I'm Your Mom

I haven't posted in a week because I've been busy, but nothing scintillating is going on, so you haven't missed anything.

Yelena World All's well in babyland. She's been vocal lately, although she still doesn't dwell on most consonants. On numerous occasions when I've entered a room she's already in or when we're cuddling and she wants to nurse she says something that sounds a lot like "Mama," but she never does it when Eli's around so it could just be a figment of my imagination. When I make a request of her, like "kiss Mama" or "clap Mama's hand" she'll do it often enough so I think she knows what I mean, but not every time, so there is room for doubt (and, again, not often when Eli's around). Of course, living with cats I know that understanding and doing are not equivalent.

She's getting better about holding her sippy cup, but we're doing it without a valve so it can get rather messy. Whenever I drink from a glass she is mesmerized, so today I offered her some water from my pint glass and she eagerly drank. I am going to break out some more child friendly plastic cups tomorrow. She's still not so into the self feeding, although she'll pick stuff up in a pincer grasp she's more interested in tranferring it to her other hand, squishing it around or dropping it all the while opening her mouth and looking to me to put something in it. Ditto the spoon. She'll grab at it but when I give it to her and try to help her feed herself she prefers to wave it around and see how far the food will fly.

Her three teeth are pretty much out and she's still getting used to them. She grinds them. The sound is a bit nerve racking -- it makes Eli crawl up the walls -- but apparently it doesn't bother her. It looks like the teeth on either side of her bottom teeth are working their way out, but no sign of the other front tooth on top. Of course, there wasn't any sign that I could see for the other top tooth so it could spring out at any moment. These teeth are like hydras. Hydrae?

No movement. Her balance is getting better and she love to practice standing. But man, her head is so big. It's always been in a way-high percentile but I swear it is outpacing the rest of her in growth. And her feet are itsy bitsy. I now look at the feet of every baby I see and hers are crazy petite. If she were a Chinese courtesan she wouldn't even have to get her feet bound.

Cherubino's World He's looking better and, somehow, bigger. Our appointment with the oncologist was moved to Thursday, since our car was in the shop Monday, so we have to wait a few days for the vet's opinion. He's certainly put on weight and is feistier.

Mila's World I have an existence other than serving Yelena and Cherubino? Squeezed in between feedings feline and baby I've tackled a number of overdue household projects, including re-tiling part of the shower (done!) and clearing the bush that has overtaken our yard. Digging out weeds, I discovered a very long, jagged, rusted metal spike. Talk about taking out an eye! It was over a foot into the ground and I have no idea what it was, except for an old fence post or a vampire trap , but it is safely removed.

I also had to clear off the dust from my resume as an opportunity for some part time real estate work presented itself. And I finally posted and printed Yelena pictures from March through June.

Even though I've been up past midnight every night for Cheru's feeding, I haven't gotten much reading done, since I've been dealing with the aforementioned plus household chores and following the news from Israel. Since last literary post, I have read 1000 White Women for bookgroup (crap), the new Philip Roth (short, obsessed with mortality), Coraline (short, not as good as I had hoped), What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew (thanks Mom, now I know all about whist, the rankings of landed gentry and black pudding), As A Driven Leaf (excellent, keeping me up way past Cherubino's feeding) and I am still inching through The Botany of Desire (enjoying, but not engrossed).

Sunday I went to see the movie I'm Your Man, about a Leonard Cohen tribute concert, with bits from the bard himself interspersed. Highly recommended. All of the performances were good, with some down right spine tingling and eye watering. I love Nick Cave and have never seen him live -- he always seems to be in Chicago when it's Rosh Hashana or I have a newborn -- but after his two numbers I swear I will never miss him if he's in town again. I have a love-hate relationship with Rufus Wainwright but when he is on he is so on, and he was very very on with his three numbers. There is also a very funny bit where Mr. Cohen (I can't bring myself to call him Leonard) reads his introduction to a translation of Beautiful Losers into Mandarin; his opinion of it is pretty close to my own. A sun stroke of a book indeed.