I wanted to stab their heels with ice picks and make them bleed all over sheets of paper. Hasn’t my daughter suffered enough coming into this world? Do we really need to prick her heels every time she exposes them? Next time, I think I’ll use luggage locks to make her baby booties irremovable, except that would probably just exacerbate the problem as they’d just find some other open pasture of skin to mine for red gold. Darn nurses and their testing.
I know. I know. It’s all necessary and modern medicine is such a blessing and all these discomforts will in the end help preserve Tilly’s health, but is it not a justifiable reaction to want to sock it to people who make infants bleed? Especially my own? I even forgot my own address while trying to fill out the forms while Li’l Til wailed. I have never heard her so upset. I’ve rarely been so upset. I think the last time was when my brother erased my game on Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Happy two-week birthday to you! Happy two-week birthday to you! We’re going to stab your heel while you’re naked and force you to hemorrhage on sheets of paper! Happy two-week birthday to you!
*Sigh* Sorry…
So today was Matilda Murphy’s two-week birthday and appointment. I think we’ll throw a little party tomorrow to celebrate and also her shouldabeen birthday. Oh, and to celebrate her umbilical cord stump falling off too! (We're going to bury it under the light of a blue harvest moon in January while facing South-West and singing "God Save the Queen", then plant a Huckleberry bush above. I heard from a crazy three-eyed old woman living under a bridge that we should do that.) All things considered, it was a great appointment. All the nurses commented on how cute her name is and how beautiful she is. Lots of people have told us how babies are supposed to be funny-looking, but how her eyes, ears, nose, and everything are just beautiful. She goes a little cross-eyed sometimes, but that’s usually only when we’re having a funny face contest.
Birth Height & Weight – 5 lbs 2 oz, 18 inches
Two Week Height & Weight – 5 lbs 13 oz, 20.5 inches
What a little weed! Everybody was amazed, the doctor especially, at how much she had grown and at how much weight she had gained! He said that she’s right where she would have been had she stayed in utero for the extra 15 days. She’s now in the 25th percentile for height but still under the 5th percentile for weight. It’s too bad we live so far away from her cousin Drew-Bob (8 lbs 10 oz, 19.5 inches) because I would really love to get a picture of them together. I think I can do a little photo-comparison though. Yup, here it is.
Matilda Rose Murphy (August 12)(Right)
Aren’t babies cute?
Matilda has been wonderful! She loves being held and given attention by all her aunts and uncles and even strangers. She’s always so aware and loves looking around. It may just be a random reflex, but sometimes when I go to the side opposite of the way she’s facing and start talking, she’ll turn her head to look at me. She’s amazingly strong and has almost propelled herself off my lap with those skinny little frog legs. And she finally fits into her newborn clothes too! They still drown her a bit in the width, but the height is just right. I can’t wait to see how she grows, but at the same time, I want to be able to fit her curled up little self on my chest or in one arm forever.
Chapter 2: Woebegone Wall Coverings
But alas, no matter how I’d like to just sit and watch her grow all day, there is work to be done and there are projects to be completed. One such project was stripping wallpaper in our bathroom last Saturday. Our ceilings are probably about 10 feet tall in the bathroom, and when we moved in, the lower 2/3 was a blood red and the top 1/3 was golden wallpaper with a fleur-de-lis pattern, designed by Ugg Lee. The week before Matilda arrived we painted the bottom 2/3 and last Saturday I tackled the top. The process took six hours and I hope to high heaven that I’m rich enough to pay someone else to do it the next time I need it done. It went as follows:
Mix wallpaper removal solution. Sponge solution all over room. Wait 15 minutes. Sponge again. Wait again. Sponge again and attempt to remove. Realize that it hasn’t worked a lick. Go complain to Megan and hold Tilly to calm down. Go tear off top layer of all wallpaper leaving white backing. Soap backing. Wait 15 minutes. Soap again. Wait again. Soap and remove. Still not working. Go to Megan and Tilly. Doesn’t quite pacify as well. Go back and get catty with wallpaper, attacking it with fingernails and spittle. Realize I’m on to something. Have Megan get me a plastic spoon and a water bottle, then spend the next four hours scraping each inch of a very awkwardly situated top three feet of the wall with a spoon (breaking three spoons and bruising both hands, and both feet in the process). But it’s done and I want to stab whoever put up the wallpaper in the heel with an ice pick. Not just because it was a beast to remove, but also because it was the exact same color as the paint underneath! Was the fleur-de-lis pattern really that important? Hopefully by next weekend it will be white.
