Our Box of Rain

Wordless Wednesday: We Both Lost Our Jobs But At Least We Have Cute Kids

2011-09-21T11:34:00.002-04:00

Wordless Wednesday: Buddy Kisses (and the Reaction)

2010-07-14T16:22:00.002-04:00

Harry at Almost 22 Months

2010-07-07T06:01:00.005-04:00

I love Harry's current age. Yeah, there are tantrums, but they are definitely made up for with the cuteness of the rest. I don't want to forget the things I love so much at this age:

He sings. A lot. One day he wasn't ready for his nap at nap time but I was, so he hung out in his crib singing Old MacDonald and Baa Baa Black Sheep for a while before he fell asleep. He also knows Twinkle Twinkle and the ABCs well enough to sing alone, and many others to sing along with someone else, often coming in for the end of each phrase. He also enjoys humming to himself, which we sometimes hear from the backseat or over the monitor.
His version of the ABCs used to have "Elmo Pee" in the middle. Now it has "Elbow P." It also ends with "Why, oh me" before moving into the "Now I know my ABCs" part, which itself ends with "Nex tie so so sing with me." The cuteness is beyond compare.
He has memorized many of his favorite books and loves to "read" along.
Because P and I only really drink water and soda, and he only drinks milk or water, he thinks most drinks are cokes (or diet cokes), including beer.
He has a bit of a hitting problem, which he learned from a kid at daycare, which sucks. (That part is not a thing I love about this age -- the hitting or the mimicking of everything he sees or hears, whether good or bad.) We have been trying to be incredibly consistent when it comes to discipline, which seems to be the best strategy. Timeouts didn't work -- he thought they were fun and would shout "timeout!" and go sit in the corner, even when he hadn't been put in timeout. So instead we say "Hands are for hugging" and make him apologize to whomever he hit, which does seem to be working. (Note that his hits aren't hard, mostly just annoying, and are usually done for attention or in excitement, but we want to discourage it.) When we say to him, "What are hands for?" He responds with "huggin'" and goes and "hugs" the hittee. His version of hugs involves resting his head on the chest of the huggee and letting them hug him :)
He is a real ham, always performing for his audience, once he is comfortable with them. He says "cheese" and flashed a goofy grin when a camera is pointed in his general direction (though he thinks a camera is in fact called a "cheese").
When in a public place, he likes to greet everyone there, saying hi and often shaking hands. This makes restaurant dining easy -- we just have to be sure he's facing other tables so that he can work his charm and let them keep him occupied :) We did a park cleanup before Josie was born (Harry loves to pick up trash), and the mayor came to thank people for their service. He shook my hand and Ps, at which point Harry held his out, like "what, am I not good enough for you?" The mayor thought it was quite funny. When we were at a pool over the weekend, he said bye to everyone as we left, acting like the pope of chili town. He's a regular politician.
He does, however, take a while to warm up to new people, at least some of the time. As a result, one of us occasionally has a toddler glued to the front of our legs while he surveys the crowd. If he gets really overwhelmed, he whimpers "up or down" -- we have tried explaining that he just wants up, but after months of "up or down," this is proving hard to break.
When one of his daycare friends went on vacation, the teacher pointed to a plane and told all the kids to wave and say bye to her. For weeks now, every time we see a plane Harry has smiled and shouted "Bye Ally!!!" at the top of his lungs. The other kids have long forgotten, but not Harry. His teacher seriously regrets that one.
When both kids are in the backseat, and Josie cries, Harry feels the need to point it out, just in case we can't hear her. "Josie cryin'" is a frequent refrain heard from the peanut gallery, usually said in a very sad voice. It makes me sad that it makes him sad to hear her cry, but I love that he feels that kind of sympathy for his sister and her sadness at the torment that is riding in the car to pick up her brother at daycare (having to do pick up during her witching hour is a disaster -- ugh). I usually ask Harry to sing her a song to make her feel better. He says ok, but then rejects every suggestion for what he should sing. It almost always ends with me asking him if he wants me to sing "Do-Re-Mi," and the answer is always yes. I have sung a lot of Do Re Mi lately.
He loves to be helpful, especially in the yard. He is a fan of watering the flowers and of mowing the lawn (with the mower off, though P sees big potential in this one down the road). He has his own watering can.

Josie: One Month

2010-07-01T07:00:00.005-04:00

My dear Josiebean,

After only three or so hours of labor, you made it clear that you were done; you wanted out -- now. When a dropping heartrate didn't get enough attention, you resorted to kicking your way out. It was quickly noted by the medical team that you were one very opinionated baby. That observation was repeated when you were born, and again when we were in the post-partum unit. And it's proven true -- you don't hesitate to let you dad and I (and anyone else in earshot) know that you have needs and that they aren't being met. The problem, of course, is that we don't really know what it is that you need. We need to work on the nuances of our communication, it seems.

I would suggest that there are a limited number of options, that we only have to try a small set of options to ensure your needs are met, but we have found that even when your obvious needs are met, you still aren't happy. You cry a lot. Or, more accurately states, you scream a lot. We adore you, but certainly wouldn't complain if here were less yelling. It gets exhausting. And I assume that it is exhausting for you too. I wish we knew how to make you happier. For now, we're just hoping you outgrow it.

Speaking of outgrowing things, you are a big little girl. At three weeks, you were already ten pounds. I suspect you will be outgrowing clothes quickly, unike your brother who wore some of his 0-3 clothes until he was 4.5 months. And when it comes to clothing, I swore I wasn't the type of person who would dress a little girl in all pink, but it turns out that the fact that people assume you're a boy because you aren't in pink does bother me, even though it horrifies me to admit it. So you, in fact, wear a lot of pink. Maybe when you have more hair, or it's cool enough to put more than one article of clothing on you at a time so that we can use a single pink item to demarcate, we'll start dressing you in less girlie clothing, but for now, you're in a lot of pink. Sorry about that.

And I really do hope that it cools off soon -- it has been an unbearably hot start to the summer. I don't ever remember a summer this consistently hot. And you, like your dad, your brother, and me, sweat. A lot. We have to change your clothes a lot. And you have to sleep in our room at night, as we do not have central air and our electric can only handle two a/cs on the second floor. So, for now, you sleep in the swing in our room. Because you have made clear that you will only sleep when in motion or when held, and I just can't hold you all night, as much as you wish that I could. Sorry. At some point, we know we'll need to figure out how to break you of this habit -- I don't want you to develop insomnia as a teenager when you no longer fit in the swing and no one is willing to drive you around while you sleep anymore. Until we come up with a strategy, though, the swing it is, as we all need to get some sleep (and a break from the screaming).

Despite the yelling, everyone here loves you very much. Your brother loves to give you hugs and kisses -- I'm sorry if it's more hugs and kisses than you would choose. The first thing he said when he met you was "Baby, kiss," followed, naturally, by a kiss. I can't blame him -- I love to give you kisses and hugs too. As does Buddy. You are a very well-kissed child. Thankfully, you seem to like the kissing :)

We love you very much,

Mommy

Darkness

2010-06-25T05:05:00.002-04:00

They say it is darkest before dawn. Every night I hope and pray that the previous night was that darkest hour, but every morning dawn comes and I've only managed to accumulate a total of 2, 3, 4 hours of sleep and I know I've got a day to survive and more nights ahead of me.

Each night is a little worse than the one that came before it. I have begun to feel detached -- from myself, from my spouse, from my child. I look at her and know I should feel an overpowering love but instead feel frustration and dread, especially between the hours of 8pm and 8am. I would suggest post-partum depression, but it's clearly sleep deprivation, and taking an anti-depressant isn't going to do anything to fix the fact that my child has gone back to only sleeping when held, and only when held by me. (We thought we had fixed the problem, but it's gotten much, much worse, and my back hurts so much I can no longer sleep in the chair while she sleeps.) She usually gives me one 2-3 hour stretch of nighttime sleep not on me, but you never know when it will come, so I usually spend most of it anxious, awaiting the sounds of her stirring.

I would say I'm nearing a breaking point, but I think whatever that point was has passed already. Somehow, when morning comes, I manage to pull it together and put on my big girl underwear and go about my day. Then nighttime comes, and I feel shattered and cracked again.

Post-Partum Thoughts

2010-06-07T17:10:00.003-04:00

A few thoughts on these early days with a second child:

Despite leaving the hospital a day earlier, I was given a shorter course of pain meds. So I'll run out of percocet at six/seven days post-partum, whereas I still had some left when I stopped taking it at seven or eight days post-partum last time. I hope the pain by the inner right side of my pelvic bone has subsided by then, because it's pretty fierce now.
Josie will only sleep on me. (She falls asleep, I put her down, and she wakes up within minutes of being put down and cries inconsolably.) I'm sure this will pass, and I like the snuggle time, but I'm not comfortable with co-sleeping (not in a judgmental/I-care-what-others-do way but in a I-know-it's-not-for-me way), so sleep is generally gotten while sitting up in a chair right now. Needless to say, I'm tired.
I miss Harry. I miss picking him up. I miss reading to him at bedtime (the only seat in his room is too high for me to get safely on and off right now). I miss actively playing with him. I miss him. Yesterday I cried a little when we snuggled while reading books and watching "mi mi mi" on my laptop in the living room. I know that a sibling is a great gift to him as well as to our family, but I already miss having special time with him, which is hard right now, post-c-section. It saddens me that he'll never remember the time when it was just the three of us, time that was so wonderful and amazing for me. My hormones are definitely readjusting right now, and I'm finding this aspect of parenthood to be incredibly difficult this time around.
On the flip side, I love that he calls Josie "Baby sister" (or Josie) and wants to give her a kiss all the time. And point out her body parts. I hope they develop a special relationship as they get older.

Josie's Birth Story

2010-06-03T19:14:00.005-04:00

For me, the story of Harry's birth has always been tinged with regret. Although the outcome (Harry, my most beloved son) was perfect, I can't shake the feeling that something could or should have been different, that I could or should have done something different, that he needn't have come into the world the way he did, purple-faced through a surgical incision. Could I have done a better job in early labor of changing positions, spending more time on hands and knees or leaned over a birthing ball or over a bed in order to rotate him from the posterior position he was in? Should I have walked more in early labor? Spent more time in the tub? Gone home when an early exam showed I wasn't making much progress? Waited longer before consenting to a cesarean to give my body and my son more time to prepare? I have always wondered whether the story was really Harry's birth story or whether in fact it was my story, the story of how I birthed my son.

Josie's story, on the other hand, was and remains quite clearly her own. And this is the story of how she was born.

Monday was the holiday. We took Harry to the farm to see the animals in the morning, figuring that walking around might get things going. I had been at 1cm and 75% effaced at my appointment a week earlier and hoped it wouldn't be too much longer, as my hospital will not induce a woman who has had a prior cesarean, so I had to go into labor naturally or would be required to have another. After the farm, we went to the local pan-Asian restaurant we went to the day before Harry was born. Because it was a holiday, I couldn't get the same bento box lunch special, but I did my best to replicate it. I had started having intermittent but very irregular contractions after we left the farm, but they never really organized. I would have 6 or 7 in an hour, then none, then a few more. By night, they seemed to have stopped. They started up again in the morning, probably around 7 or 7:30, but they were still weak and disorganized. But I had been having a ton of discharge overnight and that morning and had the feeling Tuesday would be the day, or at least the start. When P left for work, I told him to try to get as much done as he could in the morning, as I might need him by afternoon.

I got Harry to daycare around 8:30 and stopped at Dunkin Donuts on my way home. By the time I got home at 8:50, I realized the contractions were more painful, coming every five minutes and lasting close to a minute. That phase of labor with Harry had lasted so long, though, that I figured things would stay like that for a while, so I went to go lie down for a bit to listen to a Hypnobabies track and drink some water and decide what to do next. I never did eat that donut.

The contractions kept getting stronger, so at 9:10, I decided to get into the tub on my hands and knees and let the water flow over my back for a bit. By 9:21, they were 3-4 minutes apart and quite strong and I started to get a little nervous about being alone for the day. Or even just the next hour or two. I got out of the tub but couldn't even manage to get dressed. I lay on my bed, wet and naked, listening to more Hypnobabies. By 9:38, the contractions were 3 minutes apart and I called P to tell him that I needed him to come home, that I couldn't do it on my own. He said he was on his way. I wrestled my way into underwear and a shirt, hanging over the side of the hamper moaning as yet another contraction came, and gave up on getting any more clothing on.

When 10 rolled around and P wasn't home yet but the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart, I knew it was time to call the doctor's office. I was told I should come in to the office first to be checked. This seemed like a bad plan, but I wasn't in a position to argue so I didn't. As I was hanging up, P got home.

P then scrambled to grab the things that hadn't made their way into the bag yet. I guess I thought we'd have more time. From the time we had that "today is the day" feeling until we left for the hospital, eight hours passed with Harry. This time, it was less than 2 hours, and I couldn't put on pants in that period, much less pack a bag. We were at the hospital before we realized we had forgotten the camera. At some point, it was pretty obvious that going to the doctor's office first was a terrible plan. P called and told them we were going straight to the hospital.

Easier said than done. Even though it was after morning rush hour and there was no Red Sox game, something had traffic all stopped up. P tried to find an alternate route but there was traffic everywhere. I felt every bump and every pothole in the road and found it very tough to release and relax during or even between contractions. I couldn't lean my seat back because of the carseat behind it. I clung to the handle above the door as though doing so could slow everything down or somehow speed the car up. Eventually, my hand grew numb but I still held on.

When we finally arrived at the hospital, we had to decide whether P would drop me off then park the car or park and go in together. Neither was acceptable to me -- I knew I couldn't walk in from the garage but also refused to go in alone. The guard said we could leave the car if P moved it within five minutes. I barely made it through the door before another contraction hit. Someone brought a much appreciated wheelchair and I became one of those women who had to be wheeled to L&D. After what felt like a long wait at the admissions desk in L&D (four contractions, I think), we were able to bypass triage and go straight to a room. I was checked and was only at 4cm, which seemed shocking, given how strong the contractions were. But it was still only a little past 11am.

The doctor came when P was moving the car and remarked that the monitor seemed to be picking up my heart-rate periodically and that they'd need to adjust it and keep it on a little longer. She then checked my pulse and realized it wasn't mine, that the baby's was dropping with each contraction. Because I had just gotten there and it was a bit soon to call it a pattern, she said we had a few options: (1) wait and see; (2) wait and see but also order an ultrasound to see if we could tell what was causing the decels; or (3) break my waters and attach an internal monitor to the baby's scalp to permit closer monitoring. She noted that waiting now could reduce available options later, but I wasn't comfortable with (3), so I opted to wait. She said they'd check my progress again in an hour.

The decels continued but were getting worse. The baby's heart-rate was dropping from the 150s to the 50s with each contraction, but the contractions were so close together it couldn't rebound. It had only been forty-five minutes, but the doctor made clear that breaking my waters to permit more consistent monitoring was the least invasive option that she could recommend at that time, and I didn't question that at all. Some time before noon, my waters were broken. I had dilated to a 7.

Within fifteen minutes, the nurse could feel the baby's feet on the top of my uterus trying to push down and out. And I couldn't keep myself from pushing involuntarily even though I wasn't fully dilated (nor did the nurses or doctors, of whom there were many in the room by this point, encourage me to stop). But the baby was posterior and dilation was slowing from its extremely rapid pace and the heart-rate continued to drop with each contraction. There were concerns regarding uterine rupture and that the cord might be wrapped around the baby's neck. Regardless of the reason for the decels, everyone in the room felt the baby needed to come out immediately, myself included. There was just no way to know how much longer it would be before I was at 10cm and ready to get the baby out or how much more the little heart could handle.

The anesthesiologist was called in, and they did verbal consents for a spinal and for the c-section as they wheeled me to an OR, lacking time for written. It was a little scary, but, unlike with Harry, it felt like the right choice -- the only safe choice. It took three or four tries to get the spinal in (and I was still having contractions every two minutes, which made it really tough for me to arch my back for insertion). But once it was in and the pain let up, I realized I was far more okay with the outcome than I'd been the last time. I wasn't shaking or crying. I didn't need anti-anxiety meds. I just wanted to get it over with. The time from deciding to have the c-section until the surgery began (honestly, probably close to 45 minutes) felt like the longest part of labor.

The surgery began just before 1, and at 1:16 P got to stand and announce that we had a girl. They let me give her a kiss before wiping her down and let P participate in a lot more of the post-delivery process than he had previously. And I got to carry her with me when we went to recovery. On the whole, not the birth story I had wanted, but it was the story of how Josie was born.

The Bad and the Good

2010-06-02T20:46:00.004-04:00

The bad. I haven't posted in a while in large part because my grandfather has been dying. I wrote a bunch of posts about it -- posts about him, about my aunt, about our final visit to say goodbye -- but never felt like any of them was complete or really said what I wanted to say, so they remain drafts. My family made the decision to withdraw life support last Monday (the 24th). He passed away this past Sunday morning. I loved him dearly, and he will be greatly missed. I am especially sad that we will miss the funeral, though I am not sad about why. Speaking of which...

On to the good. And it's great. P and I have a daughter! J0sephine M@rie M. was born yesterday (June 1) at 1:16pm. She was 7 pounds, 9 ounces and 19 inches long. I didn't end up with the VBAC I wanted, but I did end up with a very healthy and very lovely little girl in the end, which is all I could have hoped for. I will probably post her birth story tomorrow. A preview: I dropped Harry at daycare at 8:30, stopping at Dunkin Donuts on the way home. When I got home, I realized I was having contractions 5 minutes apart. By 10:15, I was getting ready to head to the hospital. Between 11 and 11:45, I dilated from a 4 to a 7. By 12:30, it was clear that she couldn't handle a labor that fast and hard and we needed to get her out immediately. We did. No regrets.

Names

2010-04-22T11:42:00.002-04:00

For some reason, coming up with a name is much harder this time than it was last time. Or maybe it was equally hard last time and I've just blocked it out. (Apparently, the latter.) Either way, we're past the 34 week point and still haven't really made any progress on names. Well, we did sit down this weekend with our spreadsheet* from last time, with popularity data updated and prior grades and notes removed, as well as some names added, and then we regraded and rediscussed. But I am not feeling at all settled in our rankings, and certainly don't feel as though those rankings represent our selections. Or at least mine.

I think for me, the main issue is that of significance. Harry's name has meaning to me. And we have a few more boy name choices that have some significance (three of our top four, in fact), though my top pick among them isn't Ps. But we can't get there with girl names. (And we are waiting until birth to find out what we're having again.) In part, this derives from the fact that many of the women in our family have had names that are decidedly unfashionable today, and I just couldn't saddle a baby with one of them. The names of our combined grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and sisters of our grandparents and great-grandparents are: Edna, Esther, Wilma, Mildred (x2), Helen (x5), Marie, Blanche, Adelaide, Emma, Clara (x2), Florence (x3), Meta (pronounced MEE-ta), Wilhemina (x2), Anna (x2), Mary (x3), Margaret, Magdalena, Elizabeth, Theresa, Lucile, Edith, Almira, Maude, Ida, Joyce, Eva, Ruby, Lillie, Effie, Bessie, Gertrude, Cecelia, Marian, Agnes, Althea (with the number in parantheses noting when that name was used more than once, and the order generally reflecting their proximity (i.e. grandparents, then great-grandparents, then siblings)). I tried going back another generation, but mainly got another set of Marys, along with a few names we'd never use because they really don't work with our last name.

The second problem is that using family names is wholly unimportant to P. I think he'd prefer not to use a family name. Which just doesn't work for me. But it looks increasingly like it will be the case, as only one or two of those names got an even remotely positive reaction from him.** This kills me. But I can't just override his preferences, as much as I may sometimes want to.

In all honesty, I think it kills me in part because of the fact that Harry's name does have this connection with the past. When people ask our kids why they got their names, I hate that one will be able to give a lengthy explication while the other will only be able to say that their name was one of the few that one or both of their parents didn't dislike. No "it has this great family history" or "it has an awesome meaning" or "it's the name of a favorite character in a much loved book." And that makes me sad. And makes me hope we have a boy for this reason alone.

* Did I mention the spreadsheet last time? I got sick of feeling like his principle contribution was the veto of every name I suggested, so I decided we would each make lists. I then combined our lists into a spreadsheet and, for each name, added potential nicknames, popularity ranking, and meaning. We then went through the list and came up with a combined grade for each name on a 1-5 scale and made notes on the name, also adding possible middle names. We then resorted by grade. It was incredibly geeky, but incredibly helpful.

