Re: Item #2 below

So, a week ago Sunday (it's been a week already? ugh) we were at church, where we often are on Sunday mornings, that being the customary time for being at church. After the service and subsequent meeting, I was bundling myself so that I could, in turn, bundle Linnaea. In order to don my coat, I set Linnaea on the pew with our stuff. She was quite happy to be sitting there, but due to the fuzzy nature of her pants, and the combination of low static friction coefficients of said pants and the wood pew, and her relatively low normal force, her butt slid out to the side and she wound up lying on the pew.

So, as is her wont, she rolled over and got up on her hands and knees. She hasn't (as of this writing, though expect a post to the contrary soon, I wager) quite figured out the mechanics of crawling. She rocks, and she moves her knees, but the hands tend to remain firmly planted. The result, bearing in mind the previously noted frictional properties, is that she scoots or slides backwards. After awhile she had traversed the entire length of the pew, in reverse, and now had her feet against the end of the pew. Ah, thought I, she cannot slide back any further. Perhaps now she will be able to work on forward locomotion. And so she did.

Linnaea's legs are strong. She likes jumping. If she could run, she'd make a good sprinter, at least off the blocks. She pushed off, thrusting her body forward, but the hands, they remained planted. The final result was that Linnaea performed a faceplant into the pew that would do an Olympic snowboarder proud. The usual utterance of "Oh, bonk!" in happy tones did nothing to quell the wailing from my tender offspring. I picked her up, comforted her, and then inspected for damage. She appeared to be okay, except her cheek was red, as if it had been abraded or bruised from the impact. Which was odd, I thought, as I had expected her nose to have taken the brunt of the fall. Then I saw the blood on her thumb.

Linnaea had just learned that having teeth can be a danger to one's own person, not just to those of others (see discussion below regarding nursing equipment). She had apparently bitten her upper lip with both of her bottom teeth. The red on her cheek was blood that she had smeared after sucking on her thumb. So, I carried my bleeding baby downstairs to where Mater was packing up from the meeting, and called her over to share in her daughter's first wounding. Not to be cheated of sympathy from one of her parental units, Linnaea began crying again when Mater came over. We cleaned her up and everything was fine, but her lip remained swollen for the rest of the day and looked awful. We had intended to take a picture, but didn't get to it in time. The wound looked much better the next day, of course, and was completely healed a very short time thereafter. So, no longer is Linnaea's lip on the list of things broken.

Things That Are Broken

1. Linnaea's Crib
2. Linnaea's Lip
3. The Bank (see #1 above)


1. Linnaea likes to lie perpendicular to the length of her crib and kick the rungs as hard as she can. Our crib was a hand-me-down, a generous gift from one of Pater's co-workers, and the slats probably aren't as strong as they once were. Valentine's Day morning, I leaned over to set her back in her crib after feeding her and felt my shirt catch on something. I looked down and saw that one of the slats had broken at its connection to the top side rail. So, yes, Linnaea "kicked the crap out of her crib," as Nana has become fond of saying. Fortunately, the broken slat didn't pose much of a threat to Linnaea's safety, but the crib will have to be replaced nonetheless. Valentine's Day also involved flat tire repair, new brakes (surprise!), failure of said flat tire repair, and frequent pumping of air into Mater's front driver's side tire.

2. I'll let Pater explain this one.

3. Cribs are expensive. ::sigh::

Alright already!

Someone is apparently getting impatient, stating that it's been awhile since my last post. Okay, it's been two weeks, but I posted twice in a row, and they were both quite lengthy. But I think what Big Daddy really wants is for me to address the fact that he tagged me with a playlist request. Okay, you asked for it...

I don't listen to music the way I used to do. I used to always have the stereo on - constantly. But now I mostly just listen to music when driving. Perhaps it's because I share my living space with other people now. Perhaps it's because my cat barfed in my stereo and killed the cd player. I'm not sure about the cause/effect relationship. I do want to make sure Linnaea gets properly exposed to music, gets the opportunity to grow up with it, and hopefully for music to become a part of who she is. We have a small orchestra of instruments lying around waiting to be played... But what I'm leading up to here, is that I'm going to take the cheap way out on this "tagging" request. I may not listen to much at home, but I still manage to play the occasional video game. Since Christmas (thank you mom and dad!) I've been playing a lot of Guitar Hero. If you ever played air guitar - ever - you need this game. So, without further ado, here's what is on my (Guitar Hero) playlist:

