I am mistaken

These days baby bot is into drawing faces. She's pretty good with the eyes-nose-mouth concept and even draws in eyelashes for females. She's still working on curving the corners of the mouth to make a "smiley" face but overall we are pleased that they are distinguishable from the usual abstract art she creates.

The other day she drew something like this:

Baby bot: "Look mom!"

Me: "Wow, that's very good, is that (referring to the red object) an ARM or a LEG or maybe a BODY?"

Baby bot: "It's just a line mom, it's just a straight line."

Me: "Oh... well good job baby, that's a very straight line."  (o . O) = her drawing = my face

I am a TV watcher

Reproduction of the scene from our bedroom yesterday afternoon:

A. Liz Bot watching "The Mindy Project" on laptop
B. Hus-bot watching some NFL training camp show on laptop
C. Baby bot watching and singing along to "Sofia the First" (Disney Junior show) on iPad

The new definition of "family time". Everyone was happy. The End.

I am grossed out

In the morning, Hus-bot was in the bathroom brushing baby bot's teeth and said "Ugh! Baby bot's breath is getting as bad as ours in the morning".

Which is pretty sad and gross. A definite milestone for a baby to cross over into adult level bad morning breath.

Then Hus-bot says "Oh, nevermind. It was my own breath I was smelling".

I am in trouble

I am already having battles with my 6 month old. We started introducing solids to her which apparently are not to her taste nor liking. She has now discovered that the simple solution to avoiding her food is to close her mouth. And tightly at that.

I am allowed no entry to the mouth.

I try to force the food in by shoving the spoon into her mouth but it just results in food on her face everywhere around the mouth except inside.  To further counter my moves she dramatically positions her head to be facing completely away from me.

So I call in my reinforcement (hus-bot) to come distract her and make her smile and laugh with his tried and true goofy antics. Baby-bot sees my ploy and thwarts the attempts by simply grinning without ever opening her mouth. Crafty.

Nice try folks...

So I had to bring out the big guns. Entice her with her only weakness: cut fruit.

 Baby-bot loves sucking on slices of pear or apples and asks for it whenever we eat it around her. So I quickly cut up an apple and launched a 2 stage attack.

 She saw the apple slice and finally opened her mouth in anticipation...

Which is when I quickly swept in and shoved the food into her mouth! I had to keep doing this, letting her suck on the apple a bit in between to get her to eat anything at all.

A hard won victory... this time...

I am getting lazy

Takes too long to illustrate these blogs.  A few people out of the few people that know about it asked if I started it because I was bored. After I was asked that, I paused to think about it (both times) and then thought definitively -- NO!! because I do not have the luxury to be bored. I just had to think about it because my brain is now slow. I take 4.5 times as long (arbitrary figure) to process and respond to things than a year ago.

Anyway our poor baby bot's hair (or lack there of) is a continual cause of concern for her dad. The other day he looked at her and said, "She needs some Rogaine!" and called her "Prince William".

Baby bot, meanwhile sat there with her budding new front teeth thinking about how much she loves plastic bags of all shapes and sizes but hates any type of lotion touching any part of her body, especially her face. Girl obviously doesn't know what's good for her.

I am a new mom

As a new parent, there are a ton of things that I didn't anticipate with baby-rearing. It's a constant battle with new surprises, twists, and turns every day. Any person I've spoken to these last 5 months has heard that I am soo tired, and that's pretty much all I repeat or say nowadays. Conversations with me are getting very dull.

Anyway here are a couple things I didn't quite realize before baby-bot came along...

- How beat up you become

I didn't even know it was possible to get mouth bruises, but after getting whacked on the mouth from a sudden violent head nod from baby bot, I got a nice little contusion that turned from bright red to dark brown.  Recently baby has taken to tugging on my hair and pinching my arms with her tiny hands while being held. She also has two little bottom teeth coming in so nursing can be a pain, literally. Baby contraptions that I constantly bump into or trip over include but are not limited to her her playmat, bouncer, jumperoo, and swing which are scattered around our small little place.

- That clipping baby's nails is one of life's greatest challenges

Seriously, a harrowing experience each time.  Toenails are a near impossibility for me as baby-bot has ridiculous leg strength. Thankfully they don't grow as quickly as finger nails. Why not do it while she's sleeping? No way jose. If you knew how difficult it is to get baby bot to even fall asleep you would not suggest such a thing; I will not disturb those periods for anything.

- You get a new bathroom buddy
If you have a needy baby like mine you don't have much choice.

Don't worry this only happened rarely since it bordered on child abuse and fortunately now at 5 months baby is tolerating being alone better. (thank goodness)

I am female

... and so is my daughter. Obviously. Unfortunately this fact is apparently not so obvious in real life. Wherever we go everyone refers to her as "he".

Since the above picture is a fairly accurate representation of what she looks like right now, you can't really blame anyone. We like to call her "gender neutral" but she pretty much resembles an old man right now as highlighted by the descriptions. (The attached earlobes part has nothing to do with old men, but is just an interesting part of her anatomy to us because both her parents (we) have them; genetics can't be denied!).

Anyway, out of any context we agree that it's a little hard to tell. But see the following scenarios involving our baby bot. C'mon!

Scenario 1: Outside our home re-introducing ourselves to our neighbors. The neighbor guy asks, "And what's his name?"

Granted the color can throw you off a little bit, but who dresses their boys in dainty lace tank-onesies?

Scenario 2: At a restaurant. An older lady asks "How old is he? Oh wait is it a he?"

Really? All dressed in pink PLUS a pink blanket yet still there is confusion?

Scenario 3: At another restaurant. A waitress came by and said, "Oh he's so cute". Thank you for the compliment. But did you SEE the hot pink lining of the jacket?

Scenario 4: At the mall. Baby bot's Halloween costume was a cow. Overhead a grandma saying "Oh he's a cow. My granddaughter is going to be a cat and has that stuffing around the middle too." (BTW we saw that costume at Costco too and would've gotten it but we went too late and they were out of our size.)

Scenario 5: At an outdoor food court. Someone asks, "Is it a girl or a boy?.. Oh, there's a bow so must be a girl". You think? (The dress kind of looked like a shirt, but still).