Poopie the Pill Bug, A Mother's Betrayal

Millie has a new friend.  He is a pill bug who lives in our garden, and she named him Poopie. This is the story of how I murdered Poopie. I guess I'm writing this post because I need to clear my conscience. But, also I'm writing this story because I think Poopie the pill bug is hilarious and I hope you will too.

In remembrance, "Poopie" the Pill Bug

May 10th, 2017- May 26th, 2017

It all started several weeks ago, when Millie and I transplanted the seedlings we had lovingly started indoors during the cold, terrible Ohio winter outside into our vegetable garden. We had big plans for these seedlings.  With our help, they would grow into tall sunflowers, rich aromatic basil, and cherry tomatoes by the fistful for our summertime snacking. We had tiny burgundy kale seedlings, and personal sized sweet melons.  We planted them carefully in our richest soil, along the soaker hose so they would get maximum irrigation opportunities.

As we planted, Millie ran around the garden, holding a plastic trowel, and capturing various small crawly things that were too slow to elude her. She took a liking to several earthworms, but became especially enamored with the roly-poly bugs she found throughout our straw mulch. One of these unfortunate invertebrates she named Poopie, and carried him throughout the garden, telling him of all the plants we are growing.

"This is a baby Zinnia," she told him.  "It will grow into a beautiful pink flower that I can wear in my hair. Isn't that exciting, Poopie!?"
Poopie showed no enthusiasm.
"These are baby Dill plants, Poopie." Continued Millie, botanist and tour guide.
Poopie remained curled in a ball and unresponsive.
"Millie! It's time to put Poopie down!" I called, as we finished planting.
Millie placed Poopie lovingly down beside the Echinacea patch and said "Bye Poopie!  I love you-- see you tomorrow!"

For the next several days, Millie would immediately capture Poopie (or one of his brethren) as soon as we reached the garden. "Hi Poopie!! She would yell into her cupped hands. "It's me! Millie-- did you miss me?"

Poopie seemed to be thriving, but unfortunately, my seedlings were not.  The dill was the first to go. Then, the sunflowers, and even my heirloom cherry tomatoes.  I thought we had a rabbit getting into the garden. Then, one overcast and drizzly evening, Millie and I went down to the garden to check on our plants.

The first thing we noticed were the slugs.  They were everywhere. Disgustingly, Millie and I picked 17 of them off of a single young zucchini plant. It was during this surgical slug removal that I noticed the slugs were not working alone.  One of the seedlings was bent to the ground with no less than 15 pill bugs, devouring it.  Millie noticed it too.  "POOPIE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" She called out in alarm.

I didn't say anything to Millie at the time, but that's when I decided that POOPIE MUST DIE. We came back into the house and researched the best ways to lay siege on our newly stationed slug garrison. Secretly though, I was also reading about pill bugs.  It seems these innocent looking beasts mostly eat decomposing matter, but have been known to assassinate young garden seedlings as well.

Many readers recommended an organic solution called Sluggo Plus. This slug bait also kills pill bugs, by luring them into eating a certain type of delicious mineral, which then blocks up their stomachs and makes them die a slow, painful death beneath the soil.  I ordered it with zest, and applied it last Friday when Millie was at school.  I asked Sean if he thought I should wait for Millie to put the Sluggo on the garden, to which he replied "You're asking me if we should wait for our 4 year old daughter in order to handle and apply pesticides?"  I realized he was right. Besides, she's still too young-- I don't want her to have blood on her hands.

As I'm typing this, Millie is currently singing an epic song about Poopie the pill bug. She does not yet know that he is gone, but I still prefer to think of this song as a funeral dirge.  Here are the lyrics:

Poopie was a pill bug, 
He lived inside the dirt,
Poopie pooped on a slug,
And then ate him.

I think it's how he would have wanted to be remembered.  Rest in peace, sweet Poopie. May the gardens of your isopod heaven be filled with dill seedlings, and completely free of 4 year old girls.

How to train your toddler: Dragon themed cupcakes for Millie's Birthday Party.

Millie has a birthday coming up. Some of you may remember my strong cupcake game from last year, which unfortunately has backfired, since Millie is expecting an elaborate theme again this year. Luckily, this weekend during Millie's nap, I had an amazing brain wave.

I bring you: "TOOTHLESS THE DRAGON AND HIS ASSOCIATED SHEEP."

For those of you who have never seen "How to train your dragon," it's a movie that all toddlers love.  It's about a gangly teenage viking exploring his various career opportunities, and discovering that dragon training is his most marketable skill.  The viking community where he lives has a weird thing for sheep, which are used in their strange, airborne version of viking Quiddich, which provides much comic relief to the movie and its sequel.

