Fri 11 May 2012
Remember how we called Allie a dancer in utero because of how active her feet were? Here are her pulling off some ballerina moves this week.
And here’s what your view would be if you were at my house playing Jaws (as in the shark) with Allie for a minute. *Jaws theme music plays*
Tue 8 May 2012
Allie tries to be very fair. She’s not for gender bias at all. In fact, when we’re out, half the adults who mill over to admire her think she’s a boy. “Awww, what a cute little guy!” too many people said on Sunday while we were at the Irvine Spectrum, which prompted Mr. W to immediately spend $40+ on head wraps with interchangeable bows and flowers. Allie wore one immediately, as you can see in the photo of her asleep in the car an hour later.
(We’d missed her naptime by minutes, so she went to sleep in the car on the drive home. I waited out the nap with her in the car parked on our driveway, knowing it’d be a short one. Her late afternoon naps have become half an hour long, just enough to get a little refresher before she goes down for the night at around 7p.)
When Allie’s in a good mood, she babbles and coos and blows bubbles. Her new favorite sounds, aside from the “pptttthhh” of bubble blowing, are a high-pitched “Aah!” and “Haaa-ummmmm” and “Hhhiiiii.” We’ve been trying our best to familiarize her with words we expect her to use first. “Mamamamama? Papapapapa? Allieallieallieallieallie?” She would just smile silently in return. When we came home from work yesterday, Jayne (with her younger teenage daughter, playing with Allie in the backyard) said excitedly, “She said her first word today!”
“Really? What is it?” Mr. W asked. The moment it took for Jayne to respond was suspense-filled. Would it be mama?
Would it be papa?
Jayne said, “It was ‘hi.’ ”
“She’s been saying ‘hi’ all weekend, I don’t think it’s actually a word,” Mr. W laughed.
Jayne looked disappointed. “Oh, really? But we even said it back, and she repeated it! She said it like 5 times in a row!”
Hmm. Maybe Allie DID mean to say “hi.” How politically correct to not “choose” a parent as her first word.
I guess I’ll respect that Allie’s first word is a greeting to the world. Hello, world. Yes, I’m happy with that. As long as her second word is “mama.”
Fri 4 May 2012
My parents came over today after not seeing Allie for the last 2 weeks because of our road trip. I get a lot of emails from my mom about how much she and my dad miss Allie when they’re not able to come by. Once in awhile she bothers to throw in that she misses us, as well. That’s nice of her. They brought Allie an electronic learning toy that turns into a push-walker when Allie starts walking, and a cute little halter swimsuit. We gave my mom her Mother’s Day present early: an iPad 3 which Mr. W preloaded with photos of Allie. My dad says she sits in bed at night and watches and rewatches videos and photos she’d taken of Allie in the past months on her laptop, giggling like an insane grandma. Now she can do the same thing with a lighter object on her lap. The back of the iPad is inscribed “Happy Mother’s Day” with my mom’s name, and “Love” from me, Mr. W and Allie. If someone stole it they’d have to prove a lot to claim it’s theirs.
It’s interesting seeing Allie thru my parents’ eyes. Because they only see Allie for a couple of hours once a week, they don’t realize all the progress she makes. So my dad will make comments like, “She’s making deliberate audible vocalizations now! I think she’s learning to talk!” “She now looks straight at you and concentrates on your mouth when you talk! She’s learning!” “She’s starting to grab things on purpose! She knows what to do with her hands now!” These are things she’d been doing for weeks to months, but I don’t say anything and let them make their own discoveries. No need to make them feel worse; they already feel like they’re missing out.
When my parents first arrived, Allie was in the second hour of what turned out to be a very nice 2-hour noon nap. It was needed, because after she was put into her crib for her morning nap, she popped up and rolled onto her back. After crying for awhile like that, she sucked her thumb until she fell asleep, but woke up with full-body nocturnal jerks every minute (I was watching the timer on the monitor), then every 45 seconds, then every 15-20 seconds, then every 30 seconds…basically she woke up at least 60 times, falling back to sleep each time only to wake up again with another jerk, until she gave up trying to nap after 40 minutes. (She sleeps all night on her back just fine, but then she’s laying on her fuzzy bear.) Poor baby. It was worse than when she was in the car being woken up by Mr. W’s aggressive driving on the road trip. I was really hoping her nervous system had outgrown the jerking; this was why we started napping her on her stomach to begin with.
