Running Underwater

I went to the Mom's Group at GBMC yesterday and for the first time felt like one of the not crazy ones. The group is sort of divided into two sets: the ones who are still figuring things out and look and feel completely frazzled and the ones who have survived this stage and can now offer advice and promises of better times to come.

Up until fairly recently, I felt like I was trying to run underwater. I just seemed to be making no progress at all. At some point in the last month, though, we turned a corner. Sophie has started to be a kid rather than a crying, puking, peeing, pooping lump and I finally feel like we're going to be okay.

She was 5 months old yesterday. I know I've said it before, but the time really does seem to be flying. I swear I love her a little more every day. Sometimes I feel like I could burst from it. I love hugging her little body, kissing her chubby cheeks and seeing that smile. It's so overwhelming sometimes. I can't even begin to think how I'll feel in a couple of years or further out.











As promised, the top reasons my husband is the best:

1. He always opens car doors for me.

2. He lets me sleep in on weekends while he watches Sophie.

3. He gives me the remote when we watch TV. (Believe it, ladies!)

4. He makes sure to kiss me every night before we go to sleep and every morning before he leaves for work.

5. He calls me every day on his way home from work to see if I need him to pick anything up.

6. He actually went through his pant collection to find ones that I could wear when I was crying because none of mine fit.

7. He never mentions the really yucky stuff that happened when Sophie was born.

8. He loves my cat even though she can be one tough customer. (And that's not a euphemism.)

9. He writes me love letters. (All right, they're love E-mails, but that still counts.)

And most importantly,

10. He makes me laugh EVERY single day.

Wait Loss

My dad always said that it was when he turned 30 that he started to have to watch what he ate. I always laughed and thought, "it will never be me!" With the confidence of youth, I honestly thought it was something I would never have to worry about. Boy, was I wrong. I swear the day I turned 30, food started settling in on my hips and butt in ways it never had . Despite this, I managed to stay in the single digits size-wise until I met Neil. I don't blame Neil for my weight gain since then, but if he weren't around...just kidding, my love! A friend of mine told me there was nothing so hard on your waistline as a happy love life and truer words have never been spoken. (That's me at my first birthday, obviously I had issues with food even then.)

So, as many of you know, I've been struggling with getting those last baby pounds off, not to mention the couple extra from the previous couple of happily married years. I have been exercising nearly every day for the last month or so and am watching what I eat. Mostly watching it from the plate to my mouth, ha. That's a terrible joke. Seriously, though, I am being a bit more aware of portion size and such. Of course, I just got back from lunch at the Olive Garden with my parents- and sisters-in law and managed to clean my plate. I did leave a couple of bites of my dessert, though. Does that count as restraint?

The really hard part is that almost none of my pre-baby clothes fit and I just can't bring myself to buy a whole new wardrobe of clothes in the size I currently am. Neil's suggestion was that I lose weight. Well, gosh, I hadn't considered that option. He's lucky to have survived that particular comment. Never mind that it's true (said through gritted teeth). I have bought a few things, though. It is simply unavoidable.

As I was walking through the mall the other day, I passed by the store for curvy girls, I won't name it but it sounds like Schmane Schmyant. (Here's something funny - spell check is okay with Schmane but not Schmyant?) Dejected from less than satisfactory trying-on experiences in my usual stores, I decided to go in. I just have to say, this was a major ego boost. It was really great to be the smallest girl in there. And here's the best part, I actually had to ask a salesgirl if they had a particular pair of pants in the smallest size they carry! Now, I really don't want this to become my regular store, but I just may visit again for a little confidence boost when my spirits are down from the fact that weight loss is such a slow process.

**I would just like to say that I do not blame my parents, my husband, my child or society for my weight ills. Clearly the blame rests solely on the fast food industry who tempt me with their irresistibly seductive commercials. Meanwhile, Neil has been the most supportive husband I could ask for. He tells me how beautiful I am many times a day, even when its not true. I could, and probably will, do a post dedicated to just how wonderful he is.