"Toothless" is the name of the coolest dragon of all, and he looks like this:

The best thing about making these cupcakes it that anyone can do it.  I know some cute cupcake ideas require a certain level of expertise with frosting.  These do not.  The only thing you will need to do with frosting is to slather it vaguely in the direction of your cupcakes, and also squirt it from a ziplock bag directly into your mouth. Here is how you can get started:

Bake some cupcakes.
The first thing you should do, is bake some chocolate cupcakes.  You can make these from scratch, or go out and buy a box mix.  I don't care. In fact, if you choose to buy some mix from a box, I will swear to everyone that you made them from scratch, using sustainably harvested cocoa powder and agave nectar, because that's the kind of loyal, trustworthy internet friend I am.

Gather your materials.
While your cupcakes are baking and cooling, gather your materials for decorating.

You will need:
1. White frosting (you can make or buy this)
2. Food coloring (I use the "neon" colors, because the results are so bright!)
3.Oreos
4. Graham crackers
5. Mini-marshmallows
6. Chocolate chips (two sizes, normal, and "mini")
7. A few plastic sandwich or ziploc bags
8. (optional) A nail file to shape the cookies (buy a new one, don't use the one from your bathroom, nasties :)!)

Color the frosting:
Get three small ziploc or sandwich bags.

• In the first bag, put two small drops of plain green (neon) food dye into the bag on top of the frosting.  Squish the frosting inside the bag until the green is all mixed in (note: if you feel more comfortable, you can mix the dye in outside of the bag, I just do it this way because dishwashing is for suckers.) This color will be your light green.
• In a second bag, repeat this process, but put an extra drop of blue dye in with the green.  This will be your dark green. 
• In a third bag, scoop some plain white frosting. 
• In all three bags, snip the corner off of the ziplock bag.  You've now created your professional cake decorating tools!

To make Toothless:
Start with a plain chocolate cupcake.  I didn't put any icing on this, because the un-frosted cupcake looked "scalier" and it was also healthy (it's the agave nectar!) I pulled two halves of a normal oreo in half, scraped the frosting off the back with a nail file, and broke it in half to get started with the ears/horns.

Ok, so I know the nile file thing is weird.  Someone had just given us a new "nail tending kit" for christmas, and since I"m about as likely to tend to my cuticles as the viking king, Stoic the Vast, I decided to put these tools to good use. For me, it really helped shave the cookies into exactly the shapes I wanted them.

Once the cupcakes cooled off a bit, the top became a little crusty, and  it helped to cut slits int he top of the cupcake where the oreo bits would go. 

I ate a massive amount of oreos in the creation of these cupcakes.  I'm sure you will too, so take some of the shrapnel, and stick it in the top, to a make a ridge like the one Toothless has. 

Start with he dark green, and make vaguely oval eyes.  These do not have to perfectly smooth. 

Haha! Look at those eyes.  They look awful. 

Next, put in a layer of the light green over top of the dark green.  Make sure you leave a little of the dark green peeking out of the sides. 

See! I told you that you don't have to be a professional cake decorator! So far, this cupcake looks terrible. Now comes the best part.  Get two of the chocolate chips (the regular size, not the minis,) and  stick them on.

Voila! All of the sudden, your cupcake looks 100% less shitty than it did!  I found that making Toothless vaguely cross-eyed gave the most realistic/cutest effect.

To make the Sheep:

Slather white frosting all over a cupcake. At this point, you should probably also have some frosting for yourself.

Get a rectangular section of graham cracker.  Round out the edges with the nail file.

Break some pieces of graham cracker and carve out some little ears.  These can look bad-- don't sweat it. 

Stick 3 marshmallows on each side, and 2 along the top, leaving space for the terrible little ears you made. 

See, I told you the ears would look ok. 

Using the bag of white frosting, make two large dots for the eyes. 

And then add two smaller dots for the nostrils. 

Yep. It's pretty simple. 

For the finishing touch, add two mini chocolate chips for the eyes.  Then, take a celebratory swig of frosting, because that sheep looks GOOD. 

Are you feeling smug?  I think you should be, because when your toddler wakes up from her nap, she is going to FREAK OUT.

I hope you enjoyed making these cupcakes, which will trick everyone into thinking you are the Michael Phelps of cupcake making.  (Tip: do not let actual Michael Phelps near these cupcakes, he will eat them all.) I'm a pretty proud of them, but I'm also starting to get nervous about raising the bar for next year's birthday party. Luckily, that's a year away, and for now, I've got about three ziploc baggies of leftover frosting calling my name...

The key to toddler birthday parties? Food coloring.

 I recently threw a birthday party for our beloved two-year old, Millie.  Millie is now two, which means she is a BIG GIRL, and has therefore grown weary of her diapers (which are for babies),  and in no way contain images of Elmo.  It also means that she was old enough to know about *birthday parties,* and specifically that at birthday parties, she and all her friends would be allowed to eat cake.

