almost 5 months

little miss laila is doing great, rolled over (belly to back) a few times, and lost a bunch of hair. she now has a funny faux hawk. she's a little bruiser this kid, she's nice and solid. she loves to stand, grab things with her hands (like her feet) and put them in her mouth (not her feet), play in her exersaucer, smile, and drool. her hands are in her in her mouth a lot lately and im afraid that teeth are on their way shortly. i plan to breastfeed until thanksgiving, but im really afraid of breastfeeding a child with teeth. i'm sure i'll do it, but im definitely scared about it. she'll be 5 months old in 2 days. TIME. FLIES.

she's eating baby food now and loving it. so far sweet potatoes seem to be her favorite, no surprise there coming from this momma. she also really enjoys sweet peas. anyone see a pattern here? she didn't love bananas, which is fine by me, bc they really constipated sofia when she was little, so if we didnt balance her banana intake with prunes, she got pretty uncomfortable sometimes. anyway, laila eats really well, and a lot, which i think is awesome. speaking of 'awesome', its one of sofia's new favorite words. we're making most of the food she eats, so we'll make a decent sized batch and feed her that till its gone. we also just bought this bc we have a this cuisin.art and its the loudest fucking thing in the world. so loud that it scares the children. so loud that lovedove has to hold her ears when she uses it. so loud that we don't want to use it. so we bought a new one. it arrived today, im excited to use it.

sidenote, sofia is currently engaging in nap wars with me. i think part of the issue is that her "winding down" time is difficult for me to handle. when she does bed time with mommy monday through thursday while im at work, she typically gets up a few times to use the restroom, and comes out of her room a few times with lame excuses like getting a tissue, giving one or two more hugs and kisses, asking some random question, grabbing one more toy to take to bed with her bc shes a bedtime hoarder. thats their thing. lovedove is fine with it, the routine works for them. i on the other hand am far more confrontational and asinine about it. i have no patience for the stalling tactics. i said its nap/bed time, so stay the f in your bed. got it you little almost 3 year old? i get really frustrated because she is clearly tired and needs sleep on some days to function. today im not letting her out of her room again until she sleeps. she was up at 5:45am and definitely needs a nap. i'll allow one trip to the potty and thats it. i've implemented the "im not talking to you" strategy and i dont answer her yelled questions or requests. we'll see who wins this battle today. i really hope its me.

on a happier note, sofia is now able to put together a 24 piece puzzle all by herself. we the easter bunny got her a do.cmc.stuf.fins puzzle, and we've done it a lot together, so much so that she can now do it herself. she accomplished this for the first time over the weekend. a few hours later she accomplished something else big, drawing on her walls with a crayon. i hope that was the first and last time, cleaning that was tedious and annoying. we tried to make her do the clean up but she couldn't push hard enough with the mr cl.ean mag.ic eras.er. that thing works miracles i swear.

laila's adoption date is set for the 19th, happy and excited to have this process be over so much faster than it was the first time around. our experience with a different lawyer for sofia's adoption briefly chronicled here. we recently met up with another lesbian couple who just had their first baby through our adoption social worker, and im hoping that their adoption is scheduled for the same day. we'll see. i have to email her.

im completely intrigued by baby boogers. their snot is just incredible. i feel like its the stickiest but also the slimiest sometmies. the biggest boogers come out of the smallest little nose. im amused by them, always.

my basketball season is almost over, if we win this saturday we've got one more week, if we lose we're done. its been so good to be back on the court. this was definitely not my strongest season by any means but i've loved it more than ever. i love being in the recreational division, no one wants to rip anyone's heads off, and the ladies i play with are actually friendly. i definitely made the right move for myself and im looking forward to coming seasons. i seriously need to do some practicing over the summer though. i haven't played a post position since high school, and i went like 5% from the free throw line this season. SAD.

first game of softball was last night and i played great, if i do say so myself. 3 for 4 with 2 RBIs and one nice catch in the outfield. i coached first base for my team a bunch of the time and i had fun doing that too. i was pleasantly surprised by my post pregnancy debut and cant wait to get on the field again. oh, plus, we won! surprise, we're very used to losing on that team, but we got some new youngins that look pretty good. i love softball.

hope all is well with everyone, keep feeling good shanna!

confessions + church

yes, my weirdo momma confessions. i've already divulged some of these things to friends who are non moms, and im pretty sure they think im a lunatic. even lovedove thinks some of these are totally nuts.

