one year later

A year ago today, two lines showed up on the stick and our lives changed forever. A long but mostly easy pregnancy followed, and then a blessedly healthy baby. Three months and three weeks after giving birth, I find that motherhood -- while not always easy -- suits me. I feel a bit like I was made for this job, and I'm so incredibly stupidly immensely grateful that I get to be mother to this amazing baby boy. To the Universe I say thank you, thank you, thank you.



(pictures taken on Thursday by a wonderful local photographer who needed baby models for her portfolio)

Photo Friday

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This love has got no ceiling

I've often wished to have a kind of cosmic tape recorder, something I could use to document moments in my life that I want to replay over and over or tuck away as keepsakes. Some of the moments are big ones, like meeting MB or exchanging vows on our wedding day. Some of the moments are small ones, significant only to me, things like seeing the Pacific for the first time, watching the sunrise on Cadillac Mountain, standing beneath the trees in the temperate rainforest.

Since Nico was born, my fondness for the idea of a memory recorder has (predictably) intensified. I want a recording of the moment I first heard him cry; of the moment I first saw his face, his tiny fingers and toes, his tufty red hair; of the way it felt when the nurse placed his little nearly-naked body on my chest. I want to play back the way he smells, that sweet undefinable baby scent that I have to soak up before I leave him for the day, burying my face in his neck and breathing it in. I want to feel the weight of him in my arms, back when he was tiny and now that he must top at least 15 pounds. I wish I had a recording of the way his kicks and tumbles felt while I was pregnant with him, of his newborn cry.

In the absence of such a wonderful gadget, I do my best. I take dozens of photos, I spend minutes that add up to hours just watching him and trying to memorize everything about him, and I write. Hoping each time that the words will call back the feelings and the sounds and the sights, I write.

Poetic justice

Even though I know I'm not supposed to, I usually let Nico sleep on my lap in the mornings after I've nursed him in bed. We've never had any trouble or any scares until today, when he flat-out fell off the bed. I woke up from REM sleep to see his tiny blue-pajama'd body roll off the edge of the mattress, and I have never moved so fast in my life. But of course I wasn't fast enough, and he fell between the bed and the chair beside the bed where I put his Boppy and blanket when he's in his crib. He only cried for as long as it took me to scoop him up and clutch him to my chest, apologizing and rocking him. After cuddling him for a bit and nursing him again I put him in his own bed to sleep. He seemed no worse for wear, but I felt positively wretched.

We do our grocery shopping on Sundays, and today we decided to go out to lunch before we went to the store. Nico was a champ all through the meal, but by the time we were finished he was ready to eat. I nursed him in the passenger seat of the car and then because it was raining, I decided to put him in his carseat from the front seat instead of standing outside and getting wet. I had to kneel on my seat and recline the back in order to reach the straps on his seat, and once I got him fastened in, the reclined seat needed to be un-reclined before the baby seat would fit into the base. Maybe you can see where this is going. If you can, you're smarter than I am. I needed one hand to hold Nico's seat steady and one hand to operate the lever on my seat, so the only thing left to catch the seat back as it sprang upright was my face.

I can't help but think that it must've looked hilarious while it was happening.

Not quite the sympathetic reaction I was hoping for.

Photo Friday

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Because nobody makes "Baby's First Earth Day" bibs

I didn't completely forget about Earth Day this year, but I did forget that I wanted to take a cute cheesy picture of Nico in one of his hippie onesies for the occasion. I packed a week's worth of outfits for him in his grandma's house bag on Tuesday morning, not thinking about the fact that Thursday was Earth Day until, well, Thursday around lunchtime.

It seemed a bit cruel to re-dress Nico just for a photo and then re-dress him again for bedtime, so this is going to have to do:

"Happy Earth Day, everybody!"




"Mmmm...organic cotton!"

P.S. Two days left to win a book! It's good, I promise!

Among my tribe

I only have two local friends with babies, and I only see one of them regularly. This past Friday, I had an invitation to an informal get-together that a couple I hung out with in college put together for another couple I didn't know very well back in the day as a celebration of the impending birth of their second daughter. I waffled all day about going, feeling kind of wallflower-y and awkward, but decided I didn't really have anything to lose. I packed up Nico (MB was teaching) and stopped in, figuring if it sucked I could use the baby as an excuse to bail. And you know what? We ended up staying for about two and a half hours.

There were almost a dozen kids running around the house and a six-month-old boy riding around on his mother's hip. I hovered around the periphery for a bit, but before I realized what was happening, I found myself standing around the dining room table chatting with five other young hippie-ish mothers. When Nico got hungry, I contemplated leaving, but then retreated to an out-of-the-way armchair and nursed him under a cover while the six-month-old's mother nursed him in a chair nearby. Solidarity! After he ate I got called into the kitchen by the host, the guy who was my lab partner in quite a few classes in college, and ended up talking birth stories with another girl I've known casually for several years.

