My baby loves watermelon

Drew is in Seattle today (Sunday) and Monday. He left at 3 p.m. yesterday so he could go to a banquet and hear what big-time journalism award he won. Turns out the investigative story he did on Washington Mutual's demise won best business story in the entire Pacific Northwest! He said the banquet was boring and it was not worth getting a baby-sitter.

So, wanting company, I went to our friend Catherine's house. She has a 3-year-old, Josie. Cat made us dinner and we had watermelon for dessert. "Why don't you see if Rachel likes it?" Cat asked. So she sliced the watermelon into tiny squares for Rachel to handle easily. And she left out the seeds.

Rachel loved it! Probably more for the texture than the taste, as Cat pointed out, but still, Rachel ate several pieces and smacked her lips, her sign for "I really like this, Mommy!" Then I gave her some small crackers and she ate those, too. AND she drank all her bottle last night. I'm amazed she hasn't gained more weight. She's 19 pounds.

This morning I gave her some slices of strawberry. Oregon strawberries (and marionberries, and blackberries) are the best reason to live in Oregon and I look forward to them all year, so I was hoping Rachel would find them delicious, too. She looked dubiously at the strawberry slices, then realized she could mush them up, let them drop INSIDE her bib and ruin her perfectly cute pink onesie, etc. She also ate a little of my scone, too.

Plus, she can now drink from a sippy cup! That was a big one for me, since all my friends with younger babies say their little ones have been sippy cup drinkers for months now. I'm glad Rachel finally got with the program.

My first wake

A former colleague of mine, Pat O'Neill, died two weeks ago of cancer. A wake for him was held last night at the Scottish Rite Temple near PGE Park.

It was a beautiful space, very fitting for Pat's spirit. Everyone brought food -- much better than hiring a caterer, I thought -- and reminisced about how much fun Pat had had while he was alive. His doctor -- his doctor! At his wake! -- talked about how Pat had "lived his disease, rather than letting IT live HIM." It was the best quote of the night and really made me think.

Also what made me think was seeing so many former Oregonian colleagues, as well as folks from the Department of Human Services, where Pat worked after taking a buyout two years ago. Mel Kohn, the state's acting director of public health, spoke. He lives three blocks for us and is such a nice, down-to-earth guy, it's hard to remember he has such an important job.

Drew and I took Rachel with us. We were lucky there was at least one other kid there -- our friend Catherine's 3-year-old, Josie. She was fascinated by Rachel and kept staring at her, for which Catherine was grateful because it kept her occupied.

Rachel was dressed in a little summer dress that Drew bought her last week, and white socks with lace around the cuffs. She looked ADORABLE and got a lot of compliments. A few people were gracious and said she looks like a combination of me and Drew, but most agree that she looks almost exclusively like him.

Afterward I wondered: When I die, will Rachel organize a memorial service? Who would come? What would they say?

Drew the rock star

Drew has always secretly wanted to be in a punk rock band, despite the fact that he can't carry a tune. This of course does not prevent him from singing off-tune Beatles songs to Rachel as he's rocking her to sleep.

But now he gets to be a rock star in his own household. The last two nights I've been alone with Rachel, she has called me "Dada!" Not "Mama!" or "Mamee!" but "Dada." "Honey, I'm Mama, not Dada," I tell her, smiling. To which she replies with a grin, "Dada!"

She lit up this morning when Drew and I walked into her room but kept her eyes firmly on Drew. When we took her for a walk earlier this week he said smugly, "Basically, I rock her world."

It seems he is right.

Rachel gets an owie

"So, how was her day?" I asked Shannon, one of the daycare ladies, as I picked Rachel up last night.
"I have some bad news," she replied.
I expected to hear that Rachel was very sick. Turns out that she was bitten by another baby. They were both crawling toward the same ball, and the other baby bit Rachel before grabbing it. Or something like that. It happens all the time, I was told, and at this age, it's not malicious. No skin was broken, and Rachel was less freaked out by the actual bite than of the daycare ladies trying to put ice on the wound. She didn't like that at all.

