There really needs to be

a crib with a side that folds ALL the way down, so you can lie down next to your baby while she falls asleep, then just get up and leave.

(Normally our bedtime ritual is: bath, books, bottle, brush teeth, then I take Bat Girl into our bedroom and lie down with her until she falls asleep (20-30 minutes), then transfer to the crib. I like the lying-down-together time--it's sweet, Bat Girl likes to pat my face and crawl all over me before she finally settles down, but then she falls asleep without needing to be rocked or anything. But sometimes, like last night, she wakes up as I make the transfer and then I end up standing next to the crib for another 10-15 minutes rubbing her back or tummy to settle her back down--can't leave the room, oh no, not allowed. And so today I have a totally sore neck from leaning over the crib--which is why I don't just put her in the crib to fall asleep in the first place. The folding-side crib would solve all this! Especially if it were queen-sized! Not to mention that BG really does sleep better if she falls asleep in the same place she's going to wake up, pace Pantley.)

PS Thanks for all your gift suggestions. I think I'm going to go with Peter's Chair and some crayons and a coloring book. Play-Doh is a great idea too but I think too heavy to ship to Hong Kong. :)

Need advice

Quick question for those of you with kids older than mine: A good friend of mine just had her second baby. I'm going to send her something for the baby but I want to get a small ($15 or under) present for the older kid too so he doesn't feel left out. He's 2 1/2, but because they live overseas, I haven't seen him since he was an infant, so I don't know how big he is or what his interests are. What can I get him? Would, say, a book about trains or something like that be a safe present? a book about being a big brother? some toy that is a universal hit with 2-3 year olds? Help!

Further conversations with my UPS man

UPS man: [hefting large box containing 2 cases of diapers] You know, you should really potty train [Bat Girl], so I don't have to carry these boxes of diapers anymore.

Me: [silently] Fuck you, that's your JOB. [out loud] Well, she's only a year old, so I hate to tell you, you've got a couple more years of delivering diapers left.

UPS man: Just send her to my mother! She had our oldest potty trained at 14 months, the second one at a year, and the youngest one was trained by 10 months!

There you have it, ladies. You should send your babies to an Armenian grandmother so they can be potty trained at 10 months. My UPS man says so.

What a difference a year makes

Predictably, Bat Girl's cold (which finally seems to be getting better, thank goodness) and teething has meant a week of terrible sleep for all of us. Most nights this week, she has woken up every 1-2 hours screaming and cranky, I'm assuming due to a combination of not being able to breathe and mouth pain.

She seems to sleep best when we hold her upright or semi-upright, dozing comfortably when we rock her in the glider but flying awake (and sitting up, and screaming) the second we lay her down flat in her crib. So the past few nights I have ended up giving up around 4 a.m. and taking her into the living room, where I prop myself up on the couch with pillows and let her crash out on my chest. She sleeps until 7:30 or so while I drift in and out of slumber, always aware of the little snorts and snuffles of her breathing, the weight of her sweaty head pressed against my breast.

Those early-morning hours have reminded me so strongly of the early weeks of Bat Girl's life, just one year ago, when I'd get up with her for the first morning feed, and after the boob-bottle business was over, and she'd fallen back asleep, I'd doze on the couch with her curled up on my chest, a blanket wrapped around us both to ward off the February morning chill.

Except that now, instead of a tiny baby whose little butt, nestled in my hand, didn't even come down to my belly button, I have a sprawling toddler in pink fleecy pajamas whose feet stretch down to my mid-thigh, and who, when her eyes flutter open and meet mine, bares her budding teeth in a huge grin and reaches out a finger to touch the tip of my nose, then her own.

And I think, how far we have come.

Sniff

Monday pop quiz! Which of the following is NOT conducive to a restful, relaxing weekend?

a) You are sick.
b) Your husband/partner is sick.
c) Your child is sick.
d) Your child is cutting a tooth.
e) No, wait, your child is cutting two teeth.
f) Did I say two teeth? I meant three teeth.
g) Holy fuck, she's cutting four teeth at once?

If you correctly answered (h) all of the above, congratulations! You win a lifetime supply of Theraflu and a hamper full of T-shirts with snot encrustations on the shoulders.

My parents were in town and I'd hoped to go out to brunch for Bat Girl's birthday plus get some professional photos taken of all of us (including with Bat Girl in her dol hanbok, the traditional Korean dress for her first birthday), but instead we laid around our apartment moaning (me) and drooling (BG) and leaking snot (all of us) while my mom made soup. I guess it could have been worse.

I'm at work now and so congested and miserable that I'm getting nothing done. But the alternative is going home and getting another layer of baby snot laid down on me, and right now sitting in my cubicle staring blankly seems more restful.

Birth day

One year ago today, I hauled my pregnant, contracting ass out of bed before the crack of dawn, hopped a cab to the hospital, and had a baby dragged out of me feet first.

It's so strange to me that Bat Girl is one year old already. It feels like she just arrived and like she's been here forever, all at once. We had a little party for her this weekend, with her playgroup friends. She was a little confused by all the fuss and was more interested in patting her birthday cake than eating it, but she enjoyed running around in circles and showing off her vocabulary ("poon!"=spoon; "boppel!"=bottle; "boom boom!"; etc.).

I was going to write a whole long gushy post bragging about how awesome Bat Girl is and what she's doing and how my preshus is the best baybee EVAR! but I'm sure you've all read enough of that from me. (And it feels a little unseemly right now in light of the enormous grief pouring out elsewhere in the blogosphere.) So I'll just keep it simple.

Happy birthday, baby. I love you so much.