the chemistry of love

the baby stage is so short. if we've had a conversation, no doubt you know that it's not been my favorite time in life, not good expedition behavior as maf would say. but e.m. is starting to change so much, she eats solid food and even chews with her gums. she touches and handles things carefully rather than batting at them. she has teeth. she is emotional. she loves bearing weight on her legs. she is developing tiny, subtle, wonderful idiosyncrasies.

children make time palpable.

every night, i read em a book, swaddle her, turn out the lights and give her a bottle. she falls asleep. i sit and stare at her for a long while, partly because she is so very sweet when asleep but really it's just because i can. because one day she won't fit in my arms, one day she will be embarrassed of me for some reason, and one day she is going to be more comfortable in a bed than on my lap. and i can think back to the first part of her life, when, every night, i held her, smelled her hair and her breath, felt the warmth of her cheeks and watched her mouth twitch. i will remember that every night i held her, we were at peace and things were just right.

of course, most of the time, especially during naps, this is how our relationship feels:

little sprout

i have been trying to get a shot of e.m.'s newly sprouted teeth for days. DAYS. she's squirmy. today, after a few tries and jeremy's help, i got one!

she suddenly had to jerk around and stare at the refrigerator that has been in the same place for four years.
and suddenly the floor is mesmerizing.
i really thought this was going to be the shot...
tada
we have also initiated the gray shirt indoctrination. you can't live in our house without a deep and enduring love of heathered gray t-shirts.

p is for pterodactyl

christmas was really fun this year, it's definitely a good time with kids. the echols came over in addition to my family, so every seat was taken at the table, which i love. food was so good, and even though my dad did talk about mother korea a lot (life in the military, korean liberation day, what the death of kim jong il means to him), we had a nice time. i wasn't a comprehensive photographer, but here are a few snap shots.

this is after paul asked evan, "is cousin being cute?" his response was yes, which was demonstrated with an index finger to the cheek. em doesn't seem to like that evan thinks she's cute. oh i can't wait for them to get older and be buddies.
9:30p. yep still awake. she's hanging out with jeremy in her new swaddle, called a woombie. it allows more freedom of movement than her previous one, it's (one of) my attempt to transition her into sleeping without one.
a grain mill, my christmas present from jeremy. after the grid goes down, we will be eating apple turnovers and challah bread. what will you be eating?
i used some freshly milled flour to make this tarte tatin. believe me?

high five months

esther margaret is five months old. it's been a big month!
first, she learned how to wave.
and, she can sit up on her own.
she has even learned how to stand up!
jk. she doesn't even roll yet. no teething either. we're just hanging out. she did ask me why her jeans are sandblasted, i didn't have an answer.

baby bear, baby bear, what do you see?

love at first bite

1 2 3 4 tell me that you love me more

this is what a play date looks like when your kids are 4 months old. they don't really play, you just keep them from rolling on top of each other.

here, em is embarrassed that her whites aren't matching and her neckline is sloppy. lela is laughing because no one will ever know that her tights are connected to her skirt.
still focused..
losing momentum..em is wondering why she is still awake and is consequently about to erupt into tears, lela is sure that mom is about to feed her.
they are both close to blindness at this point from the camera flash, em still doesn't know where she is and lj is given up on eating, has substituted fingers instead.

makes my stomach go two forty six

i am at the shop, and the speakers just shorted from water (moderately long and uninteresting story). i have come to rely on hearing music, even when i am alone here. now i feel awkward sitting here by myself.

more thoughts on clothes + babies + my baby.

lately esther margaret has needed to wear more clothes simply out of necessity since the weather's been colder. in addition, i have been feeling some peer pressure from friends, or should i say "friends", who will make fun of me for dressing em in her uniform. mind you, these are also the same people who make fun of me for wearing the same clothes all the time. all of the people who said that i would have the best dressed baby in town are eating their words.

so. it has caused me to think more deeply on the topic and i have some thoughts.

to recap, my kid wears this every day:
i have come to realize that babies, in general, are all sort of androgynous. i don't think less of people who put giant bows or head to toe pink on their girls, it's cute, it's just not my thing. but at the same time, i don't want to put anything on her that makes her look like a boy. ergo, my issue with pants. leggings, karate pants, fleece pants...they all make her look like a male gymnast or this korean deacon i knew growing up in dallas.

so i have avoided pants. lately i have been dressing em in some version of this and thought it was the perfect solution:
but then i started to realize that it's tedious to change her diaper with all of those snaps and then i started to get comments on why my kid is in her pajamas all day long. awesome.

i am a big fan of bundlers, but i tire of hearing jihad references from jeremy.
so i looked at my options. and then made a realization:

oh, you think your kid is wearing a ribbed turtleneck? actually, she's wearing a onesie with some extra fabric around the collar. and ps i'm pretty sure that she stole it out of sally jessie raphael's closet.
this is a white onesie, only dyed pink with rosettes sewn on it.
ditto, minus rosettes, plus screen printing.
pajamas are even more contrived. they're just like daytime clothes but match a little more.

