Massages and Baby Dolls

My precious pumpkin is foiling me every day this week!

Apparently her to-the-second 40-minute naps are no more, being replaced with 2-hour naps. This is fine AND FABULOUS except that I keep planning on her waking up at a certain time and all of a sudden every day she doesn't.

Friday she took a two-hour nap and we missed our scheduled Gymboree class. Monday she slept through my intended running date with a friend. Tuesday she snoozed through Mom's Group. Wednesday she slept through sign language class. Yesterday she was too conked out to attend Library Story Hour and Family Music class, but at least we made it to Baby Massage class. Each time she was put down with plenty of time to wake up based on her previous napping rituals, which have apparently officially changed. And I would have to be crazier than crazy than to wake her before she's ready. I'm trying to think of a scenario that would be important enough that I would consider it. Meeting a hot-phase pre-Angelina Brad Pitt? I still think I'd be like, Listen dude, you don't know about babies yet but someday you will and this one NEEDS HER SLEEP.

We'll see if we make it to Gymboree today.

At massage class yesterday, one of the first rules was to ask the babies if they would consent to being massaged. Ummm... Annalise does not so much respond to the spoken word just yet. But for the sake of the instructor, I asked.

"Can I massage you, baby?" Annalise spastically flapped her arms a bit, rolled vigorously away from me, and gruntingly army-crawled over to see about the baby next to her.

"Great!" said the instructor.

I took her back several times trying to massage her, but she flung her limbs about in rebellion, screeched that I had foiled her plans, and generally refused to lay in front of me entirely. Eventually I was instructed to practice my moves on the large plastic doll in the room. Annalise was squealing and smiling and having a grand one-sided conversation two inches from the face of a four-month-old receiving a leg-massage to our right, and I was getting grape-seed oil into the crevices of a less-than-attractive blob of bug-eyed plastic. It was pretty ridiculous.

Annalise spent her time trying to touch the sweet baby's face over and over, with much frustrating constant interference from Mumsy.

Then she spied... The Doll. What bliss! What thrill! She stared at his ugly mug with rapture and gently touched his face over and over in amazement. Her recognition of the fake face was so precious (and brilliant IMO!) that I swelled and nearly popped with love and pride. And made immediate plans for doll-shopping as soon as class was over.

When we got to the doll section of Toys 'R Us they did not have what I wanted, which was a life-sized realistic-looking baby with a decent face. Let me tell you something. Baby-dolls are hideous nowadays! And the good-sized ones aren't babies but toddlers, and their clothes aren't toddlers' but teenagers'. It was all very strange.

I showed Annalise about five or ten of the best options, which weren't great. She was sleepily cuddled up to me in her Ergo (way better on the back than the Baby Bjorn now that I know how to get her in there right!) and just stared without interest or movement when I showed her the first five or so dolls. I showed her the next one. She raised a slightly interested arm that couldn't be bothered to reach out and actually touch the doll. Then I showed her the Air Baby. Her face lit up. She smiled and smiled in delight, staring into its eyes with thrill. The Air Baby it was! Definitely too small and only medium-cute, but she had picked it so out it came with us. Then we went to Ross across the street and found it on clearance for $5.00 less. Score!

While at the fine Ross establishment, Annalise reached a big milestone. She rode in the shopping-cart seat for the first time! She was very accomplished at sitting up in it, as well as possibly contracting every germ from thirty-seven states. Hence making me long for the speedy arrival of the recently procured oh-so-chic toile-patterned shopping-cart seat cover, which purchase prompted Dave to exclaim, "You spent $41.00 on what?"