I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure that a toddler's social status is directly correlated to the frosting intake at her birthday party, and certainly to the unnaturalness of her frosting colors. So, if a grown-up looks at a your child's birthday cake and thinks "there is no way this frosting color originated anywhere but in a beaker of toxic chemicals, " chances are you've just helped grow your child's social capital.

No taking any chances, I decided to make Millie these  birthday cupcakes:

I was going with the theme "googly eyes," which are-- in my daughter's estimation--- the finest representation of high art. These are probably more gelatin and food-dye than flour, but they looked majestic, and my daughter actually peed her pants when she saw them. 

If you are a parent wanting to recreate these, the components are simple. Just use oreos for the eyes, mini-chocolate chips for the nose, and chocolate cupcakes with dyed homemade buttercream frosting for the "frog body".  I used the neon colors of food dye to get that perfect "color that exists nowhere in nature" look. I mixed that in with the frosting and iced the cupcakes in a very inexpert fashion.

When Millie saw the cupcakes, I knew she felt like her party was something special. My only fear is that she'll be pooping food dye this week. This could present a problem, because she's really been enjoying the new, BIG GIRL, Elmo underwear we bought her for her birthday.

Millie's Birthday Time Capsule!

Today we celebrated Millie's first birthday.  That's right, Millie is ONE.  I was racking my brain trying to decide what AWESOME gift we could get her, when I realized that she won't remember it anyways.  So, if she ever asks you about it, please tell her that for her first birthday we got her a pony but it already died.

*The pony's name was Thunder, and it had a rainbow mane.
** No young lady! Of course you can't have another pony! Not after you let the first one die!

I know I'll always remember today-- the way we woke Millie up by singing "Happy Birthday" as she bounced in her crib, how it felt to watch her open her first birthday present, and the surgical precision in which she disemboweled her birthday cake----but I'm worried that Millie will forget all about this time of her life.  That's why, for her birthday I've decided to make her this time capsule, to remind her of all the most important things in her life at year one.

Dear Millie,

Happy birthday little one!  If you're reading this time capsule, you are probably already really mad at me, because you have found this blog.*
*Just kidding, you can't stay mad at me!I bought you a pony!
Anyways, here is a sample of a few of the most important things in your life at age one: 

#1: Kingsley Snuggle Bear

You may not remember him now, but he used to be pretty much the center of your universe. He went to bed with you every night, and protected you from all the dangers of the world, such as homemade peach baby food and non-xylophone based musical expression.  

#2: Cup

Did you know that you could say "cup" when you were 8 months old?  It's true. Say it with me now. "Cup." Feel good? There was a time in your life when you had no greater thrill than to say "cup" repeatedly.  Every morning when you would wake up, you would look at me urgently and yell "CUP!" to me until we walked into the living room and found your cup. 

3#: The Television Remote

Oh what wonders lie within this magical device? What secrets will you unlock? What treasures will you seek? With what courage and fortitude will you display SUBTITLES. Millie, there was a time in which you could operate a television remote with such alarming dexterity that all but the most sophisticated technophile was POWERLESS TO STOP YOU. 

*note to self- The next time Millie is bored, take her to best buy and let her wreak havoc on the AV salesmen. 
** other note to self- while I am there, ask them to show me how to make these subtitles stop displaying. 

# 4:Bedtime Songs

When you were young Millie, I would sing you to sleep every night. I would cradle you in my arms and sing "swing low" and "edelweiss" and "plastic Jesus" to you until you shut your tiny, exhausted eyes. Then, I would creep into the other room and write snarky blog posts and drink wine, because even mommies need a break sometimes. And by "break" I mean "drink." 

#5: ROAR ROAR

This is the title of a book that you used to really love.  "ROAR ROAR" was not much of a verbal masterpiece, but it did have some pretty sweet photos of tigers, bears, and a creepy little panda cub with a fury crotch. Every day you would beg for us to read ROAR ROAR, and then you would snatch the book out of our hands and throw it across the room shouting "ROAR ROAR!"  You are awesome.

*more fury than a normal Panda crotch I mean.
** let me explain. Here is the photo of the panda crotch I'm talking about. 

It will be 15 years until you read this Millie, and by then *fingers crossed* you'll have learned not to pet panda crotches, and you probably won't let me sing you to sleep anymore. We'll probably still be fighting over the remote, but at least you'll be able to retrieve your own cup.  

