Little little

On Valentine's Day we welcomed a new niece to the family. Meet Quinn. Mo cannot quite say Quinn, but she can say "Q." So she might become known as Baby Q (or "bay-be-que"). Congratulations Gary, Kate & Jack on the new little one!

Fledgling quilter strikes again

My cousin Becky and her husband Chris are expecting a little boy in about 8 weeks. A conversation at Thanksgiving revealed that Becky has very specific ideas about which colors she considers masculine enough for baby boys. But at the fabric store I couldn't bring myself to choose the navy blue fabric with the dark, drab looking dinosaurs on it. And the more cheerful looking dinos were mostly brown and orange and weird. Who designs some of these creepy "nursery prints"? Ultimately I came back to the fish fabric. It's really colorful...I just hope it's boyish enough for them.



So the blanket is kind of huge. I wanted Becky to have a workhorse. Something homemade but not so fussy that she's afraid to use it. Because babies spill stuff and spit up and leak, and inevitably your dog thinks that every blanket on the floor is a new dog bed for her. So it's 100% cotton for easy laundering. I put aqua colored flannel on the back and chose a watery looking batik for the binding. And because this is a whole-cloth-quilt, I decided to hand quilt it along the wavy pattern lines in the fish fabric, alternating every 3 stripes then every 5 stripes. My first time hand quilting--it went pretty well.

Housekeeping

1. Yes, this photo kills me. The sunglasses. The walking around. The terrible job I did trimming her bangs. Kills me.

2. Yes, Mo was a little old to have a serious case of RSV. The main reason for the hospital stay was the combination of her high fever and dehydration. She couldn't keep down the oral ibuprofen and acetaminophen--or anything else she ate or drank--at home.

3. No, there's usually not a sea of vomit with RSV. It's generally a lung infection that causes breathing trouble. But Mo's lungs sounded and looked good throughout. The hospital's pediatrician said she had seen a number of RSV cases this season with gastrointestinal symptoms. She suspects the virus is changing.

4. No, I am not eating gluten free anymore. My new year's resolution was to stop listening to my doctor because avoiding gluten is a pain in my butt. And if I don't need to do it I'm not. Tomorrow I go in for bloodwork, so I will know soon how that's working out for me.

5. And while we're on the subject of resolutions I saw someone on the internets wrote something like, "If you don't have enough time to do what you want to do, turn off the tv." So true. I have enough time (baby permitting), just too much screen time and mindless distractions eating it up. So first I quit the moms meetup group. Then I pared down the blogroll I follow. And I saw that Theresa ditched FaceBook--very tempting! And in a fit of mental housekeeping I considered deleting my blog but stopped short. So I'm trying to stay away from the computer during the day. Success is mixed.

6. No, I won't be joining Pinterest anytime soon. I'm concerned that I will spend more time bookmarking than actually doing/making, and in the end it will make me less creative and productive.

Huge sigh of relief

I want to write about this while it's still raw. Our little one was hospitalized with (not a stomach bug but) RSV. Horror washed over us late Friday afternoon when we woke her up from a nap only to realize that her fever had spiked, she could barely keep her eyes open, and we were going back to the ER. I could not imagine putting her through Thursday night's tortures again. But then I found out the answer to 'What's worse than holding down your baby while she fights the nurses trying to give her an IV catheter?'--when she's so sick she stops fighting back and just lays there. Her veins were flat, and the nurses were on their third stick before they got a line in. Awful. It was awful. These were the worst days of my life. And I write that even as I held my father's hand when he died and evacuated DC on foot on September 11th. Maureen is usually so funny and opinionated and feisty and busy, and she looms very large in my imagination, that it is easy to forget what a fragile little person she really is. Since we returned home she has learned how to use a tissue to wipe Mommy's nose (and thinks this is hilarious) and Crinkle's nose (that's her stuffed dog) and her own nose (but not very effectively). And she's trying to walk all the time, taking 5 steps here, 8 steps there. Crazy baby. Lucky baby. Lucky all of us.

There is nothing like a health crisis to reveal whether or not you really like your doctor. We will be looking for a new pediatrician. 1) While the pediatricians on staff at CMH did a fine job looking after our little one, I would appreciate a doctor who visits his/her patients when they are hospitalized. God forbid Maureen has another hospital stay, but we would prefer this for continuity of care. 2) An office who promptly returns telephone calls even if my questions are ridiculous. And by promptly I mean within a few hours. Claiming that there is "a problem with the phone system" is only a single use get-out-of-jail-free card. 3) Also would it kill them to place a follow up call to see how our recently hospitalized child is doing?

