I'm Late! I'm Late!

Okay, I wrote this a few days ago and was hoping to get time to post pictures with it, but that's clearly not happening, so I at least offer you some text:

I know that was a longish hiatus, and there are more to come in the near future. I’m swamped with copy editing again: three issues dumped on me at once, and one is a huge, special issue, meaning lots of extra pages, so I don’t know how I’m going to get it all done, but it will be. Done. In about four weeks. So be patient with me, please!

Mother’s Day was kind of a train wreck around here. The Papoosekin was sick in the days preceding. Sick like projectile-vomiting-sick. And 102-degree favor. Poor bebe. She was sooooo not herself. When she was awake, she was crying, and felt like she was on fire. But mostly she slept, which was just as well. And when she had nothing left in her little stomach to come up, she dry heaved. It was a little bit heartbreaking.

Then, just as she started to look better, I got sick. Chills, which I don’t remember ever experiencing before, and my own 102-degree fever. And achy all over. And a wicked headache. But that was gone after a couple days.

And then we discovered the baby girl had a tooth in addition to being sick. She had her six-month pediatrician appointment when I was sick, so the Husband took her and the doc said that while some upset tummy issues can be caused by teething, not to the degree she had them. So she had a virus and was teething at the same time. And now she has a little bitty incisor to prove it. You can hardly see the very tip of it, but you can feel it. One little bottom right incisor. I will miss that gummy smile. But it’s not really gone yet.

Not to be an overachiever or anything, but she also decided that this was a good time to start crawling. At six months. Normal is eight to ten months. Though I apparently started crawling at six months also; I don’t know if there’s a hereditary link there. And I don’t know the Husband’s milestones. But my Papoosekin is officially on the move.

And, not easily satisfied, she seems to have decided that this is not quite enough achievement for one month and so she should start pulling herself up to standing now, too. She’s only done it a few times, but this morning I left her in what I thought was a baby-proofed living room, except for my laptop on the chair, which I knew she couldn’t get to. How many baby stories start with what the parents thought they knew? Anyway, in the time it took me to get my cup of coffee from the kitchen, she had crawled over to the chair, gotten her hands up on the edge of the seat, pulled up to kneeling, and was kind of hanging with her knees off the ground, but not quite standing. Trying to get to the laptop. I came over and gave her just the smallest bit of support and she pulled herself up the rest of the way.

Crap.

Did you all know that Scarlet Lily started walking at seven months? It’s true. Her mother told me so. According to my mother, I started around nine months. Both seem ridiculously early. Anyway, my little girl seems bound and determined to be as mobile as possible as soon as possible, so we may be in trouble soon. Another round of babyproofing at a higher height may be in order.

A few quick items of non-baby news:

I had my last physical therapy appointment. Yay! I think I just may be one of those people who actually has to exercise, just to ward off pain and injury. Good motivation, I guess.

The Husband’s cousin graduated from college last weekend! So a shout-out to him. We wanted to be there so bad and tried for weeks to get plane tickets, but just couldn’t make it work. The Husband will be flying to Poland in a few months for his stepbrother’s wedding and it’s eating up basically all of his vacation time, making other travel pretty much impossible. Anyway, the point is, we are so proud of W and so happy for him!

No progress on house stuff recently. And none in the near future with all the copy editing I have to get done. Next on our list is getting the kitchen floor ripped up, getting the asbestos down, and laying new tile. We did choose new tile (thanks for the advice TT!), so I guess that’s some progress. Then I think that utility room will remain on hold a little longer because remodeling the bathroom just became a bigger priority.

There’s no vent in our first floor bathroom, which is the only one with a shower. And there’s a window in the shower. And it’s not one of those glass cube windows or anything; it’s just a regular window. At first we thought that if we opened the window and/or the door during showers, that would be enough to vent the steam out. But the window still gets soaked, and we’ve discovered evidence that water is likely leaking through to the outside of the house. Upon further research, we learned that it’s likely that the wall is so damaged it may have to be torn down and replaced. Basically, we need to get the window out, assess the damage, and go from there. But in the meantime, no showers. So we are looking at weeks of baths. Sigh. I had to take baths my whole life growing up because my parents live in an old farmhouse that didn’t have a shower installed, just a tub. They were fine with that. I always found it terribly inconvenient. An inconvenience I seem unable to escape. Ironic.

On the bright side, our TiVo is working again, though we’re having bizarre time zone issues that caused me to miss the season finale of Gossip Girl last night, so I’m off to watch that before the Papoosekin awakens. Have I mentioned that she’s taking two 90-minute naps per day now? And usually a third little catnap. Life is getting good.