Little one, I want you to know that no matter how many birthdays you have, I'll always be here with you, delighting in the things you love, and loving them because they are important to you (except your boyfriends, I will hate those guys.) I also want to make sure that you never ever forget THUNDER, your awesome childhood pony.  There's no need to thank us Millie, that's just the kind of parents we are. Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

Little Goat, Happy Cow, and Co-Worker Kitty

Our daughter is a great consumer of literature. I say that literally, because she tries to physically INGEST the books we are reading to her.  One time, I was reading "Goodnight Moon" to Millie, and she insisted on licking each page before we could move on to the next one.  I figured, what the hell, at least she's participating. 

Millie's favorite book by far is  called "Hide and Seek on the Farm," but we just call it "Little Goat." It's the kind of book you expect to find in the bargain bin of the Big Lots in Johnson City, TN.*  Even though it is a story about the adventures of a little GOAT, the cover of the book is just a giant drawing of a COW. That's because babies prefer cows to all other two dimensional farm animals, (it's the contrast!) a fact which the publishers of "Little Goat" knew quite well. The character of Happy Cow appears on every page, and delivers what Millie considers a show stealing performance.

Happy Cow, oh how I loathe you.

*Our friend Emily works near the Johnson City Big Lots, and likes to impulse shop on her lunch break.

I am not exaggerating when I say that we read this book to Millie at least 20 times a day.  She is a mess without it, which is why, on a recent family road trip, I made sure to pack little goat and happy cow along in our bag.

After the first leg of our journey, we arrived at my sister's house in West Virginia at 1:00 am.  Surprising no one, Millie  awoke feeling refreshed and ready to play at 6:30 the following morning.  In order to prevent her from rousing the rest of the household, I took her downstairs and placated her by reading Little Goat continuously for several hours. Millie sat in my lap, pointing at/joyfully drooling on the pictures of Happy Cow.  It was on our 5th or 6th reading of the horrible book when Millie became distracted by something.  Nay, DELIGHTED by something.  I lowered the book, and saw what had gotten her attention.  We were face to face with my sister's curious, soft, and BLACK AND WHITE kitty.  Millie looked at me with pure ecstasy on her face as if to say "Mom, HAPPY COW IS REAL!"

Co-Worker Kitty, AKA "Baby Monster," helpfully sleeping on some documents.

Now, one thing you should know about this situation is that my sister works from home. Her cat considers herself Kelly's coworker, and diligently sleeps on, bites, or snuggles with any book, paper, or excel spreadsheet Kelly may be working on at the time. When she saw us reading a book, she knew it was her duty to get closer and see if she could nap on it.

The result was a perfect storm of cuteness.  Millie reached out and stroked the kitty's head.  The kitty accepted this snuggling serenely, knowing that anyone who was petting her would be wholly unable to file her expense reports. "Gah!" Millie said to the kitty. "Bow before me, pitiful human!", the kitty replied.  This adorable interaction continued for several minutes, until my coffee kicked in, and enough of my brain awoke to try and videotape it.  This of course put an abrupt end to their playfulness. Millie went back to reading eating her book, and Baby Monster went back to washing the spot where her testicles would have been, if she had testicles.

Fleeting though it was, this experience has taught me several valuable lessons about parenting:
1. God Help us when Millie discovers PANDA BEARS.
2. Get the video camera out before you start the pot of coffee.
3. "Coworker kitty" would make for a very interesting children's book.
4. "Coworker Kitty" would make for an even better internet meme.

Introducing Solids, "HYPNOTOAD," and the pit of the ALMIGHTY SARLACC

We gave Millie her first solid foods yesterday!  Actually, she's been eating solid food for months now if you count dog hair.*  So, I guess I should clarify that yesterday was the first time she tried solid foods apart from dog hair.

Anyways, she was pretty psyched about it, and graciously overlooked the fact that she had to eat rice cereal, while the rest of us had spicy thai bisque.

This momentous event has been a long time coming.  At about 3 and a half months old, Millie started showing an extreme interest in our food, specifically the portion of it that was contained in Sean's coffee mug.  The effect this coffee mug had on our baby can only be compared to the effects of the character, "hypno-toad" from the TV show Futurama. Next, she began gnawing on Sean's coffee mug, and--to a lesser degree---all other coffee mugs.  Now she is in full-blown consumption mode, leaving no vessel of liquid unassailed, and snatching at our forks as we transfer food from our plates to our mouths.  It has been many weeks since Sean's coffee mug was safe at all.  

Much like THE ALMIGHTY SARLACC,  the pit-dwelling monster featured in Star Wars, Return of the Jedi,  our baby features a lightning fast, almost octopine reflex which enables her to reach out and grab any unwitting food that comes across her path.   The ALMIGHTY SARLACC used this technique in Return of the Jedi to  to capture Boba Fett and slowly digest him over a period of 1,000 years.  Similarly, Millie used this technique to capture our plate of Asian Pot-Stitckers two nights ago, before being thwarted by her sleep deprived yet street-wise parents. 