** Note that some don't work because of our last name -- pretty much any name ending with M or any name that is two syllables and ends with A is out. And some of the above are actually funny with our last name (for those who know our last name, Emma is probably the funniest of the above choices, though Uma is definitely the most comic overall). The best choices tend to be longer names. Also, we are nickname people, so if the name doesn't lend itself to some kind of tolerable nickname, it becomes much tougher for us to imagine using.

PTL (Not Me)

2010-04-19T16:20:00.004-04:00

Our friend who is due with twins (two girls!) in June has been having a rough pregnancy. Terrible morning sickness was followed by a strange problem with her back causing pain to radiate throughout her torso. When that finally got under control, the Braxton Hicks began, landing her in the hospital a few times. Over the past week, they have become painful, and an ultrasound showed that her cervix had shortened significantly, so she was put on bedrest.

Her first day of bedrest, the contractions increased in frequency, and she was admitted to the hospital. After steroid injections and a drug to stop the contractions (neither mag nor terbutaline -- because I wasn't familiar with it, I have forgotten what it was), the contractions stopped and she was moved from L&D to an observation floor. She was supposed to come home yesterday, but still wasn't home when I last checked in earlier today.

If you could keep her in your thoughts, I'd appreciate it. And if anyone has any suggestions for she and her husband with respect to getting through a month or more of bedrest, send them my way and I'll pass them on. (And to the one of you who knows her, I'm not sure how public she has been with this info, so please don't mention it unless she has mentioned it to you.) Thanks!

The Joneses

2010-04-16T10:41:00.001-04:00

Friends of ours bought a new home last fall. They knew the market was bad and that they wouldn't be able to sell their old one for anything approximating what they felt it was worth, so they rent it out for approximately what they pay on the mortgage each month. Between their two homes, they own approximately three times as much house as we do, property-value-wise (space-wise, it's more like two times, and I don't have a clue regarding equity). I have no idea what these friends earn, but I don't imagine that it's significantly more than what we do.

Other friends of ours are currently looking to buy a new home (they currently have a condo). The places they are looking at are definitely out of our price range by a reasonable margin (not that we're looking -- I'm pretty sure we're underwater on our mortgage as it is). And they, combined, earn quite a bit less than we do.

I don't feel like we spend frivolously (but maybe we do?) or do anything crazy as far as finances go. Our debts are limited to 1. mortgage 2. student loans from law school (not huge) and 3. car loan (also not huge). For assets, we have our house, two cars (one paid for, the other worth far more than we owe on it), several retirement accounts (I think P has two from his current job, plus an older one, and I have one from my current job, plus an older one), a brokerage account, Harry's college fund, and our basic bank accounts. In the balance, we have a decent net worth, despite the craptastic economy and its effect on our home value and our various retirement and brokerage accounts. Yet somehow it feels like other people in our same geographic area (and therefore with a similar cost of living) seem to be able to stretch their money further. Part of it, I'm sure, is my uncertainty regarding my future job situation -- I feel like we have to maintain a reasonable savings level in order to ensure we can get by when I lose my job. But the rest of it? I have no idea.

Having had the realization that others seem to live better on less (and, yes, I recognize that it's a "seem to" issue), I signed up for Mint.com in order to better track our finances, though it's a bit tough since P and I still (after nearly five years of marriage) haven't merged our accounts, so it really just reflects my finances right now (though I do earn 75-80% of our household income and am responsible for most of our expenses). I have also started pulling together a binder of important financial info, containing current statements from all our various accounts and copies of insurance policies, etc., both so we have a comprehensive record of everything should anything happen to one or both of us and so that we can begin to evaluate where we stand. To that end, I think we need to consult a financial planner. I need someone else to look over our stuff and tell me where we're going wrong (or tell me that we're not). I've started formulating my list of questions, but am not entirely sure where to begin. (I'm open to advice on that subject.)

Does anyone else ever feel like they missed some important day at school in which planning for the future and figuring out how to manage one's financial affairs was covered? Or is it just me?

Wordless Wednesday: Easter Egg Hunts (A Belated Post)

2010-04-14T15:04:00.002-04:00

What Might Have Been

2010-04-13T00:33:00.000-04:00

I often have subscribed to the semi-magical belief that the body into which your soul was placed was just too imperfect, or perhaps your soul was just not ready, but that you would come to me, to my life, on some later date. So the you that might have been wasn't really lost. But, as for me, I'm pretty sure that me really was.

Perhaps this is callous to acknowledge on your unbirthday, but I often suspect that I mourn more the me that might have been had you not left what you knew of this earth too soon than I do you. Among other things, for this I am sorry.

Friday Night Leftovers

2010-04-02T09:46:00.005-04:00

It's Friday, so it's time to join Danifred for some leftovers.

Every week or two, Harry decides to switch up what books must be read before bed. After a few weeks of A Cat and A Dog and Bear Wants More, we are now on Bear's New Friend and The Little Engine That Could. Multiple reads of each, of course. I love that he knows parts of Bear's New Friend, though. Right before the two eyes peek-a-boo, he covers his eyes. And then he says "hi," as he knows it's what Bear says next. Finally, he pretends to splash when the animals are swimming. It's amazing to watch him as he learns and remembers things.
I am trying to do the Hypnobabies Home Study course, but am finding it very hard to find time to listen to multiple tracks on CD/iPod every day. It ends up being about an hour a day and would be more if I started listening to the VBAC tracks, which I know I need to do at some point.
There's some secret benefactor out there who just wants to give us a Bumbleride Indie Twin, right? I think that's what we've settled on. The perfect one popped up on Craigslist (brand new, 2010 model, for $300 off the list price) but I wasn't fast enough :( Damn.
Yesterday's Cake Wrecks was awesome. And so gross. Soooo gross.
I'm taking today off work and trying to get some things done while Harry is in daycare. Thus far, I've got Harry some new short-sleeved white onesies, as he has outgrown most of the ones he has and I like to use them as undershirts for him, and some light-weight footie pajamas, as well as a raincoat. I also finished painting the trim in Harry's BBR and wiped down the walls. Slowly making a dent in the list. I also went to church, since it's Good Friday and all.

Wordless Wednesday: Damned Rain -- This Feel Like Ages Ago, Rather Than Ten Days

2010-03-31T08:22:00.002-04:00

How Much Can One Couple Accomplish in Nine Weeks

2010-03-30T10:14:00.010-04:00

For the past several weeks, it's been weighing on me how much we have to do and how little time we have in which to do it, both on a daily basis and on a more global oh-my-word-this-child-is-due-in-nine-weeks basis. (Speaking of which, the reality of having a second child hasn't sunk in at all. At all. I can recognize that I'm pregnant, but that there will be a baby at the end? Lost on me.)

I sat down this weekend to put together a to-do list. By the time I was done, it was three pages long. Three damn pages. I think seeing its length, plus having it broken into discrete tasks (with the validating feeling one gets from checking items off a list) has spurred us both into action.

The list includes, but is not limited to:

~~Finish painting trim of Harry's big boy room (BBR)~~*
~~Clean walls and floors of BBR~~
~~Remove all tools, etc., from BBR~~**
Paint furniture (~~dresser~~, ~~bed~~, trunk, ~~bookcase~~, desk, chair) for BBR***
~~Buy a second crib~~
~~Buy a second crib mattress~~
~~Assemble crib~~
~~Buy bedding/decor for BBR~~ and decorate room
~~Clean out closet of BBR~~
~~Put foam tiles back on floor of playroom (we took them up when the basement flooded two weeks ago)~~
~~Acquire double stroller~~
~~Get all of Harry's clothes and cloth diapers out of the nursery and into his BBR~~
~~Get all 0-3 clothes from attic and make sure they're clean, then put away anything neutral enough to use regardless of what we have~~
~~Get all newborn cloth diapers from attic and make sure they're clean, then put them away~~
Get bouncy seat and swing out and find a place for them
Wash playmat and set it up in playroom
~~Reinstall carseat base for infant seat~~
~~At least pretend to have some sort of conversation about names for this child~~
Pack hospital bag
~~Come up with a firmer plan for Harry for when we go to the hospital (plan is currently "call MIL")~~
~~Get a second carseat for MIL's car (which will move to our second car when we're all home from the hospital)~~
~~Clean out freezer~~
Make freezer meals

And then there are the things that need to get done and would ideally get done before we become a family of four, but which are not 100% critical:

Finish patio (yes, this was on the pre-Harry list too)
Get estimates and hire electrician (also on pre-Harry list)
Put up fence
Purge crap from entire house
Organize house once less cluttered
Hire a new cleaner
Organize our finances
Develop some kind of estate plan
Find and meet with a financial planner

Possible? Maybe. But not likely (way to be optimistic, huh?). There just aren't enough hours in the day/week/month to work full time, take care of Harry (and Buddy, who really needs his nails trimmed and needs a vet tech appointment for one shot or another), sleep, and do everything on the list, while also not getting burned out. I am burned out just thinking about it.

* Harry will be moving into a big boy room (but staying in a crib) before the new baby arrives so that the new baby can move into the nursery. The nursery is just too small for Harry to stay in once long-term, so we're going to try to make the transition now.

** The BBR was the guest room and needed its ceiling replaced, which P and his mother's husband did at Christmas time. Yet the tools remained, and the painting (while mostly done) wasn't finished).

*** Harry is inheriting all of my childhood furniture. It's in decent shape, but is ugly -- thankfully in ways that can be fixed by paint, we hope.

Yet Another Reason I'm Not A Fan of My Job

2010-03-29T10:50:00.003-04:00

Warning: This is long and filled with TMI, most of which involves vomit. And some swearing.

Last Tuesday, I was stuck at work late, as I had been Monday. P called to say that Harry was throwing up at dinner. A lot. More than once. And kept throwing up while P tried to get him cleaned up, including on P, and kept throwing up once they were both stripped down, and kept throwing up in the tub. Once he fell asleep, though, he was fine. He threw up again when P was giving him breakfast on Wednesday (I had to be at work early, so I missed breakfast), so they both stayed home, as it was obvious at that point that it wasn't something he had eaten the day before. After breakfast, he seemed fine, though.

I got home from work at midnight or so on Wednesday and went to bed. I woke up at 3:30 with bad stomach pain. I convinced myself it was stress, but by 4:15 or so, it was obvious that I had caught Harry's stomach bug. By 5 or so, it was obvious P had too. We dropped Harry off at daycare (he hadn't thrown up in more than 24 hours and seemed fine), then P dropped me off at my 30 week OB appointment and went home to go back to bed. The midwife was concerned about dehydration leading to preterm labor and told me I had to come back the following morning for an IV evaluation if I still couldn't keep anything down. She also said to focus on liquids and not try to eat.

The reason P dropped me off and left? I *had* to work that day, as I had a brief that had to be filed. So I kept my trash can close to my desk (I feel really bad for the cleaning person -- I told her not to empty it, that I'd do it myself, but she came by when I was away from my desk for a minute and emptied it -- yuck) and kept my door closed all day, occasionally lying on the floor and moaning in agony and crying for much of the day. Meanwhile, both partners on the case hopped on a plane midafternoon to DC, asking me to fax them drafts to review in their hotels (not the same hotel, of course, because that would be too easy). And the only other associate on the case, a first year, blew me off all day, starting at 5 the task I asked her to have done by close of business. You know, by 5. Note that each of these people knew I was sick. I tried to spare them the details, but I think I was clear enough to indicate how sick I was. In the end, though, I didn't get home until almost midnight. It was honestly one of the least pleasant work days I've ever had. I cried *a lot*.

Thankfully, because the brief had been filed, I decided I would stay home on Friday and try to recuperate. Maybe nap. Catch up on a few things that desperately needed to be done around the house but never get done because there's never a time when we aren't watching Harry or at work or when Harry isn't sleeping and these things are too loud to do then. Start doing some of the Hypnobabies home study course that I told myself I'd start six weeks ago as I hope and prepare for a better birth experience this time around. Maybe watch a little TV.

Sadly, that was not to be. At 6-something on Friday morning, I heard Harry crying on the monitor, which pretty much never happens. P, of course, didn't move. So I got up and went to check on him. When I opened the door, it was like the last scene of season 4 of Dexter, but with vomit instead of blood. It covered every inch of his crib sheet. It was matted into his hair. And he was just sitting in it in his sleep sack, clutching his vomit-covered blankie, sobbing. Poor thing. So we all stayed home. And I didn't get a day of rest or productivity. Instead, I spent yet another hour crying from exhaustion and frustration and a sense of futility and just being *done* (after which I did pass out for an hour in a crumpled heap on the couch while P entertained Harry). Oh, and I got bitchy messages all day from work people wondering where I was (all of which I ignored), plus some nice ones from people who were worried (some of which I inadvertently ignored as well in my effort to ignore the others).

I hate being sick. I hate my job. I hate being sick and having a stressful week at the same time. And I hate it even more when pregnant and tired. And I hate that I received no thanks, no acknowledgment that I spent my day finalizing a brief while vomiting into my trash can, and that I did so while pregnant. Fuck you, job. FUCK YOU.

Wordless Wednesday: A Beautiful But Exhausting Weekend

2010-03-24T19:48:00.003-04:00

Friday Night Leftovers

2010-03-19T09:28:00.003-04:00

Leftover time!

Harry's 18 month appointment was yesterday. I think their scale was off (does it affect the scale reading if the child just doesn't feel like sitting on the scale and therefore sits on the very edge?), as there's no way he gained 4 pounds in the months since he was there for his ear infection. Our home scale suggested he had gained more like 1.5 pounds, which seems more reasonable.
In preparation for being asked follow-up questions regarding his language development, we made a list of the words he knows. It turns out, he knows (and uses with some regularity) 52 words (I thought it was 51 but forgot blocks)
So that I don't forget, those words are: mama, dada, dog, book, kitty cat ("kee-ca") (we call that animal "cat", so I have no idea where that came from), sea star, bubble, phone ("pone" -- he has moved past "bau"), car, truck ("kuck"), cow, moo ("boo"), quack, duck, baa (sheep sound), maa (goat sound), frog, outside ("a-side"), cup, ball, apple (refers to a variety of fruits), broccoli ("brocs" or "brocca"), hot dog, keys, cheese ("kees," though he thinks it means camera), eye, ear, hat, boots, black beans ("blacks"), uh-oh, no, cracker ("crack"), cookie (but usually refers to a cereal bar), hi, bye, more ("moe"), bird, spoon ("poon"), bus, owl, moon, bath, boat, up, down, clock ("cock" -- awesome, refers to analog clocks and watches), blocks, and five proper names -- Elmo and BooBoo, plus the names of three kids from daycare. He seemed to add nose yesterday as well.
If you ask him to show you your ear/eye/nose, he is quite adept as showing it. He can also name it if you point to it and ask what it is. Ask him to show you his ear/eye/nose, though, and he points to his ear. Every. Time. The doctor thought it was pretty funny.
Heartburn is coming back with a vengeance. I am starting to dread the late afternoon/early evening, as the heartburn comes on hard and fast and does not seem in any way connected to anything I eat or drink.
I am very much mentally done with work. I just don't want to be here anymore, both in the I'm-ready-for-leave-to-begin way and in the I-don't-want-to-come-back-post-leave way. I know I need to start planning for what I will do next, but am intimidated by the prospect.
P and I try always to be watching one TV show on Netflix, in addition to movie selections. We are now fully caught up on Dexter and are not sure what to watch next. We have a ton of shows (and movies) in our queue (are we the only people to have discovered that there's a maximum number of items you can have in your queue at once?), but we haven't picked anything definitive yet. Any suggestions? It needs to be something that would appeal to both of us (and that I can get him to at least try -- his tastes are more diverse than he gives himself credit for). Past winners have included: The Wire, Dexter, Alias and the Sopranos. We liked the first couple seasons of Nip/Tuck, then slogged through the rest. Neither one of us really got into Rescue Me, though we did abandon after only a few episodes. For a small sampler of current shows, we both love Lost, the Office and How I Met Your Mother and enjoy CSI (Las Vegas and New York, but NOT Miami), Numb3rs and NCIS. Possibilities (i.e. items in our queue) include: Flight of the Conchords, The Shield, Friday Night Lights (though P has voted no on that one in the past) and Weeds (we watched the first season when it was on and liked it but would need to start over since it's been a while). I would like to watch Brothers and Sisters, but P says no. Suggestions? Clearly this could have been a post :)

Friday Night Leftovers

2010-03-05T13:33:00.004-05:00

When I go places (e.g., the office cafeteria) where employees are forced to wear nametags, I feel as though calling them by their first name assumes a strange degree of familiarity with which I am not wholly comfortable, especially since I know it's not their choice to have me know their name. But then I feel like ignoring their nametag is rude, like I don't care that they have a name.
After having no separation issues as an infant, Harry has cried each of the last two days when dropped at daycare. He's fine by the time we get outside (we can see him in the window), but it breaks my heart anyway.
My degree of forgetfulness/absentmindedness is astonishing. If I was really busy at work, I could excuse it, but I'm not. I made my secretary scan the same document three times -- each time she sent me the scan, I saw some other section I'd forgotten to sign, signed it, and had her rescan. She must think I'm an idiot.
Someone bought our friends their highchairs. Not the highest priority items, but it shows that people are in fact still shopping and using the registry when doing so.
Bob Duallie v. Bumbleride Indie Twin? Because of the huge hills and crappy sidewalks in our neighborhood, we need the air tires, which limits our options when it comes to double strollers. And the reviews I've read of the Baby Jogger carseat attachment are very discouraging. Leaving us with those two options, for the most part. We're still hoping to find one or the other used, but may otherwise be hoping for sales and/or coupons.
GD screen coming up on Tuesday. I really hope I don't have the beetus. I enjoy ice cream and frozen yogurt too much.
On the subject of leftovers, we didn't do a real grocery trip this week, instead only buying what we needed for Harry, figuring we'd eat the leftover baked ziti, chicken noodle casserole, and Chinese food we had in the fridge this week. Except now we're low on leftovers. What the heck are we going to have for dinner?

Go visit Danifred to sample some more leftovers.

Wordless Wednesday: Nothing Beats a "Bau" (Harryspeak for Phone)

2010-03-03T20:13:00.001-05:00

Registries

2010-03-02T10:55:00.003-05:00

When attending a shower for a friend, do you generally shop on or off the registry?

I ask because I am a registry person, especially so for babies (in contrast with bridal showers, where I will occasionally go off-registry). My feeling is that the person best knows what they need when it comes to baby items, and I want to be sure they have those things. And I'll go off registry occasionally with a bridal shower because, unless you're just graduating from college, one or both of you probably has pots and pans and dishes and utensils, and you can probably get by a little longer without a gravy boat to match your china pattern, but, when it comes to a baby shower, you probably don't have a spare infant seat. And they won't let you leave the hospital without one. I will sometimes also get a cute clothing item or a blankie or a toy or a book, but I tend to have my main gift(s) be from the baby registry.

This is on my mind because our friends who are expecting twins in June have their shower coming up this weekend. They don't have a ton of cash lying around and are expecting to have two additional people join their household in a few months, so they need a lot of stuff. They kept their registry fairly minimalist in order to ensure people gave them the things they really needed -- carseats, stroller, monitor, etc. I was worried there wouldn't be enough on it, that it would be cleaned out by a week or two before the shower.

Yet, the shower is this weekend, but the vast majority of registry items remain unpurchased. The vast majority. Including basics (at a range of prices) like the baby monitor, crib sheets, changing pad, bathtub, hooded towels, sleep sacks. (Thankfully, the carseats and stroller have been purchased, as have some less-necessary/easy-to-buy-used items (like an exersaucer) that they can exchange if needed.) When BRU was having its big sale over Presidents Day weekend, I even sent an email out to the email list that the shower hostess had used to send a save the date to let them know about the sale and offer to share some coupons I had, but mainly I sent it to remind people that they are registered there. But only five more items have been purchased in the intervening two weeks.

For some reason, this is really bothering me. I am hoping that a lot of their friends/family are real last minute shoppers who will do their shopping Saturday morning in the hours before the shower, or that some of their relatives will give them cash, but I'm not holding my breath. Do other people not shop off registries? Am I the weird one here?

Monday Morning Odds and Ends :)

2010-03-01T11:49:00.003-05:00

I lack the time or energy to post a full post, but have some things I feel I need to put out there so as not to forget them.

