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Way back when, I thought putting my finger in a baby's toothless mouth would be so very gross. Soft and slimy and EW! and creepy! Now? Putting my finger in a baby's mouth with little bumps of teeth? EW! That's so gross.
And completely unrelated, my friend, Malena, sent her this fairy dress when she was born. She loves it. The sparkles in the skirt keep her fascinated for - well - minutes. And that's a long time in baby time. And it's so cute so who could complain?
I KNOW.
It’s very late.
I had intentionally planned on waiting until after her 9 month checkup to post her update. Then that came and went. And now it’s two weeks later and here it is. Finally.
Everyone who is around her regularly has been amazed at the different person she is now. One day last month, she just woke up and realized she didn’t hate the world and everyone in it. And that has made life so much easier.
We started the month going through our first food fights. I know, they are no match for those to come but it was impossible to get her to eat anything. So I tricked her. (Yes, I’m starting already and no, it probably won’t end. Ever.) If she had a spoon in her hand, she was content. And if she just happened to put that spoon in her mouth, well, that meant she had an open mouth. So I would wait for that and shove the food in when she didn’t expect it. It worked for a few bites anyway. And then, one night, she decided she was hungry and ate an entire jar of food without any bribing or tricking and then even wanted more when it was gone. Who is this kid????
The switch seems to have happened the weekend my sister came to visit. Maybe she’s magic? Just not magic enough... Remember my excitement about getting to go grocery shopping? Yeah. Well. Even with two people, it’s still impossible. The kid HATES it. We tried. We took treats and toys and even carried her. I need a personal grocery shopper or a delivery service. She’s evil.
Oh – treats. The Gerber Puffs are like crack to her. It’s pathetic. She’s worse than the dogs. If you shake the container in front of her, she shakes all over, her eyes about bulge out of her head, the excitement just cannot be contained. Which is good for when we go out to eat and want to actually eat our food. We’ve learned that if we take some of those along with us, we can sit her down and feed her a few of those and she’s happy as can be.
She’s started being very curious about everything. We had her in a high chair, eating her puffs, the other day at the mall and it was anything we could do to get her attention away from staring down every little thing around her. She has to examine everything. With her eyes, her hands, and especially her mouth. Everything goes in the mouth. That’s been loads of fun.
She isn’t crawling yet but that doesn’t mean anything is out of her reach anymore. She scoots and rolls and stretches and grabs absolutely everything she is not supposed to have.
She is getting very coherent of her actions and surroundings. She gets when she is being silly and playing and knows when she is being funny. She’s learning how to tease and play with you as opposed to just letting you play with her. She’s also getting very independent in playing by herself. She’ll sit on the floor and play with her toys for quite a while now. There was a day at day care a while ago that one of the ladies didn’t even know she was there most of the day because she was so quite and interested in her toys.
And the whole reason I waited to do the post in the first place (if I forgot to include that after all the waiting and procrastinating, well let’s just say it’s a GOOD thing I just remembered) … She’s 16.4 pounds and 27 inches long. And while 16 pounds may seem teeny (I know, it is), YOU try lugging her around all day!
I know it happens. Everyone I know has their own version of the story. Knowing that doesn’t make you feel any better when it finally happens to you.
The baby was hanging out on the bed while we were getting ready to go to a movie. She was fine when I turned around to check the mirror to fix my sweater strap. I fixed the strap and was turning around to get her. It was five seconds. As I was turning around, there was a huge THUD! Of course I knew exactly what it was. I jumped. I gasped. I looked down and the poor baby was lying on the floor terrified. The screaming started. I immediately scooped her up with her dad looking at me like it was totally my fault and how dare I. I tried to comfort her for a couple of minutes and she just cried and cried. Dan took her to give it to shot – and to add insult to my ego injury, she cuddled right up on his shoulder and just whimpered.
A few minutes later we were getting in the car to leave and Dan made some comment about getting to give me crap about this now. I burst into tears. He didn’t get it. The first time for the guilt because I wasn’t paying close enough attention, I wasn’t right there for her. I know it won’t be the last. And I know I hate that. With my whole heart.
