A New Nickname & Apples

First order of business for today's post is... a new nickname for MiniM.E.  Most of the other "mommy bloggers" I follow don't use their kids' names.  Which totally makes sense (mostly when you are an awesome blogger and have tons of followers- many who you've never met... less when you only have a tiny smattering of people who you'd trust your kid with...).  That's why I picked MiniM.E. (which, if you know her name, as probably all of you do, makes sense).  BUT hopefully I will eventually amass a ginormous following due to my fantastic sense of humor and inevitable pitfalls as a new mother (or not...).

When choosing MiniM.E.'s nickname, I was envious of others with adorable names for their kids like "The Incredible Hulk" (at newmomontheblog.blogspot.com) or "The Pork Lo Mainiac" (at starkravingmadmommy.com).  My first mommy blog was rantsfrommommyland.com (absolutely hilarious) and they have good nicknames too, but I am too lazy to re-read posts from ages ago to find them.  And somewhere in my mommy-internet-land there's a "Burrito Boy" for the way the blogger's son looked when swaddled.

But since I started my blog before MiniM.E. was even born, and frankly, newborns have close to zero personality (unless those funny smiles and sounds while pooping count?), I didn't have any direction when choosing a nickname.

UNTIL NOW!  MiniM.E. is the most fantastic stretcher I've ever seen.  Most people (babies included?) stretch after sleeping.  Check.  MiniM.E. stretches after every nap.  But also when getting out of or into the car seat, baby swing, pack-n-play and/or crib, after eating, after burping, before diaper changes, during diaper changes, and after diaper changes, and often every fifteen or so minutes.  Hence, the new nickname "Stretch Armstrong" (or "Stretchy" for short).

I promise I will soon capture a photo of said stretching.

Apparently, I probably shouldn't be posting photos of Stretchy on my blog (but you guys are all my friends and family, so for now, its okay- until she stops looking like "nondescript baby") and I should probably also nickname my husband...  I'll put it on my mile-long to-do list...

For now, a photo showing Stretchy taking after her mom and beginning a caffeine addiction at an early age.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

see, she even looks jacked up on caffeine!

A Very Christmassy Weekend

My Christmas decorations are finally up!

I have to say, it is very difficult to get anything done with a 7-week old, let alone hang anything delicate or which requires hooks, lighting, electricity, or live branches.

Thank God for my mom who is willing to drive 3.5 hours anytime to see her granddaughter or my Christmas decorations would consist only of the boxes of Christmas decorations scattered around our house.

I was asked, when complaining about how much work it was to put them up, why I would even bother- after all, I have a new baby, and who is coming to my house to see the decorations anyway??
BUT, I LOVE CHRISTMAS and NEED my decorations, so to me, it was worth it :)

Saturday was the last step in decorating our house: we needed a tree!

We told MiniM.E. we were going to get a tree and she was so excited that we managed to snap a few good photos of some excitable smiles (or maybe I was just making really stupid faces and talking in a ridiculously high-pitched, sing-song voice... you'll never know...).

 And then she was SO excited that she fell asleep.

Sleeping doesn't last very long anymore, so after a few minutes we were ready to head out.

We decided on Ellm's Farm for our Christmas tree this year because you got to choose and cut your own.  They had trolley rides out to the farm and hot cocoa and cider and donuts and most importantly, reindeer!!

It was everything it promised to be, with the exception of the reindeer.  Turns out they were no longer living.  SO SAD!!!  Especially because I wanted a picture of MiniM.E. riding on one.  But I guess they probably would have allowed that anyway... sounds like a law suit waiting to happen.

It was a very Christmassy great time.

We found our tree and Bob cut it down

We tied it to the car

And enjoyed some hot cocoa, all while MiniM.E. slept, even through the photo op at this um, awesome? train with a hole cut-out for faces...

Yesterday, MiniM.E. put the first two ornaments on the tree!

SO CUTE!!

Alright... fussy baby- must go!!

