Auma called me the other morning to tell me about a dream she'd had in which she and Luciya were playing around and giggling, when Luciya looked up at her and in our now-infamous drawl said, "Lipstick on my teeth."
Thank you all for coming to our home for this holiday that we have been planning since before we moved here!
Love,
Emily and John
Dear Monkey Monkfish McMonkBone,
You turned seven months old last week. 
I apologize for not writing this sooner, but as you know we've had a busy past couple of weeks, and with four people sleeping in this office alone it was tricky to get to the computer.
You turned 7 months old the Monday before Thanksgiving. I'm going to merge two posts into one here, because the first week of your eighth month was such a wonderful, busy, unpredictable, delightful time. We had your daddy's entire family staying with us -- eight people in all -- including your sister, Eryn from L.A.; your Grams and Papa Bug from San Diego; your Grandpa Dave from L.A.; and your Auntie Teresa, Uncle Matthew, and cousins Syona and Devon, who drove with Grams for 16 hours straight to get here! 
Needless to say, you have been the center of lots of adoring attention and, even though you caught your first cold during their visit and have been a snotty sneezy sniffle-head, you have been a champ.
So much happened around the house this past week, including the first snowfall of the year last Tuesday morning. Your daddy woke up and saw it first: fat, lazy white flakes drifting onto our white backyard. We woke up the entire house and all got bundled (even Mila!) to go play. What a way to mark your 7-month birthday!
On Thanksgiving Day, we had 15 people at the house to celebrate. Tutu, Uncle Adam, Granddad, Auntie Danielle, and Great Grandma Leona were all on hand to sit around the makeshift tables in the dining room. It tickled my heart to see the room filled with all the people who are most important to your daddy and me, all gathered together and eating awesome food. (Really, the food was great. Good job on the food, everyone.)
You also had fun riding with your cousins on the hay bale-lined trailer that Daddy borrowed from the neighbor and hitched to the lawn mower. We showed those Californians a thing or two about Idaho! (Including what it's like to wake up to a 25-degree morning. Even I haven't done that in a long, long time!)
So, Thanksgiving was wonderful. Even though minutes before the family arrived after their day-long trek,
- the pipes in the laundry room burst and flooded a portion of the room. Then the next day,
- Mila got out of the house without her collar, was picked up by the Humane Society, and only got returned to us after a $77 fee and an appointment for a court date at which we'll have to plead guilty for having a "dog at large." That night, I had a bit too much to drink and
- I fell down the stairs. My elbow hurts! When we woke up the next morning we discovered that
- you caught your first cold. My poor baby, you have just been a dripping snot pot and therefore miserable because you don't feel good and you don't know why. Hence,
- your 3-week record of sleeping through the night has been quite interrupted, and you woke up 3 or 40 times a night for the duration of Thanksgiving week. Thankfully your daddy had a few days off, which gave him time to be with all of us and also to run to Lowe's to buy and install a new toilet tank because
- the toilet tank of our cool, turquoise, 1960's toilet in the upstairs bathroom unexpectedly cracked wide open and gifted us with, yes, another mini flood.
But like I said, awesome holiday.
And as for you, my wee 17 pounder, I am fully expecting you to be zooming around the entire house at any given moment. You are SO CLOSE to crawling! You move and shake your little body (which you have amazing control of these days) onto all fours and rock for a bit before launching towards your toy, or your mama, or the rocking chair. But just because you can't officially crawl yet doesn't mean you can't get around. Just now, I had to fish you out from under the futon couch because you managed to roll, wriggle, and squirm your way across the room! Time to finish baby-proofing!
You are a funny little noise maker these days. Aside from your raspy snot-breath breathy-wheeze, you are a bonafide raspberry blower, certified yelper for attention, doctor of babble-ology. And I swear you can say "hi." Maybe not on purpose, but you've said it. "Hi!"
There is one language you have perfected in the last few weeks: Clingon. You have been a needy little mama's girl, not all the time, but enough to make me tiptoe and duck through the room if you're temporarily happy in the arms of another. You burst into tears if I walk away and you're happy as a clam the secon you're back in my arms. This separation anxiety thing isn't supposed to start until you're 8 or 9 months old, but it's supposed to signify our healthy bond. And really, deep down, it's kinda cool to know that you only want your mommy. That's me!
My dear, if I don't see a tooth bud very very soon I think I will order you some baby dentures just so I can say "See!? Teeth! I told you!" Come on up, lil toofers. We're waiting. We know you've been causing pain and anguish in this little one's mouth for (maybe?) weeks now. Where are you? I'm so sorry this is taking so long, Luciya. But don't worry. This discomfort will all be worth it when you are able to clamp down on mama's nipple and make her howl! You have been dealing with your gummy gums by make a "grandpa face" and sucking in your lips to chomp on them. We all point and laugh. Ha, ha, Denture Face!
