First, go and read Tash’s post about a lovely new drug called Makena. She explains it so well.

A drug that has been successfully used to treat preterm labor for very little cost, mixed by pharmacies, is now going to be made by a big pharmaceutical company with FDA approval (under the Orphan Drug Act or somesuch). Big Pharma of course will be the only maker of this newly-FDA-approved drug. Instead of $20 per dose? Makena is going to be $1500 per dose. They’re trying to justify it, but I don’t see how it’s even possible to justify that.

All I can think is fucking assholes.

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Today I used the My Ride to gauge my feelings for it compared to the Boulevard. Know what I discovered? I like it a lot more than I previously thought. Kate does, too. She’s still not a huge fan of actually being snugged into the harness, but I’m getting the idea that’s a toddler/age thing, not a seat thing. But the harness and buckles on that thing are just so much nicer to me! I can get her in and out much more quickly, and it doesn’t irritate me. It also apparently doesn’t bug Kate either, since she was babbling and grinning at me (except for the tightening it part). Plus it’s cuter.

Then when I came home I looked it up on Amazon just for shits and giggles. One of the girl patterned My Rides is on sale for $115. I said, “Screw that!” I filed for a product return for the Britax, printed out the shipping label, and wrestled that thing back into the box and slapped the shipping label on it. I’m getting another My Ride for Den’s car. And if it totally sucks forward facing in a few years I’ll replace them with a Graco Nautilus. Combined it’s the same price as the Britax. So there. Done.

I feel so much better now.

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When at 6pm the husband astutely notes that the baby looks really tired the correct answer would be make her stay awake by all means necessary. The wrong answer is putting her down for a nap. And then not waking her up for 2 hours. Because now? It is 11pm and she is walking circles around my chair, whinily demanding I come play with her, while at the same time resisting every attempt to put her to sleep (read: screaming like an angry raptor). She’s not even particularly tired. My dearest husband, on the other hand, basically fell asleep in the middle of a sentence, so I’m stuck with the awake, unhappy child by myself. Fantastic. I don’t know what I was thinking.

12:30 and I finally got her to fall asleep… and it was a good half an hour of me rocking and patting her in the dark of her bedroom.

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Suddenly I noticed that her head is bumping the underside of my desk when she’s walking around. She had half an inch of clearance last week (okay maybe not that much, but she wasn’t close). She’s going to be really ticked off when she whacks her head with the next growth spurt. She already can’t walk underneath our dining table and she’s constantly getting “stuck” and crying because she doesn’t know how to duck, so she just repeatedly tries to walk forward and gets her forehead bonked every time.

Just this week she’s figured out how to put the balls back in her gumball machine. (It was a free toy. Balls go in the top, you press a lever, it plays a song, and out pops a ball.) She figured out the “out” part really quickly, I just had to sit there constantly putting them back in for her. This week she is deliberately picking up the ball and dropping it in the top, the pressing the lever and watching it come out the bottom. It feels like such a leap in understanding, moreso than just a coordination thing. She used to hit the lever until all the balls came out and then keep pressing it and get confused, like she thought there should be a magical limitless supply of balls. Now when she presses the lever and no ball comes out she immediately looks around for a ball to put in the top.

She is climbing and exploring. Her walking is picking up speed, which means she can get further away from me in a shorter amount of time. Good luck setting her down while I try to do something foolish like set up her travel highchair. She’s off trying to eat things off the floor. Or walking over to people and grabbing their leg (she’s a very friendly girl). Or just walking off. She can climb a flight of stairs and she is stepping up on things to reach higher.

She’s also figured out how to get off her bed mattress in her own room: she slithers forward enough that her hands touch the ground, then she continues slithering until her knees are on the ground. This works great on her 5″ high mattress. Unfortunately she thinks the same method will work just as well on our bed and other furniture.

Best of all she is entering into the age of angry raptor screeching. This past week with the screaming only highlighted it, but it has become a daily fixture. They’re typically short, ear-piercing screeches full of rage. You blink and it’s over and she’s distracted, playing with a toy. You could almost pretend you just imagined it. Except it happens with some regularity throughout the day.
“What the hell was that?” Den asked me today with a look of surprized concern.
“That?” Kate arched her back again and screeched again when I still wouldn’t let her lean forward to bang on my keyboard while I was writing. “Oh, she’s just angry.”
Reasons for raptor-screeching include the aforementioned no-keyboard-banging; being held when she wants to be put down; being stuck under a piece of furniture; and the biggie, being put to sleep. If she’s wicked tired it’s not a problem, but like tonight when I know she’s tired and needs to sleep but she doesn’t know it… angry screeching when I lay down with her, and she gets very very angry when I hold her tight and try rocking her to sleep. That method is pretty much not working at all anymore. (Plus I think my eardrums are damaged.) If I let her go she returns to happy-Kate but does not become sleeping-Kate. If I continue to hold her tight and whisper and sing and rock she remains raging-Kate. I have to stand up with her and hold her against my chest (but not too tight!) and bounce and hope like hell she realizes she’s tired and puts her head down. Once her head is down and she relaxes I’m golden. But getting there… not so fun.

I am so not ready to have a toddler.