Almost Crawling

Sweet Pea is on her hands and knees, rocking back and forth, looking up at me and laughing. She's telling me that any day now she's going to be all over the place so I'd better be ready.

She's doing the fighter crawl, on her belly using her arms, drawing her knees up and scooting across the floor. She's becoming surprisingly quick. When I put down her favorite toy (a little piano) she'll dart towards it.

Sometimes she'll get on her hands and knees and using both legs launch herself forward for a faceplant. Yesterday she did this and landed face first on her zylophone. In the 1.5 seconds that it took for me to scoop her up and check for injury I imagined myself in the emergency room trying to explain why I had been so careless as to leave a metal toy on the floor for my six-month-old baby to land on. Luckily, there was no visible injury but I still felt like a lousy mom.

Sixth Month Check Up

The Pea had her sixth month check up today and Dr. Ruiz was very pleased with her progress. She's hitting all of her developmental milestones on schedule. Dr. Ruiz said that she's happy with Mia's size since she's gaining weight steadily. We talked about starting solids and plan to introduce them pretty soon, starting out with one solid meal a day.

Here are her stats:
Length: 25 inches
Weight: 13 pounds, 12 ounces
Head Circumference: 42 centimeters

Chickens

On Saturday we went to The Natural Gardener to get some dirt, vegetables and herbs for the winter garden. If you've never been, I recommend checking it out. It's a really neat place. Here is Mia eyeing the chickens.
Today Mia worked in the garden, enjoying the first cool day of fall. Behind her you can see the Bright Lights Swiss Chard, Fern Leaf Dill, Italian Parsley, Curly Parsley, French Tarragon and Florence Fennel.

Mall Day

I never realized how convenient malls are until I had a baby. I'm certainly not the first to discover this. Lissa and I have been walking at Barton Creek Mall for a few weeks now and are in the company of many other mothers with babies. In this picture, Max and Mia have just enjoyed a snack in the nursing room at Nordstroms and are ready for another loop around the mall. Yeah, that's one thing the hike and bike trail doesn't have - nursing rooms.
Here are Max and Lissa. The mommies are about to enjoy their lunch at the Nordstroms cafe.

Zilker Swings!

We went to Zilker this morning and for the first time, Sweet Pea tried out the swings. She loved it! Still too big for her, but she held on just fine.

Later we went shopping for jogging strollers. Not that I jog, but one would be nice for the hike and bike trail. If anyone has any advice, I'd love to hear it.

New Haircut

I went to Keith Kristofer today and received a haircut from the lovely and talented Sunny. I told her I was feeling frumpy lately. She said, "Don't worry, I'm going to give you the porn star blow dry."

This is the sexiest hair style I've ever had. The only problem is since my hair style looks so fabulous now, it just highlights how not-fabulous my color situation is. I was thinking that I would just grow out my hair until it was long enough to cut off the colored portion - I'd really like my hair to be its natural color - but it's taking forever! So, I might just break down and color it again.

Dark brown? Red? Blonde highlights? Or cut it short like Katie Holmes? I mean, come on, that's one hot mom. So many choices...

Happy Birthday, Sweet Pea!

Sweet Pea turned six months today! We had some delicious, fancy cupcakes from Whole Foods and since the Pea couldn't eat any, she got presents. She got a new high chair, some new fuzzi bunz, a bunny, an elephant, a ducky and a ring tower with little animal faces.

Loving it.

I really liked playing with dolls when I was younger. Can you tell? I love, love, love baby clothes. I tried this outfit on her for the first time today and I just had to take a picture. It's a whole set with matching t-shirt, ruffled cami, pants and hat. We got it as a gift and I have to admit it looks pretty ugly on the hanger. I finally decided to try it on her today and just about died from cuteness overload.

If I had known I would have put it on her for our lunch with Liz P. yesterday - mmmm, Poboys at Gene's. Instead, she wore it to the baby expo thing we went to this morning. It was a lot better than the last one we went to, due in great part I'm sure to the fact that we showed up minutes after opening on the first day. We scored some fantastic designer brand baby attire and some toys that looked brand new. I also got a new sling and a bundle me. I wanted to call my preggers friends and tell them, but I think they've both had all the advice they can take.

