The Woolly Mom

How do you think I injured my right knee today?

A.) Jogging around the block before dawn

B.) Moving the couch out to clean under it

C.) Bending over to weed my gardens

D.) Imitating the Brady Bunch dance routine to “Keep On, Keep On Movin’!”

I’ll send a sour pickle and a bag of deadheaded marigolds to the person who can figure out first which one is correct. So please input your answers now. It’s ok, I’ll wait.

Bow-chica-bup-bow-chica-chica-bow-wow…(it’s the music from Match Game while I wait)…

Have I stumped you? Okay, look below for a quick clue. But I warn you, it might still be tough for you to decode.

There’s just no excuse for me.

I know you’ve all been very, very worried about me. I got the flowers you sent. They were lovely. And thank all things chocolate, my hearing has returned! I have a theory that Lily actually screamed into my ear again, thus reversing all damage previously done and miraculously restoring my hearing. This belief stems from many years of watching movies where characters get amnesia and must be hit on the head again to remember their loved ones. It apparently helps if the loved ones are partially responsible for you getting hit again - helps the memory juices. So by this amazing television logic, I am certain that is what has happened here. I don’t have scurvy or rickets after all, as I had feared. So now I won’t have to get one of those ear trumpets.

Last night a funny little problem developed. See, after Lily shrieked in my ear for the fifteenth time yesterday (yes, we’ve now begun the shrieking when we’re unhappy phase), all of a sudden thick cotton plugs appeared deep in my ears. Or that’s what it seems anyway. I have some kind of tinitus - a funky condition where I can’t hear very well, except for this whirring humming-type sound. (Oh, except for Lily’s shrieks. I  can still hear those.) It sounds like I can hear my little brain factory humming away. And that is oddly less satisfying than I would’ve thought.

And since doctors’ offices don’t have much sympathy for a woman with no car during most weekdays, I’m just gonna have to ride this one out. Or learn to read lips really soon.

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the First Annual Lily Awards!

I am your host, Pinky (Lily’s favoritist and bestist guinea pig), and in celebration of Lily’s first birthday, I’m here tonight to present several awards to honor the best products, best entertainment, and best tips of the year! And it’s all based on Lily’s personal experiences - successes, failures, pratfalls, and happiness. So what you’ll see here tonight is the best in Lily’s first year!

So without further ado, please allow me to introduce the first category of the evening:

Best of Toys

The nominees are…
Gloworm
Parent’s Magazine Alpha Blocks
Harold the Hungrian Hippo
Horton
Discovery Puppy

(click each nominee to see what product looks like)

….And the winner is…..Parent’s Magazine Alpha Blocks!

This amazing toys wins for it’s diversity, not only as very knock-overable foam blocks, but also because most of the blocks have a hard plastic rattle toy inside. Lily’s had endless hours of play with those rattles which are virtually indestructible (trust me!). This toy’s gotten more hours of play throughout her first year than any other toy, hands down.

Best of Feeding

The nominees are…
Stonyfield Baby Yogurt
NUK Glass Bottles
Snack Trap Cups
Gerber Puffs
Avent IQ24 Sterilizer

(click each nominee to see what product looks like)

….And the winner is…..NUK Glass Bottles!

Hard to find in the U.S., I had to comb U.K. websites to find these treasures. Glass bottles are hands-down superior to plastic, not only because they don’t leach harmful chemicals, but they stand up to the daily wear and tear of washing, sterilizing, and feeding. They cost more, but they’ll last as long as your baby needs them, and beyond. Plastic bottles get dirty, cloudy, and smelly long before.

Best of Comfort

The nominees are…
Fisher-Price Rainforest Bouncey Seat
RaZ-Berry Teether
Tie Blanket & Quilt Handmade for Lily by Friends
Gloworm
Fisher-Price Rainforest Play Yard Mobile

(click each nominee to see what product looks like)

….And the winner is…..Blankets!

You just can’t go wrong with homemade blankets. They’re lovable, huggable, washable, and made with love. These are soft pieces of comfort that she will be able to treasure for years. I hope every baby is lucky enough to receive such wonderful blankets from loved ones.

Best of Sleep

The nominees are…
Gloworm
Classical Music CD
Halo SleepSacks
Dreams-In-Sight Projection Mobile
The SleepEasy Solution Book

(click each nominee to see what product looks like)

….And the winner is…..The SleepEasy Solution Book! 

