Our lives, here now.

So we’ve been living in our new place for a couple weeks now, and it’s just beginning to feel like home. Or, maybe I’m just beginning to not feel so lost and alone in it anymore. Don’t get me wrong, this is our dream home (until we have more kids and grow out of it), but isn’t there something about a new house that is strange and foreign? I found myself walking into the kitchen at night and feeling the need to say, “Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to intrude…” Do you know what I’m saying? New homes take getting used to. There are new noises at night, new neighbors to get to know, new rhythms of life.

Anyway, we’ve moved most of our stuff over to the new house and settled in, and we’re living out of boxes a lot less, which is nice. It felt like glorified camping for a while. The first day alone with Collin in the new house felt shockingly similar to my first day alone with him EVER after Husband went back to work and my mom went back to Minnesota. I had the “Will it always be this terrifying?!” feeling again, and walked the baby to Whole Foods to meet my friend, V. V is the Winnie the pooh to my Piglet. While I, Piglet, am running in circles crying, “Oh dear! Oh dear!” over the baby gate not fitting in the doorway or the fact that I went to the new house to clean it and forgot all my cleaning supplies, V the Pooh will waltz in and find the most simple (sometimes obvious), yet brilliant solution. To anything. And she’ll make it look easy, and you will be immeasurably relieved and wonder how on earth you have such a great friend. Seriously, everyone needs a V in their lives. So that first day alone in the new house wasn’t so scary after seeing V’s refreshing smile.





In other news, we will most likely be leaving tomorrow to go back to Socal to say goodbye to my mom's partner, who is losing her battle with cancer. Cancer is such a dirty word. I hate it.

Ready, set, major life change!

Oh, the times, they are a-changing. It's time to open a new chapter in our lives (again) as we prepare to say goodbye to the studio apartment and hello to the one-bedroom awesomeness that is our new place. The big move is this weekend, tonight, actually, once Husband gets home with some boxes. Our new home is half the first floor of a Victorian style mansion that is over 100 years old. Places like that are actually pretty common here in Santa Cruz, but I never thought I would be fortunate enough to live in one. It is so gorgeously vintage and fabulous. Love at first sight.

Today, I took Collin for our last walk around the lagoon that surrounds our current apartment complex. The feelings that washed over me were so unexpectedly profound. Suddenly, I was having flashbacks of walking through the lagoon as a blushing newlywed, holding Husband's hand as we daydreamed about taking our future children here. Fast forward a little, and now I'm remembering all the desperate loops around the water I made with Collin, both of us miserably sick, praying the rhythmic rocking of my steps in his Ergo carrier would lull him to sleep. Just a few minutes of precious sleep.

The last time Collin and I walked through the lagoon, I saw a little lone duckling paddling around by itself, and my eyes swelled with tears. Where was its mother? Why was such a little duckling all alone? Being a mother gives you a different spin on just about everything. I looked down at Collin's (finally) sleeping face, his body curled against mine, all bundled in his jacket and boots, and I thought, "Will he ever stop being my childling?'

And I realized that no, he won't. Even when he's paddling around the great big pond all by himself with his own car and a job and a family, he will always be my childling. I will always welcome him back home to the nest with open wings.

I stopped by Whole Foods on my way to work yesterday to pick up diapers. As I was leaving, I noticed a young woman browsing the cracker isle, absentmindedly caressing her beautiful pregnant orb of a belly, and I stopped in my tracks. I wanted to run to her, kiss her precious belly, try to think of the words to tell her how amazingly blessed her life will be. How full-to-the-brim her heart will be. How she has no idea just how incredible it will feel to hold a tiny newborn against her heart and feel its little life beating with hers. However, in the same moment, I also wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her and scream, "Run, girl! Get out while you still can!" And try to think of the words to tell her how miserably sleep-deprived and slightly insane she will feel on a 24 hour basis. How depressing it will be to climb her exhausted self into bed at night, only to know that in an hour (or less), she will be jarred awake again by her baby's constant need. How she will completely loose any sense of self she had, to be replaced with her new "self," this child that needs her constant attention.

