T.M.I.?

I figured that this belly isn’t getting any smaller, so I might as well document it as is, right? Here’s to puttin’ it out there…

(By the way, I am living in leggings right now, my apologies.)

Baby Girl apparently was not camera-ready

It’s official, Sugarpie’s Daddy is going to be outnumbered. We’re having another baby girl! I am beyond thrilled as I’ve always seen myself as a girl Mommy. We tend to gravitate toward the familiar, I know, but I have so many girl clothes already…

They will be so close in age (19 months) and only one grade apart in school, so I have high hopes that they will be BFFs, at least most of the time.

Growing belly, scary veins. There’s a baby in there!

But, before we get ahead of ourselves, I have 20 more weeks to cook this sweet thing. We will be traveling internationally once more and I will be giving birth in the festering, hallucination-inducing heat of the Central Texas summer. I guess these will be the challenges — at least I hope these are the toughest bits (besides actually giving birth, you know)!

Anyway, we couldn’t be happier! We love our little Sugarpie SO much, I can’t wait to see her grow into her role as big sister. But I can wait, ’cause one baby inside and one outside is a lot easier than having two keeping me up at night.

Right?

See, she loves it already! And I am already showing.

Well that was a long break. I guess I’ve been procrastinating posting because I am not good at keeping my own secrets.

And Sugarpie is just dying for me to tell y’all that she is going to be a big sister! We are thrilled (and a little anxious, naturally). Sugarpie has brought so much joy and love into our lives that we cannot imagine how making our family bigger could be anything but a blessing.

We are due in mid-July and are looking forward to raising our family with two children so close in age. (Once we get at least one out of diapers, I’m sure life will be much more pleasant.) We don’t know what we’re having yet (only at 13 weeks now), though we do have confirmation that it is a baby.

Much more to come!

My beautiful little girl!

Dear Sugarpie,

Oh my goodness, baby girl, you are ONE WHOLE YEAR OLD today!! I simply cannot believe it. Our 68 hour labor seems like yesterday, but some of it seems light years ago.

You have turned into such a beautiful little human being. I am amazed to see your little (big) personality unfolding as you find new ways to express that little sassafrass who lives inside of you. I am overwhelmed every day with how much I love you and I am flattered that you love me too! You and I are constant companions and total BFFs.

I was born with so much hair, just like my Mommy.

I never could have imagined the child that was waiting to greet me when you were break dancing in my belly. I never thought you would have two eyes that I never tired of gazing at. I never knew how much I could obsess over a pair of tiny feet. I never imagined what it would be like fall in love with you every time you nursed. I just didn’t know. I did not know what an amazing and sweet child that was waiting for me. How could I?

Hug the mouse, Mommy! Hug it now!

And now you are one. No longer a baby, but officially a toddler…even though you aren’t toddling yet. You’re still so tiny! You’re still my baby You’re so happy, it makes Mommy happy. You love people and love being out and about right next to me. And I love it too!

Oldie but goodie. You were so tiny! This is one of my all-time favorite pics of you. Our friend Jennifer took it.

You have amassed a vocabulary of 5 words, and you use them with a purpose. You say Mama, and Daddy

(Dah-dee!), you say bye bye and you say hi. It’s very clipped and has no h. It reminds me of Ozzy Osborne at the beginning of Crazy Train, so cute!

You’re so affectionate! Mommy gets lots of unsolicited hugs

and kisses…it’s the best thing ever.

You love to say hi to everyone at the store. Sometimes when I’m buckling you into your car seat, you’ll start saying hi and I’ll look to see someone passing by!

And you say milk. All of the time, you ask for milk. It sounds like mee-il mee-il mee-il and you never just say it once. I tried to teach it to you in sign language, but who needs that when you have a word, right?

Blueberry pancakes! Birthday breakfast

You also have an incredible repertoire of scat. Here are your faves: dooweedooweedooweedooweedoo, bee-yo-beeyobeeyobeeyo, gully gullygullygully, doi doi doi, and zoo-buh zoo-buh zoo-buh. Ella Fitzgerald would be jealous. The last few days have seen a lot oh-hohohoho, and oooooooooooh. You purse your tiny lips and my heart melts. It’s so funny!

You’ve started to reach up your arms when you want to be picked up. I cannot resist when that is accompanied by Mama.

Oh and Sugarpie, you LOVE YOUR DADDY. You have started to shower us equally with your baby obsession. You and Daddy spend lots of time together on weekend mornings while Mommy sleeps, that’s your special time together. You even cried when he had to go out-of-town last month — heart breaking! Your enthusiasm for him makes me SO happy and it makes me love you both even more.

My two loves!

