His 'n Her Towels

6 Months - Half-Birthday Baby!

Della Plum,

You turned six months old on August 28^th. Happy Half-Birthday! We had your 6 month checkup and it was confirmed what we already suspected … you are one short plum! You are 24 inches long, that’s the 4^th percentile on the growth chart. That means if you were in a room with 100 babies your age, 96 of them would be taller than you.  I think you may be destined for life in the front row.

 

We started you on pureed foods a week before you turned 6 months and you are doing fantastic. You are now weighing in at 15 lbs 3 oz (45^th percentile).  If you were in that same room with those same 100 babies, you would probably steal all of their lunches. You have been trying everything we’ve been giving you. Your favorites are still sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, apples, pears, mango etc. We make our own baby food, so we went a little crazy and tried zucchini, eggplant, asparagus, and all kinds of gourds, and you liked them all. I think the only thing you don’t like so far is broccoli.

 

We had your 6 month photos taken. That day you were so sick, but you still managed to be charming during the photo session. You can’t even tell by the pictures that you were running a high temperature with an ear infection, and that later we had to make a trip to the urgency room.

 

 

Here is what else you’ve been up to this month:

-You are in size 2 diapers. 3-6 month or 6 month clothing.

 -Without the swaddle you are now free to roll on your side and stomach easily at night, helping you sleep better. I’ve found you a few times with your face straight down in the mattress though and it scared me, but you eventually learned to turn your head.

-You are starting to put your pacifier back in your mouth by yourself, if it falls out. You prefer to put it in upside-down or sideways.

-You love your toys and you love to play. You are always searching for a toy to play with. You like to take the musical/movable toys and turn them over and touch the screws and battery covers. No matter how colorful or loud a toy is, the screws are more interesting to you.

-This month we went to the State Fair. I’m sure you remember the State Fair from last year, when I was pregnant with you, and forced you to absorb 10 pounds of fried cream cheese. I think you appreciated the State Fair even more, from the outside, this year.

-We also visited the race track and let you bet on a few horses.

 

We can’t believe it’s been half a year already. I’m excited to see what you have in store for us in the next half! I believe the tough part is over, now it’s all about having fun and learning how to use those extra limbs to do cool new stuff, like, walk the dogs or mow the lawn….

Love you so much, Plum. Please stay so sweet!

Mama

The Joys of Carrots

 

 

 

 

 

 

Believe it or not, this is the face of a person who really likes carrots.

She's actually mad i'm not moving the spoon fast enough into her mouth.

5 Months Old!

 

Dear Della Plum,

You turned five months old on July 28th. Since then you've been checking off one milestone after the other on your to-do list. Some things you've done only once and decided that’s enough. Some things you do obsessively and compulsively.

Rolling from front to back was one of those one-time things for you. I'm pretty sure you only did it to get us to shut up about it too. We keep trying to tell you, that as a baby with little mobility, rolling is a good way to get to where you want to go. But you seem content with staying put.

 

You started to sit at four months, and now you have perfected this skill. You like to sit and you do it well. I'm not surprised; sitting was the only trick we could successfully teach the dogs too. We are a family of sitters I guess. Rolling over is for suckers and poodles.

 

You are noticing everything these days. You noticed things before, but now things are not just things anymore. Everything is something to you. Everything is important. Everything must be touched, tasted, inspected. You must touch every button, salt shaker, ear, shadow, sponge, and dog whisker you can. I envy you, as you can find value in an empty carton of ice cream. Whereas, I cannot.

 
 

At the end of this month we wanted to help you kick your swaddle habit, so we planned an intervention. We set your arms free and tried sleep training. "They" say sleep training is important in order for you to learn to "self-soothe".

“They” are idiots. And they obviously haven’t met you.

When you started to cry we had to wait two minutes before going to soothe you. When you cried again, we would increase the wait time by two more minutes before intervening. The first night it only took twenty minutes for you to fall asleep. The next night you caught on to our operation, and you staged an intervention for us. You cried, nay, SCREAMED, inconsolably for over an hour. After five continuous days of screaming LONGER and LOUDER, we decided to nix the sleep training idea.

 

You've never acted that crazy before. Sure, you’re a not-so-great sleeper. Sure, our whole lives revolve around that dreaded five-letter word. But usually, as long as you were swaddled and pacifiered correctly, you went to sleep (eventually) (without teetering on the edge of insanity at least). Then we go and take away the swaddle and tell you to just deal with it.

