sun!!! or mommy freak out time.

living in england generally means wearing lots of warm clothes, wellies, and raincoats. so, the four days a year when the sun comes out, everyone gets their kit off (brit speak for gets naked). i have, to my and my bank account’s shame, bought approximately a million lovely little dresses for s, none of which she will wear more than once. but when the sun came out this week, i got excited. score! pretty baby dress time.

except sun = UV rays = possibility of sunburn = mommy freak out mode. our new pushchair is awesome and has a moveable shade but can never really completely cover s from the sun. plus, we spent some time outside the other day, and i stupidly let s out in her dress without four hundred layers of clothes to protect her. luckily she didn’t really get burned at all (i wasn’t as lucky…i generally go lobster red for a day or two before turning to a reasonable brown color for five seconds, then back to pasty white)…but i was still stressed out.

now the baby books and experts all say not to put sunscreen on your child before six months…or if you do, only use it on the back of hands and face. that’s just not good enough for me. my poor daughter has inevitably inherited the pasty gene from my scotch irish/german/english family and from my husband’s english and polish family. girlfriend has got to wear sunscreen.

so i went into boots today in search of baby sunscreen. the extremely (un)helpful woman in the store told me that all twenty five of the brands were exactly the same, and that purchasing one over the other was just personal preference. i’m so glad they trained her so well. anyway, after half an hour of hemming and hawing over the sunscreen, i ended up buying this one, since s has generally reacted pretty well to johnson’s products, and it smells pretty nice.

this crazy mom moment was brought to you by the great british summer. here are my lovelies enjoying the sunshine (and a bloody mary, if memory serves me correctly):

p and s enjoying the sunshine (without sunscreen…i know, i know. call the authorities)

freedom!

today i went babyless.

no i didn’t leave her at home. because that would be irresponsible. and silly. i took her in to town with p this morning. we had breakfast together (at starbucks, duh, i don’t go anywhere else. also 30% discount = happy mommy.) and i BFed s in p’s office, which by the way is the best and least stressful place in town to feed the baby, apart from the occasional undergrad student or italian tourist staring in p’s office windows even though signs clearly state the COLLEGE IS CLOSED. anyway. i’ll write about BFing in cambridge soon…i need to try it out in some other places and write reviews. it’s on the list.

after breakfast, i left p with the baby for a whole HOUR AND A HALF. now i know that to some of you moms this is not a big deal at all, but we have no family around here. i am with that child 24 hours a day. i love her so much and can’t think about ever putting her in daycare, but sometimes i need to breathe. so i walked down the street without the stroller and went in not one but SIX stores. i tried on clothes for our vacation and bought a bathing suit. not a mom suit (thanks modg for the advice!) either! here it is:

john lewis fat sucking awesome swimsuit. the model is not me. in case you were wondering.

now i don’t love my legs in this suit, but let’s face it…there is no swimsuit in the entire world that has the power to make your legs look hotter than they are, spandex or no spandex. so this one will have to do. and it’s super cute and retro! stay tuned for pictures post-vacation. also now i have absolutely no excuse not to take s swimming! i cannot WAIT to get that baby in the water. she loves splashing and has faceplanted a few times in the bath without any tears. she’s a rockstar.

so all in all, even though i was shopping for a bathing suit…not sipping red wine on a terrace or taking a leisurely stroll through the park…i was babyless for a few hours. i could taste the freedom. and then i was happy to have my little girl back.

baby steps. 😉

retail therapy

remember those few weeks were i was all, yeahhh my baby sleeps through the night and it’s awesome and being a mom is so easy? yeah, they’re over. s has returned to getting up at 10, and 2, and 6 most nights. yay for never sleeping through multiple sleep cycles! anyway, today i got up and was feeling generally pretty crap about things and not looking forward to a day of eat, play, sleep, repeat all by ourselves.

so we went shopping.

and this is what we bought! (i know that sometimes window shopping is *almost* as good as the real thing, so i’ll let you peek at my purchases…also, when did retail therapy become all about my baby and not about me at all? the only thing i bought myself was an iced tea.)

my first taggies book – who do you see?

