We are at the beach. Lorelei and I are currently in a beautiful beach house with my mom, dad, brother (+ 1 friend) and sister (+1 friend) and two obnoxious dogs. Allen will be joining us tomorrow. I love being surrounded by family and feel a bit less lonely and overwhelmed than I do most days. I am still getting used to the Stay at Home Mom thing.
So for the past three weeks, I have been super congested and stuffy. For two of those three weeks, I felt like I had been hit with a truck and had to even take it easy around the house. I thought it was my less-than-great immune system responding to my new lack of sleep (and yes, we are still partying at 4 am. on a regular basis,) but then my husband and child started showing the same systems. Yes, I gave my daughter her first cold. Except she has this pathetic little cough to go with it, and it breaks my heart to hear her little congested breaths. And let me tell you, the only thing that is worse than shooting salt water from a high pressure can into your nasal cavaties only to have it burn down the back of your throat, is to do the same to your almost-five-month-old. Ugh. It makes me feel awful.
Tonight while walking on the streets than ran off the boardwalk, we wandered into what looked like a bookstore. But it was so much more than a bookstore; it just kept going and going with box and toys and dress up clothes and puppets and one of the best children's sections I had ever seen. We bought Lorelei two books: Madeline and Pat the Bunny. I wanted to buy her the whole store. I want my daughter to read (or hear me read) every book she could ever want and every book I have ever loved. I find that our reading list is a little much for a baby right now. We are more likely to be found reading poetry (everything from Shakespeare to Shel Silverstein,) than little baby books (though I LOVE Sandra Boynton,) but I am sure my days of "see the dog. The dog barks. Bark, dog, bark" are coming. And side note, but I think I would love to be a children's book author. I mean seriously, I have read a lot of childrens' books and while some are pure genius (see link above,) some are like a bunch of random nouns strewn together with embellished stick figures. And people get paid for that? Sign me up!
And speaking of paying for things, does anyone have this toy? Sophie the Giraffe is apparently nicknamed "baby crack" because it is the most addictive (but beneficial, unlike crack) baby chew toy out there. I am missing something though...it is a giraffe, and a strange one at that, which cost eighteen dollars. And if I pay this $18, my daughter is going to stick it in her mouth and nom on it all day. Worth the cost? I also have this sound machine on our wish list, to aide in our transition from our room to The Crib. Yeah. That hasn't happened yet either.
Anyway, I will leave you, my two or three faithful readers, with a couple of pics, and am going to go try Grottos Pizza again and see if I like it this year.
A box fan works pretty well as a sound machine, in our experience at least! We have real sound machines and they seem to cover over a wider range of sounds with less volume themselves, but the fan works nearly as well.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how washable Sophie is (I mean, obviously it's WASHABLE, but since it's rubber instead of a harder plastic, I don't know how de-germy it could get), but you can have ours. I thought it would be great -- the little hooves and ears really do act like they'd be great teethers -- but R was unimpressed. E liked it more 'cause it was a giraffe and she was obsessed at the time. But I'm pretty sure it's just sitting in one of our bins now.
I love Pat the Bunny. We have my old one, though, so I'm kind of petrified to actually let the kiddos touch it. :-D
Er, and I should add, R was unimpressed with ANY teethers. Not at all like E. So Sophie's "problem" was probably R, not intrinsic.
ReplyDeleteApparently you can soak toys in bleach and then wash them...maybe that would work for Sophie? I would much rather try yours than buy one and have L not like it!! L LOVES teething toys. I have been putting them in the freezer and she goes nuts.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I like that particular sound machine is because it projects images onto the ceiling, which I think may distact L as we transition her out of our room. Like maybe we can use it in our room for a bit and then move it to the nursery, but those images will stay consistent. And she tends to like the sound of water, but normally does not NEED it. We have been using a humidifier lately and that has soothed her to sleep many times :-)