Ten years ago today, P and I went on our first date. We were seated in the worst seat in the restaurant -- right next to the door of the kitchen. If nothing else had been, that itself would have been memorable. That said, I don't think either one of us could possibly have anticipated where it would lead. But here we are, ten years later. I love you, P!
When Harry was still coughing last Monday and hadn't eaten more than a couple of real meals in weeks, P took him to the doctor. Despite not having had a fever (except one day the week before) and not having had any disruptions to his sleep, and not acting in pain (aside from the not eating), it turned out he had an ear infection. So he went on antibiotics.
Since then, the cough has gone away.
Yesterday, though, was the first day he really seemed to be back to normal. For breakfast, he ate two bowls of cheerios and a cup of pineapple. For lunch, a grilled cheese and grapes. For snack, graham crackers, a few goldfish, and part of a peppermint patty (yeah, he had candy for a snack -- sue me). And dinner was a veggie dog, kidney beans, more pineapple, and mandarin oranges. For weeks, all he's been willing to eat is goldfish, graham crackers, and fruits and veggies. I made a chicken noodle casserole, and he picked out the mushrooms and broccoli and ate them and left the rest behind. I realize a lot of parents would be thrilled if this were their problem with their kids' eating habits, but it's disconcerting when your child only consumes 100-200 calories a day -- they can only eat so much broccoli. Also, the usual suggestions don't work for combatting this problem, since you can't really hide chicken in a blueberry or grains in a mushroom.
Harry's language has really exploded over the past month or so. He finally says both mama and dada, along with a ton of other new words, many of which are quite weird. For example, he can name the "sea star" on his high chair (and also likes to point out all the "bubbles"). And he's quite fond of "backhoes." He says "cheese!" for the camera. He asks for "books" in general and some by name (or parts thereof). And he knows certain parts of books by sight or by anticipation -- he knows what nine dogs do on a moonlit night, and when the gorilla gets caught in the bed by Mrs. Zookeeper, he says "uh-oh" then he does a funny laugh (a heh-heh) in response to the gorilla's grin on the next page (he also snores when the mouse wishes the gorilla goodnight at the end). He says "bu-bye" and waves even if no one is going anywhere. And he gets very frustrated when he wants to go "ow-sye" but it's cold and he isn't wearing a coat. He decided that one of the cats at my in-laws will be "kitty" and the other "cat." (Also called kitty was the dead possum at the far end of our street -- I hope someone calls animal control. If it's still there tomorrow, I'm calling, whether P thinks it's our responsibility or not (we live at the start of a dead end-- the "kitty" is in the dead end part, in front of someone else's house).) I think we can put to rest the overly-cautious-pedi's concerns regarding speech delay.
I wonder whether the language explosition is purely developmental or whether moving him to a different daycare two days a week played a role. I think the other kids play with/talk to him more at his new place, and I think he engages in more of the group activities there rather than wandering off to play with trucks. That, however, is another post entirely.
Last night during Harry's bath, Harry and P were singing Old MacDonald. Harry was actually singing the E-I-E-I-O part, as well as naming the occasional animal (his choice is pretty much always duck) and saying the sound of most of the animals Old MacDonald had on that farm. Of course, he didn't want to stop singing for bedtime, but it was pretty darn adorable. He has sang before, but it's pretty much been limited to the "quack, quack, quack" part of Six Little Ducks.
Twenty-seven weeks tomorrow. That seems crazy. I can't believe it's March.

Friday Night Leftovers

2010-02-19T15:25:00.004-05:00

I've been a horrific, absentee blogger for ages and hope jumping in with Danifred and company will help get me out of this rut.

Thanks for all the suggestions on the sippy cup dilemma. We tried a lot of them. Collectively, they worked. Spitting stopped. Hooray! Now we just need to deal with the depositing of food over the side of the tray (soooo glad we have a dog).
Many people have posted on the subject of double strollers, and we have read those posts and comments and have gotten tons of advice from people IRL and on Facebook, but I'm still overwhelmed by having to think about it. We need something that we will be able to push without great difficulty up hills and over rough terrain (our neighborhood is hilly and has crappy sidewalks). But I also want something that I can snap an infant seat into. And Harry will be too young for a jumpseat. We end up with a bunch of expensive choices. And nothing good seems to come up on Craigslist around here. I've been thinking about biting the bullet and buying the Duallie using the 20% off coupon I just got from BRU (which I think can be used on the Bob). But I'm having paralysis issues.
I hate the Dominos "puffery" ad because it's weird and makes no sense (I'm tempted to drone on about this, but no one cares). I also hate that ad because it makes me want pizza.
I think Harry has been sick since late August. It's been one cold or another, one after another, with a stomach bug throw in for good measure. The doctor said as long as he gets better between, it's fine. But his most recent "better" stints have been 2-4 days each. Is that really better?
Work was completely crazy in January, but now I'm back to having nothing to do. I've been trying to take advantage of the time, though, doing a little genealogy work, which I've been neglecting for a long time, and trying to relax a bit. I'm guessing I'll get fired at my review in May in the days leading up to maternity leave. Awesome.
With Harry, my placenta was in the front, so I didn't feel much for a long time. This time, it's in the back, and this child is crazy active. What is going on in there?
All of a sudden, Harry has a lot to say. I'm just not always sure what it is.

At My Spit's End

2010-01-02T09:02:00.003-05:00

I can't take it anymore. I feel like I spend half my day handing Harry his cup, watching him spit, saying no, wrestling the cup from his hands, and wiping milk off everything in sight. It's gotten to where he asks for his cup, then starts raspberrying before I even hand it to him. It has been MONTHS now. And I have no idea what to do anymore.

When I have asked folks for advice, they always tell me to say no and take it away, which is what we've been doing with no success. Or they say that it means he isn't really thirsty, except that he is begging for his cup and cries and cries when it is taken away. Or that he is testing us to be sure we'll be consistent in our response, except that we have been consistent for months and he hasn't stopped. (And I feel like the harder we try (including prohibiting raspberries when not drinking), the worse it gets (fifteen minutes of non-stop raspberries).) Or that he'll outgrow it -- when? when he's 40? Months, people, it's been months. Someone must have experience dealing with this successfully after the aforementioned efforts have failed. Please help!

Honestly, I feel like we are reliving the biting-while-nursing issue (which never got resolved), but in a way that is thankfully far less painful to me physically but which is bringing up some old emotional wounds.

Um, Yeah

2009-12-29T17:47:00.003-05:00

So, some of you emailed to ask and therefore already know this, others do not. Sorry for going offline for a couple of months. I know it looked like I went PWP and didn't tell anyone. The reality was that I was the only one with the password. I inadvertently exposed myself to someone IRL who I didn't really want reading along and therefore wanted to find a way to keep posting but have it be temporarily private. I didn't mean to keep it that way for so long.

There are posts throughout the "private period," and some previously unpublished drafts that predate it. If you read in a reader, you may have just had them all released to you. If not, you may need to go back. The first former draft was September 29. There are a couple from early October. After that, I was offline, so it's all new to the rest of you.

Again, sorry for going offline and especially for doing so in a way that may have made some people feel as though they were left out -- it wasn't about any of you, and no one else was not left out (if that makes sense). I'm glad to have those of you who are still reading back in my life. :)

EDITED TO ADD: You may want to read the posts from oldest to newest, if possible. Otherwise, you may be in for some, um, surprises.

Fifteen Months, Medically

2009-12-18T16:39:00.000-05:00

Harry's fifteen month appointment was today. He is certainly a big kid -- 32 inches and 26 pounds 2 ounces with a 48 cm noggin. This puts him around the 75th percentile across the board, though I think he is actually longer than 32 inches -- for some reason, the measuring made him very angry and I think the nurse just wanted to get it over with.

Our doctor's daughter was born on Harry's first birthday, so she was on leave for his 12 month checkup. She wasn't expected back until January, but because the baby came early, her leave began early, so she came back early, so our appointment with the doctor we saw in September was rescheduled to one with her, which we were happy about. Then yesterday, we got a call that she was going to be out for the day, so we got rescheduled with some other random doctor. Let me just say that had we met with her when interviewing doctors, we would likely have chosen a different practice. I like our pedi because she's pretty laid-back and non-alarmist. Not so this woman.

So, though it bothers me a little, I have tried not to make a big deal about the fact that while Harry has a few words (and uses them a lot), none of them is mama or dada. And it's not because he has come up with some other thing to call us. He doesn't call either of us anything. He know both that the dog is dog and that his name is Buddy (or budzz, as it sounds coming out of Harry's mouth), but neither of us is worthy of a name. Again, it makes me a little sad, but I haven't worried much. Not so this doctor.

Harry has now been officially diagnosed as having a mild speech delay. Not just in their files, but in the forms for daycare. All because he only has seven words at 15 months and because none of them is mama or dada. She also made me fill out the M-CHAT, which seemed a bit aggressive, especially given my answers to her other questions (like that Harry is very affectionate, he gives hugs and kisses, he plays peekaboo, he pushes cars on the floor and says "vroom vroom" (rather than just banging them or spinning the wheels), that while he doesn't imitate words/word-sounds, he does imitate funny sounds). She also wanted to put him on antibiotics because he had some fluid in his ears, even though he is just getting over a cold and hasn't had a fever and while they were a tinge pink they were not at all red. I got her to agree to wait and see -- if he seems to be in pain or develops a fever, we'll call immediately; if not, we'll bring him back in two weeks for a checkup.

Does she seem very aggressive to anyone else? Or am I in denial?

Fifteen Months

2009-12-13T16:22:00.007-05:00

Dear Harry,

Mommy's camera died and for some reason that resulted in no fourteen month letter. I'm sorry :( I'm especially sorry because a lot happened that month. You went from taking a step or two, to doing the Frankenwalk across the room, to walking full time. We went apple picking and visited a pumpkin patch and took a hay ride, which may have been the highlight of your young life. You were so excited to be up close and personal with a tractor. You took your first trip to the Aquarium. On Halloween, you went to your first football game with us and Papa and Grandma P, where you saw Mommy and Daddy's alma mater beat Papa's. That night, you were a monkey for Halloween. We pushed you in your red wagon, then you got out and pushed the wagon for a while. It was unseasonably warm, so we regretted not outfitting you in the Bam-Bam costume we planned, which we called off because we thought you'd be cold, but instead you got sweaty in your warm, snuggly monkey outfit. As you will someday learn, hindsight is always 20-20. The next weekend, we went to see Aunt K and Big Papa to celebrate Big Papa's 93rd birthday.

The camera is still broken but we've done our best to use the older camera. I'm sorry there aren't many good pictures from this month, but we'll hopefully have the good camera fixed and home soon.

This month, we celebrated Thanksgiving with Papa and Grandma P and three of your uncles. Everyone wanted to find good toys for you, so Uncle T went to the basement and hunted around for his own toys from when he and Mommy were kids, and we got out our old blocks, and you had a ton of fun. We discovered that you love cranberries, but not turkey. It was a rather bizarre discovery. Thanks to you, we actually had dinner at a reasonable hour for once, which you may one day discover is a rare occasion with Papa. Though it was later than promised, so you had to go right to bed when you were done eating all those cranberries. The next day, we had Thanksgiving Part II with Grandpa and Grandpa and Auntie T and Great-Grandpa. You mainly ate Grandma's cinnamon bread, which I think is what most of us would do if we were fourteen months old and people let us do that. Grandma also gave you your second haircut. You look fabulous. The next day, we took advantage of the warm weather and went to the park to swing and go down the slide and explore the tunnels (and show off the new haircut).

You had your second ever visit with Santa this month. Last year, you were less than two months old (as we went on Veteran's Day), so we didn't expect much. This year, you were about equally non-plussed. No tears, but no smiles either. The best photo was one with you two looking at each other. It may end up as our Christmas card if we can't get a better one before we need to order them.

Yesterday, we got our Christmas tree! It was cold -- very, very cold. We bundled you up in your much-hated coat and hat and gloves and wrapped a blanket around you in the stroller. But your cheeks still got red, so we tried to pick quickly. I think we ended up with our best tree yet -- not just our best in your lifetime but the best your dad and I have had in our ten Christmases together. Hopefully we'll decorate it soon. But it looks great as-is. We didn't manage to get an official monthiversary shot this month, but we did take some photos by the tree, so one of those is the header for this letter. I hope that's okay. We'll try to do a real one in January!

Finally, last night we took you to Zoolights at the Stone Zoo. It was a little underwhelming, but it was nice to get out and do something different and in the holiday spirit. The lights were nice, and you liked the animals you were able to see, few as they were. We took pictures, but we used a film camera and haven't had them developed yet. Film camera -- that must be a totally foreign concept to you :)

I'm excited for the upcoming month. We will celebrate Christmas, and we won't be doing it in the car! Hooray! We should also get some time to spend together -- a whole week with nothing to do but enjoy one another's company. And I'm really looking forward to it.

All my love,

Mommy

Thanksgiving: The One Where I Lose It

2009-11-27T12:29:00.002-05:00

It got worse. P spent Wednesday afternoon making the mashed potatoes. Wednesday night, we put Harry to bed in the car and drove to my brother's house and transferred Harry to the pack and play. The three of us then each took a item and prepped the beans, which I then cooked. Thursday, we headed to my dad's. My stepfamily showed up in the early afternoon, and my stepbrothers immediately planted themselves in front of the TV, where they proceeded to spend the entire day.

While P attempted (unsuccessfully) to get Harry to take a nap, I began working on stuffing and sweet potato casserole. My brother helped by washing things when I finished working with them. The stepbrothers would occasionally wander in to get a new beer but never offered to help. It was a long day in the kitchen. The only contribution either of them made was that my dad explicitly asked one of them to stir the gravy, which he did, but he didn't look happy about it. They did manage to contribute very large appetites, eating an enormous amount of food. Possibly because they were rather stoned.

The following morning, my dad asked if anyone was particularly committed to having turkey leftovers. We said we'd take some if it wasn't a hassle but we weren't especially committed. It turned out that he was hoping to re-roast the half of the bird that was not yet carved some night when my brother was over for dinner. His wife stated that she and her boys wanted leftovers. Seriously? You contribute essentially nothing and you insist on leftovers?

They also insisted on pie. My dad divided up what remained of the pie, putting some in a box for him, some in a box for the boys and some in a box for us. When we were getting ready to leave, I asked my dad for our pie. He pointed to an empty spot on the counter, then realized that the boys had taken not only their pie but also ours.

Fuck that. Really? You contribute nothing, you insist on having leftover turkey even though it's inconvenient for the person who prepared it, and then you steal the leftover pie of the people who made 90% of the food? FUCK YOU!! Yeah, I was and am pissed. I called my stepmother to tell her to stop wherever they were and surrender the pie (they had only left ten minutes earlier), but her phone was off. One stepbrother seems to be surgically attached to his iPhone, so I emailed him, but he didn't respond. So we got no pie. And I decided that I will never again have Thanksgiving with them unless there is an arrangement made in advance regarding what each person will be contributing -- one which prohibits freeloaders -- and some sort of lockbox for my damn leftovers.

Thanksgiving: The one where Harry likes cranberry

2009-11-26T20:00:00.000-05:00

My stepmother's contribution to Thanksgiving was a cranberry dish involving cranberries, orange, and who knows what else. When she suggested that would be her contribution, I had to laugh a little, since I know that my dad, my brother, P and I do not eat generally cranberry concoction at Thanksgiving. So the only contribution she and her boys would be making was something that only they would eat.

When we sat down to eat, the cranberry was in front of Harry. He immediately started pointing at it. He ate his mixed veggies and some mashed potatoes and some stuffing and some sweet potato casserole. He rejected his turkey, as expected. But throughout, he kept pointing at the cranberry. My stepmother kept telling him he wouldn't like it, that it was tart. But he kept pointing.

Finally, we gave in. We put a few bites on his tray and let him try it. He made a face, one that clearly noted the tartness. And then he grabbed another handful. And another. He made that face each time, but he kept on eating, like it was the best food he'd ever tasted. We kept scooping more onto the tray, and he kept eating it. Apparently, Harry likes tart things, including cranberry.

Needlesstosay, we ended up with half of the leftover cranberry.

Thanksgiving: The One Where We Do All The Work

2009-11-24T16:11:00.001-05:00

In the almost ten years we've been together, P and I have spent Thanksgiving with his family. Until last year, my dad and brother joined us. His mom is a good cook and does a good job of assigning people things to bring so that she doesn't get overwhelmed. And the added bonus is that his mom's house is only ten minutes from us. Maybe fifteen. So, aside from last year when we went to his aunt's vacation house three and a half hours away, we spent Thanksgiving at his mom's. But my dad got remarried last year, increasing the size of my family and making it difficult/impossible to join the families together. It started to feel like we were supposed to trade off, so we agreed to head to my dad's this year.

So we're heading to RI. But my dad doesn't usually host Thanksgiving, or hasn't in a long while. Which means he doesn't really know how to do this. He is a firm adherent to the philosophy that holidays are about family/people rather than food or presents and therefore thinks effort should be minimized with respect to the latter two categories. Consequently, he is providing turkey, baked potatoes, peas, and a pie, and anyone who wants anything else is responsible for bringing it. Which means that P and I are responsible for mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green beans, stuffing, and a second pie. Because my dad's wife and her (adult) sons are incapable of contributing anything. This pisses me off to no end. Thankfully my brother is going to help us prep when he can (keeping in mind that he has to work Thanksgiving morning, so I'm genuinely thankful that he's going to help at all).

I sent an email listing the menu (basically, what my dad would provide) and asking what people were bringing. My dad's wife offered to bring cranberry. No one else said a single fucking word, until one of her boys said he hoped the second pie would be pumpkin or pecan, but didn't offer to, say, bring it himself. Leaving the rest to me and P -- you know, the pregnant woman and her husband and their toddler. And my brother, who actually has work to do that day. Ugh. Not that I'm bitter or anything ;) With P's mom, everyone gets assigned one or two things, and we only have to drive 10 minutes. So, yeah, next year, we're back to going there. And we may not do the alternation thing. Because let's be real -- Thanksgiving is kind of about the food. But if I'm going to have to make it all, I'm not going to travel with my bags of food.

Edited to add: Later this afternoon, my dad sent an email asking what people wanted for beer. He noted that he has Michelob and Coors Light. My goddamn stepbrother wrote back to say he'd like Sierra Nevada or Heineken. Really, you self-centered son of a bitch? I got pissed. P decided to respond to the email, suggesting that perhaps anyone who wasn't okay with Coors Light or Michelob could bring their own to save my dad from having to go buy a bunch of six-packs for anyone who wanted something different. What is wrong with these people?

Not fired

2009-11-19T14:33:00.004-05:00

Are you as shocked as I was? Because I was shocked. I did get a "pick up your hours or you may get an 'exit' message in the spring" but it was, surprisingly, accompanied by an acknowledgement that some of the responsibility for the lack of hours lies with the firm/the department for not giving me enough work.

I feel like I had been putting on a brave face for a while, acting as though it was a done deal and therefore I just didn't care. But, as I mentioned yesterday, I did/do. Before my review, I went to talk to a friend/colleague and completely fell apart. I brought a tissue to my review in case I couldn't hold the tears back in front of these two men I'd never met before.

I had been told by friends who were fired in the spring that their reviews had all began with their reviewer looking all dour and saying "It's not good news." When I walked in, there were no dour faces, and no one said anything about news. They actually had my review file out, which I took as a decent sign, since I heard they didn't even bring them to the bad reviews in the spring. My reviewer began by asking how I felt things had been going since I came back from leave. I took this as my opening to say my piece, and I'm glad I did. I laid it all out there -- my frustration, my disappointment, my feelings of uselessness. I left out the anger, figuring I'd save that for if I was in fact fired.

My reviewer then commented that I had pretty much covered the first half of the review -- I didn't have enough work, making it tough to keep pace with my peers, which is the expectation of associates at the firm. He said he was impressed with my maturity in both recognizing the problem and being willing and able to acknowledge it, that usually the "getting the associate to recognize the problem" part is the hardest part of this type of review. He then spoke for a bit about how the firm makes very few hiring mistakes, and it expects that those are rectified quickly, so if I made it to this point, I was clearly a good attorney and that the comments in my reviews clearly reflected that. He then did the actual review, summarizing my comments and reading some to me. They were overwhelmingly quite positive. The one negative that wasn't related to the fact that I don't have enough work was insufficiently specific for me to even know what the partner was talking about, and the partner, in writing it, stated that he could have been misremembering, or it could have been a fluke.

We then had a discussion about what to do to fix the not enough work problem. The head of my department offered to make some calls to find me some work. And both he and my reviewer told me to check in if things continued to be slow for me. Here's hoping this plan works. Honestly, even if it doesn't, I have now ensured my continued employment until late May. And that's pretty much what I was hoping for.