We are bad people.

We learned some very valuable lessons that week though: Don’t fix something that isn't hopelessly broken. And don’t try to change multiple things at once.

It took awhile, but we eventually gained your trust back and you stopped screaming at us like we were a colossal threat. You went back to your normal fuss, reinsert pacifier, fuss, reinsert pacifier, then finally fall asleep routine. And we are totally okay with that!

 

 

After all that you did learn to sleep with your arms free. We have been a swaddleless household ever since. This is by far mine and your dad’s greatest accomplishment-to-date, besides, you know, creating life.

Here are some other things you’ve been up to this month:

- The week before you turned 6 months old we introduced you to solids. That was the same week we tried sleep training and removing the swaddle. Again, I think we changed too much too fast. No wonder your system malfunctioned. Fortunately, you took to solids pretty well. You love sweet potatoes. Avocadoes not so much. You obviously don’t understand the gloriousness of guacamole yet.

-We were quite busy this month. We went to the county fair, Valleyfair, the splash pool, a waterpark. One good thing about a baby that doesn’t nap is that we can take you anywhere, and we don’t have to worry about your nap scheduled. Because you don’t have one.

- You weigh about 14 lbs, and are in 3-6 month or 6 month clothing. Size 2 diapers.

You’ve taken the biggest leaps forward this month. So many huge changes for one little girl, but you handled it well considering. We love you and are so proud of you!

 

5 Point Friday

- Both dogs and baby slept through the night for 3 nights in a row. Uninterrupted sleep. This sort of thing only happens when the sun passes through the shadow of the moon at the same time that Mercury is in retrograde, Neptune aligns with Pluto in Sagittarius, and when the dish runs away with the spoon. It is rare. Usually all the dogs and babies in our house seem to think that 3:00am is a good time to regurgitate breast milk or two days worth of grass and women’s underwear. But for those 3 nights no one woke up to puke!

 

- Then last night happened.

 

- Picture this: Carl, Della, our dog Coya, and me in one big pile, half asleep on the floor in Della’s room. All sharing one tiny baby blanket. While Bixby, our other 90 lb dog, was very comfortably stretched out in our king sized bed. No one would sleep (side eye to the baby) unless we were all sleeping in uncomfortable positions on the bony floor. Except for Bixby, who is way smarter than any of us.

 

- My husband has this toe fungus. He is not going to be happy with me for sharing this, but that is his punishment for spraying his toe-fungus-remover-foam on his feet and then not cleaning up after it. I now have two fungus-foam outlines of size 11 feet on my bathroom floor. We just need his autograph and some dirty handprints and it will be our own little germy version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

 

- I’ve lost the ability to fake cry. Sometimes when Carl and I are having a disagreement, I’d throw in a fake cry here and there to give emphasis to my point. Shameful, I know. But unless you have a better way to quickly justify three much needed pairs of new boots and one wine tasting outing before noon, then feigning distress is a crucial debating tool. However, since getting pregnant my faux tears have dried-up completely. In fact, I lost the ability to fight altogether. Anytime I try to argue with Carl I can’t help but smile, and then eventually I start laughing hysterically. My credibility is shot. Carl thinks I’m actually a happy person now. This is not good.

 

4 Months - Baby You're A Firework

 

Dear Della Plum

You turned 4 months old on 6.28.11. It's been a whole month since then (you're actually 5 months today).  I'm not chronically late for everything. Honest. I just like to take my time writing this monthly letter to you. I want to make sure I get the details of the entire month going forward.

 

 
 
The month started off with a bang, it was your first Fourth of July! We went up north for a mini-vacation and I have to say, vacations agree with you. You were so good. You went swimming, then napped. Boating, then napped. Hammocking, then napped. You are a baby of leisure, that’s for sure.

 

 
 

You even slept through the fireworks. At home, I can't put a feather in a hat without waking you up, but you can sleep through a night of deafening fireworks, obnoxious trumpet-playing clowns, and God Bless America on repeat?

 

 

 

Unfortunately, when we got back you came down with another cold. At first I thought you were just allergic to not vacationing, but I was wrong. It was, in fact, ANOTHER cold. This cold was a little better than the last, but it still warranted a trip to the doctor.

