Tales of the Totapotamus

My kid has this fascination with people in restaurants sweeping the floor ('cause you know she doesn't see that at home!). Today we were eating at Cane's and she was hanging the high chair at the end of the booth when I leaned over and said, "Hey Kaycie, I hate to tell you but there's a woman right behind you sweeping the floor!" Now I'm not suggesting anything here, but as soon as I said it she whipped her entire body around and stared in amazement at the woman sweeping the floor until we left.

Yes, I know I didn't post a six month update. I didn't think about it until this past week. I'll probably just wait and do a 6-7 combo, because that girl has been super busy learning new things over the past couple of months!

More Classic Conversations

How you know you're in a neighborhood that's way out of your league:

Me: "There's a reasonable sized house."
Greg: "Ummmm."
Me: "No, wait, that's the garage..."

Classic Conversations

Me: Is there any lemonade left in my cup over there?

Greg: (picking up two cups) Is yours the green one? It has lemonade.

Me: I dunno. Does it have anything growing in it?

Greg: No, but the purple one does.

Me: I'll go with the green one.

5 Months

Kaycie turned 5 months old over the weekend. Yes, I'm a bit late posting an update, but we were out of town over the weekend and I've been sleeping in 2 hour segments every night since we got home, so functioning on a high level hasn't been a priority. No doc visit this month, but the last time we put her on the scale she was nearly 17 1/2 pounds and is now wearing some of her 9 month clothes. Geezum peetes.

As you may have guessed, Kaycie has quit sleeping. She's going to bed around 7, waking up at 8 (and sometimes again at 9) then sleeping in 3 hour spurts, at most, with at least one hour and half spurt at some point during the night. My child is slowly killing her momma. Yes I've tried crying it out. No, it doesn't work. I have read many times that the 4-6 month stretch simply sucks when it comes to sleep and the most effective thing to do is wait it out and remember that it won't last forever. One point made was that no kid every has to take her momma to college to rock her back to sleep at 2:30 in the morning. There have been nights of late when I fear Kaycie may be the first...

Her eating is also all screwed up. Most of the time when she wakes up at night she's starving and will take a full bottle. During the day she isn't hungry much and just grazes. She'll eat a couple of ounces, wait half an hour, eat another ounce, wait a while, and then be hungry again right at naptime and take half a bottle. This is not a good schedule. Nothing I've tried will get her back on track. I mention this mostly on the off chance somebody out there has a piece of magical advice to solve the feeding/sleeping conundrum so that I can actually sleep again before I'm a member of AARP. And for the record, if you do have a solution, based on everything I've read, I'm pretty sure you could be a millionaire quickly.*

But on to the fun parts. We've started eating solid food! Carrots are the current favorite, but she's also eating acorn squash, peas, bananas, and avocado. She isn't entirely sure about the avocado, but if I mix with the squash it's the most awesome thing ever. I dunno why. Next up on the list is sweet potatoes, green beans, and butternut squash. I'm hoping to get her introduced to enough new foods before we leave for vacation that I can take a variety and not have to try something new while we're at the beach.

Oh please let her start sleeping before we leave for the beach!

Being her daddy's child, she's become obsessed with electronic gadgets. My cell phone is a favorite, along with TV remotes and my laptop. Of course, she shares my DNA as well and therefore can entertain herself with a plastic cup. At least she's well rounded.

The problem with stranger anxiety has eased up a little. The only people she has serious issues with now are her two grandfathers. This is a problem people. She absolutely loves BFF Lauren and Uncle Bill. And she's fascinated by Casper. She'll talk to him, watch him closely as he moves around the house, and has starting trying to pet him. Oh boy.

She can sit up on her own for short stretches of time. Not well enough for me to leave her while she's doing it, but she doesn't need me for support. I mostly catch her when she topples over reaching for things. She's also started rolling from side to side all the time, and occasionally rolls herself onto her tummy by accident. I say by accident because being on her tummy is the worst thing ever and will bring on a traumatized fit. If tummy time is required for crawling, I think she'll be happy to just skip to walking. She also has moved into the stage where she gets traumatized if we leave the room. That brings a whole new challenge to trying to do laundry or cook on the grill.

And did I mention we're getting a tooth up front? She's been biting the daylights out of me with it since last Friday!

I'm sure there are a dozen things I'm missing, but I'm too tired to worry about it. Here's hoping next month brings more sleep.

*While desperately researching the sleep issue I found this website which I love. Very practical information like, "the 3-6 month stage absolutely SUCKS when it comes it sleeping..."

Sprouts

I finally got to plant my box garden this year. My dad made me a box last fall, which I planned to plant in March. Unfortunately, I spent all of March, April, and part of June trying really hard to keep my head out of the toilet. To put it mildly, the first trimester of pregnancy is not the ideal time to start a garden!

This year I was afraid I wouldn't make it again. I didn't want to keep Kaycie outside for long stretches and, well, I pretty much spend all my time with her! But thankfully my mom came to visit last week while Greg was out of town and between the two of us we got the dirt and the seeds and got everything planted. The amazing thing is that I had the first signs of spouts less than a week later!

And I mean I have some serious sprouts. Yesterday morning I went out and I found this:

Then yesterday afternoon that same sprout looked like this:

And I'm not talking one sprout, I have sprouts all over my box! These are green beans, but I also have zucchini, butternut squash, acorn squash, buttercup squash, spinach, carrots, green peas, and an eggplant. Every single one of them have sproutage! I'm stoked. For the record, no, this garden isn't much for Greg and I. Greg won't touch hardly any of that (maybe the green beans, maybe). It's mostly for Kaycie. We go out twice every day to look at her sprouts. I can't wait to feed her fresh veggies from her own garden!