The Inagural Blog

I have avoided the blog peer pressure for the majority of our daughter's 17 months of life, with the exception of one Not-Me-Monday post seen below. My excuses for this are many, mostly related to the past year of excessive night/weekend call... but I have concluded that the heart of the matter lies in my inability to relinquish my obsession with Perfectionism. If I am going to do something, I am going to do it right, and the thought of maintaining the highest level of wit, cleverness, and narrative genius on a regular basis as I chronicle the events that transpire in the Golding househould is a bit daunting. Perhaps the biggest challenge I've faced as a doctor mommy, and even more so as a resident doctor mommy, is accepting that Perfectionism may not always be an attainable goal. Everything is about balance, and at some point sacrifices are necessary that preclude perfection in each of the roles I now find myself holding. A painful process indeed for someone who has spent 29 (precariously close to 30!) years meticulously pursuing Perfectionism in an often control-freakishly way. Soooo... as part of this character building process, I have decided to resurrect the Blog, accepting the fact that at times it may not be as witty, clever, or narratively genius-y as I might hope.

Now, to catch up on the past 17 months of Elledom...
Mom-bias notwithstanding, our daughter is the smartest, most inquisitive, wiggliest, funniest, sweetest, and most delightful toddler ever to grace this planet. She is constantly on the move (which makes for frustrating attempts to confine her to restaurant highchairs, shopping carts, etc)-- the last time she was still for 5 consecutive seconds I asked Jay if he thought she was having an absence seizure. Ha! She narrates life with an incessant stream of increasingly more coherent words and phrases. We are continuously amazed at her vocabularly that really seems to grow every day. When did you learn "purple"?! I asked when she jubilantly announced the shade of blueberry I had presented her with for breakfast. Some of her favorite words currently are:
Baby
Diaper
Potty
Bath
Burp (yep, burp)
Cook-in (referring to her play kitchen, I surmise a combination between kitchen and cooking)
Cheese
Nana
Apple
Dewwwww! (referring to Dad's dew, of course. When we offer the Dew to one of her Babies and ask if Baby can have Dew, she shakes her head adamantly and says Nooooooo! as if we are just being too silly)
Sausage (a personal favorite)
Milk
Water
Waffle (Va-val)
Cracker (with emphasis on the last syllable: Cra-KER
Yellow
Purple (not sure why she chooses the more difficult 2 syllable colors!)
More
Bubbles
Cup
Turtle
Giraffe (Raff)
Bear (Burr)
Dragon (Ga-gon)
Elmo
Up
Down (used much less often than Up, which generally means whichever position she is currently not in)
Out
Off (like up, typically means on or off, whichever is not currently the state of affairs)
Light
Hat
Shoes
Socks (another personal favorite, said with such convinction: Sssssssocks!)
Shirt (sometimes she will look down at her shirt and proclaim "Shirt!" as if she just discovered it)
Sit (unfortunately can sound a bit like a less socially appropriate word)
Hey (laced with southern drawl)
Hello (He-wo?, whenever she encounters a phone)
Bye/Bye-bye
Elbow
Animal (when she sees my iPhone which has an app of animal games)
Mama, Dada, Elle, Pawpaw, Nanny, Nana, Baba (attempted Grampa), Rah-rah (sarah at daycare), Nick (a friend at daycare)
Nap (universally accompanied by a passionate shaking of the head in protest)
Cheerios (Teeoos)
Brush (of the hair or tooth variety)
This (generic term for what she wants)
Ball
Book
Frog
Bottle
Mine
Bow

Do animal sounds count as words? If so, add Moo, Quack-quack (Cack-cack), Neigh, Baaaa, Oooh oooh (monkey-esque), Woof, and an un-spellable (albeit quite authentic) elephant sound

She can point to a host of body parts including: hair/head, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, teeth, hands, tummy, heart, toes

Enough extolling of milestones. And kudos to anyone who made it through this interminable post. Future posts will be much more concise, entertaining, and picture/video-containing. Promise.

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her/'>http://www.mycharmingkids.net">her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.