How many songs have you and Daddy written together? Tons! And that’s a lot. I hope you’re lucky enough to inherit his extreme creativity, I think you will. Here’s a song with a slideshow that you and Daddy wrote on way back from Italy.

We’re planning a little party for you with our family. You’ll have cake! For the first time, you will have Mommy’s favorite dessert. All of your grandparents will be here and some of our closest friends too.

Today Mommy made you a new batch of blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs — two of your fave things! (Yes, eggs have finally made their way back into your good graces.)

You still love nursing, I’m so proud of us that we made it a year! There were times in the beginning that I didn’t think we’d make it at all, Sugarpie. But we did it And hopefully we can keep going for a little longer, I know you’re not ready to stop! You must be growing because between nursing and eating solids like a horse these last few days, you might put a teenage boy to shame.

Squeezing the mouse

But my sweet girl, all I want to do today is squeeze your baby sweetness and smell your hair and try to remember every minute of who you are right now. I’ve seen how times flies and I know that tomorrow you will be just a little older, today you are just a little bigger than you were yesterday, and on it goes.

Here’s to many more happy years, Sugarpie!

I love you forever and ever ,

xoxo Mommy

ps–Wordpress said I can’t make a slide show right now I had one picture picked out from every month of your life! We’ll just have to make that a separate post.

I’ll let you in on a secret if you promise not to tell Sugarpie! For her birthday (coming up Dec 12th) we bought her a little stool with her name on it.

I’ve been buying these for almost 15 years from a wonderful little wooden toy store here in Austin called Rootin’ Ridge Toymakers. The first one I purchased was for my niece for her first birthday, she’s a sophomore in high school now…ouch. That stool is still alive and well and has been used by her two little brothers over the years. It’s worn in the best way and still sits around their house like an old family pet.

The craftmanship is perfect. No rough edges here!

Georgean and Paul Kyle (she’s a kind of Georgia Ann too!) have been making toys in the 26 doors shopping center since 1975 (the year I was born). They carry Plan Toys, Melissa and Doug, and others but most of what they have is made right there in their in-store wood shop. One of my other faves is the large push rattle (looks like an old-fashioned lawn-mower).

They make puzzles and so many other great things, but I cannot live without the stool. I’m so excited finally to buy one for my own little Sugarpie! I know it will be around for her sugarpies too when she has them.

And it’s wonderful to support a local business where good people make things with their own hands. While we have our share of plastic toys in our home, you just can’t beat the quality and durability (not to mention safety) of these high-quality toys.

I highly recommend a visit! But don’t tell Sugarpie…

That’s you today on your 11 month birthday! I cannot believe that you left your hat on.

Dear Sugarpie,

Baby Girl! You are almost one year old! That means in one month you will make the transition from being a baby to being a toddler. This is bittersweet to me. While I will thank God for every birthday that you have, time is changing you from my squiggly little baby to a little girl and that makes me just a little sad. It’s hard to explain, but you’ll understand one day.

That being said, you are still officially an infant so let’s get down to enjoying it while it lasts

So funny standing in your costume! Your cousin Tobey let you borrow it

This hasn’t been a month with a ton of firsts, but you’ve really been enjoying standing. You even stood up from your little chair into Nanna’s arms all by yourself! I’ve seen you let go of what you’re holding onto for a couple of seconds too, it always surprises you! I think you’ll be walking by the time I write your 13 month letter, but not sooner.

You voted!! Mommy held you with one arm and voted with the other…our picture even made it onto Good Morning America! Too bad we missed it…

That’s you and your cousins at Nanna’s house! Sure looks like a good dinner…

Another delicious little thing you’ve been doing is that you’ve developed this little laugh. It’s like a little chuckle and you do it all of the time. It accompanies almost every smile. Adorable! I cannot tell you how much more it makes me love you!

You really like group hugs with Mommy and Daddy. You think it’s pretty funny and you show us by laughing a little. So sweet!

You were really into the pumpkin patch.

We started going to the park with a group of your friends every Monday. You’re the only girl when Adalyn isn’t there! But you don’t mind, you like bossing the boys around.

You started to clap your hands sometimes too when you’re nursing, though when I ask you to do it, you grab mine and make me clap.

You had a really high fever for two days this month, it was scary! You just lay on Mommy’s lap and nursed. We had lots of snuggle time. But then it went away and you were back to your old self.

This is your teething face.

Well, until your molars started coming in…cue scary music! These have by far been the hardest teeth, your top ones gave us all a run, but these are worse. Mommy feels so bad for you when you’re in pain! All you want to do is be in Mommy’s arms all of the time, even more than normal. I just wish I could grow those teeth for you, Sugarpie. If I could, I would…a million times.