For Allie’s 3rd nap, even tho she fell asleep on me, as soon as I put her in her crib she popped up and fussed. I picked her up, resoothed her to sleep on me, and tried again. Same thing. Wide awake in her crib. I finally walked out to let her soothe herself to sleep in the crib. It didn’t happen; for the first time ever, she cried and screamed through the ENTIRE duration of her nap period, from 3:30p in her crib until 4:15p when I went and got her. She was in fine spirits after she was picked up and played until almost 6pm with my parents, so it kind of looked like she had a bit of habitual tiredness for that nap, but didn’t really need it. The Sleep Book says that at age 5-8 months, 84% of babies have 2 naps and have dropped the 3rd, the late-afternoon nap. She could be phasing that nap out on her own already. I advanced her bedtime a little bit, we gave her a bath (my first time bathing her sitting in the adult tub with her, while hubby helped and gave pointers from the toilet seat), and she was falling asleep nursing by 6:30p. By 6:45p, she was sleeping in her crib. She’d gone to bed at 6:45p plenty of times before, but we’ve been letting her sleep in until 7a to help her catch up on the missed sleep from the road trip, so she’ll still be getting her 15 hours of total sleep this 24-hour period, even with the missed 3rd nap. I think knowing that babies her age are starting to eliminate her own last nap is what kept me from freaking out while I sat and helplessly watched her scream for 45 minutes earlier (while my mom got tutoring lessons from Mr. W on the iPad). I looked back on her charts to see how she eliminated her 4th nap before. It seemed to be sporadically missed until we just stopped forcing it on her, and she did fine with that extra awake period before bedtime. This was when she was doing 1-2 hours of awake periods, before she started hitting the clock-time naps every 8:30a, 11:30a, and 3:30p. That 3rd nap was always a variable “as needed” nap, anyway. Guess she didn’t really need it today.
So many changes, so little time. And with her 6-month birthday coming up in 19 days, we’ll be playing with solids soon.
Fri 4 May 2012
Tuesday morning after breakfast and Allie’s first nap, we got ready to check out of the Plaza Suites in Santa Clara. I didn’t mention that a roller coaster theme park called Great America was across the freeway from our hotel. It would’ve been a fun place to explore, if Allie were only tall enough to ride the rides. Oh well, maybe next year. 🙂 Another great thing about the hotel location is that it turned out we were 10-15 minutes from just about all our friends, no matter what direction we were going. That was convenient. Anyway, Allie was a good girl and sat patiently in the Boppy with her hands clasped as we got ready to leave.
Here she is watching her daddy disassemble her pack-n-play.
And then we were off! Allie took a nice long nap in the car as we drove to Pismo Beach, listening to Baby Rock. What’s Baby Rock? Turn on your speakers. Mr. W even rocks out to some of these lullabies.
The next morning, we had kind of a disappointing continental breakfast at the hotel, since we had been spoiled by Plaza Suites’ hot breakfast buffets. Allie didn’t mind, tho, since she got her usual meal of fresh breastmilk anyway.
After her morning nap, we were off and got home a little before 2pm. Allie took a niiiice 2 hour 10 minute nap in the car on the drive back, so we didn’t even have to stop until we got home.
Although Allie’s naps were short on vacation (30-50 mins each on average), she did hit them all on time on her own and didn’t have a problem going down for the night, and slept through each night, so that was good. Poor Mr. W felt oppressed by the baby’s naps, tho, so this wasn’t quite a vacation the way he liked it. I felt bad, and asked him to think of it as scoping out places we can go for future vacations when Allie’s older. I’m really looking forward to the time when she’s old enough to really enjoy new sights and places. I think that comes at close to a year, right? Maybe a bit later? But by then food will be its own issue, when she’s eating solids but not adult-solids, yet. So I guess there’s always a challenge.
