2008-03-25 - 10:19 a.m.

...all about Susi...

Susi had a brief (err, 2-hour) devil-possession experience last night. But we got through it. Short-term memory is truly amazing - she goes from one minute of explosive tears, screams, and purple face; the next minute she's cooing and smiling at me as nothing ever happened. And with her big eyes, dressed in the all-white sleepers imported by Blighty, she has the adorable look of a baby harbor seal - one that smiles and coos. Good thing she smiles and coos, too - it triggers the emotional heart strings that make me want to keep her even after devil possession ;-).

So after her massive explosion, she fed for two hours while we listened to MY favorite baby lullaby CD (see previous entry about fright over E1nstein - although, d-land note-leavers, like you, I foresee the little one being equally mesmerized when the time comes!). Anyway, this particular CD is produced by a singer from the Canadian Prairies, C0nn1e Ka1d0r (lovely music that even parents can enjoy). We listened to it twice, with me singing along and trying to remember my simple French: "Les yeux sont fermee; C'est la nuit, le temp se coucher; Fait do-do, Bebe..."

And then the bairn slept for seven hours. She probably could have gone longer (although her mom - whose cups floweth over - couldn't..).

Speaking of which, we've now got at least a liter and half of breast milk stored in our freezer for a rainy day (I guess it's for a rainy day - but then, nearly every day in Vancouver is rainy, so perhaps I'm storing it for something else). So, I've decided to go through the process of becoming a milk donor for the neonatal ward's milk bank. Not surprisingly, the screening is a bit involved: written and oral questionnaires, doctor's approval, lots of blood screening, etc. And in the end we need to be sure that I can donate over 3 liters for them to accept me as a donor. Since I express almost 200 mL every morning in addition to serving Susi's needs, I don't imagine that this will be a problem. More than anyone wanted to hear about breast milk, I'm sure. But you know? I've never been able to donate blood - I get sick and pass out. This hopefully will help out some little ones and make me feel like I'm contributing something in the process.

It's becoming fun to watch Susi's changes every day. Her favorite spot - we call it "Her Happy Place" - is the changing table. Well, actually, it's a changing mat placed on K's chess table. Hey - don't knock it - it works. She sits there kicking away and cooing. She loves it so much that K installed the crib mobile over the changing table downstairs. There she sits, watches and laughs at her four wildly colored stuffed animals - Loewe (the red lion), Blue Ear (orange elephant with blue ears), Z-Z (the brown and cream zebra), and Spotty (the purple giraffe with yellow spots). (I gave them names.)

We put her on the table every morning and anytime she starts to get fussy, and she looks up as if we've brought her back to talk to her best old friends. Which she does. And then she turns to me and seems to try to tell me what they are saying to her. It's wonderful to watch her try to form new sounds with her mouth. Her coos and gurgles and rolling rs.

Her newest best friend is a black and white panda rattle that I fasten to her wrist. She can stare at this panda for an hour, pulling him back and forth. Recently, she's discovered that panda's right ear is rather tasty. Whatever.

I decided to write this down, because yesterday K and I realized that we had already missed documenting a couple of her past favorites - or rather, ours:

1. THE PIXIE: Susi has a pixie friend. No really - that HAS to be what she stares at over my left shoulder. This invisible pixie sits somewhere in the room and talks to her. We only THINK that Susie is staring blankly into space for minutes on end. But actually, she's taking elaborate messages and instruction from the Pixie. The Pixie seems to visit her less and less these days. I hope they didn't have a fight or anything.

2. MUPPETING: When Susi is startled by a loud sound - or even just the unexpected sound of her parents' voices - she jerks both arms in the air suddenly, and bears a striking resemblance to a startled Kermit the Frog. The baby books all call this the "startle response" - we called it "muppeting." K wanted to invoke a muppeting incident for the video camera because it's very cute. But we both kinda decided that intentionally startling your own child just so we could videotape it is a little bit sick.

At a little over two months, Susi is gaining much better control of her limbs now - she likes to stand on our laps, and her hands find their way to her mouth quite easily. With this motor development comes the loss of muppeting. Kinda sad to see it go, but lovely to see the next steps as they come.

Anyway, I realized that I'll never be one of those people who is good at hording keepsakes for my daughter. I've gotten two of those baby journals for recording baby's first whatevers, and I'm just way way behind. One of them isn't even unwrapped. Susi does have her own webpage of photo documentation, but I cannot imagine having the organizational ability and motivation needed to keep up a book full of all of these firsts. But it will be nice for her to have something, even if it is only a few words stored electronically.