Out with it

After much thought, I've decided that I'm going to take a break from blogging. Not that this is a big change from the norm given the blistering pace of my posting as of late. I don't have enough to say, really. I'm pretty boring these days. And I'm finding that I'm a lot less comfortable writing about my family than I thought I would be. Mommy blogger I am not. This is my fifth year of blogging and I feel like blogging for me (or at least this blog in particular) may be winding down. I don't know yet. But I hate it when people just vanish off their blogs, so while I may be posting photos sporadically, otherwise it's going to be pretty quiet here. And if you're still reading this, thank you for reading. Seriously.

Is it that obvious?

Lunchtime conversation with a cashier at Au Bon Pain:

Me: (silently places food items on counter)

Cashier: (looks at me penetratingly) Hungry? Exhausted?

Me: How did you know?

Cashier: Your eyes have that look. Go eat. Get some rest.

Me: (having read/watched too much True Blood, wondering if cashier can read thoughts) Thanks--I'll try.

Monkey mind

A few of the completely random things that run through my head at bedtime, in savasana, walking home from the T, whathaveyou:

1. What I'd use my three wishes for if I ever happen to run into a genie. It changes on a daily basis. All the garbage out of the ocean? An end to animal cruelty? An environmentally sustainable society? The ability to eat fondue every day? How can I knit these things together to maximize each wish?

2. Zombie mitigation. I've watched 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later a few too many times. We have a lot of big windows in our house. Where could I hide myself and the baby (or just the baby) if the zombies came? What would it take to hole up and wait it out? Could I get badass with a machete? Would the water supply be contaminated?

3. The location of my imaginary future summer home. Maine? Nantucket (hello, shack)? Where is the place that speaks to us? Where is the place that my daughter will be able to say, "I've been going there since I was a baby"? How can I help create great memories for her?

4. What it will take to fit back into my pre-pregnancy clothes. I gained 49 pounds with Margot and have lost 37. The last 10-12 are hanging on so tenaciously that I am starting to understand why so many women choose to go the cosmetic surgery route. It's only been 6 months and I'm still nursing, so I try to be patient and not obsess too much, but Lunchboy would say that I obsess constantly, with expectations that are unrealistic. Still, lots of long runs? A return to 2-hour hot yoga classes? I have time for none of that. But in my imagination I can run marathons and sweat it out on the stairs. Oh, the stairs. How I long for thee.

5. Milk. How much did I pump? How much is in the freezer? How long until we reach the time of Necessary Formula Supplementation? It's a constant mental calculation.

They got the mustard out

I keep waiting for life to slow down again and be less crazy. Of course, it never does. I think I need to come to terms with the fact that having a baby increased the chaos factor to way above what it had been previously, and stop expecting that anything will ever be the same again. Which is funny because before I got pregnant all we heard from our parent friends was "your life will change in every way." Since Lunchboy and I are both introverts and we were never all that into going out and being, like, social, the need to stay home with a teeny infant wasn't that big of an adjustment. But the craziness? That is an adjustment.

Not all of the crazy is baby-related. As babies go, Margot is pretty calm and low key. She had nothing to do with the fact that our central AC died in the middle of the recent heat wave. But my desperate need to make sure she stayed cool and comfortable in our progressively more humid and unpleasant house amped up what would have been a moderately stressful situation (you try getting an HVAC repairman to visit in the middle of a heat wave) and made it INCREDIBLY stressful. She also had nothing to do with our stove breaking right after the AC was fixed. Or with the stupid red tape at the dentist's office that involved one dentist saying I needed some expensive repair work and another one saying that I was fine, but many records and faxes had to go back and forth in the meantime. Or with me leaving the house without my laptop today, having to go home for said laptop, hoof it to the T in the heat, ride an un-air conditioned T to work, and arrive a sweaty mess. Or with me putting Lunchboy's cell phone through the wash accidentally, thereby sparking a huge iPhone-related undertaking that resulted in all of us being grumpy at the Apple store in the Cambridgeside Galleria for almost three hours. Such is life.

We have taken Margot swimming a few more times recently and she continues to love being in the water. I'm considering signing her up for infant swim classes so that she'll continue to get more comfortable in the water. Classes feel a little silly for a 6-month old (this is why I haven't been able to bring myself to go near Itsy Bitsy Yoga) but they would also mean that mommy gets to go swimming and I love to swim.

