5 Reasons why a Stroller Ride is Equivalent to a Roller Coaster for Babies

1. You have to hold onto the handlebars for fear of death! If you don’t believe me, see this picture. Obviously letting go of the handlebars will make you fall the 2 feet to your doom. Britanny has clearly forgotten that she is firmly strapped into her stroller…
2. You go over bumps all the time. This basically means that you keep being jostled from left to right, right to left, up and down, etc.
3. You can’t ignore the constant fact that you’re moving at someone else’s will, and this person might even feel inclined to take you off-roading! Let me tell you, strollers don’t always travel so well on the grass…
4. Sometimes you get so scared you pee your diaper. Don’t worry, it happens to the best of the babies. When you gotta go, you gotta go.
5. Most importantly, after all this, they are fun! There is nothing like a good stroller ride, even if you do have to go off-roading. Who wouldn’t appreciate being pushed around by someone else all day? As you may discover, going around in a stroller is extremely fun… just like a roller coaster! So why don’t you hop in a stroller sometime and save yourself 50 bucks?

What To Do When Your Baby Wants To Be an Electrician in Training

Run for the hills… you probably shouldn’t do that, since someone would call child services on you and then you would never see your little electrician again. What you should do is baby proof like crazy. That is what we did. You see, Britanny doesn’t seem to mind that there are 2 dogs running around our house or that one of them keeps food in her bowl. No, the important things to her are the little cords running behind things that mommy and daddy always pull her away from. She just knows that they are forbidden- which of course makes them the most exciting thing in the room.

When you have a tiny electrician wanna-be you can’t just pick them up and move them some other place (they will crawl back sooner than you can say “wasn’t it nice when they just lay on the floor”). You can’t just put a book or a toy in front of them. You see, these toys don’t fall into the baby code of awesome toys. For one, they aren’t forbidden. This is basically a deal-breaker, since only the coolest of toys make it past the “not-forbidden” stage. Secondly, they just aren’t as funny-looking as the little snakes winding all around the room. Thirdly, mommy wants you to play with this. Therefore, there must be something better out there!

There is only one time when you will be safe from your electrician:  when they are in that peaceful state we all desire. Unfortunately for me Britanny sleeps about as much as she leaves electrical cords alone. So now not only do I have a mini electrician infant following me around, but its one that never sleeps. This deadly combination means that not only am I wiped at the end of the day, but that I spend all my free time making sure cords are hidden from Britanny’s discerning eyes.
So hopefully the day will come with Britanny is no longer interested in electrical cords, where she ignores the tempting snake lying behind the furniture, choosing instead one of the dozens of toys awaiting her approval and attention. Until then, I guess I am blessed with an electrician in training- at least she isn’t trying to light fires or jump off tables. I’ll take what I can get.

My Baby is a Fish

I took Britanny swimming today. It wasn’t her first time swimming, but today there were very few people in the pool. This meant that she could truly stretch out her fins and splash everyone in sight. Remember how much Britanny loves to splash in the bathtub? This love is exponentially multiplied in a pool. It seems that each minute Britanny spends in the water is filled with more splashes than the minute before. Needless to say, as the person holding Britanny in the water, I would have been soaked whether it was my intention to get wet or not.

When Britanny gets in a pool you just know that she is a natural born swimmer. Its like she knows what to do- when to kick, when to move her arms, when to splash mommy so it hits her square in the eyes. Yes, Britanny is quite talented in all things water related. If she wasn’t already training herself to be an electrician (another story for another day) I would swear she is in training to be a mermaid. Who knows? They say you can have two careers now… Only time will tell.

4 Months in 4 Points or Less

I know that I haven’t written in a while- I was in school and then doing VBS. I guess my lack of writing is more of a testament to my busy life than anything else.

So what do you all need to know now?

1. Britanny has 4 (yes, count them- two top, two bottom) teeth. She does this really cute thing where she sucks in her bottom lip and looks like a beaver! If you just look at her top teeth you think “Boy, will she ever be needing some braces one day”… I’m trying to keep an open mind by thinking that this gap will inevitably get smaller as she gets more teeth to push them together. While she was teething I used to let her chew on a freezie while I had one- it was more so that I could have an excuse to have a freezie than anything. This has abruptly come to an end, since Aaron let her eat a freezie one night and she chewed a hole right in the bottom. Needless to say she was quickly covered in red juice.
2. Britanny is a monkey. She has mastered the ambitious art of crawling and is moving onto standing. I know that I have just a few months before I have an Olympic runner on my hands. Britanny seems to have a crazy sense of everything that is absolutely not acceptable for her to play with- and goes ahead and tries to get each and every one of them. We are at the trailer right now and she keeps trying to get the pair of slippers by the door. Every time they get moved or she does she goes straight for them. Its like everything electrical has a sign on it that says “here Britanny, play with meeeeeeeeeee”. Crawling Britanny could be called “trying to get into everything electrical” baby.
3. Britanny loves to eat. If she wasn’t so tall she would be the fattest kid around. Seriously, this cute little girl can eat like a horse (at least, a horse at her age). She can eat almost a whole jar of baby food in one sitting! That may not seem like a lot, but believe me, when your feeding her one spoonful at a time it is. She basically enters a baby food eating contest every time she opens her mouth.
4. 4. Britanny is as mischievous as both her parents combined, and she knows it. Every time she is crawling towards the dogs and you call her name, she slyly looks back at you, almost daring you to do anything about her actions. She knows she’s cute and she uses it to her advantage. If she is being bad, all she has to do is spit out a “dada” or a “mama” and you instantly melt. Try being mad at a baby who is smiling at you all the time. It’s practically impossible!

