I sometimes read about studies like this and wonder if it’s part of a conspiracy to keep me as neurotic as possible. Just when I feel like I’m doing all I can to ensure Signe’s future success in life, along comes another study about something I’m NOT doing.

And really, if I read her a book every day, breastfeed her for a full year, talk to her about other people’s feelings from the time she’s a toddler, and do all the other stuff articles like this talk about, will she grow up to be superhuman? Valedictorian of her graduating class at Harvard? A Nobel Prize winner in physics?

A girl could make herself crazy.

I love this. I’m now done pumping at work, but when I was, I lived in near-constant fear that one of my coworkers would walk in mid-pump. Can you imagine worrying that Hatch or Santorum might inadvertently catch a glimpse of your boob in the Congressional Reading Room?!

Signe will be 8 months old tomorrow and I think our breastfeeding days are done.

I’m not sure what caused it exactly, whether it was the long weekend away where I let myself sleep through my usual 6 a.m. pumping session or the fact that she’s eating almost as much solid food these days as I do, but my milk supply has dwindled to practically nothing. And no amount of pumping and Fenugreek seems to help.

I’m both sad and relieved by this turn of events. When Signe wouldn’t go back to sleep after her 5:15 a.m. wake up this morning, despite nursing her twice, I deduced that her attempts to get milk from my breasts were about as productive as squeezing blood from the proverbial stone. I finally gave up, prepared a bottle of formula for GTB to give her, and left her room crying as she hungrily slurped it down. But then I walked into my bedroom, opened my underwear drawer, and gazed longinly at my non-nursing bras. It’s a terribly confusing set of emotions.

I love the idea of not pumping at work anymore.

I hate the idea of us not greeting each day with her nursing.

I had hoped to breastfeed until her first birthday, which might still be possible, but I think it’s unlikely. I’ve decided definitively to stop pumping at work. I’ll keep nursing her in the morning and at night. I hope that eliminating the pumping won’t interfere with my ability to produce enough milk to keep those a.m. and p.m. sessions, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

I keep telling myself that 8 months is a good run. She has gotten pretty much all of the antibodies she needs from me at this point. And really, I just nurse her now because I like it so much, which surprises me more than it surprises you, trust me. And I’ll definitely miss it.

But when I think of carrying one less bag to work, sleeping past 6 a.m. some mornings, drinking more than one glass of wine at a time without having to pump and dump, and finally being able to shed these last fifteen pounds, I get kinda giddy.

Thanks to Cowbelle for the head’s up.

Texts from Last Night

It’s a red letter day, people. Two great things happened on this day in history.

Firstly, 50 years ago today, the first edition of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style was published. It’s my bible, so I’m marking the occasion by omitting unnecessary words and being clear.

Secondly, 19 years ago today, I got my braces removed.

Please feel free to celebrate both of these anniversaries however you see fit. Speaking concisely, eating a carmel apple, etc.

Signe is now seven months old, and it just keeps getting better.

She seems to be done with teething for the moment. She has two little pearls just barely peeking through her bottom gums. They are razor sharp (if razors were serrated) and she really enjoys practicing chomping down on things. Heaven help you if one of those things happens to be your finger.

Solid food is now a twice daily event in Signe’s world. She likes applesauce, pears, oatmeal, rice cereal, sweet potatoes, and carrots. She will not eat peas. I’ve tried a few times now, most recently last night, and she just won’t have it. I spooned in about four bites and was just starting to think that maybe she had warmed to peas. Next thing I know, four bites worth of peas come oozing out of her mouth. It was pretty disgusting, really. Good thing she’s cute.

Signe is such a fan of solid food that she doesn’t seem to want to nurse anymore. I don’t know if it’s because solids are still new and fun, or if, as I truly suspect, I have one of those freakishly social kids who refuses to stare at my decolletage for several minutes at a time when she could be squirming around to see the TV, her daddy, the ceiling fan, Niles, her toys, or whatever else is going on. The only time I can get her to really nurse is first thing in the morning and in the middle of the night. Morning is fine, but those 1:00, 3:00, and 4:30 a.m. feedings are starting to get to me. But I don’t want to give them up because I’m afraid I’ll dry up completely if I do. Like most things related to motherhood, giving up breastfeeding feels like a horrible decision but is one that will likely be made with or without my consent.

Signe is still small, but pretty dextrous. She has mastered pincer grasp (forefinger and thumb) and sits on her own. It’s rather awesome to be able to sit her down on a play blanket surrounded by toys and watch her amuse herself for a good 30 minutes or more.

GTB and I need to step up the babyproofing because Signe is going to be crawling any day. She mostly rolls over to get at what she wants right now, but occasionally, she’ll lie on her belly, scoot her legs up under her, straighten her arms, and kick. This motion usually sends her backwards, which is terribly frustrating to her and friggin’ hilarious to her mama. If she knew how often I laugh at her expense, she’d probably be pretty pissed at me.

She started saying “Dada” a couple of weeks ago. She doesn’t yet know that it refers to GTB, but you won’t convince him of that. She won’t say “mama” or anything that sounds like it, so I suggested to GTB that our new rule is that whomever she calls for in the middle of the night is who has to get up. He didn’t buy it. Not that it would matter anyway, since her only sound when she gets up in the middle of the night is still “Waaaaahhh.”

Her newest trick is waving goodbye. I started waving “bye bye” to her whenever I left her at the babysitter a few weeks ago. I didn’t suspect it was working at all until Wednesday morning when we were saying goodbye to GTB. When I said “Say bye bye,” she waved her entire left arm up and down. It’s pretty adorable. And it makes me think we need to really get working on our other signs.