I couldn’t do any nap training while we were out because I didn’t want her crying to disturb other hotel guests, so when we got home, she fought me in her nighttime sleep and also in a few naps. That’s why we left half a week to readjust her, so that Jayne doesn’t have to do it. It seems like with so many babies, the issue isn’t that they don’t nap; it’s that they don’t STAY asleep. They wake up in 30-40 minutes after their first REM cycle and decide they’re done. As they get older, they fight more to stay up instead of go back to sleep when they find themselves awake. It’s interesting that the sleep book doesn’t really address this, only saying that after 4 months of age, any nap under 1 hour is not considered restorative, and gives advice on how to deal with the kid fighting going down for the night or for the nap. Here’s another challenge now: she rolls to her back, and doesn’t nap well on her back because nocturnal jerks wake her up. So if she’s up and fighting and starts rolling, if it’s at the beginning of the nap, she’ll jerk awake every minute or less until she gives up, and if it’s at the tail end of a REM cycle, the nap’s pretty much over. I’m looking forward to her outgrowing this.
Thu 3 May 2012
We’re back from Allie’s first roadtrip. I think overall, it was a success. Sure, there were extra things to pack that we didn’t have to when Mr. W and I traveled on our own — there was Allie’s overnight bag, Allie’s pack-n-play, Allie’s diaper backpack, Allie’s changing area box o’ stuff, Allie’s Bumbo seat, and my breast pump and storage stuff. I still got up every morning before Allie did to pump and store, but I got to sleep in till almost 6am sometimes before I did that. Some things that surprised me — Allie is so obedient to her accustomed naptimes biorhythmically that she would fall asleep or demand to be put to bed. I don’t even know why I’d bothered wearing a watch. In the car, she’d just go to sleep at her naptimes. Her initial car naps were very light and short, because road bumps and the car moving around would wake her up, but she would keep falling back to sleep until about half an hour in. On the way home, as she got more used to the car, she had a nice 2 hour nap for her noon nap. Even when we couldn’t get her back in time for her nap, she’d be fussy, but if she were in the car, she’d fall asleep. I was unsuccessful several times trying to keep her up for even a few minutes as we rushed back to the hotel to put her in her crib.
It was a little tough trying to squeeze in all our friend visits in between Allie’s naptimes. When we arrived on Saturday afternoon, we checked in and went out to meet college roommie Diana, her husband Eric, and her new baby Alexis (2 weeks younger than Allie) at a Thai food restaurant for dinner. We didn’t take any photos as both babies were acting up in turn, it being close to their respective bedtimes. I think we all thought we’d all meet up again, but it didn’t happen because Allie and Alexis had conflicting naptimes all weekend. It was different and yet so similar to each other, seeing each other as parents of babies for the first time. Alexis felt like a compact little girl, since Allie is so tall and outweights Alexis by probably a couple of pounds. Diana offered to come by the hotel after the babies were asleep and hang out, but the suite turned out so small that we had to set up Allie’s pack-n-play in the living room area, so I didn’t want to walk in and out with her sleeping. She did go down without an issue in her pack-n-play every night and for every nap she took in it.
Sunday, for Allie’s second awake-period (the first was always spent eating the free breakfasts at the hotel), we drove out and visited Jimmy and Sabrina and their little girl Abby, now almost 2 years old. Abby was about 2 months old the last time I saw and held her. This time, she was a happy rambunctious little girl on the go-go-go! She ran circles around us with her toy shopping cart, stopping only long enough on occasion to give Allie a high-five.
Sunday’s third awake-period, we took a stroller walk to a nearby sandwich cafe and met up with Dardy. He hobbled in on crutches, and we were both very touched that he’d go through all the inconvenience to come out and see us. He took a couple of photos of Mr. W with Allie, and me with Allie. I’ll have to retrieve those from email and post them some other time when Allie’s not screaming and stressing me out (yes, she was napping when I started this post, but the next door neighbor’s gardeners came right when she went down so she woke up early and is now screaming. I wonder if gardeners even register that they wake up babies; I’m SURE she’s audible from outside.).
** Okay, evening edit: here are those photos from Dardy.
For Sunday’s fourth awake-period before bedtime, we went to visit Christi (flip flop girl) and Mike, and their kidlets Kyden (about 2 years old) and Sienna (9 months). Kyden wrote his own account of the day on his blog. 🙂 He has better photos, too, because his mom used a real camera, so her photos were notches above my blurry cameraphone ones. I’ve never seen Allie interact so much as with Sienna. Allie was immediately fascinated, and Sienna’s flapping around made Allie laugh, even when some of those flaps landed on Allie herself. (I have a video of that.) Kyden shyly emerged after his nap, and joined everyone downstairs. It was interesting to see Sienna eat “solids,” which was mushed up babyfood that Christi had prepared (she’s fancy; Sienna had blended chicken and zucchini for one dish and blended strawberries and another fruit that I can’t recall for another dish). It was also very cool to see Kyden feed himself delicious salmon and veggies that Christi made for those of us with full teeth. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. BUT, I do agree with Christi (and I’m glad she pushed me to make this trip), that traveling with Allie at this stage is easier because she’s more portable being only a breastmilk drinker. Christi gave his her kids’ food mill that takes all the fibrous strings and skin out of cooked veggies and fruits. I don’t know if I can be as good a cook as Christi, tho.