I Love Rock & Roll           - Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
I Wanna Be Sedated           - The Ramones
Thunder Kiss 65              - White Zombie
Smoke On The Water           - Deep Purple
Infected                     - Bad Religion
Iron Man                     - Black Sabbath
More Than A Feeling          - Boston
You Got Another Thing Comin' - Judas Priest
Take Me Out                  - Franz Ferdinand
Sharp Dressed Man            - ZZ Top
Killer Queen                 - Queen
Hey You                      - The Exies
Stellar                      - Incubus
Heart Full of Black          - Burning Brides
Symphony Of Destruction      - Megadeth
Ziggy Stardust               - David Bowie
Fat Lip                      - Sum 41
Cochise                      - Audioslave
Take It Off                  - The Donnas
Unsung                       - Helmet
Spanish Castle Magic         - Jimi Hendrix
Higher Ground                - Red Hot Chili Peppers
No One Knows                 - Queens of the Stone Age
Ace Of Spades                - Motorhead
Crossroads                   - Cream
Godzilla                     - Blue Oyster Cult
Texas Flood                  - Stevie Ray Vaughan
Frankenstein                 - The Edgar Winter Group
Cowboys From Hell            - Pantera
Bark at the Moon             - Ozzy Osbourne

I suppose I will add a few artists from our collection that I listen to while driving: Alice in Chains, Black Sabbath, Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, Enter the Haggis, Led Zeppelin, Megadeth, Metallica, Offspring, Pogues, Radiohead, Queensryche, and Type O Negative.

Who will be tagged next? It's a mystery!

(more baby stuff to come soon - yesterday was quite adventurous...)

My Eardrums, R.I.P.

Linnaea's latest trick is to make a noise that is somewhere between singing in the highest range of sonic frequencies and screaming. She makes this noise when she is happy, but as she loses patience with whatever she happens to be doing, the noise approaches what can best be described as an angry screech.

Need I elaborate?

Not-Forward Motion

She almost has crawling figured out now. She does everything but move her hands/arms forward. It's pretty funny. She gets up on her hands and knees, rocks back and forth for a while, then either scootches her knees forward, or straightens her legs so that she's on her hands & feet and then drops her knees back down such that they're forward of their original position. Then, of course, she's stuck, precariously balanced on hands & knees that are too close together. She gets a look of immense concentration on her face as she attempts to remedy the situation, but her "remedies" invariably result in her toppling over.

The Current Dental Situation

Pater gets the greatest smiles!

Incredibly cute, but petulant

Allow me to take a moment to share an entertaining tale. Well, entertaining perhaps for those who are not equipped to nurse their children. Of course, it certainly isn't entertaining for those not equipped to nurse who are spouses of those who are so equipped.

Linnaea now has three teeth. None of the three are in direct opposition with one another - middle two on the bottom, but the one on the top is to the right of middle. (Incidentally, we think the next arrival will be on the bottom left.) While this arrangement is less dangerous than if her teeth were opposed, it doesn't lessen the pain of a bite, especially when said bite is delivered to the aforementioned nursing equipment. As Linnaea has reached an age where we feel she can start learning consequences, we are trying to stop bad behavior, such as the grabbing mentioned in my last post, before it becomes ingrained. We are, after all, the parents. It is our will that is supreme. (As it always has been, but don't tell our parents that. The illusion is healthy for them.) So, when she bites while nursing, which usually happens towards the end of a feeding anyway, the equipment is taken away. She has started to catch on.

Sometimes she gets distracted while nursing by other more exciting stimuli that might be happening around her. Ceiling fans, Aki, (any of the animals for that matter,) and sometimes even myself serve to be such distractions. Last night Linnaea was tired. It was getting close to bedtime. But she hadn't eaten in a while, and hunger has a way of interfering with sleep. So, as is their custom, Mater nursed Linnaea. Linnaea, however, wasn't very interested in the food and kept getting distracted by the ceiling fan, Aki, and myself. As this distraction is a regular occurrence, Mater has grown accustomed to reminding Linnaea of the task at hand, and getting her back on track. Last night however, Linnaea decided she didn't want to be harassed about finishing a meal in which she wasn't really interested in the first place. So, she looked up at Mater, turned to the side, bit her, then looked back up. The message was clear, Linnaea had learned that she can tell Mater she's finished eating by biting her.

And the fun of parenting begins! (Either that or weaning in earnest...)