Hypno-Babble

We went out to lunch with Toi (isn't she gorgeous!) and her son Trey yesterday. She and her husband were one of the other couples in our hypnobabies class. There were three couples in the class and she is the one that came closest to the desired med-free birth. As you know, I wound up going full steam ahead with all the available medication the hospital had to offer (and don't regret it one bit) and the other woman had a C-Section. Pretty disappointing results, frankly, that only 1 in 3 are able to use the hypno-training. And Toi confided in me that she felt ALL of the pain. So although she went med-free, it's really 0 in 3 for pain management.

Neil, of course, feels vindicated. He thought it was hooey from the get-go, but I was so afraid of the epidural (a needle in your spine, I mean, come on!) that I was looking for anything to avoid it. I should add a disclaimer here, the mind is a very powerful thing, the effect of placebos proves this. I suspect I never really committed myself to the hypno approach, never truly believed that it would work and therefore it didn't. I do think that if you fully believe that it will work, that it can. That said, I'll probably just pre-order the epidural next time.

I've heard some people say that the circumstances surrounding a person's birth influence the kind of person they are. When I see Trey, I believe this. He is the calmest baby. Meanwhile, my beautiful child spent a good chunk of the lunch showing us her tonsils. And you can see how happy she is in this picture. That's the patented Sophie pout, by the way, with full lip extension. Clearly, she had a difficult birth. Boy, am I in trouble in years to come.

On a side note, Sophie now officially has a second tooth coming in! I thought it was my imagination at first, that it was just the sparkle of her gums. But no, it's another tooth. Since I've committed to breastfeeding for the long haul, I'm really glad my baby is getting her teeth early. Not.

Baby Tooth

Yesterday while we were laying on the bed having a little play, I pulled Sophie's lower lip down so I could see her little tooth. She giggled at this, so I did it again and got more giggles. So this turned into a full blown ventriloquist act, with me moving her lips and doing Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Four score and seven years ago... We were both laughing pretty hard, although I suspect for different reasons.

I've been wondering how I could get a picture of her tooth without prying her mouth open since she is so reluctant to smile for the camera. Later when she was in her swing, I got out the camera and pulled on her lip again and surprise, surprise, she was just as entertained by it and allowed me to take some pictures. Turns out prying her mouth open was the way it had to happen. Who knew she'd be okay with it, though?

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Footed Sleeper: $12
Black Leather Recliner: $700
Daddy's Face When His Baby Daughter Fell Asleep In His Arms: Priceless!

RUB-A-DUB-DUB

Today was a bath day. I give Sophie baths two or three times a week depending on how dirty she gets, which since she is not independently mobile yet, isn't very dirty. As I'm undressing her, we do the Naked Baby Song, sung to the tune of the Macarena. I'm not sure exactly how that began, I couldn't even tell you when the last time I heard the Macarena was. But it's catchy and she seems to like it.

Although I have a little baby bath, most days I just use the baby bear bath sponge in the bathtub. This is a 2-inch thick sponge that is roughly the length of her body and has a baby-shaped indentation to hold her somewhat in place. I think you're only supposed to use these with very small babies, but when I've used the baby bath, she looked so awkward, kind of sliding down into it that it made me nervous. Plus, I could only safely put maybe one inch of water. What's the point? I might as well use the sponge that I'm comfortable with. The baby-shaped indentation only goes to about mid-thigh, so her legs and feet hang off into the bath tub. A small amount of water pools at the end of the tub and she generally spends most of the bath kicking her little legs in it as though she's making for the other side of the English Channel. I use a plastic mug that we got at a beer festival a couple of years ago (Is that in bad taste?) to dump water on her various parts.

She really seems to enjoy baths. I have to admit, I do too. Since it's wintertime and she is so often bundled up in her little outfits, I don't get to see her charmingly chubby legs and wiry arms and round little belly nearly often enough. I joke (sort of) that I can't wait for summer so she can run around (sort of) without any clothes on, except a diaper, of course. I read somewhere that a baby without a diaper is a loaded weapon and after a couple of unfortunately timed pees and poops, I do believe that. So, no fully naked babies here. I will like seeing a little more skin, though.