I now have two boxes of clothes that you have outgrown. You are done with most of the 3-to-6 month sizes and are wearing many 6-to-9 month onesies. Pants are different matterm though: you can still fit into some size 3-month pants. Are you going to inherit your daddy's stumpy legs? We shall see. 
Sweet, dear Luciya, my kicky rolly flappy grabby squeaky squealy drooly bibby baby... I love you so much! You are my favorite person.
Love,
Mama
P.S. I found two of the missing baby socks!
Ton Ton: "See, why can't she be like this all night?"
Shemmy: "Well, how would you feel if you were in pain, and you had your first cold, and you were just learning to crawl?"
Ton Ton: "I'd be thinking, 'I'm exhausted, I need some sleep!'"
Ahhhhhtumn.
Autumn is my very very favorite season. I love the smell of wood smoke and Halloween apples, the chill-bitten mornings and the brisk-blue days. The color palette makes me giddy. I love thick sweaters and patterned socks (oh Man, I could go on about socks. Not baby socks this time, my socks. Everyone's socks! Everyone wears socks here! It's so fun to wear socks again, and to plan on wearing socks with your outfit every day. And the sock options! I am definitely investing. But I digress....)
I am particularly giddy this year because I have not experienced my favorite season for seven years. Isn't that a trip? I mean, the last time I had a proper Fall I was in college in Ashland. I was dating Andy, for godssakes. Sheesh. And now here I am, with crunchy brown leaves literally raining all around me. Yipee!
But as much as I love a yard with a nice shag carpet of crinkly gold, when one has an acre of land and giant tress all around, one must bust out what Alex Trebek called a "long-handled gardening tool [which] can also mean an immoral pleasure seeker."
No, not a hoe.
A rake.
Yay for Autumn!
Of course, after I wrote last night's post about how awesome it's been that Luciya has slept TWELVE HOURS STRAIGHT for five out of the last 6 nights, she decided to mix things up a little last night and give us a one-hour mumble-moan-whimper-yelp-scream -arama starting at about 3:45 am.
This was the pattern about 2 weeks ago, when Luciya started waking with piercing, unsettling cries at about that time AND before and after, so much so that we were near desperation when we asked her pediatrician what could possibly be the matter. Her answer? "I don't know."
C'mon, give me anything. A maybe, a could be, a teeny tiny chance that there is this one perchance possibility that she is ________________. But no. So we went to another pediatrician. And we liked her so well that we decided that day to have Luciya's records switched to her office (which, incidentally, happens to be the very same office I went to as a wee youngster!).
The new doc said that Luciya's cries could be a form of early separation anxiety and she had developed this yelp because she realized it would get us in the room. This made sense since only the day before Luciya had started crying when I left her with her Tutu! I'm not quite ready for this separation anxiety thing, especially since it's not supposed to start for another couple months. But we took that into account.
Another thing Dr. Angie suggested is that Luciya might be teething. I KNEW IT!!!! Thank you, thank you, I feel the same way. Well, I have felt the same way every time she fussed in the middle of the night since she was 3 months old. Oh, she must be teething. Yep, definitely teething. But now, for reals, we think she is. Just starting to. Just feeling it. No way she's not teething.
Another thing that Dr. Angie mentioned that really hit home with me was the difference between "behavioral" and "nutritional" breastfeeding in the middle of the night. I realized that my 5 minutes with Luciya probably weren't giving her a whole lot of nutritional value, just a bit of comfort.
So, we stopped going into her room when she bawled. Man, it's been hard. All my brain can say after 2 nights of hour-and-a-half-long screamfests is "bwauuuuuallllpphhhhhhhhhaaaarrrrrkkkkooghhhhhllllllllllluuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhggggggggg." Torture.
But then, on Friday night, October 26, she did it. She slept. For THIRTEEN HOURS STRAIGHT. I didn't; at 5 am I was peering over the crib rail to make sure she was alive (she was), but damn it felt good. She did it throughout the weekend, too, even though she and I were in a strange place (Portland, visiting her Aunty T and Uncle Colby and future husband Jenner). Okay, Saturday night was a little rough because she got her legs stuck between the unfamiliar bars of Jenner's crib, but other than that she has been a champ.
Until last night. But it was Halloween, right? Spooky vibes in the air and whatnot. Maybe all those bucky jack-o-lanterns made her gums jealous so they decided to push a little harder. But she's gonna sleep again tonight and then every night until she's eighteen. Awesome!
