3-month-round-the-world

Here's something I do not recommend:

Planning a major cross-country trip that coincides with the 3 month growth spurt.

While DH holds down the homefront (and takes full advantage of bachelorhood, I am sure) I have taken Munchkin out west to visit her relatives, followed by a week at a conference next week.  I attributed her extreme fussiness yesterday to the 4 am wake-up.  And to her newfound alertness, wherein she is no longer the darling infant that simply falls asleep when things get too overwhelming to her.  Now she tries to take it all in, does a good job for a while, but then can't fall asleep for fear she'll miss something.  

Anyway, yesterday sucked.  The first time her uncle held her, as I crammed the stroller in the car, she squeezed out her first real tears.  I hate having to tell all her relatives "I swear, she's not usually like this.  She's a really mellow, happy baby" while they just shake their head in pity.  They probably won't meet her again for a year or more, and this will be the image they all have of her until then.  Lord, please make this a short growth spurt. 

Perhaps I am getting old

Because I just can't get on board with Twitter. Up until now, I have loved everything the internet has dished out. BBSes? Yes! (And if you don't know what BBSes are then perhaps you are the old one.  Or young one.) The world wide web, back when there were internet phone books? Bring it on. Search engines? Napster? Of course. Friendster, Myspace, Facebook? More, more, more. Blogging? Need I say more.

But twitter? Really? Why would I want to know your every inane thought and action? With the exception of a few people that I can count on one hand, I just don't care. Those few people can tweet and I would read, but no one else. Obama. My dog. Robert Downey Jr. That's all I can think of.

Domestication

The man I married didn't believe in dating when we first met.  When we first married, his friends confessed to me he had been voted most likely to never get married.  The man I married never looked at babies fondly. 
But today, me and the man I married took our new stroller for a wheel around the block.  And it was SWEET!  Great supension.  Smoothe ride.  Straight tracking.  Full rain cover.  This is something I never thought the man I married would be excited about, and yet there we were.  The Joovy Zoom.  I wish I had to here disclose that I have been given this as a promotion, but no, we bought it.  It is the most expensive vehicle we will probably ever buy her, as I think she should have to buy her own car. 

BTW, how does one get to be one of those bloggers who gives stuff away?  And gets to try things out then blog about it?  This is one of my goals in life. This is how I'll know I've made it as a blogger. 

Anyway, I've got to go for a run tomorrow.  We won't have many more days that are warm enough for a run (not that it's warm now.)  I'm a little bummed that I no longer have an excuse to not run, though soon it will be cold enough I'll have far too many excuses.  The only issue now is that our house is so tiny we're not sure where to put this massive stroller.

First Day

The fam left a few days ago.  And I then went into heavy duty work mode as I prepare for an (informal) presentation this Thursday, which is practice for a (formal) presentation at a conference in San Fran in a few weeks.  I also called our day care location yesterday to touch base, and it dawned on me that they might be able to watch MJ for a couple days while I get some work done.  It probably took more time to get everything together (bottle for every feeding!  bin for the diapers!  diaper cover for every diaper change(?)!) than she was actually there for, but it was amazing to have several hours of uninterrupted concentration.

When I got to the day care I was struck by how good this is going to be for her.  She constantly craves stimulation, and I know she will get it there.  More so than at home with me, when I'm doing work on my laptop and she stares at me like I'm the most boring person ever.  I really thought I would be able to leave her there with nothing but happy thoughts, but as I was leaving, I saw her sitting there, and she just looked so tiny.  Way too tiny to be entering this great big world on her own.  And I confess, there were tears.  But she was nothing but happy to see me 5 hours later, and I felt so much better having gotten some work done.  I know this is only the beginning.  I know this is the right decision for her; it's my job to give her as many experiences as I can.  It's my job to help fill her life with people who love her.  I am so thankful for all the crazy experiences I had as a child  (international travel at 5!  independent international travel at 15!) which I know were hard for my Mom (there were tears!) but which gave me so much strength and independence.  I want the same thing for my daughter, but I know it will never be easy.