All in all, as good as was possible under the circumstances. And 1000 times better than I actually expected.

Anxiety

2009-11-18T22:04:00.004-05:00

My annual review is tomorrow. The thought makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry.

If you asked me at the end of the summer, I would have said I thought the odds of me losing my job at this review were around 80%. As the fall wore on, I felt a little better about things, though I'm not entirely sure why. In part, I realized one of the partners I was working with just wasn't focused on our case, rather than being pissed at me for some indeterminable reason. In part, I think I was just feeling a bit more optimistic about life. But I probably would have brought the odds down to 65% or so.

Reviews began last week. Rumor has it that there has been a bit of a bloodbath among the junior associate ranks, but it's been rumor with no real proof. I don't know of any people at my level who have been affected. But I also know that everyone else in my class in my department has been busy, but I have had little to no work. And I think this bodes very badly. Last night I had a nightmare about my review. My reviewer fired me, then called me an idiot and mocked me. I tried to defend myself, which only made things worse. And none of my friends seemed to care that I had just lost my job, which made me angry. When I woke up, I was crying, tears streaming down my face. I've been trying to act like I just don't care, or like I'm so prepared for it that it won't matter, but it will. In case anyone is wondering, the blase is an act, albeit one that I myself have bought into. I'd probably put the odds of me getting fired around 95% now. And that scares the crap out of me.

Obviously, there's the financial issue. How will we possibly support ourselves? Then there's the timing issue. How can I look for a job while pregnant? If I wait, that leaves me unemployed (and income-less) for an awfully long time. But if I barrel ahead, I will be looking for a job while pregnant and needing to take leave within six months of starting, which doesn't seem to be the right message to send to a new employer. Plus, I doubt I'd get much leave wherever I landed. And then there's the self-worth issue. Who the hell am I if it turns out I am someone who gets fired?

So I'm scared. But I'm also pissed. I feel like some of the blame for the situation I find myself in is definitely mine -- I didn't ask for work in the weeks following my miscarriage, and I didn't push for work even when I started asking again. But even when I did push for work, I didn't get any, or at least not much. And then I went on leave, and when I came back, getting work was even harder. Other people in my department have been busy. People in my class year. But I haven't. I knew I needed to hit the ground running when I came back in March, and I felt like I did everything I could to do so. I begged for work from anyone and everyone. And I got some. But it wasn't enough. And I got almost nothing through the central assignment system, through which we are supposed to get the bulk of our work. And eventually I gave up. At some point it became obvious that there was nothing I could do to save my job. I felt as though the deck was stacked against me, and now here I am. And I am far from the only woman in my department who has had a child or multiple children and found themselves in this position. All the women in my department who seemed to successfully balance work and family have been fired in the past year.

So I'm scared and angry and anxious and frustrated. And uncertain how to handle the moment. Act tough? Show my anger? Burst into tears? Rage against the system? I suspect I will just react, most likely with tears. There will be a lot I will want to say, but I suspect I'll be so afraid of making no sense that I won't say much. And then I'll have to add regretful to my list.

Uneventful NT Scan

2009-11-17T16:51:00.000-05:00

We had our NT scan today. It was rather uneventful. The measurement was right on target -- 1.6, I believe. They had some trouble getting any other measurements but seemed satisfied by the end. We got a few pictures, including a 3D one, to take home. All in all, uneventful but in a good way.

As a random note, Harry was pretty active at that point but this baby put him to shame, moving all over the place. We may be in trouble.

Halloween: Franken-Monkey

2009-11-03T15:08:00.000-05:00

Harry was supposed to be Bam-Bam for Halloween. But we live in New England, and I was worried that it would be too cold to have him out in a cloth diaper and little else in late October. So we decided that he would be a monkey, wearing a generic costume we found at BRU. Of course, it ended up being unseasonably warm, and he was sweating in his monkey suit.

Regardless, my dad and stepmother and Ps mom and her husband came over that evening to see him all dressed up and stayed at our house distributing candy while we took Harry around the neighborhood. We figured he didn't need to collect any candy, but we loaded him up in his wagon along with a tiny pail that could fit 6 or so candies in it and brought him around the neighborhood anyway, mainly just to wish folks a Happy Halloween. Despite the fact that it was Saturday and the weather was warm, there were very few kids out, so a lot of people insisted we take candy even if Harry wasn't going to eat it. And some of the other kids in the neighborhood thought it would be cute to share their candy with him, so kids put candy in the wagon with him. Despite our efforts, I think we ended the evening with more candy in our house than we started with.

On an unrelated note, as you can see from the photo, Harry has gotten pretty stable on his feet. But he still does the Franken-walk for stability. He'll grow out of that, right?

BlessingS

2009-10-20T10:01:00.000-04:00

Our friends' ultrasound showed twins! They are a little freaked out, and she has some truly awful morning sickness settling in, but we are thrilled for them.

Thirteen Months

2009-10-13T21:21:00.000-04:00

My little munchkin,

I thought it was crazy when you turned one, but now you're more than one and it seems even crazier. You are really becoming a kid. You can take at least a few steps, and you don't drink from bottles, and you wear size 5 shoes -- with real soles! When did you get so grown up?

Though your birthday was last month, this month, you had a birthday party (since you were out of town for a wedding on your actual birthday). Your closest family and friends were all there. You did a lot of pushing of things (your car, your wagon -- including when other kids were in it) and you ate a cupcake. It was your first taste of sugar, and you seemed uncertain at first, but you caught on. But only after Grandma smeared some icing in your mouth. You then separated the top of the cupcake from the stump and waved the stump around, mashing it in your hair, then throwing it on the ground. You were quite a mess by the time you were done. And you did not like getting cleaned up.

Honestly, one of the biggest developments this month were the ones that were the least obvious. You really started to figure things out. You figured out how to open the latch on the cupboard with the DVDs. Strangely, you take out the same one every time -- Madagascar on BluRay, which is funny since we don't have a BluRay player. Perhaps one day. You also became obsessed with phones and have, sadly, figured out how to push random sequences of buttons on my (old) cell phone -- sequences I can't seem to identify, as my phone stopped ringing for several weeks. You have also figured out how to change the channel on the DVR without using a remote and how to change the volume on the receiver when it's off so that when someone turns the TV on it blasts at an obscene volume. Awesome. Maybe our decision to let you watch the Pats on TV wasn't such a good idea.

Finally, one of my favorite of your discoveries has been your discovery of the value of fitting in. To be clear, it's not my favorite because I want you to want to fit in. Rather it's my favorite because it is absolutely hysterical to watch you when you hear others around you laughing and realize that while you don't get the joke you don't want to be left out of the fun, so you let out a "ha, ha, ha" that is so obviously fake it makes everyone laugh harder. It's adorable. That said, sometimes you're better off not getting the joke -- just because everyone else is laughing doesn't mean it was actually funny.

Whether or not we make you laugh or merely make you fake laugh, you certainly make us laugh. Our big boy.

All my love,

Mommy

684

2009-10-12T15:46:00.003-04:00

Their second beta, on Friday at 14dp3dt, was 684. Ultrasound is scheduled for 10/20. They are starting to believe this might really be happening. Yay!

We went away with them and another couple this weekend. It was a little weird being the pregnancy expert (being the only one there who had been pregnant before), being asked to offer advice on foods to avoid, what symptoms were normal, etc. She freely admitted to having spent three years focused on getting pregnant and then on raising a baby and having spent no time at all thinking about the being pregnant part. It was actually kind of funny.

First Appointment

2009-10-07T14:14:00.000-04:00

We have a heartbeat. Based on measurements, EDD is 6/1/10 (consistent with my guess that I ovulated late -- based on LMP, EDD would be 5/25, I think). Crazy.

Wordless Wednesday: Reflective

2009-10-07T01:05:00.000-04:00

207

2009-10-06T22:30:00.002-04:00

That was our friends' beta this morning, at 11dp3dt. Whoo-hoo!

Whoo-hoo again!

I cried a little when I found out, and I assume they did too.

Secrecy

2009-10-02T19:40:00.002-04:00

(I originally wrote this post on my Blackberry and then it disappeared. If you are someone who posts via Blackberry, got any pointers?)

I thought it might be worthwhile to explain why it is that keeping this pregnancy under wraps is important to me. There are, in fact, a number of reasons. The first is probably the most obvious reason: the uncertainty over the outcome. We are the type of people who wait until they are out of the first trimester to tell anyone other than our parents or siblings (and with the pregnancy we lost, we didn't/hadn't planned to tell them before the end of the first trimester either and didn't end up telling them until we were pregnant again). I know there are a lot of people who don't wait or who think that doing so is silly, and I have no problem with that approach for them, but we aren't those people. In part, it's the fear of having to untell. In part, it's something else that I can't name -- superstition, maybe? But we are non-tellers.

The second reason can best be summarized as "work." I am nervous about taking two leaves so close together. I am worried about the signals it sends. I am especially worried because of how difficult it has been for me to get any traction work-wise since I came back from leave in March. I am worried that it will be even more difficult doing so a second time. I am worried that I won't get to come back from leave a second time. I am worried that it sends the wrong message about my commitment to my job. Or, perhaps, I am worried that it in fact sends exactly the right message as far as accuracy of content goes, but I'm just not sure I want the message sent. Regardless, postponing telling anyone seems like an easy way to avoid having to confront these issues.

The third reason is our friends and their current IVF cycle. I really hope this is the one for them. But whether it is or it isn't, I don't want to say anything about us while they are still waiting to find out. If it is the one, I want to give them time to enjoy being the pregnant people without anyone else being pregnant too. And if it's not, I want them to have time to grieve before I drop a fucking bomb on them. Man, I hope this is the one, for their sake and for my own -- the guilt might kill me.

So that's three of the prime reasons why we will be keeping this a secret, and why I will be saving this as a draft for now. And why I would love it if I could just never tell anyone at all.

Wordless Wednesday: Go Pats!

2009-09-30T09:10:00.002-04:00

Becoming Picky

2009-09-29T22:49:00.006-04:00

If Harry could eat the same thing every day, I'm pretty sure this is what his menu would look like:

Breakfast: Yogurt, english muffin, fruit. A soy sausage every other day.

Lunch: Grilled cheese on wheat bread, fruit.

Dinner: Pasta with red sauce, peas, fruit.

I actually think he would gladly eat just yogurt and fruit (with no major preference regarding what fruit -- berries, pineapple, melon, banana, kiwi, peaches, pears, plums -- he loves them all, and more). I've started mixing veggie purees into his morning yogurt to try to get some more veggies into him. And he does eat other food (I try not to indulge the pickiness, which often results in very little dinner), but it's often a struggle.

For tomorrow's lunch at day care, I packed a veggie dog, some cheese cubes, some wax beans (which he won't eat for us, but maybe he will for her), some watermelon, and half a mini-bagel (which I may trade for an english muffin at the last minute, as he prefers the muffin, but it seems like a lot of food). Miss M provides lunch for the kids, but we pack Harry's -- they are all very picky toddlers, so they tend to do a lot of chicken nuggets and fries, pizza, grilled cheese, etc., and I'd rather avoid him eating that much fried food (and avoid him developing a taste for it).

He used to be such a great and adventurous eater (he tried parsnips and used to love beets). Are those days gone, or just on hiatus?

ETA: I spoke too soon. This morning, he rejected fruit too, only eating yogurt. The rest, as usual, was tossed to the floor, making Buddy very happy.

Neither Trying Nor Preventing

2009-09-29T07:14:00.003-04:00

Apparently, such a strategy can have the following consequences:

(Apologies for the awful picture.) The first one strip was last Tuesday.

Since my period has been irregular since Harry was born because of the whole nursing thing, I have no idea when I ovulated, but if I had to guess I would have thought it was several (like 4-5) days after the last time we actually did the deed, so this is a huge surprise to say the least. That first strip is rather faint, which would be consistent with it being about 14dpo. If there's any validity to the Shettles Method, I'm guessing this will be a girl, if in fact we get that far.

Strangely, I'm not feeling as nervous or anxious as I would expect. Or, to the extent I'm feeling nervous/anxious, it's more over the idea of possibly having two under two or of having to manage a career and two small kids or of having to tell my dad, who I suspect will feel that the latter is impossible, or at least that my work will be less than thrilled, thereby derailing my career further.

For now, I will attempt to be excited. And for now, we will keep this a serious secret. And for now, I am going to save this post as a draft, to be published later.

Update on the Last Post

2009-09-24T10:56:00.001-04:00

They retrieved 9 eggs on Tuesday, of which 4 fertilized. She is pretty upset, as they got 16 last time, of which 11 fertilized. (Of course, last time her transfer got cancelled due to OHSS.) Transfer is scheduled for Friday. My fingers remain crossed for them. Keep yours crossed too.

Fingers Crossed

2009-09-21T15:58:00.003-04:00

Harry's godparents have been trying to conceive for three or so years now. The day I had the D&E back in 2007, she had an HSG that showed that her tubes were blocked. Completely. In the two years since then, we had Harry, who is now one. In that same two year period, they fought a series of battles with their insurance company. She had a bilateral salpingectomy. They began their first of two covered rounds of IVF, but she showed signs of OHSS post-retrieval, so the transfer was cancelled. They did two FETs, neither successful. They did a lot of thinking and a lot of waiting.

Last night at two a.m was her trigger shot for their second-and-final insurance-covered fresh cycle. Retrieval is tomorrow at two. Transfer will be Friday or Saturday, barring any recurrence of the OHSS signs.

Shit has not been going particularly well for them in general lately. She is finishing her dissertation and trying to enter the job market. This is tough at any time, but the economy sucks, and her research findings and her hypotheses aren't lining up completely, and she's a perfectionist (I say that in the best way, of course), so she's stressed. And, well, rather hormonal. Meanwhile, his company first cut salaries, then furloughed people, including him. So they can't afford a fresh cycle on their own dime. This may be it for them for now.

I'm guessing they don't need any advice per se, but if anyone has any prayers/positive thoughts to spare and/or has any words of any sort, whether they be of comfort or encouragement or other forms of wisdom, I'd be happy to pass them along.

One Year

2009-09-13T13:54:00.003-04:00

My wonderful little boy,

It seems wholly impossible that it has been a year since you came into our lives. As cliched as it is, it feels like just yesterday that you were born, but I can't really remember our life without you. In that year you have gone from being a helpless newborn to being a fiercely determined, rambunctious little boy. I have loved every minute of being your mom, even the minutes where you bit hard enough to draw blood or screamed for no reason or threw all your food on the floor for the dog. Every. Minute. They have been the best 525,600 minutes of my life.

This month has been full of fun. You rediscovered books -- and remembered that they are not just for eating. You love to flip the pages and look at the pictures. You love your big picture books and Beep Beep Peekaboo and Fuzzy Fuzzy Fuzzy. You also love Alligator Alphabet, requesting it be read MANY TIMES after almost every nap -- you see the painting on the wall and want to touch the animals (mainly the yak and the zebra), so we read the book instead. Unsurprisingly, your first word was book. And even less surprisingly, your second was dog. You continue to be slightly obsessed with the dog.

You are also really into your walking toys. You love walking, but you can't quite do it on your own yet, so you spend what seems like an inordinate amount of time pushing your truck across the room, walking around it to get to the other side, then pushing it back. It was a happy day in our house when you discovered that you could walk to the other side to push it back, ending the days of sitting down and crying. You also enjoy walking the truck to the airplane, and the airplane to the giraffe, or any of them to a piece of furniture that you can cruise along to get to the next thing, whether it be another walking toy, another piece of furniture, the exersaucer (you love being able to walk around it and check out the toys from the outside), your music table, or your workbench. I think you have too many toys.

This month you also took your first step, down at Grandma Ps beach house, where we spent Labor Day with Papa and Grandma P and your cousins and your uncles and aunt. I don't think the step was on purpose -- you let go, took one step, and fell down -- but you did do it. While there, you also took your first dip in the Atlantic. It was definitely more successful than the Pacific. You liked it so much that, when we were sitting on the beach, you took my hands and walked me back down to the water to go back in, wading in up to your chest and laughing away. I am so glad you have decided you like the water. Now that you bathe in the big boy bathtub and spent time in a pool both at our house and at daycare, maybe it seems more familiar. Or maybe you just knew that this was your ocean. I'm happy either way.

I'm sorry that you had to wake up in the morning on your first birthday in a pack n play in a hotel room, but daddy's cousin got married and we had to go. You did get to celebrate with a belgian waffle, followed by your first haircut (it was getting a bit shaggy around the ears), thanks to Grandma. We spent the evening at Fenway Park, where you got to see your name on the scoreboard, along with birthday wishes from your dad and me. You also got to see the Red Sox win for the sixth time this year -- this time from excellent seats on the first base line. You held up a sign telling everyone it was your birthday, which everyone in our section loved but no one on TV saw. You were on TV, though -- in the background for every left-handed batter but not with the sign. We'll save it -- you have a lot of birthdays ahead of you.

My sweetpea, my munchkin, my big guy, my baby boy. I love you with all my heart, on this, your first birthday, and for every day before and every day yet to come.

Mommy

Time for a Change?

2009-09-01T12:41:00.003-04:00

Over the years, when recruiters have called, I have always just said I wasn't looking.

Today, I told one to call back in a few weeks. I need some time to gather my thoughts.

Table Food = Messy

2009-08-28T15:58:00.004-04:00

First pizza, al fresco at Uno's (we forgot a bib, so Uno's offered us a disposable apron, which was essentially a trash bag, cut to cover Harry's whole torso):

Macaroni with sweet potato mush sauce:

Blueberry pancakes:

Pasta with red sauce (I can't look at this picture without laughing):

Anniversary, Apathy, Exhaustion: Catching Up

2009-08-27T09:37:00.004-04:00

So I have had a bunch of posts that I've meant to, well, post, but haven't had time. So, in order to catch up, I'm just going to do a bulleted list of stuff, starting with the good and moving to the less good:

P and I celebrated our four year anniversary last week (the 20th). Four years is the fruit & flowers (traditional) or appliances (modern) anniversary. So P sent me flowers and gave me a new air conditioner for our room (we had given ours to Harry). I sent him an edible arrangement (with the anniversary sampler added on) and got him a second guitar for Guitar Hero. Very romantic :) On Saturday, my SIL babysat, and P and I enjoyed a fantastic dinner out, then went to see Harry Potter at the IMAX. It was an awesome night -- wonderful meal, great movie, better company. Happy anniversary, P!
Harry has begun table food in earnest. We have ordered him food off the kids menu at a couple of restaurants. It has been quite messy but fun. It seems he will eat anything with tomato sauce. And he loves blueberry pancakes.
I find myself somewhat busy at work. I've been having a lot of trouble motivating lately (see next bullet), though, which isn't good. I have a lot more to say on this, but it's not really a bullet list kind of thing.
Lately (like, since June), I've been feeling, well, not myself. I guess that's the best way to describe it. I've been feeling tired and run down and generally apathetic. I just don't care about much of anything. Most of the time, whatever I'm doing, I'd rather be doing something else. And beyond apathy, I am definitely feeling some degree of antipathy when it comes to work. I have waves of feeling differently, but they are infrequent and unpredictable. And I have been eating too much, in a very mindless way, and not healthy food, which makes me feel more run down and generally bad about myself. I had an appointment with my doctor last week (for a physical) and brought it up with her. She did a bunch of bloodwork to rule out any physical causes, and it all came back normal. Her best guess (and mine, I suppose) is depression. She recommended an anti-depressant. But the last time I tried one (in college), I had a very bad reaction to it (severe anxiety -- severe enough to land me in health services, where they doped me up on a boatload of sedatives). So I'm reluctant.
My tiredness/run down-ness is not being helped by the fact that Harry has gone from being a great sleeper to being a mediocre (at best) one. After sleeping through the night since 10 weeks, we have now had several weeks of wake-ups. Some wake-ups are quick, others not so much. And he pulls himself to standing and will wail on and on, so we can't really just let him cry it out, though we may try some modified form of it tonight in the hope of finding something, anything, that might help. For an example of what we've been dealing with, on Tuesday I was working until about 1am. I then couldn't sleep. I finally fell asleep at 2 or so Within 5 minutes, Harry woke up screaming. When I went in there, his elbow was stuck in the bars of the crib (his actual elbow -- his hand and body were still inside, but his elbow was outside). I unstuck it and rubbed his back for a bit. He lifted his head up (which is generally an indication that he's about to sit, then stand), so I picked him up to settle him, but he was like a sack of potatoes. I put him back down a minute later. He moved around a little and fell back to sleep. This was one of the better nights. But I then had trouble getting back to sleep. So last night I decided to go to bed early-ish (10:30 or so), since I'd only slept 3 hours the night before. But Harry didn't like that plan. He woke up at 10:45, screaming. We let it go for a few minutes, but it got worse rather than better. P went in to rock him, but Harry continued to scream/cry for an hour or more, preventing me from sleeping. He finally calmed down, but wasn't sleepy. At 12:15, I took over, and after 15 minutes he was asleep. But he woke up when I tried to leave. By that point I was too tired to deal, so I turned off the monitor so I could sleep and let P take over again. Harry didn't fall asleep until 1:15. During the time he was awake, we tried Motrin and Orajel, in case it was teething. P gave him a bottle, in case it was hunger. He had a few farts, but not enough for me to think it was gas. He's pooped a bunch lately, so it's not constipation (though the poops have been wetter than usual, but not so wet as to make me worry about a bug). P thinks it's developmental, relating to an approaching language development, since he tends to spend his settled-but-not-sleepy time "talking." (He says "duck" and "book" (and other things, but mainly those two) over and over, pointing at any number of things, most of which are neither ducks nor books.) I'm nearing a breaking point.

