Week 13 started with a bang. We went to the library and then to school to see the yearbook staff. It was nice to see everyone, and the kids thought Lennie was adorable. She fell asleep in her sling while I heard all about this year’s chaos. I really miss all of the problem solving yearbook requires, but I’m glad that I’m staying home with Lennie. I can’t imagine ever leaving her for more than a few hours, although I know I will eventually.

Friday night was a welcome return to our “date night” with Dave and Karen. It’s been a couple of weeks since we got to hang out and even longer since we’ve had a long evening to just talk. Zac was his usual adorable self, and Ella was amazing. She gave me five repeated (both up high and down low), and I almost believe she did it knowingly. She also sits up and is just generally an interactive person now. She’s not a fan of “This Little Piggy,” however.

Lennie was happy for most of the evening, but she got a bit fussy when her bedtime rolled around and we weren’t in her usual environment. She’s definitely a creature of routine like her daddy. For the last several weeks, she has been willing to go to sleep if I lie down next to her and nurse her, if I rock her, if Daryl carries her around like a football, or if he rocks her on the patio swing. Frequently the patio swing routine is all that relaxes her during a fussy period. A couple of times it has been raining when we really needed the swing. I think we might have to move it into the garage before it gets too cold to take her outside in the evenings. That will necessitate some clean-up, though, because we are currently a storage place for my brother’s stuff.

Saturday was busy for Daryl, but lazy for Lennie and me. Daryl and I had optometrist’s appointments at 9 and 9:30, and afterwards we went to the grocery store. Lennie had a gigantic poopy diaper in the store, so I ended up going out to the car before Daryl was finished and changing her in the front seat. Boy was she mad! After we got home, Daryl went back out to buy mulch and mums for the bed around our mailbox. It has looked horrible since the mint died, and I’ve felt guilty that the people across the street have been trying to sell their house while our yard looks so bad. I really wanted to help with the yard work; I was actually dying to, but Lennie wanted me to hold her, so we found a lawn chair and supervised. We didn’t have quite as many mums as we needed, so Daryl grabbed two potted rosemarys from our patio and planted them with the mums. My favorite plant in our yard is a gigantic rosemary beside the front door, so I’m hoping the new ones will resemble it.

Sunday was very lazy. I made a ring sling, and it’s a huge improvement on my pouch sling. The fabric is also much better. It’s two layers of t-shirt material, so there’s some give. It has made the vertical hold, which Lennie and I love, possible. I took her to the park to swing while Daryl worked on his web stuff. Later I cleaned the kitchen while he played with Lennie. She’s been all about Daddy this weekend, frequently preferring for him to soothe her. In the early evening, she rode in the sling while I made a pie crust. Daryl held her while I made the filling, and we ate dinner while my first blueberry pie baked. After dinner, we went out onto the patio to swing and to have a very important discussion about how we were going to get ice cream to go with the pie cooling in the kitchen. We called to invite Abbey and Andy over on the condition that they bring ice cream, but those punks turned us down. I ended up leaving my two red-heads swinging in the back yard while I ran to the gas station for ice cream (and some candy for my chocolate stash). Dessert was delicious, warm and berry-y with loads of melting ice cream.

Monday has been amazing. Lately I’ve been a bit impatient when Lennie refuses to nap anywhere but on me during the day. I’ll have a million things to do, and I’ll forget to enjoy having a warm baby puddle sighing and sleeping in my lap. Today I decided that if I was going to be a napping place, then I should enjoy it. Who cares about vacuuming? When she napped I didn’t think of anything except how nice it is to be close to her. I kept looking down at her rounded little forehead and her ski-slope nose and her long eye lashes resting against her cheeks. She’s so beautiful that I get a little weepy thinking about her. I love it when she almost wakes up, but she starts sucking her tongue and puts herself back to sleep. It’s also pretty cute when she does wake up a little, but after smiling a bit, her little eyes start to close and I can see that she’s too asleep to focus. Who would have thought that seeing a baby’s eyes roll back into her head would be so cute?

Lennie and I went to the park twice today and walked around outside at least three more times. Usually it’s too sunny to have her outside much without a hat, and she fusses when she has to wear a hat, but today was overcast. We enjoyed our long walk and swinging in the park. She really enjoys swinging high while she’s safe in the sling. Lennie fell asleep while we all ate our dinners, some of us one-handed, and she has been asleep ever since. At sunset there were two huge rainbows outside. It was a beautiful ending to a beautiful day.

