Bittersweet baby

It seems like every day, Mike turns to me and says, "I don't think I've ever seen her be this cute!"

And she is cute. She stands in her exersaucer, and jumps like it's her job, like she's auditioning for a Riverdance tour. She screams and squeals, and she blows loud, wet raspberries, letting spit splatter all her toys. And she smiles. She has many smiles now, including the boy-am-I-happy-to-see-you gummy grin, the I-didn't-know-you-were-watching-me-play bashful smirk, the ahhh-life-is-good-now-what-can-I-play-with? smug smile. That last one is one of our favorites. It's become her signature look. Her lips are pressed together tightly, slightly pursed, but her cheeks and eyes are smiling. She just looks happy. And satisfied.

But I have been finding occasionally, and it's becoming more and more often, that I'm just not as excited about her excitement, or as moved by it, as I have been in the past. Perhaps eventually, your baby's discoveries and developments become almost mundane. Or perhaps I've just been bummed out. I don't enjoy things like I used to, and it's starting to bother me. I think I'm still having a little trouble adjusting to life as a working mother, and Mike's class schedule makes it even harder than it would be. But, at the same time, this week has been the smoothest one yet! We are slowly building a new routine, and getting to bed a little earlier, and we are more prepared for each day ahead of us.

It's a long road ahead.

Milestone memory: chopsticks

Last night, Mike handed Anna a chopstick which she inspected. Then he handed her another, and she held both up, one in each hand. Then Mike held two chopsticks and clicked them together as a percussion instrument. She may have tried banging hers together, but she's not very coordinated. It's hard to say.

But it reminded me of a pleasant memory of her holding a chopstick in her cubby little hand for the first time. It was the first thing she ever held on her own. How odd that before that she couldn't hold anything at all! And how odd that I was so excited about it when she did it! And now she can hold many things.

Oh my goodness, I just thought of something I don't think I ever wrote about here!! Anna is now sleeping in her crib, all by herself. Her first night alone in her crib was Labor Day, September 3 to 4. And she slept for about 10 hours uninterrupted. I missed her. But she seems to sleep well there, and we can put her to bed and continue doing whatever we want in the evening without worrying about waking her up. More nights than not, she is still waking to eat at 4:30 or so. Sure, it'd be nice if she didn't, but that is about 7 hours after her last feeding, and she goes right back to sleep, so whatever. So our routine is: Mike retrieves her from her crib at 4:30 and I nurse her while lying in bed. I am half asleep, and sometimes I doze off. She nurses for a while and then dozes off. We sleep until about 6:00, and then Mike and I have to get up (yuck!) So Mike returns her to her crib, and she sleeps until we wake her to get ready for the sitter, or until 8:00 or so if it's one of our stay-at-home with Lucy days.

But last night, Anna slept most of the night with me. It was nice to have her back in my arms. She hardly ate yesterday at the babysitter's--she is either getting a tooth or she has a cold. So she was extra hungry overnight and she came to be with me at 1:30AM and stayed. We woke around 7:00, and she was smiling at me, just happy to be alive. I am not a morning person, but it sure does make it easier to get the day going when you wake up to a set of cherubic cheeks just barely lit up by the rising sun peeking through the window.

Her smile brings me peace and comfort I have rarely known.

There is nothing like squeezing my baby, and pressing my cheek to hers. Ahhhhhh.

Too worn out to come up with a clever title

Wow. I let a month and a half pass without writing a thing about Anna. I will forget all of the sweet things she's done and learned, and all of the sweet things she has already grown out of, and therefore will never do again.

She'll be 7 months old later this week. She's such a big girl, sitting up completely on her own, and playing happily with real toys. She is also such a perfect little baby though, as she doesn't try to move. Ever. She just sits there. Mike's oldest brother did this, and my oldest sister did this, so I'm not surprised or worried. I'm relieved. I still walk away from her on the changing table (gasp!) and I still let her nap on our bed or on the couch as long as the ottoman is pulled up. She can roll, but she usually doesn't choose to, and she has never rolled over repeatedly in order to get to something. I feel entirely confident that she won't roll off anything. I'm sure this confidence will be shattered and embarassing the moment she rolls off something. Oh well.