i mean, how would you like it if someone made you wear a matching bunny/winter themed outfit?
my point is that they're all the same. even if i dress claire up as a tiger or marshmallow or a race car driver, she's still a dachshund.

radio in my head

i feel like i am hallucinating!!
the hair on my arms has been standing up for almost two hours.

i am listening to radiohead's "lost" album, called 01 and 10. apparently, ok computer and in rainbows were made to complement each other like the binary digits 01 and 10 (i can't explain this to you, but i confirmed that they do.). thom yorke dropped hints by releasing in rainbows 10 years after ok computer on october 10 and releasing cryptic messages all involving the roman numeral X. clearly i missed all of this since in rainbows was released four years ago and i am just now catching up. i am a radiohead loyalist for sure, but not "that" kind. anyway i read that it took a couple of years for anyone to even notice or suspect anything. if you piece together the albums, song by song, it creates one seamless album (using a 3-5 second overlap makes it even better). WHAT?!? and it's not just the tempos or key signatures or architecture of the songs, even the themes of lyrics flow seamlessly. YES!!!

1 airbag (ok computer)
2 15 step (in rainbows)
3 paranoid android (ok computer)
4 bodysnatchers (in rainbows)
5 subterranean homesick alien (ok computer)
6 nude (in rainbows)
7 exit music (for a film) (ok computer)
8 weird fishes/arpeggi (in rainbows)
9 let down (ok computer)
10 all i need (in rainbows)
11 karma police (ok computer)
12 fitter happier (ok computer)
13 faust arp (in rainbows)
14 electioneering (ok computer)
15 reckoner (in rainbows)
16 climbing up the walls (ok computer)
17 house of cards (in rainbows)
18 no surprises (ok computer)
19 jigsaw falling into place (in rainbows)
20 lucky (ok computer)
21 videotape (in rainbows)
22 the tourist (ok computer)

(what is going on in my brain?? why do i keep having the urge to throw up??! my eyes won't shut!! i can't get any words out of my mouth.)

i refuse to geek out so i won't go into all of the specifics, but the listening experience is religious and painfully heart pounding, especially if you have a fondness for either/both albums.

on a side note, i'm pretty sure "young people" think of radiohead in the same way that i think of the rolling stones or the beach boys*.

*the exception here is that hipsters like to claim that they love the beach boys, but i am only including those who listen to it outside of the ironic value.

dressed to quell

i don't know why i still can't seem to put "normal" clothes on e.m. we're still going strong with the white lap shoulder onesies. we've relinquished the muscle tee onesie (my absolute but unexpected favorite this summer) and are now wearing short and long sleeve, depending on the day. sometimes i add in white baby legs if it's chilly, other times robeez. she has a couple of sweaters and hoodies but it looks so weird to me that i immediately take them off. even socks don't look right.

i noticed in the pediatrician's office on monday that even newborns were wearing entire non-baby baby outfits, like elastic waist sweatpants that look like jeans, message tees, hats...i couldn't get over it.

maybe i can't dress my kid because she doesn't have much of a personality yet. it also makes her look older and it doesn't seem right that a 4 month old baby is dressed like a second grader. in addition, too many baby outfits look like costumes. and lastly, what's the use of putting on all of those clothes when you sleep 17 hours out of 24? it's like people i knew in college who dressed up on sunday mornings just to skip church and go to lunch. i may have done it a couple of times around the same time when i was trying to fake a texas accent.

meh. i guess jeremy and i are like that, we wear a virtual uniform every day of t shirts, jeans and rubber soled shoes unless there's a good reason to get dressed up. the echols are not in-betweeners.

i have gotten on board with the occasional hairband, which i think are pretty cute.

four months

esther margaret is four months old. it's amazing that we've been able to keep a helpless human alive for this long! you think i'm kidding but it really is amazing.

her schedule (not to be ostentatious, just so i have it recorded): wakes 730-800, eats and plays for about an hour and takes a nap for about 2.5 hours. i usually wake her up between 11-1130 and eats and plays again until 1200-1230p. she takes another big nap for 2-2.5 hours and usually wakes up on her own around at 230-300. in the perfect world, she would take a another nap around 430 to tide her over until bed time. she has never liked that third nap but will usually take one for 30-45 minutes. dr. weissbluth would call eme a "consolidated sleeper". she goes down for the night at 630p. late at night, at some point between 1030 and midnight, jse gives her a bottle without waking her. i do believe this is one of the keys to teaching your kid to sleep through the night, but i can't say for sure because i can't 1. duplicate her 2. turn back time 3. control all variables in order to make an empirical statement. at the least, i think it helps.

she is an all or nothing sleeper and the same goes with her eating. if she is not hungry, she will not, under any circumstances, be persuaded to eat. right now, if i try and feed her in under a 3.5 hr interval, she will clamp her mouth shut and wiggle around until i give up, which i do after 15 minutes or so. i used to freak out if she didn't eat but she is clearly (clearly) growing and gaining weight so i have stopped sweating it.

her pediatrician said that she's not quite ready for solid food, he'd like to see her eat about 7-8oz per feeding before we start (em usually goes for 5-6). he said some kids never get there, and if she still doesn't within a month, to go ahead and start if i want.

