7 months of babyhood

Some thoughts on Piper and parenthood:

• cloth diapering gets harder as the baby gets more wiggly. i'd like to just use disposables but now i feel guilty since i have the diapers.
• making your own baby food is really fun. it's sorta relaxing to find some new fruit/veggie, peel it, slice it, steam it, mush it, package it up and then see her enjoy it later in the week.
• i am so glad we put her on a sleep schedule. she goes to sleep so easily. we just plop her in the crib and she talks to her stuffed animals friends and then drifts off.
• a friend called me last night for some breastfeeding help for her newborn. i couldn't believe that i was the one getting a phone call when it seemed like just yesterday it was me with the bleeding, sore (oh gawd the soreness) boobies. btw, my friends baby was 2 oz below his birth weight at his 4 week checkup..yikes!
• when i was talking to my friend i found myself telling her the exact same things SA and Xta told me when I was 3 weeks postpartum. how it gets so much easier at 6 weeks, then 12 weeks. how breastfeeding will get so much easier. going out and running errands will be no problem really soon. the baby will be sleeping through the night with no problems in just a few weeks. i remember them telling me all of that and i was all "uh, i'm 3 weeks postpartum and you are telling me that things don't get real easy for another 9 weeks?" but in a blink of an eye you are at 7.5 months postpartum and it's second nature.
• being away from piper part-time is perfect for me. i love the opportunity to have some "me time" and to learn and work on a personal goal. but i'm still there by lunchtime to get her, nurse her and put her down for her afternoon nap. besides when i have a full class load in nursing school i don't ever want to work full time until our children are much older.
• patrick and i are definitely in our parental groove now. we are getting much more one-on-one time with each other now and feel like we have our own little gender roles with her.
• it is amazing how fast you go through baby stuff. it seems like basically all baby items are useful for about 3 months and then the baby outgrows it/gets bored of it. if SA and Christa and I all lived in the same town we would literally never have to buy any baby stuff...it could just get rotated around until the item falls apart.
• the breastfeeding weight loss thing has finally caught up to me and all my clothes are getting really big on me. toot toot!!! i only have one pair of jeans that i can wear now without having to cinch the waist up like crazy.
• speaking of breastfeeding: having a baby who is all excited about her newly found sense of motion is both adorable and scary when you are nursing. now piper likes to nurse and practice rocking back and forth at the same time and it makes me feel like a human milk machine. the days of her lying still while she nurses are gone as well as all nerve endings in my boobs from her ripping her head off the boobie to look around.
• whatever i'm choosing to worry about/obsessive about regarding piper has a 1 week lifespan before i move on to the next issue. i was worried she wasn't into eating solids and i was starting to imagine her going to preschool with mushed baby food and in the last 48 hours she's been ALL into solid foods (broccoli florets, pulled pork, cheerios, peaches, shredded cheese) and so whew, i'm done with that and now i'll move on to something else.
• we applied for piper's passport today and it still blew my mind to sign my name to her application and list "mother" next to it. thankful isn't a word big enough for how i feel.