Arizona Rose and John Francis

When Zoie wants to get out of her crib she doesn't just cry any more. Now it's Daddy...Mommie...Sammi....please....get me now....please Daddy out now...It's hard not to get her.

Breastfeeding Zoie is lately quite the chore.  We are basically down to one morning feeding a day.  It's nice to have that quite bonding time in the morning, especially since I am so sleepy and still trying to wake up.  However lately I it's been a struggle keeping her from twisting the opposite nipple she's been suckling on....weird but whatever makes her happy I suppose.  On several occasions I have drifted back to neverland to be woken up by a feeding lamd or a feeding bunny.  That's right, I hear Zoie making quite little slurping noises to her holding the animals up to my nipple.  It's adorable and creepy at the same time.

Since then I have taught her to spoonfeed her little ones while I get her meals ready.  It's giving her some responsibility and shows her that Mr. Bunny and little lamby don't need momma's milky milk.

Once again I feel like a rotten mother...I want to write more on my little love monkey, but the days turn into weeks and the weeks into months.  It makes me sad, because so many funny things happen on a day to day basis, I want to remember all of them.  I am constantly taking mental photos of her, playing, growing, just being her. 

Every minute I spend with her is special, she's the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, my joy, my love.  So sappy, but all you moms out there know what I am saying.

seriously, I was getting ready to journal down Zoie's newest ways...but I decided to literally cut and past a BLOG from his one mom who lives god knows where.  Everyweek I read her blog and every week I can relate more and more.  This week I couldn't of said it any better so here it is, it may as well be staright from my mouth...I didn't even bother to change the names or the pictures.

Violet's heavily into new and acrobatic nursing positions now. She reminds me of a jaded husband who brings home a copy of the Kama Sutra and asks his wife to try the "butterfly greeting the cow" position. Merely lying in my arms to nurse isn't good enough for her. She wants me to lean over in my chair with my boob out so she can cruise by, take a few swigs, and keep on cruising. Or she'd like to lie on top of my shoulders and crane her head down around my chest to get to the nipple.

At the very least, if she deigns to nurse lying down in the way God intended a tired mama and child to nurse, she'd like to kick her legs Rockettes-style into the air and turn her face to the side every few seconds to provide a running commentary on the experience. "Beeee!" she says. "Buhweeeeee!"

That little habit is driving me just the slightest bit completely insane. But it's nothing compared to the new tantrums, the new Big Giant Tantrums that are on the order of Biblical disasters involving floods and fires and smitings.

You'll say, "Hey Violet, you can't have a cough drop. You can have the wrapper, but you can't have Mommy's cough drop because I need it, and you might choke on it."


And her response to this completely rational reason is to scream and cry in a register that makes my brains leak slowly out of my ears. She backbends into a U-shape, flinging her body as far from mine as possible. She snatches her hands away and shakes them, screaming "Ughgghghghghhh!" She stomps her miniature round feet and turns as red as a stop sign as other parents sneak glances and silently condemn me for failing to control her.

It used to be that she'd only have a tantrum when she was exhausted and we had to do something she really hated, like drive in the car. But in the past few days she's having one several times a day, every day. She wants you to feed her the yogurt faster? Tantrum. It's time to leave the park and she has to help pick up the sand toys? Tantrum. She's furious that you handed her a bowl with the spoon already in it rather than placing it on her tray? Oh, you'd better believe that's a tantrum.

She's even having little yelling fits over which breast she wants to nurse from. You give her the right one and after a few minutes that's not enough, she wants the left one hanging out too so she can flit from breast to breast and maybe twiddle the nipple of the breast she's not nursing from. And if you try to cover up your poor defenseless breast with your top, she'll pull at it sharply with her angry, pinchy fingers and say "Unnnh! Unnnh!" in the most furious little voice you've ever heard.

PS, Zoie started walking EXACTLY one week before her first birthday...I don't think she has stopped moving since.