 

Della, you were baptized on July 10th. It was such a special day as we stood before God and asked him to watch over you. You were beautiful in white, surrounded by all the people who love you. We couldn't help but envision you on your wedding day, and we are thankful that we get to experience life with you from now to then. I am so blessed to have you in my life and I thank God everyday, multiple, multiple times a day.

After your baptism we had brunch and cake at our home. You received a lot of nice gifts that day, The Bible, a gorgeous musical globe with a cross in the middle, delphiniums (the flower), and even a purple tricycle ...so that you can bike with Jesus?

God Bless Delphine is all I have to say. 

 

Here is what else you've been up to:

-At your 4 month checkup you were 12lbs 10oz, and 23 inches. 25 percentile for weight and 10th percentile for height. You are one short plum.

-You laugh! Your first real laugh was at your Uncle Jason. He asked, "What is so funny?" and you laughed and laughed at him. You don't laugh too often, but when you do, it. melts. hearts.

-Currently your favorite song is Moves Like Della (Jagger) by Maroon5. You find it hilarious when I sing it to you.

-You started laughing, but STOPPED talking, almost completely. It is the oddest thing. You used to "coo" so much we thought you might be part pigeon, but since you turned 4 months old you haven't said a peep. I wish you would start talking to me again. It's way too early for you to figure out how to give me the silent treatment.

-When I drop you off at the babysitters you have begun to stick your bottom lip way out and you get a little sad and teary-eyed. I think you've figured out what's happening. You don't stay sad for long, and some days you don't even notice I’m gone. Still, it secretly makes me feel good if you cry when I leave. You'll learn this one day, but crazy women like me need someone to miss them when they are gone.

-When Dad picks you up from daycare you get really excited to see him. You start fervently flapping your legs and arms in hopes to swim through the air to get to him. You always smile the biggest at him. And when he’s talking grownup talk to others, you patiently wait, smiling up at him until he notices you.

-We took a trip to the URgency room this month. Dad noticed that the tip of your tongue was black. I’m not a baby expert, but I don’t think baby’s tongues are supposed to be black. We called the nurse and she suggested the UR. It turned out it was just a bruise, but seriously. Could it be anymore obvious we are first timers?

-You sit! You do not rollover, nor do you have any interest in rolling. But you can sit up now. Good job Plum!

-Size 3-6 month clothes. Size 2 diapers. Naps are still inconsistent, and you will be swaddled for 18 more years.

There’s so much to say about you this month. I could go on and on about how you like to eat books, how you recognize people you love, how you will leave your mouth open so that Bixby can lick inside it (Gross!),  and how you are so proud of yourself when you sit in a high chair at the dinner table with us. Each week you keep adding more stuff for us to talk about. You are one captivating subject, and I love being your mom!

 

 

Love you always,

Mom

Our Wedding: The Location, The Church, The Dress

Monday marked the two year anniversary of when Carl and I said our sweaty "I Do's". This blog was supposed to chronicle our journey to the altar, but instead it came down with a severe case of babyitis. Babyitis takes over your life, leaving you bleary-eyed, itchy, and certifiably insane. Trust me. I’ve been rolling around on baby blankets trying to get my scent to rub off on them, because someone told me it would help the baby sleep. Now my body is covered in rug burns, and the baby still cries when we try to make her nap.  See, certifiable.

Before this blog succumbs to babyitis completely, I might try to get some wedding details down. Since that is where it all began anyway.

 

 

The Location: Vernazza, Italy

Vernazza is one of the five towns in the Cinque Terre region in Italy. It is a tiny fishing village on the Italian Rivera.

There are no roads, or car traffic in Vernazza. Just a beach, boats, sunbathing rocks, gelato, and plenty of fantastic things to eat. The perfect quaint Italian town, where the locals speak little English, and everyone knows you (if you stay long enough).

 

 

 

 

The thing to do, besides drink wine from the local vineyard, is to hike between the five towns. It is gorgeous! My favorite place on earth.

 

 

 

 

 

The Church: Santa Margherita d'Antiochia

One of the main reasons we chose to get married in Vernazza was the church. It was built in 1318 right on the sea. The church looks like it is coming out of the rocks and water, and when we were standing at the altar we had the most beautiful views. We didn’t need any decorations, the views did it all for us.

 

 

 

 

The inside of the church was gorgeous as well. Typically, when you see one old church, you’ve seen them all…but this one definitely stole my heart.