And that's all I have to say about those things for now. Advice and/or assvice on any of those topics is welcome.

Eleven Months

2009-08-13T22:08:00.007-04:00

Dear Harry,

It seems completely unreal to me that you are eleven months old, only one month shy of a full year. More accurately, it seems unreal to me in the abstract that you are eleven months old, but, when I look at you and see the little boy you have become and think back to the baby you were, it seems very real. Because you have become a little boy.

After many months of frustration on your part, you finally figured out crawling this month. Your style is a little funny -- you use your hands, one knee and one foot. It looks funny, but you're quite quick. And within two weeks of figuring that out, you had mastered getting to sitting, pulling to standing and cruising. You love the new-found mobility and freedom. And you get into everything, seemingly drawn to the things that are least appropriate, more drawn the more we try to keep you away. You love the dog's bones, and his food, and the bottles in the wine rack. In a room full of your toys, with a dog bone tucked away in a corner, you will somehow sense the bone and make a beeline for it, getting it into your mouth before we've realized that you've taken off.

You made your first trip up to the cottage this year. We did the drive overnight in both directions to ensure that you slept, which, of course, ensured that we did not. The weather wasn't great -- rainy, overcast, cool enough that you needed footie jammies and more pants than we brought -- but we made our best of it. Daddy and Grandpa made you a beach, which makes them pretty awesome. You went out on the boat, sat in the water (though you did not like to go swimming, which makes Mommy a little sad) and played in the sand. You got to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa and Great-Grandpa, as well as your cousin B.

You also visited the place in Maine where Mommy's family has gone for 57 years. You are now the fifth generation to have been up there. I wish we could have been there for longer than a weekend. Maybe next year. Maybe by then you'll be ready to try sailing!

After eight months of being a pretty great sleeper, with all the new stuff, you started to have a harder time sleeping. It started when we were on vacation, but continued on and off when we got home, so maybe it wasn't just that you hated the borrowed pack n play. When we put you down, or when you wake up at night, you push yourself to sitting and begin to cry. With some regularity, you have begun to require rocking and/or singing in order to fall asleep, which is exhausting, especially in the middle of the night. I'm not sure if your brain and/or body is on overdrive, or if you're teething, or if we've been feeding you something that is bothering you, but I hope you go back to sleeping well soon.

You have also had a lot to say this month. You still don't have any words, or at least no words that Daddy and I can recognize, but you certainly spend a lot of time talking, often quite loudly. You are not a quiet child. I think you get this from Mommy's family. You also figured out this month that your toy crates had toys in them. It was pretty funny to watch. Of course, once you knew where we had hidden it, you immediately took that dang butterfly back out, putting it and it's tremendously annoying songs back into circulation. We had enjoyed the reprieve.

It has been truly wonderful getting to watch you grow and learn and explore this past month. Now if we could just work on the sleeping thing...

With all my love,

Mommy

Wordless Wednesday: Stop Raining -- It's Vacation and We Want To Play Outside

2009-08-05T22:08:00.001-04:00

What A Difference Two Weeks Makes

2009-08-02T11:28:00.003-04:00

In the past two weeks, Harry has:

mastered crawling (though on hands, one knee and the other foot)
mastered getting himself seated
mastered pulling up on stuff
begun cruising
(as a result of those four items, he now requires rocking to sleep at least 75% of the time or he wails and wails until we go in and find him sitting up in his crib crying, holding his arms out to be picked back up)
(also as a result of those four items, he now requires singing in order to have his diaper changed or he either crawls off or cries if you try to prevent the crawling through some form of baby-wrangling)
mastered walking while holding on to hands (purposeful, quick walking as opposed to thudding, haphazard steps, which he started a while back). He is also able to sit back down and to let go with one hand to bend over and pick up a toy (or piece of lint or old food).
been to his second foreign country -- he has now been to more non-U.S. countries than his aunt and uncle combined
pulled his first all-nighter (well, up from 11:30 on -- he did sleep 3.5 hours to start the night)
begun nursing strike number 2 (which I am now fairly confident is stemming from the return of my monthly cycle. Each strike has begun in the week and a half leading up to a (one-day) period, with the last one ending the day the period began/occurred. If that's the case again, I can live with it. My supply seems to nosedive during that week+ (or I stop responding to the pump) and it takes ages to get a letdown then, so I think he's impatient. At least the biting is less bad this time. Mainly he just gives up. Though he gave me the worst bite yet last week, bad enough that I ached for days afterward.)
been on his first boat ride
gone swimming in a lake
learned how to throw tennis balls for the dog
taken his first bath in the big tub
begun waving

I am exhausted. (The fact that the aforementioned all-nighter was two nights ago, and last night we drove all night on our way back from vacation so as to avoid ten hours in the car with him awake is partly to blame for that.)

This unwilling-to-go-down-easily-or-have-a-diaper-change thing ends at some point, right?

Wordless Wednesday: Happy 7th Birthday, Buddy

2009-07-22T19:29:00.004-04:00

Boobs Are Back to Work

2009-07-20T09:42:00.004-04:00

As noted in my most recent letter to Harry, the nursing strike appears to be over, at least for now. It ended as quickly and as inexplicably as it began. One day, ten/eleven/twelve/thirteen days in (I wasn't counting in the beginning, not realizing it would last so damn long), I offered before his first nap, and he nursed rather than biting.

The night before, at the suggestion of a lactation consultant, we did a dream feed, and he gladly took a boob in his sleep. That was the only real change that occurred right then. But, for the sake of anyone who may stumble upon this, here is a list of what we tried, none of which seemed to make much of a difference:

Cutting back on solids, especially at dinner-time
Cutting back on daycare bottles, in the hope that he'd be hungrier at home
Switch back to slow flow bottle nipples to reduce the likelihood of bottle preference continuing
Paced bottle feeding (at home -- I didn't ask his daycare provider to do it)
Not having me give a bottle (i.e. bottle only comes from Daddy or Miss M; if you want Mommy and milk, you have to nurse -- we had only just switched to this, so this might have helped too)
Offering the bottle first to satiate some of his hunger, then switch to the breast (this resulted in a lot of biting, except one time when he nursed)
Trying every imaginable position
Changing up the times of his nursing sessions, including while sleepy and while just waking (from naps -- the one nursing session he had kept was when he woke in the morning)
Fenugreek to increase supply
Breast compressions to speed up flow
Increased skin to skin time
Only nursing with the window open (this may have helped, as he still is more apt to bite if the window is closed -- at some point I realized that his morning nursing was always with the window open but the rest of the day/evening it was often closed)

We had long ago eliminated nursing anywhere other than his room, in the glider, with no distractions. The only recommendations we didn't try were nursing in the bath (I probably eventually would have gone there too) and co-sleeping.

I have no idea how to express how much this experience sucked. To quote the email I wrote on one of the last days of the strike: "I'm honestly just feeling completely worn out, exhausted and rejected. Since I went back to work after being home with him for 6 months, I was able to get over some of the guilt of being away from him all day by coming home and having this time that was just for us. But now instead of finding me comforting he bites me and today has begun to cry when I hold him. It's just painful, physically (from the biting) and emotionally. Here I am, an overeducated lawyer at a big law firm, and I cry myself to sleep at night because I feel (irrationally, I know) like my son doesn't need or love me any more. I just want there to be a solution, a way to get back to where we used to be, but I'm starting to realize there just may not be one, and I just feel so sad."

I'm glad this chapter appears to be over, at least for now. Inevitably, of course, he will now decide he wants to nurse longer than I want to, like, say, until college, bringing on a different set of guilt and stress issues entirely. But we'll deal with that when/if we get there.

Ten Months

2009-07-13T14:54:00.001-04:00

My dear sweetpea,

I'll admit it. This month was tough. I think all the not-crawling finally got to you, and you made sure daddy and I knew it any way you could. There was a lot of biting, and a nursing strike that I was sure was early weaning, and yelling. Lots and lots of yelling.

I found myself very frustrated a lot of the time, frazzled in a way I hadn't really felt since you were born. But every time I wanted to get angry with you, I remembered that you were probably more frustrated than I was. There are just so many things that you want to be able to do and seem convinced that you should be able to do, but you can't quite master them. And you don't even have words to explain how frustrating that is. I kept thinking back to when I spent the summer in France and all of a sudden found myself overwhelmed with homesickness in a way I totally didn't expect. My host sister thought I'd feel better if we went to an American movie with French subtitles, so we went to see Mrs. Doubtfire. But when we got there, it turned out to be Mme. Doubtfire, and the jokes just didn't translate properly into poorly-dubbed French and were delivered by someone other than Robin Williams. It wasn't funny at all, and I didn't feel less alone. And I cried, because that moment so perfectly captured everything I had been feeling. And I HAD words, in two languages, but just couldn't find any in either language that could really express my sense of disjuncture. So I'm impressed that you don't cry, that you only yell in frustration. It must be so hard to feel so much and be so unable to do anything about it.

Thankfully, after ten days the nursing strike now appears to be over (though I'm afraid to put it in writing for fear of jinxing it), and "gentle" seems to be working in conjunction with holding your hand tightly to deal with the hitting, but there's still no crawling, so there's still a lot of yelling and some biting for good measure. I am hoping this is not a brief window into what you will be like at 2, as you seem to be very strong-willed.

Good thing for you that you are also very cute.

This month also marked a few other firsts, including your first trip to the zoo. Daddy and I took you there with Papa. We saw some cool animals, but a lot of exhibits were closed. I'm sure we'll go back soon, though.

At your last doctor's appointment, we discovered that you actually had grown a lot, moving from the 18th to the 62nd percentile in weight and from the 75th to the 85th in length. I guess it wasn't our imagination. Also, Dr E gave you the okay to start on new foods (i.e. foods that are not fruits, vegetables and cereal). You now eat black beans and kidney beans, yogurt, cheese, bread, bagels, waffles, pancakes, scrambled egg yolks, tofu and many other tasty treats, including a couple of new vegetables. The best? Cheese. Followed by black beans and yogurt. The worst? Tofu, broccoli and cauliflower. You are pretty positive that none of these is food -- if you eat it by accident, you pull it back out and make a lovely face. This from the same boy that will eat wood chips. You have a strange palate. Also, you have decided that you are completely done with being fed and insist on self-feeding. This is messy. But it's nice that you have an area in which to assert your independence.

Speaking of you and feeding, you also learned how to give the dog a treat, though you did think it was for you at first:

I must admit, I worry a little about your lack of crawling, even though Dr E said not to and even though I always swore I would not be that type of mom. I know some babies aren't into it and go straight to walking. That would be fine with me. I worry mainly, though, because you are into it, you just can't figure it out. For three months now (maybe more?), you have been so desperate to crawl, pushing on hands and knees, rocking and . . . scooting backwards. You have become more desperate but don't seem any closer to forward movement. I hope you master it soon, for everyone's sake, even though Daddy and I really don't want to childproof. I can't wait to see the look of accomplishment on your face when you finally put it together.

Through it all, sweetpea, through the yelling and the biting and the nursing strike and the hitting, I love you with all my heart. I always will.

Love,

Mommy

A Long Goodbye

2009-07-07T16:03:00.004-04:00

Shifting gears entirely to another subject that leaves me feeling a little stressed and lacking in control, it looks like my father will not be selling the house I lived in during the latter part of my childhood and moving to another state afterall. As much as this is the way I would have preferred things to end up, the circumstances under which this change in plans has arisen are fully suck-tastic.

I always thought his now-wife was a tiny bit flaky, which struck me as a bit odd for a fairly high-powered professional, but I figured it was just a quirk of her personality. Apparently, this "quirk" grew increasingly worrisome and had been a subject of many unpleasant discussions between her and my dad over the past year-plus. He insisted she seemed flakier; she insisted he was being an ass. Possibly to placate him or possibly because she could no longer deny what he was insisting was a problem, she went to a neurologist. After much testing, multiple opinions, etc., she has been told that there is a 95% chance that she has early-onset Alzheimers. And there's really nothing good about that.

Let me begin by saying that the situation for her and for her (adult) kids is a nightmare. I can't imagine having to face it and am a bit ashamed of how glad I am that it's not my dad facing this horrendous diagnosis at such a (relatively) young age.

But it's not exactly awesome for my dad either, and I doubt anyone else is thinking about him and what this means for him right now. I feel like no matter what my dad does, it's the wrong thing to do. If he moves, he gives up the life he has where he lives now for, what, a couple of years, maybe more if they're lucky, with his wife before she no longer remembers who he is and goes to live in a nursing home? And then he's stuck there. She promised to help him ease the transition, introducing him to people and helping him establish himself socially, but is that realistic now? Or he stays where he is and rips a woman whose mind is already losing touch out of the one familiar setting it has. Or they stay where they are, living apart.

The current plan seems to be to continue to try to sell her house but not his, spending three weeks a month there, and one week in an apartment they'll rent near where she lives now so she can remain in contact with the people and places she knows. Is that really for better or for worse? It seems so incredibly selfish for him to do anything but move, but that sacrifice just seems astronomical now, with no real upside. He's was in his 60s when they met -- this isn't exactly the Notebook.

The reality is that he sensed something amiss months before they got married and talked to her about it numerous times, but she just kept saying that it was who she was. (He has since learned that she spoke to at least one of her oldest and dearest friends and voiced her own concerns during that same period, which I think really upsets my dad. I'd feel better saying he is upset because he feels sad that she didn't trust him but really he feels betrayed, feeling like she lied to him.) Part of me wonders if all his heel-dragging over the move (because, seriously, they got married 11 months ago and still don't live in the same state) was subconsciously related to his gut sense that something was wrong (ignoring the fact that the state of the economy hasn't exactly made it easy to contemplate selling either, much less both, of their houses, as they planned to move to a new shared place). There would be much less guilt and indecision if the move had already been made.

This may be the first time in my life when something bad was happening in my dad's life that didn't really affect me. I don't even know what to say to him. I can't even figure out how to think about the situation. I keep trying to step outside myself for a bit and think about what I'd want my dad to do if I were one of her kids, or if I were her, and I honestly don't know and I'm secretly and shamefully glad I don't have to.

Down with PWD

2009-07-06T10:30:00.004-04:00

I was about to ask whether there was such a thing as post-weaning depression, as I suspect I am en route to suffering it if not already there, when I decided to google first. Without quotes, I got 136,000 hits. Even with, 889 (though a not-insignificant percentage seemed to be about animals). Apparently, though not as oft-discussed or as common as PPD, PWD is in fact a real thing, or at least a thing that women other than myself feel like they might have, might be, or might soon experience. See here, and here, and here, and here (though that one is about toddlers, and Harry is clearly not a toddler). Apparently, it is worst when the weaning is abrupt and not initiated by mom. (CHECK) It is often characterized by mood swings, fight-picking, incessant and uncontrollable crying, and a desire not to get out of bed. (CHECK) It has both a physiological/hormonal component and an emotional one. (CHECK) As I read, it was hard not to feel like I was reading about myself.

While what I really would like is someone to fix it, to find a way to get Harry back to the breast (do you hear me, universe? I AM NOT READY FOR MY SON TO ABRUPTLY WEAN -- FIX THIS. DO YOU HEAR ME? NOT. READY.), knowing I'm not alone helps. Or at least it doesn't hurt. So thanks to those who came before me who put something out there on this -- PWD, early weaning, prolonged nursing strikes that resulted ultimately in weaning -- (including you, Nicky). Seriously, thanks.

*ETC(larify) that the thanks is for talking not only about PWD but also about nursing strikes and pre-mature weaning and the conomitant feelings that don't quite rise to the level of PWD too.

Yet Another Breastfeeding Post

2009-07-03T10:57:00.005-04:00

I feel like I keep proclaiming the end of breastfeeding, turning myself into the girl who cried wean, but I think this really is it. Now that he has top teeth, the biting has become unbearable. He bites all the time, yanking on the breast with his teeth as he pulls away, and the pain is excruciating. Some of the time he won't latch on at all -- as the breast approaches his mouth, he clamps down, biting before even thinking of doing anything else. And it breaks me heart. And the pain. I love him more than I could ever express, but sometimes it's hard to like him. If he isn't biting, he is scratching or punching me in the face or pulling my hair. I don't want to end up resenting my son, who I love with all my heart.

Truth be told, I'm often scared he is eventually going to rip the nipple right off, even though various sources claim that isn't possible, or just isn't going to happen. Most of those same sources also claim that any number of techniques will keep the baby from biting more than once and/or that babies outgrow the biting after a few das or at most a few weeks. Many techniques and many months later, I have lost all faith in such words of wisdom. And I'm out of ideas.

I am also eventually going to run out of tears. I spend far too large a percentage of my day crying over this. I feel very rejected. When I was encountering schedule problems at work, P made a comment about how it's important that I get enough time with Harry "because he's nursing." Not because I'm his mom and babies need time with their moms, but because he's nursing. And what about now? Does he not need me anymore? I fear that in Ps eyes, he doesn't. At least no more than he needs anyone else.

Plus, I already feel like I don't get enough time with him, being at work during the week. Nursing was always our time, time that was just for us. Now we will be giving up this time too, either giving up the time spent feeding to pump or the time I could otherwise play with him to pumping. And I hate pumping. But I am also not willing to switch to formula when I'm still perfectly capable of giving him breastmilk (please know that I am not judging anyone else who does so -- it's just not where I'm at).

I guess that last note is part of the issue for me. I was prepared to accept that I might not be able to breastfeed. That I might not produce enough milk. That he might not be able to figure it all out. That we could have encountered issues from day one. I was also prepared to accept that he would one day be a big boy and be ready to stop nursing. I just didn't expect that it would happen so soon, before he hit ten months. Before he has even figured out crawling, or called me mama. I'm just not ready, but I'm learning that it's not up to me.

Uninteresting Update

2009-06-26T10:41:00.004-04:00

Harry's nine month appointment was last week. He has really grown a lot -- blowing out of the percentiles (18th for weight, 75th for length, 50th for head circumference) he had been in since he was a month old. As of last Thursday, he weighed in at 21 pounds 6 ounces (which was Ps guess on the nose -- impressive), which is the 62nd percentile. And he was 29.75 inches long (85th percentile) with a head in the 95th percentile (I don't think they told us the measurement). Oddly, though he does feel a lot heavier, I would not have guessed that his head had grown that much.

There's honestly not a lot new with us. Harry continues to try to crawl with no real success. he has been on hands and knees for over two months. This week he seems to have perfected lifting one arm without toppling while on hands and knees. He also loves standing and has mastered the one-arm hold. He doesn't do much step-taking, though. He is capable of pulling to stand but has yet to realize that he can do it whenever and wherever he wants. Perhaps if he realizes he can take steps and cruise, it will become more appealing. For now, he just yells until you offer fingers for him to use to pull up. To be honest, he yells a lot these days. Not crying. Not whining. Yelling. Very. Loud. Yelling.

There were layoffs at Ps work, but P was unaffected (though, sadly, Miss M's -- Harry's daycare provider -- husband was not so fortunate). Miss M is on vacation right now, so Harry has been at backup daycare at my office. He has not been drinking his bottles (he usually takes 18 ounces during 9 hours of daycare; they got him to take 6 ounces on Wednesday and 6 on Thursday, though I ended up going down to nurse on Thursday post-lunch so he wouldn't end up hungry and dehydrated) or napping well. It has not affected his mood much, but it stresses me out anyway. And the poor napping has left him overtired, giving him a hard time falling asleep at night, playing for a lot longer than usual before drifting off, adding to the sleep deficit.