We're starting a swim class in a couple of weeks. I'm hoping that her comfort in the water will translate into the pool, but who can tell. As for me, I'm just dreading getting back into a swimsuit.

THE NEVER LIST

This morning, shortly after I had changed Sophie into her daytime clothes, I brought her downstairs so that I could make myself a cup of tea. I sat her in her bouncy seat (Thanks, Lisa!), which pretty much lives in the kitchen and dining room. I use it whenever I am cooking, eating, etc. So, I had just sat her down and she spits up on herself and the chair. As I am cleaning her and the chair up, I say to myself, out loud, "the chair has at least another puke in it." Meaning, it has already seen at least one and will be okay to continue use through this one and possibly more. And it occurred to me that a) this is very gross and b) this is something I never thought I'd do.

So I decided to start a list of all the things I NEVER thought I'd do as a parent.

THE OFFICIAL NEVER LIST (in no particular order)

1. Bring the baby into the bed with us. Yeah, broke that one on her first day home.

2. Let the baby sleep in our room for more than a couple of months. Neil practically had to pry her out of my arms to get me to start putting her in the crib at four months.

3. Leave her in an outfit that had been spit up on. Although if there's any significant amount, I will still change her, I would be changing her three times a day if my only criteria were that it had spit-up on it.

4. Leave myself in an outfit that had spit-up on it. Again, I would be changing three times a day if a small amount of spit-up required it.

5. Pick up a chew toy (are those for dogs?) that had fallen on the floor and give it back to her. At first, I faithfully washed each toy the moment it even brushed the floor. Now I blow on it (can you believe it?) and give it back to her.

6. Wear maternity clothes after the baby was born. Um, I hate to admit this, but I still have a few baby pounds to lose and if I'm not going out...

7. Breast feed. Dumb I know, but I was pretty weirded out by the idea pre-baby.

8. Breast feed for more than a couple of months. We're at 4.5 months now and counting. I would NEVER have thought I would be okay with going this long, but now the idea of giving it up makes me sad. A couple of months ago, six months seemed like a good length of time to shoot for, now I'm thinking, I can go a year. At a year, I'll probably be like, "well, heck, the rest of the world nurses for an average of two years."

Along those lines...whenever Sophie starts acting hungry, I ask her "Do you want some boobie?" Well, it occurred to me a couple of days ago that she is developing her speech right now and although she probably doesn't understand too many, if any, words, I really don't want her to start thinking of nursing in those terms. God forbid her first words are "I want some boobie!"

9. Not change her diaper when she's wet. This sounds worse than I mean it, but when we had just brought her home, I changed her at the merest whiff of pee. Now, I squeeze her diaper and if its not stinky or FULL, its staying on. Those things are expensive and I'm tired of changing her 17 times a day. Although I do admit to occasionally giving her what I call a therapeutic change. Sometimes when she's fussy, changing her diaper seems to calm her. Even if she's not wet or poopie. I'm probably setting her up for some sort of weird fetish, but if it shuts her up and doesn't have any obvious negative impact, I'm doing it.

10. Wear my husbands clothes. I'm wearing a pair of his pants now.

The list will no doubt get longer as Sophie gets older and there are certainly "nevers" that I'm not thinking of, but it starts here.

THROUGH THE NIGHT

Yesterday started off fantastically. By some sort of miracle, Sophie slept in until 8:45. Or I guess I should say that Neil and I slept until 8:45 (!) and she wasn't crying or really even making any noise when we got up, so I can only assume that she slept in, too. When I woke up and looked over at the clock, I did a double take thinking maybe I had read it wrong. But the oversized numbers on the clock for nearly blind people that my mom gave me did not lie. I do not have bad eyesight, by the way, but my mom is always thinking ahead.

