New skills

Mabel has some new skills. First off, and most comical, she can shiz up her front. Yup. This morning, after a feeding and a session of the poor thing's typical shiz grunts (fists clenched, frown, kicked up legs), I observed that she pooped up her front toward her belly. I don't really understand the mechanics of this. She has pooped up her back before, which was disastrous for the bouncer seat where it happened. But up the front? Still a mystery to me. A much cuter new skill is Mabel's ability to play on her Tiny Love Mat. She kicks and "dances" and loves to look at the animals. I'm a little worried we have a narcissist on our hands though, as her fave feature of the mat is the mirror where she can just tilt her head and see her own image. This little gal loves to stare at her own mug. I'm loving this playmat, though, because I can plop her down and it is totally safe, and then I can go clean the kitchen or put in laundry or write a blog entry. I'm so boring. Wonh- wonhhhhh. (autocorrect wanted to make that Wong- Wong.)

Jekyll and Hyde

It's interesting that so early on in life Mabel has mastered the art of the alter- ego. She can be an angel and then, ever so quickly, morph into a demon. J and I wanted to see how she'd do in a restaurant; we decided to start small by going to a noisy Chili's in case she were to melt down. We gave Mabel a B overall; she didn't sleep through the meal, as we had hoped, but with some coddling and attention, she was pretty quiet. We did have to package up half of our entrees to- go, but we were happy with Restaurant Experience Número Uno, and next time we will tank her up on a full bottle RIGHT before leaving the house. We got home and she took a nice nap from about 9 to midnight. This particular nap time tends to worry me though, because then she can be kind of a monster in the wee hours. Much to my pleasant surprise, she was good all night! This lady slept, albeit off and on but still, until 7ish. So that was Mabel being angelic. Alas, as Murphy's Law indicates, things that may then go wrong often do, and she's been quite the hellion since then. She puked all over her mom, and then went into that insatiable mode. She was warm, full, and coddled, yet decided she needed to compete with the jungle cats of the world with her intense cries. It's lucky she's so cute; I only had one freak- out moment, during which J calmed me down (I am the woman who tenses up when I hear babies crying in Target- do the right thing, people- get that child ouuuuttta here). She's in her swing now making her precious chirpy noises that I love-- apparently has reverted to angel mode. Auntie C is coming up to meet her today-- we hope Mabel only shows her angel side for the occasion!

Here goes

For a living, I am an English teacher. Thus, naturally, I enjoy revising and editing, and perfecting my writing. One challenge here is going to be NOT revising and editing this blog like mad. I will fix major errors but I'm gonna try to really just let the thoughts flow. So two goals: actually keep up with this whole blogging thing, and don't get all grammar- nazi. Even if I am the only one who ever reads this thing, it'll be fun to look back on entries and write some more, but the fun will be sullied if I'm constantly fixing it up, so to speak. Anyway, onto Mabel and this whole mothering thing. Mabel is very cute. Actually, J and I are not sure if she's cute to the outside world or just to us, which broaches another topic: do parents of ugly babies think their babies are cute? We could have a spawn of Shrek here and still think she's cute, right? Well, we do think she's dang cute. She's got this precious little apple face, and big blue eyes and dimples ( the English teacher in me wants to fix that unclear modifier, as you could be reading the sentence as if Mabel has blue dimples). She is quite lovely when she is calm. She has become more and more alert over the 23 days she's been here, and she looks around the room now with a sweet little curiosity. Mabel also loves to sit on that Boppy thing, which is for breastfeeding,I think, but we have made it her seat. It's cute to see her positioned in this little donut of a doo- dad. But Mabel has screaming lungs too, and omg, can she exercise them. Some people have told me she may be in a 3- week growth spurt, which would explain the insatiable hunger and fussiness. I don't really care what the reason is; I'd like her to kindly stop. I find myself talking to her quite rationally, as if she can understand such requests. "Mabel, I am trying to help you. Might you please stop that shrieking??" Yes, she shrieks. It's this very dramatic girlish shriek, like, ugh, I hate the world! She also has a counterpart to that terrible shriek, and that's her cute bird chirp noise. I think if she didn't do the chirp to counter the horrificness of the shriek, I'd have lost my marbles by now. There have been times over the last 36 hours when she is clean, warm, and full and he still shrieks to the high heavens. It reminds me of that Will Arnett show, "Up All Night," in which they have a newborn and on a particularly gruesome freak-out occasion, they tell the baby, "We are on your team!" At the hospital, the doctor was saying how interesting it is that other mammals pop out babies that are ready to walk and function alone, and humans pop out babies that are relatively underdeveloped and need so much more tlc (autocorrect wanted to make that talc-- what the f is talc? Talcum powder??). I wonder what it would be like to carry babies in utero for two years so they could emerge independent. Oh wait, I am the same person who bitched about how long 9 months was...

Starting this shiz up

I've always wanted to have a blog. The problem is I tend to be Procrastinator Extraordinaire, and blogging has been a task that has hung on a long, dusty to- do list for over a year now. I guess I've never thought I've had anything really interesting to say to the world, but now that I am a bumbling, stumbling, goofing- up Mom (and please know I will never use the word "mommy" or "mama" on this blog, as both gross me out) I figure I have some anecdotes and sentiments that will maybe prompt some grins. Hmmm, autocorrect wanted to make the word "maybe" into Mabel. I've been a little weirded out about using my baby's real name on this blog, so from here on,I think Mabel is perfect for her. Anyway, one more disclaimer. I don't think I am awesome for being a mom. This blog will not be a platform for me to praise the joys of spit-up and swaddle blankets. I'm not going to write about how blessed I feel to have had my uterus graced with the presence of Mabel. It's not one of THOSE mom blogs. Basically, J and I have no flipping idea what we are doing, and a lot of the learning is just plain funny. Plus I will use this space to vent. I hope you will visit this space and not get sick of me. But if you do, then you can start blogging about how annoying I am. I won't be offended.