{"id":634,"date":"2006-02-06T12:22:00","date_gmt":"2006-02-06T12:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship.html"},"modified":"2006-02-06T12:22:00","modified_gmt":"2006-02-06T12:22:00","slug":"the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship.html","title":{"rendered":"The Beginning Of A Beautiful Relationship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today, Baby is three months old. Or 12 weeks, which doesn&#8217;t translate exactly into three months on the calendar, but you get the picture. She&#8217;s a big girl now!<\/p>\n<p>Which is to say, according to Karp and others who argue that the first three months of a baby&#8217;s life is in effect a &#8216;fourth trimester&#8217; of fetal development, she is no longer a fetus! Yay!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px auto 10px;text-align: center\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7878\/2181\/320\/Emilia%20020.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/> <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><i><font>Fetus or baby? You decide.<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">So even though this isn&#8217;t, technically, a birthday, it&#8217;s a day for celebration.<\/p>\n<p>Because, for one, if Karp and everyone else are correct that the first three months of a baby&#8217;s life would, were it not for the, er, limitations of the female anatomy, otherwise be spent in the womb &#8211; thereby extending pregnancy for another ghastly 12 weeks, never mind the worse, nay unspeakable, part where we would have to pass the gigantic creatures through our nether parts &#8211; (pause for breath) because if they are all correct about their fourth trimester theory then I for one am PROFOUNDLY grateful to babies everywhere and to mine in particular for having the decency to come on out and do the last stage of their growing in the cold light of living day. Because people? She&#8217;s BIG now. At least she seems so to me. And I&#8217;m really freakin&#8217; glad that she did that growing outside of my body. So props and cheers to Baby Emilia for doing right by her Mommy!<\/p>\n<p>AND it&#8217;s a day for celebration because, above all else, on that day twelve weeks ago when her little fetal self burst out to do the rest of her growing outside, she became the all-time, no-contenders, greatest gift that I ever have received or ever will receive. Because watching and helping her grow has been and will always be the biggest honour of my life. Because she&#8217;s made every day a miraculous, surprising, awesome day. Because she&#8217;s made every day a day for celebration.<\/p>\n<p>So I&#8217;ll be celebrating every day. Yep, even through the fog of sleep-deprivation and the sludge of poo and spit, and later, through the frustrations of clashing wills with a no-doubt pissy adolescent. I&#8217;ll be celebrating. It may require more liquor, but I&#8217;ll still be celebrating her, and me, and us (that, of course, includes Daddy). <\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">\n<p align=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px auto 10px;text-align: center\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7878\/2181\/320\/Emi%206%20035.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><i><font>Now: Baby! Here&#8217;s lookin&#8217; at you, kid<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><i>Originally posted at <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/www.herbadmother.com\">Her Bad Mother, 2006<\/a>.<\/i> <i>Copyright Catherine Connors 2006 &#8211; 2009.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, Baby is three months old. Or 12 weeks, which doesn&#8217;t translate exactly into three months on the calendar, but you get the picture. She&#8217;s a big girl now! Which is to say, according to Karp and others who argue that the first three months of a baby&#8217;s life is in effect a &#8216;fourth trimester&#8217;&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,11,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emilia","category-life-with-baby","category-mush","category-the-swaddle-diaries"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Beginning Of A Beautiful Relationship - Their Bad Mother<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Beginning Of A Beautiful Relationship - Their Bad Mother\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today, Baby is three months old. Or 12 weeks, which doesn&#8217;t translate exactly into three months on the calendar, but you get the picture. She&#8217;s a big girl now! Which is to say, according to Karp and others who argue that the first three months of a baby&#8217;s life is in effect a &#8216;fourth trimester&#8217;&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Their Bad Mother\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-02-06T12:22:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7878\/2181\/320\/Emilia%20020.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Catherine Connors\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Beginning Of A Beautiful Relationship - Their Bad Mother","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Beginning Of A Beautiful Relationship - Their Bad Mother","og_description":"Today, Baby is three months old. Or 12 weeks, which doesn&#8217;t translate exactly into three months on the calendar, but you get the picture. She&#8217;s a big girl now! Which is to say, according to Karp and others who argue that the first three months of a baby&#8217;s life is in effect a &#8216;fourth trimester&#8217;&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship.html","og_site_name":"Their Bad Mother","article_published_time":"2006-02-06T12:22:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7878\/2181\/320\/Emilia%20020.jpg"}],"author":"Catherine Connors","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship.html","name":"The Beginning Of A Beautiful Relationship - Their Bad Mother","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7878\/2181\/320\/Emilia%20020.jpg","datePublished":"2006-02-06T12:22:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-02-06T12:22:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#\/schema\/person\/e5cb41c7478a8741b1ca837d0ad3eace"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7878\/2181\/320\/Emilia%20020.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7878\/2181\/320\/Emilia%20020.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2006\/02\/the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-relationship.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Beginning Of A Beautiful Relationship"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/","name":"Their Bad Mother","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#\/schema\/person\/e5cb41c7478a8741b1ca837d0ad3eace","name":"Catherine Connors","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/48c\/48c0936a787715d590be21174b52d353x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/48c\/48c0936a787715d590be21174b52d353x96.jpg","caption":"Catherine Connors"},"description":"Catherine Connors is a mother, writer and recovering academic who traded the lecture hall for the playroom and discovered that university students and preschoolers have much the same attention span. She still dips her toes into academic waters by writing the occasional scholarly article about the place of motherhood in Western philosophy, but mostly now she changes diapers and wipes noses and indulges in long reflections on whether Yo Gabba Gabba is a harbinger of the decline of western civilization. Oh, and she blogs: in addition to Bad Mother blogging at BeliefNet, she is, among other things, the author of HerBadMother.com, the moderator of Her Bad Mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Basement, the co-founder and co-editor of WeCovet, a contributing writer\/editor at MamaPop and BlogHer, and most recently (deep breath) founder of and contributor to Canada Moms Blog. And in her spare time\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 oh, wait. She doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have spare time. But she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s okay with that.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/author\/cconnors"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}