Whoops!  Somehow, the five months post didn’t happen, and holycrap all of a sudden – six months!  SIX!  Six whole months.

So we’re only 5 days into six month-dom, but I can already confirm that so far, it rocks hardcore.  Maggie has become an utter delight.  She giggles, she flirts, she smiles and chatters, grabs my nose, and laughs when I nibble on her fingers.  She loves baths, her Johnny Jump Up, playing in her crib, hanging out with her cousins (or any big kids, for that matter) and snuggling with Mama in the mornings.  She hates having to change her clothes, being bored, and staying in the house all day.

She is absolutely the loveliest baby I have ever seen.

She is also the unquestioned master of the startled expression.

She is extremely determined, and she knows her own mind.  We are in month three now of her daytime nursing strike.  She refuses – absolutely REFUSES, even when very hungry – to nurse during the day, unless I manage to catch her the moment she starts to wake up from a nap and she’s too sleepy to protest.  However, she nurses overnight without any problem at all.  Her pediatrician suggested that perhaps, for whatever reason, she has decided that daytime is for bottles and nighttime is for nursing.  All I know is that life became incredibly more complicated when she stopped nursing – now I’m chained to the pump during the day.  I pump every three hours, for at least 30 minutes at a time.  During those 30 minutes, she sits next to me in her bouncy seat, more or less willingly.  However, she sometimes insists on sitting in my lap — and when she does, she pulls the tubes out of the bottles, screeching when I move her hands away.  CHILD.  STOP MAKING THIS HARDER.

She just started solids in the last week, and started them with a vengeance.  However, she is very particular about what she wants (shocking).  On the thumbs up list — anything I am eating.  On the thumbs down list — anything that she is actually SUPPOSED to eat.  Nothing on a spoon.  No cereal, no mushy baby foods, no veggies in a jar.

She is very verbal (not surprising, considering who her parents are).  She’s babbled for months now, but suddenly has unleashed a whole new repertoire of sounds.  Chief among them:  blah, bob, bah, da, ma, la.  It’s awesome to hear her little voice chirping away when I’m making dinner or folding laundry.  She is a wonderfully happy companion.

She is very, VERY much the product of her father and me — strong willed, determined, and in need of constant intellectual stimulation.  I said as much to her ped, and he said, “Yes, she might be quite a challenge.”  But that’s not what I meant at all — I meant all of those things as compliments, and hey, it means that I really understand my kid.  She takes after me. 

I’m so, so glad that I don’t have to balance working full time and motherhood.  Staying home with her has been an incredible blessing, and I can’t imagine life any other way.  It’s a privilege to be her Mama, and to be her constant companion.

Maggie, you are your Mama’s sweetest, most precious girl.  I love you with all my heart.

Oh, my sweet, sweet child.

You take my breath away with how quickly you are changing!  In the last few weeks, you’ve discovered books (ones with pictures of babies are your favorite), toys, your feet, spitting, and developed the ability to pop your bink back in your mouth on your own.  In short, you are AMAZING.

You flirt shamelessly with anyone who smiles at you.  It’s a real joy taking you out in public, because you quickly entrance everyone you meet with your big smile, sparkly eyes, and coquettish little ways.

Alas, you remain on the small side, which worries me sometimes.  You’re 90th percentile for height (25.5″ at four months), but slid from 50th% to 25th to 10th to under 10th for weight, and so I have made it my mission to put some chunk on you.  It’s not easy when you are far too interested in the world around you to pay attention to eating!  In fact, you’ve been on a daytime nursing strike now for nearly a week, and I’ve had to pump and bottle feed you.  Nonetheless, you are now putting on nearly an ounce a day, and I hope for some big chunky thighs soon. 

I’m pretty sure you’re in the 125th percentile for feet, though.

The two of us in our “natural habitat.”

A tired, but blissed out Mama.

I can hardly stand how much I love you sometimes.  It hurts my heart.

Staying home with you – and watching you grow, develop, and seeing your personality evolve – has been the greatest gift I’ve ever gotten.  Sure, sometimes it’s hard (like the past week, when the entire Boyd family was sick with the flu and I could barely get my head off the pillow to take care of you), but I know how quickly you will grow up and grow away.   And although I am excited for that – excited to see you become a toddler, then a big kid, and then all grown up — I want to capture these moments and this time of your life in my memory forever, because this period is so completely, wholly golden and it will be gone forever before I know it.

I love you.

Mama

Anniversary of your conception to youuuuuuuuuu

Happy anniversary of your conception TO youuuuuuuuuu

Happy anniVERSARY of your conception to Maaaaaggiiiiiiiiiieeeeee

Happy anniversary of your conception to YOUUUUUUUU!

Love,
Your mama and daddy, who commemorated 9/11 in a most patriotic way last year

On another note, I can barely remember what it was like to be pregnant anymore. I saw a picture of me taken at 36 weeks the other day, and did a double take. Oh my Lord! Was that really ME? Was I actually that big??

Jesus – that looks like it hurts.