 

 

 

 The Dress:

Three things I needed when searching for a dress: one that would fit with the venue, one that had sleeves, and one that was easily transportable. We were informed that the ladies shoulders should be covered during the ceremony, so I went looking for a dress with sleeves, that wasn’t completely modern and awkward against our traditional Italian Catholic ceremony, and that we could drag across all of Europe. I think this dress fit all my criteria pretty well.  

 

 

Baby Stuff I Like (and Don't Like): Swaddle Edition

Every mother thinks they know what is best for ALL babies in the ENTIRE world. I am no exception. I've been a mother for a whopping 4 months, and here I am giving my expert opinion on what I think other mothers must have. Maybe you have a baby like mine though: a short ninja  baby who sleeps more like a manic floppy fish out of water, than like a baby. In that case, you will NEED what I have.

Swaddles:

We've tried them ALL.

First, we had the Halo Sleep Sack/Swaddle.

 

(By the  way, this is not my baby)

Sorry to say, I hated this one. We have the shortest baby, which is weird because neither Carl nor I are all that short. Della has been hovering around the 5th-10th percentile in height since she was born. She is très petite, and the newborn sized Halo Sleep Sack/Swaddle was just too much for her. Kind of hard to explain, but there was too much extra fabric in the sleep sack part, so when we swaddled her it would bunch up in the middle by her face. During the night, no matter how tight we swaddled it (which we couldn't get it as tight as possible because of all the extra fabric) she would shimmy all the way down in the sack and it would end up covering her mouth and nose. HATED that. Drove me insane and it scared me every time I woke up to find just her little eyes peering out at me over the swaddle.

 

 

 We also have a Miracle Blanket.

 

(again, not my baby. )

I liked it because the fabric is lightweight and it has arm cuffs, so you can pin your baby’s arms down so well that it would take a miracle for baby to breakout of this thing. This would work well for the criminally insane. However, it takes a very patient and calm baby to get them strapped in. If you have a baby like mine, who fights bedtime, fights the swaddle, thinks she fights crime, and definitely fights sleep...then this will NOT work. Della's limbs are always moving very rapidly. The upside of that is she has fantastic looking abs and great upper body strength. The downside is we could never get her in this complicated apparatus fast enough before t-minus meltdown happened. We needed something simpler.

 

My favorite swaddle in all of swaddleland is the Summer Infant Swaddleme.

 

 

It met all my requirements. No extra bulky fabric, simple enough to get a Tasmanian baby into, good enough for short baby-folk. The only thing that scared me is that she could, and would, easily breakout of it. I was nervous that she would break free, and then grab the swaddle and bring it up to her face (like she does with everything she can get her hands on) and cover her nose and mouth with it. I'm paranoid like that.

 SO, we also bought this Summer Infant Swaddle Pod that we zip up over the Swaddleme.

 

 (also not my baby. This baby looks like she enjoys sleeping too much to be mine)

This way she is double swaddled. If she breaks out of one, she is still trapped in the other one. And to date, she hasn't found a way to unzip herself from the swaddle pod. She can, however, fit her tiny fists up through the neck of it and punch herself in the chin. Resulting in a wide awake baby. That's why we have to keep double-swaddling. Two layers of protection. That's always been my motto.

 

 (my baby.)

What's her name?

Delphine (Della):

Very early on in our relationship Carl and I started playing the "let's name our future children" game. At this point, I still wouldn't let him see me without makeup and he still wouldn't pass gas in front of me, but we were adamant about naming all ten of the children we were destined to have. By the way, I'm working on finding a way to go back in time, so that I can throw past-me over my knee and give past-me a well-deserved spanking for being so dumb. Obviously I didn't realize back then that ten kids meant ten pregnancies and ten people to wiggle out of one very sensitive area down below.

For two years, whenever one of us thought of a name we would say something like, "what do you think of Lallulah-StormTrooper?" And of course, the other would then throw-up in his/her mouth. We could never agree. One day, we went over to Carl's 90 year old grandparents’ house so I could interview them for a Women's History paper I was writing for class. His grandpa brought out a picture of his mother from the 1900’s. She looked so polished and striking, like she could be in a James Cameron directed period piece about an epic romance and a ship. In the picture she was tightly corseted into this gorgeous dress and wearing a titanic sized hat loaded with feathers. She was a very beautiful, exotic looking woman with dark, piercing features. Carl's grandpa told us her name was Della. We both looked at each other in that moment and said "Della" simultaneously. We had a mind-conference, and telepathically agreed Della was our future baby's name. Then we found out Della was a nickname and her given name was actually Delphine. We loved both names, and there was no question from then on, that was what we would name a girl if we had one.