She hates solid food. Or she hates being fed solid food. I don't know if it's the taste, or the texture, or the spoon, or the bib. She'll good-naturedly let you shove the spoon in her mouth a couple of times, but then she gets all "wtf?" and pouts. I hate to say that she cries, but she whimpers, and moans, and looks at me with these sad, depserate eyes, as if to say, "Puh-lease don't make me do this, Mommy." So I don't. Perhaps I'm a sucker, or perhaps I'm a confident, intuitive Mommy. But I won't make her do it, and the research overwhelmingly supports my decision. Now I just have to get her doctors and the rest of the world on board with me.

These are the things I'll want to remember:

• she is just learning to find the humor in blowing motorcycle sounds on her tummy.
• she is just starting to lay her head on my shoulder when I hold her upright. I was starting to think that she would never melt into me--from the time she had even minimal neck strength, she looked behind me alertly any time I held her up. And before that, she was too weak to lay her head on me. Her head just kind of fell down onto her shoulders and she couldn't really squeeze into me like she needed me. But now... oh, now. She holds on, and snuggles, and rubs her cheeks on my shoulder, and I can feel her exhale with comfort and just melt.
• she is suddenly easily startled. She doesn't like sudden noise or surprises, and the Jack-in-the-Box elicits anything from a stuck out lower lip and whimpering to tears streaming down her face and screaming. It would be sad if it weren't so darned precious.

I'm starting to see some personality. I wonder if she'll be a very timid little girl? That'd be a surprise to me, given Mike's and my dispositions, but it'd be a welcome surprise. No, I would not mind having a daughter who loves me to death and clings to me and would rather be with me than anyone else in the whole wide world. Sure, it would come with its own anxieties and I'd constantly be pushing her to try something new and hang out with other people, but I love the idea of a cuddly little bug who wants to sit in my lap and be snuggled all the time. Ahh.

I used to like roller coasters.

Up and down, up and down, all around, upside down, and back where you began. This used to thrill me.

Now, I'm not such a fan of the ride I've been on. Every day, both Anna and I are changing.

This is what's been happening to Anna:

• she eats solids! "Solid" is a funny word for the liquidy glop we mix out of rice and oatmeal cereals (barley next week!), but apparently it is in fact a solid. The first time we offered her rice cereal was on vacation so we had a whole week to take our time and show her how it's done, but from the moment I held the spoon in front of her face, she opened her mouth wide, smacked her lips down around it, swirled it around in her mouth, swallowed, and then licked her chops and said, "More, please." Oh, and the oatmeal. The oatmeal! She loved the oatmeal. After her first taste, she waved her arms in the air and screamed excitedly, opening her mouth like a starving baby bird. Very cute. But then came the grunting and straining. After two days of oatmeal, she started this terrible groaning in which she sounds like she's trying to give birth. We quickly realized that she was not pooping. But is she trying to poop? We don't know! The solids have so far affected her digestive system minimally- she still has the same pleasant yellow non-stinky poop. It's just that she'll skip a day and then have mounds and mounds and mounds of pleasant yellow non-stinky poop the next day. I am terribly pleased that it doesn't stink up the house. So, is the grunting and straining related to any abdominal distress? She doesn't seem otherwise sick or in pain. Eh, whatever.
• she rolls! From the moment you lay her on her back, she flips onto her belly. It's cute how it's so immediate. And then it's not cute because she smashes her face into the ground and groans because she didn't want to be on her belly. So you turn her onto her back, and she flips onto her belly and then groans. But sometimes she does hang out on her belly for a while, checking things out, perhaps even reaching for a toy. But eventually, she will smash her face into the ground and groan. We really need to teach her to turn herself back over. Oh, she also rolls a little in her sleep if she's not swaddled, and she's taken to sleeping on her side which is so cute I can hardly stand it.
• she is just such a big girl. I don't know how else to describe it. I've started noticing that her development comes in spurts, just like her growth. And in fact, I think these two kinds of spurts happen at different times! Sometimes she's just growing for several weeks or a month, and she's kind of lame and boring then, and sometimes her size doesn't seem to change, but in a matter of weeks she just jumps to a whole new level of babyhood. She is suddenly reaching for everything you have in your hands, as if she wants the remote control so she can pick what we watch (I wonder if she gets sick of Sex and the City? I totally don't), and she reaches for your fork while you eat or the knife while you cook. I suddenly have to pay so much more attention to what I'm doing and what's within her reach. This is so new to me. And when I hold her, she doesn't want to be propped up on my shoulder to look at whatever is behind me. She holds her upper body up and sits on my hip like such a big girl, and she looks at what I'm looking at, or at what I'm doing, as she tries to take over for me. These are not the actions of my teensy little newborn child who is a helpless, motionless lump. These are the actions of a big girl. A big girl who is growing too quickly.

