Anna and Troy’s Weblog

from the “Dear Emerson” letter dated 11/10/09

THE WEEK OF GRUMP

So for the past week and a half or so our house has been invaded by the SICKY ICK. Perhaps invaded is too strong a word, but your Daddy was very sick with the sicky ick. It turned out that the sicky ick was a nasty case of bronchitis and not the piggy ick (swine flu) that everyone has been all freaked out about this season. So that was the good news. The bad news (for me) was that as he was coming down with is sicky ick, we were a little afraid that it was the flu, so he tried as hard as he could to avoid infecting you – which meant that for about a week or so, I had to juggle A LOT of solo baby wrangling, plus a very sick and unhappy husband. SOLO BABY WRANGLING OF A TEETHING GRUMPY BABY! Needless to say, the house on Sugar Tree was not the happiest place to be last week. There was a definite dearth of flowers and sunshine. There were no chirping little birds singing sweetly or rainbows across our front lawn. It was the week of GRUMP.

On one particular day, you and I were having our daily “battle of the nap.” Lately, I have been pretty successful at getting you to take a really good morning nap (1-2 hours); although, it still necessitates that I sleep with you. My theory has been that if I get you acclimated to the timing of the nap, then I can eventually wean you off of having to be directly next to my body in order to take said nap. So on this particular day in the week of GRUMP, I had successfully gotten you to sleep, and I decided that I was going to try to sneak away, and do something ridiculous and indulgent – like drink tequila shots and dance on the kitchen table – or take a shower. But before I had the chance, GUESS WHAT?!? You woke up. Nap time logged – 20 minutes.

So I went back into your room and thought to myself, “She really is SO tired. Maybe she will sleep some more.” So I nursed you a bit, but you just wouldn’t doze off….but you looked SO sleepy. So I thought to myself, “Maybe I will try to just put her in her crib and see what happens. Maybe the sleep training books are right. Maybe she will fuss a bit and then just fall asleep. She really is SO tired.” So I put you in your crib, kissed you, told you nighty night, quietly left your room, and waited.

At first you babbled to yourself. I waited. You fussed and whined. I waited.  Then you cried. Still, I waited. You fussed & cried for maybe 3-5 minutes. Then you SCREAMED. Full on, no holding back – SCREAMING LIKE YOUR FINGERNAILS WERE BEING TORN OFF BY A PACK OF RABID WOLVERINES. Here and now, I admit – I confess – I could only take the SCREAMING for a few minutes. Less than five. Probably like three. I just can’t handle the SCREAMING. It is so tragic, so agonizing. Whatever the reason, you were clearly BESIDE YOURSELF. I went in and got you. And here is where the story gets CRAZY because you were SO upset that you threw a full on screaming tantrum for AN HOUR. It took me an entire HOUR to get you calmed down – after which, you fell asleep. And I thought to myself, “She must be SO exhausted from that FULL HOUR OF SCREAMING that she will crash out for at least an hour or two.” GUESS WHAT?!?! You woke up. Nap time logged – 20 minutes (40 minutes total)

The crazy thing about the screaming tantrum is that you NEVER do that, at least not when your Dad or I are there. You will fuss, whine, and even cry a bit, but NEVER that full on inconsolable hysterical screaming crying.

When you woke up from your second little cat nap I went back into your room to get you and I noticed this:

In the three minutes that I had left you in your crib furiously crying, you had managed to EAT YOUR CRIB. I just have to say that none of the infant sleep books that I have read have had any advice that pertains to this particular situation, “what to do when your baby eats her crib.” Just look at those scratch marks ala Silence of the Lambs!

At this point I decided that our foray into sleep training was done for the day. We were going to have to be satisfied with our cumulative 40 minutes. We were just going to go on with our day.

So I picked you up and took you out to the living room , where I discovered that the dog(s) had vomited all over the carpet.

AWESOME.

I think that this story pretty much sums up the Week of GRUMP.

Blow Out

This was the scene this morning at the Baeten house.

Now try to wrap your brain around the pure physicality of the above pictured feat. Emerson was sitting on the floor in her baby cage. Sitting up. So she literally shot the poop up her back with such force that it created the artistic poop display seen in the picture. Perhaps her diaper was perfectly positioned and it created a “Poop Slalom” of sorts…..but still. Think of the sheer velocity of the poop.

Is that not completely and utterly AMAZING?!?!

Is our baby gifted or what?

As you can imagine, the clean-up on this one fell into the category known as “industrial.” There was no way that any number of wipes was going to adequately take care of the mess. So we did what we could with the wipes, stripped down the baby, and prepared to hose her down in the tub.

On the way to the tub, she peed on Troy.

Then we decided to go out to breakfast and she spilled an entire glass of ice water in his lap (totally my fault, I left the water within reach).

It has been a moist day for Troy.

Hooray! Emerson crawling! This is her second triumphant crawl (we got it on video on attempt #2). The baby crying in the background is Emerson’s baby friend, Baby Simon (2 months old).

In the baby world of developmental milestones, Emerson has had a bang-up week.

Below is a brief summary of events:

Sunday October 4th, 2009: On the drive back from Chicago.

Learned how to drink out of a regular grown-up straw.

Up until this defining moment, the only luck we have had with getting Emerson to consume liquids was either directly out of the boob or little sips out of a normal cup. There was a definite boycott of anything that resembled an artificial nipple in any way – bottle, sippy cup – you name it. While this new straw drinking skill currently falls into the category of entertaining novelty, rather than functional life-sustaining food transport system, it is definitely a step in the right direction. Also not to be trivialized is the adorable “lip puckered straw sucking face.” Deadly cute.

Developed the Baby Indian War Cry Game.

Often when Emerson was making her wide array of silly baby noises, Troy or I would paddle her mouth to create the “Vibrato Baby War Cry.” I have to say that we found it amusing to an irrational degree. What made this past Sunday different is that Emerson began actively participating in the game. Now, when we bring our hand to our mouth she will consistently initiate her noise making so that we can make the Baby War Cry. Very very funny. She has even gone so far as to attempt the War Cry herself. She is moderately successful, but again, very very funny. What a clever girl. We are fairly certain that this is an early indication of her blossoming GENIUS.

Friday October 9th, 2009: Full-on forward crawling!

As mentioned in my previous post, this past week was also the week of “Mom’s stupidest and most inconvenient injuries.” As such, I spent Friday crawling around my house. Crawling to the bathroom. Crawling to get diapers. Crawling to the back door to let the dogs in and out. It turns out that extended periods of crawling is actually pretty hard on your knees. However, it is my theory that this extended period of maternal crawling resulted in accelerated BABY CRAWLING! Ridiculously exciting, with a small shadow of horror – as we know now that IT IS ALL OVER and we are now entering into the period of “Banged Up Baby (when they are mobile enough to be big trouble, but not coordinated enough to avoid smashing their faces into every possible injury inducing surface).”

And just as we thought that we couldn’t possibly squeeze any other monumental milestone into the week……

This morning (Sunday October 11th, 2009) she pulled herself up to a standing position by herself.

Let the wild rumpus begin!