Freedom

My mother-in-law and brother-in-law come to visit tomorrow, so I am enjoying my last night of complete freedom for the week.  I love my in-laws (and don't think they have discovered this here blog)but we have a very small house.  860 square feet small.  So it can feel a bit crowded when you have 5 humans and a dog sharing the space; little things like freely nursing become more constrained.  Motherhood has significantly reduced my modesty, but I still don't feel like showing my stretch marks to the world. 

But we have an exciting week ahead of us.  MJ's christening tomorrow, a week of baking, a turkey to fry, and an on-demand babysitter.  Posting may be slim (or extensive, depending how things go.)  Enjoy the deep philosophical ponderings of Vito and MJ.

Crib Cam

Not to freak you out, but our baby has a live video feed on the internets. 24 hours a day, you can see her thrash and snooze in her crib. Well, this would be true if she were actually sleeping in her crib, but in theory it's good. Furthermore, you can remotely control the camera, so you can watch me stumble in at 4 am with my sleeping mask atop my head and my shirt still in nursing-ready position.

Yes, folks, we have a web-cam attached to her crib that broadcasts her every little grunt and flail. This feed is password protected, and only the grandparents and other close relatives have the password.

But such an arrangement begs the question: how long can we keep this up? I have started to wonder when we will have to remove the camera from her room. And when she will understand what it is. At what point does a child need privacy? At some point I know they demand privacy, sometime around the time they discover that the opposite sex isn't aways gross. But do they need privacy before they even demand it? I haven't decided on this one yet.

And best of all, will she think we are just omniscient when we know that she has been climbing on her crib while she's supposed to be taking a nap? Let's just hope she doesn't hold this against us when she begs for a live internet feed at the age of 13.

Better living through blogging

There are a number of blogs I read written by women I would like to meet. Some of these are even local folks who I feasibly could meet. But how would one go about such a thing? Is that stalking?

I have a hard enough time getting the balls to befriend a real-life person. You know how it goes; you meet someone you like, someone you could see yourself befriending. Then you what? Ask for their cell number? Call them and ask if they want to go for a walk? Or get coffee? Or skip rocks in the local pond? Or play laser tag in the park? See, I'm not very good at this. I'm getting better, largely with the help of my husband, who is responsible for me figuring out the "get their cell phone number" part. I usually ask for their email address, because that's the kind of geek I am, but that requires planning an event in advance and emailing them in advance, which I'm not good at. Cell phones allow for more last minute planning.

Anyway, how do you befriend someone in the blogosphere? I guess you start off by internet stalking them. See if you can find them on Amazon and get their address. Then do repeated drive-bys of their house until you have their schedule figured out. Then arrange a casual run-in when they are emptying their trash, and off-handedly mention that you read their blog. This seems totally feasible, I should really get on that.

On cleanliness

Any time I actually buckle down and clean a room, I realize it really doesn't take as long as I have built it up in my head. In fact, if I spent less time farting around the internet, I would probably have a sparkling house and still have enough time to paint my toenails.

My kitchen floors have been grossing me out for weeks. One of the consequences of lactating is not just milk-stained shirts (and thus lots more laundry) but dirty floors when you drip all over them. (Am I grossing anyone else out?) Then those sticky milk drips collect dirt. So I buckled down and cleaned my kitchen today, including the floors, which is probably my least favorite cleaning activity. And you know what? It only took an hour. From top to bottom. Including a good scrub down of the microwave. Now, to be fair, I know have much lower standards than most people (not including my taste in men, DH). But I put it off for weeks and in 1 hour I was able to make my brain at peace.