Plum:

I was given complete middle-naming rights, it was considered my “push present” seeing as I was the one with stretch marks plastered on my mid-section and a baby traveling through my body. Personally, I think middle names are silly. They are like cheese graters, everyone has one, but no one knows why. (You can buy cheese already shredded you know.) Middle names are not really good for anything except as insulation between the first and last name. So, I wanted to have a little fun with it, since it’s basically just a conversation piece anyway.

I loved the names Rose, Grace, Mae, Rae, etc. and they all would’ve worked wonderfully as a middle name, but I wanted something a little crazier than that.  I started coming up with non-name names, like, Winter, January, Snow, Snowflake, Snowman, Shovel….if you can’t tell it was the middle of winter. Carl just sat in the corner and shook his head in shame.

I tossed around some nature names like, Lake, Rice, Wren, Bird, Sun, but what I was really sold on was the name Blue. Later, I found out John Travolta’s kid is named Ella Blu, so I really couldn’t have a Della Blue, that would look like we copied them. We don’t run in the same social circles as the Travolta’s, but how awkward would that be if we bumped into each other one day and had to introduce our Della Blue to their Ella Blu? Oy.

After Blue was out, I kept thinking along the lines of color. My favorite color is purple or plum. I liked the sound of Plum, it wasn’t as hippie-ish as Strawberry and a little less shocking than Apple. I looked Plum up and it is an actual (sorta) name, used over in Europe. The name Prune (the equivalent to Plum in French) is becoming quite the popular name there. There is also an author/vogue editor from England nicknamed Plum Skyes. And since she is from England, and they’re used to the U.S. stealing all their television programming ideas from them anyway, I didn’t think she would mind if I used Plum as a middle name for my daughter.

And there you have it Delphine (Della) Plum.

 

Some people love the name, some hate it. Some say, aren’t you worried she won’t be able to get hired for a job with a name like that? I say, REALLY? First of all, I have never worked at a job where sharing my middle name was a requirement. Nor do I know the middle names of any of my co-workers. Second, the CEO where I work, his middle name is Nutmann. I only know this because he loves it and openly shares it with others. Thirdly, Barack Hussein Obama also has a unique name, and he got hired.

Others say with an uncommon name she will grow up thinking she is too special and entitled. I say again, REALLY? A few people around my office have different and unique names, and some are hardworking, and successfully moving up the corporate ladder. Some are playing angry birds. I don't think it has anything to do with their name, but how the people who named them raised them.

Others are concerned about her getting teased….umm, as long as there are other kids out there being named Brodini and Sycauphony, I think she’ll be alright.

  

3 Months

Della turned 3 months old on 5.28.11! I realize this update is over a whole month late. I'm a bad mom.

 

Dear Miss Della Plum,

For the first few months you've been here, time went really slow. I think that's because we only slept two hours a night, so we had a lot of extra time to kill. Now you sleep relatively well and life is flying by so fast, probably because we're sleeping through a lot more of it!

This month you've really changed. You’ve become quite the refined little infant. You calmly take baths like a normal person now, instead of like a rabid, wet raccoon. I think you even secretly enjoy them! You also are a very polite and well-mannered eater, gone are the days when you stop eating just to ninja-scream in my face while you Jason-Bourne me in the ribs. You still are a little squirmy, but much more delightful at mealtime. And it shows! You were 11lbs 1 oz at a 3 month checkup.

  

Sleep. What an odd concept, huh? You are starting to get the hang of it though. We have to double swaddle you (put you in one swaddle, and then zip you in another swaddle-pod-straight-jacket-thing over that one.) so that you will sleep soundly and ensure that you don’t prison break out of it. We’ve tried not swaddling you, but you still have that startle reflex, where if your arms are free you startle, then violently cry and frantically grab onto your mattress as if the world is tipping on it’s axis and your crib is about to slide into the shadowy underworld…. It’s that dramatic.

 

I don’t know how, but sometimes you still manage to get your hands free of the swaddle contraption and in the morning your face looks like a crime scene. You will scratch at your face until there is enough DNA under your fingernails to convict you of a crime. So, we will keep swaddling for now, it keeps the peace. And we don’t want you to go to baby jail or anything.

