Gi-Gi Roxx - The Ravings of a Lunatic

On Sunday we spent the afternoon and evening with my family having dinner at my Dad's house.  It was a very nice get together, despite Starfish's crankiness.  She got passed around and loved on lots and seemed to have a good time (when she wasn't crying or fussing).  I kind feel like I failed at the whole traveling mommy thing though, I really should have taken something for her to sit in besides her car seat.  I'm sure she'd have enjoyed her bouncy or her Bumbo when she started feeling wallered to death.  But alas, I suck.  I am still learning that I have more items to put in a diaper bag too.  I'm a newbie, give me a break child, I don't know what you need and what you don't yet! It's almost funny though when you get somewhere and you think "oh hey I need this thing I don't have with me and now life is miserable because we don't have it".  Like I said, almost funny.  We're gearing up for a 7 hour road trip to a family re...

I had really hoped becoming a stay at home mom would afford me more time for blogging and other things I enjoy.  But alas, it hasn't.  And really I'm quite okay with how my time is actually being spent. I am way too occupied with the epic cuteness that is my little Starfish.  Where I would spend time reading, blogging, listening to music and such, I now play peek-a-boo, tickle monster and make up silly songs about my baby's body parts to elicit any and all smiles that I can get.  I am napping when she naps and changing diapers and feeding her, sacrificing (or at least postponing) my own hygiene and nutrition needs to make sure my sweet little one is getting everything she needs to grow up big and strong. I talk to her and show her things and explain things as I do them; I'm blow drying my hair, washing the dishes, folding the laundry and putting on shoes.  I tell her why I do those things as I do them and watch as she looks at me quizzically (or like I'm c...

Starfish is 9 weeks old today! Here she is being all chubby and cute before her check up with the pediatrician this afternoon. And then here she is being all cute again after her appointment.  She's completely enamored with her hands right now, they move non-stop when she's awake.  A couple weeks ago Starfish was just hanging out on my lap after having a booby snack, and I caught this little video.  She's such a delicate little flower....

I have to put last night in the baby book as the first time Starfish slept through the night.  After some seriously horrible tantrums during the day yesterday mixed with having barely slept from 3am yesterday until we put  her down last night at 11pm, I imagine she must've been so exhausted that sleep just couldn't be fought any longer. I was at my wits end, crying while she cried, wondering what I was or wasn't doing right when the hubby came home from his class last night around 9pm.  I was just as exhausted as the little one was, maybe more so, because while she got in a few 30 minute naps (and by few I mean three all day long) I was searching for the next thing to try to calm her when she would inevitably wake up screaming. I also managed to get the bed linens washed, dried and the bed remade, get the dishes done and make myself grilled chicken on the George Foreman (my only real meal of the day yesterday). I tried once to lay down and nap while she did but that w...

So for, oh... the last 48 hours or so, the little Starfish has been a serious cranky butt.  She fights sleep, cries...no... screams for seemingly no reason at all, and is just generally cantankerous.  It's exhausting.  She did sleep well last night, when she finally WENT to sleep.  Which was sometime around midnight.  Daddy took duty again last night because I was exhausted, frustrated and just out of ideas to try to calm her.  Nothing I'd tried had worked.  So I said, "Here ya go daddy...you try! I'm going to bed." I didn't hear her make a peep once he got her settled until around 5 this morning.  When she started stirring, I got up and started our nighttime feeding routine of turning on the low wattage lamp, changing her diaper (whether it needs it or not), and then feeding her quietly.  No TV, no bright lights, no noises except my gentle "I love you's" when we make eye contact. She didn't fall back to sleep right after that feeding l...

According to the blogger hit counter that I see when I log into my Dashboard, I'm at 80,021 hits since I started this blog back in 2007. That's pretty cool.  The one I have on here by SiteMeter was added well after I started the blog and is therefore inaccurate but still offers a good sizable number to gauge my blogs "popularity" by.  I am more than slightly humbled by the numbers, regardless of which counter you wish to go by.  I still can't believe anyone wants to read this crap. Also... I can't believe that ticker up there says my little Natalie is 4 weeks and 2 days old already! Today I'm gonna share a video of my little Starfish and I having a conversation this morning... because I want to share her smiles.  Just a few of the 80,000+ she will give me over the course of our lives together.  I love her face.  Enjoy!

So we decided that since our Starfish's cord stump finally fell off late last week (yay!) that we'd give her her first tub bath.  Unfortunately, it didn't go anywhere near as planned. I had imagined her being thrilled to splash and kick in the water as we gently scrubbed her with one of her soft washcloths.  Then we would have a sweet, happy and clean baby bundled in a fresh towel at the end to snuggle with. Yeah. No. Instead it went more like this: Starfish was already screaming because she just does that most evenings recently and is nearly inconsolable for at least one hour.  I mean, what better time to decide to strip her naked and plop her into a tub of water than when she's already pissed off, right? Once naked baby is in the tub, screaming bloody murder, daddy commences the washing while mommy watches and tries to catch at least one moment on camera where baby isn't all scrunchy red-faced and wide-mouthed looking like she's being tortured. M...