I am reading the Buffy graphic novels co-created by Joss Whedon and am starting to find myself thinking in Whedon-speak again.

Bottle fed

I never see this. Seriously. Lunchboy has to take pictures of himself (or, in this case, my sister in law) feeding Margot because if I am anywhere in the house she will not so much as look at a bottle. He has taken some very sweet videos of Margot holding her bottle all by herself as she sucks down every last drop of milk and those videos make my heart explode because, after pumping twice a day every day at work, it makes me feel good to see my baby get her food. Usually I see the bottles go off to daycare and I see them empty again in the evening but never the actual consumption itself. So thank you, my awesome husband, for giving me a glimpse of the meals.

It's sort of a miracle that the milk thing is still a success. We've started solid food (apples, bad; pears, good) but it will be a little while before fruit replaces breast. Fruit or breast? That'll be fun to watch. Anyhoo, do you remember that anti-drug commercial from the mid-1980s, the one where a man holds up a frying pan and says "This is your brain," then breaks an egg into the pan and, as it fries, says "This is your brain on drugs?" Well, he should really say "This is your brain when you don't get any sleep." No sleep = no memory. Here are a few of the stupid nursing/pumping mistakes I've made in the past few months:

1. Forgot the horn attachments for my pump at home, resulting in extreme engorgement and an emergency trip to Isis at lunch to get a new set so I wouldn't be the first person ever to expire from excess milk.

2. Hooked up all pump parts, sat down to pump, and spent a good 5 minutes wondering why my lap was wet--I looked down to find that I'd forgotten to attach THE BOTTLES to the horns and I was pumping all over my lap.

3. Pumped a record 18 ounces on a Friday. Proudly carried my cooler home, knowing I wouldn't have to dip into the freezer stash over the weekend. Sat bolt upright in bed at 3am to the knowledge that I'd forgotten to take the cooler out of my work bag and that day's milk had gone unrefrigerated for almost 12 hours. Luckily the ice pack had taken one for the team and everything was still cool. Otherwise preparations for hari kari were imminent.

I'm a little torn about the transition from nursing to solid food, but the thought of not having to keep track of so many pump and bottle parts is kind of alluring.

Brain 2.0

I've been having lots of crazy dreams lately, a development I attribute to the fact that I'm actually sleeping at night and possibly also that I'm reading "The Monster of Florence," which is probably not the best bedtime book choice I could make. At least Lunchboy is home now--I started the book when he was traveling last week and managed to scare the crap out of myself. Who reads about serial killers on the loose when they are home alone at night?? Me, apparently. Smrt.

The crazy dreams, though--they feel like my brain is catching up on all the processing it didn't get a chance to do over the past six months. There's a lot of swirling, intense imagery that strikes me as the dream-visual equivalent of backing up a hard drive. And airplanes. what's up with the airplanes? Last night, though, I dreamed about B in SF (remember him?). Nothing naughty, I just sat him down and asked him why he'd been so weird. Kind of cathartic, actually, even if it was completely random.

And, of course, as soon as I opened my big mouth about Margot sleeping through the night, she woke up three times last night and then decided it was time to start the day at 5:30am. Then she managed to grab one of the animals on her crib mobile, thereby demonstrating that the mobile's useful life has ended for the time being. Sigh. We kind of liked it when she'd kick the mobile on at 6am and we'd wake up to Mozart in the mornings.

Not what she was expecting

The journey of the solid foods, it has begun. Baby: 1, Rice cereal: 0.

Smile like you mean it

Last week, knowing that the weekend was going to be crazy busy with lots of visitors and at least one morning away from the house, I decided that I really needed more time with Margot. So I took Monday off to have some baby time and we had the best day! First, I have to share a piece of information that I've held back because I'm afraid of jinxing it, which is that Margot has been sleeping through the night now for almost a week. We put her down at 7pm and she generally goes through until 4:30am without waking up. So, for the first time in almost six months, we are all getting some sleep. This is key.



We went to the coffee shop for a little while in the morning, an experience that is getting more adventurous now that Margot is at the stage where she wants to grab everything (EVERYTHING) and put it in her mouth. She is also sitting up by herself (!!) and standing by herself when holding onto a table or something. This means she's now big enough for high chairs, though not necessarily that she is patient enough for high chairs. What, a child of mine who's impatient? How on earth could that possible have happened? It's a mystery. Anyway, so at the coffee shop she now grabs things, puts them in her mouth, then throws them to the floor so vehemently that it looks like the object in question has done something to mortally offend her. She likes the throwing.

