Up those calories, baby!

Hello everyone! Here's Claire enjoying he rewards of baking cookies with Mommy! No, these are not special baby cookies, just regular old oatmeal ones. Yum! And when I took her to the doctor's yesterday, I found out this actually could be construed as good for her!



We found out Claire is in the tenth percentile, weight-wise! So let's up that calorie intake! The doctor wasn't too worried about it; she just said to push that mommy milk. Claire's been refusing the bottle for the past month or so during the day at Maw-maw's house. The doc said it could be because her top gums are so tender from teething. Other than that, she's up to spec on all developmental milestones! But you better believe that I've been offering her all kinds of fatty and protein-rich foods today (mostly healthy ones!). Her fav foods right now are sweet peas, bread in any form, and pear. That could change next week, though! She couldn't get enough yogurt a couple weeks ago, and now she doesn't seem to care for it much.



Can we please take a moment to mourn the departure of the most, ahem, entertaining, shall we say, dancer on Dancing with the Stars? I miss Maks! My fave stars so far this season are Marissa, the original Broadway Tracy Turnblad whose positive energy is contagious, Marlee Matlin, the deaf Oscar winner who cannot hear the music but feels the beat through her partner, and Kristi Yamaguchi, who scored all 9's the first night! Yay for DWTS! But it's not the same without Maks.



Now, from reality TV to English poetry! That's me! I memorized a great poem today, to say to Claire. I just finished Burning Bright, by Tracy Chevalier, the author of Girl with the Pearl Earring who I got to go see a couple weeks ago in Dallas. (That makes about two complete novels I've now read over the break! One complete and two halves.) Anyway, Burning Bright is historical fiction about the poet William Blake in 18th century London. Chevalier included some of Blake's poems in their entirety at the end of the book, and I loved this one:

The Lamb

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Does thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life and bid thee feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice;
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Does thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek and he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child and thou a lamb,
We are called by His Name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee.
Little Lamb, God bless thee.