The Point of No Return

(Look at this face. Can you imagine she can scream like any of the best horror movie queens?)

Every night, just after dinnertime, Megan enters what I call the Point of No Return. She gets so tired and it's like a switch is flipped and she becomes a crying mess. I get her ready for bed--whether or not she'll scream in the bathtub is a coin toss--and then hold her in the rocking chair, where we read, say prayers, and sing songs. At some point, she quiets down and cuddles with me in my arms. (I have to say that's the greatest part of my day--that and when I'm singing to her and she looks at me like she couldn't imagine how lucky she is to have me as a mom. I need to keep a mental picture of that in my head and save it for when she's a moody teenager!)

When it's time to get into bed, I stand up and move toward the crib. And the wailing begins. This has gone on for a couple of weeks now, and the window of screaming appears to be shrinking. When she first started, she could scream for up to 45 minutes. Tonight, she did about five or so.

I'll go in once to make sure she's okay if she's really screaming like crazy, but I try not to. If I do, I'll pick her up and cuddle her. If she quiets down (which she usually does), I call that her "critical error," because it means she's perfectly fine and not in any pain, so back down she goes. And the screaming commences.

I know it's all for the best, and that she needs to learn to fall asleep without me, but I have to say, it's a real test of my will!

11 Months Old!

Megan turned 11 months old on July 2. Hard to believe she's almost a year old!

Lots of stuff going on this month. She's becoming more mobile--although scooting appears to be her method of choice--and she's babbling like crazy, even adding "bye-bye" as a word.


And she's tried new foods. Egg yolks, strawberries, cheese blintzes, cantaloupe, and avocado. She really liked avocado, but as you can tell from the picture below, she go quite messy! (Her runny nose didn't help matters...)

Here's Megan about to give her daddy a kiss!

Guess What?

Megan's going to have a little brother or sister!!!!!!! Due January 12th, so probably late December, given Megan's early arrival.

And no, this wasn't an in-vitro baby. Apparently the fertility doctor did one heck of a job with my reconstructive surgery!

We're very excited. We were waiting to see if this would happen, and it did! How about that?

I'm 95% thrilled and 5% terrified about how I'm going to manage two kids 17 months apart. But as P.C. said, two years ago we didn't even know if we could have one! So I guess, like with one, we'll figure it out.

As for Megan, she's currently going through the "I'm going to scream every night when you put me to bed" phase, which is a real test for us. Poor thing--she screams like a crazy person, and when I go in there, she quiets down and then screams harder. Fun! I just keep telling myself that it's a stage. It's a stage. It's a stage. The good news is, she's getting really verbal and wanting to stand up and she just keeps changing every day.

In the picture above, the baby (We're calling it "Sprout" this time around) is facing front. While we were looking at him, his top hand was waving. So funny!

I'm so happy to share the good news!!!!

I Have Two Teeth!

I have two teeth, right in the middle, on the bottom. Do you like them?

Change of Heart

Remember my post about Megan's hatred of the baseball toy I bought for her? Well, she's had a change of heart.

Now she actually claps when the toy makes a cheering sound! And she loves the bat too, which pleases her daddy!

In other news, we've added lots of new foods: cooked carrots and peas (as opposed to canned, mashed ones), muenster cheese, mozzarella cheese, pinto beans, macaroni and cheese, and whole-wheat bread. She especially loves the peas--they are just the right size!

Here she is, eating carrots and pasta. She definitely prefers to pick things up herself, as opposed to being fed. No passivity for this kid!

I took a great picture of her banging pots and pans for the first time, but it's a nude shot and I didn't want to get arrested for posting it! She loves banging the pots, although sometimes she bangs really loudly and scares herself...

And, of course, she is always modeling the latest fashions...

Safe Travels, Maya's Granny

(Photo Credit: http://mayagranny.blogspot.com/)

If you go back into this blog and read people's comments, you might notice a poster named Maya's Granny. Maya's Granny is the nom de plume of a woman I've "known" online for years as the wise sage of an online group I've belonged to for 13 years. She has always given amazing advice, which she gained through a very interesting life, which she talked about on her blog, http://mayagranny.blogspot.com/. She also posted her opinions on everything from politics to food (and size acceptance) to feminism to her favorite television episodes. As she said in her blog intro, "This is where I share the wisdom that a granny, as an elder of the tribe, accumulates in her journey through life. The reach of my mind is wide, and sometimes even a little deep. Sometimes, like Whitman, I contradict myself. Sometimes I wax eloquent. Sometimes I fall on my face. Why not do it in public?"

MG loved her granddaugher Maya so much. Click here to read the story of when Maya was born. By the end of it, I was so teary and touched that I sent it to both of Megan's grandmothers, and they were moved by it too. (And it is a perfect example of what an amazing writer MG is.)

I met MG in person in November 2003, when a bunch of us "online folks" met in Las Vegas for a weekend. I told her that I respected her opinion so much that I wanted to take her into a quiet room and tell her all my problems so she could solve them.

In a blog posting right after Megan started eating solid food, I was writing about how all Megan was eating was cereal and applesauce, and that I needed to be patient. Maya's Granny wrote, "Apple sauce, oat cereal, and apple sauce stirred into oat cereal. See, she already has two items and a recipe."

After another post about infant Megan, MG wrote, "She is so beautiful. Makes me want to hold her and smell her sweet baby smell and feel her soft baby skin and hear her soft baby breath -- and kiss her belly and her arches and nibble on her toes. Do that for me, OK?"

When I was on bedrest during the in vitro that led to beautiful Megan, MG wrote, "Enjoy your bedrest and know that there are folks out there with you in our hearts."

And in a post where I was talking about how I couldn't describe what it felt like "to have a child look at you and really, really LOOK at you and trust you and love you, even though she's too young to know what any of that means," MG wrote back that when her son, Richard, was born, "My ex-husband told me, when Richard was just a few hours old, that if I ever looked at him the way Richard did, I would have him as my slave for eternity. That gaze that doesn't know there is anything else in the universe and wouldn't look away if it did."

Maya's Granny passed away this morning after an illness that started in February. The world is a little emptier without her, but if there is a Heaven, oh boy, did they just hit the jackpot.

Safe travels, Maya's Granny. Megan's Mama loves you, misses you, and will always carry you in her heart.

10 Months Old!

It's been so long since my last post...

Megan turned 10 months old on May 2. She loves to stand up, and it looks like she might bypass crawling altogether! That's fine, and the doctor isn't concerned, but I must say it's a little intimidating when we go to Gymboree and all those kids are crawling around...but as long as Megan is at the right pace for Megan, that's all that counts!

Megan loves to play peek-a-boo.

She's also added lots of foods to her repertoire. Yogurt, cottage cheese, macaroni and cheese. We're pretty sure that tomatoes upset her tummy right now. And she's not a big watermelon fan.

Check out the groovy new (well, gently used) highchair!

Here's a silly picture of Megan in a Minnie Mouse dress her cousins gave her. She did love all of the layers in the skirt!

Megan also loves to blow raspberries and is becoming very vocal. It's amazing how much she changes day by day!

Happy June!