I did NOT buy my 9 month old a jar of VEAL because I thought it was hilarious that they even make babyfood VEAL, and I most certainly did NOT allow the Little Gourmet to gobble up the entire jar, debating internally the ethical dilemma of allowing my baby to consume pureed baby cow. I also did NOT mix in a little of the repeatedly shunned organic peas just to squeeze a little more utility out of the Beloved Veal. I am, however, waiting to see what PITA has in store for me...

I also did NOT allow aforementioned Animal-Rights-Disregarding baby to gnaw on my cell phone during an event requiring infant contentitude... which means I did NOT discover this morning that baby slobber must be toxic to proper functioning of electronic devices.



I did NOT allow my husband to put the baby's bikini bottoms on her head and let her play with the can of Pam... and of course it was NOT the Commercial High-Heat Pam that I most certainly do NOT buy because I have NOT fallen prey to the advertising conspiracy that has convinced me to pay more beacause it really does work better!








And finally, I did NOT capture this grunting, red-faced baby in the act of diaper-filling... nor did I manage to photograph the immediate post-grunty smile of relief!

Elle's new home

The nursery is finally done! And at 38 weeks, not a moment too soon!

They say the "nesting" phase sets in towards the end of pregnancy... I've read all about women in their 8-9th month breaking out the power tools and putting together the crib, stripping wallpaper, painting 10 foot ceilings, etc in preparation for the baby. Well, although no power tools were involved, I am rather pleased with my assembly skills of the morning (this from someone who has trouble connecting her own cell phone to its charger)... check out our gorgeous Pack-N-Play (half price, of course)-- with particular attention to all its PARTS! Yep, I successfully (I think) assembled each and every one and even had to use TOOLS! It even has a console that vibrates, plays music or nature sounds, and a nightlight and timer! Granted, I'm sure Jay, who is quite possibly the handiest bear in the forest, could have done it in half the time, but nevertheless I am very pleased with myself. Makes me feel a wee (albeit VERY wee) bit better about not having the nursery ready (furniture "promised" to arrive next week)... 

I also managed to assemble and install the carseat, which was much less intuitive than it might seem (or maybe I used my lifetime allotment of handiness on the Pack-n-Play). Don't worry, I'll have someone doublecheck my work! Can't believe little Elle will be here in 4 weeks! 

Shower at the Bolick's May 17th

Slightly out-of-order pics from shower hosted by Jay's mom and sisters-- how cute is my bootie corsage?! Also check out Sandy's gorgeous new kitchen! Hmmm-- I thought I was pretty rotund then! Little did I know...

The King (Queen) of Strollers

We never thought it would be us. Those people who go crazy with all the extravagant baby items, falling prey to the clever marketing and peer pressure and desire to get the absolute BEST for OUR baby... Then it happened. Here we are, innocently perusing Rolly's (first mistake... avoid baby boutiques at all costs-- baby warehouse (think Costco) style is much safer) when we saw IT. I'd heard of the infamous Bugaboo, and may have mentioned its extravagance to Jay at some point in the past, without second thought from either of us. But one-and-a-half steps into the store, and our ability to remain practical and economical faded faster than one of those Baby On Board window stickers. There, staring us in the face, was the limited edition, 007 Bugaboo. Mind you, Jay is perhaps the world's biggest James Bond fan. Add that to the world's coolest stroller, and we really didn't have a chance. Weeks passed while we valiantly tried to convince ourselves we certainly didn't NEED this stroller, which worked for 30-45 second periods of time. Then we realized we could use the Bugaboo's bassinet as an actual bassinet for the first few weeks we have her in our room and suddenly it seemed much more fiscally wise. At last, in typical Jay and Lauren fashion, we found the coveted limited edition 007 Bugaboo stroller, complete with an extra set of red fleece fabric, the adorable parasol attachment, breezy sunshade, and much-sought-after cupholder on Ebay for quite the steal... and conveniently in nearby Lake Norman. Clearly little Elle was meant to be strolled about in this, the Queen of all Strollers.