Sweet Pea's Keyboard

This is the keyboard that Tom gave SP. She loves it. Can't you tell?

Hooter Hider

Jen's "Burka", originally uploaded by cecily7.

Can you tell how thrilled I am about using it?

More Celebrity

Speaking of celebrity sightings, Cecily and I saw Kinky Friedman today while lunching at Triumph Cafe. The coolest part is as he was leaving he walked by our table, smiled and sort of waved at us. "Why did he do that?" I asked Cecily.

"I think I gave him a look," she said, smiling and shrugging her shoulders to demonstrate.

"Oh. Cool!"

For the first time ever I was able to stray from my all-time favorite, the tofu curry vermicelli and try one of the sandwiches. It was good, but not as good as the tofu curry. It's hard to try other things on the menu when I've already fallen for something so delicious.

This morning Sweet Pea and I went to the postnatal yoga class and got to see Lissa and baby cashew again. Yeah, it's not the most rigorous class around, but I can take Sweet Pea with me. If someone would let me bring her with me to a Mysore class and put her in a bouncer next to my mat, that would be the class I would attend. Until that happens, I'll stick with postnatal as long as I can. I'm just trying to make it as challenging as possible by working hard on the basic standing postures.

Past Haircuts

The poll is complete and the plurality thinks that I should leave my hair the way it is. I'll probably just cut off a few inches for now and see if I can tolerate it. Whether I keep my hair long will in great part depend on how much more hair I lose. I still continue to lose a handful of hair a day. I am astounded that I still have any hair left. So, one of these past haircuts could be in my future.

For those of you who do not know, it is normal to lose a lot of hair after you have a baby.

Side note: I was in law school when these pictures were taken. That's why I'm so skinny. I'm NOT even CLOSE to looking like that now.

Indoor Trekking

First day of indoor trekking with Lissa and baby Cashew. In the beginning we were in the company of geriatrics and young mothers, and not many in between. In terms of distance, I'm not sure how much we walked, but Lissa and I decided that we hadn't spent that much time at the mall since high school. I think it's so freakin cool, BTW, that I'm hanging out with one of my best high school buddies so many years later. And it's so cool that by coincidence we both happened to get pregnant at the same time. I've already experienced a lot of firsts with Lissa (first time getting drunk -- screwdrivers at her parents house sophomore year of high school, first time throwing a party that the cops showed up to -- house we were living at on Ave. H junior year in college) so it's so awesome that I get to share another first with her.

Later on, Sweet Pea and I met up with Tom at Whole Foods for delicious sushi, a yummy eclair and some grocery shopping. I had told Tom how much Mia enjoys pounding on my keyboard when I'm trying to type so he brought her very own keyboard. It's one of the old apple extended keyboards from my college days. It's making me nostalgic looking at it. Don't worry, Mommies, I know that it is not child appropriate so I won't let her play with it unattended, but when we got home I put it on the floor and she went crazy. She loves it. It's so remarkable that just from watching what I do, she immediately knew what to do with it. I'll post a picture tomorrow.

Be Cool

Will I be a cool mom? Will I be smooth and confident when I talk to Sweet Pea about sex? Will I have the courage to answer all of her questions honestly? Will I use the real names, the clinical names that is, for body parts? Will I cop out by handing her a book? I hope not. I hope that I can maintain the same frankness that I have now. I hope that I'll be able to speak to her about sex like she's my very best girl friend. I hope that the thought of my baby girl having sex won't terrify me to the point of paralysis.

In any case, thank goodness for the internet. What was it like being a parent without it? I am listening to This American Life and they just did a segment about Sex Etc.. Thank goodness for wonderful resources such as this one.

You can download the podcast here

Happiest Baby on the Block

She really is, and I didn't even have to use much of the information in the book. I was just telling a friend yesterday that I have no place giving any mother of a colicky baby advice since I had it so easy when Sweet Pea was a newborn. I don't take any credit for this, I think I just got really lucky. I don't think that I have any magic mothering skills (besides being a firm believer in attachment parenting). I think that some babies are just easier than others.

