A Happy Postcard

I'm really tired tonight, but I wanted to write a little bit about Kid A before another whole week goes by. Suddenly, she's just delightful to be with. She's still sometimes a fussy girl, but last week, around her 3-month birthday, she sort of turned a corner, temperamentally, and she's a sweet, happy baby now. She smiles so often these days (mostly at the big plastic sun at the apex of her activity mat!), and spends lots and lots of time shoving as much of her fists as possible into her mouth. She is endlessly fascinated with hands, her own and everybody else's. And even though I am not a very good singer, she is very often calmed by my singing. The most reliably calming song? The chorus from Fiona Apple's "Extraordinary Machine." Go figure.

TM picks her up every afternoon at around 4:00, and watches her until I get home, anywhere between 4:30 and 6:00, depending on where my training has taken me on a given day. He also spends lots of time singing to her, and it always brings a smile to my face. Unlike me (I'm pretty unoriginal, for the most part, with my song choices), TM makes up song after song after song for her. It's usually stuff about what she's doing, or looking at, or wearing, but it's always adorable, and very often it's clever and witty and funny, too. My biggest accomplishment in the made-up song category? "Oohhhh, pumpkin, doo-doo-doo-doo," repeated four times with slight changes of key. The only reason it's an accomplishment is because it made TM laugh, and also because it caught on with TM.

We had a lovely weekend. On Saturday, I went back to my old neighborhood, and visited Krista and her baby daughter, Molly. Then I swung by some friends' who are expecting their first baby any day now, and dropped off a big ol' package of diapers that I bought, thinking they would fit Kid A (what? they were for 8-14 pounds ... ), but were too small for her. On Sunday, our little family went to the plant nursery where TM used to work (for more than 10 years), and picked up a bamboo that TM had reserved as an anniversary present for me. Then we did our usual grocery shopping outings, and came home and did housework. It sounds like drudgery, but it was really wonderful to have such a low-key weekend.

My milk supply is still fairly low, despite a return to pumping three times a day at work all week last week. I was able to feed Kid A without formula on Saturday, but on Sunday I gave her a couple of bottles. I'm okay with it. I'm hoping to be able to get to four months before my supply completely peters out. The good news is that even though the supply is low, it hasn't dropped any lower since I resumed pumping more often.

And I booked a photographer for November! We'll be doing Christmas cards, of course, and will be giving the grandparents holiday photos. We're doing the session the weekend before Thanksgiving, which will mean Kid A will be 4.5 months old. I'm really excited, because I loooove this photographer's portfolio. After the shoot, I'll post a link to her website.

Ok, off to bed!