This was only possible because I have discovered something about my dear child: even though she thinks she's all grown up and doesn't need to sleep during the day, she is wrong. She dropped her afternoon nap about 2 weeks ago, and was thus only getting very short cat naps during the day. And she was also grumpy, which I attributed to some feeding issue. But yesterday I forced her to sleep by placing her in her crib and closing the door, thus shutting her off from stimulation. She fussed a bit, but didn't cry (I'm not a monster). And after about 20 minutes she was asleep (how I love a video monitor).

She is like her father. She will sacrifice sleep if anything remotely interesting is going on (which includes just staring at me). She wants to be part of it all. She wants to stay up late, drinking martinis and talking about boys. She wants to carouse the neighborhood and TP houses. And unless I force her to take some time for herself, she will think she can do it all. I suspect this is a trait that will stay with her for a while.

So the cleaning only happened because I discovered the beauty of forcing her to take an afternoon nap. She is happier, my house is cleaner, and now I even have time to watch the season finale of Mad Men.

Strike negotiations

I am trying to avoid an impending strike. MJ is seriously contemplating quitting the bottle. And since I never thought to make her sign a contract, we're having negotiations, most of which consist of very tragic faces on her part.

It actually gives me immense satisfaction to know I am enough for her, she doesn't need some plastic contraption for fulfillment. Because when she's a teenager she will much prefer the plastic contraption to me. But the idea of being tied at the boob to my child is rather terrifying, so negotiations will continue until we come to some agreement. A strike is just not an option.

Watch out for exploding uteri

Seriously. MJ wore this to mass, I was afraid every womb in the place was going to simultaneously contract. She's just that cute.

 

Sleeping through the night

So here I go, imparting all my vast mama wisdom (similar to a 1st grader telling you the secret to achieving academic success). Here's the recipe that seems to be the reason our baybee sleeps through the night.

1. When the pediatrician tells you to supplement with pumped milk because your baby has lost too much weight, completely disregard the amount she told you to feed your baby and cram her full of as much milk as she wants, even if she pukes half of it back up. This stretches out your baby's stomache and causes her to demand more milk, and also causes her to gain a whopping 12 ounces in 3 days.

2. When the pediatrician tells you you really don't need to feed your baybee so much, and that she doesn't need to gain weight so fast, you listen intently. You try to implement this, but now she has come to expect a lot of milk when she's hungry. Her stomache is stretched.

3. Try your darnedest to reduce the amount of milk required at each feeding, because your boobs just aren't that big and can't hold that much milk. Fail, utterly.

4. Adapt to the status quo. She feeds all day long, cluster feeding in the morning and evening. Since your boobs can't possibly produce milk that fast, you implement a power pumping session after she goes to bed so that you can have extra milk to supplement her during the day.

5. This baby stomache is now the Hummer of baby stomache's. Tough to fill, but since it allows her to sleep through the night, your baby is a status symbol that causes jealousy in other moms. Put her down at 9 pm, pump for a while for the next days feedings. Have a glasss of wine and watch your favorite TV show, knowing she will not wake until ~6 am.

P.S. Make sure to put her in one of the snazzy night time diapers before she goes down.

Luckiest mama alive

Okay, I haven't been talking much about Madeline. Being as this is, unavoidably, a mommy blog, I am supposed to talk about my baby. That's how these things work. That's what people expect out of a mommy blog. So why haven't I been talking much about my darling baby? Because all those mama's will slaughter me. Because, truly, I have been blessed with one of the easiest infants ever.

Don't believe me? She was sleeping through the night by 2 weeks. By three weeks she was sleeping between 6 to 8 hrs a night, and at two months she's up to 8 to 10 hrs a night. This is a breastfed baby. She wakes up happy. She cries when she's hungry or needs to be fed. We might have a total of 15 minutes of unexplained crying throughout the day, and the rest of the time she is happy. She predictably takes a nap from ~1 pm to 5 pm. She nurses well. She smiles a lot.

That is why I don't talk much about her. Because I'm afraid I will be hunted down for being happy and well rested. You are not supposed to have a 1 month old and feel sane, apparently. It starts to become more acceptable to be sane with a 2 month old, which is why I'm finally coming out of the closet.

