...) to four schools.  We're most excited about a Montessori school here in our neighborhood and an outdoor "forest school" up at the Arboretum.  In the next two weeks we should find out where we got in, but Rhys won't actually start at the school until this fall.  All for preschool.  Wow.   

  

Super Bowl

I am quite open about the fact that I am not really a Seahawks fan.  I don't hate them or anything, I'm just not that into football and I'm not really one to jump on a bandwagon (something many people in this city were more than happy to do).

However, I want it known that I did my part to support the Hawks in the Super Bowl (as I also did last year).  I clothed myself and both our children in the right gear, bought and ate crappy junk food and (attempted) to watch the game.

I even put a tattoo on Rhys:

At the grocery store, the cashiers usually give Rhys a sticker or two when we are checking out.  They were out this day so the lady hunted down this tattoo.  I put it on Rhys in the store and he kept flashing people saying "Go Hawks!"  Pretty damn funny.

Visitors (part 2)

I wrote Visitors (part 1) on January 27th and intended to write part 2 the next night.  Hmmm...

Anyway, as I was saying in part 1, Rhys loves visitors, especially those that let him help with projects.

Dave came over to help with some house stuff and Rhys was thrilled to join in the fun.  In the video, Rhys is using the hammer that Dave gave him for Christmas.  Dave gave him several awesome tools and a tool belt and he loves using them when he and Brian are outside working.  He also got a set of toy tools from Uncle Coco and that has worked out great because those are his indoor tools.  He likes to use those to "operate" on people.  When he is sawing off my leg (because it's broken and I need a new one) and I am oh-so-grateful for the toy tools.  

 

The same week that Dave came over, Brian had borrowed his dad's truck to help with the aforementioned house projects.  It's hard to overstate how much Rhys loved riding shotgun in Papa's truck.

I am not sure who the 10-year-old in this picture is.

 Speaking of Papa...he and Nana came over to help Brian dig a trench for a drainage line.  Again...hard to overstate Rhys' excitement...

It was raining a bit so the job was very dirty.  Rhys was thrilled.