Croeso i Gymru

In college I took half a semester of Medieval Welsh. Half a semester because I had to drop it to avoid failing. I try to be a good student, but this class was really legitimately too difficult for me. It was cross posted as an English class and a Linguistics class and I think by midpoint there were only Linguistics students left. We were translating a Welsh folktale by using a dictionary and grammar guide to parse every word with intermittent grammar and vocabulary lessons. It. Was. Hard.

Despite the fact that I was not able to pass or complete the class I really did learn some things. One thing I learned was that Welsh has this cool letter that we don't have. LL. (Linguistic geek out.) My professor said that it is pronounced by blowing air out of the sides of your tongue.

Virginia is in a stage with her language development in which she tries out consonant sounds. (Babies begin with vowels and move to consonants.) She experiments with Mmmm, Dddd, Tttt, Gggg, Shhhh, Bbbb, and a little Wwww. Recently she has also been using LL (accompanied by bubbles of spit). Perhaps she thinks she is Welsh.

Of course, Virginia spent several days in Wales in utero. John and I found out we were pregnant the day we left on our spring road trip across the UK (scroll down to early April).

Maybe one day I will read her Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys in English. She can read it to me in Welsh.

Baby Babble

Virginia and I had a kind of rough night (teething?) but fortunately she knows how to make me smile. :)

Sometimes when she is making a lot of baby noises and I am holding her I will wiggle my finger in her lips to make her sound extra funny.

She has recently started doing this herself. She moves her hand around on her mouth while "talking."

Very cute.

Sock Monkey Triptych

At my baby shower last fall Papa Mike gave Baby Nelson a sock monkey.

My great grandmother (known to me as "Great Granny") used to make sock monkeys. At Christmas time Mike gave my grandmother (Great Granny's daughter) a sock monkey also. Grandma Mary took the sock monkey home and set him in a chair. Her cat Charlie decided that the sock monkey, dubbed "Henry," was his new best friend.

After learning what became of Grandma Mary's sock monkey I decided that Virginia's sock monkey should be Henry's girlfriend, and her name would be "Henrietta." Henrietta is a good friend to Virginia. She entertains Virginia during tummy time and shows her how to do the moves to "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and "If You're Happy and You Know It."

A little after Christmas, Sugar said there was a present she and Papa Mike had forgotten to give Virginia. We opened it to discover a sock monkey in a box! I think the video makes it clear how Virginia feels about this friend:

Finally, I read a blog entry with some advice about safe co-sleeping (I wish I could link to it, but it's not a blog I read regularly and I can't remember how I got there) and got a great pajama tip. The blogger recommended wearing a long sleeved shirt that buttons down for easy side lying nursing that keeps your arms warm. On the occasions that I was bringing Virginia into bed my arms were getting cold outside the covers, so I thought this was a great idea. I went to Target to look for some long sleeved pajamas. As you might imagine, since it is summer, the selection was pretty slim. But then I found these:

That's right, sock monkey pajamas! Virginia's relationship with sock monkeys continues...

Diaper Time

Hey mommies who read this: help!

Diaper changing time is turning into an ordeal and it happens way too often for me to dread doing it.

The problem is that Virginia scratches the minute her diaper is off. This is a problem for multiple reasons.

• I don't want to give her a complex about her privates (I pull her hand away and say "no") and maybe wouldn't be bothered except that...
• She scratches. She is actually breaking skin.
• When she has open wounds I can't put diaper cream everywhere since the bottle explicitly says, do not put on open wounds.
• If I do manage to get diaper cream on any unwounded itchy parts I don't want her hands in it since it's kind of hard to wash her hands and her hands go in her mouth.

Solutions I have already tried that haven't worked:

• Cutting her finger nails. I file them down as far as possible every week. They still do damage.
• Giving her a toy to play with during changing time. Scratching is more interesting to her.
• Preventing diaper rash (presumably this is why she is scratching, right?). I put diaper cream on when I can. I soak the diapers in vinegar and wash them on hot. I stopped drinking limeaid every day. I even bought reusable wipes and made my own solution (water and glycerin), which really seems to help. But you know what, she scratches even when her skin looks perfectly clear.

Short of putting a baby straight jacket on her every time I change her diaper I'm not sure what to do!

Education

I am about halfway done with my current educational endeavor. If all goes as planned I should graduate next spring with a Specialist degree in Education for School Library Media. (Translation: I will be certified to be a media specialist in Georgia and will have slightly more education than is strictly required.)

As I have continued my education it has gotten progressively more practical. I studied Latin and English as an undergraduate -- fun! but not so much subjects that prepare you for the working world. Then I got a Masters in Library Information Studies. I did this with the aim of learning a profession and getting a job. Similarly, this Specialist degree is about the jobs I can get with it.