The people who read this who don't have kids probably think this all sounds lame, but I felt like I'd found my tribe and was among my people at last. This is why playgroups exist, I suspect, because even when you're committed to live a life that isn't All Baby All the Time, sometimes you just need to talk to someone else who really gets it, someone else who is in the trenches with you, changing the diapers and committing to breastfeeding even when it sucks (ha!) and taking the bad with the good in this crazy, wonderful, sometimes overwhelming but always worthwhile whirlwind.

Constant vigilance

It's that time again! We must stockpile our armaments and our awareness and such against the coming of Spring and velociraptor hunting season (them hunting us, that is). Join me for the second annual Velociraptor Awareness Day and be prepared!!!

Are you prepared?

>> Read up on the latest info, and be prepared to hold impromptu seminars on the streets

>> Post up- Whether it be "Velociraptor Entry Point" posted on weak areas in your neighborhood, or going online to your favorite forum and raising the alarm, let people know what's up!

>> Dress up- Hold mock attacks throughout the day to really raise eyebrows and raise awareness

>> Film it up- Whether it be Jurassic Park, or your favorite educational video, every little bit helps

>> Light it up- Hold a candlelight vigil in a central area for the victims and their families. Can't think of any victims? Put in the faces of the actors in the movies, or an xkcd stick figure, or Randal Munroe himself, or me, as I will be away from campus, and therefore I can be a substitute victim. Also, you could use the faces of the friends who didn't join the group, as they are potential future victims.

>> Party it up- If the day is over, and everyone is still alive, you've done your job, so celebrate!

Please have a safe and enjoyable Velociraptor Awareness Day!

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Photo Friday

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The end, the beginning

It's 6:35 AM when I begin this post, though it'll probably sit in the queue until I remember it's here, hours from now. I sit propped against the headboard, pillows at my back and the baby napping on my chest. He wakes up almost every morning around 6, nurses for 15 minutes, and falls back to sleep. I used to try to motivate myself to get out of bed once he went back to sleep, but it doesn't seem so important anymore. In five days at this time, I'll be scrambling to get our things together and drive Nico to my parents' house before going to work.

I tend to really enjoy my job, but I haven't missed it. I always thought I would, figured I'd be a bit bored and eager to get back after 12 weeks of maternity leave, but that's not the case. Instead I'm heavy-hearted, deeply envious of my Canadian friends and their entire year of leave. How can I go back now, when it seems like every day he's doing something new? I've arranged to work longer days so that I can take Mondays off to spend with my boy. Working 7 AM to 5 PM is going to be a bit brutal, I think. I'm not much of a morning person and spending ten hours a day at work was hard before I had a kid to miss. But I'm hoping it'll be worth it for the extra day at home.

I suspected motherhood would be a big change, and I suppose it is in a lot of accumulated small ways. I also expected there to be a period of adjustment and maybe a struggle to adapt, but it hasn't been hard at all. I feel like I slipped into this new skin so easily it was barely noticeable, as if some physical and emotional railroad switch was thrown and I trundled off in a new direction with barely a backward glance. As much as it stuns me to say out loud I am a mother, I have a son, it is also the most natural and uncomplicated thing.

Nico won't remember these 60 weekdays we spent together, usually just the two of us, but I will never forget. I will hold the memories of these calm hours like a treasure, something to clutch tightly in the days ahead as we adjust to our new routine, our new life.

Eleven weeks for Easter

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A giveaway and a half

I'm giving away a copy of Truly, Madly by Heather Webber over on my book blog. If you're a fan of fun, sexy mysteries, check it out! The giveaway is open to residents of the US and Canada, and closes at midnight on April 11.


I'll also have a really cool giveaway up and running soon in cooperation with CSN stores, online sellers of kids bedding, toys, and tons of other products. Stay tuned for details!

I blame those lunatics at CERN

Nico and I had a few errands to run this afternoon, including a lunch thing with some people who hadn't met him yet. I won't deny that I like to show off my kid a bit, and dressed him accordingly in a hippie "going green" onesie, his cutest pair of pants, and my favorite pair of his warm socks. Because he views his carseat as an instrument of The Man, he protested mightily the entire time he was in it, from the dining room to the site of our lunch date. And then, because apparently he really wants that pony, he behaved like an angel through our hour-long lunch, a visit to the office where I interned in college, a quick stop at the library, and a trip to buy some cloth diapers.

But one of his socks didn't make the trip. They were both on his feet when I buckled him into his carseat, and ten minutes later when I got him out of the car, one sock was gone. I looked on both sides of his carseat base, in the carseat, even down in the crevices of his bunting. No sock. After lunch, I looked on the ground beside the car and checked behind the seat. No sock. I began to wonder if he'd kicked it off before we left the house, and when we got home I checked the garage, the path we'd taken through the backyard, the dining room, and even the places where the dog tends to put things that he takes. No sock.

The damn thing has utterly vanished. There's really only one explanation left. Testing at the Large Hadron Collider must've opened up a small black hole after all. Those guys at CERN totally owe us a new pair of tiny striped socks.