Lennie’s 12th week was pretty exciting. Not only has she done so many new things that I I don’t know where to start, her Aunt Ashley came home from college for the weekend. We didn’t get to see a lot of Ashley because she had so many people vying for her time. She just moved four hours away from her boyfriend, so obviously they needed to hang out. Fleda, Bo, and Terry also miss Ashley like crazy, so she spent a lot of time with them. We got to see her for a few hours on Saturday morning while Abbey, Fleda, Ashley, Lennie, and I were shopping for bridesmaids’ dresses for Abbey’s wedding. Lennie was pretty fussy, but it was still tons of fun. Ashley, Fleda, and I were all in one large, mirrored dressing room trying to squeeze our plump behinds into dresses and laughing uproariously at the sight. Meanwhile, Abbey was holding Lennie in her sling and having multiple pictures taken by the photographer who follows along at all bridal functions.

After shopping, Ashley had to run off to the UT/Florida game, but Lennie did get to see Terry when he picked Ashley up. This was probably their best visit to date. I suspect that he was hesitant to hold her when she was all floppy, but now that she’s bigger, he’s interested in playing.

That reminds me that we still need to pick a name for him. Daryl’s dad is already “Granddaddy” to our niece and nephew, so his title is taken care of. My dad has been calling himself “Papaw,” which I had intended to use for Terry because the kids call him “Papa.” Abbey suggested that Lennie call Terry “Pops” to stay close to papa without duplicating papaw. I suppose she’ll give him a name on her own. As for the grandmothers, Daryl’s mom is already “Grandmommy,” and my mother will be happy with nothing other than “Nanna,” which I’m not at all comfortable with. I called my grandmother that, and it’s not an option for anyone else. Mom can be “Grandma” or “Gram” or whatever else she wants, but nanna is off the table.

To return to topic, Fleda came home with Lennie and me after a stop to check out Andy’s aunt and uncle’s house, where Abbey and he will be getting married next May. It was cool, and the kids were adorable. Abbey, Andy, and Fleda all hung out for a while, and we ordered pizza.

On Sunday Daryl led a discussion on the philosophy of art, and Lennie fussed. I missed most of his talk while she was fussy, but I also had some fun with her by sitting her on the table (while I held under her arms, of course) and talking to her, which made her coo.

The week days were pretty normal other than Lennie’s developmental changes. She has become a sleep-through-the-night (most nights, anyway) baby. Her sleep schedule has become predictable. I know that if I start rocking and feeding her at any time after 8:30, I can expect to get her into bed within the half hour. She also predictably takes a nap around lunch time, in the early afternoon, and in the evening.

She has started gnawing on her fist and fingers constantly. We had started to think that she might be left handed, but now I think that we may have been premature. Her drool output has dramatically increased; she’s soaking through a couple of bibs each day. She’s easy to sing or talk out of a fussy spell now. She lights up when I sing or talk to her. I can fix most things with a rousing chorus of “Weenie Man.” She has started letting me shower while she sits happily in her bouncy seat on the other side of the clear shower curtain. Sometimes she does insist that I sing for my shower, though.

Abbey and I took Lennie to see my dad on Wednesday. We saw a beautiful blue heron eating a fish and hanging out in his front yard. I took a couple of pictures. We had a nice visit, and I hope we make it back over soon. He’s really good with her, and I know he enjoyed getting to see her again.

In not-so-positive news, Lennie has refused to take a breast milk bottle all week, though she took some formula from her dad on Thursday during a 45 minute crying jag when I went shopping with Abbey. She also isn’t interested in taking a pacifier any more. I am glad that she no longer likes her pacifier, but the bottle is problematic. Now that she’s sleeping through the night, I have to pump before I go to bed at midnight or wake up in pain in the wee hours of the morning. As a result, I have tons of breast milk in the freezer, and if the kid won’t drink it from a bottle, I have no use for it. I would give it to a human milk bank, but when I contacted the closest one, which is in Raleigh, NC, they explained that they have enough milk and aren’t taking new mothers. I hate to waste perfectly good milk, but it appears that I’ll have to. Another reason this is bad is that I had almost talked Daryl into a date with just the two of us. I think we could use a little alone time. Unfortunately, if Lennie won’t take a bottle, she may get hungry when we’re out and cry inconsolably as she did when she was alone with her pop on Thursday. I was gone for around an hour and a half, and she screamed for 45 minutes of that. Daryl was thawing breast milk, but when that wasn’t happening fast enough, he made a formula bottle, her first in well over a month. She drank a bit of the formula bottle, but promptly projectile vomited it onto Daryl. Then she wouldn’t take any of the breast milk bottle when Daryl tried to switch over. I’m flattered that she prefers to spend her meal-time with me, but I do wish that she would take the occasional bottle.

Abbey wants me to note that Lennie has the gas of your average 300 pound truck driver. Thank goodness she isn’t as smelly as she is loud. Abbey and Andy like to accuse me of making the very loud noises that the baby makes. She also grunts and groans when she has a visit from the poopy monster, who is a recent invention. He has a slightly tidier buddy, the peepee monster. Lennie is supposed to tell me when either monster tries to befoul her diaper, but the kid just won’t warn me. When I changer her, she laughs and laughs in response to questions about why she doesn’t tell me the poopy monster has been sneaking around.