Christmas Pictures

Can I just state how obnoxious it is that babies can be so super cute in person, but as soon as you press the shutter button on the camera something happens and they stop looking cute.  (or maybe its just my baby)  Seriously, now that MiniM.E. is smiling, all I want to do is capture the adorable-ness.  However, I get this instead:

Not that that's a terrible picture... it's a cute picture of a smiling baby, but it doesn't look ANYTHING like MiniM.E.

So my camera is filled with a lot of bad pictures.  Which, I have to say, made taking a Christmas for Christmas cards very difficult.  

Here are some of the best photos from the first session...   I didn't choose one from this batch for the cards because I decided against the green-striped outfit.  

A good smiling picture!!

I've realized that the best photos are sleeping photos.  Sleeping babies are the best kind of babies for taking photos (and enjoying while being a stay at home mom) so for "Christmas-Card-Photo-Session-Two" we opted for a sleeping MiniM.E.

My Baby is Growing Up...

Before I get to posting about anything substantial, here are some photos from our long weekend:

This is where MiniM.E. sleeps at our house (in the pack-n-play under the changing table thingy so the cats don't accidentally jump on her...) but we couldn't fit it in the car... 

so this is where she slept at my parents' house- why did we spend so much on a pack-n-play?

trying out the new hat

resting up for the big trip

excited to leave... 

enjoying the comfy comforter

unsure about shopping on Black Friday

nice couch...

sleeping in with Daddy

MiniM.E. turned six weeks old on Saturday.  It's funny that when you have a new baby you mark the time first in days, then in weeks, then in months... then in half years... and sometime between kindergarten and fifth grade you just use years.  And eventually you don't want to remember how many years old you are.

But I digress... the point of this post is that MiniM.E. is growing.  She was so tiny when we brought her home and I kind of wanted to keep her that way.  You don't really notice something growing when you see it every day, but I think she just went through some pretty major growth-spurting, because a few days ago when I woke up and carried her down the stairs what used to feel like a Cabbage Patch doll suddenly felt like a bag of bricks.  Not to mention the fact that I'm squeezing my poor baby into clothes that have probably been too small for at least a couple weeks (what? that outfit isn't supposed to look like a spandex jumpsuit?).  But the biggest milestone was switching from newborn diapers to size one.

Looking back, apparently I should have made this switch weeks ago... however, being a new mom, I didn't realize the signs of a diaper being too small... those red marks around her legs- those have always been there, haven't they? and the fact that it's really hard to make the diaper tall enough in the front AND the back... well, she's just getting taller, right?  And maybe that's kind of the case- she's still pretty long and skinny...

While home for Thanksgiving we met up with one of my oldest friends and her 11-week-old.  He'd just moved up to size TWO diapers... which made me think... are MiniM.E.'s diapers too small??

So I decided that once we finished off the size "n"s, I'd move her up to size one.  But every time I changed her I couldn't help noticing that I was squishing my baby into teeny-tiny diapers when she really wasn't so teeny-tiny anymore.  I just didn't want her to get bigger...


To celebrate the last day wearing my favorite jungle outfit, MiniM.E. decided to show off all her new smiles:

...I also snapped a couple more non-smiling photos :

And finally this morning, I packed up all the newborn diapers and all the "spandex jumpsuits" and replaced them with roomy size ones and bigger clothes.  She seems much happier now.

and she fits in the NEW jungle outfit!!

Happy Thanksgiving

This is a few days early, but we're traveling to NH tomorrow evening and the days fly by- especially when you're packing up a baby for her first overnight trip!

I just wanted to post a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Here is MiniM.E.  I think she will be eating fingers rather than turkey on Thursday...

And a super awesome picture- the first real smile we half caught on camera (this was either right before or right after... I took a bazillion pictures in a row but never got the full smile)!  She can't do it on demand yet, but she spends a good hour every night practicing...

My Daily Life Is...

currently not really worth blogging about.  Sorry :(  Plus, to be honest, I hardly have time to check and respond to e-mail, let alone upload photos and write blog posts.  Turns out MiniM.E. doesn't really like to sit and work on the computer...