1. i kind of love the smell of (solely) breastfed baby poop. to me its just so sweet and not really stinky at all. clearly a very odd thing, but its the truth.

2. baby pee. also no big deal, i mean dont get me wrong i do my best not to get peed on, however, i feel like baby pee is similar to rainwater, like i could shower in it if i needed to. yes an extreme example, but im sure i could. rain comes through dirty air pollution and smoggy crap, and baby pee just goes through your baby, so really to me they are the same kind of thing. when i think about it like this, baby pee is less gross than rainwater. i think its an interesting theory.

3. lately ive noticed that im jealous of pregnant ladies, for being pregnant. it was one thing for me to realize that i would consider being pregnant again after being so "done" with it once i hit month number 9, but to see pregnant ladies and be jealous? im a lunatic, its official.

4. sometimes i sleep on the couch when sofia is watching sesame street at 7am.

5. sometimes im happy when sofia cries when she is refusing to nap, because it helps her to reach the point of exhaustion where she can't fight off heavy eyelids anymore. mean momma.

enough of that.

church.
went on sunday to have laila baptized. we're not huge church go-ers by any means. we went a few times before we had sofia baptized, and then weren't back in there until this baptism a little over a year later, but i'm happy to have a church to go to as a family, when we choose to. the whole family was there, like 40 people, we're italian like that. pretty sure the deacon was drunk, ok maybe he wasn't but he could have fooled anyone. he was stumbly any time he took steps backwards, lost his train of thought a few times, rambled on and on, and had a very creative spin on a baptismal ceremony. my favorite part was after baptizing each baby, he would hold them in his arms (or by the hand if they were big enough to walk) and present them to the church by walking them up and down the aisle saying "this is laila" or whatever their first name was. it was funny and cute. we had her luncheon/dinner in a party room at a bar my sister used to work at. we did the food ourselves, my mother and our grandmas made food too. it was a beautiful day out so all of the cousins were able to run around outside and everything worked out as well as we could have hoped. laila opted out of the party. after being pretty close to perfect during the ceremony, she found herself completely exhausted at the party and slept through the entire thing, just like i did at my baptism (according to my mother). now both of our babies are baptized, and will be able to attend catholic nursery school and be a God parent if they're asked by anyone in the future. as wonderful of a day as it was, im so glad its over. we planned and prepped so much, im spent.

everything else on our end is going well, other than sofia refusing to nap almost every day. i dont want her to grow out of napping yet, because she still needs them. she does so much better when she's sleeping well in terms of listening, not getting hurt - she gets so clumsy, etc. shes currently been fighting off this nap for 90 minutes. i usually set her free after a max of 2 hrs bc im not going to have her sit in her dark room all day, but i also feel like im giving in to her refusal when that happens. she just plays and sings and "reads" and looks out her window and does everything she can to keep her little peepers open. i hope she gives in soon.

breastfeeding is going well, i'll feed her absolutely anywhere (if i have to, i usually wind up being significantly more uncomfortable throughout due to the absence of pillows) and my most interesting location thusfar has been at a floral consult for a friend's upcoming wedding. the florist worked out of her basement office in her home and was super nice and told me i didnt have to cover myself which was sweet, but i always do, unless im home and its just the 4 of us. my boobs are way too big not to cover up. sometimes, and this is one of only 2 situations where i am jealous of small breasted women, i wish my boobs were smaller so it wouldnt be such a project to feed her. the only other time im jealous of small breasted women is when im playing sports, hence wearing three bras. one for placement and support, and two for compression. trust me its necessary.

laila's poop face is hysterical, she scrunches up and turns super red, my little tomato. she talks more than sofia did, but sofia's speaking is now non stop. questions, declarative sentences, "reading" books, its wild. she also "lies" ("momma said i could have candy") and does a pretty great job at trying to play me and her mommy against each other when there is something she wants but has been told "no" for.

we are just so blessed with our two girls, im thankful every day. cant believe our baby is  3.5 months already, time is flying.

hope you are all well.