On Monday’s second awake-segment, we drove out to see Diana at her office. I was thinking that since we were going to a law firm, we ought to be able to write off the trip, right? Anyway, Morrison Foerster had very cool grounds. There was a park-like setting in the center quad, it was not the boring ol’ buildings we’re used to seeing. Different food trucks drive up and provide the employees lunch on different days, and we conveniently ate lunch with Diana from one such food truck, sitting in the pretty quad overlooking the water and fountains.
We actually had Allie’s third awake-segment free and Mr. W had been bored from being pent-up during Allie’s naps, so we took a walk to explore a nearby Residence Inn that we saw driving by. It was beautiful, with ducks and geese swimming in a long river and large pond going through the center of the property.
(It’s nauseating at this point of blogging because Allie’s now screaming with a vengeance, but I’m re-nap-training so I have to leave her alone until she remembers to self-soothe; the nap was too short.)
The following photo demonstrates one of those sacrifices mommies have to make on behalf of their children. I’m posting this because Allie looks adorable, despite how I look.
And then we walked back to the hotel for Allie’s third nap, where Mr. W had some fun with a cap for dress-up.
The fourth awake-segment was spent meeting up with Rebecca and her 6-year-old, Ben. Ben was so excited he couldn’t stop himself from hopping up and down while he sang to Allie. Unfortunately, dinner went long as we were at a sit-down restaurant, and Allie had two melt-downs, Mr. W taking her out of Maggiano’s Little Italy both times until she calmed down. It was past Ben’s bedtime as well, and he had a rare quiet moment with his head on the dinner table while he waited for his dessert to show up. Allie fell asleep on the drive back to the hotel and stayed asleep in the carseat after we brought the carseat carrier into the hotel. Mr. W suggested I take a shower and let her sleep, and feed her the bedtime feeding when she wakes up. She awoke in the carrier as soon as I finished my own bedtime routine, and we treated her bedtime routine like a middle-of-the-night feeding (which I am a little rusty at); dark, feed, no talking or playing, and putting her right to bed as soon as she was done eating. It was a success, even tho she went to sleep more than 2 hours past her usual bedtime.
I’ll continue with Allie’s Great Adventure, Central Cal later…Allie needs some attention right now.
Thu 26 Apr 2012
When I was in 5th grade, our teacher, Mrs. Catanzaro, read us the headline of an article (or news clipping, or hand-out, or pamphlet, or SOMEthing) in class. Something about how we should not use warm or hot water to brush our teeth. The class of 10-year-olds was obviously not that interested, and probably habitually tuned out anything that had to do with hygiene. Mrs. Catanzaro told us then that we should be thinking, “We shouldn’t brush with warm water? Why not? What would happen? *I* sometimes brush with warm water.” That was the first time it occurred to me that maybe I ought to care about something I don’t care about. I guess that was the point of the lesson, to instill curiosity and a love of learning or research. She then went on to read the rest of the whatever she was reading from, while stopping every so often to tell us how we should respond mentally, what we should be thinking as information comes out.
For the life of me, I can’t remember at all why we shouldn’t brush with warm or hot water. I guess back 25 years ago, I was so fascinated by the thought that I OUGHT to be curious, that I was too distracted from being actually curious enough to pay attention.
I think about this quite often when I’m leaning over the sink, about to brush my teeth. I sometimes hesitate when my left hand reaches out toward the left faucet handle, toward the side that controls the hot water. If I’d used the left side recently, say, to wash my face or hands first, then the water would be already “warmed up” and I’d end up brushing my teeth with hot water. But if I didn’t, then there’d be enough cold water coming out first that my brushing water wouldn’t be warm. But how much does this really matter? WHY does it matter? Would it really be detrimental? And I kick myself for the millionth time for not paying attention in 5th grade on that fateful day when the oh-so-important information was being handed out.