It’s hard not to award the Projection Mobile, which is just wonderful and I highly recommend to all parents. But the clear winner by a mile here is the SleepEasy Solution book. This is an instruction book on how to get your baby to sleep through the night at age 4.5 mos.+. It falls somewhere in between the cry-it-out method and the super comfort method. We were frustrated, exhausted parents with an exhausted baby. Then within 3 days of buying this book, she was sleeping 11 hours a night - instead of 4! The authors even personally answered email questions for us. I HIGHLY recommend this book to ALL parents.

Best of Television

The nominees are…
Teletubbies
Super Why!
The Price is Right
Sesame Street
Gilmore Girls

(click each nominee to see what product looks like)

….And the winner is…..Super Why!

Drew Carey just barely got snubbed on this one. Hehe. Ok, Super Why! was a clear winner because it’s freakin’ adorable, has catchy songs (too catchy, if you know what I mean…), makes Lily dance a whole bunch, and she’s learning. Plus it’s not so tedious or annoying that I throw up in my mouth a little each time it’s on (I’m looking at you, Barney).

Best of Bath & Hygiene

The nominees are…
Munchkin Tube of Squirty Bath Toys
Boudreaux’s Butt Bath
Boudreaux’s Butt Paste
Pelican Bath Pitcher (couldn’t find a link. Got it from Target. It’s a big pelican pitcher. Water pours out of its mouth.)
Safety 1st Tub Seat

(click each nominee to see what product looks like)

….And the winner is…..Boudreaux’s Butt Bath!

The butt bath really stands out, and not just for it’s funny name. This stuff isn’t just for bathing butts actually, it’s really a full bath wash for baby. Works great as a body wash and a shampoo. It’s tear-free, dye-free, non-irritating, and it smells great (but not too fragrancy at all!). Plus it’s not test on animals. Big bonus! Lily always comes out clean, tear-free, and smelling great. Plus this one bottle has lasted us forever, so you’re really getting your money’s worth. I highly recommend this over a lot of the perfumy nighttime washes you’ll see on the market.

Best of Books

The nominees are…
“The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle
“Goodnight, Gorilla” by Peggy Rathmann
“On the Night You Were Born” by Nancy Tillman
“Llama, Llama Red Pajama” by Anna Dewdney
“Corduroy” by Don Freeman

(click each nominee to see what product looks like)

….And the winner is…..Llama Llama Red Pajama! 

This book is adorable with a captial “A”. It’s written in a sing-song rhyming style that is best read aloud. It’s filled with emotion and vibrant pictures that keep Lily plenty engrossed. And somehow, it’s ended up being her favorite daytime reading book. If Lily’s dady were awarding this prize, it might’ve gone to “Goodnight, Gorilla” instead which turned out to be a real surprise bedtime favorite.

Well folks, that does it for the 2007-2008 Lily Awards. Whew! What a ride it’s been. I’ve laughed, I’ve cried. Poor Gloworm is just the little Susan Lucci of the house, isn’t he? I feel for him. Really I do.

Well alright, until next year, this is Pinky saying so long, and be nice to your guinea pig!

I’ve been expanding Lily’s diet a lot lately since she’s about to turn one, and I’ve started looking into different types of fish that she might be able to eat safely (provided her doc has no allergy concerns). As we all know, fish contains so many healthy nutrients and is low in fat, that I really want to get her accustomed to the yummy taste early on.

But as with when I was pregnant (god, was that already one whole year ago?), I had to start combing the web for a reliable list of mercury levels in seafood. Thought I’d share what I found with you. So here you go, all you parents and pregnant mamas-to-be. This is the list of the fishes with the lowest detected levels of mercury:

Anchovies
Butterfish
Catfish
Clam
Crab (Domestic)
Crawfish/Crayfish
Croaker (Atlantic)
Flounder*
Haddock (Atlantic)*
Hake
Herring
Mackerel (N. Atlantic, Chub)
Mullet
Oyster
Perch (Ocean)
Plaice
Pollock
Salmon (Canned)**
Salmon (Fresh)**
Sardine
Scallop*
Shad (American)
Shrimp*
Sole (Pacific)
Squid (Calamari)
Tilapia
Trout (Freshwater)
Whitefish
Whiting

There’s more to the list at this website, where they list “moderate mercury” fish that can be eaten here and there, and “high” or “highest” mercury fish that you will want to avoid.