After her morning nap, we packed up and headed out to Walden Pond for a baby beach day. The weather was spectacular--clear, sunny, hot but not brutal or overly humid. We met my friend S and her son, who is exactly one week younger than Margot. These two babies like each other a lot, which makes play dates a ton of fun. Miraculously, we found a good patch of dirt to plunk our towels on (the water level at Walden this year is astronomically high because of all the rain so the last stretches of actual beach are a hard-won commodity as we found). Then we changed the small fry into swimsuits and hit the water.



Margot wasn't feeling very confident about the whole thing at first, so we spent a good amount of time sitting in the sandy shallows, patting the water and discovering that sand was fun to grab and try to eat. Eventually she decided she wanted to go further out (indicated by the lurching in the general direction of the deeper water), so we went out a little more. Lo and behold, she did not freak out when her feet didn't touch the bottom. In fact, she really liked floating! This was important to me--I feel strongly about helping her have a safe, positive experience with swimming and I tried hard to be extra careful so she wouldn't associate water with being scared. But by the end of the swim, we out far enough that the water was up to my waist and she was having a ball being swished around with no pond bottom in sight. We may have a water baby on our hands! Yay!



Then we put the kids in our Ergos and walked around the pond. S's son fell fast asleep but Margot stayed stubbornly awake. She fights her naps SO HARD. God forbid she might miss seeing something interesting if she let herself sleep. I didn't care, really. It was just so great to have her close to me for a whole day with no errands to be run or work projects to stress about. She passed out cold in the car on the way home. Anyone want to pay me to stay home and hang out with my baby? Srsly.

Punk rock girl

Because, you know, she's got that stripe of hair down the middle of her head that kind of looks like a mohawk. Don't you wish you had a theme song at 6 months old? I do.

We are in the midst of some impromptu sleep training and I'm a little zombie-like at the moment, so you'll pardon me if I can't put more than a few words together today. More soon!

Even Stephen

This is Margot watching a (DVRed) Daily Show segment with Kristen Schaal. No, we are not evil for allowing our baby to acknowledge the existence of the television. We almost never have the TV on when she's awake or in the room, but on the few occasions when she's seen the TV she thinks it's the most amazing thing ever. Particularly if the Colbert Report is on. Stephen Colbert is her secret TV boyfriend.

Speaking of television, I have recently become addicted to baby and birth-related shows, especially the ones on Discovery Health. Deliver Me is actually a good show. It's neat to see the different pregnancy and birth experiences that women go through, and the doctors seem so connected to and invested in their patients. They do appear to do a lot of c-sections and call me weird but I find watching what they show of the surgery to be very illuminating in a deeply personal way. I am extremely pro-Western medicine when it comes to having babies and while I have zero regrets about my birth experience with Margot (though, you know, fewer hours of labor would have been nice), one of the few things I felt frustrated with at the time was that I never saw how my daughter entered the world. I felt her leave my body, a sensation I will never forget, but I never saw how it happened. Watching women give birth via c-section on Deliver Me is kind of gross but also beautiful in an "Oh, that's how it went" kind of way.

"I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant," on the other hand? That's just me sitting on the couch shrieking "HOW COULD THEY NOT KNOW THEY WERE PREGNANT???" over and over again.

It's all an adventure

While we were on vacation, we introduced Margot to the toddler pool at our hotel. It was a big hit. At first she was completely nonplussed but then she proceeded to watch the water and explore how it felt in her own quiet, observant way. Though to be honest I couldn't tell how much of it was her being fascinated with the water and how much of it was her wanting to get the water in her mouth. Either way, she had a good time in the pool and seemed completely into the swimming/wading thing. I can't wait until she's old enough for swimming lessons!

For my part, I've been a little too well acquainted with getting drenched these days. I think nursing is a challenge for every mom in their own way, but I'm finding that pumping and sleep deprivation make for an adventurous combination. The generation and transportation of milk from work to home is a learning process. I'm gradually figuring out what my version of best practices is, but it hasn't been without some trial and error.

On the innocuous end of the spectrum, there was the day that my little milk cooler somehow got upended in my bag on the commute home and I ended up with a few ounces of spilled milk pooled in my bag and a big, embarrassing stain on my pants. Now I am militant about making sure the cooler stays upright, not only because I'm mess-averse but because every ounce counts. Trite but true.

