I'm back at work full-time now. This means I run around in the morning trying to get ready for work while not totally ignoring Matilda. Then I get home in the evening and it's time to feed and bathe and put her to bed. I get instant messages from Niclas telling me she seems to like celery (and now he's worried she's not his because hello he wouldn't eat celery for all the whiskey in the world) and how she basically got up an all fours in the kiddie pool.
It's rough. She learns something new everyday and I can't convince her to learn those things between 7 and 8 am or 6 and 7 pm. Sometimes she learns something in those windows, like how two nights ago she sat in the tub (she can sit up now!) with Niclas and learned to splash. *wack wack wack* those little hands hit the surface of the water a hundred times before she'd had enough.
But it's a crapshoot. I'm officially out of earshot on my kid's life for 10 hours a day. The AC in the office is nice and all, but doesn't make up for the missing. I'm also already failing on the pumping front. I pump, sure, but already I've forgotten to take the pumped milk home. NOT THAT IT MATTERS TOO MUCH AS I GET A QUARTER OF WHAT SHE EATS IN MY ABSENCE. My co-workers must Love seeing those Avent bottles in the fridge.
Oh and plus, I let her eat paper the other day. Right? I LET MY DAUGHTER EAT PAPER. She's happy to sit in her bumbo chair and play with a toy until she drops it. Then she screams till I pick it up. She drops her toys on average 10 times a minute and OH MY ACHING BACK. So the other day when I got the mail and she lunged for it, I crumpled up a piece of paper and gave it to her. She was totally psyched, let me tell you. And she was able to keep a hold on it long enough to chew off a good chunk and SWALLOW IT. I turned around to watch her make this face, like, "Well that didn't taste so great. Sort of like green beans." (Which she hates. First food hate! She won't even close her mouth to spit them out. She leaves her maw open wide until they fall directly out.)
A few hours later, she wasn't much interested in dinner. TOO MUCH PAPER MAMA I'M FULL! Either that or it was just too hot to be eating. That night she was up every three hours to nurse. Which helps with my "too hot to eat" theory. But maybe she just had paper stuck in her throat.