Dear Mother Nature,
I get that as a woman, you are inclined to mood swings. I get that there are ups and downs in life for everyone. But this year you have been especially hormonal. You go from sunny to crappy in no time at all. Please accept this sacrificial offering of prozac to kindly chill the freak out! balance yourself a bit. We appreciate the changes in season but a little warning and stability would be nice. You’ve gone from 80 degrees one day to 20 and six inches of snow the next. You’ve become a tease. And no one likes a tease.
Bitterly (cold),
Former winter lover who now longs for one day when I can leave the house wearing something that is appropriate for the weather when I go home at night
I started packing away baby clothes months ago. It was sad when I put them away knowing she’d never wear them again. But watching my sister put them in her suitcase to take them home for her baby? It felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. So sad. So so sad.
Someone replaced my baby with the happiest, friendliest, hungriest baby on the planet. To whomever that was: you can keep her. I like this one better!
I miss my sister. I felt like I was suffocating when I dropped the baby off at day care this morning. I cried at stupid music on the way to work. Less than four hours of sleep sucks. I’m tired and much too emotional because of it.
My house has shown every day for what feels like forever. I should be happy about that and yet I’m mostly annoyed. Especially since I forgot to make the bed this morning and pick up the slew of baby toys.
I like my Eddie stand-up, in a dress, with make-up.
I need baby shower ideas. I have a month. I’m usually really good at this stuff but now my brain is broken and nothing seems good enough.
Tomorrow my little demon baby turns nine months old. This is of note for reasons other than the obvious (like the one that holy crap! she’s freakin’ old! how’d this happen????) which I will get to later.
When I was pregnant, like anyone, I had a million fears. #3 on that list of fears was breastfeeding. Some days when I was semi-comfortable with numbers 1 and 2, it would take front seat and send me into states of panic like I had never known before. What if I couldn’t do it? What if it hurt so bad like other people had said? Or as hard as people make it sound? What if there were problems? How do I feed her in public? Why does everyone have to judge so harshly either way? What if people judged me? What if I did have to give her formula? What if I had to only give her formula? Am I a bad mother if I can’t do this?
Now that I look back, I think I was probably more afraid of breastfeeding than I was of labor and delivery. There is just such a divide between breastfeeding and formula feeding and people are so passionate about it they forget it’s not really their business and don’t care how much they hurt others with their overzealous opinions. It’s bad enough that a mother doesn’t know what she’s doing, but when another mother – who should understand and support through the battle – starts attacking? How is that a good thing? So yeah, I was terrified for a billion reasons.
Before Dan and I had ever even thought about possibly, maybe, someday trying to think about having kids we would have the breastfeeding fight. He would say I had no say in the matter, I was doing it. I would say, “hello! My boobs! My body! My time! Ultimately MY choice. And, besides, doofus, what if I can’t???” To have a MAN make you feel like less of a woman or mother by telling you that you HAVE to breastfeed their child, I’ll kick his ass myself. I get that they are entitled to their opinion, they’re the dad, they’re certainly involved and expressing their point of view is certainly welcome. But to feel like he will see you as less of a mother, less of a woman if you can’t breastfeed, or even choose not to. I don’t even have words for the lack of support, tyrant ass that man would be. Anyway… So we had that fight for years. Then it went away for years and was never discussed again until we found out I was pregnant. During a conversation very early on, it somehow came up and I made some comment about breastfeeding. About absolutely wanting to do it – to try. (Mind you, the fights before were never because I didn’t want to, they were because I felt like it should ultimately be my choice since I was the one who was going to have to do it. It wasn’t his boobs that were potentially not going to be able to feed the baby. He will never know that fear.) He was taken aback thinking that I wasn’t going to even bother. So then started the conversations of how terrified of: what if I couldn’t it? People are so mean about it. People will be mean to me and make me feel more incompetent than I know I already would anyway.
Good thing my husband rocks. He was nothing but supportive in my decisions with all this. He still is.
So now…. I know…. Four hours later… I’m wordy, what can I say…. My point….
It has been hard. It’s been so fulfilling and wonderful and great and bonding and really kind of easy but it has been so. very. very. hard. I have had to supplement with formula already and I thought I was a terrible mother who was going to breastfeeding hell the first few times. But it’s that or my child starved. I have had a hell of a time with having a significantly low milk supply the entire time I’ve been nursing. It’s not been fun. It’s not been easy. We’re at the point now that she has to be supplemented at day care so she can get enough. Her entire life, whenever she’s with me, she’s eating constantly because there just isn’t enough. I read books, I consulted with lactation consultants, I tried old wives tales and supplements, I’ve done everything I can come up with and still never have enough.