And all of these changes make me very happy. Who doesn't want to see her child getting strong and smart? Who doesn't get so excited when his child pushes her legs so hard she can stand from squatting or so hard she can scoot 6 inches across the floor? Who doesn't yearn for the day her child bubbles with a desperate "Ma-ma?" while intently looking at her?? But at the same time, I don't want to think of her being so independent she pushes away from me, eager to play by herself. I don't want to think of her crawling to wherever she wants (we have completely and totally in every way possible so far ignored the reality of baby-proofing the house). I don't want her to learn to speak and then the next day ask me, "Why does the sun shine? Why is the sun hot? Why is the grass green? Why does Daddy cut the grass? Why do bugs like the grass? Why do worms taste like dirt? Why don't you want me to play in the dirt? Why? Why? Why?" and then the next day ask me, "Why do you care how long I talk on the phone? Why should I tell you who I'm talking to?! Why won't you just leave me alone? Why do you hate me? Why are you trying to ruin my life?!"

Isn't life so bittersweet?

And this is what's been happening with me:

• I have Lucy and Anna three days each week. Lucy's a doll, and together, the two girls are very considerate of me and it's truly not hard to manage them. But it can get pretty lonely talking to two lumps who don't give a shit what you're saying. (But I also recognize the fact that this will be short-lived. See above section about growing up too quickly.)
• I work two evenings each week, and two full days each week. Work is okay. Well, work kind of sucks. I don't hate it, I guess, but I don't really enjoy it either. I'd much rather be with my baby. And I'm not getting all that much from the benefits these days, and it's a constant source of guilt because I feel bad when I'm a work because I'm only there 22.5 hours each week (but who's counting?) and so I'm not carrying my weight. I have a hard time remembering that while I am only working 60% as much as my coworkers, I am also only getting paid 60% as much, so I shouldn't stress about it. They're making almost twice as much as me, so they should assess twice the patients I do. And so. Oh well. But I still feel like the slacker.
• I think about having another baby sometimes. Not like I want one tomorrow, or even 9 months from now. But I want one eventually, and there is so much that has to be accomplished first. We need to be in a position for me to quit work, for us to buy a minivan, and to have the house updated with the necessities. We talk about having a huge addition put on, but that's just going to have to wait until way down the line. We also want new windows. And a new kitchen. But the easiest and probably first thing we'll tackle is carpeting.

All of these things lead to me having roller coaster emotions; one minute I want to quit working and just stay home with Anna and other children, and the next minute I feel like a total failure and I don't want to face the reality of being a full-time stay-at-home mother. I often think that I should just follow my dreams and do what I truly think will make me happy, because this is life, welcome to it, and there are no second chances. Then I often think that I won't really be happy spending 9 hours each day with kids, without any adult interaction. Even once they start talking (which will be fabulous), I will still spend all day answering "Why?" questions and explaining why you can't pull the cats' tails. Try discussing politics or my hopes and dreams with a 2-year old. But then I think that the only reason I get lonely when I'm here all day is because I'm stuck here. I can't drive two babies with our current car (hence the need for a minivan before we can continue procreating), so I never go anywhere. I just want to go to a park, or a store, or anywhere we can just look around and get some fresh air. We could go out and meet people for lunch, or stroll the zoo lazily. And in the parks, I would meet other mothers and talk to them and I'd suddenly have the fabulous network of best girl friends I've always wanted, and life will be perfect. And this is when reality sets in, and I know that life won't be roses if I have a minivan and two more kids to tote around (whether my own or others' kids).

