Remember, Remember

...to blog in November.

It has been an entire month since my last entry.  For shame!  I sincerely hope this is not the new norm so I'm going to blame the holidays with their onslaught of festive gatherings and ability to suck us into a mental vacuum of what to cook/bake/buy for friends and relations.  In short, there's a lot going on.  Too many dates to keep straight and visits to plan means this writing project got pushed to the side so here's a brief recap:

November 14: Tempest's 2 month well visit.  

• 11 lbs, 1 oz
• 23.5 inches 
• three vaccines she took like a pro

Milestones

• Thumb/finger sucking (though she prefers the entire fist)
• Chuckling - I can't quite call it a giggle, as it's deep and hearty
• No more gas drops/gripe water!  Huzzah! 
• Sleeping 3-4 hours at a go with only one nighttime feeding
• Um, sleeping in her crib.  That's a biggie.  Sure, she may co-sleep after 3:00 AM but at least she starts the night out in her own room.  

On November 16, her 2 month birthday, we attended the Austell family welcome party hosted by Aunt Liz.  Tess was the belle of her ball and much to our pleasure, we learned that she shines in social situations where she is passed from person to person.  Not a peep of displeasure out of her the entire time, except when she was hungry and let the entire room know it was time to feed.  How proud we were at her debut.  So looking forward to introducing her to my family at Christmas.

Whereby we venture out...

After her vaccinations, I felt much more comfortable taking her in public in limited doses.  Our very first mother/daughter sojourn was to Barnes and Noble to do a little Christmas shopping.  She was excellent the whole time.  Lucky me, thought I.  I have one of those babies you can cart anywhere!

Wrong.

Just last week I had the brilliant idea to take a quick trip to PetsMart because Oscar was out of food.  I also had to buy 6 month size sleepers for Tess so I thought, hey, why not make it a two-fer and hit up Babies R Us, as well?

Good thing I had the presence of mind to bring the sling because this child was having NONE of that car seat.  We walk through the doors of the PetsMart and she starts yelling and then crying.  I look around, not wanting to be that mom, and pick her up.  I try to soothe her in the aisle.  Nope.  She wants more breast (which she had just had not 30 minutes ago) so I grab a bunch of dog things in my own version of Supermarket Sweep, race that empty stroller, now serving as a cart, to the checkout and apologize to the clerk for my wailing daughter who is probably upsetting the cats up for adoption, as well as the small dogs being groomed.  Now I have to somehow stuff her back in the car seat, arms flailing and red faced, and shuttle her to the car where I can nurse her in private.

So that was fun.

I wised up and popped her in the sling and she was fine.  This is not the first time I've learned that she isn't always in the mood for her stroller.  I've learned the hard way in Johnson Park, over a mile from home, with nothing but benches in the wide open to nurse on.  I have also nursed her in KOP mall, in a Mexican restaurant, at the Porterhouse in Lahaska, PA, and yes, in the car twice.  I'm not shy, thank goodness, but I don't think I was prepared for such a demanding, pint-sized public exhibitionist.  Doesn't matter to her where we are!  She's hungry N-O-W.

So that's been an education.  I'm way more oh hey, do you mind if I whip out my boob now than I ever thought I'd be.  Good times.

Meeting Santa 

We went back and forth about taking our first trip to the North Pole.  Is she too young?  Does it matter if she remembers?  It's really for us, right? In the end, we made a spur-of-the-moment decision after Thanksgiving to visit the crème de la crème of Santas at King of Prussia Mall.  We did it up Mainline style and like total nubes, we waited 90 minutes in a line of Disney proportions, only to have her fall back asleep for the duration after nursing 60 minutes in...rookie mistake.  Oh well.  The result is adorable, I must say: a sleepy little elf nestled comfortably in the crook of St. Nick's arm.

Ah, memories.  Next year, she'll probably be one of the screaming toddlers who totally loses their sh*t when they approach the big man's throne.  There was plenty of that to entertain us during the wait.

Now it's two weeks into December and I can hardly believe her 3 month birthday is next Tuesday.  Three months?!  This child is growing faster than I can blog about it.  I am looking forward to her upcoming milestones such as rolling over and sleeping through the night (maybe?).  We got extremely close last night with a full 6 hours of her sleeping in her crib.  I'm pretty sure that counts as through the night but I won't hold my breath for a repeat just yet.  I woke each time she had a nightmare or started grunting, thinking ok, this time she's really up but each time I checked on her, her eyes were firmly closed, even if her little head was wedged up against the slats of her crib.  She moves around a ton at night so I'm thinking rolling isn't too far behind...

Oscar is loving how alert little sister has become.  She now tries to look at him when he stands over her during tummy time and it's sweet to think how much mischief they are going to get into once she's on the move.