So, now she looks like she has a big hickie on her cheek. It looks like she's been in a fight, albeit a gentle one.

Baby radio

This morning Drew and I were awakened by gentle music through the baby monitor. It turns out that Rachel was playing with a plastic music station we attached to her crib. When you press the buttons, it plays snatches of classical music.

In between the music we heard her gently burbling to herself.

"I love listening to her," Drew said. "It's the baby radio channel! Like baby video, only with the picture turned off."

The sweet perfume of baby

The conversation between Drew and me this morning, when he brought Rachel into the bathroom to watch Mommy blow-dry her hair (Keep in mind while reading this that we have not one, not two, but THREE university degrees between us. Plus one fellowship):

Lisa (putting her nose next to Rachel's neck and breathing her in): Oh, she smells like baby! I love that smell!
Drew: Actually, she smells like a mixture of baby and urine.
Lisa: Yeah, when you walk into her room, it smells faintly of poop.
Drew: Like a subway station!
Lisa: A gently used one.

Home again

Drew and The Little Girl picked me up at the airport tonight when my plane came in two hours late. (It's United, what did you expect?). That meant we couldn't go out for dinner or gelato. We will try for gelato tomorrow night.

It looked like Rachel had grown up by two months or so...her little face looked so much more mature, even though I've only been away three days! Drew informed me that she can now use a sippy cup (with some help), holds her bottle all by herself (most of the time) and I noticed after bathtime that she was clutching a stuffed mouse that Aunt Ruth and Uncle Steve sent as part of a lovely flower basket when Rachel was born (thanks again!)

I'll be leaving again on Thursday for Valerie's baby-naming ceremony in NY. When I get back, I plan to give Drew at least one baby-free day. He could use it.

Singing in Spokane

I've got my makeup and costume on, hair is done and I'm waiting to sing with Pride of Portland. We're hoping for a score of 680 or higher. Half the women in the chorus are ill, so we'll see how much upper body strength we collectively have.

Rachel has been delightful, according to Drew -- she has slept through the past few nights and has been very cheerful when she's awake. It's gorgeous in Portland so they plan to spend most of the day at the park.

The winner of this weekend's quartet contest included a singer who is 7. 7! I was very impressed. I can't wait to take Rachel to rehearsals and contests when she is old enough. Hopefully she will enjoy singing as much as her mom does.

Hard-hearted mommy

So, last night I gave Rachel her bottle and a bath, snuggled her into her sleepsack and rocked her while I sang three songs, softly (I tend to go for '60s protest songs and union-friendly tunes, could be because of the way I feel about the economy and work in general these days). She was in that sleepy stage but woke up and started crying as soon as I put her in the crib.

And then she did something that broke my heart: She got up on her knees, leaned against the crib and held her arms out to me as if to say, "Mommy! Mommy! Please don't go!" Her little face was streaked with tears.

But Drew and I have decided she needs to learn to fall asleep on her own, so I patted her and said, "night-night Rachel, time to go to sleep," and left the room. Her cries turned into screams of rage. I used the Ferber method -- went in after five minutes, patted her, then left. I didn't even have to get to 10 minutes before she was fast asleep.

That lasted until 2:30 a.m., when she woke up screaming again and Drew went in and changed her diaper. She was sitting up in the crib and clearly wanted to be picked up and rocked, but he refused to do so. She was crying when he left the room but settled down after 10 minutes. And then slept until 7:45 this morning!

I, of course, was up at 5:30 and then got up for good at 6:30. My ability to sleep late, even when I have the chance to, is gone.

Fun with vowels and consonants

Last night as I was giving Rachel her bottle, she ran through almost the entire alphabet: Ba. Da. Ga. Ma. Pa. And grinning at her ability to make new sounds!