she's holding her head up pretty well and acting like she wants to start moving...

four month stats:
length: 25.5in (90th percentile)
weight: 14.7lbs (85th percentile)
head: 40cm (25th percentile)

stranger than fiction

e.m. has stranger anxiety.

sometimes it takes her a minute to spool up but when people other than jse and i are around, if someone tries to hold or gets in esther margaret's face, she will start screaming/crying at some point and not stop until she is back with mom or dad (this condition is likely to be exacerbated when she is in childcare starting in january).

this developmental stage is a subset of separation anxiety, which is a part of learning object permanence - things continue to exist even when we can't see them. can you imagine if someone never learned this? you'd always be saying "oh my gosh, great to see you, i thought i'd never see you again!!" every time someone went to the restroom and came back. if someone you really liked said they were going to step out to take a phone call, you'd likely beg them not to leave..

what a weird world that would be..

snow cone

yep.

9-9-9

why is a dangerous question to ask when it comes to babies. partly because they can’t give you an answer but mostly because there is a definitive answer to all of the frustrating, inconsistent things that they do but many times only, and literally, God will ever know.

i always think that if i could only figure out the why to whatever is making her cry, waking her up in the middle of a nap, making her refuse to eat, i could fix it…but trying to answer why is a rabbit hole, and i’m beginning to think the question, itself, is far less important than i wish it were. sometimes i think that when i constantly ask “why”, it is an indication of my unwillingness to accept reality and an attempt to conquer and change my circumstances.

i’ve noticed that jse doesn’t ask why nearly as much as i do, in regard to our sweet child. and consequently, he is frustrated much less (he is also, constitutionally, more relaxed about her than me). his reaction, when e.m. is out of sorts, seems to be closer to “what now”, which i think is a great perspective and one which i will try and adopt.

thanks for the cute onesie, mikey..!!

my morning jacket

esther margaret sleeps for nearly 13 hours at night. i take no credit for this, she just loves her sleep. other than wiggling out of her swaddle and waking herself, she has never woken up on her own. every morning, i wake her, unwrap her and wait for her to smile. it's just a flash, even a little bashful, and i love it..watch for it at 32 sec (couldn't post the other video, it exceeded the size limit). at 23 sec there's another special morning noise she makes..

rickshaw pusher

esther margaret's favorite part of the day..

out of sorts

my weiner dog just ate a hot dog. that makes me feel weird.

a leg up

em tried something new this weekend, she wore a skirt.

look at those knees.
and look at that face!

fight club

yesterday morning, esther margaret woke up with this self-inflicted scratch, her first wound in life.
so we decided to cut her nails, and jeremy accidentally clipped the skin on her thumb. second wound.
because of that, we were running late and i set a tupperware with hot rice on her knee. an asian chick burns her kid with rice, how cliche. wound three.
it's a tough life. here she is in happier times, with her cousin eating burgers in austin.

thighmaster

we're eating well.

and when you do talk, you'll be talking to me

this video will not be interesting to most of you because nothing happens. just some smiling and cooing..but she doesn't do it a lot yet, so i wanted to capture it. if you haven't yet heard her voice, it's pretty cute.

in the closet

some of you have asked how esther margaret is doing at the store. we struggled for a bit and then found a great solution..

the pied pipecleaner

if you haven't seen this little nugget in a while, here she is.
i am very confused as to how e.m. gets dirty finger nails. if i put her in the flowerbeds to feed her or if we had pet pigs or she even used her hands at all, i would understand. but she doesn't. nary a finger even goes near her mouth. the only parts this kid actively uses are her mouth and her booty.
even in her toenails are grungy. sad and sick.
*yd get my camera out of panoramic mode please.

say chez

e.m. is two months old. still does mostly this. i feel like i should cut a hole in her boppy to hold a can of bud light.
two month stats:
23.75 in long - 90th percentile
12.7 lbs - 90th percentile
38.5 cm head circumference - 50th percentile

the nurse measured her head twice because she thought she made a mistake because it grew so much. after she was weighed, the term "big girl" was thrown around. meh. she did not love immunization shots.

meanwhile..

evan still does mostly this. we met at salt lick in austin for lunch on labor day. he's still so cute that i can't look at him for long periods of time.
we're smiling! jse entertains her the most, but i can usually get a smile or two.
jse thinks this outfit looks a bit jihad-chic.
..possibly even resembling what may have been the burial clothes of osama bin laden. on that note, yd has threatened to water board e.m. with milk next time she refuses to take a bottle from him.
and another but last terrorist/violence related note, jse surprised me on saturday with a gift, a ruger 10/22 rifle. every guy i have told gets a glossy, sentimental look on his face. jse said it was the first gun he ever fired. it is my first too. i sort of look androgynous or at least like i really love softball. meh.
we promptly went to a shooting range (sans baby girl) where i almost had a psychological meltdown, and then i fired a gun for the first time ever. i wanted to get a photo of me shooting at the range but everyone seemed very serious and i didn't want to be "that girl". this is my sheet which jse posted on the refrigerator.
i don't love guns but think it's good to know how to shoot one.