Not to say that every day is nothing but roses and sunshine. Yesterday we attempted to go out to dinner downtown with my parents. She did not want to be in the car seat and cried the whole way there. By the time we got downtown, we were all so frazzled by her crying, and the shortage of parking, we just turned around and headed home. By then she was screaming - face bright red, tears streaming down her face, fists clenched screaming. She was pissed. We stopped twice for a little comfort nursing only for her to continue where she left off as soon as she was placed back in the car seat. I was so stressed out from hearing her cry that I was on the verge of tears. We got home and ordered a pizza. Sweet Pea instantly transformed from frantic, screaming baby to smiling, cooing baby. She just looked up at me and laughed as if to say, "Silly Mama, I told you this is where I like to be!"

Americana

I was watching Martha this morning when she had Charles Phoenix on the show. He reminded me of several of my friends (Liz P. for cool retro stylin', Cecily for photography and Ravyn for found art) so I had to pass his website along. I signed up for his slide of the week.

Cecily's Homework

Today at lunch, Cecily told me that I needed to sign up for Google Reader and for Facebook. I still don't know why she wants me to do these things, but she's never lead me wrong. Done and done. Google Reader does seem to be pretty cool. As for facebook, Tom has already written on my wall, whatever the heck that means.

Speaking of Tom, he let Sweet Pea play with his iPhone last week. Like I don't have problems enough with my sister introducing the Pea to expensive product, now Tom is going to get my little diva addicted to expensive electronics.

And speaking of my little Diva, we had so much fun in the bath today. She's learning how to splash. I bought one of those baby tubs but it was a waste of money. I've only used it twice. It's been much more fun to take her into the bath with me. Afterwards, I massaged her with the L'Occitane baby balm. She smiled and cooed the whole time.

Update: Cecily! I just looked at Facebook and it appears to be 1. another project and 2. another online popularity contest. I trust you so I'll get around to messing with it eventually since you say that I should, but it looks like a huge pain in the ass.

p.s. if anyone is reading this on an RSS feed, look at my actual blog so you can tell me what to do with my hair.

Second Class

As I expected, my second Ashtanga class was harder than the first. Physically, anyway. The initial adrenaline triggered by my fear long gone, I had only the muscles which were still sore from the last class to pull me through. My core strength seems to be the most difficult post-baby struggle. It's hard to explain, but it is as if part of my core is still disengaged. I try to engage it, but I just can't feel it anymore. Not the same way that I could feel it before. As I was struggling with headstand today I was thinking that it was like balancing a cooked noodle on one end.

But, oh, I am falling in love with Ashtanga. It's been so long it's like a new romance all over again. I'm just full of giddiness and warm fuzzy feelings. All the drama from the past is a distant memory. All I can see is our rosy future together. Yes, I know there will be pain and frustration when I am once again confronted with certain second series asanas, but I won't have to worry about that anytime soon. For the next few months (maybe more if I'm lucky!) I'll be skipping along the lovely primary series path. And maybe when the time comes for me to attempt second series once again I'll have the physical and psychological fortitude to approach it with grace, light, love and kindness.

It won't be a monogamous relationship. I'm still involved with postnatal yoga. Of course my love affair with Kundalini yoga, my longest yoga relationship to date, will continue. And there are so many other styles of yoga I've been meaning to experiment with.

I was joking with Liz P. last week that you can't throw a shoe in this town without hitting an Anusara teacher. I said this after running into my second former Ashtanga student who is now training to be an Anusara teacher. My only real experience with this style of yoga was probably about 4 years ago when I would go to my friend Kristina's classes - which were awesome. Some of my favorite people in the world are Anusara teachers and that's a pretty strong endorsement for me. If ya'll are into it, there must be something very right about it. So, that's definitely on my to-do list.

But for now I'm getting cozy with my old flame again. It's nice to be back.