This morning she woke up at 6:30 a.m. (after a rough night of trying to get her to sleep, she at least slept all the way through) and I could hear her babbling to herself in her crib: dadada gagaga...I finally went in after showering, putting on my makeup and taking a bite or two out of a scone and a sip of orange juice. My hair is so short these days that getting ready in the morning takes no more than a half-hour. I realized today that my expertise in taking five-minute showers in Africa (which is all I had because my shower was solar-powered) is coming in handy as a mom!

Rachel also is transitioning from blowing loud raspberries to making a softer, whirring sound with her lips and tongue. It sounds like the gentle hum of a motorboat on a clear, sunny day.

Rachel, 10 months and terrific

We sang "Happy Birthday" to her tonight as we were getting ready to lotion her up and put her to bed. "You're 10 months old today!" Drew said. "That means you've been here longer than you've been in Mommy's tummy!"

Rachel is:

--Crawling everywhere. Anytime one of is isn't in the living room with her -- or, say, if I am and she'd prefer Drew's company to mine - she'll crawl after him or me. Tonight when I was reading The New Yorker, she decided she wanted to see what Dad was up to. So she crawled to the sink and started tugging on his pants to lift her up. It's like living with a puppy.

--Practicing her fine motor skills with ever-increasing sophistication. Today she grabbed Drew's calculator and toted it around while she was crawling. "She looks like a baby accountant!" he said. She also loves my car keys, cell phone, tubes of various creams and medications that we give her -- everything except her actual toys. And plastic cups. Did I mention plastic cups? She can spend 10 minutes at a time throwing them to the side, banging them together and knocking them over.

--Babbling all the time, especially "ba" and "mama" and "da" and "dada." She did this a lot on the way home from Eugene two weeks ago and I swear I heard a garbled version of, "Love you." Somtimes it sounds as if she's saying "hey!' or "hi!"

--Really liking other babies and older kids. She'll go right up to the little ones and touch their faces, snatch their binkies and sun hats, or hand them her toys. And she's fascinated with older kids. She can watch them for hours, it seems.

--Eating, eating, eating -- about two jars of baby food at each sitting. Turkey vegetable dinner, carrots, applesauce and blueberries, tomato chicken pastini, cookies and Cheerios (the last two she only gets into her mouth sometimes. They usually end up on her bib, her cheeks, her eyelashes, pants, toes...)

--Adventurous. She loves playing "Flying Baby" with Drew, who tumbles her up and over and down and around and upside down, much to my nervousness; I never do that because I'm still afraid I'll drop her on her head. He thinks she'll be the kind of kid who loves to go on roller-coasters, same as her mommy (was).

--Generally pretty cheerful. She loves flashing her grin, which now consists of four bottom teeth and two top teeth about to come through. When she smiles she crinkles her eyes, which reminds Drew of his sister, Amanda, when she was that age (remember that Drew was old enough when she was born to recall what she was like as a baby). She also giggles at the slightest provocation, especially when we dance around or waggle our heads or bounce her up and down or, if she's in the right mood, when we tickle her under the arms and on the bottom of her feet.

--Napping with some regularity, at least as of this week. She takes at least one gigantic nap a day of 2 1/2 hours or so -- morning or afternoon -- and a smaller one of a half-hour or hour. It's the only time we still swaddle her.

--Sleeping occasionally through the night but getting up way too early -- at 5:30 a.m. or so. We have decided to let her cry through it until 6 or 6:30 a.m. The days of sleeping until 8:30 or 9 or even later on weekends are a fond memory.

--And finally, Rachel is: A constant reminder of how lucky we are.

My first Mother's Day!

..I spent several hours of it sorting and packing up boxes of baby clothes: newborn, 0-3 months, 3-6 months. I couldn't help but think how lucky I am that Rachel is in my life now and I have the privilege of dealing with tiny shirts, onesies and dresses!

