Two Months and Thensome

Maggie's two-month checkup was on Monday, April 27. It has officially been confirmed that not only do I have awesome baby-growing breastmilk, my baby is off the charts...literally. She has grown so much in just one month, it is almost unbelievable. She weighed in at 15 lbs. 8 oz., measured a whopping 24.75 inches, and her head circumference even gained some centimeters at 44 cm.

There have been some tough days over the past month...namely when John went to NYC for a manly men baseball trip, and then was supposed to head to Buenos Aires from there. During that time, Maggie either got sick (she was running a slight fever and not sleeping at all) or was in serious growth mode, leaving me with about two hours of sleep over a 4-5 day period. John made the decision to postpone the trip to BA since it wasn't critical, and now we are considering going down as a family sometime in the next month or so. We need to get Maggie's passport before any plans of us leaving the country really happens though. I'm also just really unsure about leaving the country already; well before she hits the 6 months old mark. I am thankful J opted to not postpone the trip and has even volunteered to take baby duty for several nights since he's been back from NYC. Not many dads volunteer themselves for that duty, and I definitely do not take it for granted.

Motherhood thus far has been such an incredible period of adjustment. Margaret is a really easygoing, mellow baby, which is why it completely freaked me out when she was seemingly so ill a couple weeks ago. And which is also why it stresses me out so much when she gets fuss budgety or has a serious crying jag. Margaret is just so amazing to me, and as each day passes I see her little personality starting to come out and her physical appearance morphing from that somewhat stock newborn look, to more of an individual, I'm my own baby, look.

Maggie started sleeping in her crib last week and has successfully slept through the night for a grand total of five nights now. Can you believe it? This recent development has surprised me being that she is only 10 weeks old, oves sleeping with her mama and/or in the bassinet next to the bed, but with her getting to be so long, the bassinet was really no longer an option. She's just a bundle of surprises. I've been told her all night sleeping jags are going to change back to getting up every few hours once she starts teething, but I'll definitely take the 6-8 hour stretches of sleep she is granting me and John. My sleep schedule is still totally out of whack, but it is nice to have a couple hours of calm for myself to catch up on household things, read a book, or hang out with John before I am able to crash myself.

Margaret smiles all the time, speaks and holds baby cooing conversations with me throughout the day, she can gaze at faces in mirrors for long periods of time and gets very excited about it, loves being read to, and absolutely loves Beethoven - dancing to it and just listening to the music. She is so curious about everything and I often worry I am overstimulating her, but I think she lets me know by getting fussy if certain activities become too much. Margaret recently discovered her hands and has since been putting her little baby fists into her mouth and sucking on them every chance she gets, which makes for a very drooly baby. :) She's also a very active and social baby, which is good to see, and is also interesting because I just knew she would be active while I was carrying her. And the most recent accomplishment is that she rolled about halfway over last week, but hasn't done it again since then, so I'm thinking it was a fluke, but who knows...as I said before, Maggie is just a bundle of surprises.

As I kind of talked about already, we have had some stumbling blocks, but nothing major. There was the mystery bout of sickness and/or growth a couple weeks ago that I already mentioned and a couple other somewhat minor things. We've found out that Maggie definitely has her dad's sensitive skin, with a couple pretty serious cases of diaper rash she's gotten even though we are vigilant about changing her and keeping her bottom dry. It can be so painful and my heart hurts when I think about it. Then there is the fact that Maggie abolutely abhors tummytime. I've tried it with her several times over the past two months, to no avail. She is having none of it. It makes her unbelievably cranky and hysterical. We've tried tummytime on the floor, on the couch, on her gym mat, and in her crib. Still not having any of it. The only other stumbling block we've really had to deal with is when Maggie gets herself all worked up over not getting fed fast enough...that's where the highly active baby thing becomes a curse. She will squirm and wiggle to the point where I can barely keep her both in my arms and on the Boppy to feed. Then she will also start smacking her face and pulling on it so aggressively I get scared she's going to hurt herself. Luckily these events are few and far between, but can definitely take their toll on my heart.