PS - A little while ago a registered nurse from BCBS called to see how Maureen is doing and answer any questions I had. We talked for about 15 minutes. She is going to call back in a couple weeks to make sure things are going well with Mo's recovery but made sure I had her direct line in case anything came up. It's sad when the insurance company does a better job than the pediatrician's office.

Test fit take two

Baby still rowdy for photos. Test fit reveals that straps can be shortened. (Typing with one hand right now, clingy babe in other.) Oh, the rickrack was a detail from the original pillowcase and not my doing.





I finished Maureen's pillowcase dress top. And if you were worried about me cutting the embroidery off when I cut the dress in half, I replaced it with much cuter stitching around the arm openings. This will be great for warm weather.



Finished! I'm planning a second one, as soon as crabbypants lets me put her down.

Test fit gone wild

Maureen tried on the Simple Dress today. I wish I could tell you that these were the outtakes from the photo shoot. We don't usually interrupt play time with a fashion show, so the novelty factor was high. She pounced on the pile of discarded clothing. This was my favorite picture because of the little piggies peeking out --



But the test fit revealed that the dress is too long, and the neckline is kind of snug in the front.



So it's back to the drawing board cutting mat.

Burning the midni... 9pm oil

Dear Circo brand,
The head holes in the girls infant/toddler t-shirts are too dang small. Perhaps they are manufactured in a country full of pinheads. I don't know. But I wanted to thank you for providing me with shirts AND homework.
Grateful to have something to do,
Barb







Two shirts fixed, one still on the drawing board. While I had the sewing machine fired up, I decided to make some wool pants for Momo out of the sleeves of some felted sweaters I've had laying around forever. I used a pair of Garanimals sweatpants that fit her well as a model. This little project was so easy, I can't believe I hadn't thought of doing it before. Anyone got old stained, holey, out of style wool sweaters at the back of their closet they would like to donate to me???







The blue ones were done first, and the test-fit revealed that I had not created enough rise in the back. So the green pants were made with more booty space and turned out great. I just need to go back and fix the blue ones now.

Robb made me

I'm not such a fan of staged formal photos, but I'm glad that Robb pushed for a family Christmas picture this year. I pushed for us to wear matching outfits--Robb was not a fan of that at all. We made an appointment at The Big-Box and used a coupon from their website: free sitting fees ($10 per person at most places) and $3.99 per sheet for prints. !!! The photographer did a nice job, and Momo was an angel. I screen-grabbed these thumbnails to show you. Merry merry!

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth

The holiday crafting has begun, and so I have been MIA on the blog this month. But here's a baby photo to tide you over. Her favorite color is still shiny.

The iterminable bigness

Last week Maureen turned 10 months old. She weighs 19 pounds and is 26.5" long. That's 11 pounds and 9" larger than birth. And especially after seeing baby Zofia this weekend (2 months old), I am astonished by how big our little Momo is. And the bigness, it kills me.



I had to work last Thursday night. At some point Momo woke up crying, and when Robb went to check on her, she was standing in the corner of the crib looking at him. She tries to pull up all the time now. The footstool for the rocking chair is a favorite mountain. So Friday Robb moved her crib to the lower setting. I sneaked a picture of her in her newly lowered crib, and look at her sleeping in a heap: she's a gangly  toddler.



Maureen made a liar of me at group when I thought she wanted to play with her bottle. "She doesn't know to tip the end up...," I started to say, and then watched her lean her head back and drink.



The biting got better for a week and then much worse, so I only pump and bottle feed during the daylight hours. But we added solid food breakfast to Momo's daily routine, and it's going very well. That's two a day now. Here is a typical meal: cheddar cheese, avocado, sweet potato, and noodles. Our little scientist devised a test for determining the nature of orange foods: the squeeze test. If it squishes in her fist easily, it's a sweet potato or steamed carrot and should be discarded. If it resists squishing, it's a cheese and should be eaten promptly.