Drew kindly let me sleep late this morning. Then he made me a nice breakfast of bacon and a warmed-up ginger scone, tea and orange juice. He mowed the lawn and was so tired when he finished that he asked me if he could nap for a while. Sure, I said. His nap turned out to last 2 hours!

Meanwhile, I opened Daniella's beautiful gift -- a silver necklace with a circle spelling out "mother" in four languages. I was stunned at her thoughtfulness and may very well wear the necklace every day from now on. Then I put Rachel in her crib for a morning nap but alas it didn't last long -- 1/2 hour -- and so she played a while in the living room. I fed her winter squash and carrots for lunch and took her upstairs while I did the most depressing thing a recently pregnant woman can do -- tried on every item of clothing I have in the house. I now have boxes and boxes of maternity clothes, pre-pregnancy clothes (summer and winter), clothes that might someday fit me if I lose, oh, 40 pounds, clothes that are likely to never fit me again but I still can't bear to donate and will probably just give to a far thinner friend of mine, etc. etc. Good thing Rachel was keeping me company; when she's cheerful and well-rested, she's a great companion.

She got sleepy in Drew's arms later on, and when he put her in my lap she leaned against my chest and fell asleep. So I gently swaddled her and put her back in her crib, where she has been asleep for two hours.

In 40 minutes, I get to leave for a much-welcome manicure, pedicure and eyebrow wax. I feel slightly guilty that I haven't taken Rachel to the park because it's such a nice day out. After we grill burgers tonight, we plan to walk to the gelato place nine blocks away and get dessert. I guess that will be her exercise for the day.

Naptime

Drew managed to get Rachel down for a nap this morning after she woke up, yowling, at 5:30 a.m. This is the second day he has been able to get her down for a nap in her crib, which is good because we want her to fall asleep there instead of on us.

This is the first day of my Tuesday-Saturday schedule, and I am looking forward to 5:30 when I can clock out and be with my family.

Friday in the park with Dad

Drew reports that he had a wonderful day with Rachel. This morning he and I signed refinancing papers (we grabbed a better rate and as a result our monthy mortgage payments are now lower) while Rachel played at our feet. It was a cheerful yet sobering reminder of how much my life has changed in less than a year.

Then I went off to work while Drew took Rachel to the park. They made new friends with a 3-year-old named Grace and her 6-month-old brother, Chet. Chet is big. He weighs 24 pounds. He could sit on Rachel and do serious damage. They ended up on the same blanket together, with Drew watching them while Grace's mom ran after her daughter. When Chet expressed interest in Rachel's toy phone, she handed it to him! How sweet!

Then a bank failed in Washington State and Drew had to write the story. I raced out of work and managed to catch the 5:55 p.m. bus back home, where I took over child-care duties while Drew reported, wrote and proofed a chart. Rachel amused herself with Cheerios while I warmed up dinner, and we ended up having most of our Shabbat meal before we had to start bath, bottle and bedtime.

Bathtime is crucial these days because Rachel manages to cover herself in Cheerios when we offer them to her. "I know I'm a parent because I know what happens when you combine Cheerios and saliva," Drew said. "SuperGlue! It's like cement."

mamama!

Rachel says it all the time now: Mama! Mama! Mama! Mamamamama!
It's very cute.

She also loves to track us when we're moving in the kitchen. So when I'm reading something or cooking dinner, she'll peer around her high chair to get a look.

And last night she crawled all the way from the living room, through the dining room, to the edge of the kitchen. She stopped at her diaper bag, which was on the floor next to the buffet, and started tugging at the zippers. "Hello!" Drew laughed when he saw her. "How'd YOU get here?"

Breakfast with Rachel

...after she woke up shrieking yet again, and stayed in her crib sobbing until Drew just couldn't take it anymore and took her into bed with him and they fell asleep together. I had gone to the basement guest room at his urging and fell blissfully alseep to the sound of ocean waves on a CD that is on permanent replay.