Personally, I recommend the Tilapia. I couldn’t eat enough of it while I was pregnant with Lily. Especially with a few shrimp and a good creole sauce. And dinner rolls. And chocolate cake. Yum!

(The image above comes from an adorable shop that sells play food made out of felt - click the image to head over and check it out. I might have to place an order myself!)

Just a quick word here for you to all wish me luck - I’m running the doctor’s appointment triathalon today. Three doctor’s appointments at three different offices for three different family members all in one afternoon.

If anyone lives in the Brighton area and would like to stand by the road with a styrofoam cup of water held outward, I will be speeding through town repeatedly and will heartily appreciate the cooling down. I’d also be grateful if someone could have some kind of trophy waiting at the finish line. Or balloons at least. In funny animal shapes.

Lily has this soft, liquid-filled plastic teething ring that’s been kicking around her crap toy pile for months. But until she stuck it in my mouth this morning (presumably as a gift or peace offering), I didn’t realize how CHEMICALLY it smelled or tasted. Yikes. It was like sucking on a can of spray paint. Needless to say that ring met the inside of my garbage can right away.

Now, I’m no panicky nut about plastics and chemicals. My husband’s a chemist and tends to rub his temples furiously when anybody generically derides chemical-based items just because they’re not “all-natural”. All-natural! he scowls, Arsenic is all-natural! And he’s given me the whole run-down on the difference between safe plastics and dangerous plastics, and what brings out the danger in them (hmmm, I’m sensing a post for later! Note to self. Check.).

But this - this was scary. So here’s my warning. If by chance you own this teething ring, check it out. Give it a whiff. Or if you’re like me, give it a good licking.

I’ve got the ivy! So I believe that leaves the score at Nature: 18,432; Katie: 0. 

Gaa, it’s making my right leg itch so bad I’m about to gnaw it off with my bare teeth. And naturally my regular doctor is on vacation this week, so I end up having to go to the local clinic where I get one of those funny doctors. You know, the ones where they tell jokes and you feel like you have to laugh or they’ll order your leg amputated immediately (as a matter of fact, I think that was one of his jokes). Man, funny doctors. That’s on my list of natural fears…along with carnies, insult comedians, clowns, and cowboys.

The worst part was that while we were waiting for Dr. Giggles to look at my leg, all I could think about was something I saw in the restroom at the clinic - a pretty clean, modern place with pretty upper class clientele. In the ladies’ room, someone had taken a pencil (not a pen, mind you) and had neatly scribbled out the letter “C” on the “baby changing table”, to make it “baby hanging table.” They get points for cleverness, which are immediately deducted again for creepiness. But here’s what bugs me:Who was it that took the time to crouch down on the floor and pain-stakingly scribble this out so neatly? And why??? Who spent that much time in the bathroom, not in reach of a toilet? Was the joke worth it? Where did they get a pencil from? Under what circumstance was this a worthwhile undertaking??? This actually sat in my brain floating around like a dvd player’s screensaver, pinging from one side of my brain to the next. I never did figure out a plausible scenario where this would happen.

Hope your Friday’s going a lot better. Happy weekend, all!

This weight check is sadly overdue. But you can’t begrudge me withholding my weight measurements from this public forum of (ridicule?) motherhood. But I have good news. Apparently my alcohol and s’mores diet is working wonders, and I haven’t gained anything. Pass me a daiquiri!

Pre-Pregnancy (Goal) Weight: 155
Starting Weight: 192
Starting Date: 9/9/07 (1 month post-partum)

Weight Check-In:
6/8/08 - 170 lbs.
6/17/08 - 168 lbs.
6/26/08 - 167 lbs.
7/16/08 - 166 lbs.

There’s this product I just discovered. Had no idea they made anything like it - even though it’s ingenious. Baby knee pads! My little crawler could completely use some protection for her poor little scuffed knees, which now are turning all rough and scratchy compared to her sausage-like legs with skin like butta. I’m not so sure if they hurt her, but I bet a little padding would feel nice. And they’re absolutely adorable. They look like some kind of adult fashion trend that I’m thinking I should spearhead. Forget the leg warmers of the 80s, it’s all about fashion knee pads in the…00s (?…still haven’t figured out this whole new millennium thing yet). Make mine purple!

Here’s the real question though. How long do I think it would take her to rip them off and throw them at the pug? Yeah, I better get me a big roll of duct tape to go along with these.