Hypnotoad

Nesting place of the Almighty Sarlacc

In the end, she consumed her rice cereal with every indication of enjoyment, despite the fact that we did not serve it to her out of Sean's coffee mug.   

At least so far, the introduction of solid foods hasn't disrupted our lives too much. Of course we've been warned that this introduction will result in the nastification of her baby poop, but we're not worried about that.  She's already been processing the dog hair without any significant fecal shift.  It's a mystery where this dog hair goes after she's eaten it---we've never seen any in her poop---but if I had to venture a guess, I would assume that it's still in her belly, being slowly digested over 1,000 years. 

* No matter how many times we lint-roll her activity mat, the ubiquitous dog hair prevails!

Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

As a mom, I doubt I'll ever be one of those women who makes it look easy.  You know, the moms who bring the orange slices and capri suns to every soccer game, who know how to get the grass stains out of blue jeans, and who almost never say the F-word in front of their kid's Sunday School classes? Yes, I'm sure Millie has lots of embarrassing mom-moments in her future, but, there is ONE day of the year where she can feel smug and superior that I am her mother: Halloween.

I know it's only June, and that's a little to early to be thinking about Halloween costumes.  However, I am someone who like to play to my strengths-- and so I've decided that a smart parenting style for myself will be to become one of those parents who lets my child wear costumes and super hero garb YEAR ROUND. This will increase my value to Amelia, and also provide us with the maximum amount of hilarious photos for us to embarrass her with once she starts getting boyfriends.

With this in mind, I've created the first of many, many costumes for her to play dress up go to the grocery store in. Inspired by Max from Where the Wild things Are, this hat/mitten combo makes the statement: I AM AMELIA, QUEEN OF THE WILD THINGS, but is still subtle enough for everyday wear.

Here is the pattern and a photo tutorial of how I did it, in case you want to knit one for your little monster: Max Hat and Wolf Mittens.

So--other moms-- you can keep your orange slices, stain removers, and profanity-free sunday school lessons-- I don't need them!  My daughter will be the one in the corner with the cape on-- and she'll be looking so awesome that no one will hear me anyways.

Millie goes to Amish Country

Yesterday we took Millie on a tour of Amish Country.  Actually, we were just driving through Amish country, but we had to stop several times to accommodate her scream/sleep cycle, so we chose to think of it as a country tour.  

I grew up in North Carolina, and was therefore never exposed to Amish people until we moved to Ohio.  I am fascinated by their communities, culture, and agricultural practices, but mostly by their pretty, pretty horses. Like all women, I love horses.  Don't ask me why-- I think it has something to do with X-chromosomes and Barr bodies---but I look at a green, rolling pasture filled with horses with an aesthetic appreciation that is only found in men who are currently watching movies of Megan Fox.   

The first pasture we passed was filled with horses.  One of them was running.  SO PRETTY.  No view could be more pastoral.  Except the next pasture, which was filled with BABY HORSES, who were learning to run. I almost snorted coke zero out of my nose it was so awesome.  Sean was laughing pretty hard at me.  But, when the next pasture came into view, even Sean had to catch his breath-- because-- although it didn't contain Megan Fox-- it did contain BABY MINIATURE HORSES, which are the only thing cuter than baby normal-sized-horses when they learn to run.  The crushing burden of this cuteness was felt throughout the car. Sean just gaped at it open mouthed.  I reacted defensively, shouting "That's it! We are moving to Amish Country." From the backseat, Millie seemed unfazed, possibly because, as a being of brain-melting cuteness herself, she has developed some biological protections from such an onslaught. 

As we continued our drive, I made some more observations, mostly regarding Amish people. 

1. Amish people love sunglasses.

2. Amish people have cool beards.

3. Amish people wear suspenders.

Once you factor in the ZZ-Top style beards, sunglasses, and suspenders there is very little difference between the appearance of these Amish farmers and many hipster musicians I have met, which is why I think somebody should make a website called "Amish Farmer, or Band Member." Visitors to this site will have to guess if they're looking at a photo of an Amish-born apple farmer, or the banjo player for a touring Americana band. It will be awesome.

Naturally, the sight of such beautiful farm country, friendly people, and majestic facial hair got me thinking about whether we ourselves should become Amish. I had reason to believe we would be welcomed, because every buggy-driving Amish family I waved to while driving, waved back at me.  On one hand, their world seemed irresistibly idyllic-- especially from the comfort of our air-conditioned car. But, on the other hand, I doubt they would let us have a cd player to play Millie's xylophone music, and I still haven't gotten to watch Downton Abbey.  It was a tough choice. 