The funny thing about this is that I was the quintessential night person. Back in my other life as a bartender, I was rarely in bed before 5 or 6am and it was a very rare day that I was up before noon. When I began working at GWWO and had to get up to be to work at 8:30, I was in shock. I had so rarely seen that part of the day except at the end of the previous one in the preceding 10 years that morning as the beginning was an unfamiliar experience. Since those times, I have adjusted to the normal circadian sleep patterns. While I have not turned into a morning person, I generally don't sleep past 8 or so and now with Sophie we are generally up by 7. Neil, however, is the consummate morning person, he goes in to work at 6am by choice...BY CHOICE. Crazy, huh? Opposites attract, I guess. So the very fact that we slept so late is pretty amazing, but the fact that Sophie did, too, is downright momentous.

I don't hold out much hope that this is the beginning of any sort of a trend, but gosh that would be nice.

To round out the day, Sophie slept straight through to 5:30am after going to bed at 7pm! I was so delighted with her. Of course, she was starving when she woke up, so in her enthusiasm she overate and then threw up all over her crib. Even on the bumper that I'm not supposed to have in there. So there I am at 5:30am stripping off the sheet, sheet protector (ha) and contraband bumper while she is laying on her changing table gurgling and chatting up a storm, completely unfazed by the event. I'm thinking to myself, I would rather have gotten up twice than have to deal with this. The irony is that just yesterday I was commenting on how it had been so long since we'd had any trouble of that sort. Silly me.

I couldn't think what pictures might be appropriate to go with this entry, so I just put in some fun ones that we took tonight while Neil was playing with Sophie. I absolutely love the middle one where Sophie is looking so coyly at her Papa. Melts my heart, it does.

MONSIEUR GREEN PAW

"When my cats aren't happy, I'm not happy. Not because I care about their mood but because I know they're just sitting there thinking up ways to get even." Percy Bysshe Shelley

When we moved into this house almost three years ago, we bought new furniture for the living room and dining room. Since then, Gomez has done his best to destroy all of our lovely new furniture. In particular, the sofa and side chairs in the living room. I have often thought of declawing, but I just can't bring myself to do that to an animal. No matter how bad he is, and he is VERY bad.

However, we found a more humane way to prevent his scratching, too late for the sofa unfortunately, but maybe for the other furniture and us. They're called Soft Claws. Basically they're little plastic caps which are too dull to do any damage that you glue on over their claws. Sort of like Lee Press-On Nails for kitties. Plus they're in fun colors! We got purple, go Ravens. He was very calm while we put them on. Its been a month and so far we've only had to replace one. They're supposed to last a couple of months. I highly recommend them to all cat owners who have trouble with scratching, which is sort of like saying all cat owners who have a problem with them breathing all over the place. Cats scratch, period.

I guess I should explain the picture, though. I made a big mistake this morning. Really, I can only blame myself. I know that Gomez loves candles. Or more accurately, he loves turning over burning candles. We have red stains on our off-white dining chairs to remind us of this. Anyways, I was tidying up the living room and doing some dusting. Of course I had the sing-a-long CD on. I play it so often now that Sophie is probably like, "geesh, mum, can we listen to something else, already?" (I'm hoping she'll have a British accent, hence the use of "mum", I try to watch lots of BBC to encourage this.) So, while I was cleaning, I lit a candle. It was just a little thing in a metal tin sitting on the coffee table in the living room. I think it smelled like jasmine. Well, I wandered off into the other room during the "If you're happy and you know it" song and completely forgot about it. In my defense, when you get to the part where you have to do all four things: clap, stomp, snap AND shout hooray, it can be pretty distracting.

Well, a half hour later, Neil walks in carrying Gomez and says that he has something all over him. It felt kind of waxy (duh) and smelled good. We wandered around the house for a few minutes before I caught sight of the overturned candle and realized what I had done. Luckily the wax mess didn't leave any permanent damage to the coffee table or surrounding furniture, carpet or floor. However, Gomez got a green paw for his efforts. Now he is Monsieur Green Paw avec les Purple Claws. It clashes terribly with his orange fur, but I don't think he cares about that.

I'm hoping he learned a lesson, but somehow I doubt it.

