Almost 6 months old! Cliché Cliché: OMG it is going so fast! So fast, and yet maddeningly slow – the longest nights and days ever. Despite her continued and frustrating beyond belief sleep aversion OG is still the happiest, silliest, bounciest, most energetic little muffin.

She loves any and all food. She gets so excited when she sees us mixing up a bowl of mush that she visibly quivers in anticipation. Obviously she is my daughter in this regard and she may be destined to follow in my footsteps:

Feeding her is getting to be a challenge because we literally can’t shovel stuff down her gaping gullet fast enough to please miss piggy. She also likes to “help” with the spoon – aka grabbing it and smacking it into her face, squishing the food on it through her little sausage fingers, etc. She also is prone to kicking her now quite solid ham hocks and hooves in delight with every bite she takes, often booting my hand/spoon in the process – liberating chunks of banana/squash/sweet potato into the air and all over both of us which delights her to no end. Every meal is a new and sticky adventure for us.

She is absolutely obsessed with animals of all kinds, except hilariously for the cows at the zoo – who bring her to a pout and then actual tears every time she looks at them which I find funny as hell and therefore keep torturing her with them. Zoo favorites so far are:

•  First and foremost the birds, which I refer to as “her people”, since they make the same incessant loud-pitched deafening screeching and chirping sounds. She greatly enjoys the room where birds of all shapes and sizes fly overhead and pop up out of nowhere from bushes, etc, startling the bejesus out of me but giving her a real tickle. We’ve been going to the zoo frequently enough now during the week when it is not super crowded that I have become acquainted with the dude in charge of this room. I refer to him as Birdie Sanders because of this resemblance:

and wow is this guy just a fountain of unprompted bird knowledge for us. For instance, he told us that even though the birds are building nests and laying eggs, he has been sneaking in and replacing the eggs with “giant jelly eggs” (here he paused in a clear attempt to get me to ask for elaboration… but I sadly did not pretend to give any indication of interest so your guess is as good as mine about what those might be… enormous jelly beans?) to trick them because apparently the birds who live there are like way too closely related and they are trying to prevent a The Hills Have Eyes type situation… I had to bite my tongue because given that half the birds already look like this:

– I think some of the birds with less scrambled DNA managed to hide and hatch a few real eggs in recent years.

• Penguins are the next favorite on OG’s list of what she will bring on her Ark in the event of a flooding. She especially loves when they pop out of the water or when they chase each other when they swim… probably because she also enjoys chasing animals and would enjoy swimming after a penguin very much.
• Rounding out the top three list is the 3 huge tiger cubs. Giant Cis pooses. No surprise there.

Already excited for when she can start doing zoo classes and any of those up -close animal encounters… also need to get her to a petting zoo. Think of all the “petting” she will do!

 

Putting on a brave face through her tears in the second picture… stupid cows!

She has started to dole out the most adorable giggles in small amounts to those who humor her the most. However, she has very selective and ever evolving comedic tastes and boy do we work our asses off hoping for even just one little “heh” with often no reward. So far the only things that consistently cause her to belly laugh are: cats, cats batting at toys, cats glancing her way, cats running away from her screeches, dogs, dogs being near her, dogs looking at her, and especially dogs licking her hands. As for Gates and I, we will continue to do any and all things including risking injury to ourselves to get that baby to laugh. It’s the best sound in the whole world. Except for the sound of “Order up!” at a restaurant and looking up and seeing what you ordered in the window. Oh and the “tsssss-gluckk” of a bottle of ice cold beer being opened. And the “pffffft” of cheese dusted air that accompanies a fresh bag of Cheetos being opened…Well anyway her laugh is definitely a top 10 sound for me.

We celebrated her first Easter, aka she had no awareness of anything going on as per usual but went through the motions with a little bunny ear hat and let her chaw on some fake Easter eggs:

My cousin Alex bought her little one and OG another matching holiday outfit so we took the obligatory photos of the girls together in them, lightening fast of course since the little ladies tip over/try to escape every other second.  But we got some good ones! It will be fun to watch them get to play together once Olivia blossoms from a squid to an actual person.

