Choco Kisses

Pippa has some tummy troubles, and what can you expect given her parents? Between Skip's lactose issues and my gluten sensitivity she hardly has a chance to be a normal string cheese and PBJ kid. When we traveled from Illinois to Lamar and then on to Denver her tummy said yes to many new foods and snacks. Her tummy so loved those foods it decided to keep them inside her for many, many days. The strange part about this extended episode is Pippa was not bothered by it. She was happy and smiling and minimally fussy considering the trains and cars, new beds, strange loved ones, and constipation. Skip and I on the other hand were a nervous wreck.

So when Aunt Nicole propositioned me with some delicious dark chocolate my inner dialogue went something like this:

I love Nicole. She gets me. I wonder how I can convince her to come live in Peoria. Dark chocolate. Yum....rumble! rumble!...and dark chocolate will solve the Pippa crisis! She'll get some through my breast milk. Clearly I'll need to eat extra. And I'll give her just a small taste for good measure.

Then I did exactly that, without telling Skip (who would roll his eyes at my justification and hide the chocolate from me). Pippa loved it. Really loved it. Loved in a way that the mere smell of chocolate on my breath excites her into a fury of bum scooching, head turning, climbing up my chest. Once she caught my attention she grabbed my cheeks with both hands and dove her head at me, solidly planting her open mouth and expectant tongue on my chocolaty lips.

It will be fair to blame me for her addiction. And sure enough the next morning her tummy released its pent up contents. We'll have to keep some chocolate around until her GI system is fully developed ;). Clearly we have no choice.

Pippa Monster's Christmas

There are posts to be written about baby's first Christmas, cousin love, addiction to chocolate (it's hereditary) and other such milestones. However, to write those I need to have a babysitter, in the guise of Skip Knowles, entertaining ten little fingers and one rather large head. Pippa is mobile and because she has spent many hours on Skype, she believes that mom's time on the computer is meant solely for Pippa to laugh and smile while poking at someone's nose on the computer screen. To satisfy general rules of time, I will just post some photos from our time in Colorado with a late Merry Christmas!

Dirty Thirty

You know why they call it dirty thirty? It sneaks up on you. There you are mastering your 20s, feeling satisfied with what you don't know and fully capable of making mistakes, and wham! 30 kicks you to the curb and tells you to grow up.

I fought back. I wore hot pink pants all day long, was tardy for my test, ate veggies sticks (aka potato chips) like a teenager (aka as real veggies) and licked my lips until they were chapped because I refused to come in from the cold like the little kid I once was. Pippa helped by bringing back the 80s with her adorable legwarmers.

Yes, I spent 12-12-12 reclaiming my youth. And then, after making a birthday cake at 10:30 pm, I scrubbed my sink with lemon rinds (you can't waste an opportunity like that) and gathered my yarn to crochet. Conflicting. I rebelled against my inner grandma all day and when the party should've started my true colors bled through, in a lovely shade of old gray. Dirty thirty. It aged me right into retirement.

In and Out

Drum roll.......

Nine months inside the belly.

 Nine months outside the belly.

I can only imagine what nine additional months will bring.

Holiday Bingo

Well hello finals. As usual you have landed on my birthday. In retaliation I chose to create a holiday game when I should have been studying (besides the test on my birthday, I have one tomorrow morning). I do believe higher education has paid off. Now that I'm officially certified I can write a list of behavior terms paired with Christmas words resulting in a humorous read. If only I had thrown a few of these in my research paper.

Word Nerd

Pippa loves words. Words on paper. Words on tags. Words on bags. Words on cups. Words that rhyme. To be completely honest I'm a little surprised she has only said a couple of words. Mommy is not one of them. She babbles dada and said bye to Grandma once, but her true first word was book.

She has a few board books and soft books that we read all day long. Then when mom can't stand to say "Goodnight noises everywhere" one more time, I let Pippa play alone, with her words. This both excites and frustrates. She loves turning pages and touches the text, but some of those books are awkwardly large for her small little hands. The books get flipped and stuck with the pages plastered to the floor. And then begins the tantrum. Because this also leads to Pippa lying on her stomach and pushing herself backwards away from her books.

On Halloween I decided to interrupt the cycle and pulled her into my lap instead. Then I asked if she wanted her book. She smiled and repeated "book." Twice that happened. Now, a week later I returned to the living room to find her sprawled on the floor reading a magazine and talking about it with her new friend, the baby boy on the cover.

Halloweeny

Two writers sitting on the couch, lamenting on the task of documenting Baby's First Halloween. When Pippa reads this in 16 years she may try for emancipation. Especially when she learns that I ate her special cupcake. Or that I failed to find a pumpkin large enough to carve and we "borrowed" the neighbors for a photograph.


The decorations were purchased a mere 6 days before the 31st and my spooky music was a bust. To top the failure, Pippa fell asleep at 6:45 pm, the excitement of seeing too many goblins an ghosts (actually we got a lot of pirates). When she woke up an hour later we did a quick costume change and tried to teach the concept of handing out candy. She's great at grabbing toostie rolls from the bowl, not so good at giving them to others.