Four Months

Dear Sofia,
Four days ago you turned four months old. We were driving to San Antonio and getting ready for the big Christmas Eve feast on your four-month birthday. I apologize for not writing this sooner, but this dial-up connection at your grandparents' house isn't easy to deal with.

Sofia, you are now four months old. It seems like time is just slipping away and every minute you are doing something new. Why, just this morning I heard you laugh a real laugh. A beautiful, sweet, silly little laugh while your grandpa tickled you and bounced you up and down. You laughed every time, and I couldn't believe it. Two days ago your dad and I noticed how you protested when we took a snow globe away from you. You cried until we gave it back. And did it again and again. Yes, we tried it multiple times just to be sure. Amazing. You now lie on your activity mat and enjoy it. You grab at all the animals dangling overhead. You have started noticing the cats and smile when you see them up close. You even try to touch them. You are getting better and better with your hands and know how to take out your pacifier and put it back in. You don't quite put it in correctly all the time, but you're getting there! You now not only roll from back to belly, but you know how to roll back again! I keep thinking you'll crawl soon the way you move those chunky legs. You like to stick your bottom up and try to move your legs.

You notice EVERYTHING. It amazes me sometimes how you'll be eating and notice something from the corner of your eye. You turn your whole head to get a better look. This makes your nursing sessions longer, but they don't last very long generally. You are now an extremely efficient eater. I can practically flash my breast your direction and you latch on with no problem. I still love to nurse you. Nothing makes me feel closer to you than that. You are my sweet little baby.

You have an incredible smile! It is beautiful. Sometimes you smile a smile so big we can see your tongue, and sometimes you give us a little impish smile. You still love mirrors and almost always smile when you see your reflection. You have a dimple on your right cheek that always shows up when you smile.

You got some good loot for Christmas including a Fisher Price Aquarium which absolutely mesmerizes you. You got lots of new books, and even sat still to let me read some to you. I hope you grow to love reading as much as your dad and I do.

You don't cry a lot. Usually when you do it is because you're tired or hungry. You were unusually fussy last week, and your dad had been sick so we took you to the doc just to check you out. You had the beginnings of an ear infection, so you are now taking antibiotics. A painful process. You spit out most of the medicine. You hate it. You also got a shot of antibiotics at the doctor's office. I almost cried it was so painful to watch. Poor baby had just gotten your second round of immunizations two days earlier. You weighed in at 16 lbs, 8.2 oz and measured 24.5 inches. I can't believe how big you are!!

You are an amazing child. And God, you are a beautiful baby. I can't believe you are mine. I can't believe you actually grew inside me for all those months. I am so thankful for you, Sofia. Your father and I feel very blessed and love you so very much!

Love,
Mom

yankee swap

oh my god. The Office was so freaking funny last night. Yankee swap. I loved it!

checkup

Sofia had a doctor's appointment today. For the past couple of months I kept telling myself that we would find out her weight and height on Dec. 21. Last night I checked the little reminder card that the doctor's office gives you with the appointment date and time, and her appointment was actually Dec. 19! Yes, I missed her appointment. I'm a bad mom. Sue me. The office usually calls to confirm but no such luck this time. And no one even called to tell me I missed it! Baffling. Anyway, I called and they said they could fit her in in the afternoon, so I drove us waaaaay across town to her appointment, but we took care of it.

I ended up skipping work today completely to take my child to the doctor for her second round of immunizations and four month check-up. I can't believe she'll be four months on Christmas eve! She weighs 16 lbs, 8.2 oz and is 24.5 inches long (95th and 75th percentile, respectively)! Yes, my little one is growing and growing. She cried a river when they gave her those shots. Her poor little chubby thighs. I winced when I saw the needles.

The doc said we could start giving her solids soon. I'm a little worried about the whole solids thing, but I'm sure we'll manage. I know it will require a lot more time than whipping out a boob or a bottle, so I'm a little scared. I mean, I barely have enough time to sleep these days.

She is now napping with Dad, and I haven't decided if we're going to go ahead and take her to get Christmas portraits done. We made an appointment for her for today. Oh, we tried to do it over the weekend last Sunday, but the child would not cooperate. She kept making herself stiff as a board and sliding out of the booster seat. She looked adorable though.

Robert is sick as a dog and has just been resting all day. Poor thing.

We have only a few days left until Christmas, and the husband and I have not begun our Christmas shopping. Yes, we are crazy. We had company this past weekend so shopping was a little out of the question.

My last day of work before the holidays is tomorrow and then I'm off until Jan 3, 2006! Woo-hoo! Thank goodness this doesn't come out of my vacation because I no longer have any vacation days after maternity leave. I cannot wait to just hang out with my baby and my family.

Apologies taste so good

Sofia wanted to chomp on daddy's apology roses to mommy...

I'm back!