However, I have learned that practical degrees can still be fun. I enjoyed library school immensely and still think fondly of my Print Culture class especially. (I am fascinated by the differences between orality, literacy, print culture, 2.0 culture, etc.) And now I have started the Applied Project I have to complete for my Specialist degree. This was described by one of my professors as more than a Master's thesis but less than a Doctoral dissertation.

I am thinking about collecting jokes from my students in order to learn more about them. The first assignment I have had to complete on my Applied Project journey was an annotated bibliography. I did let it get a little down to the wire and had to put some serious last minute hours into my bibliography but -- it was fun! Have you ever read scholarly articles on jokes? Maybe not everyone's idea of a good time, but I think they are great.

I am really enjoying being in school right now and I am enjoying this project especially. It is still in the early stages, but hopefully it will continue to be a pleasant learning experience.

Thinking about jokes, I remembered that I had written up a joke experience from when I was working in Athens. I dug it out, dusted it off, and posted it here.

Nap Time

So I admit it, I'm not good at nap time.

When Virginia was a newborn she slept a lot. When she was tired she fell asleep pretty easily, sometimes with a little help from nursing. Somehow she got bigger and started sleeping less and started having more trouble falling asleep.

Recently she has started shrieking when she is unhappy but not quite crying-stage unhappy. It is a truly awful sound that turns my stomach inside out and requires all my mothering skills to endure. This prehistoric sound emerges when I've nursed her, I've changed her, I've played with her and she still seems to need something else. She is rubbing her eyes and looking at me like, "why can't you fix it?"

I can't fix it because she is so distractible. Unless she is really drowsy, like she is at night time, I can't seem to nurse her to sleep or rock her to sleep. She keeps looking around at what else is going on.

She devolved into sleepy dinosaur baby pretty quickly this morning and I thought I should probably try to get her to take a real nap to save my sanity. I put her on the bed in my office and lay down next to her. I turned out the lights and closed the blinds. I put her music on the lap top and turned on the fan (a possible distraction, but it is monotonous and possibly drowsy-making). It took about half an hour and more screeching (no crying), but finally she fell asleep.

And she's been asleep for almost an hour.

I could say, "I will do it this way from now on." But giving myself these types of rules can be crazy-making. Instead I will view this as another strategy I can employ. We'll take it day by day and do whatever works at the time.

Black Hole

My freshman year of college I kept note of all the funny things my professors said.

The Latin professor reminded us that we would address a group of animals (in vocative case) by saying "O animalia."

The marine science guy had the most quotations. One memorable one was, while talking about mistaking a dolphin for a shark, "Have you ever seen a fin coming toward you and been ready to kiss your life goodbye?"

*Stunned silence.*

Quieter: "Happens to me all the time."

But the quotation that has stuck with me the most was from my astronomy professor. He was explaining about black holes and time. If you tied up your friend in a chair so he couldn't move, he would be stationary in space, but he would continue to move through time. If you threw your friend into a black hole, he would be stationary time, but not in space. He would get sucked into the black hole, but you would see him hovering on the edge (according to my professor).

Anyway, as he was using this example he said, "Say you throw your friend into a black hole- that is, of course, assuming you have a friend."

I have so many thoughts on this, but mainly, if you want to have friends you shouldn't be throwing them into black holes.

Virginia has a small stuffed panda bear with teeth-able feet that rides with her in her car seat. She has taken to tossing the panda out of her car seat and then complaining that he is gone. I calmly explained to her recently that when she throws her friend into a black hole, she doesn't have a friend anymore.

Reading

I read to Virginia every day. I started reading to her in the early days after she was born while she was nursing. I read novels aloud to her like The Christmas Carol (Virginia was born on December 6) and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Since then I've started reading her children's novels from the library that I want to review and we no longer read every time she nurses since I've learned this is a prime time for computer work.

However, I do make time to read her picture books while we sit together on the floor. Sometime she sits in my lap. Sometimes I prop her up in front of me so she can see my face. (As a trained children's librarian I am awesome at reading upside down.) She likes to help turn pages and taste the books. When we read a board book I give it to her afterwards to properly gum.

I've started opening the board books and setting them on the floor for her to roll over to and do with as she will. This morning she rolled over to The Runaway Bunny (a gift from another children's librarian, Ms. Jackie), held it open in front of her, and babbled.

I'm so proud!

Moar Giggles

An upshot of Virginia being tired is that she gets punchy and laughs easily.

Oh, and she is "slimy" because she is drooling. You never know what words are going to be funny to her.