My work is about the same. Plugging away. Trying to get enough work and make a positive name for myself in order to avoid what I can only assume will be another round of "performance-based terminations" in the late fall/early winter.

Lacking anything further to say, I offer a picture of Harry -- one of my favorites, as I think his bedhead look is cute:

Nine Months

2009-06-13T22:20:00.013-04:00

Dear Harry,

I can't believe how quickly you are growing up. Your ninth month was remarkable in large part because of how unremarkable it was. You didn't really learn anything new -- you just kept on doing the things you've been doing. Generally speaking, you nap well, you eat well, you sleep well. You have a lot to say, but none of it is at all word-like, or even proto-word-like. Some of the time (okay, much of the time), I'm convinced you are communicating with the dog.

You don't crawl or army crawl or scoot on your bottom, but you do get around, mostly by pushing with your arms while on your belly or on your hands and knees, going in reverse. You then want to see something to one side or another, so you push yourself in a circle with your arms, and then you push backwards in a new direction. You roll on your right shoulder (yes, always the right, so you don't make any real progress), back and forth, making sure you know what is above you too. But you can't seem ever to move to where you want to be, always moving instead further and further away. I can't imagine how frustrating that must be.

You also love to stand. Mostly holding on to fingers, but you have also discovered that the activity table can be fun. So long as someone is there to catch you if you topple. Thankfully for us, you have not figured out that you can move your feet and go places while standing, so for now you enjoy the view and work on bouncing up and down. Always a good time. Your dad and I fear the day when you figure out you can really get around on your own. (We are a bit delinquent on our baby-proofing.)

You got your third tooth this month, and all of a sudden the biting stopped. Thank you! Apparently, your third tooth was the cause of three months of biting. I'm sorry teething is so tough for you, at least with respect to the top teeth. I hope the fourth, which seems very close to the surface, is less painful -- for your sake and mine.

Your second Red Sox game was more fun for everyone involved. We all got to see most of the game -- and you even took a nap in Daddy's arms. Everyone kept telling us that their own kids/grandkids/nieces and nephews would not have behaved nearly so well. The only time you fussed or cried was when you hit yourself in the face, which wouldn't have made you cry except that you were very tired. Within three minutes you had fallen asleep.

For new foods, we introduced you to apricots, blueberries, watermelon, and kiwi. You loved them all -- especially blueberries, since you can feed them to yourself easily. On that note, you've become quite skilled with finger foods. Over the course of the month, you went from picking things up with your fist and failing to get them into your mouth to picking things up with your fingers and putting them in your fist and using the other hand to get them into your mouth to picking things up with your fingers or your fist and actually getting them in there. You have also started really chewing, which is very strange to us. So we've been giving you a lot more for you to self-feed. We told Miss M she could do the same and let you try soft foods if the other kids were having them, but she took some liberties with that invitation. We asked her to limit it to foods you had tried before. She decided to start with french fries. Needless to say, we learned that you like both potatoes and fried food.

You're a wonderful little boy, Harry. No longer a baby, but really a little boy. I am so lucky to have you in my life.

Love,

Mommy

Reune, or uniting again

2009-06-10T10:26:00.004-04:00

Inspired by Dr. Grumbles post, I decided to post, since it has been a while.

My college reunion was this weekend. It was good to see friends and catch up. (It was also wonderful to see a fellow blogger classmate.) There's definitely something a little odd about reunions, though. You keep having these moments in which you realize that you are having the same stale conversation over and over again, and that at some point you had ceased paying attention to anything the other person was saying. You know your own answers to the totally predictable questions (this is my husband P, we still live here, big law stooge, Harry), and you ask the same predictable questions in return, and you have the same stock responses to the answers given by the other participant in the conversation. Eventually, you realize you haven't heard a word the other person said, but they didn't even notice, because some part of your brain is still functioning on some strange sort of autopilot while the conscious part has drifted off and begun contemplating the surreal nature of the experience of participating in a conversation while not really being mentally present.* As the two parts of your mind start to come together again, you want to share your experience with the other person but you realize that you would then have to admit that you weren't paying attention to what they were saying. And, well, it's one thing unintentionally not to listen to someone else, but it's another thing entirely to own up to it. So you let them remain ignorant and instead tell the next person you talk to before you get into the routine banter. You then wonder if you could have had that conversation without your conscious mind participating, in a very meta way. (Or maybe it's just me.)

But it's not like that with everyone. Just some people. There were a lot of people I was excited to see and catch up with and whose goings-on were things I wanted to learn more about and as to whom when I said 'let's catch up soon' I actually meant it. But my class was large, and I knew, at least tangentially, quite a lot of people. And, to be fair, if we were that close, we would probably have kept in touch better and they might already have known that the man with me was P and that we still live here, where I lawyer, with our son Harry. Or at least have seen it on Facebook.

At our last reunion, little enough time had passed that it felt like we had been away for the summer, so now we had to fill one another in on what we had been up to. Some people were married, many to people they were dating in college. Some people were in grad school. One or two had kids and/or a career (as opposed to a job, which was what most people had). This time, it was different. People were doctors with specialties and areas of expertise and/or had more than one child and/or had sold the business they started out of college to a multinational corporation and/or had moved overseas to work in a developing country. And others had done none of those things and were just enjoying dancing and drinking, like it had been summer and no time had passed at all. And we all said "I'll talk to you soon" when what most of us meant was "I'll see you in five years." Then we all went back to what we do when we aren't doing that.

*I think that non-conscious part of my mind could in fact pass the Turing Test, and I can't decide if that makes sense or is totally weird. Thinking about it now, it reminds me a bit of what Adam Sandler's character did in Click when he skipped ahead. But less weird.

Wordless Wednesday: My Sweet Guy

2009-05-27T10:07:00.000-04:00

Honesty versus pride

2009-05-22T14:49:00.003-04:00

As for the title, I am not referring to my own.* This is just an anonymous note to my employer.**

I would just like to say that I know that layoffs/RIFs can always be called performance-related. The reality is that when faced with having to cut costs, once the decision is made to cut staff, cuts will almost always be made based on performance. We all know that a company is not likely to cut its top people while keeping its bottom. So, yeah, it's usually going to be performance-related, even when it's a layoff. But most employers have the moral fortitude to be honest about it so that its employees aren't left feeling like crap and aren't in a tougher position when it comes to looking for work. Seriously? The economy sucks. Suck up your pride and admit that you have more people than you can keep busy and need to cut costs.

*It's not just the title that isn't about me. As of right now, I still seem to have a job. It'd be hard to claim that my performance in the review period wasn't up to par since I was on leave during the entire period. But it pisses me off for the dozens who were affected this week and will be next.

**To whom I am very thankful at the moment for my continued employment. I hope it continues for the indefinite future.

On an unrelated note, for anyone not reading on a reader, I just posted Harry's eight month post.

Brief Update

2009-05-21T14:46:00.003-04:00

I can't believe I disappeared. First, I started Harry's eight-month post and never had time to upload the photos, and he didn't cooperate with the month-iversary ones (he thought eating the paper would be more fun, then he cried when I took it away), and I didn't want to post something else before I finished it. I still haven't. That makes me sad. But it gives me a project for the weekend.

Then I got super busy at work. So busy that I missed bedtime. And a lot of dinner-times. And it made me really sad. And meant I didn't have much time. And things have only just started slowing down again, and I'm not even sure how long that will last.

So I've been a bit freaked out because I have heard that there were, well, "letting-gos" (for lack of a better term) this week. Not layoffs. Not systematic. Just some people being told that it was time for them to move on. Meanwhile, my reviewer never contacted me to set up my review, and he did his others this week. And I can't seem to get the head of my department to return my emails or phone calls regarding some things I need to discuss with him. And it all left me feeling a bit panicky. I reached out to my reviewer this morning (I don't actually know this guy -- my old one left the firm around the time I came back from leave and this guy works in a different department, in a different city). He apologized and said that since I hadn't done any work this review period he had planned to have a phone call for us to introduce ourselves and for me to ask any questions I might have and that he just forgot to set it up. We'll do it next week. So I'm a little less paranoid now. A little.

That said, I'm finally getting to do some real lawyering. I went to court last week. I have written briefs that received very little partner review/editing before filing. I'm working on a fairly interesting business development project that I have been told will count as billable for hours purposes. I feel like my career has a trajectory again, for the first time since the miscarriage, when I feel like it started to derail and never quite got on track again. In addition, I met with our internal career counselor person last week. We talked a bit about what my exit strategy might be, among other things. And I'm feeling like maybe I have one. No time frame, really, but some kind of inkling of what I'd like to do and someone who will help me figure out how to get there. This is a good thing.

So it's been a mixed bag career-wise around these parts. Everything else? Well, that'll have to be another post.

Eight Months

2009-05-13T23:20:00.012-04:00

Dear Harry,

As you can see, this month we learned that you are no longer interested in sitting patiently and smiling for the camera. If there is a piece of paper nearby, it will go straight in the mouth and become damp and crumpled and slowly disintegrate, leaving big wet pieces in your mouth that I have to scoop out with my fingers (or just let you swallow them). Not that this happens often or anything. This was also the month when I realized that I have no idea how or whether one is supposed to discipline a baby, or at least prevent a baby from doing things that are harmful to him, or to, say, those around him. I should probably figure this out soon, though, before you gauge my eyes out with your pointy little fingers with their always-sharp, always-ragged nails or pull out all my hair with your grabby hands or bite my nipples straight off. Again, not that these things happen often or anything.

I feel like I missed you a lot this month. Like last month, I missed you because I saw you less than I did before. I just hate that this month was even less than last. I worked late more than once and made it home just in time for bath, or just in time for bed. And that makes me sad. I also had a Vestry meeting, and a Finance Committee meeting, and a Vestry retreat. Church is important, as is taking a role in its governance, but I hate missing time with you all the same.

You went to the park for the first time (and second and third) this month. You loved the swings. Really, really loved them. You also checked out a couple of different slides and the see-saw and those things that are mounted on a giant spring. The swing was definitely the biggest hit.

This month was also your first trip to Fenway to see the Sox. You mainly seemed to enjoy the folks sitting behind us who kept smiling at you and trying to entertain you (at the expense of your nap). We didn't see as much of the game as your dad and I usually do, and it was a bit chilly, and our seats weren't great, but it was fun anyway. We have tickets to many more games this summer, so I hope you had a good time!

Given that baseball season is starting, it seems fitting that it is finally warming up outside. You haven't spent a ton of time outside in months (with us -- you go outside at daycare every day, so long as it's at least 35 degrees, which I really like about your daycare), and I'm pretty sure you had no memory of those early times in the sun. I think your favorite thing about being outside is getting to spend time with the dog while he plays. Your love for him grows each month, and it's wonderful to watch that relationship develop. You started saying a lot of consonants this month, but my favorite is "Wu," which you say when you see the dog. I'm pretty sure it's woof. So sweet.

You tried some new foods, like you do every month. This month was pumpkin, acorn squash, barley, and mango. You seemed to enjoy them all, but I feel like you spit up more when you had pumpkin after a run of very infrequent spitting-up, so maybe we'll hold off on that for now. I wish mangoes weren't such a pain in the rear to prepare for you, because you really seemed to like them. On that note, I'm cool with you liking acorn and butternut squash, as well as bananas, as they are all easy and cheap. You also started eating some finger foods, mainly banana chunks, puffs, and cheerios. You tend to pick up food with your fists more than your fingers and then jam your whole hand in your mouth. Most often, the food sticks to your hand and you get very angry when you discover you didn't manage to eat anything. I know you'll figure it out eventually, though.
Finally, this month we got to celebrate our first mother's day together. Like every other holiday, we spent a lot of it in the car, driving to see all the ladies who love you, starting with the grammies and GG, then heading to Grandma and Grandpa's house. You chewed on some tissue paper, hung out in a box, and sat in your very own rocking chair for the first time. You and Daddy got me a potted lily, which was beautiful and should last a long time, just like my love for you.

I love you with all my heart,

Mommy

Wordless Wednesday: Goodbye Infant Carrier

2009-05-06T07:59:00.001-04:00

Walking for Hunger Again

2009-05-01T17:16:00.002-04:00

This Sunday, P, Harry, and I will be participating in the 41st Annual Walk for Hunger here in Boston. We are sorta hoping that we'll be able to complete the full 20 miles again this year but I don't know if Harry will last that long going between the wrap and the stroller. And P is feeling confident but hasn't done the walk for years (and doesn't do much exercising). So we'll see. If you care to support my efforts (even a small amount can make a big difference), follow the link below (or here!). If you follow that link to my Walk for Hunger homepage, you'll see that the same answer to the question of Why I Walk as last year.

But the 2009 answer to Why I Walk is because more people, and more children, are going hungry today than at any point in recent history, and there are fewer resources -- fewer soup kitchens, fewer food pantries, less funding -- to help them than ever before. I walk to do my part to raise some money and some awareness to help those who don't have enough money to buy the basic necessities that so many of us take for granted. For people like my pro bono client who told me yesterday that by the end of the month she eats mayonnaise sandwiches and saves the real food for her kids. Or my other pro bono client who waits two hours in line at the food pantry each week in order to get an onion, a potato, and a jar of peanut butter, and wonders what she could make with that. Because, seriously? How is that acceptable?

I know money is tight for just about everyone these days. If you can spare a dollar or two or twenty, please do. To make a contribution, click here. [end shameless plug]

Day Five: Damn You, 6am Wakeup

2009-04-29T11:32:00.004-04:00

Even on day 5, it's hard. My calves no longer ache all the time (at least, not as much as before), but the workout in general is really hard. And doing it during the work week is extra hard. So I'm not only sore but sore and tired. So tired that I fell asleep on the bus Monday morning, and again during a training session when I got here. Well, not completely asleep but the nodding off kind of asleep I used to fall during my infant development class during college after pulling an all-nighter. (I don't know why it was always that class but I swear it was. I also don't know how getting 6-6.5 hours of sleep became the equivalent of an all-nighter but it clearly has.) I may need to start setting the coffee maker to autobrew so I can get a cup before we leave in the morning and avoid the exhaustion that sets in by 8:00.

It does seem to be worth it, though. Maybe. I think. I am feeling a bit fitter now than I was a week ago. I feel somewhat stronger. And I think muscles are now reforming beneath my layers of blubber. (Though there's still a lot of blubber.) Hooray for small victories.

Coming back to the timing issue, doing this over the weekend was not so bad. When Harry took a nap, I did the workout, then showered, and generally had time to spare before he woke up. Doing it during the week is much harder. I really wanted to avoid seeing a 5 on the clock, so I've been getting up at 6 on the dot this week. 6:00 - 6:07, I get changed into workout clothes, go to the bathroom, fill a water bottle, get the TV on, and get the program on. 6:07-6:33, I do the workout. (Yeah, it's 25 minutes, not 20, once you factor in the (very minimal amount of) stretching she does before and after.) 6:34-6:44, I shower and get dressed (usually just into something loungy, waiting to dress for work until I'm ready to leave in case someone spits up on me). Then I attend to the child.

Speaking of the child, Harry seems to have decided that whenever I get up is when he will get up, so he plays with his crib toy and/or with his little Piglet and Pooh Bear until P gets out of bed and retrieves him. P changes his diaper, and then they talk to the dog and read stories in Harry's room until I'm out of the shower and ready to feed him. We still get an hour or more of nursing and playtime in the morning before I have to get him dressed and finish packing him up. But the morning definitely feels more rushed now. And even though it's only 15 minutes earlier, I am not a fan of the 6am wakeup.

Damn you, 6am wakeup. I hate you, but I can survive anything for 30 days, I suppose.

Day Two: Feeling Shredded

2009-04-26T17:56:00.005-04:00

But more like, say, cheese than in any bodybuilding kind of way.

Day One: Not so bad. It was a hard 20 minutes, but I forced myself to finish it. She kept reminding me that looking better/feeling more healthy wouldn't come for free and that if I wanted it to only cost 20 minutes of my time I couldn't dial it in. So I tried not to. Things that were more agonizing: jumping rope, push-ups, lunges, those front arm raises. Things that were less agonizing: jumping jacks, punching, ab work, squats.

Day Two: Much harder than Day One. People say it gets easier, but I know from experience that Day Two is often the hardest -- your body is still pissed at you for making it do something on Day One. Jumping rope was less bad than the day before but the push-ups were like slowly dying. I had to take a breather. Twice. In, like, thirty seconds. The ab work was a little easier too. But the rest of the stuff that was hard yesterday was as bad or worse.

I'm sure I didn't set myself up for an easier day tomorrow by going for what was supposed to be a hike but turned out to be more of a leisurely stroll this afternoon. We'll see. I am also really not looking forward to having to get up at an hour that starts with 5 on purpose in order to do this. Ick. 30 days. I suppose I can survive anything for 30 days.

Last Weekend (Catching Up)

2009-04-26T17:31:00.006-04:00

Last weekend was the first nice weekend in a long while (like, five months). And we tried to cram many months worth of nice weekend activities into a single weekend. (But I also had to work, so we had to cram all those activities into small windows of time not occupied by me working.)

On Saturday, we took Harry to the park. He checked out the swings (a big hit, as you can see):

And the slide:

And some assorted other fun activities (he was not so sure about the springy animals or the seesaw -- they didn't do anything cool and we wouldn't let him eat them):

Then on Sunday, we took him to his first Red Sox game. So as to avoid posting pictures of P, here is a picture of Harry before the game (the only pregame photo in which Harry isn't bent in half -- he was really fixated on his feet):

It was hard to pay attention to the game, and our seats were in the shade where it was chilly, and Harry didn't get an afternoon nap, as the people behind us kept smiling and waving at him every time he would try to put his head down and you can't really tell people to please stop being nice to your kid, but the game was fairly fun anyway. And even if it wasn't it was Harry's first game. Of many. (We have tickets to eight (I think) Sunday afternoon home games this season.) We need to remember to dress more appropriately for the weather where our seats are (we have those seats for three more games) rather than the weather in general. And we need to avoid making plans with Ps cousin for after the game, as it left me more concerned than I otherwise would have been about Harry's lack of an afternoon nap.

All in all, last weekend was fun. Hopefully, there will be a post about this weekend before next weekend rolls around.

Isn't That Something You Do To Paper?

2009-04-25T07:39:00.000-04:00

My dieting efforts have fallen a bit by the wayside lately. I've been eating badly. And opting not to get on the scale as a result. I know I need to get myself back on track but just don't feel like it, which is the same bad attitude that landed me in this fat situation in the first place. Needless to say, I should not have eaten an entire small Boboli pizza for dinner last night, even if I did use low fat cheese on it.

Historically, I stayed fairly healthy through exercise. I enjoy exercise. Or I enjoy feeling fit and seem more capable of knowing that exercise = fit than that not eating like it might be my last meal = less fat. But I no longer have time to exercise. Or, I have time but it would mean cutting into either time with Harry or sleep, neither one of which I am really psyched to give up. So I've been pondering this issue lately.

In my pondering, I've come to feel like everyone out there is into Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. It's only 20 minutes a day. I can do 20 minutes a day. Maybe. I can at least try. I guess. It's available On Demand from Com.cast. At least parts 1 and 2 are. So I'll give it a whirl. 30 days seems like about the maximum amount of focus I'm capable of giving to anything these days (like, say, my dieting efforts or my Wii Fit kick).

Mondrian

2009-04-24T20:15:00.003-04:00

Is it me? I did it twice, and they were similar but different. In the first, I only listed one hobby, thinking there was no option to select multiple. In this one, I listed chose all that were applicable. I actually think the first was more me, oddly. Maybe I should stick to reading.

To view more, visit Niobe.

Common Bonds*: Ticks, Harry (But Less), Screwing Up At Work

2009-04-20T20:04:00.003-04:00

As to the first, Buddy started acting funny ten days ago. On Friday, he was playing like usual in the yard. On Saturday, he started limping. By Sunday morning, he wouldn't put any weight on his left front paw. By Sunday night, he didn't even get up to play or hang out with us. Monday morning, we called the vet. It wasn't a sprain, like we thought. It was Lyme. Screw you ticks. Poor boy :( He is now on antibiotics for a month. Three pills a day. That have to be taken with food. And can't be taken with cheese. And our dog only eats his dog food when he feels like it. Unless it's sprinkled with cheese. It's been a bit of a challenge. On the positive side, the antibiotics seem to be working. By the end of last week, he was seeming himself again. Though he has no understanding regarding why he isn't allowed to play like usual.