"Oh, Macbeth, you can take lessons from Rachel about murdered sleep," Drew murmured to her as she sat in her high chair, beaming at him as if nothing was amiss. "Who need knives when you have a piercing scream? Who needs knives when you have a piercing shriek of a baby?"

Luckily today was my day off, so as soon as I dropped her off at daycare and did a couple of other things, I crawled into bed and absolutely crashed for about two hours. I could have used 3 more hours of sleep, but I had to buy Mom a Mother's Day gift and mail it. Then I went to the gym for a spin class and am feeling like a new woman after not having exercised for about the last two weeks. That almost justified the chocolate cupcake I had for dessert tonight.

I came across this verse in an old notebook just now, which Drew and I started singing one day to the tune of "Pretty Woman":
Pretty baby
crawlin' up my lap
pretty baby
won't you take a nap
pretty baby
'cause you look sleepy
as can be
Can't you be sleepy
Just like me?

Pretty baby
strollin' down the street...

The words stopped there. I'm sure Rachel did something cute or awful to distract us, so we never got back to it. Please feel free to fill in the rest.

Weekend in Eugene

We had a (mostly) wonderful time in Eugene this weekend with our friends Matt and Molly, and their kids Calvin, Camilla and Marigold who is a month younger than Rachel. Some highlights:

--Molly is Supermom. She has three active children, and yet she kept asking us if we wanted something to eat or drink -- tea? A bagel? PLUS her kids are extremely interactive and well-behaved, Molly also is a talented writer and a full-time journalist, and to all appearances does not take drugs to survive the daily onslaught. I don't know how she does it.

--Calvin and Camilla LOVED Rachel. Camilla pronounced her her favorite baby, superior even to Marigold (hard to believe, since Marigold is so placid and cute, and Rachel can be a real fusspot sometimes). Calvin said when he's 12 he can babysit Marigold and Rachel, both of whom will be 6. I thought that was a lovely sentiment. Camilla kept asking if she could hug Rachel. She calls her Princess Babyhead.

--Molly took us to the most beautiful park I've seen yet in Oregon -- Hendricks Park, which was blooming with rhododendrons this year. My camera was on the fritz or I would have taken pictures with Rachel next to the flowers. They were absolutely stunning!

--I said we had a mostly wonderful time, because Rachel woke up screaming in the middle of the night and Drew and I could not get her back to bed in the Pack-n-Play that Matt and Molly had set up in Camilla's room. We were terrified of waking up the whole household and exchanged some very harsh words before we hauled her onto the air mattress with us, hoping she'd go to sleep. That, of course, is when she decided she wanted to play. She kept babbling to herself and wanting to climb onto us and off the mattress. We just waited her out and she finally slept -- for about 4 hours.

--I teased Calvin when he would tell Rachel about being airborne. "Don't tell her she can fly," I said. "She'll believe you, and then she'll climb up onto the roof and try, and then she'll hurt herself." Calvin, of course, did not listen. At the garden I caught him leaning in to Rachel's stroller. "You can FLY," he whispered. Then he smiled slyly and ran off.

Food snob?

It seems as if The Little Girl has become a bit of a baby food snob. She no longer likes the Safeway brand of organic baby food, preferring another brand we buy called "Earth's Best."

Also, the daycare ladies have started feeding her Cheerios, which they call "O"s (which Drew guesses is because the daycare center doesn't like to use brand names. How Portland!). We gave her some this morning and the result was, well, quite messy. She picks them up and puts them in her mouth but they end up on her chin, on her pants, on the chair, in between her legs...oh, we can't wait until we give her grownup food and it ends up on the floor and we have to mop up several times a week...

We're heading to Eugene tomorrow to spend the weekend with our friends Molly and Matt (we knew them long ago in Minnesota), their kids Calvin (6) Camilla (4 1/2) and Marigold (8-plus months). I'm already feeling sorry for the older kids, since the two girls will no doubt torture them with shrieks and accidental hits to their faces.