Not that Molly isn't interesting.  She is the most fascinating human being I've ever spent 24 hours a day with.  However, what I find fascinating and interesting isn't really blog-worthy as there are probably only a total of 2 other people (Dad & Grandma) who would agree with my obsession with everything MiniM.E. does.

Originally, this blog was going to be:
A: A place to post funny stories about being a new mom
B: A place to post recipes that are either awesomely tasty, super easy, or fun for kids
C: A place to post artwork I make for the baby or that we make together

I think (A) might occur once in a while, but for the most part, my days include none of "cooking", "baking" or eating anything other than prepackaged foods and they certainly do not include time for creating artwork (with or without baby) or even thinking of ideas for artwork.

Instead, my days include a lot of
A: Feeding a baby (which sometime soon will lead to a funny story about being a new mom)
B: Changing a baby (again, I'm sure will have a good story at some point)
C: Holding a baby (which makes it hard to do anything else)
D: Watching a baby sleep (and occasionally dozing off)
E: Doing laundry (at least 3 loads a day)
F: A, B & C, in no particular order, repeatedly.

Like I said, while I find A-D fascinating because MiniM.E. is my baby, I'm sure the rest of the world probably doesn't need to read posts about my daily life -- unless of course something awesome, funny, unexpected, or ridiculous happens.

So here are some cute pictures to hold you over for a while.

Once MiniM.E. starts getting into a routine (and maybe napping by herself) I will try to post more photos and hopefully funny stories.  Until then, I'll be feeding, changing, holding, watching, cleaning and not sleeping pretty much full time, so please excuse my lack of posting... eventually, this blog will be all those things I planned... I hope...

A Beautiful Sunday

As we get used to having a baby, we've started doing a few more "normal" things.  MiniM.E. and I have made a few trips to the grocery store and we've been out to see a few people and had some people over.  Still, during the week- for the most part- we stay in.

Not that I don't like sitting in my house all day, every day, trying to recover while constantly feeding or changing a crying baby while still getting a few important things done like laundry (so MiniM.E. has clean clothes since she only has a few outfits that fit her tiny peanut body right now) and dishes (so that I can eat cereal and ice cream- why don't we have enough bowls??).  Seriously though, I love being home with MiniM.E.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  And even though she can be pretty demanding sometimes, every time I look at her my heart melts and I feel like I would do anything for her.  SO... I'm really not complaining.

BUT, it is nice to get out of the house and get some fresh air.

Sunday we decided to walk around downtown- our first big stroller outing!  The weather was gorgeous and MiniM.E. seemed to enjoy being pushed around and shown off to interested strangers.  We even got frozen yogurt (which hopefully MiniM.E. got to enjoy later- how does that work, anyway?).

After our downtown excursion we had a few stops to make in Wilton (the town with all the shopping essentials like Target and Wal-Mart- we'll be making lots of trips there, so it's a good thing MiniM.E. likes riding in the car).  Since we'd already been out for two hours, it meant we had to do an in-car-feeding.

Let me share how my thought process went:

"Wait, where is the burp cloth?  Oh, on my knee.  Check.  And that moisturizing stuff?  Crap.  On the nightstand at home... oh well..."

"Okay, how to I get the baby underneath this feeding cape thing while holding her with one hand?"

"What the ----?  Why did I have to wear a shirt whose material sticks to the material of the feeding cape?  How am I supposed to see the baby?"

"... Come on MiniM.E., I know we're in a strange place, but latch already!"

"I'm too hot... and thirsty... and do you think people driving by can see my boob?  What if they walk next to the car?  Then do you think they could see it?  This stupid cape is in the way!  Maybe I should just take it off... but no, there are cars driving by... why couldn't Target have a bigger parking lot?  Or a special breastfeeding parking lot... or better yet, a special feeding room near the restrooms like at BuyBuyBaby??"

It was a pretty trying experience.  But we got it done, and MiniM.E. was happy and let us run our errands and even rode back in the car without getting too fussy.


Long story short- downtown Saratoga was awesome.  Feeding a baby in the car was not.  And now we have laundry detergent and diapers.