In the end, I decided it was best to just keep walking.

Sleep, damn it.

During my seven months as a mother, everything has gotten easier except the two dreaded "N" words (No, not that word): nursing, and napping.


Napping. Oh god.

If you were playing on the floor and started to rub your eyes and whine and look at me with this expression that says, "I feel tired. Do something!" I would pick you up and take you to bed, and for a moment, it would look like you were about to fall asleep. Your eyes would close, and you would stop squirming and your muscles would relax, and I would think, "Whew! He went to sleep! That was quick." Only that's when you would telepathically hear me and Ping! Your eyes are wide open. You will look at me with this flash of a grin on your face, like you're actually thinking "Gotcha!" And then you will start sitting up and/or rolling to get away from me. If I put a hand on your chest to keep you down, you will screech as loudly as you can to alert the neighbors that I am, in fact, trying to murder you. We will then spend the next 20-30 minutes going back and forth from the bed to the rocking chair, trying every sleep trick I've read about, every snippet of sleep advice I've ever heard. I will sing to you, hum to you, meditate over you, offer you milk in any form you will take it, I'll even let you suck on my arm fat, which you so love to do. You will cry, then jabber to yourself, then grab the bottle and spray us both in the face with breast milk, then yank on my necklace until I gag. Eventually, you will either A) fall asleep for twenty minutes, or B) get plunked back on to the floor to motor around the living room in circles, screeching deliriously, like a runaway train.

Well, if that was you, I'd have to say you have a lot in common with my son.

Why is getting this kid to sleep so hard? He's really such a joy and such an absolute love, except for this one painful area. Will he grow out of it? Is it something I'm doing wrong? The worst part is watching how progressively sleep-deprived and cranky he gets throughout the day, and I just know he is exhausted. He'll bump his head in a playgroup or become startled by someone new and start howling like he's on fire, and another mama will look at me sympathetically and say, "Poor guy. He's so sensitive." When in fact, he could handle much worse and keep on crawlin', but he is just so tired.

I guess I should try not to worry too hard about it. Missing a nap or two during the day isn't doing him too much harm, as he is thriving for his age. I don't have to worry about him as an adult in the workplace going red in the face hysterical over someone taking his stapler just because he is tired from missing a nap.

Right?

Discovering Collin's first winter holidays.

The December holidays have come and gone in a whirlwind, especially dizzying and chaotic this year. But in a good way. That's how December holidays are; you wait all year for them, they sneak up behind you while you're busy eating turkey, and then they run away again just when you are feeling full of holiday sugar. I mean, spirit. I'm always left a little melancholy after the Autumn/ December holidays have gone. I want to chase after them, convince them to stay a little longer. Let every day feel special for just a little longer. I didn't drink enough eggnog or listen to enough carols, or send fudge to my relatives (again).

Ah, but alas, life goes on. There is the new year to look forward to, and then the flowers of spring and Collin's first birthday. Plus, the weight I've vowed to loose after the sugar orgy that was my holiday season.

I think the holidays this year were especially blurry because I spent it in constant motion, chasing after Collin who can now crawl, climb, and scale just about everything. It's kind of funny to watch him chase after our giant fluffy cat with a maniacal grin on his face, shrieking at a pitch that would rupture the strongest of ear drums. Poor kitty. A good example of our life with the baby at this time would be our Christmas tree, which wasn't actually a tree, but a string of lights taped to the wall in the shape of a tree. Much easier not to tear down and destroy.

I hope everyone had happy holidays : )

The five stages of nap-deprivation

I respond to my son's refusal to nap with the 5 stages of grief.


Denial: "He's being a little stubborn, but he'll go down. He's really tired, he's rubbing his face, crying with his eyes closed...all the tired signs are there..."


