twotothree

Each month is so wildly different from the last.  June is nearly over and Gloria is crawling, pulling herself up on EVERYTHING, chowing down on jars of babyfood at a time.  The other day my mother-in-law found her climbing up onto an upturned basket.  She’s all over the place. 

She’s into everything.  After putting her to bed I walked out to the living room and just looked around.  There are books and cards torn off the bookshelf, pillows around Desi’s crate because I didn’t want Gloria to fall on the hardwood when she was climbing on the crate door, pureed avocado squished into the carpet, toys so thick you can barely walk.  She’s climbing up on things, climbing my legs, pulling to a standing position using the couch and letting go (she can only balance on her own for two seconds, though).  She’s only seven-and-a-half months, how is this happening already??     

We visited my parents for a week, where Gloria learned how much she loves to ride on a tractor with grandpa, and how much she equally dislikes going to the beach.  My mom is the only one who could get her to go into the water without a screaming production.

The view out the back door.  I love home.

This is what happened any time she came near the water without grandma or grandpa.  Hahaha.

"Uhh, our feet are disappearing, why isn't anyone else panicking??"

Tiny sandy feet!

She's a country girl at heart.

She has such a temper!  If you take her away from something that she wants she screams and flails.  And what she wants is always dangerous.  Her favorite toys are not toys at all, and the more hazardous the better.  She loves plastic bags, metal forks, bottles of pills, and electrical cords.  She’d probably have an aneurysm of joy over rat poison or a blow torch.  I have no idea how humans have made it this far with such a terrible sense of self-preservation.

Her chronic ear infections finally won her some ear tubes.  Whenever someone asked, I would say that they’re no big deal, it’s a minor procedure, she should be in and out and everything would be fine.  When I went home I would double-fist glasses of wine and panic about my baby going under anesthesia.  By the morning of the procedure I was up early, Googling baby-adult handcuffs so that I could handcuff us together as a way to force the doctors to let me into the surgical suite with her.  Mike thought that might not be practical, so I went without and instead downed cup after cup of coffee in the waiting room, thinking about the questionably reputable websites I had read that said ear tubes correlate with everything from liver cancer to perpetual male-patterned baldness.  Oh, internet, how awful (and incorrect) you are for worrying, obsessive mothers.

Turns out she is fine.  The worst part of the procedure for her was the fact that her anesthesiologist had a full beard, which she hates just as much as she hates ducks and shoes.  But the staff was incredible, and she (and I …) survived.

The other day I had to take Gloria to an OBGYN appointment.  I was able to hold a baby while giving a urine sample.  I was even able to wash my hands.  “Motherhood, I have conquered you,” I said loudly as I walked out of the bathroom, a cup of my own urine held triumphantly in the air.  My ego was brought crashing down once I realized this victory pronouncement didn’t just happen in my head – I was in front of a group of staring nurses.

If I was in any type of relationship with someone else who pooped on me, spit on me, bit me, destroyed my house, and didn’t allow me to get any sleep, that person would be out of my life SO FAST.  It’s funny what you’ll put up with from your own spawn.  Oh, biology, you are fascinating.