Confusion at Dean and Deluca

Yesterday Seth and I, sticking to our work out regimen, walked to Georgetown. To defeat our attempts at working out we stopped and picked up some gelato at Dean and Deluca. As I was placing my order I kept hearing clicking and kissing noises behind me. At first, thinking these indigenous language noises were intended for someone else, I ignored them. However, they continued and I soon realized that they were intended for my daughter. A group of European tourists, probably from Spain, were so enamoured with Stella they were flirting with her by making clicking and kissing noises. I am talking about 5 or 6 grown adult Euros, men and women, clicking and kissing at Stella. The kept pantomiming her cheeks and double chin. I guess chubby babies are quite a catch in Europe. I think mine is a catch here.

So...Stella is getting blessed at church this Sunday. My mom bought a blessing dress for her before she was born. We got a 3/6 month size just in case. It doesn't fit. It barely covers the cartoon line on her diaper. I don't know what I am going to do. I have to find a new dress this week. I am so sad about this. That dress was handmade and super cute and all of those other great things.

Back to Work

Today I went back to my workplace. It was almost surreal. Nothing had changed but so much about me has changed. Most notably, 1/4 of my body is gone and I now have a child. It was great to see everyone and to talk. The question they asked that made me think is, "Is motherhood everything you wanted it to be?" I guess I didn't really know what to expect. I expected to be tired so when I wasn't beyond exhausted I was pleasantly surprised. I expected to be depressed from hormonal changes, so when I seemed to get by without a Brooke Shield moment I felt pretty good about myself.

The one thing I realized though is I do not miss the office. I don't miss going into work. It is liberating to be able to go on walks in the day. Shop during the week without the crowds and bond with Stella. I am still working out the adult contact thing during the day but it is coming along.

By the way, I now have a poll so you can all vote on who you think Stella looks like.

Life Can Go On

I am so happy....my life can go on. Seth and I have been shut-ins since Sunday reading Harry Potter out loud to each other. I know how cheesy that sounds but it works for us since someone has to wrangle Stella and both of us want to read the book. I felt like we should be in one of those videos on how families are supposed to spend quality time together. It really was a lot of fun.

I have to admit though, now that Harry Potter is over I am a little sad. I am not even a huge Harry Potter fanatic but it was still somehow part of the collective unconscious, and whether I meant to or now, I became hooked. (I didn't go Friday night and get the book and read it that night--so gauge your judgement of my fanaticism on the fact that I waited 12 hours until Saturday morning and slowly walked to a local bookstore to get it). OK, and here is my plug in for a new book. For those who are morning Harry Potter but are adults I have your next book (not in a dirty adult way but in the deeper literary meaning way). Read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I read it last summer and it filled that Harry Potter gap. Seriously, it will fill in that hole that you may now be feeling since you have put life on hold to finish Harry Potter.

And for the Stella update....she is a very cute smiley girl. She started smiling at me a few weeks ago but her cute chubby-cheek smile has spread to Seth as well. It is so rewarding to have a smile when you have been laboring non-stop for two months loving a baby so much.

Scion Song of Stella

Behold the new Stella-and-city-friendly automobile: The Scion Xb, in glorious Thundercloud Metallic Silver!

We ended up needing a second car because I am home and need to get around. This is our mini-van comprimise. People either love or hate these cars, opinions are really polarized about them. We think it is awesome.

Daddy's Girl

I have come to the realization that my daughter is a spitting image of her father. Her chubby cheeks, cute little chin, and doll like lips are all carbon copies (literally) of Seth. At first this threw me off when everyone would say "She looks just like Seth." I didn't know why this threw me off. I suppose it is because you expect daughters and mothers to look the same. I love it though, I have my little girl who looks like her dad and we get to spend every day together.

Fuzzy Yellow Smiletime!

Folks, another exclusive (take that, TMZ.com!) video of budding starlet Stella, doing whatever it takes to get attention. Well, we have her attention!

The Parenting Wars

I remember when I entered junior high. It became very apparent on the first day of school that the days of everyone having fun on the playground were over. Over night practically that magic step from fifth to sixth grade set a very dark demarcation line. The line of groups, philosophy, cliques, and ideas. You had to play it very safe because who you chose to be your friend would essentially define you. I made the unfortunate mistake in junior high of picking girls with big hair who eventually got pregnant by the seventh grade. Fortunately my best friend Julie forgave me for my bad judgement and I recovered and made the group switch. But seriously folks, I feel like parenting is the same thing.

