Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Month Eleven - The Transition

WARNING - NUDE BABY AHEAD!!!



The last month has been a doozie. It seems like my little baby is quickly turning into a little girl and I don't know how to stop it! Life as we know it will never be the same.

Most importantly - Carmen says MAMA! I know there might come a day when her calling Mamamamamama at the top of her lungs might get nervewracking, but right now I can't get enough of it! Clapping is a lot of fun too!



We've been waiting for quite a while for Carmen to gain some purchase on the ground with her little legs and now she's finally done it. Carmen is crawling - EVERYWHERE. And it's like she's just discovered that the rooms in our house are connected together and she can travel from one to the other! She follows me from the nursery to the bedroom to the bathroom, collecting dust and dog hair along the way. Part of me wants to attach little clothes to her knees so she can be my little Swiffer and help out with the housework! She doesn't sit still for a minute and I have to watch her like a hawk. Thankfully she hasn't discovered Bella's food dish yet, but I know that is coming!



Along with this comes the reality of our sleep situation. I usually nurse Carmen before naps and bedtime in our big bed, then I leave her to fall asleep there. At nighttime Jason transfers her to her crib, but for naps I used to leave her there. Suddenly the afghan that used to keep her little body pinned no longer works and she is crawling around on the bed the minute I leave! So I just spent the last hour and a half trying to get Carmen to sleep in her crib for her afternoon nap. She kept getting up and crawling around, playing with the bars, singing and chatting away! She finally went to sleep - right at the time I would regularly get her up! ARG!




Two more bottom teeth have appeared, but they certainly don't rival the size of Carmen's giant front tooth - we call her Fangora! Seriously, we could use her mouth as a beer-bottle opener - BUT WE DON'T!!! Yet.

As for dinner table accomplishments, Carmen is able to grab a cup herself and drink out of it successfully 95% of the time! The other 5% of the time, she drinks out of the far side of the cup and pours the contents down her front. The learning curve is steep, I tell ya!

Over the past little while, I've been thinking about when is the right time to wean Carmen from breastfeeding during the day. So far, she's weaned herself down to 4 times a day - in the morning, before each nap and before bedtime. I think the morning and nighttime is fine, but continuing to breastfeed during the day is somewhat limiting. She was fine for my trip to Whistler, drinking pumped milk from a sippy cup or not at all for a few days... Aside from the obvious freedom, I wore a REAL BRA the other night for Date Night and thought about how good my girls looked! Maybe that sounds vain, but after having my body dedicated to a small being for nearly two years, it would feel great to feel more like a sexual being than a Free Range Organic Heifer!