Cell phone R.I.P, revisited

Well, as it now turns out, my cell phone lingers in a state somewhere between life and death. It came back from the dead, but it won't charge. It only lives for about an hour when it's on, and then the battery goes dead. So... you can call me on it, but please know that it will be hard for me to get the messages. Home phone is probably more reliable. Arg. I'll let you know when I get a new one.

Cell Phone Resurrected

Um, yeah. These cell phones are totally magical! It seems to have been born again this morning. So... you can call me on it again:-)

Cell phone R.I.P.

Just a little announcement: I was allowing Daisy to suck on my cell phone, for some reason, and now it is broken. I have hopes that it might return from the dead, since a friend of mine flushed hers down the toilet and *it* came back from the dead, eventually. But for now, at least: call me on my home phone, not my cell phone!

Getting ready for swim class

First video of Daisy--in Spanish

Remember, long ago, how I told you that our birth announcements for Daisy came back printed in Spanish? (And blue for a boy, with the wrong time of birth, no picture of the baby, and a cross on them?)

Well, today we got our very first video of Daisy back from Long's Drugs--they converted the video footage to a DVD--and the soundtrack was entirely in Spanish. [I owe the Gosses an eternity of gratitude for this footage, by the way--I hadn't thought I wanted a video camera at the hospital, but I am so glad now. There is no footage of the baby being born, of course, but the video captured her first few minutes in the world, and the moment she was handed to me in my hospital bed, and then the first few weeks of her life.]

On the video, Daisy's few first moments and then weeks of life are accompanied by a soundtrack of a Spanish-speaking family having a riotous time at a picnic. I don't speak Spanish, but I was able to infer a thing or two from the loud squeak of swings and the incessant sound of car alarms going off. Also, from what very little Spanish I do know, I was able to deduce that a little boy named Alejandro was misbehaving and that the kids were clamoring for melon. It seems as though the family had a great time at the picnic, as it is a very noisy and boisterous soundtrack, and a male voice can be heard calling out for more beer.

Somewhere out there in the universe, there is a video of a Latin American family at a picnic, cavorting to the sound of a Jewish grandma's voice croakily singing "Hava Nagila" and other assorted Hebrew songs. Yes, that's right-- I made my mother sing ALL her Hebrew songs for the camera, and it goes on and on and on. And on. I really wish I could see that other video. It must be amazing.

EDIT
One thing that came out strangely appropriately: the video shows Mark's first few moments with Daisy, while I was still being repaired in the OR, and on the soundtrack a little child's voice is squeaking, "Te quiero mucho, papa!" So, yeah, the soundtrack kinda works, in places....

First tooth

Yesterday, on Daisy's 10-month birthday, I felt a tiny sharp ridge poking its way up through her lower gum. I think this is her first tooth. It wasn't the way I pictured it happening--for one thing, you can't see it unless you are trying very hard. I don't think it will be fully visible for awhile. It's funny, but I had almost stopped expecting her ever to get any teeth because she's been so late in getting them. I had heard 7 months was the average age for a first tooth and lots of her little baby friends had them long before then.

This morning I realized something: Daisy has been so slow to crawl, and so slow to get teeth, that I haven't fully processed the fact that she is almost a year old-- in just two months. Her toothless, crawl-less babyness has lulled me into complacency. My little girl is growing up! Sniff.

Girl shows her roots

The background to this post is that Daisy has been sleeping about 11 hours a night, regularly; she sometimes wakes up and cries for a few minutes but then goes back to sleep.

This afternoon we tried the babysitting co-op for the first time, and it was quite successful. We saw Arwen give a magnificent performance on aerial silk at the San Francisco Circus Center, and while we were gone, a wonderful mom in the co-op came over to watch Daisy and her own baby at the same time. I have to applaud her, since I haven't tried this yet and I know it's no small feat. She said Daisy was very good the whole time, only starting to become a little fussy at the end. The way she described it was so recognizably Daisy to me: she said Daisy started to whimper just a little bit, so she didn't take the fussing very seriously, but when she looked closely, a single poignant tear was rolling down the side of her face. That's Daisy.

Anyway, tonight Daisy started crying 45 minutes after I put her to bed. I tried to wait it out, but after 20 minutes of screaming, I caved in. When you cave in to a Daisy night-crying session, it's the saddest thing in the world. You walk in, and she's always on her stomach with her head up, eyes fixed on the door. When she sees you, she starts waving hysterically at you with her own peculiar Daisy wave: a totally limp wrist, which the arm sort of flings around haphazardly.