Yea! I'm online again. Whew! I thought I would go crazy without internet or cable. It's amazing how much I use the internet. And how much TV I watch. I missed the finale of Survivor, but I know Danni won. I missed the finale of America's Next Top Model, but I know Nicole won. You know, the really important shows. And I'm sure I missed a few other finales that I suppose I'll have to live without seeing. Oh, well.

Sofia's grandpa is visiting. He's an Aussie and I used to get a big kick out of his accent when Robert and I were first dating and I met his dad. Sofia screamed bloody murder when she met him last night. Robert said she chilled out today and let her grandpa hold her.

Robert and I got into a big fight the night before last over thank you cards. No, I still haven't written some of the thank you cards from one of my showers in June. I realize this is horrible. I was extremely irritated when Robert's mom "reminded" me a few weeks ago that we had to get them out. No shit. I already knew we had to send them out. Anyway, Robert was cleaning the house for the first time in forever (and only because his dad was coming in the next day) and he came across the abandoned stack of thank you cards on a table and started getting all self-righteous about how I need to write the thank you cards and that he's reminded me countless times, which is bullshit. He never reminds me. I lost it because he made it sound like I just deliberately did not send them out. Like I have all this free time on my hands and he just couldn't believe that I hadn't done it yet. I was also pissed because he made it sound like it was alllll up to me because I'm the girl, etc, etc. This thoroughly pissed me off. And he got mad because the ones that have been sent out were some to my family. These were only sent out because we went to a baby shower for my cousin in October where I knew we would see all the same people who gave us presents, and I sent out a handful of cards to save face. I guess he took it personally and thought I was avoiding sending cards to his family. Idiot. Anyway, I was livid and was throwing things at him. It was all very dramatic. He was a jerk, but apologized last night and appropriately brought me roses. I guess it would have looked really bad if I ignored him while his dad was here. Jerk.

What? No MTV??!!

Our cable got shut off today. This is not something out of the ordinary. It happens every once in a while because my husband and I can never get our shit together when it comes to bills. Oh sure, we pay them all, but not in any organized way. We are perpetually paying late fees. You get the idea. Anyway, because we have no cable we have no MTV. Because we have no MTV I couldn't watch The Gauntlet tonight. This sucks. I am an MTV junky. Yes, I admit it. I watch The Real World, I watch Making the Band, I watched Laguna Beach, you know. They're all pretty bad, but the Gauntlet is some real trash. And I can't get enough of it. Yes, I'm almost 30 years old, and I still can't get enough MTV. I realize that all of these shows are crap, but I watch them anyway. And I often flip to MTV when nothing else is on and watch reruns of shows I've already seen. It's my dirty little secret. So I was thoroughly disappointed that I missed the Gauntlet. Luckily for me, MTV reruns their shows about 50 times. Thank goodness!

Well, without television to watch I spent the evening with Sofia carrying her around and singing Christmas carols to her. She really enjoyed it too. Sofia loves to smile. She is a really happy baby. And she has a beautiful smile. I'm hoping to gather more Christmas cheer as the holiday nears, but I don't know how we'll have time to do everything. I want to decorate and shop and bake and take Sofia to get a pic with Santa, but maybe I should just settle with getting my shopping done.

On another note, my hair seems to be falling out. It's really disgusting. Clumps everywhere. Is there no end to this?

I'm tired

I've been bad. I have not posted in quite some time, but I've just felt so uninspired and well, just tired.

Robert, Sofia and I had a very good Thanksgiving although the days just seem to fly by. This in large part because of a project Robert was working on while we were in San Antonio. He decided to apply to grad school at the last minute and needed to submit a visual sample of his work. He wants to get into a film program and decided to make a movie. So, he wrote a short screenplay and filmed it the weekend we were in San Antonio. He used me and some friends to act in it. I cannot act, but I did the best I could. My sister and brother-in-law helped with the sound and watching the baby. So we worked really hard the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving, but it was fun. Just really exhausting. Then we drove home Sunday (now a four and half hour drive with living so far away and the baby) and I had to be in to work on Monday morning at 7 am. Because we were making the movie at my friend's house I spent all this time with her, which was really cool. I don't usually get to see her when we're in San Antonio because my family is so big. I usually spend a lot of time visiting with family and Robert's family.

I had to be in at 7 am all week actually.
And all week I had to train this new guy they hired in our group. That was exhausting because this jerk-off was impossible to train! He seemed to think that he knew everything already. That and he is extremely lazy! How can a person just start a job and already be that lazy? I don't understand.

I'm excited about Christmas. I'm not excited about being broke. Robert had to pay a large sum of money for our last school to release his transcript. He still had an outstanding student loan. They released it, but now we're behind on all of our bills. Which sucks. Especially before Christmas.

My house is a mess. I worked mostly 10-hour days this past week, which was rough. The good news is that I get to take a day off next week because I'm over hours now. More time with the Sofia. She is, by the way, wonderful.