Tea and sympathy

My son is flinging Melissa & Doug wooden magnet letters off the refridgerator door and onto the floor, in one efficient stroke per letter, an emotional and wordless protest of the cough that just took over and didn’t let up until he cried.

I am not going to stop him. I felt the same way this morning when the same cough, or at least the cough from the same bug he’s got, hit me at 7 am, so instead of staying snugly asleep with baby and husband, I was up making lemon tea with honey, and used the very last, squeezing-pleading, drops of honey… farewell elixer of relief. One more reason I have to go out and run errands instead of napping this morning.

Click a link, cast a vote!

Vote for my mom!

As a writer, one thing I really love is readers. Woah Baby began as a private blog, then it was for friends and family, and now I’ve got many readers from all over the place. I’d love more – and one place readers find me is at Top Baby Blogs. TBB ranks great mom and baby blogs by a simple voting system – there’s a badge on the right side of my page you can click that will let you say “I like this blog, and I think others would too!” A few times a year, they ‘reset’ to keep their rankings fresh. If my usual readers would throw a vote my way by clicking the badge, it will help other moms find Woah Baby!

 

Our International House of Pancakes?

From contributing writer Ann Croft, whose skills at interpreting baby dance are legendary.

Like many new parents, we are teaching our child to use sign language to communicate with us.  And, like many new babies, our daughter is teaching us her own version of that sign language so that we can better understand her needs and desires (which, by the way, are one and the same to her).

The best example of this is her sign for pancakes.  Actually, it’s not a sign so much as it is an interpretive dance.

It seems when I first gave her a pancake, I acted out this elaborate pantomime that included shaking my head from side to side while blowing on the pancake and saying the word “hot” over and over.

Can you now guess what my child does EVERY time she wants a pancake?

And this kid wants pancakes all the time.  My husband makes large batches of toddler-sized oval pancakes a few times a month and freezes them in zip lock bags.  He makes blueberry and oatmeal ones for her breakfast and sweet potato ones for dinner.   I’ve included the recipe for the sweet potato pancake below.  The blueberry oatmeal is something that he throws together with Bisquick, blueberries and rolled oats.

But, before you worry that my child’s diet is as limited as her vocabulary (she says both hi and hot).  Let me assure you she eats many things, but none so enthusiastically as her pancakes.  And, if her violent head-shaking, near hyper-ventilating blowing and repetition of “HOT” over and over don’t get her that much-needed pancake fast enough – well, our little Einstein will go through the litany of signs (More? Eat? Bird? Hat?) until a pancake is placed in her out reached hand and she begins cramming it into her mouth.

Maybe we should learn the sign for pancake?

Sweet Potato Pancake Recipe

1 T butter (melted)

½ C Cooked Sweet Potatoes (mashed)

1 egg

1/3 C Flour

½ t baking powder

¼ C milk

Mix sweet potatoes with egg.  Stir in flour and baking powder.  Add the milk and the butter.  Cook on a buttered skillet over medium heat.

How did you get here?

So, WordPress (my blog platform) has a feature that gives me stats on site visits and visitors. One of the pieces of information it give me is the search terms used for anyone who searched for something and landed on my blog as a result. Who would believe those search terms are totally worth a post of their own?! But I give you:

Things People Googled That Led to Me

“can a child nurse standing in a chair” – it pays to write a post on a flash-in-a-pan controversy.

“chubby hot guys” – Awesome! One day Del will appreciate this, or be mortified.

“sam caligione autograph” – that’s right people, I have it.

“600 lb gorilla cookies raw” – I am ashamed this one is true.

“enormous breastfeeding breasts katie jett” – Yep, my name was in the search terms. *waves cheerfully to my stalker and orders some mace off the internet*

“kill bill baby onesie” – whoever searched this, what a great idea. Did you find one?!

Neither hair nor there

I totally related to this post on Gus & Lula about Mommy Hair.

True confession: I have not had a hair cut since I got pregnant. I just am not good at getting around to it. I had an appointment in December, but instead of getting a haircut that Friday morning, I was snuggling my newborn son. That’s pretty much what I’ve been doing since. I even have a gift card to Immortal Beloved here in DC from my awesome mom and dad-in-law. But I just keep trimming my own bangs and thinking I’ll get around to it eventually. Part of me wants to keep the card so the promise of a great hair cut remains on my horizon!

Anyhoo.

A quick self portrait of today's Mommy Hair

I love the mommy hair suggestions above… my own mommy hair tip is similar: make a loose ponytail, leaving the pony looped into the elastic. Spread the “loop” around, pull a few loops loose from the rest and bobby pin them into a messy bun. If you do this when your hair’s damp, whenever you take it down, you’ll likely have some nice waves to enjoy (I speak to those of you like me who have stick straight hair).

What are your mommy hair suggestions?

Red Turtle Goes Full Time!

Reblogged from Red Turtle Photography:

I am incredibly excited to announce that Red Turtle Photography is now a full time business.

The birth of my son Del was the catalyst for this decision. For more than eight years now, RTP has been my occasional work - some years busier than others - but with a baby at home and the costs of daycare against a non-profit salary, it makes better sense for me to become my own boss and run RTP as my business, in addition to being the one lucky enough to take care of this fabulous little boy every day.

Read more… 85 more words

Exciting news for me!

Thanksgiving

I’m thankful for my caring, funny, brilliant husband.

For the baby we’ve made that will be here soon.

For health and comforts of life.

For the evening sun pouring through my window.

For the delicious meal we’re about to share.

For the adventures behind us and those ahead.

And you ended up here?

WordPress shows me what search terms have led to people clicking into Woah Baby!. This one takes the cake:

my moms knickers and tummy button

Best I can do, oh Google Searcher.

Week Twelve – happy dances!

That’s right – happy dances. Because mama isn’t in a walking fog anymore!

Most days I’m completely awake for the normal percentage of daylight hours. What a relief it is to see the clock hit 3:30 at work and NOT be already dying for a nap. Don’t mistake me – I still take that nap when I get home.  But my bones have stopped leaking tired juice into every fiber of my being. I’ll take it!

The other neat thing about week 12: baby tummy! Admittedly I had some Katie-tummy existing there already, but there is clearly baby growth going on down there now – my pants all fit up at my waist but not so much over my tummy comfortably. So I’m on the hunt for stretchy pants and skirts that can blend in enough at work to pass as business-casual.

Red Bean is the size of a LIME! And can apparently open and close it’s hands,  kick it’s legs and wiggle around in it’s watery den. I’m guessing it can also perform moderately difficult acrobatics, curl it’s tongue and graph simple equations. The Red Bean drawer is filling up with little socks, onesies, sleepers and blankets.  It’s hard to believe we’re almost through the first trimester. At some point I’m going to have to get the rest of the drawers emptied out, and make decisions on some of the “stuff’ taking up space that will be much needed for Red Bean’s crib.

I’m SO looking forward to hearing Red Bean’s heartbeat at the midwife visit next week.

In other “happy dances” news,  Zach got a new job. He’ll be starting next week, at a software development company, as their system administrator. It’s a promising new position with a great starting salary. All of which is great for our little family-to-be.

Hiccurps

That’s what I call the weird contracting burps I have all day long, from 10 minutes post-breakfast till sometime before bed. They’re apparently the normal reaction of my stomach to progesterone’s sedative effects. Everything’s just slowing down, to get the most nutrients from my food, and that gives me hiccurps.