As to the second, Harry has been doing a bit better with nursing, though the biting hasn't stopped completely. I took Nicky's suggestion (made by a few other as well) and tried Tylenol about an hour before bed, and it seems to be helping. The only two nights he has bitten me more than once have been the ones we forgot the Tylenol. And the biting has slowed down in general. Even better, he has gone back to nursing again -- the partial strike is over (though he does seem to nurse for shorter periods now). He struggled with the bottle at daycare last week too, so I'm trying not to take it personally. It does appear to be teething related.

As for screwing things up at work, I'm still feeling stressed about it. Probably fueled by the fact that I'm feeling somewhat anxious about work in general. But the senior associate stepped in front of the bus rather than throwing me under (especially admirable given that he is up for partner this year). So he may think less of me but I seem to have otherwise emerged from the giant fuck-up largely unscathed (though I may just be unaware of the realities of my situation). But it still sucks.

Much to share about the parts of the weekend I didn't spend working, but I'll save that for tomorrow and Wednesday.

* Any other Jeopardy fans out there?

2009-04-18T13:22:00.002-04:00

Our living room occupies the southwest corner of our house. The west facing window is big. Really big. Huge in fact. It's ten feet wide. Yeah, ten. And it faces west, so it gets a ton of sun in the afternoon. In the winter, this is nice, as it gives a bit of extra warmth. And year round it gets a ton of light, which is also nice. But in the summer it gets hot. And in the four years we've owned this house, we haven't put up window treatments in that room. Clearly we need them. But we can't figure out a solution.

Here are the issues.

The size. No blind/shade/etc. company makes a blind/shade/etc. that is ten feet wide.
The fact that the window is actually five smaller windows (and the center plus the two outer ones crank out). So getting two blinds/shades/etc. that are each half the width means that any gap in the center will let in light. So we'd need to do five separate things. And we'd still risk having light come in between the blinds/shades/etc. since the frame between them is narrow.
As noted, three have cranks. So we need something that won't get in the way.

Anyone have any ideas? We're currently thinking of making (or having made -- I'm not much of a seamstress) a set of super-wide curtains with some overlap in the center (to avoid the light coming in) and hanging them on a long rod. We think we'd have to make the rod ourselves, since we haven't seen one long enough, but that should be fairly easy. It would have to be mounted on both ends and in the middle.

I must admit, I'll miss having that super-bright room, but it'll be nice to be able to have a little privacy on that side of the house, since that's the corner of our corner-lot (i.e. both sides of the room face a very close street).

Maybe I'll Be Staying Home With Harry After All

2009-04-17T18:29:00.004-04:00

Something got fucked up at work today.

Someone senior to me said "Can we do X?" And I said sure. On its face, it seemed reasonable. For a reason neither of us thought of but which we were equally capable of recognizing, it turned out doing X was not a good plan. I fear that if a head must roll, it may be mine, even though it wasn't entirely my fault. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.

Oh, and it's 6:30 on a Friday night and I'm still here. This is the third night this week that I've missed Harry's dinner, and may be the first that I miss bedtime. I want to curl up in a corner right now.

Seven Months

2009-04-14T10:57:00.005-04:00

My special guy,

I think I say this every month, but this was a huge month for you. New skills, a new routine, time with family. There was much going on.

No sooner had your seventh month began than you decided it was time to roll back to front and sit independently. The first time you rolled from front to back, you seemed shocked that it had happened. Even now, four months later, you seem a little uncertain when you want to get off your tummy. Back to front was completely different. It was clearly deliberate, and definitely something you had been mentally puzzling for a while. Once you did it, you kept on doing it. Over and over. But just because you do it on purpose doesn't mean that you're happy about it. Which can be a problem when it's naptime and you are too tired to remember how to flip back over. Or when you roll yourself into the side of the crib.

Being able to sit on your own for long stretches has allowed you to learn how to play with your toys in a more meaningful way. You have figured out that a toy at a distance on a blanket can be brought closer by pulling on the blanket. You transfer your toys from hand to hand, shaking and throwing and banging them to see what they do. You push the animal sounds on the exersaucer. And you rock the ring stacker back and forth, fascinated by the movement. When you want a ring, you find a way to get it, sometimes taking the rings off one at a time and other times knocking them all off at once by pulling on the bottom and tipping the whole thing over.

But even though you know tons of new ways to play, your first choice is still to stick anything you encounter in your mouth.

Your love affair with solid food continues. We thought you ate a lot before, but you were just getting started. It turns out that you love fruit. Any fruit. Banana, avocado, peaches, apples, prunes, pears. Each one better than the last. You now eat two meals of solids daily, each one consisting of a quarter cup of cereal, plus milk or water to mix, followed by (or mixed with) a half cup of fruit or vegetable. It's a bit grotesque. We'll be adding in a third meal soon, even though you may eat us out of house and home.

Apparently all this food agrees with you, as you seem to have gained three pounds this month, if the bathroom scale is to be believed. And I think it is, as we discovered on Sunday that you outgrew your Easter outfit long before Easter -- whereas you wore the 0-3 month size until you were 4 months, at 7 months you seem to be done with much of the 6-9. Sigh. You used to be our stringbean, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. It's amazing to watch you transform from a baby into a big boy, right before our eyes.

Speaking of the Easter outfit, you survived Easter wearing a onesie and cords with your vest. The three of us went to church together, which was nice -- people hadn't seen you in a while, as your naptime is now at the same time as church. We then went to see your great-grandma and your grammies and your step-grandparents for lunch. Everyone was very happy to see you. Everyone wanted to play with you -- even your great-grandma, who decided she would like to be called GG. Your grammy JJ had you laughing up a storm, which got her laughing hysterically in turn. They were all amazed to see how interactive you've gotten. We then went to see Daddy's family -- Grandma and Grandpa and Auntie T. You seemed to have a fantastic time, and everyone enjoyed getting to spend time with you, even though it was exhausting for your daddy and me. I'm glad to see you developing a good relationship with your family.

Speaking of relationships, you have finally figured out that torment need not be a one way street between you and the dog. He may win when it comes to licking, but you have figured out how to kick him and how to pull his fur. We've been trying to teach you to be gentle, to pet him nicely, but it's tough when he's always in your face, trying to get his kisses in. He's going to be in for a rude awakening when you become mobile.

All that said, this month hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows. You have become a huge fan of hair pulling, which wasn't so bad when you were smaller but has started to hurt now that you're bigger. More painfully, you have realized that you can bite, which is fine when you're playing with a toy but less fine when you're nursing. You've been biting more and more and eating less and less lately, which makes me sad. I love our special time together and hope this passes soon.

And even more sadly for me, this month was the month when our full-time time together came to an end. After six months of getting to be your mommy all day long, it was time for me to return to work. This seems to have been a much bigger deal for me than it was for you. I cried a bunch the first few days whereas you were perfectly content to hang out with Miss M and the motley crew for the day. Someone is still giving you your milk and your solids and putting you down for your naps. So long as that happens, you don't seem to mind that that someone isn't me. I am very glad that you weren't traumatized by the change but will admit to being a little sad that you don't seem to miss me at all. Because even though it's gotten easier to go to work I do miss you terribly all day. I don't know how anyone wouldn't miss a guy as great as you, even if you do bite.

But then I get to come home at the end of the day and see your big smiles and get some sweet cuddles. I feed you your dinner. I watch you try so very desperately to crawl. After daddy gives you your bath and does your lotion and puts on your jammies, you nurse for the last time of the day, and I watch you relax into me, rubbing my hand with yours with your eyes closed as you get ready to drift off to sleep, opening them again to smile at me as I leave your room. And my heart is so full it could burst. And all is right with the world.

Love always,

Mommy

Birthday

2009-04-13T07:14:00.002-04:00

My dear rice krispie,

Had you made it out of the first trimester and been among the small percentage of babies born on their due date (like your mama), we would be celebrating your first birthday today.

Remembering you today,

Mommy

Praying It's Not the Beginner's End

2009-04-12T20:26:00.003-04:00

Ever since starting day care, my nursing relationship with my son has been getting poorer and poorer. Today, he barely nursed at all. He would latch on, suck 2 or 3 times, then bite. And he has teeth, so it hurts. Since 8:30 this morning, he hasn't eaten for more than 3 minutes at a time. And he has bitten me so many times I've lost count. I can't imagine that he isn't incredibly hungry right now. I'm sure he'll wake up in the middle of the night, crying in hunger. And I have no idea what to do. I want to fix this more than I could ever express.

As I mentioned before when talking about my concerns about supply (which have proven unfounded -- I'm pretty sure I have had no supply issues), I feel very strongly about this on a personal level. Please know that I have no issues with people who can't nurse or who choose not to -- and I don't think breastfeeding is necessary to a strong and healthy relationship with one's child. But it's something that is important to me. And I'm beyond devastated right now. My nipples are in pain from being bitten so many times. And my breasts ache with fullness. And I am so frustrated and so sad. It's been over a week that these issues have persisted. It seems to be getting worse rather than better. And I'm just so sad.

Sleeping In

2009-04-04T15:33:00.004-04:00

Out of the last eleven weekend days, P has slept in on nine of them. Four or five of those, he slept until 9. Most of the rest were until 7:30 or 8. Two he only slept until Harry was changed and fed. (Harry wakes up around 6:20 most days. Man, I wish it were 7.) I have slept in (enough to require P to give him a bottle) four times since Harry was born, one of those times being in the past few weeks.

On these weekend mornings, I find myself full of a jumble of emotions and am never quite sure what to make of it. I feel a resentment toward P for just assuming that I will be the one to get up every frickin Saturday and Sunday. But it's not really about that. It's not like I don't want to be spending that time with Harry, feeding him and playing with him, just the two of us. Because I do. Who would want to miss this?

It's more that I wish that I didn't feel an underlying sense of guilt for wanting to sleep in. Because, seriously, I'd love to get a little extra sleep. I miss sleeping past 7. Really, really miss it. And I'm not good at going to bed early, so I'm tired all the time. But I get so much less time with Harry now that I'm back at work, and I hate the idea of giving any of that up, even for sleep. And he already gets so many meals provided by someone who isn't me each week. And he's growing so much and doing so many new things and getting ready to pop more teeth and starting to push up on his hands and knees and discovering new ways to play with toys and I'd hate to miss any of it.

For a while I thought that maybe my resentment toward P was really me wanting him to want to spend that time with Harry (in a very stereotypical woman-wanting-man-to-want-something kinda way) and to be willing to sacrifice time for himself to do so. But I think maybe I'm just jealous of his ability to take space for himself when he needs it. To go play video-games with friends on a Saturday. To take a motorcycle safety class for a weekend. To get a little extra sleep. I probably need to do more of that myself. But I'm not really there yet.

Something for me to ponder.

Wordless Wednesday: Open Mouth, Insert...

2009-04-01T22:59:00.002-04:00

Utility

2009-03-31T16:20:00.005-04:00

Last week I actually had some work to do and was surprised to find that it felt really good to be back at work. I think a lot of my job-loathing came from having so little to do for so long prior to my leave.

Once upon a time, I was very busy, so much so that I felt overwhelmed, but that sense of being overwhelmed was far preferable to the sense of being first indifferent and then somewhat hostile that came with being bored. It turned out that I preferred being productive and useful from 8:30am-10pm(/11/12/3/6am) over having a shorter day in which I felt useless. Well-paid, but useless. Or maybe I was just better able to avoid giving any serious thought to my feelings about my job and whether or not I liked it at all and just assumed I must like it if I did it so much -- the wonders of cognitive dissonance. Either way, I was much happier.

And here I am again. Last week, the days when I was busy, I had positive feelings about my job. I felt productive and useful. I enjoyed having deadlines and feeling a tad frenzied. I got a bit of a rush from it, in fact. But, unlike before, I felt like there was a serious tradeoff.

Every day, Harry grows up a little more, and I already feel like I'm missing so much of it. This time, I missed dinner-time solids but I made it home in time for bath and bedtime (and then worked from home until 11ish). But I know that I won't always be able to -- there will be times when I will get stuck at the office. And that push and pull between work and home is, well, hard to balance. I get a thrill from the adrenaline rush that comes from being busy, just like I always did, but it's tempered by the knowldge that any such thrill is fleeting and meaningless in comparison to the sense of calm and wholeness I get from spending time with my son, time that I am missing while I enjoy the thrill.

And I am aware of the irony of the fact that I get a thrill at work from being needed (and occasionally appreciated) in some way, while Harry, with whom I would really rather be, would probably not notice were I not to make it home for bedtime -- just as one lady is as good as another during the day, one parent is as good as another at night. Of course, one associate is generally as good as any other as well, which is, perhaps, the true irony.

One Week Down...

2009-03-21T08:22:00.004-04:00

Monday, I got home from work and thought "I survived going back to work!" and felt very self-satisfied. Then I remembered I would have to go back to work *every* day from now on. And that left me feeling very sad.

Harry seemed to enjoy daycare. He had no issues at drop off (and didn't seem any happier to see me at pickup than he did the other kids' mommies). For him, one lady taking care of him seems to be as good as the next. As for me, I cried a lot the first day, some the second day, a little the third day, and remained tear-free on the fourth. So, progress, I suppose.

I still have two main concerns.

One, I'm a little worried about his activities during the day. From looking over his log, I'm worried he spends most of the day in one of three places: the highchair (having his lunch and being kept safe while Miss M prepares lunch for the big kids), in the pack n play (for naps) and being held (while having a bottle or going to the park). I'm not sure he's getting much floor-play time, but I could be totally wrong (and very well may be, since he rolled back to front for the first time on Tuesday evening and has done it consistently and easily since). I'll speak to her about it Monday when we drop him off.

Two, I don't know how long I'll be able to keep up with him by pumping. He drinks 18 ounces of breastmilk in the 9 hours he's there (3 6-ounce bottles). That seems like a ton of milk to pump. I was able to pump close to that this week, but I don't know that that will last as my body adjusts to pumping rather than nursing that often. I have a decent freezer stash to supplement but I'll burn through it fast if my supply takes a nosedive. And whatever I pump at night before bed is what I use for his cereal meals the next day (and that's barely enough, now that he has 1/4 cup of cereal twice a day). That may be the first sacrifice -- I may switch that to water or formula and use that milk for bottles. On a related note, I'm surprised to find that I don't loathe pumping (not that I enjoy it, but...). That said, I really miss breastfeeding. I miss the closeness, the time that is just for me and Harry, gazing at my sweet boy and stroking his hair while I meet his most basic need. It's hard not to cry even just thinking about it now, even though he's only a foot away from me, playing in his exersaucer.

So, one week down. A lifetime to go.

Dreary Monday

2009-03-16T11:19:00.003-04:00

Sitting here in my office, walking the halls, staring at the monitor, it almost feels like I never left. Then I see the animal mom-baby pairs on the 2008 Wildlife Families calendar that is still on my wall and feel a tremendous ache in my heart.

If anyone has any good jokes or funny stories to keep me busy (since I have absolutely no work, which makes it that much harder to be here), please send them my way -- post here or send me an email at ourboxofrain at gmail.

Six Months

2009-03-13T09:17:00.011-04:00

My baby boy,

Whereas last month was dominated by travel, this month was all about food. You tried solids (i.e. purees) for the first time on Valentine's Day, beginning with rice cereal. We started you with breakfast but you weren't really having it, which surprised me since your mommy is all about breakfast. So we switched you to lunch, and it turns out you really like food. (I'd say I wish we started you sooner, but the poops are rather gross and I'm glad we staved those off a bit by waiting until five months.)

As far as food goes, you seem to be an equal-opportunity kinda guy, gladly gobbling up anything we put before you. Anything except green beans. You do not like green beans. You don't like the smell. You don't like the taste. You don't like the aftertaste. You'll eat them if mixed with sweet potatoes, but only if there are more sweet potatoes than beans. If the ratio gets too close, yuck. Your dad and I hope your opinion of green beans changes, because we both really enjoy green beans.

As far as style goes, I wouldn't exactly call you a neat eater but you're a lot less messy than I feared you'd be. Your food tends to stay on your hands and face, and even tends to remain in the mouth region of your face. I haven't had to dig any food from your ears or wash it out of your hair yet (knock on wood), though I do generally have to wipe the folds of your neck as you seem fond of hiding some extra food there. That said, you have little say in when you get your next meal of solids, so I can't really blame you for trying to save a little for a snack.

As if in recognition of the fact that you might one day need them for this eating thing, you decided to grow some teeth this month. One Sunday morning, you had a tooth. And then that Thursday you had another. You have long been a big fan of mouthing everything, and your drooling had actually slowed down a bit, and your nighttime sleep didn't seem at all disrupted, so we really didn't see this tooth thing coming (although perhaps this was the cause of some of your napping difficulties). But there's no mistaking it -- you have two teeth, and they are very sharp. We used to let you gnaw on our fingers, but I think that era is over, as it now feels like a teeny tiny saw is attacking as you rub your teeth back and forth. You may know this already, as you spend a lot of time (playing, sleeping, even eating) with your index and middle fingers of your right hand upside down and shoved into your mouth. One day you're going to bite down too hard on your own hand and realize how much it hurts. Ouch!

As far as other firsts go, you went for your first walk in your big boy stroller, a hand-me-down from your friends J&J, whose mommy and daddy realized they didn't need six strollers for the two of them and graciously offered up their Zooper for you. You also wore your snowsuit for the first time, then promptly grew out of it, though not until after I took a few pictures and went out in the snow. You appear to have inherited your daddy's ridiculously long arms, so the fold-over mitten part doesn't exactly fit anymore. Thankfully, your friend N had an extra snowsuit in the next size up and her mommy is letting you wear it -- thanks C.

Although you still haven't rolled from your back to your front, you have been working hard on sitting up. You can do it for several minutes at a time now. You can right yourself when you start to lean to the side or to the back and have figured out how to reach for toys. You still lean too far forward and grunt, and you still fall over, and you still spit up often when sitting, but you definitely seem to enjoy the changed view and the increased independence sitting gives you for playtime. That said, it's still hard for you, so you tend to play on your back or your tummy a lot still.
I love that when I put you in your crib to go to sleep, you follow me with your eyes as I leave the room, smiling the whole way. The top of your head is to the door, so you watch me as I walk past your left arm, looking over your shoulder and craning your neck until I close the door and disappear out of sight. Sometimes, you use the slats of the crib for leverage or just roll onto your side for the best view. One day you'll realize you can roll from your back to your front to make this ritual easier, and then you'll be on your tummy and completely disinterested in sleep, and all bets will be off. But until then I love this little moment we share.

I find myself crying often these days, already feeling nostalgic for these days when it was you and me. I go back to work on Monday, and you will begin daycare, and the thought of it just breaks my heart. I know that Miss M will take great care of you and that you'll love getting to spend time with the other kids, watching them and learning from them. You'll enjoy play-doh time and dance time and playing with her dog in the park. But I also know that I'm going to miss you so much. I'm going to miss your no-longer-quite-so-gummy smile and your laugh, miss watching you play with your feet whether they be bare, stocking, or shoed, miss giving you lunch and having mouthfuls blown back at me when you decide to do raspberries mid-bite. I'm scared I'm going to miss your big moments -- your first time pushing up on hands and knees, your first words, your first steps. But most of all, I'll miss you. I'm not sure whether I'm more scared that you'll miss me terribly or that you won't miss me at all.

I love you so much my heart aches just thinking about it. Leaving you on Monday morning will be the hardest thing I can imagine doing, but there just isn't any other option for our family. These past six months with you have been so amazing and so perfect, even in the roughest and most difficult moments. I know you won't remember them, but I'll cherish them always. I promise you that I'll be thinking of you from the moment we drop you off until the moment I get home in the evening. And the morning and evening will be my favorite part of the day, the weekend my favorite part of the week, because they'll be the times I get to spend with you.

I love you with all my heart,

Mommy

No Fanfare

2009-03-12T15:59:00.005-04:00

Harry got his first two teeth last week (Sunday and Thursday). I thought there would be more fanfare.

I also thought they'd be easier to photograph but they're not. This was the best I could do:

The Requisite Solids Post

2009-03-11T16:47:00.009-04:00

So, we started Harry on solids when he was 5 months old-ish. After a bit of trial and error, we discovered that he's more into lunch than breakfast. It turns out the with only 90-120 minutes between waking and a desperate need for a first nap (and a need to nurse upon waking for the day) it was tough to find a time late enough that he was hungry again but early enough that he wasn't too tired. So for a month now he's been having lunch.