Mon 23 Apr 2012
I just got a call from the vet regarding Dodo’s Saturday lab test results. (I love this vet, btw; she’s so pleasant and loving, always very responsive, seems very sharp, and loooves Allie and always asks about her. BTW, she’d also recommended the sleep book, “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” by Dr. Marc Weissbluth, and I told her I was already using it.) Dodo’s kidney values are down to the NORMAL range! AND…his red blood cell count has gone up a few percent, so that’s great. He also hadn’t lost any weight between this visit and the last one. It’s been about a week since he vomited bile (just this morning, in fact) so I hadn’t given him the antacid meds, altho I’d received it mid-week last week, and she said that’s fine, I can use it when the bile vomit gets more frequent. She wasn’t able to get his blood pressure on Saturday because their doppler broke, but going by his test results, Dodo’s doing well. She said it’s surprisingly good news given that he’s an old cat with severe polycystic kidneys, but apparently the core of the kidneys are doing their job filtering. The reduced protein diet helped (so the kidneys don’t have to filter as hard) and the blood pressure meds helped (so the “firehose blasting through a weak strainer” analogy no longer applies). Since the yowling has reduced, he must be getting less headaches, too.
I noticed that Dodo seems to be a little constipated. He strains in the litter box and scoots a little in there. Over the weekend he strained with no results, came out, drank water, went back, tried again and got poopies out. This morning, same thing. I’ve never heard a cat do little soft mewing grunts before, and it’d be cute if it weren’t so sad. The vet said that this is “normal” considering the kidney disease, because his kidneys are using every spare drop of water to do their jobs. This makes his poop harder. If it becomes a big issue, we can treat that symptom with stool softener meds. *picturing Dodo with one of those old-people multi-tiered pillboxes*
I asked how she thought Dodo would do if he’s unmedicated for a few days while we go on this road trip. She hesitated and said that she certainly wouldn’t recommend it because we’ve made such great headway in treating his kidney disease symptoms, and I agree, but I don’t see that the stepdaughter is able to medicate Dodo twice a day. She’s uncomfortable around cats because she hasn’t had much exposure to them, and when we were in Europe when Dodo got sick, Ann found out just how scared of picking up Dodo the stepdaughter was. I think people assume all cats scratch and bite, altho Dodo doesn’t. Anyway, fighting down a struggling cat and squirting meds in his mouth twice a day is going to be a little much for the stepdaughter, I believe, assuming she’s able to get up in the mornings to do this, and will be around at nights to do it again (we rarely see her at home). So the vet offered another alternative: the vet hospital technicians do house calls! I spoke to the office manager and she agreed to come by the house for $10 a visit to medicate Dodo when we’re gone. Now I’ll have the peace of mind to know Dodo is getting medicated effectively and on time.
I love this vet clinic.
Sun 22 Apr 2012
Since Allie started sitting by herself this week, we thought we’d introduce her to different places she could sit. So today, she got her introduction to grass.
She plucked at it with her fingers, hung on hard to the tough little blades, but didn’t try to bring any into her mouth, which surprised me. Pulling sideways one time, she rolled herself cheek-first into the lawn. No reaction. I guess she’s pretty comfy out there.
Later, we sat her outside to wait for my parents, who’d called to say they were coming over. We waited and waited.
Good thing Allie enjoyed herself, since my parents were running on “Asian time.”
So Mr. W decided to introduce Allie to sand in our zen garden.
I think grass is a clear winner. Unless you count this:
Allie’s napping now, but I don’t know what’s going on with her naps this weekend. Every nap except yesterday’s morning one, she wakes up and cries at the 35-40-minute point. I leave her in there until she’s been in her crib an hour so she’s not “rewarded” for forcing herself awake early to come play. Yesterday, that meant on both her noon and afternoon naps, she slept half an hour, cried half an hour, and was picked up. Today, each time she cried she was able to (within 15 mins or less) roll her left arm free and curl up sideways sucking her thumb and fall asleep, but still. Aggravating. I’m hoping it’s a developmental thing as she’s learning to roll, so it’s an exciting new thing that’s keeping her up, and that she’ll be used to it soon and just go back to sleep.