Dog vs. Baby

I'm not sure which is more enjoyable to dress up... though baby seems a little more tolerant. This year Vito gets the shaft, it's all M.J. Here's costume number one, costume number two will be unveiled this Halloween Eve, pics to come!

Baby likes the boob

Honestly, breastfeeding's going great. At least, it's about 80% great; we do have our rough patches. She had one bottle of formula a few days ago (it's a long story, but I don't think it's a trend) and other than that she's survived exclusively on breastmilk. I can't help but feel a little proud, because I'd been told by so many people how difficult breastfeeding is.

But the problem I'm having now is that I sometimes fear she likes the boob too much. I think she gets that from her father. Often when I take her off, after she has stopped sucking, she'll look content for a few moments, and then start bawling. I cannot console her. She'll actually be a little better if I set her down. I thought maybe she's hungry, but she'll refuse a bottle (which she'll always take when she's hungry.) And if DH picks her up she is instantly happy. The problem? She's pissed that I took her off the boob. I'm glad she likes nursing, but I hate that I can't hold her for a little while afterwards. I think she's knows it's RIGHT THERE, she can even TOUCH it. And I won't give it to her. I'm sure this is only the first in a long list of things she'll cry about when I tell her she can't have them, I just didn't expect it to start so soon.

(And for all the attachment-parenting-breastfeeding-fanatics, it's not like I tear her off as soon as she's done sucking. But I can't let her hang out there all day, otherwise I couldn't eat my oatmeal.)

Entertainment

I'm not sure what I thought, but I didn't realize babies need to be entertained. The first few weeks she just *was*. She wasn't very interested in what I was doing, so I didn't worry too much about entertaining her. She was happy.

But NOW, she is paying attention. When I talk to her, she listens. When I read her a book she looks at the pictures.

And that means, that when I swear, she is listening. When I look at trashy celebrity websites she sees it. These are all things she may one day hold against me.

And, perhaps more importantly, I feel like I should be spending all this time teaching her. If she's paying attention, I should be filling her brain with brilliance. It used to be that no one cared how much time I spent farting around the internets (or at least A could deal with it) but now I'm supposed to be setting a good example. I don't actually think she is going to remember all the mistakes I make now, and all my swearwords, but at some point she will. And will I be given warning when this is about to happen? I doubt it. No, she will store up these events and whip them out and the most embarrassing possible time, like greeting time at church. She will turn to a nice, elderly woman, and say "Douchebaggery".

So my concept of a stay-at-home-mom having time to do something other than childcare is quickly fading. I've never had a tidy house, and figured that if I did stay at home and still didn't have a tidy house I'd have time to do all sorts of other things. But now, I don't know how you have time to do anything other than stare at your child.

Foot in mouth... Madeline will learn it from me

I realized a few weeks ago that I hadn't seen my neighbor in a while. So when I saw him today, my inner busybody just had to know why. Are him and his wife getting a divorce? Does he have a sick relative? None of my business, I know, but....

Me: "Hey, we haven't seen you around much lately."
Him: "Yah, I've been on an LOA up at Hazelton."
Me: (slight pause) "Oh, that sounds fun."
Him: (slight pause) "Mmm... not really. I've been up there for about 3 months. I'm only here for a day, then I have to go back. "
Me: "Well, if there's anything we can do to help, let us know.

As soon as I got in the car with my Dad I asked him to pull out his Iphone (so that's what those are for) and google "Hazelton".

Results: Hazelden. World renowned addiction treatment centers, publishing, education, and recovery support.

Yep, that sounds like fun alright.

The most shocking thing about my baby

This didn't hit me until she was a few days old, because A is wonderful and did all the diaper changes those first few days. To be fair, I was recovering from major surgery, and needed all the help I could get. But, too, A is wonderful.