She got a huge basket full of snacks, toys, outfits, and other adorable thoughtful stuff from her amazing babysitter, as well as a homemade Easter frame and photo of little OG bunny:

Meanwhile, bad parents Rosie and Gates gave their precious newborn on her first Easter:

An old avocado. Next Easter maybe we will step our game up. But probably not.

She also saw her great grandparents Abi and Poppi. She loved listening to Abi sing classic Abi songs to her, just as all of us grandkids loved when we were little nuggets. And she sat like a little lady all through Easter mass right on Abi’s lap, basking in the the warm glow of heavily incensed air and all of the attention from the parishioners I’m sure. She also held Poppi’s hand during mass, which is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.

Over the holiday weekend Gates and I enjoyed a blissful few days of a game I call “Let’s Let the Real Adults Take Over”, where my parents basically take care of OG (including overnight) for days on end during their visit while we quickly slump back into our old slothy ways of zero responsibility. Such a fun game! I’m so good at it, I win every time.

My cousin Mandi and I celebrated motherhood together for one of our last Midwest outings before her and her little fam make the move back to the land of Tony Romo and “hey y’alls”. We met at Wrigley for a day of baseball and lessons in gestationally destroyed alcohol tolerance. I started the trip with a literal bang in which I accidentally somehow popped open a purse beer, into my bag, on the train. It made for a very damp start to the adventure. I also realized in the morning before I left that my ID was MIA so I had to bring my passport with like a big dodo in anticipation of being carded.

My soggy start to the day didn’t matter in the end, because we were welcomed to the ballpark with a smattering of rainstorms, but fret not – we bought expensive garbage bags to cover up with!

We ate many things. We drank many things. We danced many dances. We pumped in the car. We were carefree and happy.

(*Professional photoshop job done to the car-pumping photo so as to preserve the dignity of at least one person in that car)

And then we lost track of time and I almost missed the last train back to Milwaukee and then I promptly feel into a deep slumber and missed my train stop and got woken up by friendly train staff at the last stop on the rails and had to cab it back to my missed stop and got home late and was too embarrassed to tell Gates about what a hot mess I was until a few days later. The End.

In other news: the dog has been annoying me beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. Part of the problem recently is I’ve been as sick as a dog (HAHA) with a nasty virus and my patience has been minimal at best to begin with… He definitely has a case of baby-envy, despite his love of OG – and will destroy anything in his path if he is left out of any activity. His go-to naughtiness: digging at his water dish and food dish so when we come back into the room there is wet, mushy, dog food all over the living room. Jumping up by counters and grabbing anything reachable and eating it: aluminum cans, baby bottles of milk, empty tupperwares, wrappers, etc. And my least favorite: incessantly whining/backing/scratching at the closed door if I try to take the baby in another room to get a little peace. And he will not give up his determination to get into the room, no matter how much time passes. I’ve tried. That whining is literally torture to me so I instead have taken to trying to create a barricade in whatever room we are in so he can still see us but so I can do things like: take 3 seconds to scarf down a “meal” without being tackled for a bite of my food. This week I thought I did a good job until he crawled through the baby’s play mat toy to get closer to us.

UGH! Must practice meditation or something so I don’t boot him onto the freeway.

Olivia also has gotten most impressive with her clawing skills. No amount of fingernail trimming will deter this monster!

Other than that, monotony of babyhood around the house as usual! And we couldn’t be loving it more. Except if she was sleeping more often. Yes, that.