So. Sometimes I think I'll just never be satisfied. I just had a flashback memory of pregnancy when I just wanted to hear the heartbeat, and I'd be satisfied. But I wasn't. And then I just wanted to feel it. And I wasn't satisfied. And I just wanted to see it. And I wasn't satisfied. When will I ever feel like it's enough? I'm waiting for that I-have-arrived feeling that makes you want to strap your body to the front of a cruiseliner and yell, "I'm the king of the world!!"

Sometimes I have flashes of that feeling. When Mike and my daughter are sitting on our front porch with me, and the sun has just set, and a slight breeze causes the gentlest cling from the windchimes, and the crickets are just starting to sing. And Anna's smile, lit by the flickering citronella candle, makes my heart ache, and life just couldn't be better. But then dinner has to be made, and dishes have to be done, and bottles have to be filled...

So I need to jump off the roller coaster and hope I land on an upswing.

Reminiscing

I just read through my first two months worth of posts. What a pleasure! I totally forgot about some of the feelings I had.

It has inspired me to get cracking and write some more. Also, I should put a little effort into my posts like I used to. It turns out that what I like best about reading old posts are my feelings, and especially my fears. It's like airing my dirty laundry. And it feels good when I do it, and then it's amusing to look back on.

So my current fear: that being a parent and being a happy spouse are mutually exclusive. No matter how hard we try to still talk about stuff, and to make time for each other, we are both tired and snippy and mean. We have a vacation coming up and I think it will be very good and relaxing.

And once again, I'm going to cut this post short because I have to run to catch the bus now. Run, run, run. Always running.

Another pal

Lucy is now hanging out with us Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We laugh, we drool, we listen to dead music.

Doesn't she make Anna look extra bald? Sigh.

I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Other feats

Anna is learning to roll.

Oh, and she can swim.

At least we know she's ours

They did not accidentally (or otherwise) switch our baby with anyone else's at the hospital.

Last night, Anna leaned to the side, farted, and giggled.

Alive and well

I haven't written anything in over a month, and now I have almost no record of Anna's third month of life. But now we're in her fourth month, and I have to say, I love it! She's fun. But, I am also back at work, and I miss so much of her funness. By the evenings, she's pretty lazy and tired, and I miss her big gummy smiles and big laughs and squeals. Accomplishments include that she's trying to roll onto her side (which she can only do when she's swaddled... I think her monster thighs get in the way otherwise), and she wants attention a lot more of the time.

Thankfully, I'm only working part-time, but this week I've worked a lot since I had childcare available, and it's been a hard change.

I have pictures of her baptism and her first flight and vacation, but they're stuck inside our camera at home. (I am currently at work, wasting time on a job I don't love and missing time with my baby who I do love.) I was hoping to do pictures tomorrow, but I have two babies with me then. I guess it'll just have to wait.

Speaking of having two babies with me, everyone knows about our childcare arrangement with my friend Amy from work, right? So Amy has a baby, Jack, who's 3 1/2 weeks older than Anna, and she has both babies on Mondays and I have both babies on Wednesdays, and I get Jack some Fridays. Jack and Anna apparently have a blast together these days, but I haven't had them both in over a month. This is the two of them at Amy's on Monday, holding hands!


More about childcare: we have a wonderful babysitter, Jenna, for the next 5 weeks on Thursdays. Then I haven't a clue what we'll do... But we'll figure it out. We are lucky to have many friends and family eager to help.

So much growing, so little time!

I'm way behind schedule here. Anna is a new exciting person every single day, and I either don't have the time to write about it, or I just don't take the time because I'd rather be cuddling her. But I write here for myself primarily, but also for her. Someday, I like to think she'll enjoy reading about our first days, months, and years with her. Maybe she'll even learn something about what it'll be like when she has her first child. Or maybe she'll just think her mom's a big dork. That's okay, too.

Anyhow, in no particular order, here are the things everyone must know:

Anna can grasp an object, and she knows it. She has held something in her hand before, if you pried open her little fingers and placed it in her palm. But it was more like a reflex, like how a newborn can squeeze your finger. But now, she really has to be awake and feel like playing, but if you put something (in our case a chopstick) in her hand, she waves it excitedly (in our case imitating Harry Potter) (or like Mike said, "NO, she's Hermani!" or however you spell it.) (And then we took away the chopstick because it's all fun and games until your 8-week old daughter pokes her eye out because you're a couple of immature idiots.) But it's like she can play, and it's so exciting! She also seems to be developing ticklishness and she just enjoys when you poke, kiss or tease her. And I just love her. (Please bear in mind, though, that she's only like this for about 4 minutes a day. The other 23 hours and 56 minutes, she still doesn't care very much about what goes on around her.)

