Crawling!

Hooray, Calliope is crawling at last!

I was surprised to observe how very relieved and also joyous I felt when it finally happened. I mean, everybody crawls, right? Or not, but either way, it's not really all that important in the scheme of things, in the normal, healthy baby.

Reading and participating on a SMC topic of "getting off the merry go round" in terms of comparing our children made me realize how quickly I've gotten sucked into this. I mean, I don't want to compare Calliope to other babies. It doesn't matter when they crawled, or when she does! So I'm a bit embarrassed that I'm happy about this.

Anyway, she's very cute when she crawls -- a mixture of using both knees versus one knee and one foot.

In other news, I finally went to the podiatrist this week because my foot's been hurting for ages but it's been getting worse, despite regular treatments from the chiropractor. I was officially diagnosed with plantar fasciitis (which I suspected) and heel spurs.

Unfortunately, I was told that I have to take at least two weeks off from running, just when I was finding my groove with it, and also that I can't wear flip flops anymore. Like, ever. I also have to wear nothing but running shoes for the time being. I cheated this past weekend because I was at a bar mitzvah, and mostly wore flip flops, figuring they were better than heels, and I definitely regret it. I did a lot of walking in them -- life in NYC -- and my foot definitely feels worse now.

The podiatrist took an x-ray but I won't get the results until this coming Wednesday. I'm hoping it's nothing too serious.

This past weekend was my cousin Joe's bar mitzvah. Lots of family time and many, many cousins poking and squeezing Calliope. She handled it remarkably well, but didn't want to be held by anyone else. I have very tired arms as a result. We unexpectedly decided to spend the night in Manhattan with my brother since Calliope's Sunday morning swim class got cancelled (no need to rush back to Brooklyn as a result) and it was, well, not my best night's sleep. Calliope got freaked by being put to bed three hours late (she'd been napping for much of the previous two hours in the Beco... my back was killing me) in an unfamiliar bed and screamed until I took pity on her and brought her into bed with me. When my brother came back, I transferred her to the crib (he and I were sharing a king size bed... not awesome but what can you do). Then when she woke up at 3 am, he said it was okay to bring her back into bed.

So I was already sleeping on the edge of the bed, plus my brother was talking in his sleep like crazy -- mostly baby talk, weirdly enough -- and then I had this little barnacle that was stuck to my side for much of the night. I had a crisis of faith at one point, thinking I would never get back to sleep and why on earth had I done this -- but it passed and I did get some sleep.

I didn't pump on Saturday morning so among other things, at 3 am, I was feeling hard and painful lumps in my breasts and wondering if I was getting a breast infection. But I nursed a ton today (helped by being lazy about taking the time to feed Calliope her purees while on the go) and the lumps and soreness are gone so perhaps I was just engorged? I haven't felt anything like that since my milk first came in.

I'm feeling pretty guilty about how little sleep Calliope got last night and the fact that she only took one nap today -- I took a long walk through Central Park on the way to the post bar mitzvah brunch this morning so she could sleep in the stroller, but she refused to nap. She only slept in the Beco on the way home. And was exhausted tonight, and started sobbing mid-bite of chicken/veg/quinoa. Poor girl.

In a bit of exciting news, despite the hectic weekend, she successfully used the potty at least five times both days! I'm reading up on potty training at a young age, since I'm pretty sure what I am doing doesn't count as "EC" -- there's no communication, I just put her on the potty at specified times -- after meals and after naps. I just added in "after outings" and am having good success with that. Apparently babies don't really like to pee themselves in the stroller or carrier.

Time will tell. I'm trying not to get obsessed with it, but it would be cool to be done with diapers sooner rather than later. A big environmental and financial savings, for sure!

Of course, I've heard that "potty pauses" are common when your baby learns to crawl or walk and will have nothing to do with the potty, but comes back to it, weeks or months later, none the worse for the pause. So I am trying to keep my expectations low.

Speaking of finances... I'm in contract for the apartment! The sellers finally signed last Friday!