So this is the end of my Britanny catch-up. I hope to write more often- lord knows I have enough to write about. Not a minute goes by in our household without some sort of drama going on.

Until then, farewell. Or as B would say: “na-na-da-da-da-da-ya”

My Baby is a Bean Stalk

Britanny is an absolute giant. When you look at her around adults, she appears to be a small innocent baby. But the moment you put her next to babies who are easily months older than her you notice the difference. Let me make 1 thing clear: she is in no way a chubby baby. In fact there is often an obvious void at the front of all of her outfits. This occurs because Britanny is so long that she fits in the 6 month range of clothing (and has since she was 4 months) but cannot fill them out.
Let’s do some math. Britanny is in the 97th percentile for her height. 100 – 97 = 3 (inside we are all saying “why did I ever take high school math if all I do is subtract numbers from 100?) This number means that only 3% of babies at Britanny’s age are taller then her. Which says a lot! I’m hoping her growth spurt slows down, or else she will be the tallest non-mobile baby around.
Britanny’s height seems to put her in a very awkward spot in the nursery. All the 1 year olds seem to think that she is around their age, and therefore should be able to play alongside of them. Alas, all she can do is roll from one side to another (typically not all the way, she stops once she is resting on her side). This means that she often gets poked and prodded by other babies wanting to know why they are being ignored by the baby on the floor. She must seem like a defective baby to them. Here they are, some smaller than her, crawling around while all she can do is grab toys and shove them into her mouth. Such an alien concept to them!
Britanny doesn’t seem to notice that she is, in fact, a giant. All she seems to care about right now is the fact that while she has all the components of crawling down (moving your arms and legs) she cannot put them together in a functioning motion. And believe me, she spends hours trying to get this to work. So I’m not sure what is more saddening, that my baby is clearly taking after her Mommy and Daddy in terms of height or the fact that all Britanny wants to do is crawl, since she has no clear understanding of height. Im hoping that Britanny’s growth spurt slows down soon because I would really like her to stay in these clothes for a while- she should fill them out before moving up! If not, I may end up with a giraffe on my hands. Watch out everybody, Britanny is growing!

Being Caught With Your hand In The Cookie Jar

Or in this case, with the leaf of the plant in your hand. Britanny’s grandma Jen had a nice plant sitting in a vase on the counter. I say had because the vase existed until a few hours ago. At that point B grabbed the plant and tossed it onto the ground. There was a bang, and a wide-eyed baby looking around. Although she cannot talk, you could see that she was wondering what was going on. But we knew! She had pulled the plant trying to play with a leaf. Instead she threw it on the ground. If you had any doubts about the culprit, you had to look no further then Britanny’s hand. In it was a tightly grasped leaf- she was caught red handed.

Quite frankly I am surprised that this vase was the first thing that Britanny broke. This past month has been the month of pulling things out of Britanny’s grip. Anything that goes within a foot of Britanny's hands is in danger of being pulled and eaten. Dinnertime is the most risky, as she keeps reaching for the table cloth like there is no tomorrow. All she wants to do is hold all the dishes like a big girl. Unfortunately, as the vase so plainly proved, dishes should be scared of Britanny. It's only a matter of time before one of them ends up on the ground.

It's not that I don’t think that I can keep Britanny away from the dishes. It is the fact that I am extremely clumsy, and I know that this has been passed down to my daughter. We have lost many a dish to my hand-eye coordination (or lack there of). That’s why I keep non-expensive dishes around. I knew it was only a matter of time before Britanny’s clumsy gene kicked in. Today’s vase experience just confirmed that in my mind. So beware all breakables- the Gallea girls are coming after you whether we know it or not!

You Find Them In Your Socks

If you, like me, took off your socks after reading this title, never fear. I’m not talking about anything disgusting here, I promise not to branch off into the many strange places these things take you. For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, I’m talking about feet. We each come with a pair, and throughout our lives use them for various activities. You can walk with them, kick people with them, or even use them to pick things up! I have never particularly liked feet- in fact, I tend to find them slightly off-putting. Its not so much the fact that they are always on the ground that bothers me so much as the way they look. Call me superficial, but feet are weird! Obviously some people have much more attractive feet than others. Britanny’s feet are absolutely adorable, while other pairs of feet are somewhat less desirable.

There are two main applications of feet. The first is probably pretty obvious: we use them to walk around. Since that is so clear (and slightly boring) I am not going to divulge deeper into this application. The second application of feet is the ability to dress them up in cute shoes, and to showcase them with cute pants! I’m not biased or anything, I just think that everybody loves to accessorize their feet. You can’t always wear the right mitts to go with an outfit (its often too hot for them) but shoes are much more socially acceptable! Has no one seen the “no shoes, no shirts, no service” signs? We value shoes! Unless your Britanny, in which case you kick your shoes off more than you kick off your socks (which is a lot)!

Its too bad that Britanny doesn’t like to wear shoes, because I have so many different pairs of shoes that have been given to her. And they are amazingly adorable. When she does wear them you can’t stop from being amazed at how cute her feet are. Whenever I see her shoes I have the incessant need to put them on her and show her off. Unfortunately she doesn’t even make it out the door with the shoes on her feet. I will just have to wait until she is older before letting her wear shoes all the time. After all, she has to get used to shoes before she starts running everywhere!