Anger: "Why won't this kid just GO TO SLEEP, already?! I've been trying to get him down for at least 45 minutes now, what do I look like, Mother Teresa??"

Bargaining:  "Please, I beg you, please just go to sleep. I'll even lay here next to you instead of getting the dishes done, okay? Will that make you go to sleep?"

Depression: "Well, I guess I can just forget about the nap and stop wasting my time. The dishes will never get done, and when Husband gets home, the baby will be a sleep-deprived maniac and the house will be a mess. That's what he gets for marrying me."

Acceptance: "Fine, you win. I give up. Here, sit and play with your toys while mommy makes herself a drink sandwich."

Where's the tutorial for pureed Elmo?

Has anyone noticed how confusing it is to feed a baby solid food? One source tells you to make sure they eat rice cereal at least once a day, another source tells you to avoid it altogether because it's hard to digest. But the last source said it was easy to digest. Well, which is it?? I hate playing Russian roulette with my child's digestive system.

By the way, I think it actually is hard to digest. I fed Collin a ton of it when he was sick because I wanted him to get the antibodies from the breastmilk that I used to thin it. He got constipated, and I mean constipated. I guess everything in moderation, right?

I'm trying to make baby food from scratch, but it's difficult to do, as we're in a studio apartment and there is no escaping the roar of the blender. The blender (along with the vacuum, a hearty sneeze, or just about any loud sudden noise) has always had the power to send Collin into a full-scale panic that requires ten minutes of singing, bouncing, and peeling him off my head before eventually resorting to Elmo. Oh Elmo, you red, squeaky beast. I have such a love/hate relationship with Elmo. Collin really doesn't care for childrens' TV shows except for Elmo. We've had to scale Elmo back a little because I was unsettled at just how much Collin was actually watching. For the most part, we keep Elmo on stand-by for the times we really need Collin to shut up already be distracted with something, but I still feel like Sesame Street should charge me for babysitting. Don't judge me, how else am I supposed to take a shower??

I find it kind of cute /ironic/ payback that Collin loves Elmo like he does, as I remember hearing stories of my own Sesame Street obsession when I was a youngin'. Ahhh, life has a funny way.

Discovering The Napless Wonder

I’ve been sick all week, and thankfully I’m beginning to see the light at the end of the head cold tunnel. Unfortunately, my son is just now showing signs of feeling unwell, which suggests we’ve got a long way to go before we can skip merrily out of the house and declare ourselves recovered. I hate when Collin is sick, I hate it worse than when I’m sick. So far, the worst symptoms he has are what can only be described as Pain-in-the-ass-itis. Basically, he doesn’t want to be put down, but he doesn’t want to be picked up and removed from his toys. But he doesn’t really want to play with his toys, he mostly wants to sit around on the floor and whiiiiine. Oh, the whining. It is enough to make me a crabby, whining person, myself. His whine is something he does with his whole body: sitting rigidly and staring at you with a huge frown on his face and this drawn-out half-cry that DOESN’T STOP.

I think the biggest cause of the whine is the fact that he will not nap. I guess feeling sick is reason to stay awake until you are reduced to a heap of blubbering baby. The past two days, I’ve had to bundle him up in boots and a snow suit (Maybe a little over-kill, but it’s cold and we're sick over here, m’kay?) and walk him in the sling until he passes out from sheer exhaustion. Then we get home, and I pass out from sheer exhaustion, and the next thing you know, you’re hearing Collin whiiiiiiiiine all over again. Now, being as my nose has been doing its own rendition of a human leaky faucet, leaving me chained to a tissue box all week, you would assume I would remember to bring tissues when I take Collin out for a walk. No. I've forgotten both times, and kicked myself the whole walk as I became a mucus fountain. But back to the nap business, I feel like setting up a tent outside our apartment and charging people to look at him. “Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and witness with your own very eyes…The NAPLESS WONDER!”