Next project, fixing the floor in the bathroom. For some reason the toilet is sunk two inches into the floor. No overweight people are currently allowed to use the toilet in our house, although I’m trying to rig up a brace for them.
Chapter 3: Felicitous Realignment
It seems like I’ve been a little negativo in this edition of my bloggery, so I’ll try to restore the cosmic karmic balance by talking about some things that I’m really happy about, like Matilda’s room! I’m really excited for her to move in there from the bassinet in our room, not only for the better sleep, but so she can enjoy the awesomeness that is her room! It has 12-foot ceilings, we’re going to paint a few walls green soon, and all sorts of cool stuff.
After a long and exhausting search for cool and affordable baby bedding, Megan found this stuff from Target – DwellStudio Circles collection. We’ve had it all for about four months now and have all their receiving blankets, blankets, a Boppy Pillow cover, pillows, etc. Megan also found this great diaper bag that doesn’t even look like one! It’s all very cute and we were stoked about our baby’s original “crib”. It didn't take us too long to realize that people are drawn to cute and cheap, however, and soon a few other mothers had the same stuff. We were mildly nonplussed at first, but hey, it ain't the bedding that will help our baby grow up creative, intelligent, caring, happy, and perfect - it's our inimitable love that we shall shower upon her whilst in the bedding.
So enjoy the pictures of her room and tune in next week for another chapter in the lives of the Murphy Trio.
Matilda's crib and a rocking chair that Megan used as a child which her grandma recently gave back to her at her Oregon baby shower. And yes, when we dress Tilly in polka dots we can't find her.
A genuine teddy bear from the Vermont Teddy Bear Company. I grew up in Vermont and toured the factory as a grade-schooler and so I had to splurge for one of these.
This is Megan's teddy, Pinky, who has been with her since she was an infant. And now it's going to our daughter.
Our ever-growing collection of stuffed animals. We really like the Grannimals (to the monkey's right). The monkey, Ross Westin, is from the 5th Ave. Build-A-Bear in New York City, the pig is from the Murphy Aunts and Uncle, and the dog is from cousin Joel. The hand-painted mirror has the Three Little Pigs on it and originally cost $410. We got it and the $395 shelf (pictured below) with the Cow Jumping Over the Moon for $100 at La Bella Casa in McMinnville, OR.
The nursing corner. That yellowed newspaper is from the day she was born. We're saving it so that when Tilly is old enough she can appreciate how stupidly sentimental her parents are.
The changing table and Diaper Genie II, where all the crap goes down. I've never known a baby who pees more on the changing mat than in her diapers. Now I do. And I thought it was only boys who did that.
3 comments:
Oh how you're experiences have almost matched with ours and first having Lily. She was a great pee'er on the changing table too, I think it's their form of humor. Sounds like you guys are having fun, wish we could be there.
HAHAHA zelda!!!! my husband Doug (megan knows him) loved this zelda reference, and can share in that frustration....oh so funny..to me, not you, or him....
Love, Ana
your baby is gorgeous! and i love the polka dot bedding!
Oh I LOVE it! Can't wait to have Drew-Bob and Tilly actually side by side in a couple of weeks.
So not only did I steal the bedding and diaper bag but I think Dan and Megan had the exact same childhood teddy bear that they passed on to their posterity. We'll forgive you for beating us to the delivery room if you forgive our theft of cute things.
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