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Miss Orneriness
You might think everything is peaches and cream here in Baby Bugville with all the smiling cutie patootie pictures I post all the time. It is not so. Baby Bug is not all smiles and soft chubby cheeks. She is very very ornery. She has a streak of obstinance the size of a stinky skunk tail running right through her. Her German relatives on both sides would be very proud. She is MISS Orneriness herself. If there was a contest for baby will power, she would win hands down. Thankfully, she has a cheerful disposition most of the time so the orneriness is tolerable. But boy do I have a lot of work ahead of me. I don’t even like to think about the subject of discipline. It gives me a headache.
This week Baby Bug decided that she no longer wants to eat baby food. She doesn’t even have any teeth yet but she insists that she is a toddler and can eat all of her food with her hands. She likes to feed herself. She has pincer fingers and she can use them. She likes rice crispies and little pieces of cheese and bits of banana. All that other mushy stuff is for babies. She’s too big for pureed beets and green beans and yams. Oh no! Yams are not coming near her lips. If they do, then she spits them out with the wrath of an angry mule. I have made the mistake of feeding her while wearing white two times. If she can reach the bowl that I am holding, she will dump it on the floor with a satisfying splat.
They should make a video game with the object of the game to get the spoon of baby food into the baby’s mouth. As you progress through the levels of difficulty you could battle the waving arms, the spitting, the sneezing and of course the twisting around in her highchair and grabbing at everything. Sometimes I feel like I’m playing miniature golf and I’m trying to putt my ball into the very last hole where the windmill arms keep whipping in front of the hole and getting in my way. I’m definitely honing my skills in the patience department.
The eating strike was not all Baby Bug had in her bag of naughty tricks this week. She also decided that she was too big for naps too. I had just finally gotten into the rhythm of two naps a day (it was sooooo nice) and then one day she up and decided that two 15 minute snoozes, while riding in the car, was plenty of shut eye. She says, “I’m already beautiful, I don’t need beauty sleep.” HA! She does need it. She turned into willful flippy worm baby who refused to nurse, who refused to let me change her diaper AND refused to even smile at her Daddy who usually brings grins from ear to ear. Hail to the Queen of Grump.
Phew!
Thankfully after a dreadful two days, she seems to have returned to the angel baby that she was before. I finally gave up on the food war and let her starve. Not really starve. I just offered her food and when she refused it, I washed it down the drain with a little tear running down my cheek because I worked so hard to make those little cubes of frozen baby food. Letting her win worked like a charm. After missing a few meals, she nursed heartily and ate all of her dinner last night and breakfast this morning. And currently she’s taking a very nice long nap which is why I am finally having a minute to post this blog.
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Super Jogger!
We’re off to a good start! Toby and I picked up the free jogger stroller on Friday, I washed the dust and spiderwebs off it Saturday and Baby Bug and I took it for a run on Sunday! Woo Hoo!!! Take that baby pudge–that has settled around my middle and refuses to leave even though I’ve been back to my pre-pregnancy weight eons ago.
It’s weird to actually want to work out. I used to force myself to run just out of sheer self hatred. But now, it’s a whole different story. I remember feeding the baby a month after she was born and looking through the sliding glass door at my running shoes as they gathered dust on the patio. I remember yearning to put them on and just run through the neighborhood free one more time. But, no, that was not happening. Babies do not go kindly into baby carriers for a jog, especially when they’re little heads go jostle jostle jostle and then they get sick and puke all over you. Not that I tried it. I didn’t. Just the thought of running with the baby made me worry, not to mention the baby-feeding-boobs that go jostle jostle jostle painfully.
The Bugaboo is funderful but it just wasn’t cutting it for running. Mostly because it’s too nice to keep outdoors. Hauling it up and down the stairs every day when I want to take a walk or a run is out of the question. It’s bad enough when I want to take it out for a stroll at the mall. And no, we don’t have a garage I can put it in. And no, I can’t keep it in the trunk of my car. My car is small, gotta put groceries in that trunk.
Now I have the jogger stroller and since it was free and it’s obviously worn, I don’t feel bad leaving it outside in the weather. I leave it under our stairs. It’s so handy! It’s so inviting! Every time I come down the stairs it sits there all red and happy saying, “Just think of the places we could go!” The wind in my hair, the pavement beneath my feet, a baby happily content as the scenery whizzes by… life is wonderful when you have a jogging stroller. Jogger sweet jogger.
Getting back into shape is not quite as pleasant. Thankfully, all the walking I do has helped. I managed to run almost 80% of my old regular route, only stopping to
restcheck on the baby a few times. It’s really nice to have something to do again in the early morning. I figure if she’s going to wake me up at the crack of dawn, I might as well put that time to good use. Trying to get her to play by herself while I slept just five more minutes was not working.So that’s that. We’re happy jogging morning people. I know. We’re freaks.
