Holiday Milestones

Not sure how auspicious it is to begin the new year looking backwards, so going to try to finish the holiday wrap up today. But what better way than to commemorate a couple milestones achieved by both mama AND baby over holiday in New Mexico?

MILESTONES - the good, the bad, the ugly:

GOOD (Baby)

The most important of all the milestones is of course the graduation from one nickname to another. By general family concensus, it was decided that our little girl was no longer acurately represented by her nickname, the Piranha. In fact the breastfeeding is going very well now. We breastfeed exclusively in New Mexico and it was wonderful - she had one top up bottle I think the whole time. I have made my peace with the fact that I simply don't get enough for her via a pump. So as long as I am working, I have to accept that at creche she'll need formula in addition to what the pump can extract. Hopefully she'll be ready for solids very soon and that will help with eliminating night feeds (aka sucky having to get up 2-3 times a night moments). And it must be admitted we have been using the new nickname at home for a while now, the Munchkin. It does derive from Piranha, because it also can be Munchy or the new favorite, Munchy Moo. I have no idea where the moo comes from - OH used to work as a brand naming consultant and so we are getting fun nick names all the time as a result.

Developmental milestones: 
Munchkin is getting better and better at using her hands, holding herself up straight in a sitting position, goo-ing and ga-ing, etc. I think she is reading the same baby books as us because if you go down the checklist of things kids can do at 4 months she is doing them all. This kid is if nothing else punctual.

BAD (Baby)

Thumb is discovered! Only we are not sure if she has really FOUND her thumb. She's discovered her mouth and hands in general and it's not entirely clear that she is favoring the thumb above all digits. She's certainly not using it to self-sooth at night in place of a dummy/pacifier. I had earlier harbored hopes she would become a thumb sucker if it would eliminate the dummy but now that it is happening I am not sure I feel so positive about it. You can throw away a dummy - obviously not the same case for thumbs.

THE UGLY (Mama)

I am proud to announce that I finally have a valid driver's license again! Sure, it took me five years to get it sorted again, but what matters is that it is done, right? Why did it take FIVE YEARS? Longtime readers will recall that I moved to the Netherlands and evidently completely forgot about the need for driving cars because my then valid driver's license expired and I didn't notice for about 6 months. By then it was too late to switch it over for a Dutch license. Turns out in certain states if your license expires you will need to go into a DMV office in person to get a new one. As that wasn't really going to happen and I didn't really need to drive I let the matter sit. And sit. Eventually I got married and realized it sucked having only one person who had to do all the driving. The driver's test in the Netherlands, however, is a Proper Test. It costs between 800 and 1200 Euro to take (you need to clock some practice driving time via lessons + the exam costs) and is notoriously difficult because you actually have to know stuff about driving & roads. By contrast, the New Mexico driver's license costs 54 bucks. 

Learnin' to drive on the mean streets of Albuquerque

I actually did try to get a NM license a couple years back but was foiled by paperwork after a delightful 2.5 hour wait at the DMV. This year I came PREPARED to get a license or die trying. Because it had been ridiculously long since my last license exipired I had to do the written and practical exam. I can tell you that the rigorous written exam in New Mexico is 30 multiple choice questions covering minutea such as "what does a yellow line in the middle of the road mean? ". I was a more bit nervous for the practical exam, but 5 right turns & a U-turn later I passed that too. To be fair, I did have to "parallel park", if by parallel parking you mean pulling to the side of an empty residental street.

In short, 20 minutes of testing and 90 dollars later, I had a valid driver's license. And the picture isn't all that bad either.