Switched at (3 months past) birth?

Big D was an angelic baby.  Overdoing the research as always, I had read every baby book ever published before he was born and during his infancy.  I kept finding reference to this mysterious 'colic' stage from 6-12 weeks that babies go through.  No one knows the cause or a cure.  No one knows which babies it will affect.  Weeks of inconsolable crying with only old wives tales for treatments.  But six weeks came and went and no increase in crying.  In fact there was barely any crying at all.  Just this gummy smile at all hours of the day.  Without daring to tell it to any mother of a colicky baby, I was pretty convinced that 'colic' was just the result of bad parenting or perhaps the sign of a terrible personality disorder.

But then Belvedere was born.  And for about six weeks there was peace.  Did I fear the approaching colic storm?  Did it ever occur to me that I was like some tropical island dweller blissfully soaking up the rays of warm sunlight, not knowing that the puff of cloud on the horizon was the edge of a category 5 hurricane?  No.  She came from the same parents, right?  And we did the same things with her, right?  So it stands to reason that she will be the same baby as Big D.  Right? RIGHT?????

Wrong.  The hurricane did come and there was absolutely nothing we could do to calm the storm.  Who knew a tiny thing could cry for soooooooooooo long.  In spite of anything going on around her.  Nothing made it stop.  Not holding, cuddling, singing, swinging, car rides, entertaining, yelling, cajoling, bribing.  Sometimes not even nursing.  (Yes, you read correctly, 'yelling' was part of the list.  Judge not...)

It took the hurricane six weeks to blow through the house.  But now we come to the weird part.  At 3 months she became the most pleasant baby I've ever seen.  Cheerful, cute, cuddly, QUIET.  I discovered that she was likable.  That in fact I liked her.

Case in point: Last night Medman and I went over with the kids to some friends house.  We were going for dinner and I thought for sure we'd be home pretty close to Belvedere's 7:00 bedtime because I would be tired of holding a crabby, tired baby.  We were there until 10:00!  At night!  And Belvedere only fell asleep for about a half hour in my arms.  The rest of the time she stared happily at me and sucked her thumb.   It was vaguely unnatural.

Which leads me to the subject of this post.  I think it is possible that someone switched out that screaming baby for the one I have now.  I have no idea why they would want to do that but if they ever come back, even if they can prove with a DNA test that the screamer they have is mine, I'm fighting tooth and nail to keep cheerful Belvedere.  And I think any judge in the country who heard Screamer would punish the kidnappers by making them keep her.

Lost out of cyber-space

I'm in a sort of cyber-withdrawl.  Last Friday, the very day after I began this blog, that tiny little golden pin inside the power cord for my computer fell out.  Just fell out.  Apparently someone at Dell had just gently nestled it into its protective-seeming plastic tube instead of actually fusing it to any wires that exist inside the cord.  My computer has 54 days of warranty left on it so my dutiful husband contacted Dell.  The representative from Dell, in all their hindi-accented wisdom, declared that such a problem is classified as accident, not wear and tear.

Which I totally understand because Friday I had been just walking through my living room, accidentally tripped, got my hand accidentally tangled up in the powercord that had been lying safely under the neglected ironing board, rolled accidentally to my feet, spun around out of control and just happened to gently press my hand accidentally against the side of the computer where the power cord plugs in.  After that amazing accident I discovered that the cord would not stay in and when I looked the little pin was hanging on by a thread (a metal thread?  from steel wool maybe?) and pretty much the power of my intent stare made it fall out completely.  Clearly an accident.  As Medman passionately asked the barely english speaking Dell agent, "HOW IS PLUGGING IN YOU POWER CORD AN ACCIDENT?!?!?!?!"

Anyway, (deep breath) after explaining to them how we felt about their idea of a warranty and their price of $80 for a new cord we (by we I mean Medman) scoured the internet for deals, even patiently giving in to my nagging to "Make sure we don't get a rebate through ebates for that tiny random computer parts website!"  (Side note, anyone who doesn't know what ebates is, you should find out.  It gives you cash back when you order through hundreds of websites.  I'm eagerly awaiting my $15 check in November for the last couple months of internet shopping.) And the long and short of it is that I have to wait until this Friday to get my computer cord so I can use my computer.  I'm currently using Medman's since he had to trudge out to the Critical Care Unit bright and early this morning and no kids are up yet.

My friend Cirelle from Denver was here from Friday until yesterday, so that helped with the computer-less problem.  She  brought her youngest daughter with her who is 18 months old.  It took her and Big D about a day and a half before they determined that they were essentially siblings and could argue non-stop.  Since little Brielle didn't have the vocabulary to fight on D's level, he kindly took to talking like a one year old with inarticulate screams and howls.  Good times.  After the kids were in bed, Cirelle and I had a lot of fun.

Well, I got on the computer exactly one hour ago to work on my grocery list and have done nothing but make etsy listings and ramble on this post, so I suppose I'm off.  Everyone reading this (all 3 of you) take a moment to pat your computer lovingly and thank it for working for you today.

its Hammer Time and other cute etsy finds

If I had found this maternity shirt a year ago when pregnant with Belvedere, I don't know that I could have resisted.  Too bad none of the strange, overly touchy elderly people at Walmart would know who MC Hammer was or why it was funny.  Still, I think it would have gotten the point across.  It's a shirt from  discobelly.etsy.com

 

And the next greatest find, which I actually did purchase, was the pattern for these baby boots from www.ithinksewdotcom.etsy.com

Belvedere is going to have the cutest feet in rural Missouri.

hiya

Sitting here at my kitchen table wondering what momentous thing I can write in the VERY FIRST post on my new blog and I got nothing.  I should be waking baby Belvedere up so that she works well with the schedule I've decided we all must be on today.  Oddly enough, her 5 month old individuality always exerts itself in these situations as she takes naps for drastically different amounts of time than usual.  For instance for the last 5 days she has woken up around 6 am.  That would have worked well for me today.  I've been rubbing my hands together gleefully all week that she's put herself on a convenient schedule for me.  But here I sit at 7:22 and not a peep from her room.  Not a peep.  The reason I'm excited about my schedule today is that I get to drop 3 year old son, Big D, off at a friends for the morning.  The whole morning!  Very exciting.  I will get to go to the Post Office and stand serenely in line with everyone else instead of doing that incredibly loud hissing whisper that mothers do to tell their child to "Get back here!  Don't touch that!  Stop pulling envelopes out of the ridiculously overstuffed envelope display!  Don't poke that heavy lady in the butt!  Even if her pants are green!  Yes I know you love green!" 

Ah!  A peep from Belvedere's room.  Very good.  Now I can continue posting because I know she's awake and frankly sounds perfectly happy in her crib practicing her creaky-door-swinging-in-a-haunted-house noise.  She's getting quite good at it.  I'm considering renting her out to the local haunted houses.

So I started this blog because, besides the fact that it is 2009 and after starting up a blog I'm totally intimidated by the words staring back at me from all of my Customization options (gadgets? backlinks? feeds?), I also started an etsy shop and then people blog about it right?  I'm sure someday I will even learn how to put the cool little link on the side of my blog that leads to my shop.  (Until then it's www.thewhimsy.etsy.com)

But lets face it, people.  I may obsessively dream about new crafty things to make but I am a stay at home mother of two and so 99% (if I round down) of my time is spent mothering and wife-ing.  So I'm pretty sure most of this blog will contain cute anecdotes about my little darlings.

The creaky door is beginning to sound more like a demand for food and less like a fun game of rolling in the crib, so I'd best get back to mothering.