And now, for the grand finale- now that I am a half of a year seasoned parent I am obviously an expert and will share a few of my favorite parenting takeaways with those who aren’t quite as perfect as we are in the parental arena:

1. Take every criticism about your parenting with a grain of salt. People are rude and judgmental and think they know more than you do, but you are the expert on your kid – so just smile and nod, smile and nod when you receive unsolicited advice or critique about your parenting style and choices. Bite that tongue baby! And then let it go, because (hopefully) even the most scathing remarks are coming from a place where someone truly wants to help. Maybe.
2. Speak up when you need a break! This shit is OVERWHELMING. Even for the most perfect/never make any mistakes such as carrying your kid and bashing their head a little bit into a wall on accident Mommy out there, such as myself. There is no prize (that I know of) awarded at the end of all of this for trying to be a martyr who needs no help raising their demons all while slowly dying on the inside. Also if you hold it in too long you risk starting to look like this:

(also if anyone is aware of a prize for this type of Mom-martyrdom please PM me, may adjust stance on this depending on available prize)

3. Do NOT neglect your marriage/partner/co-parent/significant other. Not even for a little bit. Yes, beeb has endless needs you must tend to in order for them to stay alive (UGH so annoying). But the sooner you realize that little chunky ball of sea urchin is not going to need you wiping their bottoms for forever and cooing ridiculous rhymes to them for the rest of time (hopefully not, that is) but you partner might, the sooner you will understand the importance of keeping that relationship as great as it was before you embarked on the parenting journey together. Squids fly the coop, your partner is forever. Cherish that relationship and water your grass, even in the deep, firey trenches of 6 months with no sleep. And all the better if you can find a way to laugh about the crazy stuff. Humor just may be the salve on the diaper rash of the BS parts of parenting.

4. Going along with #2 and #3 – do NOT neglect your own needs. Too many times I’ve realized a day has passed where I didn’t get a chance to use the bathroom, eat anything, browse pictures of cats on the internet, etc because OG was being a real butthead all day… This is no Bueno. It is ok to let baby cry/fuss/Donald Grump around a bit while you take care of yourself. Easier said than done, because it still literally pains me when she voices any amount of discontent… but so important. You need to go potty, Mama. And eat all the Cheetos.

5. Truly enjoy your time away from baba. Also easier said than done! As long as you trust your caregivers, do not spend your precious time free from your chitlins worrying about their wellbeing. You will be the first to know if something is not as it should be, and worrying is such a fun-suck. Try to be fully present in your interactions away from baby with friends, partner, co-workers, whoever – because at the end of the day (and 18 years) you are still an awesome human on your own accord, with or without the little life you created! Also people do get sick of hearing about your kid, FYI. Like it or not. Sometimes they just want to hear about YOU! Remember you? You’re still in there! And you’re awesome.

6. Going along with #5, allow yourself to be selfish with your time. Do not spend any amount of your time doing anything that does not truly fulfill you. When I was younger and newly single and feeling like a big fat dud who only wanted to lay at home and watch Netflix with the kitty, I one day made myself a promise that I would start saying YES to everything and anything that people invited me to… and I ended up having some of the most fun, random, crazy adventures during that time when I stuck to that goal. But once I met Gates and every day with him started being the best day ever, I found that I had developed a very bad habit… of not being able to just say NO to people. The more time I spent doing things I really wasn’t that interested in with people I also really wasn’t interested in, the less time and energy I had to do the things I actually did love, with the people who actually bring out the best in me. It has taken me years and years, but I am now more than ever able to say “No, but thank you for the invite” easier than ever before, without trying to offer some long convoluted excuse and feeling unnecessarily guilty about not accepting invitations… your time is so limited to begin with in your life, and then throw in careers, the day care shuffle, family obligations, errands, etc – if you don’t pay attention life might be passing you by feeling more like a stressful whirlwind than the beautiful adventure it is supposed to be every day.

7. Finally: If you live in a house with animals who shed: give up on the battle vs pet hair. You are not going to win. The baby will survive pooping out diaperful after diaperful of puppy fur peppered poopy.

8. AND ONE MORE THING, most importantly of all: Ignore this list! Make your own parenting tip list because you are a bomb ass b*tch, Mama! Look at you – keeping a tiny human alive! You’re already the best parent you can be for your own personal squidler!

 

Look at little lady grow!