When I reached about five months postpartum, every shower when I’d wash my hair, I would dread. Because then, I was losing clumps and clumps of hair each time I tried to comb. And it was miserable. I was wondering if I’d start developing bald spots. Luckily for me, I did not, and since I already have very fine hair, it wasn’t that noticeable. Now that Kaia is older and far more aware of her surroundings, she’s also very interested… in literally everything. She pulls on her nanny’s necklaces and earrings. She pulls at my ears and nose, tries to put her fingers in my mouth, and occasionally tries to touch my eyeballs. And the most painful thing she does? She tries to pull my hair constantly. I only have my hair down on days I wash it, so on those days… she goes crazy and tries to get as many handfuls of my hair as possible. And on the other days when I have it pulled into a pony tail or bun, she still manages to pull the loose or baby strands and tug until they come out. At one time, she’s gotten as much as five strands of hair pulled out.

Yep, this is what it is to have a rapidly growing and curious baby.

Kaia’s hair is growing quite fast now. As she’s almost 10 months old, she now has a natural deep part on her head, with long bangs being swept to her left side. We’ve mostly just been sweeping it to her left, but it’s been getting a little out of hand and still getting in her face, especially when she’s been rolling and playing around on the floor. I started looking at baby and toddler hair barrettes, especially clips that she can use through her elementary school years, and so many look cheap and flimsy. Others seem to look like they’d probably last one or two wears and break. Some seem like they’d have small parts that would fall off and end up as potential choking hazards. So I thought I’d spend a little more on some handmade ones that, fingers crossed, will last a while and still be wearable when she’s an older girl.

Well, that led me into a browsing session on Etsy, and I found a handful that seemed like they’d not only be cute but last a while. They are also lined and seem like they’d fit comfortably on a small head and stay put. They’re also good for fine hair, which Kaia seems to have, just like me. And… it also resulted in about $43 spent. I justified it in my head that these would last longer than cheaper ones that were mass produced… but in the end, I guess this is just a part of being a girl mom — accessorizing and making my daughter look cute is going to add up, apparently. At least I haven’t spent that much on clothing for her to date thanks to all the generous gifts she was given.

I have friends who went crazy when they had babies, especially girls, buying them the most expensive and ridiculously adorable outfits, just to be worn once or twice and then immediately outgrown and put away/given away/donated. I didn’t really want to be THAT mom and be that wasteful, even though I obviously did want my baby to look cute. We’ve been super fortunate and lucky in that we’ve had so many friends and family give Kaia endless clothing. The majority of these clothes were for 0-9 months, the last of which she’s finally wearing now, and most of which she’s already outgrown and I’ve bagged up for storage. I hate to say this, but pretty much all the clothes that were gifted to her via our baby registry I had to end up returning because she was gifted so many cute and fitting things outside of the registry. So when the weather starting changing this last month, the nanny commented to me that I needed to start getting Kaia clothes to match the season. So Chris picked out a few outerwear pieces, and I purchased some warmer, autumn/winter pieces for her today.

“Big spender!” Chris commented, when he saw the clothing transaction in our Mint account listed.

Well, not really. In her first 9 months of life, I think I purchased a total of six onesies for her… and mostly from Old Navy during a sale. So in other words, I was being el cheapo mom. I also got a few more for her 9-12 month period that she’s finally wearing now, but it’s not really enough. We had some thoughtful friends who purchased clothes for her in the 12-24 month range, as they had kids themselves and said they were gifted WAY too many newborn and 0-3 month clothes, and figured the same would happen to us.

I told the nanny that I made a small purchase of new clothes for Kaia, and that Chris called me a big spender. She laughed.

“Chris better get used to it!” the nanny exclaimed. “Babies need clothes, and baby clothes don’t come cheap, especially girl clothes!”

Although I dread autumn arriving every year, mostly because I know that means that cold, miserable winter is around the corner, I do look forward to the autumn and winter squash. I’ve never really been a fan of summer squash; I am lukewarm to zucchini and think yellow summer squash is totally overrated. However, Kaia was obsessed with zucchini and yellow squash. She could easy have an entire plate of both if we gave them to her. I thought maybe it could mean she’d also embrace autumn squash… but we haven’t quite been as aligned on this.

I bought a bunch of butternut squash, kabocha, and honeynut squash and lined them all up at our window sill by the dining table. I steamed some butternut and roasted butternut and kabocha and set a good portion aside for Kaia. Kaia liked the butternut when roasted (it’s definitely sweeter and nuttier this way), but avoided it when it was steamed. And the kabocha? Well… she ate a few bites of it when she was observing me eat it, but after I stopped eating it, she wouldn’t eat anymore. And unfortunately, I cannot mandate that our nanny eat the food while feeding Kaia.. because that seems a little mean and overly demanding.

Well, I guess she can’t like everything. But hey, I’m not giving up yet… She has to have this repeatedly before we can conclude she doesn’t like the kabocha. I love kabocha so much – ugh!

Last night, I was attempting to cut Kaia’s nails, and she screamed bloody murder pretty much nonstop, even when I was just trying to hold her hand… and even when I stopped to take a break and was just sitting on the bed with her. I don’t even think the nail cutting is actually what she hates the most: she really just hates not being in control of her own hands. The idea that someone would take control of her hands really drives her mad.

Other than the two night nurses we hired, who were both happy to help cut Kaia’s nails, no one other than me has cut Kaia’s nails… ever. Our nanny refuses to do it (she says she’s scared she will hurt her), and Chris refuses to do it. And as if Chris’s parents ever would have offered to do something that would require that level of detail. So really, this means that the stress of cutting her nails and the wrath she unleashes is totally on me. Given that my right wrist flared up after I knocked it yesterday, it made me feel even more miserable. There I was, in pain, trying to cut my baby daughter’s nails and dealing with her screaming nonstop as a result of it.

