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She Has Her Mama's Pain Threshold

Guess who went to the doctor yesterday?

 

Eva had her one-year appointment yesterday. Which, for her, meant 4 (four!) shots. And also a (routine) blood test to check for anemia. In order to take blood from babies, they prick a finger and then squeeze like crazy to fill a little vial drip by drip. I imagine this is not something most one-year-olds enjoy.

Except for Eva. She sat there very patiently and watched closely as the nice doctor stuck her finger and caught the little drips of blood as they came out. The doctor was amazed—said she was the best kid he'd ever taken a blood sample from. She never batted an eye. In fact, I saw her smile a couple times. He bandaged Eva up and sent us on our way, and she waved her little band-aided finger in the air all the way home.

What a well-behaved child! What an angel! Right? Yeah, well explain this to me, internet. Explain to me why, as soon as we were home, Eva ripped the band-aid off her finger, thereby getting blood on anything she touched, and then screamed bloody (ha!) murder as I tried to wrestle another bandage onto her? Why?? I was just as gentle and understanding with her as that doctor was. What's the difference?

I'm thinking maybe I should have offered her a sticker. Ah. Hindsight.

Happy weekend, all!

How Was Eva's Birthday? Let's Re-live It, Shall We?

Morning, Birthday Girl!

Mama makes breakfast. Eggy bread, fresh strawberries, and vanilla yogurt. YUM!

(Then Eva played for a little while before snuggling in for a Birthday Nap.)

Singing silly songs with Mama at lunch time (including many, many renditions of "Happy Birthday to Eva.")

Eva helps Mama make frosting for her Birthday Cake. (Official taste-tester)

(Then we played a bunch. Read stories, blew bubbles outside, built towers, etc. Everything except taking another Birthday Nap.)

Daddy's home! Time for a Birthday Dinner. Eva's favorite: pasta with tomato sauce and CHEESE! Mmm-mmm.

The most important part of any Birthday Meal...

Yeah. She likes cake.

(We deposited Eva directly into the bathtub at this point.)

Oh, but we're not done. There are still presents to be opened!

A couple new toys for Eva (plus a new swing for the tree out back.) What a lucky girl!

Happy Birthday Eva! Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Love, Mama and Daddy.

PS. Bellyville got a make-over for Eva's birthday. There's lots of new little things to discover. If you still see the old picture up there in the masthead, try clearing your cache and/or refreshing a bunch of times until you see the new one. And you can look for a few more changes in the coming weeks.

 

Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

One year ago today, exhausted but happy, we posed for our first family photo.

Memmmm-reeeees...

One year ago today, a whole lot of fun stuff was going on...

Here's us, freshly checked into the hospital. I'm enjoying what would turn out to be my last meal for about 30 hours. Don't we look excited and care-free? A baby! We're going to have a baby! Tra-la-la!

Aaaand here we are 24 hours later just after I decided that I probably wasn't going to be able to push a baby out after laboring all night with an IV in my arm loading potassium or something into my system that made me puke after each contraction, unless I had some sort of help/relief.

In other words, here we are after I finally gave in and asked for an epidural.

It's funny, though, when I think about that day—the last day we spent not knowing whether we'd have a son or a daughter—I mostly remember it like that first picture. Happy and excited and a little (ok a lot) unsure, but quite certain that we were about to have the best day of our lives.

Hmmmmm...

Tonight. Tonight we'll stop procrastinating and install the cabinet locks.

That girl can make a mess in 2 seconds. She's officially entering toddler-hood, I think.

So Much Better

Eva's feeling much better now, thank you. That nasty cough is still hanging on, but she managed to sleep through the night and she's been interested in food other than breastmilk again, so now she has the energy to get back to crawling all over the house and emptying every drawer/basket/shelf she comes across.

Happy weekend, everyone! Enjoy it.

My Poor Baby

 

 

So the kid's sick. It's just a bad cold (we think), but that hasn't stopped me from worrying. Because I'm the mama. Worrying goes with the territory. If I let myself, I can think up all kinds of awful illnesses she might have.

She's been extremely clingy, which I don't mind. I love a good snuggle with my baby, but she's also been wanting to nurse a lot. A lot, a lot. Like every two hours. Which is how often she's been waking up at night, wanting her mama.

So suddenly, we find ourselves back at the beginning. Like she's a newborn again. And Mike and I are walking around in sleep-deprived stupors, which, come to think of it, probably has a lot to do with all the irrational worrying I've been doing.

Blauggie, Cousin of Bellyville.

MYLITTLEBROTHERANDHISWIFEAREGOINGTOHAVEABABY!!

Whew.

I've been holding that in for a while. Eva's Auntie Alix is pregnant. Pregnant. Preggo. With child. Bun in the oven. Preg. Nant. (!!!!!) And I've been given the official nod, which means I can finally, finally tell all of you about it.

And? And? The best news? They have started their own blog! So you don't have to listen to me go on and on about how cute Eva's little cousin is when s/he lodges her/his toe directly into Alix's spleen. You can read all about those things firsthand.

Want to? Yes??

I thought you might, so I made it real easy-like for you. Just look over yonder in the right-hand column, and click on the link we like to call Blauggie. Or, if you're lazy, click right here. And you're going to want to click that link daily, because Alix is one funny woman. And she's pregnant! Did I mention the pregnancy? Because she's pregnant.

Pregnant!

And Pssssst: Today is the 1 year anniversary of my due date. Astute readers will realize this means that Eva has a birthday fast approaching. Oh man.

Mama Dinner Theater

Yesterday at lunch, I asked Eva if she wanted to sing a song. She stuck her finger up in the air and shook it like she does when she dances, so I took that as a yes. I sang Itsy-Bitsy Spider, complete with actions.

This is one of her favorites, and once in a while she'll do the motions with me. But not yesterday. Oh no. Yesterday, she leaned back in her chair and ate her cheese while I flailed around the kitchen like an idiot. But each time I finished the song she immediately looked up from her lunch and made the "more" sign (and gave me a look like "Keep the music coming, Lady.")

And now I'm sitting here wondering why on Earth I kept doing the actions when clearly all she wanted was some atmosphere? Man, she's got me trained.

A Good Day to Be a Dad!

 

 

Hi! Daddy here. Yesterday, I was rocking Eva before her morning nap. When I'm home on the weekends, I usually rock her before her nap for about a minute before putting her in the crib and letting her fall asleep on her own. But yesterday she was really drowsy, and while I was rocking and humming to her, I looked down and noticed that she was looking up at me. She just listened for a little while, and then she fell asleep, cooing a little bit. That never happens anymore, and it was the best Father's Day gift ever.

I'm a really lucky guy.