On a side note, I've been listening to the Once soundtrack on Rhapsody and I am absolutely in love with it. I have listened to it a half a dozen times and each time I like it a little more. Disclaimer, if you don't like folksy alternative music, you probably won't like it, however, if you like Damien Rice, Ryan Adams, Wilco, KT Tunstall, Cat Power and the like, then give it a listen. I haven't seen the movie yet, but it's in my Netflix queue. I am optimistic that it will be as good as the music.

A TOOTH!!

Would you believe that our little darling has sprouted a tooth. I didn't believe it myself at first, thinking it's way too early. So, I stuck my finger in there and gosh darned if it isn't a tooth. It's her bottom left front tooth. So far she has been remarkably good natured about it. I've read that some babies have a really tough time with teething and others breeze through it. Of course, I'm praying for the latter, but its a little early to tell which way she'll go.

One less than desirable aspect of the process is that she slobbers, a lot. I used to worry about leaving the house without diapers and such, now it's burp cloths. Most of which have had no use as burp cloths per se, seeing as how she's not much of a burper, but they are now coming into heavy use for chin cleanup.

I do wish I could get a picture of her smiling big enough to show her budding tooth, but that isn't likely so you'll have to take my word for it.

In other news, Sophie took a two hour nap in her crib this afternoon. She didn't even really fuss when I put her in there. She woke up about 40 minutes into it and tossed around a bit and then went right back to sleep. Meanwhile, I took an hour nap myself, and it was fabulous. Her in her bed, me in mine across the hall. And Neil downstairs in the basement making all the noise he wanted to without fear of waking the baby.

She started sleeping on her stomach a few weeks ago. At first this terrified me, with all of the "back is best" propaganda out there for the prevention of SIDS. She has always been a side sleeper, which I didn't love, but I came to accept that babies, just like adults, must have preferred sleeping positions and that is hers. However, when she took it one step further and went all the way on to her stomach, I worried endlessly. I can't even speculate on how many times I have gone in and felt her little body to make sure she was still breathing. She can roll over both directions now, though, so short of strapping her down there's not much I can do about it.

She often sleeps propped up on her knees with her thumb in her mouth. It doesn't look that comfortable to me, but it sure is cute.

NAP TIME

No day is so bad it can't be fixed with a nap. ~Carrie Snow

I have to say that, although I love every waking minute I spend with Sophie, I love it when she naps, too. And yes, she still naps in her swing. Yes, I'm working on getting her to take naps in her crib. No, that hasn't been terribly successful yet. I'll keep you posted.

But I digress. First off, she is impossibly cute when she sleeps. Sometimes I just sit and stare at her. As much fun as this pastime is, it is more important to note that this break gives me some of that oh-so-treasured "me time." I would like to say that I spend all of this time cleaning (ha), doing projects around the house (double ha), or working out (gales of laughter), but the truth is that much of this time is spent doing things that I enjoy, like this blog, or getting in a few much-needed Z's myself, or catching up on the magazines that are piling up. There is some of that first stuff, although not nearly as much as would probably be optimal. I have to think, though, that this downtime is one of the perks of being a stay-at-home mom. Its a 24-7 job, so I can't feel guilty if I take long breaks, right? Plus, I have a feeling the days are not far away when I will be chasing her around most of the day and wishing I had back these times of long naps.

Anyways, as soon as the little miss wakes up from her current nap, we'll be doing a bit of running around. Among other things, we'll be setting up the installation of new carpet in the basement! I am pretty excited for this to happen, as the carpet in here now is commercial-grade dark blue berber. I can only speculate that the previous owners got a very good deal on it because they sure didn't buy it for looks. For those of you unfamiliar with our house, the basement is the TV Room and Office as well as the laundry room, some storage and a half bath. We spend quite a bit of time down here and with the low ceilings so often found in basements and the dark carpet, it has the well-deserved nickname of "the cave." So we're going to put in a lighter carpet that will hopefully open up the room. More to come on that, for sure.

Ah, the babe awakes, duty calls...

Happy Leap Day!