Last Wednesday was our final day at the breastfeeding support group.* We might go back for weight checks now and again, but Momo is too active. She was the oldest baby by about eight months. We were surrounded by tiny babies doing tummy time on the floor. And there was Maureen growling loudly (her favorite noise to make last week), baring her six teeth, and charging across the floor to try to pounce on them in delight. I had released Attila the Hun on a room full of newborns. Hilarious, right? But sad because I realized we were done. We're going to Storytime tomorrow instead. But we'll see several of Maureen's friends there: Hunter, Drew, and maybe Violet. We'll shake our eggs and hear some stories and practice clapping and be big, big stuff. The biggest.

(*Until I got a message from Kate that tomorrow is her first time going to group this week, so we're going to drop by for moral support.)

Baby's first Halloween

On Sunday Maureen wore her scary costume: Ravens cheerleader. *shudder* Yes, I wanted to be a Redskinette when I was little, but that was completely different. Number one: it was the Redskins. Number two: there doesn't need to be a number two...it was the Redskins. Case closed.



Although I did not make Maureen's costumes this year, both costumes were recycled. We found the cheerleader suit at the Goodwill in Eldersburg with Charlene for $2. Robb noticed what we did not--it had LEAH printed across the back. I said, "This is such a great bargain, we will change her name. What do you think, Leah?" Leah smiled back at me. And that's the story of why we changed our daughter's name.

Er, I mean, and then I stitched a pair of white fleece wings onto the back to the dress to obscure the decal.



Of course there's the holiday bib shot.



Then on Halloween afternoon, we dressed Leah Maureen up in her turtle costume and hit the streets. She looks totally psyched about trick-or-treating in this picture. In reality she was not such a fan of having the hood up, but it was chilly outside.



The turtle costume was $2 at the Clarksville Picnic this summer, so we did baby's first Halloween for under $5.



We went to three houses. Each time we came to the door they said the same thing, "She's a frog!"

"No, she's a turtle," we said and turned around so they could see her shell.

"Ooooh."



It was more convincing when she crawled. And made growling noises at Peg and John's cat Shadow. In all fairness Shadow was probably asking for it.

I've been missing the best part

More quick one-handed blogging. I hate tags on stuffed animals and cut them off of a lot of the baby's toys. Then I noticed that the tags are her favorite part of most toys. Who knew? To make up for my tag-ignorance, I whipped up this taggy blanket for Momo (over a month ago) in a single evening. It's cotton on one side, flannel on the other, little scrap of cotton batting in the middle, and an assortment of ribbon tags from my stash around the edge. All different textures, colors, sizes. After a dozen times though the laundry, I ripped off all of the pink tags. They turned out to be poor quality ribbon, and I didn't want her to swallow them.





She loves it! (Pictures from mid-September.) Especially the owl ribbon. There are so many things that I want to make for Maureen, and having a baby in the house is the biggest obstacle to making things for the baby....

Everybody loves Shark Week!

Did you flip to the Discovery Channel to be sure and then think, What is she talking about? Shark Week was months ago. But at our house, you see, Maureen now has five teeth on board and at least one more on deck, so it's shark week at Fig Point all day every day. I love how nursing sites downplay the significance of teething. They are like, "Pff! Simply tell baby not to bite you, and she will understand." Okay, not that glib but almost. Perhaps it is an easy transition for most folks. Mo's two bottom teeth were really no big deal because her tongue is over them when she eats. But the top teeth have been a different story altogether.

First I must tell you that Momo has been busy writing a book about solid foods. It's called I'M JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU. What started as a happy baby bird opening her mouth for more sweet potatoes quickly became a tricky baby weasel clamping her mouth shut every time a spoon gets within six inches of her. She will smile and laugh until she sees you make your move with the mush. Then slap! Closed for business. This is what happens when a total smartass and the class clown get together: they produce a smart-clown. We were lucky, though: the punnet square said there was a 25% chance we'd have a class-ass instead.

We persevere in the face of adversity. Every afternoon we sit Madame Smart-Clown in the high chair for an hour and play at getting human food into her. Purees are the problem. She deftly dodges, gags, teases, rubs baby food into her hair, and occasionally vomits all the hard-won success onto her bib. But if you sprinkle Momo's tray with food she can grab and feed to herself, then it's fine. Extremely slow but fine. We still try to give her mush, but mainly she eats Gerber puffs, yogurt drops, Mum-Mums, rice, tiny bits of cooked veggies, shredded chicken, hard cooked egg yolk, and noodles. At least 60% of her endeavors go down the hatch.