Here's how I broke down the Advantages and Disadvantages:

In the end, we decided not to become Amish, but to show our support for their lifestyle by purchasing artisan cheeses.  I have the feeling that many more trips of Horse-oogling lay in our future. But in the meantime, I'm trying to convince Sean to let me get a baby miniature horse for the backyard.  As a compromise to our combined aesthetic sensibilities, I've promised to let him name it Megan Fox. 

Panther Mommy and the Nightingale Floors

In Japan's Kyoto prefecture, there is a castle that is famous for its Nightingale Floors.  Apparently, in order to guard themselves from ninja attacks in their sleep, the ancient Shoguns that lived there rigged the castle floorboards so that they chirp like birds whenever people walk across them. I can't prove it, but I think this is what Millie has done with the floor of her bedroom.

We live in a house with mostly hardwood floors, but compared to many houses, they are quiet, non-creaky floors.  For instance, it is quite easy for an extremely pregnant woman to sneak from the bedroom to the kitchen and eat ice cream in the middle of the night without waking up her husband.  (At least that's what the previous owner told me.) That's not the case in Millie's room though.  We seem to have placed the nursery on the squeakiest floors in the house.

Luckily, since I have become a mother, I can now walk as quietly and stealthily as a panther.  Seriously.  Not only can I walk like a panther, but I can also see in the dark EXACTLY like a panther, proving once again that mothers are capable of super-human feats when their babies are in danger---(of waking up from their naps.)

Now, every night in her room, there is a showdown between Millie's floorboard ninja defenses, and my  big-cat mother creep. Heres how it starts-- I'm rocking Millie, and she drifts off to sleep.  I need to transfer her to her cradle without waking her.  I pick her up, and try to hold her in the same position she was sleeping in.  I tiptoe across the room with her, pirouetting over the dog, and placing her deftly in her crib. Then I pad my way out of her room as quietly as if I were freaking Legolas from Lord of the Rings.  She doesn't wake up. I'm awesome.

Round one goes to Panther Mommy.

About 5 minutes later, I am watching on our baby espionage system video baby monitor, and her eyes shoot open.  She has realized she is alone in her bedroom, and she is PISSED. She begins grunting.  In nature, grunting can be an intimidation tactic, and Millie knows this because unfortunately, I have been reading national geographic magazines to her. Dammit Katie!  Her next step is to make herself appear larger than she actually is by spreading out her arms and legs.  Millie tries this, only to discover that she is swaddled.  WHAT! Some evil, foul, much despised mother has swaddled her, and now she can't use her intimidation tactics.  Then Millie starts to waaaaaaaiiilllllll......

In comes Mommy, army-crawling towards the cradle on my hands and knees, because I don't want Millie to know I'm there. I pull the wooden pin underneath her cradle it to make it rock-- because this worked one time, and now I try it every single time, like an idiot. Millie interprets this rocking to mean I AM UNDER ATTACK, and screams louder. Still keeping out of sight, I snake my hand up to the top of her cradle and place the pacifier in her mouth. She grunts in disgust, and torpedoes the pacifier out of her mouth.  We both watch as it flies through the bars of her cradle, across the room, and into a pile of dog hair.  The floorboard creaks. I KNOW YOU'RE THERE MOMMY. I cave, and pick her up.

Round two goes to Millie. 

We start the bedtime ritual over, rocking, and singing, and having a nervous breakdown.  I have most of her cardboard Dr. Seuss books memorized by now, so I don't bother turning on the light, I just sit in the dark and recite them to her. It takes Millie a while to forgive me for abandoning her. "DID YOU THINK I WOULDN'T FIND OUT? " She asks accusingly with her tiny baby eyes. But, after a few minutes, she interprets all of the rocking as evidence of my contrition, and she lets her ninja defenses down again. She sleeps.   I am amazing.  I'm like some sort of Jedi, magician, snake charming witch-mother. I  creep to my bedroom, silent in my victory.

Round 3 goes to Panther Mommy!

I may have won this particular battle, but behind the bars of her cradle, I can tell that Millie is regrouping.  I watch her on the baby monitor, as she re-gathers her ninja defenses, and know that in a few hours, we'll start all over again...

Millie's First Laugh

Saturday I was standing out in the cul-de-sac, as I often am in the early evenings, in an attempt to walk, bounce, and stroll Millie into the dreaded 7:00 hour.  Our neighbors Shelly and Kris were passing by, and they stopped for a minute to laugh at our misfortunes say hello to the baby. Then, the most amazing thing happened.  Millie started laughing. Not just laughing, but cracking up.  Shelly was making faces at her, and this baby was laughing her ass off.