The boy seems to like solids. I've read that most babies take 5-9 tries to decide whether they like a food or not, but Harry seems rather opinionated right off the bat.

Rice cereal? Good. Oatmeal? Also good. Butternut squash? Yummy. Sweet potatoes? Fantastic.
Green peas? Perfectly tasty. (He actually likes them far more than this photo indicates.) Carrots? Awesomest food ever. Green beans? Um, not so much. Apparently, the smell is gross:
And so is the taste:

And so is the aftertaste:
These were from an early try. By now, the mere smell of them approaching his face causes him to purse his lips and shake his head. If I mix them in a 1:2 ratio with sweet potatoes, he'll eat them. As the ratio approaches 1:1, the eating becomes more begrudging, turning to refusal. I'll keep offering them every now and again (if for no other reason than because watching his reaction is hysterical) but they may be a no-go.

(And, yes, we own more than one bib. But somehow almost all the firsts ended up being in the same one. Easy enough, since we can rinse and reuse it. Big fan of the bib.)

Now, questions, for anyone who has any info (we'll ask these questions of the pedi as well).

When should we start giving him a second meal? A third?
And how much should he be eating at each meal (and/or overall), as far as solids go? Right now, he gets 2 tablespoons of cereal (mixed with 5-6 tablespoons of breastmilk), followed by 4 tablespoons of vegetable (about 2 ounces). (He'll have his first fruit tomorrow -- I think I'll start with bananas.) I'm pretty sure he'd gladly eat more if offered more. With carrots, he tends to get more, since he bangs on the tray of his high chair when they run out. (I hope this isn't a sign that he prefers the jarred food -- carrots are the only veggie I bought rather than made, just because I couldn't find nitrate-free carrots at the grocery store.)
When can/should we introduce finger foods?
Should he be having water post-meal? We haven't given him any, since most of our friends didn't this early, but the Super Baby Foods book seems to think it's essential.

Self-Care and Other Fun Stuff

2009-03-05T14:35:00.004-05:00

This post has been a long time coming. When P and I got engaged, I weighed ~60 pounds less than I do now. When we started trying to conceive, I was ~45 pounds less. When the first pregnancy ended, I was ~35 pounds less. When I got pregnant with Harry, I was ~25 pounds lighter. At my six week post-partum visit, I was 15 pounds lighter. Yeah, you read that right. I've regained 15 pounds. While breastfeeding.

I do not look good. I never had cellulite before, but I have it now. I don't fit into my clothes. I used to be fit and athletic, but now I am out of shape. I am not modeling a healthy way of living for my son. And it's part of a larger problem. I haven't plucked so much as a single eyebrow hair since Harry was born. In that time, I've put on makeup once, and it was last weekend. I've had two haircuts since July 2007.

P fairly recently installed iLife 09 on his computer and spent some time using the facial recognition feature. I watched as he went through hundreds of photos from our collection and from my father's, many of which were of me at various points throughout my life. And it was really hard. Because even the ones taken during periods in which I thought myself fat or unkempt or otherwise unappealing looked great compared with how I look now. And I'm honestly not sure what happened. I could come up with a thousand intellectual/emotional/physical explanations, but they'd just be conjecture. I really don't know.

What I do know is that I need to do something about this. About my body, my hair, my general level of self-care. So...

Last month, I started using our WiiFit to get some exercise. It's incredibly hard to find the time to get any exercise, and it's only going to get worse when I go back to work. That said, I need to do what I can to make the effort. Even just once a week is better than never.
Inspired by Manda, I joined Weight Watchers last week. Aside from an overindulgence in pizza when my brother was visiting last night (followed by a chaser of granola bar-type foods), it's been going okay. I picked up some fruit and veggies at the store today, which should make it easier, as I was trying to change my diet without altering the contents of the fridge. It's going to be hard to stick to a diet, since P will continue to buy and eat foods I just can't if I want to take this weight off (and I don't want him to feel like he has to make changes in his life, though I wish he'd stop asking me if I want -- or bought, when I go to the store -- foods that aren't good for me). The reality is that he and I have very different relationships with food, relationships that are embarrassingly in line with what is expected based on our biology. And I don't think he gets that it's not as simple as 'just don't eat so damn much.' Even though it is. It's just hard.
I am getting my hair cut and my brows waxed tomorrow. I'm part of a large mom group (500+ moms in the Boston area) that is run through meetup.com. One of the recurring events lately has been women taking turns hosting a stylist (also a member). Five-ish moms sign up, and everyone shares in watching the kids while each woman gets a haircut. The stylist also does waxing. You pay for whatever services you get. I'm going tomorrow.

Really, though? I need to change my attitude. Intellectually, I know this. But I'm still struggling. And it's a self-perpetuating problem as well. I don't feel great about myself, so I don't take good care of myself, so I feel worse, so I take worse care. And it's spilling over into my sense of self more generally. And P doesn't say much one way or the other. I get neither reassurance nor criticism from him when it comes to my appearance (or anything else, for that matter). I'd say our relalionship has changed a lot since Harry, and it has, but not on that subject -- he hasn't really ever provided much feedback on my appearance (or the contributions I make to the household, unless it's to criticize my many failings). But I suppose that ties into a variety of other things that are really another topic entirely. (Not that I'm bitter or anything :)

In short, I need to break the cycle. I'd like to feel healthy again. I'm never going to weigh what I did when we got engaged again, but I could and should get back to what I weighed two years ago. To that end, there's a ticker in the sidebar. I encourage all of you to keep on me about this.

Heartbreak

2009-03-01T19:15:00.006-05:00

For some reason, I had a horrible feeling when I saw she had called, and it only got worse when I heard her message. Non-descript. Understated. Flat. Just not her. Not her at all.

One of my closest friends, a woman I love dearly and would do anything for, learned on Friday at her 18 week ultrasound that something had gone horribly wrong, that her baby's brain was too malformed to survive. She and her husband were going to wait to find out the sex, but they weren't going to have that moment in July to wait for. They chose to let her go, saying goodbye to their little girl.

My heart is broken in a thousand pieces for them. Please keep them in your prayers.

Eyes

2009-02-25T14:01:00.004-05:00

Because Niobe asked:

Mine (excuse the unkempt eyebrows):

Harry's:

Ps are blue, as are both my parents'. For that reason, I suspect Harry's will remain blue too. That said, this is my eye at six months:

And at 2.5 years:

So who knows?

Five Months

2009-02-13T13:22:00.012-05:00

My sweet baby boy,

It was a big month for you, dominated by our family trip to Mexico -- it only lasted 9 days, but the planning and anticipation, then the recovery, seemed to take up the rest of the month. Beyond that, the month was pretty uneventful.

As has always been the case, you are a much more pleasant boy when you sleep well, so keeping your sleep consistent is key every month. And this month was definitely inconsistent. You started getting cranky earlier in the morning, so I started putting you down earlier. Your afternoon nap got worse for a bit, then better again. You also started waking during the night again and refusing to go back to sleep. After a few nights, we tried letting you cry it out for fifteen minutes. You fell back asleep after fourteen. And that was the last night you woke up for no reason (though you have woken yourself up pooping a few times since).

On to Mexico. We were incredibly nervous about you and the trip. It was your first trip on a plane, and our friends who we were visiting don't have kids so they didn't have any kid stuff. You had never napped well (okay, at all) unless in your swing. And we have relied on your bouncy seat to keep you occupied while we ate for some time now. So we were super anxious. Or, better phrased, I was super anxious. I kept telling myself that the worse I thought it would be, the more pleasantly surprised I'd be when things were only somewhat awful -- managing my expectations, as it was. But everything went far better than could possibly be expected.

You were a rockstar on the plane. Even though we woke you up at 4:30 to go to the airport. On the first leg, you alternated between sleeping and eating. On the second, you did both those things, but you also tried to eat Daddy's Fritos and spent a lot of time laughing, mostly at your stuffed lamb, who seems to be your new favorite. You then showed off your big gummy smile in the line at Immigration, smiling at every person we passed as we snaked our way through. I like to think you made the experience a little better for everyone. And you were rewarded with your first passport stamp!

In Mexico, you saw the ocean for the first time -- oddly, you ended up seeing the Pacific before the Atlantic, even though we aren't far from the ocean at home. We spent most afternoons on the beach, which meant you spent most afternoons sleeping while one of us held you. Apparently, you find the waves soothing.

The water, not so much. You were terrified the first time your feet were dipped in, but I think you were just tired, as you fell asleep moments after your feet were taken out of the waves. (You also went in a swimming pool for the first time. Again, you didn't seem to like it at first, but adjusted fairly quickly -- it was a bit cold, so I don't blame you for being less than psyched.) By the end of the week, you at least seemed indifferent. I hope you keep trending in that direction. Your dad and I both love the beach, and while we both love sitting on the beach reading or playing beach games, our true love is of the ocean itself -- swimming, snorkeling, checking out tidepools -- we even tried surfing the last time we were in Mexico. I hope you will eventually share that love. Otherwise, you may be spending a lot of your childhood sitting on the beach by yourself while we enjoy the water :)

And our fears regarding napping proved unnecessary. The first day, we changed your diaper, put you in your sleep sack, and read you a story. Then we put you in the Pack N Play with your blankie. And you slept. For forty-five minutes. We did the same thing the next day, and you slept for two hours, as you did every morning for the rest of the week. (Afternoon naps ended up being in our arms on the beach, covered in sunscreen, wearing UV-protective clothing, and under an umbrella.)

Sadly, it has proven difficult to keep this going at home. The first three days we were home, you wouldn't nap for more than forty-five minutes, and your second nap was even shorter. Yesterday afternoon, I realized that I'd read the same story every day on vacation but hadn't gotten that out of my backpack since we got home. So I got it out. And you slept for two hours. And you've been napping better since. Apparently, you need to hear Kiss Goodnight before a nap. And I'm totally fine with that.

After months and months of torture, you seems to have decided that you rather like tummy time, at least for five to ten minutes at a time. You have figured out that you can reach and play with toys while on your stomach, which seems to make it more palatable. You love to push up on your hands, looking around and laughing. But you don't love it enough to want to do it on purpose.

On that note, you haven't started doing a ton of new things this month. You started blowing raspberries and seem to love doing so often. And you found your feet, of which you seem to be a big fan. But you still can't sit up for more than twenty seconds at a time, and you still only roll from front to back. But I'm totally okay with that -- I'm in no rush for you to grow up any faster than whatever pace you set for yourself.

This month has seen some of your personality begin to emerge. You seem to be very people-oriented and, specifically, very attuned to the feelings of others. You smile at anyone who smiles at you -- a giant gummy grin that causes everyone to remark on how cute and sweet you are. I'm a little worried your going to get a big head from all the compliments. On the flip side, you cry instantly and ceaselessly the second you hear another baby so much as wimper. Even when they stop, it's tough to convince you that they're really okay, that their needs have been attended to, that you can stop crying. You also love to hold hands with other babies. And that's really sweet. Oh, and you seem to think your stuffed bear is another baby, as you love to hold his hand too.

Harry, I can't begin to tell you how much I love you. You are such an amazing little boy, so sweet and silly and full of joy. And even when you're not, I love you all the same. Every night when I'm getting you ready for bed I spend a couple of minutes telling you how much I love you, how I'll always love you, no matter what. I know you won't remember it, but I hope you will know it all the same. I love you, with all my heart.

Love,

Mommy

A New Day

2009-01-20T10:52:00.008-05:00

Wee Hours

2009-01-19T05:26:00.001-05:00

It's very quiet at this hour. The clock ticking over my shoulder. The boiler humming. The pipes clanging as they work to keep the house warm.

I feel the soft in and out of your breathing, the warmth of your breath against my collarbone, the rise and fall of your chest against mine. You've made it clear that this is the only place you're sleeping tonight. And as much as I'd like to be sleeping too, I love that you find comfort in me, your mama.

Four Month Check-Up

2009-01-16T16:35:00.004-05:00

Harry saw the pediatrician yesterday for his four-month well-baby visit. He is now 13 lbs 5 oz (25th percentile) and 25.5 inches (75th percentile) with a 16.5 inch head (50th percentile). He's still long and lean (though he looks much chunkier than before) but staying on his same percentiles across the board.

He was on his best behavior for Dr. E. He was very smiley, giggly, and active, kicking up a storm (P suggested he might have been enjoying the crinkly sound of the paper, which was most likely the case). He spent a lot of time playing with a toy, showing her how he manipulates toys with his hands and mouth. He also did tummy-time and showed how good he is at leaning on his elbows. He wasn't a fan of the shots but did much better with them than last time -- he mainly seemed shocked by the first one, then semi-indifferent to the second.

She gave us the go-ahead to start rice cereal, but I think we're going to hold off another month. I'm in no big rush to start solids, plus I don't want to have to deal with rice cereal when we're in Mexico. And he's still a peanut, and solids don't add much calorie-wise at this point. She said to start sometime before our next appointment in March, which I'd want to do anyway since I want him to start solids before he starts daycare, and I'd be more comfortable waiting a bit longer. So wait we will.

Wordless Wednesday: Failed Efforts at a Monthiversary Photo with a Comparison Animal

2009-01-14T17:12:00.003-05:00

Four Months

2009-01-13T15:41:00.016-05:00

My big boy,

This month, you celebrated your first Christmas. And celebrate you did, even if you weren't aware of what it was you were celebrating. There's a series of car ads out right now, comparing a car to the recipient's best present ever, flashing back to childhood gifts like big wheels and video games. You won't remember it, but the look on your face the first time when you went in your jumperoo reminded me of those ads. Best. Gift. Ever. I loved seeing that look.

That said, it is important to me that you know what Christmas is all about -- that it's not just about presents (or spending time in the car). I don't want you to grow up thinking that Christmas is about gifts and money and material things; it is about something far more precious and wonderful. That is why we all went to church together on Christmas Eve.

Although your dad and I have different beliefs when it comes to religion, including Christmas(and when you're old enough, you can and will decide for yourself what you believe, hopefully with enough exposure to church to make that decision an informed one), we share the same values. Even if you ultimately choose not to believe in the miracle of Christmas, I hope you at least see it as a time to celebrate family and togetherness rather than a time for things. And that's why we spend time in the car. So we can go see the family that can't come to see us, like your Big Papa.

Speaking of that time in the car, you spent a lot of it sleeping. Much of this month was about sleep. You continued sleeping through the night, even when we were in strange houses, and even when we had to put you to sleep in one place then move you to another, neither of which was home, and for that we were very thankful. You fell asleep under the tree at your grandma's house. You even took a nap in the dog's bed. You did have a few days where you woke up in the middle of the night like you did when you were very little, but we got through them. At the end of the month, we even got you sleeping in your crib without the carseat (without any fanfare, I'd like to note). Hoorah! We knew you wouldn't go to college sleeping in a carseat, but that didn't keep me from fearing that you might need to bring it to day care. Or kindergarten.

At the end of the month, you reminded us that you are very unpleasant when you don't take a nap. You reminded us of this by refusing to nap for days, then being Mr. Crankypants. Just so you know, we hadn't forgotten.

You finally napped again while snuggled against me in the wrap. When I was pregnant with you, I assumed I'd spend much of your first few months wearing you in that wrap. But I didn't. At first because I was nervous, and then because you didn't seem to like it. Not just the wrap, but any kind of snuggling or closeness, other than when eating or immediately thereafter. You were a very curious guy, very interested in exploring the world. I felt a little sad at first, but I got over it.

Motherhood hasn't gone the way I expected it to in a lot of different ways, and that has made me a far more flexible person in general. That said, I was thrilled that you wanted to snuggle close to me, that you found me comforting and soothing. And you've wanted to be held a lot more since then. I know it won't last forever, and that's okay. Because I love that you're curious about and engaged with the world. But I'll enjoy these moments for all they're worth as long as they last.

Speaking of your independence, one sign that it will be coming soon is that you started rolling over. You only go in one direction (tummy to back) but you can do it. And have done it daily for the past week or two. Usually right before your bath, when we force you to do naked tummy time. Which is the way you prefer to do tummy time, if crying less can be called a preference.

And you continue to love the bath. You especially love to kick and splash. With the goal of ejecting the hippo from the tub. The other bath toys can stay, but not the hippopotamus. Stupid hippo.

Finally, this month you began to develop a relationship with the dog. You follow him with your eyes and face as he moves around the room (making it hard to take your picture when he's around), touch him when he goes by, kick him when he bothers you. You don't seem to mind the incessant licking. And, man is it incessant. We hope it just means that he wants to protect you. Or wants you to smell like him. Or something positive. Either way, you each seem to see each other as a part of the family.

Our family. Every day I am amazed that you are a part of it. And I can't imagine life without you.

Love,

Mommy

I Think He Reads This Blog

2009-01-09T13:29:00.004-05:00

Mr, No Naps took two naps yesterday, the first on me (right after I posted my last post), the second in his swing, for a total of nearly 4 hours of naps. He napped again this morning when I put him in the swing so I could take a shower. (Ah, showers, how little I appreciated them before Harry. I will never take them for granted again). And this is him now:

(That is Harry, asleep in the wrap. Sorry for the quality -- taken with the camera phone, and I was due for my "new every two" two years ago but actually like my phone with its super long battery life.)

I'll take what I can get for naps at this point. He's been so much more pleasant!

Man, I Hope It's Just A Phase

2009-01-08T11:34:00.003-05:00

Note: I have a whole bunch of half-finished posts saved as drafts but am hoping that starting a new one will somehow get one finished.

I made the mistake of saying aloud that I feel as though I am fairly comfortable with this whole parenting thing (in fact, there's a half-written post about that topic and how it relates to my job in my drafts folder right now). He must have heard me say that because he has been absolutely impossible all week.

For one, he has been refusing to take naps. The good days, he takes one. The less good days, none, or at least none longer than 20 minutes. And Harry is not a pleasant boy when he gets overtired. He cries and fusses and is generally unpleasant to be around. Thankfully, he is still going down easily at night and is still sleeping through. But getting through the day with an overtired child is hard.

He has also discovered that he can scream. Loudly. When the pediatrician doing rounds first saw him in the hospital, he commented that Harry seemed to like to hear the sound of his own voice. And now I am coming to see how prescient that was. He screams a lot. And not because anything is wrong. Just. Because. He. Can.

Finally, he has gone from being a boy with a lovely disposition who only cries when tired and rarely fussed at all to being one who whines. A lot. He grunts and fusses and heh-heh-hehs all the time. Nothing makes him happy for more than five minutes. Not toys. Not reading. Not listening to music or singing songs. Not the Bumbo. Not the bouncy seat. Not even the Jumperoo. He doesn't seem hungry, but nursing provides a respite from the whining so he has been doing more of it, which makes me feel like a bad parent, attempting to solve my child's non-hunger-related problems with food. And it persists even immediately following a nap, which makes me fear that it's unrelated to the overtired issue.

Of course, he then behaves like a saint when P comes home at night so that I think P thinks I am making it up. I really hope this is a phase. If not, it may make it a bit easier to go back to work in March....

Everybody Else Is Doing It

2008-12-31T23:24:00.001-05:00

Everyone else is doing it, so I thought I'd join in. Doing this made me realize how incredibly uninteresting this blog has been on a pretty regular basis. Ugh. Sorry. I also have some thoughts on 2008 as it wraps up but they will have to wait as I am currently pumping.

January: Like many people out there, I harbor some decidedly negative feelings toward 2007.

February: This is the post where it becomes obvious that I am a bit hormonal (and a serious bitch when it comes to nit-picky points of grammar, some of which may be more matters of preference than rule anyway).

March: So our internet connection is finally up and stable again (plus, Com*cast put in a new cable modem and phone line today), so there may be another flurry of posts from me.

April: Some new Sandra Bullock/Ryan Reynolds film was filming across the street from my office late last week and yesterday.

May: But tired and disappointed.

June: The doctor sent me an email today regarding the bloodwork results, saying that while my numbers were low, they were not very low, especially for a pregnant woman.

July: Stuff to Say did this one already.

August: I feel like I have a lot to say, but I don't have a ton of time to say much of anything right now.

September: I'm still here, and it's looking less and less like Lou will be making an early appearance.

October: Because I continue to struggle to find a way to post (Harry has reflux, so he spends quite a lot of time being held, as he spits up almost instantly when laid down flat -- and often does so when held as well), rather than post nothing, I'm going to be okay with short posts.

November: Well, I may end up doing a lot of photo posts, but I'm going to attempt to do Nablopomo again this year, mainly to force myself to post more often.

December: Late last week, P opened the back door to let Buddy out without checking to be sure there were no other dogs out there.

Happy New Year!