The solid food hour of prayer and pleading aside, Maureen is getting nearly all of her nutrition from breast milk. She still nurses about seven times in 24 hours. Contrast this with cousin Jack who now only nurses early in the morning and before bedtime (and during the night maybe?) and gobbles down baby food and cereal all day long like it's going out of style. Also, Jack does not have any teeth yet. Color me jealous.

I had to tell you all that to set the stage for the sharky stuff because it falls under the topical umbrella of eating. But I've one more feeding-related *aside* for you. Several months ago I wrote a post full of tips to help get you through the first six months of breastfeeding. At some point you will feel like you and your baby are really getting the hang of things. You hit your stride and bf-ing couldn't be going better. Enjoy that while it lasts.  Remember that part of Alice in Wonderland when Alice takes the baby from the Dutchess, only to look down and find she has been carrying around a pig in a bonnet? For us the change happened around six months. That's when we realized that Maureen had become a distracted drinker. Which would be a huge problem if she was also driving. Instead it is challenging to feed her when there is something more interesting in her vicinity, like a conversation or a television program or Sukey's tags jingling or Mommy breathing.

While I'm swinging wide... Did you know that nursing moms are more likely to be victims of sexual bias? But we are also more likely to very calmly kick someone's teeth in when bias rears its ugly head. Food for thought.

Which brings me back on point: teething. For the past month Mo's been getting up earlier, napping shorter, drooling, coughing, waking multiple times at night, and biting. Biting her toys, my shirt, burp cloths--whatever she can shove in her mouth. And, of course, me. She has been biting me going on three weeks. I have seen enough AFV to know that teething wasn't going to be fun.



Kid, I feel your pain.

My initial strategy to discourage biting came straight from dog training. When she nipped me I would say, "Ouch! No, you do not bite Mommy," and end the meal. That quickly taught Maureen how hilarious it is when I jump out of my skin. After a few days I noticed that she had a devilish gleam in her eyes and then was laughing when I scolded her.

This reached a crescendo last Thursday around lunch time. Mo bit me, and I shouted, "OUCH!" loud enough to maker her cry hysterically. I almost cried myself. She bit me so hard I had two tiny fang marks for most of the day. I was lucky she didn't break the skin. Clearly this wasn't working. The baby almost sheared off one of my nipples. And if I scared her too badly she might go on a nursing strike. That wouldn't be a big deal if she ate anything else, but she doesn't really. So on to plan B.

My current strategy requires that I show no potentially amusing reaction. I calmly remind Maureen that, "Mommy is for milk. Toys are for bites," and put a teething toy into her hand. For it to work I have to be hyper vigilant, watching her face like a hawk for any sign that she's about to chomp. A slight pause. Tension in her jaw. Her eyes glancing at mine so she doesn't miss the hilarious "ouch!" she is about to create. And then before she can strike, I burp her or offer a toy or switch sides. After several days, Mo seems to be catching on. Never a dull moment. *sigh*

Want to see my booty?

...from the Leprechaun Lilly's fall/winter consignment sale two weeks ago at the St. Mary's Fairgrounds. Pictured above are the following items: a purple hooded winter coat size 2T, a fleece pullover also size 2T, a pair of pink mary janes (that are too small, oops!), a 12M fleece sleep 'n play, two sets of 12M cotton jammies, a 12M cotton romper, several Melissa & Doug musical instruments in original packaging, a stacker toy, two trucks, and a work bench. Not pictured are a sit-and-spin, a toy in original packaging that will be a Christmas gift for a little friend, and a portable booster seat for Gramma Lizzie's house. I should have taken the whole Christmas list with me, as there was a huge Melissa & Doug section. Now you might expect that I dropped a sizable chunk of change on all of these goodies because after an hour in line this stuff was heavy. And I started getting nervous about how much I had picked up. But I walked away with all of this loot for the bargain price of $68. Not too bad.

Portrait of the artist as a refugee

This week was E. Vent. Ful.

First, you heard about the earthquake, right? A 5.8 in Virginia last Tuesday. I was standing in the kitchen shaking my fist at what I thought was a convoy of construction trucks driving by our house because they have an uncanny way of knowing exactly when Maureen is napping. But then the noise changed and sounded like a very strong gust of wind except when I looked outside it wasn't windy. The grandfather clock started chiming loudly, the way it does when you walk past it too heavily. And the lantern hanging over the sink began to swing back and forth. My stomach went all queasy, and I realized we were having an earthquake. Mo slept through it. Robb was sitting at his desk on the boat, but it sloshed the water in the creek and shook the floating dock enough to bounce him around in his chair.