I had to sing to her while rocking her to calm her down. I have a set repertoire of soothing bedtime songs I go through, all very slow and lulling and sleep-inducing; these are songs I only sing when I'm getting her to sleep, so she will associate them with sleepiness. (I have a different repertoire of songs I sing for other moods and occasions.) She was entirely back to sleep as I neared the end of my sleepy song repertoire, all cuddly and quiet in my arms with her eyes closed, not moving. Then for the fun of it, and because I was bored with the typical songs, I decided to sing "Hava Ngila" as my last song instead. I was singing it very quietly and soothingly, but nonetheless, the sleeping (I thought) Daisy raised her little hands in the air, eyes still closed, and began to clap along with the song. She sleep-clapped all the way through it.

It amused me. And that is why this post is called "girl shows her roots."

Weird

I realize that this will offend some people, perhaps deeply, but I have to say it anyway: for some reason, Kate Winslet and Gwen Stefani have morphed into one person in my brain. They are one.

I needed a giggle

Meme borrowed from Haddayr's LJ.

1. YOUR REAL NAME: Sarita Bonita.

2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (first 3 letters of real name plus izzle): Sarizzle.

3. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color plus favorite animal:) Blue Dog. (It's the same as Haddayr's. Move over, there's a new, plagiaristic detective agency in town, Blue Dog.)

4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name plus street you live on) Judith Point Lobos. (HAHAHAHAHHA!!)

5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 3 letters of mom's maiden name): Gossagil.

6. YOUR SUPERHERO NAME: (Second favorite color with favorite drink) Purple Wine. Or Purple Lemonade. If I'm being totally honest, Purple Lemonade is probably the winner, but Purple Wine sounds like a much cooler superhero. Sorry, Purple Lemonade :-(

7. YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (Men: father's middle name and mother's middle name; Women: mother's middle name and father's middle name): Jane Leland.

8. YOUR GOTH NAME: (black, and the name of one your pets): Black Kerouac. (MAN, that is cool.)

9. YOUR PORN STAR NAME: (the name of your childhood pet and the street you grew up on): Dewdrop Winkle Point. (Again hahahahahahha brilliant.)

Girl's 9-month appointment

This appointment was rather uneventful. She didn't have to get vaccines, which was a nice change of pace--so there was nothing traumatic to brace ourselves for. She weighs 17 pounds, 2 ounces and is just over 27 inches long. It's odd, because she looks perfectly average to me--average height and average weight--but her percentiles were down again. This time, her weight was in the 15th percentile and her height was in the 30th percentile. It's puzzling to me; I just can't imagine that 85% of babies her age weigh more and 70% are taller. She does not look stumpy or shrimpy or skinny at all to me, and in fact, sometimes people tell me how BIG she is (though this just may be their ignorance about how big babies her age tend to be--it is shocking how far off base people are sometimes in guessing her age). Anyway, those percentiles are the reality check. The doctors weren't worried at all, nor are they the least bit concerned that every time we go in, her percentiles are lower than before.

And here's another thing: the explanation they keep giving me makes no sense. They say, "Oh, don't worry about it, it's totally normal for babies her age to be slipping in percentiles! I see babies all the time at their 9-month checkup whose percentiles have dropped. It's really normal for this age, when babies are more active, etc etc etc." Now, I may be an English major, and I am certainly no Einstein Junior, but I do think I understand what a percentile means. If it were true that ALL or MOST of the babies her age were slipping at the same rate, then her percentiles wouldn't be lower. They would be the same. See? Yeah. Percentile means "compared to other babies her age, she is smaller." Or larger. So that explanation from the doctors frustrates me. It makes no sense.

But they are not worried that every single checkup, her percentiles have yet again gotten lower-- so I guess I should try not to be worried either. Again, when I look at her, she looks normal. She doesn't look short, and she doesn't look skinny. (And she doesn't look tall, or fat. Hence my sense that she is average, which the percentiles apparently contradict!)

She doesn't crawl yet, and they weren't worried about that, either. I explained that most of the babies we know crawled at 7 and a half months. The doctors were shocked and one of them said, "That's too early!" (Can a baby crawl too early??) This confuses me. Is it possible that Daisy is surrounded by baby prodigies? If so, then she is surrounded by MANY baby prodigies, because most of the babies we know are crawling right past her. I have to believe it's perfectly normal to crawl at 7 and a half months. But Daisy doesn't crawl yet. She has no teeth yet. She has a bunch of spots in her diaper area that I've been concerned about, but which the doctors say are not a yeast infection (my guess). In fact, they say they are nothing but hyperpigmentation and will go away on their own someday, and that I shouldn't worry. They weren't worried about anything!

They asked me if Daisy pulls herself up to a standing position, and I said no. Now, if I place her on her legs, she can support herself, holding on to me or to the side of the couch, but she makes no attempt to pull herself up when she is sitting, and she doesn't try taking steps or cruising (another question they asked me). She likes to sit, babbling and examining objects; or, if she wants to go somewhere, she is happy to roll there instead of try to crawl. She does quite a bit of rolling.

So, in short: my baby is a stumpy, shrimpy, spotty, no-crawl, no-teeth baby, and apparently, to be all these things at 9 months is perfectly normal. Yay!