frill swimsuit – john lewis baby

spot sleeping bag – john lewis baby

tunic and legging set – next

chevron dress – next

yellow fishermans hat – next

i seriously need to find a money tree.

four months

dear s,

today you are four months old. i know i said this two months ago, but i can’t believe the time has gone by this fast. your daddy and i were talking the other day, and neither of us can believe that you’re a little person all of a sudden, with your own personality and mannerisms. you’re inquisitive (nosey, most normal people would call it), sensitive, happy, and loving. you’re also stubborn, emotional, and impatient sometimes. it’s amazing to me how i can describe you as anything other than a crying, pooing baby, but you are so much more than that. so this post will be dedicated to the s that we have come to know and love over the last few months, and your many accomplishments.

this month you learned how to roll over. kind of. you still hate being on your tummy, but now it takes almost five whole minutes to make you scream before i have to flip you back over myself.

what?!

you love your sophie the giraffe. and your bunny rabbit. daddy and i call him frank (after the bunny rabbit in donnie darko…yes, we’re freaks). sophie is for playtime and frank is for sleeptime. you like to cuddle frank to your face when you’re falling asleep. mommy only freaks out a little when you do that.

frank and i are just sleeping, ok?

you have incredible lower body strength. what you lack in rolling over skill (or maybe you’re saving it up, i’m not sure) you make up for in leg strength. you’ll be cruising well before your first birthday, i know it.

look at me!

we’re (pretty) sure you’re teething. you gum your toys, and hands, and clothes, and our hands, and whatever else you can get your paws on, all day long. and you drool. oh, do you drool.

nom nom nom

you’re developing the gift of gab. it’s so cool to watch your language develop…especially as a linguistics nerd myself, i feel like i can really appreciate the massive leaps you’re taking every day with your speech. now you can make occasional consonant-vowel sounds (ga ga ga, etc) and i swear i heard you say ‘hiya’ the other day. it’s the teesside in you. 😉 you can also laugh, but only when you want to. last week after your immunizations, you had a few days of no talking at all. it made us sad not to hear your beautiful voice (and to only hear your cry!) but now i think you were just saving it up, and practicing in your head.

chatting with daddy

you are OBSESSED with the tv. you crane your neck around when i have you sitting in your boppy to watch big bang, how i met your mother, and desperate housewives. not so much daddy’s documentaries. oh well. yesterday we took you to see spiderman at the big scream, and you absolutely loved it. you sat on daddy’s lap and watched the whole thing. we’re also pretty sure you had a bad dream because of the movie last night! can babies have nightmares? that lizard was pretty scary.

i’m just watching my shows. leave me alone.

you hate being manipulated. more specifically, you hate having your clothes changed. i try to do it as quickly as possible, but it usually results in screams and cries of anger and frustration. sorry about that!

when you’re playing, you stick your legs up in the air. it’s super cute, and i know that your discovery of your feet is not far away at all! you’ll play for ages with your sophie and other toys with those feet above your head. it’s adorable and looks like it might not be that comfortable, but hey, i’m not as flexible as you anymore!

feet!

bathtime is one of your favorite times of the day. you love kicking, splashing (sort of), and playing in the bath. we can’t wait to take you swimming. it’s on the summer to do list, so it’s got to happen!

love the bath!

you can sit up! not by yourself, and not entirely reliably (slumping over happens more regularly than actual sitting, but oh well). we’re going to invest in a bumbo like this one to work on it next month! yay!

just sitting up, nbd.

you’re such a happy girl, s! we are so lucky to be a part of your life and love seeing you grow and discover. there are a million more things you’ve learned and experienced this month. i wish i could remember them all and capture them to have all for myself. but i’m looking forward to sharing you and your talents with the world. i can’t wait for what the world has in store! here’s to you and to so many more firsts.

love, mommy ❤

so excited about being four months old!

sicky baby.

s had her 16 week immunizations this wednesday and is battling a little bit of a fever. one of the first real crazy mom moments happens when your baby is sick and you can’t make her feel better! lots of cool things happening this week and next, too, so when all is better i’ll write about some of them! in the meantime, check out my friend awayathome’s new brave and awesome blog post here. (maybe i’ll be brave enough to post pictures like that some day!)

talk to you soon! ❤