You also like to give lots of kisses. You kiss the phone when we’re talking to someone that you love and you even kissed the picture of a little baby in one of our books. You have the sweetest, tiniest little lips!

This is one of my favorite pics of you two!

You love your daddy so much too! Saturday morning, when it was time for him to leave, you only wanted Daddy to hold you. You were sad that he had to leave! And so was he. It broke Daddy’s heart right in two. But Sugarpie, he has to leave sometimes so that Mommy can stay home and take care of you! He works so hard so that we can be together and Mommy is so thankful for that.

I love you so much, Doodlebug! And even though I get wistful thinking of how fast you’re growing, keep on doing it. I can’t wait to see you become a little girl, then a young woman, then a grown-up with a Sugarpie of your own. Even when that happens, I will always remember how you used to touch Mommy’s face when you nursed and those special times in the middle of the night when we snuggled. I will always hear that innocent baby giggle and smell your soft baby hair. Always.

And no matter how old you get, you will always be my sweet baby. Always.

I love you forever and ever!

xoxo,

Mommy

P.S. You also like to throw your little ball back and forth! You get so excited after you throw it. Incredible

Doing our civic doodie

Sugarpie, her daddy, and I headed down to do some early voting on Friday. She was having an I-want-my-mommy moment in this pic, but you get the idea.

I am now adding voting to the list of things I can do one-handed!

Just a quick share…I found Giddy Giddy barrettes in a store in La Jolla while visiting my in-laws. Sugarpie has always had a whole mess of hair. It not only needs to controlled, but it needs to be cute too. Duh! We are girly girls around here.

They hold like nobody’s business using a snap clip, even in fine baby hair. They’re also not atrociously large, very important for me. I love the little felt designs with the hand-stitching and bold unusual color combinations.

Giddy Giddy in hair-holding action

They’re not cheap ($8 per clip), but they are totally worth it. I’ve amassed a collection of 5 over a few months and they serve me quite sufficiently.

You don’t have to travel to California, just click on the link above to order them online. Shipping is a flat 2 bucks, I can live with that.

Sugarpie has taken to pulling them out, though not without effort. But I’m hoping this will pass!

But it’s messy. Plain and simple. For its ease in meal planning, it is just as difficult in the cleanup arena. Just look at this…

The dark underbelly of baby-led weaning

So far, here’s what I’ve learned…

1. Put an old tablecloth under the highchair. It helps to have more than one. This serves to keep you from mopping up 3 times a day, but it also helps to keep you from wasting every bit of that fresh mozzarella you just paid $8 for.

That banished avocado slice shall soon find its way back to have an audience with the princess.

2. Long-sleeve bibs are life savers. In England, apparently, you can find these everywhere and they are made of some type of cloth. They look better than the ones I’ve found online (because I can’t find them in stores). I bought Bumpkins brand and Kushies. Sugarpie is so tiny that the Kushies fits her better right now. I throw them all in the washer and dryer. These are great for the mid-day meals and eating out because Sugarpie doesn’t go straight to the bath. I let her eat a plum with a regular bib and was very tempted to hose her down in the yard. Here’s a link to find them on Amazon.

The Kushies bib, at its arm-protecting best. Now, if we could just find something for their sweet little faces…

3. Remove the tray BEFORE you wipe down their hands. As soon as you clean those tiny fingers, one by one, they are guaranteed to go right back to smearing around the hummus in the 2 seconds it takes you to get the tray unclasped.

This is what they like to get their clean hands/arms back into. Also, see why I shoulda used a long-sleeve bib?

4. I bought a cheap pack of thin baby washcloths that I use exclusively for clean up. I start with her face, then her hands, her feet (and sometimes legs). I do a preliminary wipe of the footrest, then I rinse the cloth and wipe the chair once more. It goes into the washer with the rest of the day’s casualties.

The alternative here is to get very stressed out about keeping everything clean and preventing messes altogether during mealtime by tying their hands to chair and feeding them yourself. While I’m exaggerating just a tad, I find this not only impractical, but lacking in any kind of fun whatsoever. I want little Georgia to approach food with a spirit of excitement and adventure, just like Mommy and Daddy. So far, so good.

Any other tips are welcome! Just leave a comment, I would love to hear it.

For now, I’m off to clean up…

I came home from the store yesterday afternoon too late to really cook anything for Sugarpie. (She usually eats around 5:30 due to her self-chosen 7:00 bedtime.) She loves burrata and mozzarella and I try to give her the latter at least once a week. But yesterday, I saw that the store is now carrying burrata! I mean, mozzarella stuffed with cream?! Who wouldn’t love that.

So she had burrata and peaches for dinner. I have never seen her ignore the fruit for anything savory. Until now.

AND she licks her little fingers. I had to share.