Fri 20 Apr 2012
In preparation for introducing Allie to solids this weekend, I’ve been reading up on how to make this transition. You know what my research has mostly showed? That it’s best to hold off for another month. Keeping the baby exclusively on breast milk the first 6 months lowers the chances of obesity, of childhood asthma (by as much as 50%!), of ear infections, allergic reactions to food, all sorts of stuff. Plus, early introduction to solids has warnings attached: increased chances of constipation as the digestive system may not be mature enough to handle the foods, tons of foods I’ve gotta remember I CAN’T feed the baby yet until 6 months (grains with gluten, such as barley, wheat), and I have to be careful to cook, strain and peel everything until she’s 6 months. Everywhere I look there’s a caveat of “…but if your baby is under 6 months, add this step,” or “…wait until 6 months to feed this food to decrease chance of allergic reaction.” So I may as well wait instead of memorizing all the exceptions.
Here’s something interesting about the magic of breast milk: it is a medicine cabinet. We know it’s sterile, and has antibacterial and antiviral properties. Some uses aside from nourishment include:
* diaper rash treatment – applied topically, breast milk improved diaper rash slightly FASTER than those zinc oxide diaper rash creams you’d buy over the counter (a 2009 study shows).
* nose clearer – I’ve been using saline drops for clearing Allie’s nostrils, but apparently, you can squirt 2 drops of breast milk in each nostril and then suck it out with an aspirator, just like I already do with the saline, and the breast milk antibodies in the nostrils may help relieve nasal irritation.
* eye treatment – itchy eyes from pinkeye or conjunctivitis (mild cases that don’t need prescription meds, I mean) can be relieved with 2 drops of breast milk in the infected eye twice a day as an antibiotic. So for my mom friends who have felt a little bad about squirting their baby in the eye during breastfeeding at times…you’ve been keeping the eye healthy!
* skin ointment – dabbing some milk on a scrape or scratch helps heal the area like antibacterial cream.
* soothing eczema – blot the dry patches with a cotton pad dipped in breast milk; it also makes for a great lubricant.
I’m thinking I should just store up a bottle and place it in my medicine cabinet. (Kidding, I know it has to be refrigerated.)
Thu 19 Apr 2012
The kid bit me for the first time this morning during nursing. She acted like she was done, turning away, but I thought she was just distracted because she was on that side half the time she normally is, so I put her back on. A few seconds later, a sharp pain. I tried not to say “ouch” but it was too late because she caught me by surprise. I was also surprised she didn’t just bite and let go; she kept the pressure on for a few seconds. I tried to press her face into my skin to get her to let go but she was in an awkward position where it really didn’t do anything, but she let go on her own anyway and acted like nothing unusual had happened.
She may have been getting me back for putting her on when she was done eating. Or it may have been for letting her sit up by herself unsupported, which she’s able to do until she reaches to her left or right for something (and she’s ALWAYS reaching for something these days, even if it’s just the blanket she’s sitting on) and then falls over on her face in that direction. I laugh when she does that because it’s funny and she’s clearly unhurt. Maybe her little budding ego is hurt when she’s laughed at now, who knows.
Looking back, it’s interesting how insecure and incompetent I felt with the baby stuff from Allie’s birth until…last weekend. I was completely overwhelmed and feeling underprepared, and was constantly playing a game of catch-up, researching and reading everything I could, trying to be a more effective parent by trying to anticipate her growth and symptoms and how to best address potential upcoming issues. I’m finally at the point, thanks to the very successful naptraining over the weekend, of feeling like, “Hey, I’m not a totally sucky mother, after all.” It could be because I was SO freaked out at how crazy everything was going at home the first week Jayne was with Allie (I cried in the bathroom at work last Wednesday), by comparison, the weekend felt totally do-able. And also, because this week is going well and Jayne is “getting it” with Allie’s routines and stuff now, I’m feeling much more comfortable. The constant nagging nausea and anxiety hanging over me actually dissipates here and there. People at work with young grandchildren and helpless-feeling new-mom-children are coming to me, asking advice, and my advice is actually WORKING for them (especially in the areas of sleep training). There are more learning curves coming up immediately ahead such as when we have her try solids for the first time this weekend, but hopefully nothing that kicks my emotional butt like the first 4.5 months of Allie’s life. At least, until teenagerhood sets in. Ugh.