Somebody hurt Anna for the first time in her life. She had her 2-month check-up on Monday, and those were her first immunizations. I guess she did have a shot or two in the hospital when she was born, but I wasn't there to witness it, so it really didn't happen. Anyhow, they had to give her 3 shots, and they told me that the one could cause her thigh to be warm and swollen and she might get a fever. #%!&*$!!! That is a serious shot! And if her thigh is warm and swollen, doesn't that mean it's tender? As in painful? Ugh. So I braced myself, and prayed she'd be calm. And the first shot went in, and her eyes got very big, and then the nurse pushed the plunger, and Anna closed her eyes, threw her head back, opened her mouth wide, and s-c-r-e-a-m-e-d. And then she got jabbed twice more while screaming, and I think I was in too much shock to do much. I haven't a clue how I reacted or what I did. It was surreal. And then the nurse rushed out and I grabbed my poor, arched-back, wailing, betrayed daughter, and I tried to cradle her in my arms, and I pulled her to me and offered my breast, which she desperately took. (At least I was smart enough to keep her hungry because I thought she'd like comfort nursing and she'd have something else to think about.) And I sat there, nursing her as she pulled away every 30 seconds or so to let out a sad whimper, and I cried. Big tears fell onto her naked body, and I tried to make myself stop before I had to go out and face all the nurses and doctors and look like a big crybaby mommy. I was totally not expecting her reaction, but I was totally more not expecting my reaction.

Anna can take medicine like a champ. When I was a child, right up until I was 18 years old, I could not take medicine. I couldn't swallow pills until I was in college (I sat down one day with a box of Tic Tacs, determined to force myself to swallow something and prove to myself that I wouldn't choke to death.) So pediatricians always gave my mom liquid medicine, which generally made me throw up. But that was only if you could force it down my throat. My poor mother. Even that delightful bubble gum flavored antibiotic that my friends bragged about drinking just for fun when we were 8 years old... YUCK. I just couldn't do it. To this day, I can't drink cough syrup because it's too yucky, so I buy children's cough syrup that tastes not-too-bad, but I have to take like 6 tablespoons of it, so each bottle only lasts through 4 or so doses. So I decided to man up about it, and I can now take a half dose of adult cough syrup and a half dose of children's cough syrup mixed up, and I gag it down. Impressive, don't you think? So I was very concerned about whether Anna would be like me.

After the horrible shot experience, she slept for a really long time. Once she finally woke, she cried a lot, and then slept a lot, and then cried more. She would be sleeping peacefully and suddenly scrunch up her little eyes and open her little mouth and a big wail would fill the room, and I'd squeeze her closer to me, and then push her away, afraid that I was hurting her little thighs. Finally, I decided that she was definitely hurting, and even though she didn't have a fever, I gave her some tylenol. I squeezed the little dropper into her mouth, and she looked surprised, and then smacked her lips... I guess she swallowed it, and I was hugely relieved. And then she slept really well for the rest of the day.

But the important thing here is that she can take liquid medicines! Yay!

Last night, from Wednesday to Thursday, May 10-11, Anna slept through the night. I'm supposed to write that in her baby book, so I'm recording the date here so I can't forget. For the first time, she slept from about 10:30 until we woke around 6:00. I wanted to sleep more, but since Mike was getting ready for work and I was awake, I decided to wake her and feed her. Who knows how much longer she could have gone?! But she went back to sleep after that and slept until about 8:30. We have such a perfect dream of a daughter.

Of course, I don't expect her to sleep like that often; she had a pretty bad evening yesterday, and she was exhausted and miserable to be around. I'd rather have a well rested baby that likes to eat once in the middle of the night than a miserable, crying baby that sleeps through the night from sheer exhaustion. But if I could have a well rested, happy baby that sleeps through the night, that will work for me!

I think that's everything. Those are our major developments. Whew. I'm glad I got that all out.