Anyway. My first diaper change. I had never changed a diaper before, but how hard can it be? They seem straight forward enough. Take off dirty diaper. Wipe off poo. Put clean diaper on. The shocker? After I wiped off her poo, I noticed that even her butthole is cute. A tiny, perfectly puckered little butthole. Brand spanking new. Barely used. The fact that even my daughter's butthole is adorable is proof of just how perfect she is.

One Month

And the smiles have begun. There is quite possibly nothing better than having visual evidence that your baby is happy.

The day after I had her it was in the 90's. Today there is snow on the ground and it's been coming down all day. Yes, she's changing quickly, but not as quickly as the weather. I do like snow, but it's hard to accept that winter is already here and won't be gone until April, at least. October is not supposed to be a month of snow; you can't see the leaves change color if they're covered in snow.


It's interesting to me that before I had her, when there wasn't much excitement, just a lot of waiting, I had plenty to blog about. Now I'm at a loss, and all I really have is pictures. She's a good baby, I have no complaints. She generally sleeps 4 to 5 hours at a stretch at night. She only cries when she's hungry, needs to be changed or tired. The rest of the time she's happy. I know I'm partial, but she's impossible not to love.

We've started taking her out more and more. I realize she's not yet six weeks, and therefore we're supposed to limit her exposure to crowds. But considering her Dad works in the ER, I'm not convinced that taking her out and covering her up is worse than just hanging out at home. She's at high risk for exposure no matter how you cut it, but it makes me extra glad that breastfeeding's going well.

So this last week we hung out with our friends on four separate occasions. She did great, and it was so nice to feel somewhat normal again. We're social people, isolation makes us crazy (A more so than me). It's nice to be able to have a baby and still feel normal. Last Thursday was the first day that I really felt like myself again. A had the day off; he had to run some errands and Madeline and I went to the mall while he ran around. I went dress shopping for this fancy dress event we're going to in a few weeks (Madeline's first babysitting experience.) It was somewhat discouraging to not be able to fit into things I used to fit into, though I realize it could be a lot worse at this point. Considering I was up over 40 pounds (I stopped weighing myself after I had gained 40) I'm happy to only have 7 more to go. Unfortunately it will be too cold to run outside once I'm cleared for exercise, so I'll have to get creative.

Anyway, here's some pics to celebrate Madeline's first month on earth. Many more to come, hopefully just as happy as this one was.

How I spend my time

The drama of my days does not sound very dramatic. But after just watching the latest primetime drama, I realize I prefer my drama. However small. My drama consists of helping my daughter find her pacifier after it drops out of her mouth, without doing all the work myself. Trying to decide whether she is truly hungry, or just wants the comfort of nursing. Bemoaning my stretch marks and slightly larger belly. Seeing that she is content enough to be put in the swing while I do chores, but knowing that if I do so I will miss one of her precious I-am-totally-content-in-the-world moments, which I will never get back. Crawling into my bed after she has finally fallen asleep, pre-warmed by my husband, and feeling like the luckiest woman in the world.

Alone

My Mom hit the road today. She's been here for ~2.5 weeks, and we've actually gotten along (for the most part). Her help has been a god-send, particularly at 6 am when I've gotten very little sleep. Madeline wakes up and is happy; all she wants to do is play and coo, and I am a bitter, grumpy, sleepless hag who is not into it. I'm working on it, but that is not my prime time. My Mom was always happy to take this shift. Madeline got to be her happy self, and I got to sleep some more. From here on out, I will have to summon my inner morning-person (though I'm not convinced that everyone has one of these, I'm hoping everyone does.)

So now, I think, the loneliness begins. A is back at work full time, my Mom is gone. And of course I know no one else with a newborn. So it's me, and the dog, and Madeline. As if to reiterate this fact, I missed out on my one chance for human interaction this morning. My friends called to invite me to go apple picking this morning, but I didn't hear the phone. Madeline's cry is far louder than a cell phone ring, and this was a fussy morning. So we went for a nice long walk, talked to a few of the crazies, and began to feel a bit like one. Okay, pity party done.