I can’t believe that that’s MAGGIE in there, just waiting to make her appearance in the world! It seems like she’s always been here, with me, my little companion and sunshine.

MAMA!

Congratulations, Maggie! You’re officially out of the “fourth trimester.”

You are changing faster than I can believe. Just last week, you giggled for the first time while awake (you’ve been laughing in your sleep for a while now!).  You’ve also started sitting up, assisted by the Bumbo and the Boppy, and crane your neck to try to sit up on your own when I’m holding you.  You also (just tonight!) rolled for the first time from your back to your front — and then, just to show off, you rolled from your back to your front to your back again!

In the last week or so, we’ve really started to see some of your spunky little personality come out. You HATE going to sleep, because you’re so enamored of the world that you don’t want to miss a second of it (I’ve tried telling you that the world stops when you close your eyes, but you refuse to believe me). You make the most amazing and hilarious sounds of mourning and sorrow when I try to rock you to sleep — you are tired, but try so hard to fight it off, because you just KNOW that something amazing and wonderful will transpire while you’re asleep, and you will miss out on ALL THE FUN.

Your favorite “toy” is a long blue ribbon that I tied to a fan in our bedroom, which bounces and whips around in the breeze. You could watch the ribbon for HOURS. You smile at the ribbon in the morning, and coo at it while I make the bed.  How amazing and awesome the world must seem to you!

It’s all out there, kiddo, waiting for you to discover it.

MAMA!

So in love with my husband, and this amazing child we made.

- MAMA!

Maggie just giggled! BEST SOUND I’VE EVER HEARD.

Every pound I gained, every twinge of pain I had, every stretch mark I developed, every dollar of income I gave up to stay home, was worth it for this moment.

So in love with my kiddo!

The best expression I have heard describing parenthood is this – “having a child means forever after wearing your heart on the outside of your body.” It’s true, in ways both agonizing and wonderful. I had to turn off Law & Order the other day when the plot line centered around a woman being kidnapped and kept away from her infant daughter. The thought of ever being separated from Maggie like that made it hard for me to even breathe. Likewise, an episode of Torchwood (plot arc – children kidnapped from their parents by the government and turned over to evil aliens) affected me the same way. The idea of anybody ever trying to hurt my precious daughter instantly brings out the killer instinct in me — I’d rip the throat out of anyone who threatened her well-being.

I’m sure that part of my feeling is based on her fragility. She’s so utterly and preciously vulnerable right now. The sight of her little neck and sweet fuzzy head has brought tears to my eyes more than once – she is just so innocent and whole right now — untouched by any of the myriad painful experiences that all of us have once we get out in the world. I want to protect that sweetness and innocence as long as I possibly can.

She is so infinitely precious to me.

- Mama

How the hell have two whole months gone by since Maggie was born??

She’s a right baby these days – not just an infant anymore. She smiles! She stuffs her fist into her mouth! She gurgles and coos! She listens intently when I sing to her! She has elbow dimples and chubby thighs and big, beautiful blue eyes!

She also has an amusing habit of lapping delicately on my chest like a little kitten (nowhere near the business end of the bubs, so she’s not trying to nurse). It’s like she’s licking a big ice cream cone. She also will bob her head around, land on my chest and make big, smacking noises that leave wet Os of baby slobber on my skin.

Basically, she’s just super effing cute.

And very snuggly.

I love her so much.

Oh, right – I have a blog.

I was initially filled with aspirations of blogging regularly here to create a wonderful archive of baby memories and experiences that Maggie could someday read, but I’m mostly too tired these days to contemplate anything other than “Am I hungry? Is the baby hungry? If the answer to both is no, I AM GOING TO SLEEP NOW.”

The Maggster is now 7 and a half weeks old, 10-ish pounds and eighty frillion inches long. I went down to my family’s house last weekend to visit, and my Mom commented on the fact that Maggie doesn’t seem to have chunked up much from her birth weight, despite gaining 3 pounds since then. The simple reason for this is that she’s growing long faster than she can put weight on them bones.

She laughed for the first time a few days ago. We were in the car, and she was sleeping. I looked over just in time to see her smile, and then utter “Heh. Heh. Heh,” her little belly bouncing with each “Heh.” I wonder what she was dreaming about that she found so amusing.

Lord knows she certainly cracks ME up with her expressions sometimes.

We have good days more frequently than bad ones. There have only been a handful of times that I’ve lost patience when the crying seems unending. 99% of the time, her tears unleash in me only a massive wave of sympathy and gentleness. It’s been eye-opening seeing how differently Matt and I relate to her when she cries — his reaction is often, and I quote, “This is BULLSHIT!”

It’s hard for me to hear him express impatience with her — my instinct tells me to snuggle her away from him at those moments – to retreat to the magical mama and baby circle and close out unsympathetic words. But I shouldn’t – she is his daughter too, and parenting her is a job for both of us. I’ve seen too many women become Mothers at the exclusion of every other role in their lives, including wife, and it’s a choice that leads nowhere good.

One thing’s for sure – we definitely created one hell of a beautiful child.

- Mama!