Then there was the day that I forgot to put on nursing pads before I went to work. The error went unnoticed until I made the mistake of looking at the small forest of baby pictures that has sprouted next to my desk and suddenly WHOOSH, my milk came in. Still clueless, I reached for my water bottle and my arm brushed something wet. Did I spill something without realizing it? I look down and realize that what was wet was my ENTIRE SHIRT. The telltale circular pattern wasn't very subtle. I had no backup shirt, no backup bra, and no ability to go buy either until things dried out. So I slunk off my to my lactation closet, stuffed my shirt with paper towels, and spent two hours hunched at my desk, arms crossed over my chest, praying that no one would come by my cube. Thankfully, no one did and I got through until lunch with my office sweater wrapped around me.

I'll save the rest of the stupidity for tomorrow. Oh yes, there's more.

Happy baby!

This could be the best excuse EVER for getting a fake bearskin rug.

Margot is all smiles these days and it makes life SO GOOD. She still isn't sleeping through the night but I don't care--her smiles, which start first thing in the morning when I go in to get her from her crib and go until we put her down for the night and she thinks bedtime is a big joke, are better than sleep. Though, to be fair, last night I passed out in the glider while nursing her at 1am and had a crazy dream about buying orange and sky blue crib bedding. Still totally comfortable (but completely confused), I opened my eyes and found Margot sleeping happily in my arms. I debated staying put but decided she'd do better in her crib, though I was so tempted to just hold her all night. When she is awake and not smiling, she is starting to blow raspberries left and right. We go back and forth with the "pphhhttt!" and we both think it's the funniest thing ever.

Could I be more in love with this kid?

Today I finally bit the bullet and brought my engagement and wedding rings in to be resized. Pregnancy didn't do anything to my shoe size but my fingers have settled about 1-1.5 ring sizes larger than they used to be, and I'm tired of not being able to wear my rings without chafing my knuckles and making my fingers look like they're being choked.

Mouth-feel

Margot is at the stage where she wants to put the entire world in her mouth. If she sees it, it goes into the mouth. This includes our faces, arms, and hands, whatever we happen to be holding or wearing at any particular moment, and--drumroll please--the cats. If there is one thing that Margot could put into her mouth that might make her little head explode with joy, it would be Cringer. She is less fascinated with Griffin, but when she sees Cring, she throws herself toward the cat in a way that never fails to surprise us. Cringer has been grabbed often enough now that she sees it coming and flees, but we find it endlessly amusing (and somewhat alarming) how Margot lurches toward the cats with everything she's got. The cats are aware of the impending change in mobility and are starting to understand that their grace period is almost over. The days of sitting quietly while the baby plays on her activity mat, when there is no threat of tiny hands yanking out fistfuls of fur, grabbing and eating ears, pulling on tails? Those times are quickly coming to a close.

I've never seen a child want to crawl so badly before she's got the necessary motor skills and muscle tone. Margot pushes herself up when she's on her belly and squiggles her legs around but can't quite get the movement right. Her frustration and determination are palpable. The look on her face speaks very clearly and it is saying "Come on!! I've got places to go! There are things to check out!! I want to eat that cat!! Let's GO already!" In addition to crawling, she is working on sitting up and is very close, though there is frequently more leaning than technical sitting going on. We'll prop her up in the Boppy and when she's tired, she'll sprawl backwards, drape herself over the cushion, stick her thumb in her mouth and chill out, looking for all the world like the only thing she needs is a beer and a foot massage.

Our pediatrician is encouraging us to start Margot on rice cereal to see if it will help the aforementioned diaper issues, but I am very torn about this. She's got 3 weeks until she hits 6 months and I know she'll be fine no matter what, but I had that 6-month mark stuck in my head and all our books are adamant about it, as if feeding her rice cereal before the 6-month mark might turn her insides to cement or something. But hey--cement might not be a bad thing at the moment. Does it help them sleep better, too? If so, I might be persuaded. I love love love nursing her but I could go for a few nights of one wakeup versus three or four.

I can't think of a good title for this post

I am not sure where all my motivation to blog went. Maybe out with the dirty diapers? Who knows. This working mother thing is a challenge and lots of little things that I used to prioritize are now falling to the wayside. So there you have it. I will try to do better but I can't make any promises.