I'm just amazed at what an awesome baby I was blessed with. This is one journey I never really knew I'd be able to make, but I am glad it worked out that I am able to do this. Being a mom to Miss Margaret is everything I hoped it would be. At least so far. ;)

Have I mentioned

that I can't wait to get the For Sale sign in the front yard? No? Well, I can't wait. I'm especially agitated with the state of the house today. Probably due to the apocalyptic rainfall which means the house probably sprung another leak somewhere. Or maybe it's being confined to one main living space with baby, kitty, and mommy to cavort. One main living space with hardwood floors and mommy's sciatic nerve flaring up, so not much fun to be had on the floor. And man, that cat is driving me berserk today. Quarters are too close. I sure do hope this house sells within a year. For the sake of not only my sanity, but for J, Maggie, and Lucy. Because living with me when I am like this sure can be challenging.

Speed Racer

I got my first ever speeding ticket tonight. I was by myself, luckily, but I still feel like such an idiot. I'll probably be beating myself up about this for the next several weeks...if not months. *sigh*

Yet another reason I can't wait to move within the next two years...

I haven't posted a super venty (not to be confused with venti chai tea from the sbux) blog lately, and today seems to be the opportune time to do so...So I was poking around online earlier today and found that somehow our address was reported in some 2008 report the city of Blankity-Blank-Blank Blanks posted online. This mysterious report listed a number of people who were fined for having "noxious weeds affecting the public safety, health, and welfare." Say whaaaa?!?! This is the FIRST I had heard of this. The report contains statements saying individulas listed were given notice to rid the property of said weeds prior to being fined. I'm sorry, we were never notified. EVER. I'm militant about taking care of things and keeping current/abreast of bills, mail, you name it, so I know this is true. We NEVER got a prior notification. I looked and haven't been able to find anything in our files about notifications regarding noxious weeds.

The only thing I can think of is when we were out of the country for several weeks last spring and upon our return we received some mysterious fine from the city via USPS for them supposedly doing some grass cutting. No one from the city had actually cut our grass and we received no prior notification. Just a fine with no details. We refused to pay the fine when no one at city hall could tell us what exactly it was for, who cut the grass, and why. The whole idea of being fined is/was totally ridiculous because we had already paid someone to mow the lawn and care for our kitty while we were gone and it was done, so it couldn't have been that.

We have a huge property - an acre and a half - and I haven't seen any noxious weeds on it since I moved in, so I was thinking maybe the city was trying to stick us with a bill for the ravine on the lot next to ours, but is certainly NOT OUR PROPERTY. Then when J went to pay the property taxes last year, again there was nothing said or written about the mysterious fine by the city. We thought it was gone since there was no actualy proof of anything when J called to inquire about it, it was resolved, and we didn't have to pay, aaaand we didn't receive anything else in the mail regarding the mysterious grass cutting caper. Now I see this report online. What the heck?! This really chaps my hide. I just emailed J about it, but don't expect much in return for the next several days since he is out of the country until the end of April.

I tried to like this suburb of Cleveland, this house, and this neighborhood since I moved in with J, but it just hasn't worked out that way. The people are rude (i.e. If I wave to you, you should wave back. Or if I say hello, maybe you should as well.), or the people are a lot older than we are with no kids or their kids are all grown up, there aren't any sidewalks, people drive down the road like bats out of hell, somehow garbage ends up strewn on our lawn at the end of our property line bordering the street at least once a week, and I plain don't like living in a house I had no choice in choosing...just to name a few reasons why I don't like it.

I've wanted to move to a different area/suburb that better fits our needs for quite some time now, and just recently got J to commit to moving the family out of this fixer house from his previous marriage to a new house within the next two years. We are going to make the necessary renovations and then hopefully sell the house even stevens. I tried, I really tried, but it just isn't going to work out. It really is/was a little too much baggage for me to handle. Then reading that report today just added fuel to the fire. UGH.

Big Baby

It's official. As of last week, Maggie has outgrown all of her 0-3 months clothes. She's not even two months old yet! That is one big baby!