 

Della, this has been by far my favorite month with you. I’m so in love with you that it’s hard for me to concentrate on anything else, especially work. I hate leaving you in the morning, and going back to work was really, really difficult for me. All I want to do is play with you! And you love being silly with mom as well. We play games like, What weird stuff will mom put on her head next, or, If I smile big enough, I bet mom will keep making a fool of herself.  Everyone who watches you during the day just loves you, and I know you are getting the much needed attention you crave.

 

This month was a little scary in the beginning because you caught your first baby cold. I was a worried mess, but you recovered wonderfully, and you are now the happiest baby in the whole Midwest. I would say in the world, but I’m sure there are some babies over in L.A. that have awesome nannies who let them pee freely in pools and make bibs out of hundred dollar bills for them. You get to chew on Tupperware and dog hair though. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

 

 

Here’s what else you’ve been up to:

- Everything goes into your mouth, and you like to put it there. You’ve gotten so good at holding objects and then shoving them into the open hole in your head.

-  Whenever anyone gets close to you, you open your mouth like a baby bird and wait for them to stick their cheek in your mouth, so that you can drool on it. Sometimes you aggressively go chomping after people, like you want to snack on their face like a baby vampire. It’s cute.

- You don’t just coo, you coo in elaborate paragraphs. We have long one-sided conversations. I can’t get a word in edgewise.

 

- Your bedtime is around 7:30pm, with a dream feed at 10:00pm. You sleep uninterrupted until 3:00am, after that it’s hit or miss on if you’ll wake up or how often. Usually, after we put the pacifier back in a couple times you’ll go back to sleep. We couldn’t ask for more though, this is way awesomer then sleeping in 10 minute increments!

-  You and Dad wakeup at 5:00am to eat breakfast and spend some time together, and then it’s back to sleep until 7:45am when mom comes to get you ready for daycare. This is your happiest time, thanks for being such a sweetheart in the mornings!

-          You’ve been taking naps 2-3 times a day…not consistently of course, or for any set amount of time. 

- Still size one diapers, and size 0-3 month or 3-6 month clothes.

 

- For Fathers Day, at daycare you made Dad an outline of your hands and put it in a homemade frame. It was the sweetest thing. You also had a great time hanging out with Dad! (and grandpa Tom)

 

 

-  We went on our first road trip this month to South Dakota. It was a 12 hour car ride. You did beautifully on the trip out there, slept the whole way. On the way home you were sick and cried for the last 4 hours. Next time, I think we’ll fly.

 

This has been the greatest month, your smile is addicting, and I can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with next!

 

Love,

Mom

Della's Law

Della’s Law: If you tell a room full of people you have the perfect baby who is a genius at sleeping - that is the week you will get no sleep, whatsoever.

In Della’s defense, she is one poor, sick baby. Eye infection, ear infection, nose infection, I think she has all the face infections one can get. I feel so sorry for her, her little head must feel like it is going to ignite.

She’s a newbie to this cold thing, and she’s handling it about as well as a freshly graduated college student on his first day at a new job: dehydrated, crabby, and helpless. At times she tries to smile, and she still tries to coo and talk to us, but her coo’s are coming out more depressing sounding. Like, “coo-ah-oowwww.  Mom, my head feels like you’ve been dragging it  across an Astroturf lawn and snot is leaking from every hole in my face, but I still want to say what up to all my peeps out there, love ya, even though I am miserably, miserably  sick. Also, I’ve been sitting in my own toilet for about twenty minutes now. Help a girl out. Coo-oww, ah-goo. Oww-oww-ow.”

I’ve been sleeping curled up on the floor in her bedroom, at the foot of her crib, with a booger sucker in my hand. I’m scared that she’s going to choke on her own snot, so I want to be able to get to that air-passageway-blocking-phlegm as soon as possible. Plus, she’s been waking up every 20-30 minutes coughing, hacking, sneezing out her snot, and then sniffling it back in, so it’s easier not to have to get out of bed each time that I need to wrestle Della’s head still so I can suck up all the boogers.

Flashback: 7 years ago, it was quite possible that you would find me passed out around a bonfire, sleeping on the hard rocky ground, hugging a tree stump. Present day: now you can find me passed out in a baby’s nursery, using a stuffed lamb as a pillow, hugging a humidifier.