In my head, I knew I wanted to go a year. But what if I couldn’t even get started? Or what if there were problems along the way (which, for the record, I never once even considered the problem I would actually be having. Just my luck.)? So I decided to be a little more realistic and actually set goals that I knew I could reach and break it down a bit. So my goals were like this: Goal 1 – Be able to do it. At all. Establish a successful latch and see how it goes. Goal 2 – At least the first month. Do NOT give up. Make it at least one month. Goal 3 – Get through the first three months. Goal 4 – Go to six months. Anything beyond that is gravy. Just get to six months. Easy. You can do it. Goal 5 – Nine months. Anything beyond this and you rock. Goal 6 – A year. Nice goal. If you can get there, by all means, have at it.
So I’m at goal 5 (phew! 20 paragraphs later and I am finally to my point). We’ve made it nine months. I know that so many people would have given up by now, would have realized it wasn’t worth the hassle or the stress and just gone to formula. And that it would be okay if I did. I hit six months and even the pediatrician said anything beyond that was just icing on the cake. But in my head, there are still those people out there (sadly, some in my life which I think is why it bothers me so much) that will think I’m less of a woman and less of a mother if I don’t make it the full year. But I’m drying up. I don’t get nearly enough for the next day when I pump anymore and it’s driving me crazy. I tell myself it would be so much easier if I would just let her go to straight formula and not have the stress of not having enough, of having to pump freaking constantly. But it’s also something I really value with my baby. So do I let day care feed her straight formula and when she’s with me nurse? I have no idea. Three more months. That’s it. That’s all it takes to reach my ultimate goal. Even if I only half-nurse her that far, it’s more than I ever really thought I could do, so is that good? I know so many mothers, mothers whom I admire and respect much more than anyone I know who preaches ONLY BREAST, who supplemented long before now if not went solely to formula long before now. So why can’t I just get over it and do it? In my head I feel like I will see myself as failing if I give up before June. I’ve made it this far – I have NOT failed. So what’s up with this?
(No. Not one for Madeleine. Ga! Get over that already! MY sister. Mine.)
My sister is coming tonight to visit for a few days. YAE! She lands at midnight tonight which is not so yae! But do you know what this means? This means I get to go grocery shopping! I know I’ve posted about it before but I can’t for the life of me find it to link to it. The anxiety that comes with leaving the house alone with this child! It has come down to running to the grocery store for maybe five things tops at a time. I haven’t actually done a real grocery trip in at least two months, if not longer. She can survive maybe ten minutes but then she’s bored and done with it. (Leaving her home? Haha. You are funny, funny people.) I finally got around to using her shopping cart seat cover a couple of weeks ago and that bought me maybe an extra three minutes. But isn’t it cute?? Okay, really loud and obnoxious. But it serves its purpose!
Anyway, so woohoo! We’re going grocery shopping this weekend. Which I am sure makes my sister so very thrilled. Traveling two thousand miles, while seven months pregnant, to go grocery shopping. I can see her doing cartwheels right now. (Actually what I see is her rolling her eyes thinking, “You are the biggest dork.” But we don’t need to go into that.) To make up for it though, I am taking her baby stuff shopping. Of course we’ll hit the normal chain places (Babies R Us because hey – my baby needs stuff too and remember that whole thing about not shopping alone with her??) but there are so many awesome baby boutiques out here that I just love. My very favorite boutique lately is Cradle & Crayon. We’ve bought and been given so many things for Madeleine from there so of course I have to take my sister. But just to get out of the house, put the baby in her stroller and not have to panic that she is going to completely meltdown while I'm in the middle of something - oh the excitement is killing me.
Aside from shopping, this will be her best visit ever because we don’t have one thing planned. At all. Usually when we are in the same state together we’re so booked that there isn’t time to breathe. But this time we’ll just hang out, plan her baby shower that I’m giving her next month, and pawn the baby off on her so I can get some things done spend quality time with her favorite little niece. Oh – and try to keep her and my husband from becoming best friends. Oh. Wait. They’d have to not absolutely hate each other and actually speak to each other for that to ever happen.
Who taught her this? Who?? Next thing you know, she'll be crawling or something!