If I live to be 105 years old, I'll never forget that feeling-- hearing the sound of my daughter's laugh for the first time is one of the coolest experiences I've had as a new mom. I guess it's moments like this that make up for the horrific morning diaper changes, the untold gallons of baby vomit, and the loathsome xylophone music.  I called to Sean, and he joined us in time to hear her--- adding to the perfection of the moment, and in Millie's opinion, to its' hilarity.

The four adults just stood there-in awe of the laughing baby.  Needless to say, we were all crying, and by "all of us" I mean, "just Kris," who wept like a sissy. Millie laughed so hard she peed herself. (Or, at least we think she did-- that may have just been a coincidence.)

Like so many things with Millie, once she learns how to do something, she then wants to do it all the time.  Saturday night Millie laughed the whole night, just to prove to us she could. She laughed at the TV, she laughed at the dog.  She laughed during breastfeeding, which made me feel self conscious about my boobs.  That night, as Sean read her bedtime books to her, Millie laughed at him as if to say, "that's hilarious Daddy, hilarious that you think I'm going to bed."

Millie's White Tree Mural

We wanted to paint a mural in the baby's room.  Actually, I wanted to paint a mural and Sean humored/enabled me. I was envisioning something simple and relatively monochromatic, and I thought white birch trees on a gray background wouldn't show baby vomit would look nice. The trick was, getting the design right, and choosing the right color gray.

This was one of those projects that we finished, and then we went "Oh Dammit! We should have taken pictures before we started."  Alas. We won't have any sweet "before and after" pictures, but I can still describe the room we started with. It was just a normal room.  The walls were white, and it was in ok shape, although scratched and banged up in a few places.  The floor was a disaster and still is, because we figured there is no reason to refinish any floor on which finger painting may occur in the next 5 years.

After extensively gathering, comparing, and obsessing about color swatches on my end, and extensively feigning interest while actually watching college football on Sean's end, we settled on a great color: Dolphin Fin, by BEHR.  I can't say enough good things about this color gray. First of all-- it has the word "dolphin" in the name, and I think we can all agree that dolphins are adorable. Secondly, it comes in a low VOC option, which was important to me, as I did not want our baby to grow any weird extra appendages. Thirdly, it's a nice true gray-- not too purple or too blue, but just right. 

The white color we used was matched from a color that the previous home-owners had used on the floor-boards and window trim (because we are lazy and didn't want to repaint those things. ) It is a great looking white---not exactly off-white, but definitely rich and creamy, and it provided the perfect amount of contrast with the gray--- enough to "pop," but not so much that the design overpowers the room. 

We masked, taped, and then painted the ceiling and walls. We used two coats of the dolphin fin on the walls (we chose the semi gloss option so it would be easier to clean and wipe when she inevitably draws on it with crayons--or worse!) Then, we waited and let everything dry.

Now comes the fun part--the mural. I had done a lot of google image searches for "white tree mural" as I was brainstorming this project.  If you are planning on painting a mural soon, I'd recommend doing some googling for inspiration. Although I didn't find any examples of the mural I had in mind, I found a few that were close.  I discovered that adding a few birds flying through the trees gives the design an ornate touch.  I also learned that, while my initial insticts were to go with a much darker color gray, I actually found those designs to be overpowering, especially for a baby's room.

When the walls were dry, I took a piece of chalk and started to sketch out my design. If you don't trust your artistic abilities, you could always use a projector and trace an image you like onto the wall. Not to brag or anything, but I've been drawing some pretty kick-ass trees since the 5th grade, so I felt confident in my ability to do it free-handed. Once I was happy with my sketch, I took a small paintbrush, and filled in my chalk outlines with white paint.   BLAMO!  End of Mural.  All told it took about 3 hours from start to finish to draw and paint the mural.

Now Millie has a bedroom full of white trees. She loves to stare at them, drooling and making high pitched baby noises which I interpret to mean, "Mommy, I love my mural, thank you!" but, which probably actually means, " Mommy, one day I will smear my own poop on these walls!"

Here is the mural "in progress," by which I mean that I haven't removed the masking tape from the trim yet.

Here is the mural being inspected by our resident art critic, Cricket. 

Grandpa Jay's Window Seat

We have a new item on furniture in our house that I need to brag blog about. This beautiful custom window seat was made for Millie by her Grandpa Jay, who (as you can see) is a very fine woodworker.

Before the baby was born, Jay asked Sean and I what he could build for the baby.  We told him the baby really needed a custom bar top for her home-brew equipment.  He didn't go for it, so we had him build this window seat for the baby's room instead.

What I love about this seat is the built in storage underneath.  Babies come standard with between 200-400 brightly colored baby toys. Millie is too young for most of them, but one day, I can see how she will really enjoy shoving them into her mouth.   In the meantime, I need a way to hide them from the public, since her room is already generally a tornado zone of dirty diapers, puke covered onesies, and cardboard Dr. Suess books. The built in storage is really going to help with that.