Second, NOAA sent Robb out of town Thursday to help with the hurricane response in Norfolk. Making new surveys of ports after natural disasters is part of his job description. He simply had not been called upon to respond in an emergency until now. Whoosh, off he went. That same day there was an aftershock of 4.5.

Third, without my usual childcare provider--Robb--I was unable to go to work on Friday and Saturday.

Fourth, I panicked about being home alone with a baby and a dog in a hurricane. So I packed up my show and went on the road to Mom's house where I would be safe from the long soggy arm of the storm. They were calling for 8 inches of rain at my house. Walking the dog in that nonsense is bad enough because Sukey refuses to relieve herself in inclement weather but begs to go out constantly, but trying to do it with Maureen in tow in a monsoon... I don't even want to figure that out. Mom has a fenced yard. Problem solved.

Fifth, Mo and I had a nice visit with Aunt Julie on Friday morning. Coastal Hospice ordered all of its patients to evacuate the Ocean City area well in advance of the storm. She and Uncle Rich came to stay at Paul's house. She looks astonishingly like a Brigham. That is to say she has my great-grandfather's thinness and sharp features and nearly has the height. Since I was little Julie always had more meat on her bones, and she resembled the Bealls more. But now she looks like Sissy except very tired. She was glad to see Maureen. And I was glad to see her glad.

Sixth, I fell on the stairs a Mom's house on Saturday afternoon. Mo was in my arms, and I missed the last step. I've walked up and down those stairs about five billions times in my life, so why would I now miscalculate the number of steps to the bottom? That information is a muscle memory. It's like knowing when to kneel, sit, and stand in a Catholic worship service. It's practically hardwired into my DNA. In the split second before my foot turned under and was crushed under the combined 200 pounds of us, I thought, That wasn't the last step, and then we tumbled down onto the tile. I managed to tuck the baby in like a little football. She was startled by the impact but not hurt. Thank goodness. We went to the emergency room, I had x-rays, and the doctor told me I broke my foot. A nurse splinted it and sent me home with crutches. The baby was an angel for the three hours we spent at the hospital. We all went home in the pouring rain.

Seventh, the hurricane cometh. No damage at Mom's house. And around 10pm we heard a large tree go over, but it was in the woods and didn't hurt anything. We lost phone, internet, and tv in one of the surges. Robb's parents in Howard County lost power, as did George and Chere near Baltimore. At our house at Fig Point a rain gutter came loose. But other nearby neighborhoods in Southern Maryland did not fare so well. Lots of trees fell on houses. A swath of Maryland from St. Mary's, Calvert, Anne Arundel, and Baltimore Counties is still in the dark. Including our house where electricity is not expected to be restored until Friday. Robb is sailing home tomorrow to take stock of the situation at the house. Mo and I and Sukey will remain here until we have electric again.

Eighth, I had a freezer full of pumped breast milk. A three week supply. It was my insurance policy against illness, injury, and intoxication. Gone. Justlikethat. I need to stop thinking about it now because I might start blubbering on Mom's laptop.

Ninth, I went to see an ortho on Monday. The ER doctor mis-read my x-rays. My foot is not broken. Halelujah! I have a sprain and a walking boot and no crutches!

Tenth, this week Maureen sprouted two front bottom teeth. One day nothing, the next day teeth were poking out. Crazy! She is so close to crawling it's not even funny. She gets up on all fours and rocks and kind of tosses her torso forward. And she discovered loud. She says, "huhhhHAAAAGHTH!!!!!!" It sounds like she might be gagging to death, but she looks terribly pleased with herself and amused while she's doing it and afterward. I made the sound loudly back at her, and she started to cry. Apparently when she does it it's hilarious, but when I do it it's terrifying. So now I mimic back quietly. The queen approves of this modification. When Robb called tonight I told him how she loves the barnyard sound effects that Gramma Lizzy adds to one of her bedtime stories.

Oh, and that Maureen said her first two words. Robb feels like he's missed all kinds of Mo-isms this week, so he asked breathlessly, "What were they???"

"Go 'Skins."

He paused, and in his best stop-teasing-me-voice replied, "They were not!"