There was a weird article in the NY Times the other day about extreme parenting in a neighborhood in Brooklyn. My favorite part of it is the image of these moms in a pizza place for lunch taking up the entire space for their strollers and baby junk and all of the are completely exposed to different degrees while nursing. Which brings me to my personal observations: the mothering factions.

From what I can tell there are different factions of the mothering world. I haven't joined one yet because I am an island of my own mothering skills at the present. Stella is pretty young and all of my baby friends are still pregnant or in the same place as me with a baby that is under three months or they are gone. But from what I can tell here are the factions:

The bare alls versus the blanketers.....this is a tense subject. Everyone who has read anything in the past 20 years knows that breast milk is best for babies and so most women initially are guilted in or happily choose to breast feed your baby at first. Personally I think it is the best diet I have ever been and for selfish reasons alone I am an advocate (seriously 2-3 pounds a week!). But then there is the more delicate issue of when, where and how. Breastfeeding is natural and non-sexual so there are some women who are comfortable in just pulling it out for the function. Then there are others who think that is immodest and rude and you should be discrete. I fall in the middle. I don't think there is anything wrong with whipping it out to give your kid a snack but most people I am around get squeamish at boob so I try to be discrete when I am around them. The funny thing about these two groups is the animosity they each have for the other. The al naturals think the cover-alls are ridiculous and the cover-alls think the al-naturals are rude. So silly.

The second group of parenting factions I have yet to join is the approach to your baby's demands. There are some parents that think it is child abuse to not come running to your child's every scream. There are others who think you need to regiment your kid to your schedule and if that means crying for a week, so be it. Exhausting. When I was talking about my attempts to get Stella on a feeding schedule I was seriously rebuked by another mom. Yikes folks!

So...my Doogie Howser conclusion, I had little idea when I got pregnant with my little girl that there could be so much controversy among parenting skill. But then I remembered that being a mother also meant being a woman, so why should I be surprised that there can be an underlying cattiness involved. Not that I hate my gender folks, but seriously we can do so much better than bickering about this stuff.

And the post-Doogie conclusion, I love being a mom.

The Competition Begins

So I discovered on Sunday that the world of baby life is complex. I had no idea the richness of this world. First of all, I found that people who never would have talked to me or vice versa are now quite chatty and love to talk about kids. This has proven to be a lot of fun and I have met some really great people from my little Stella as a conversation starter. Yet, with all things female I also discovered some women can be very competitive about their babies. It is stupid and weird. Here was a conversation in a mother's lounge the other day.

"Oh you have a cute little girl what is her name?"

"Thank you. Her name is Stella."

New stranger, "How old is she?"

Me, "One month"

N.S. "What percentile?"

Me, "Dunno"

N.S, "Well Washington-Jackson-Carter (you pick any last name that is used on little boys) is in the 99th percentile."

Me, forced "Wow."

So...some women are competitive about this percentile business. I have never been told what percentile Stella is in. That is until yesterday. She is a big girl measuring 13 pounds and 23.5 inches. She is the 97the percentile...so for those who are competitive you can measure up. But for real, who cares. I am saving my competitive nature to train Stella to be the next international yodeler. Speaking of which, she is working on that now and calling for me. Until next time.

R. Kelly Fans

I love the Fourth of July, all things from Asia , and of course R. Kelly. This firework fits the bill for all of that.

Dependent's Day

Seth and I celebrated our Independence Day with our new dependent. I was really excited about it because I love it when Seth gets to stay home during the day with us and my good friend Melissa sent me the most adorable fourth of July outfit.

We ended up going to a breakfast at our church where Stella was able to parade around her new outfit. This was good because by 11:00 she had managed to have an accident on her cute new dress. Fortunately, we have enough small baby clothes that we found another very acceptable fourth of July outfit.

Afterwards we went to Iwo Jima and watched the fireworks with some friends. Stella was great and it kept her up late enough so we got about 5 hours sleep straight. This isn't her six hour record but it is better than four hours like last night. It is the small victories that matter.

Firsts

Today was Stella's first time to church. I was happy that I finally got to break out one of her really cute outfits. She has more dresses than she has days to wear them. She is a month old and I am pretty sure she is close to 12 pounds if not more. Anyhow I write to give advice: when going to showers buy bigger sizes 6 months on. I have too many newborn (which she was too big for when she was born) and 3 mo outfits that will go to waste. However, 6 months on is looking sparse in comparison to her 3 month wardrobe. Plus she goes through at least 2 sometimes up to four outfits in a day due to messes. I should be going through several shirts a day but some days I just figure it is pointless and wait until Seth comes home before I ruin another shirt.

OK, so here are some pictures of Stella all dolled up for church and us cuddling after her bath this morning.