Crazy Limbs

Two nights ago Virginia woke up crying, so I un-swaddled her and put her in bed with me. She nursed for an hour, neither falling asleep nor showing any sign of stopping. This hour was totally unrestful for me because I spent it trying to prevent Virginia from grabbing my collar bone (it doesn't hurt, but it weirds me out). Finally I got up and turned off the ceiling fan, thinking it was making her too cold.

Immediately Virginia was happier. She stopped nursing and stopped grasping at me. But then she lay there on her back moving her arms and legs around and cooing. Cute, but impossible to sleep through. I re-swaddled her and she calmed down and went back to sleep (still in bed with me).

Needless to say, we were both kind of tired and cranky yesterday, but I had high hopes that after a good night of sleep we would be on track to a better tomorrow.

Then the crazy limbs struck again.

Virginia woke up minutes after I put her in the crib last night. I couldn't face a whole night with her in the bed, so I picked her up and held her until she went back to sleep, then put her in the crib. Once again, minutes after I put her down, she woke up. John was still awake so I asked him to hold her and give me a chance to get a little sleep.

He managed to put her back to sleep and even sneak her into the crib. I'm not sure how long she slept there, but she woke me up around 3am. I un-swaddled her (digression: Virginia sleeps better on her own of she is swaddled, so that is how she always goes to bed. If she is in bed with me she usually sleeps fine either way. I feel a little better having her arms free in the bed in case she needs them so I usually take her out of the swaddle.) and put her in bed with me. Even before she started nursing her hands were scratching me and her pointy little toes were jabbing into my stomach. Not exactly the restful night I had hoped for. I re-swaddled her, let her nurse for a seemingly endless amount of time, and finally we both went back to sleep.

In six short months she has already changed so much. She has rapidly gone through many difficult and charming phases. This is just a phase. It will be over soon. Then something else will happen, but I'll deal with that then.

Listen Up

I have this extra bit of cartilage in my right ear. It is in the curved section near the top and makes a small line perpendicular to the edge of my ear. I have had it for as long as I can remember and kind of thought it might have resulted from an injury or other post-birth catalyst.

Nope.

Virginia has the same bit of cartilage in her right ear. It's genetic.

And just in case I needed more proof, Amanda noticed that our cousin Kieran has the same ear cartilage thing going on!

How far back in our ancestry does this go? We'll probably never know. But this weird trait has already secured its place with the next generation.

Day Care

In the wake of my job-having delight I am having to face the reality of putting Virginia in day care. Today I got the good news that she does have a place to go. Good in that, that problem is solved. But as in so many areas of life I wish I could have it both ways (work and watch Virginia myself).

These are the things I tell myself to make myself believe I am not a bad person for letting her go to day care. Maybe they aren't true, but maybe they are.

• I grew up believing I could be anything I wanted to be. I hope that by pursuing my career I am setting an example for Virginia that she too can be anything.
• They say "it takes a village to raise a child." Well, maybe the day care teachers can be part of our village.
• As inconvenient as it may be to pump, I am committed to breastfeeding Virginia for as long as she needs me to. In addition to helping her (and us) survive the day care germs, it will help us reconnect at the end of the day.
• This isn't really full-time day care. I will have summers free.
• They might actually give her more attention than I do.
• They don't just watch the kids they teach them.
• Virginia will get to socialize with other children.

I am learning that every once in a while you make a decision as a parent that you just have to hope isn't scarring your child for life.

So here's hoping.

Bath Time

I bathe Virginia roughly once a week. (My estimation of the timing is rough, not the way I handle the baby.) Since she doesn't quite sit up by herself I do this by getting in the tub with her, and this is very much the reason I don't bathe her more frequently. It is fun to splash in the water together, but time consuming.

One of the most frustrating things about bath time is that Virginia doesn't stay clean very long. She usually spits up all over herself before I even towel her off and does a tremendous poopy in her first post-bath diaper.

Today's bath time was extra special. I stripped her down, wrapped her in a baby towel, laid her on another towel on the bathroom floor and began preparing the bath. I looked down and saw that both the towels Virginia was laying on were wet. Fair enough. I hadn't cleaned her yet.

With her still on the floor (not in the tub) I hurried to her room to get the other baby towel (I have exactly two) so I would have something clean to wrap her in after the bath.

Splashy, splashy, washing the baby times.

Then after the bath I laid her on her clean baby towel. No extra towel for padding this time since she had peed on it already. As I was getting my clothes on before picking her up, my little bundle of towel-wrapped baby rolled over revealing her very wet toweled behind. Bath water makes the towel damp, not soaked. She had peed again.

I give up. Maybe next week she'll be clean a little longer.

This is a picture from Virginia's first ever bath. She was a couple weeks old.