This moment actually made me realize exactly how easy of a baby my daughter has been to date, though, and how grateful I am for it. She’s fairly predictable, and she rarely is upset without a reason, unless it’s teething. I hear other people complain about their babies – not eating, not sleeping, screaming a lot, hating people. We’re so lucky she’s been this easy going. It’s made the transition to parenthood that much easier and more enjoyable for us.

I had been looking forward to the day when I could make Kaia baby pancakes. I’m a huge pancake lover and hope she would be, too. So the first pancake I made her is quite simple: it’s just a mashed banana, an egg, a little semolina and all-purpose flour, plus some ground up walnuts for extra protein and nut exposure. I cooked them on a buttered pan and served them to her in small pieces so that she could practice her “pincer” grasp (putting her pointer finger and thumb together) this morning. She hasn’t been a huge fan of bananas to date, so I wondered if she’d detect the banana flavor in the pancake. She didn’t seem suspicious at all, though: as soon as I laid the pancake half and pieces of it in front of her, she immediately grabbed the pieces and started eating.. and eating, and eating. She kept wanting more. At the end, she had about 1.25 pancakes, which was more than I thought she’d eat. She loved the pancake! And she got her fill of banana, too!

The next pancake I want to make for her is pumpkin pancake. It is autumn officially now, after all, so why not introduce her to pumpkin, yet another solid food, plus some pumpkin spices mixed together?

Chris left early yesterday morning for San Francisco, so when Kaia started crying at around 5:45am, I knew I had to get up and soothe her. The pacifier didn’t work, and she refused to go back to sleep. So I did what we normally do when she refuses to go back to sleep early in the morning: I took her to our bed. She played a bit but still seemed unhappy after, so I decided to feed her a bottle a little early. When the nanny arrived at 8am, I told her what had happened, and she suggested I take a nap in the afternoon. I knew that would be a bad idea for my rhythms, but also because I had a lot of meetings during the day, so it would be inconvenient. I’d just have to suck it up and get through the day.

By the time the nanny left, I’d finished my work day, plus my third pump, which meant I could spend quality time with Kaia and not have to worry about being restricted by an electric nipple sucker. Everything went well in the evening: we played, she crawled everywhere and even worked up a little sweat, we read books and sang songs. But by the time of her bottle feed, I realized her teething must have been bothering her because she kept rejecting her last bottle. She would drink about 10ml, then stop and push the bottle away. And after drinking about 180ml, she flat out started screaming and crying at the top of her lungs. In the end, it lasted only about 20 minutes, but it felt like an eternity. My poor baby was in so much pain, and nothing was calming her down. I finally got her to stop crying by offering some spoonfuls of cold water, plus I put her on top of the AC for some vibration and cold, and that worked. Her Australian baby Tylenol and syringe made her angry, and she kept refusing it until I finally forced it into her mouth. After some more cuddles and soothing, she was finally asleep by about 9pm, when I got ready to do my fourth and last pump of the day before going to bed.

Of course, all these issues in the grand scheme of things are tiny, and they could easily have been a lot worse with a more ill-tempered baby. But isn’t it just convenient that these issues happened on Chris’s first day away on his work trip?

This week is Salesforce’s biggest conference of the year, Dreamforce, so Chris will be away until Friday in San Francisco for that. In the meantime, it will just be the nanny and I looking after Kaia, so I’ll be responsible for feeding her in the morning as well as right before bedtime. Given that I usually pump at 6pm now for my third pump once the nanny leaves, I figured I’d push that pump up to around 4-4:30 so that my evening hours with Kaia would be pump-free, which would allow more quality time with her (and no fear of spilling milk everywhere).

Thinking about balancing pumping and feeding her was really rough in the first twelve weeks. It’s why I was annoyed when Chris said he’d go back to work after 7 weeks of leave… even though he had 26 weeks of family leave in total. The frustration of balancing that also led to him going back on leave after about three weeks back at work. In that time, Kaia also was eating inconsistently and sometimes would like to “snack” on her bottle, eating a little here and there, and when you are also pumping, that snacking can really drive you up the wall, especially if you are the only person looking after her. Granted, she was a newborn, so it was hard to be mad at her, but it was still frustrating nonetheless. A newborn or any baby has no idea that when you are pumping, you are trying to give them milk to survive; they just know that they want what they want — when they want it.

But while thinking about feeding her each morning before I pump, I thought even more about how much harder mothers’ lives are than men’s, particularly in the baby stage of a child’s life. If I had, for example, had a week-long work trip, Chris’s life wouldn’t really change that much: he’d still be bottle feeding her, changing her, and putting her to sleep. He wouldn’t have to feed AND pump the way I do. If I were away, I’d still have to pump four times a day at this stage, and then I’d have the stress of figuring out how to store and cart all the milk back (I get a milk shipment perk through work when I do business travel, but I’ve never frozen milk before. And I’m not sure if I have high lipase milk, which means that the milk could take an “off” flavor after being frozen, resulting in baby rejecting it.. and I’m a little scared to try it because I hate even the idea of tossing milk down the drain). Because of this, during this period, I really have zero desire to travel for work at all without the baby being with me. I think about all the moms who have written in pumping groups about how when they gave up pumping and switched to exclusive formula feeding, they felt so liberated and like they finally had quality time with their babies. And given the balancing act, I get what they mean and why they made their decision. At the same time, I still feel excited and proud of myself when I see a lot of breast milk bottles on the top left hand shelf of our fridge. My boobs have done good.