Rock out with your clock out

Last night was the first time Robb and I have gone out without the baby since she was born. Charlene came to babysit. We were about a mile from the house, and Robb asked how I was doing.

"I'm freaking out."

I knew Charlene would be fine with Mo. I was just secretly hoping that the violent thunder storms would not completely miss us, and the concert would be tragically called off. I'm glad it wasn't canceled.



We saw Joan Jett & The Blackhearts and ZZ Top at the Calvert Marine Museum. Neither of them are bands we would have ordinarily sought out or paid to see. But YAY, free tickets! CMM has a nice setup for concerts. Last summer we saw Pat Benatar and REO Speedwagon. My favorite Joan Jett song is I Hate Myself for Loving You--it's one of the two JJ songs I know. She was good and all, but then...



...after Robb and I were momentarily confused--"Wait, I thought there were supposed to be four guys with beards???..."--I realized I am secretly a ZZ Top fan.



It was a secret I had been keeping from myself. They were AWE. SOME. When I was born ZZ Top had already been together for a decade. But these old guys know how to rock.



Check out that crazy drum kit. And I think their jackets were decorated with bedazzled pot leaves.



We tried not to check what time it was on the cell phone too often during the show but couldn't help it. We stayed until the end and got home at 10:45pm. Mo was fine.

Huge sigh of relief.

Here I come to save the day

Yesterday this man said to Mo, "What a big boy!" She was wearing her Mighty Mo onesie outfit. But I guess that male superheros are partial to spandex, so I corrected him. Whatever, no big deal. I'm not uptight about people mistaking her gender.

"Oh, a girl." He smiled at her and then to me, "And you're the grandmother." Not in the form of a question.

Are you kidding me? Clearly this guy was smoking crack.

This reminds me of the childbirth class we took. It was an all day Saturday affair in a classroom in the basement of the hospital. As a warmup we had to get to know the couple next to us and then introduce them to the class. The kids next to us--and I say "kids" because they were 20 and 21--were very nice. The girl looked just like Luna Lovegood from the HP movies.

We chatted with them for a few minutes about the usual stuff. How far along are you? Boy or girl? Have you thought of names? But when Robb mentioned that this was our first child, you should have seen the shock on their doughy little faces. To them we looked like Old Mother Hubbard and Father Time. Definitely too old to be giving a dog a bone, if you know what I mean.

Biologically speaking yes, I could have grandchildren at 33, and Robb's grandchildren could have drivers licenses. But I don't, and Robb's grandchildren are still in elementary school. This is our baby. We took our sweet time. Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of our first date. And maybe that means I get called granny once in a while.

But it was probably my fault for taking a shower and changing out of my spit up shirt. I lost my new-mama-street-cred.

Still more things I did not know 2 weeks ago

Continuing from an earlier string of posts (here and here):



9. My taste buds are old and mostly dead. Foods that taste sweet and only mildly tart to me, are astonishingly sour to Maureen. Take mashed Granny Smith apples for example. I think, "Mmm, homemade apple sauce." And Mo thinks, "Holy crap, woman, stop feeding me lemons!" And then her left eye flutters against the loathesome flavor.

10. Try as I might, I'm just not as big a hippie as I want to be. Yes, we're still using cloth diapers, but the herbal wipe solution made baby's butt look like raw hamburger. Poor Mo! Major fail.

11. It is great that Maureen is active, alert, and curious. But nursing an active, alert, and curious seven month old is not so fun. Especially when she's grabby, pinchy, scratchy, slappy, kicky, twisty, squirmy, shovey, bitey, fussy, and constantly turning around to look at the dog. Kellymom, take me away.



12. Whew, yesterday was a doozy. As Mo was going down for her first nap of the day, Robb dropped by the house to pick something up he needed at work. Maureen heard his footsteps in the hallway and Sukey's collar jingling, and her eyes snapped open. Just like that the napportunity was gone. An hour-and-a-half later when we tried again, she refused to close her eyes. By that time she was so tired she fussed through her milk and kept on complaining (at this point Mommy set her down in her crib and took a "time out") until I got the bright idea to give her a bath. Somewhat relaxed Mo finally took her first nap of the day at 3pm. When Robb got home I told him that college made me want to drink, but parenthood makes me want a line of coke and a hooker. Never thought Charlie Sheen could be a role model for parenting, but it is clear to me now that his children drove him to it.