Now take a look at the top of the seat. What does that look like to you? That's right, Assholes. It's a single slab of sustainably harvested walnut with live edging! It's what rich people make dining room tables out of, and we are so decadent we just sit around on ours! If a rich person came to our house and saw it they may say, "oh, what a beautiful piece of walnut, are you going to make a dining room table out of that?" And we'll say, "no, we're just going to sit around on our asses on it, but we may change a diaper on it later." BAM. BLAM. BLAMMO. Gosh it's fun living in high society.

So thanks Grandpa Jay, for the beautiful new window seat.  We'll make sure Millie doesn't use it as a dining room table, because, after all, that's where people's asses have been.

8 Ways to Cope With a Colicky Baby

Does your baby scream every evening from 7:00-10:00 pm?  I know ours does! If you are a member of the colicky baby club, here are some coping strategies you can try!

1. That Thing That Worked Yesterday- The first thing you should try when your colicky baby is screaming is That Thing That Worked Yesterday. You know, that thing you did, which made your baby instantly calm down, and made you think, "Oh, I wish I had done this from the beginning! Next time I'll know exactly what to do! " New parents--this is important--That Thing That Worked Yesterday will never work again, ever. But, you should still try it out, because it's essential that any hope you still have is extinguished as soon as possible.  This is your life now.

2. Pacifiers- Just kidding. The pacifier will only make your baby scream more. The truth is, pacifiers don't even soothe non-colicky babies. They are given out at baby showers as practical jokes to unsuspecting new parents.  If you received more than 5 pacifiers at your baby shower, then your friends are assholes.

3. Xylophone Music-  When you were pregnant, you probably had all sorts of visions about cultivating your young charge's musical tastes by exposing her to your favorite indie bands and shielding her fragile young mind from the corrupting influence of clear-channel radio. It seemed to be working too.  As a newborn she appeared to tolerate the alt-country mix you made for her, and she drooled in an encouraging way when her Daddy busted out "Whiskey 'Fore Breakfast" on his mandolin. But then, one of your evil relatives gave her an album of simple baby songs performed by an all xylophone ensemble, and it could not be plainer that she vastly prefers this to Steve Earle's "Telephone Road." Sure, you try to expose her to the good stuff too, but the instant she starts screaming, you know you'll cave, and listen to all-xylophone "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" from 7 to 10 pm.

4. Drinking- The sooner you embrace drinking as a tool for coping with your colicky infant, the better. Now some of you mothers out there may say in an aghast tone "But I am breastfeeding! I can't feed that to my baby!!" To you I say, where are your priorities? For me, it's a choice between having a glass of wine in the evening, or listing my baby in the craigslist classifieds, and I for one am committed to shielding my baby from an uncertain future with her new craigslist family, as I can in no way guarantee that they own any CDs of xylophone music.

5. Babysitters- When you have a young infant, people may often say to you "cherish these moments, you'll miss them when they're gone. "  If your young infant has colic, you may want to punch these people in the face.  Instead, smile in an affirming way, and invite them to your house to share in your fleeting golden moments with your infant. Tell them "Anytime between 7 and 10 pm is best for our schedule." Then, when they arrive, ask them to hold the baby while you go to the bathroom, and disappear for the next 2 and 1/2 hours.

6. Giving Up Dairy- Is your colicky baby breastfeeding? If so, she could have a dairy allergy. Many parents swear that eliminating dairy from the Mother's diet helps their baby's digestive system, and therefore reduces crying. There is significant scientific research that shows that these parents hate you and want to take away your happiness.  Isn't your crying baby hard enough?  No.  They want to take away your chocolate ice cream too.

7. Off-roading- Our colicky baby hates her stroller--that is, unless we are driving it on a road so bumpy they could host BMX races on it.  I don't know why, but the bumpier the road, the sleepier the baby. If they made baby attachments for ATV's I would definitely buy one.  I would drive my baby ATV on the shittiest, most washed out gravel road I could find, blaring Xylophone "Hickory Dickory Dock" until 10 o'clock every single night, or at least until I was too drunk to safely operate an ATV.

8. Despairing-  Parents, if you haven't tried despairing yet, you really should give it a shot.  You can still read lots of baby-care books and articles, but this time, do it in a snarky way.  "Oh sure, just set the baby down once she stops screaming" you can read aloud to your partner, (the two of you laugh grimly), "I'd like to see her try that on our baby." Despairing won't make your baby stop crying, but at least you and your partner will share a mutually horrific experience, and this trauma may bring you closer together.  If this doest work, you can also try Turning on Each Other.

I hope these coping strategies work for you and your colicky infant. None of them have worked for us, but, to be fair, we are unusually reckless and irresponsible parents.