My Gyro

Since she was born, the Sleep Sheep has been Temple's constant companion in bed.  It is one of the few items she has used since birth (one of the others is the McClaren Chair.  Thanks, Kat, Stef and Emily!).  I wrote about it before.  It is an adorable stuffed sheep that emits soothing white noise.  Temple prefers the sound of the ocean, but also available are sounds of a babbling brook, a rainforest, and the wind whistling through the trees.  Even after Temple met Owl Pacino and started sleeping with him every night, the Sleep Sheep has kept watch, a faithful sentinel shushing baby T to sleep.   

                            So it is particularly grotesque that Temple's favorite food, really the only protein she will eat, is gyro.  Apparently, she's got a little Greek in her, because she will go to town on some tzatziki and lamb.  Of course, Matt and I think it's great.  Every time she eats the gyro, she seems to sleep longer at night, and that means Matt is sleeping more, which makes gyro Matt's hero.    

 

"You make me baahrf.  I don't know how you sleep at night...O, wait."

The Droid

Emily tells me that it doesn't count as a post if there are no pictures.  Matt already shared this one on Facebook, but Emily is all "Anti," so here it is again.  It's a great picture Matt took of the T while they were on a walk last week when the weather was beautiful and I was at work.  You can't see it, but she's got teeth growing in there.  Her bunny teeth are still working their way out.  Did I already write about how she sounds like R2D2?  Well she does.  Beeps and phonemes in the sing song of English, but no intelligible words.  Although, this morning, I thought I heard her say mamma.  She slept through the night again, and I heard her cooing around 8am.  She usually yells and yells until I go get her, but this morning she was pretty quiet.  I went to get her around 8:15, and she was laying on her back, chewing on Owl Pacino and waving Gigio around, content.  When she saw me, I really thought she said something like mamma.  Probably she was just saying dada again, but with her mouth full.

I started writing this post last night when Matt fell asleep on the couch at 8:30pm, but I found I didn't have a lot to say.  Of course, T is doing new and exciting things every day, but you could read about most of those in a childhood development book.  I'm working out, working, and taking care of the house.  Not a lot of drama over here, and I have been pretty serene mentally, too.  I hadn't been sleeping well, which I thought was due to sinus trouble, but my doctor thought was residual sleep disruption from Tiny T.  He gave me a prescription for Lunesta (the one with the commercials with the neon butterfly), but I'm weary of taking a prescription sleep aid.  It has been known to cause hallucinations and suicidal thoughts, and while the hallucinations sound like fun, I'd rather not roll the dice with the more serious side effects.  A friend suggested melatonin.  My reflex is to think that holistic stuff doesn't work, but I gave it a shot, knowing that the narcotic option was still available, and it seems to work.  I'm waking up more refreshed and with more energy.  I've also reduced my caffeine intake from 40 ounces throughout the day to about 20 ounces before 11am.  Sometimes it bothers me that I don't have more to write about.  In the early weeks and months of Temple's birth, I wrote on this blog a lot, and I realize now that it helped me work out a lot of emotions.  I am grateful that I'm more at peace these days, but I miss the ease of writing.  I'm also a little out of practice.  I'll try to write more in the mornings while Temple is roving, climbing, and terrorizing the dogs.  I leave you with another picture, this one of Turbo Temple.

Gnocchi Dokey

Updates in bullet point form, random order: 

• Temple is 9 months old.  Holy cow.  She weighs 23.5 pounds, and is 29.5 inches.  Her rate of head growth has leveled.  She has sensitive skin, like her mamma, and so gets a bath and a coat of Aquafor every night.  We have to wipe out her folds because, as the doctor said, "she is a St. Bernard."
• Temple says Dada.  She calls everything Dada - Matt, me, dogs, tv, stink bugs.  She also says Ee Dee Dee, but we haven't figured out what that means yet.
• Temple is teething.  She's got two lower teeth, and she is working on the upper bunny teeth.  She has been a little cranky, but I got her some Nighttime Baby Ora-Gel.  It claims to be safe for babies four months and older, but I can't get over the feeling that I'm giving her drugs.  Not that that is a problem.
• Temple went to her first yoga class.  It was a mother and baby yoga class at a real yoga studio.  All the other babies sat with their mothers and did as instructed.  Temple wandered all over the studio messing with other babies' stuff.  She didn't even want to sit with me during shivasana.  Temple wins the Independent Spirit Award. 
• I still love my job.  I missed it so much when the restaurant was closed for a three week winter hiatus that I asked a favor of my brother in law and worked on pasta at his restaurants for a few days.  It was tedious and back breaking, but worth it.
• My hair is dry, brittle, and falling out.  I shouldn't keep it up all the time, but I do, because if I didn't, Temple the Tazmanian devil would tear it out.  

That's all for now.  I'm sorry I'm not more entertaining.  I spend all my wit on the post title.