That’s all I can think of for now. It seems like she can do something new every day. And I’m starting to really understand what everyone means when they talk about how fast kids grow up. I’ve probably said that before, but it feels more true with each passing day.

I am a total wuss.

Last night, I inadvertently caught a glimpse of the trailer for that new movie called something like “A Haunting in Connecticut.” I went to bed with images of teenage boys vomiting gaseous substances and some little humanoid thing sitting in front of a wall of flames.

At about 11:30, Signe woke up crying. I’m trying this new thing where I don’t pick her up and rock her back to sleep but instead I stand over her crib and soothe her by talking to her and rubbing her chest. It takes me three times as long to get her to sleep, but it works eventually and I’m hoping it will break her newfound habit of waking up five times each night.

So when she woke up, I stood over her crib soothing her while trying not to turn around every 30 seconds because I was convinced that the vomiting boy and the weird fire baby were standing behind me. I would say “It’s OK. I’m right here. Go back to sleep.” while holding back groans of fear. To my irrational, awake-in-the-middle-of-the-night mind, it was no coincidence that two of our nightlights went out last night. It was a conspiracy of some supernatural order to make me even more terrified.

At one point, as Signe tossed and turned and tried to go back to sleep, she reached her hand through the back of her crib to touch the wall. I froze and almost shrieked out “No, don’t you know that the space between your bed and the back wall is where the monsters live?!”

Seriously. I thought that. I’m 33 years old.

Of course Signe doesn’t know that. Her biggest fear is that I might try to make her eat peas again today. Actually, she doesn’t even know to fear that. And I’m so jealous!

Let’s hope Signe doesn’t inherit this particular quirk of mine.

Now I’m off to buy more nightlights. And backup nightlights.

A few days ago, I read Oprah’s interview with Michelle Obama and was moved by Ms. Obama’s admiration for the American people. Her take on how much we all have in common and our community spirit was quite touching.

On Saturday, as I was driving down a four-lane (plus the center lane, so five-lane) hiway, I noticed a truck making a left turn into the center lane. I was in the left lane and as he drove along side me (all while in the center lane) for about 30 seconds, I marvelled at how rude he was. When he started moving into my lane, I honked at him, thinking, oh, maybe he doesn’t see me. At the next stop light, he pulled up next to me, rolled down his window and started yelling at me about how “courtesy” says that I am supposed to yield my lane on a four-lane hiway. The light turned green and he pulled away before I could tell him how vehemently I disagreed with his take on things.

Then this morning, as I drove down I-5 on my way to work, I was looking at the river and didn’t immediately notice that the guy in the right lane wanted into my lane. As soon as I saw his turn signal, I slowed down and let him in. Not soon enough for him though, apparently, given that as soon as he was in the left lane, he held up his hand (I mistakenly presumed to wave a little thank you) and flipped me off. For a good 15 seconds.

I like Michelle Obama’s appreciation for Americans, but there are times when I think that most of us are kinda shitty. I want to believe that we’re all just trying to take care of our kids and do good work and maybe enjoy our lives. But really, I think people, for the most part, fucking suck.

I continued on my way to work this morning and stopped at a light not far from my office where I got to watch a man mow the grass in front of the Olive Garden. I sat there thinking that this guy, who is almost assuredly not a U.S. citizen, has more in common with me than I do with the shitheads who feel a sense of entitlement, get pissed at me when I don’t drive myself off the freeway in order to make room for them to enter my lane, or who think it’s OK to yell or make obscene gestures at a woman simply because she’s a woman (because you WILL NOT convince me that the old guy who berated me at the stop light would have done the same if GTB had been in the car!).

GTB bought Sig this onesie. Pretty friggin’ cute, huh?

Signe is six months old today, and what a day it was.

The first excitement of the day started when she was nursing and I felt a little stab on a very sensitive part of my body that I don’t like to feel little stabs on. I let her finish eating and when she pulled away, I put my finger in her mouth and found that she has finally cut her first tooth. She has been working on it for weeks now. We still can’t see anything, but if you reach in there (which I’d kindly ask you not to do) you can totally feel that little sucker starting to poke its way through.

Then we had our six month check up. She’s still little; that’s about the gist of it. She is average for height but really light for her age. I’m willing myself not to worry about it. She’s the picture of health in every other way and developmentally kind of a rock star.

She also got more shots today, and, because I’m a bad mother I guess, I went to dinner with Alisa and Olivia and forgot to re-up Sig’s Tylenol. We left the restaurant with Signe in tears, our fellow diners in a visible state of annoyance, and having let Alisa pay for her own birthday dinner. I’m also tacky, it turns out.

After a difficult tussle getting her jammies on without disturbing her very sore legs, Sig Vicious is now enjoying the sleep of a medicated baby. I’m taking the Tylenol to bed with me for her midnight and 4 a.m. doses. Should be an interesting night.

But really, she’s still the easiest, funniest, cutest, best baby in the world. These days she gets a big kick out of patty cake, peek-a-boo, and her exersaucer. She’s also starting to have a bit of separation anxiety. If she’s not completely enthralled with what she’s doing, she’ll freak out a little when one of us leaves the room. It’s both very sweet and kind of awful.

She smiles at strangers, laughs at pretty much everything her daddy does, and makes me feel like the most important person on the planet. I’m not sure it gets better than that.