We went on vacation to Cape Cod last week. The sun shone for most of it--huzzah! Lunchboy worked his charm and got us upgraded from a hotel room to a cottage, which was probably best for everyone involved because I'm sure any people lucky enough to stay on either side of a crying baby at 3am would probably prefer a different arrangement, so hooray for everyone that we had our own space. It was lovely to get out of the city, to get away from chores and all the innumerable things that must be done around the house immediately if not sooner, or so it often feels to little old OCD me.

We did, however, miss our laundry facilities very much because Margot spent the entire week pooing nonstop (and there goes my determination not to be a poo-talker). After not pooing for 10 days straight, during which time I stuffed myself with dairy in an attempt to end her poo strike and we plied her with diluted prune juice per the pediatrician, she finally let loose. While I often feel guilt over our decision to stick with disposable diapers, this past week I was nothing but glad that we were not reliant on piles of cotton that we'd have to lug back home because our child went through an entire large-size package of diapers in the space of 5 days. She also went through every outfit we brought for her. I'd change her, clean her, wash my hands, and turn around to find another stain working its way up her back. Not only did I finally cry uncle, I actually cried and begged her to stop.

On the plus side, the hotel we were staying at did something amazing--they had couches in all the places where they served food. Because Margot is not highchair-ready yet, this meant that we could take her to meals, lie her between us on the couch, and tickle her while we ate our meal together (usually we are tagging off so that one of us is eating while the other is holding the baby). This made meals a lot of fun. Margot is totally fascinated with food and drink. She watches us eat and tries to grab our hands so that she can eat what we're eating. I'm told this is a good sign for when we start her on solid foods. It's particularly amusing when Lunchboy gets his morning coffee because there is nothing in the world that she wants more. He holds it out of her reach and she looks like a greyhound chasing a mechanical bunny on a track.

What with work being crazy, me getting sick multiple times, and the crazy weather, I haven't been to yoga in almost a month. My back is yelling at me quite loudly.

A first

When I was on maternity leave, many were the days on which I didn't shower or brush my teeth. It happened. I also lived in yoga pants and zip-up hoodies, so it wasn't like I was advertising myself as a sharp dresser. Thank god for deodorant and mouthwash, that's all I can say.

This morning, however, it went one step further. After waking up with a still-coughing Margot at 1am, 2:30am, and 5:30am, I took one look at my clock after Griffin woke me up at 7:15 and found myself weighing the pros and cons of showering vs. 30 more minutes of sleep. Sleep won. Off to work I went, uncleansed and unapologetic. It was totally worth it.

On a tangent

TREES!

I have developed two obsessions this summer. First, Band of Brothers. I rewatched the entire miniseries over Memorial Day weekend and am now reading the book. This is not what I'd call peaceful (or dystopian for that matter). But it feels compelling right now and I can't explain why. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are apparently doing an HBO movie called The Pacific. I am kind of excited. ????

Obsession #2: equally perplexing, not unlike battle -- nursery school yard sales. We have about 15 small, nonprofit (though they will happily take $10-15K of your money per year) nursery schools within a 5-mile radius of our house and they are all throwing their annual rummage fundraisers. We live, as they say, in a target-rich environment. It is insanely fun to buy high-end baby clothes that other people splashed out on for $1-3 apiece. It is also kind of fun to see the extent to which other parents will go to get their favorite items first. It can get violent and/or argumentative. Other moms: I am not afraid to scrum over Tea Collection. The gauntlet is down.

It's very clear, however, that the ratio of boy to girl babies in the greater Somerville/Cambridge area is even more skewed than I'd thought based on the fact that ALL our friends have boys. The yard sales are chock full of boy baby clothes and the girl clothes are usually relegated to a box here and there (versus giant pool-tubs full of boy things). We so need to move out of the city before Margot hits dating age. Otherwise she will have a harem of boyfriends.

I hear the mosquitos are going to be OOC

So it seems that New England has decided to relocate itself to the Pacific Northwest because it has rained almost every day for a month. The rain was funny for a week or so and now it's no longer even vaguely amusing. I feel like we are living in a Ray Bradbury story. And once I started thinking about "All Summer In A Day"--the little girl's name is Margot?!?!?-- I got this incredible jones to reread all of Bradbury's short stories. Then I wanted to rewatch Amazing Stories (remember Amazing Stories??) Lunchboy wanted to know what was up with my sudden interest in dystopian fiction and I didn't have a good answer. But early last week I went on a news hiatus because the rain coupled with all the horrible things that are happening in the world was beginning to make life feel very overwhelming. Boycotting the news has helped, more than I thought it would, so perhaps the urge to revisit alternate realities via books and TV is another escape mechanism. Want to be freaked out, though? Read "The Veldt" and then get a Roomba.

