comprehension

today the lumster is 10 months old.  and tonight was the first time she clearly understood something i was saying.  they have been times when she could have understood something i said but it also could have been just that she guessed what to do, like for instance when i'm dressing her and say something like "now let's put the other arm through the sleeve" but today i was holding her and playing with her and i said 'look at the sofa' and i didn't point or anything and she turned her head and looked directly at the sofa.

just...amazing.  months and months of one-sided conversations, talking to this little person and knowing that eventually she would figure out that i was saying words, and that those words would eventually make sense to her, but still it was mind-blowing to see it happen.

Baby Movie

I just got back from Vauvakino, which is a monthly event put on by Finnkino, the major cinema company in Finland. The idea is that it's a movie experience where you can bring your baby. They don't turn the lights down all the way, and the volume is a little lower, and they have changing tables set up with piles of free diapers. Companies selling baby products come and market things, and there are little goody bags. And there are SO. MANY. BABIES. I have never seen that many babies in one place. I don't think I've even seen that many babies in one place in a photo or movie.

The theater used today has 459 seats. Not all were taken, but I would say almost every other one was taken.  And in each lap, or on the floor in a carry cot was a baby. Most babies I know nap around 12 or 12:30, so most babies were crying throughout the second half of the movie. And all through the movie, there were many kids sleeping, but still more prattling happily, others crying, and still others screaming. Lumi behaved awesomely and only cried for about 30 seconds at some point. The movie today was 'The Help'. I will have to see it again, because it seemed pretty good, and I missed some parts due to the aforementioned screaming.

Helsinki has a lot of great little things like this which make being a new mother easier. The theaters obviously don't have to do it, and I imagine that it is a fairly gross cleanup process afterward with the food scraps everywhere and diapers (there is a general rule about not disposing of poo-filled diapers in public, but even 200+ pee diapers is a lot). And if 200+ babies is visually amazing and stunning, 200+ strollers is fucking terrifying.

Beverages

I just drank one of these. It was less bad than I was expecting! Not a bad drink for a sultry summer evening.

Stripping Diapers

We stripped our diapers for the first time yesterday.  I understand it's something you're supposed to do monthly or so as a part of regular maintenance, but we haven't had a big odor problem before.  It's not too bad when we first take them off of her (though the night diaper can be intense) but now that we're down to washing every two days, the wave of ammonia smell that hits you when you open the pail to put the diapers into the machine is brutal.  So we stripped them, which is basically a really thorough wash.  Our normal wash for the diapers is pre-rinse, hot wash, then rinse, and we use about a third of the regular detergent amount.  For the stripping, we started with clean diapers (after a regular wash), then did a regular cycle but with the full detergent amount. Then we rinsed maybe 6 times.

We used disposable diapers while we were in the US and I am really happy to be back home and using cloth again.  Sure, there is the wonderful smug feeling, but the main reason for the happiness is that the fuzzibunz are just way way better at containing poo.  I have not experienced the poo-up-the-back phenomenon with the fuzzibunz, but it felt like we experienced it every other day with the disposables.  The disposables are great for the pee (you can go a lot longer before she is uncomfortable because it just absorbs so much), but they just cannot compete at the poo containment.  And we're not that good at the elimination communication yet; I can usually get one poo per day in the toilet but the second one is less scheduled and it usually goes in the diaper.

Shots

today i had my first experience at holding my baby to let someone else cause her pain. of course it was a vaccination and in the long run this should cause her less pain, but it's still a weird feeling. she got a shot in each thigh, and she cried (she didn't cry too much though and i was secretly very proud).

Apparently the US is #31

No One Has Been Shot

We made buckwheat pancakes today.  They were quite good!  We're trying to eat gluten-free for a couple of weeks, so this was a good find.

Words of Wisdom

"The object of Monopoly is to fully explore the sensations of boredom, sorrow and rage." - T-Rex

Mother-and-baby yoga

Lumi and I went to mother-and-baby yoga today.  It was great.  It was nice for me to get a solid hour of exercise, and Lumi seemed to enjoy hanging out too.  She's fairly immobile now, but most of the other babies were really cutely roaming around the room.  Adorable!

Taxes

I just finished my online tax return with H&R Block.  I have to hand it to H&R Block -- Turbo Tax was unable to get past the part where I'm married but my husband doesn't have a social security number.

Anyway, this was my first year doing my own return since I moved overseas, and I am very very very relieved to be done.

Keep Those Breasts Warm!

Today was supposed to be Lumi's first excursion out (to the nurse's office for a weighing - not the most exciting event), but when the temperature went below -20 this morning (that's -4 fahrenheit!) the nurse called and said she could do a home visit instead.  Anyway, among the advice she gave us today is that though I am allowed to go for walks outside, I need to make sure to keep my breasts warm, because it's easy to develop a breast infection when it gets this cold.  I don't know the physics of that (I'm picturing a frozen block of milk in the ducts somewhere backing things up) but I made sure to bundle them up when I went to the store.

How do overweight people do it?

Another activity that is a real bitch when you're 9 months pregnant: removing toenail polish.

I'm Still Pregnant

Thawing

It's one degree above freezing for the first time since the first big snow in November, and Helsinki's sidewalks are very slushy.  We can expect a terrifying world of ice when the temperature goes back down tomorrow.