Obligatory Margot picture:

Anything is peaceful from one thousand, three hundred and fifty-three feet

Sixteen Candles has been on TV every night but all I can think of is that line from Ferris Bueller: "Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

It has been one of those months where it feels like life is moving at 100mph and I don't feel like I am slowing down with any grace. We rush to get ready in the morning, get Margot to daycare, get to work. I rush to get home in the evenings so I can have 15-30 minutes with her before it's bedtime. She is sleeping better but I actually relish the times when she wakes up in the middle of the night to nurse because that is extra time I get with her.



And so I have entered into that perennial state occupied by so many other working moms in which I feel like I am trying to do too much and not doing any of it particularly well. Right when I hit a point when I felt like I couldn't handle the fulltime work thing another second, Margot got sick and I needed to stay home with her for a few days. I HATED that she was sick--no one tells you how hard it is to see your baby be sick--but I loved having whole days with her that weren't punctuated by trips to Target or visits from family. I even loved the part where I got puked/pooped/peed/snotted on. There are moments when I feel completely obliterated by how much I love this child, how much I adore spending time with her, soothing her, playing with her, reading to her, just looking at her.

Tired girl

This was taken while Margot was out on a walk with her aunt on a warm, sunny day. She needed a nap. That makes two of us! I was bitter to be stuck at work while Margot was home from daycare, though I love that she gets to spend time with her aunt, who dotes on her with the best of them.

We are busy these days spending as much time outside as possible. Our street is lush with gardens and flowering shrubs so there is much to explore and discover. Though I don't have a picture of it, I helped Margot smell a rose the other evening. I guess I expected her to enjoy the scent (cabbage roses--yum!) but instead she pulled away with a "ewwww!" expression on her face. Maybe it was just too intense for little noses.

We are on Day 10 of the 30-Day Shred. Both of us are noticing that our clothes fit differently--for me it means that things are looser than they were 10 days ago. But the scale remains my enemy. I am looking forward to/slightly nervous about moving on to Workout 2.

The other night we watched Taken, one of the Netflix movies that have been sitting neglected on the coffee table for a week or six. It wasn't a spectacular movie but I am hereby appointing Liam Neeson to the position of celebrity dad. If Jason Bourne ever has kids, he and Liam are going to have to battle it out.

Itsy bitsy pieces

I am trying to think of something interesting to share but Margot is in the middle of another growth spurt and has been waking up every two hours at night again, so I am in a total fog. Her hungry cry is piercing and totally belies her usual happy baby self. I would appreciate the Darwinian necessity of that scream more if it didn't squeeze my heart into my throat every time, usually at 2am. Last night, however, I exercised the beauty of the bottle and got Lunchboy into the action when we hit wakeup #3.



Though most of our pictures are taken in the living room (aka baby central), we do actually leave the house, particularly now that the weather is getting so nice. Every weekend I mean to take the camera with us when we go on walks with Margot in the Bjorn. She has discovered trees and is completely mesmerized by them. Trees are for her what ceiling fans seem to be for lots of other babies--head thrown back, attention completely focused. It's amazing to watch her discover the world.



This is a photo of Margot wearing a very cute outfit that her aunt, a world-class shopper, picked up for her. She wore this outfit for approximately 3 hours and then, abiding by third rule of babies, which dictates that cute outfits be baptized by fire, proceeded to destroy it with an epic blowout. I've tried not to be one of those parents that talks about their kid's potty habits but this may be my one exception. Before I went off dairy, Margot was a on a two-a-day blowout schedule that was like clockwork. Every 12 hours, KERBLOOEY. After I cut out dairy, she dammed up like Holland and started pooing 1-2 times a week. When those 1-2 times roll around, the result is...considerable. Our daycare provider gives us a lovely rundown of Margot's day when we pick her up and today the note included the following notation: "Explosion! Then a tubby because the mess was so bad it got in her hair. She loved her bath--so cute!" So there you have it.

On a totally unrelated note, Lunchboy and I are doing the Jillian Michaels 30-Day Shred. We are on Day 4. There is a lot of pain involved. But I have suddenly developed muscle tone, so I feel like there is actually payoff.