Boys

My favorite thing about these is that they weren't staged at all. I just walked into the nursery, and there they were.

Miles and miles

I know it's totally cliche to wail that my baby is growing so fast I can't keep up, but you guys, my baby is growing so. damn. fast.

two months
By the time I come to grips with having a two-month-old I have a nine-week-old and then ten weeks have gone by, and I'm sure it's going to be like this for the rest of my life.

nine weeks
Smiles are many and pretty easy to earn these days. There's not much in the world better than a big crinkle-eyed, open-mouthed, pure-joy baby grin, especially when it's meant for me. (And he has my dimple in his right cheek, hold me back!) He's even smiling at people he's just met now, which is a huge hit when we take him visiting.

I try not to get too hung up on milestones and dates, and haven't cracked my copy of What to Expect the First Year since Nico was a few weeks old. I'll admit to peeking at the developmental chart the hospital gave us, though, which I helpfully magneted to the side of the fridge when we brought him home. Of course I feel pleased every time I get to check something off, and with myself for not getting too Type A about it. (But the paper says he should be holding his head at least 45 degrees off the floor during Tummy Time. Find me a protractor!) In the past two weeks, he's begun to discover that he can make sounds other than crying, and it's awesome. No consonants or true babble yet, but there have been definite baby noises. Oh, and when we all went to visit our delightful chiropractor on Wednesday afternoon, he demonstrated a sudden talent for cheerful high-octave shrieks.

The other night I put him to bed with his feet toward the mobile, like always. When I woke up in the morning, he was still perfectly parallel to the sides of his crib, but rotated 180 degrees so that his head was toward the mobile and with both feet sticking out between the ankle snaps of his footie pajamas. He looked for all the world like he'd been placed there, and he was so perfectly aligned that I texted MB to ask if he'd moved Nico when he got up (he hadn't). This morning, he'd repeated the rotation, though he wasn't wearing an escapable pair of footies.

It was a gorgeous day on Wednesday, and I decided to follow through on my harebrained idea to take some photos of Nico in front of pretty flowers. The building next to my workplace has a small but very nice garden, and I was headed over there to meet up with Julia for a quick project meeting anyway, so I stuck the camera in the diaper bag and tossed the Bumbo seat and a quilt into the car. After my meeting, I put Nico on his quilt in front of a perfect bed of purple crocuses and started snapping away. But my poor winter-born baby...this was only the second time he's been outside without being strapped in his stroller or the front carrier, so he was all, "Sunlight? Fresh air? WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?" and in most of the pictures, his eyes are shut tight. I moved him to the Bumbo seat, and he opened his eyes but was highly suspicious of the whole operation.

Skepticism, with flowers
He was kind of hungry and sleepy, I reasoned, so I figured I'd try again with the lone clump of daffodils in our front yard once he'd eaten and was more alert. Same setup -- baby in Bumbo and then on quilt, strategically positioned in front of flowers. Same squinch-eyed results, with an added bonus. Because MB hasn't done this season's first mow yet, the grass is long enough that it was touching Nico's feet. I now have captured for posterity my small son with a very distinct "Grass?! WTF!" look on his face.



I tried to get this post finished on Wednesday, but didn't have a chance. And then Thursday came around and more stuff happened. (Skip over these next two paragraphs if you don't want to hear about breastfeeding.) Since he was born, we've been seeing the lactation consultants at the hospital for help with nursing. I came home from the hospital with instructions to nurse Nico every three hours, feed him a supplement of formula after he ate, and then pump for ten minutes. He started on 30 mL of supplemental formula or pumped breastmilk per feeding and was up to 242 mL of supplements per day when he was five weeks old. At that point, the LCs put us on track to start weaning Nico back from his supplements. For that, the goal changed to 8 - 10 nursing sessions per day and a reduction of no more than 30 mL of supplement every few days. After five weeks of recording every feeding, every dirty diaper, and every pumping session, he's down to an average daily bottle-given supplement of about 115 mL of breastmilk and hasn't had formula in two weeks.

At ten weeks, he weighs 13 pounds, 4.5 ounces and we've been officially declared normal nursers. The LC we saw yesterday took notes on Nico's progress and then said, "I'm kicking you guys out." No more weekly weight checks, no more worksheets. Just me and Nico and the milk we worked so hard for. Now that we're here, it's hard to remember what it felt like to pump for ten minutes and get 3 mL of milk. I can -- luckily -- barely recall the night in the hospital that he spent screaming with hunger and frustration while I wept onto his small stripey-hatted head. I knew something was wrong, had known something was wrong for a day and a half, but it was Sunday, none of the LCs were in the office, and we didn't know that there was an emergency beeper for the lactation department. The LCs came to see us first thing on Monday and got us started on the pumping and supplementing, and it didn't get easy right away, but here we are. We're normal. Even if he continues to take a four-ounce bottle of pumped milk every evening, he's still normal. I am so happy to be normal. Every time I look at the chub on his thighs, I feel proud of how far we've come.


And because my child is clearly a genius and knows exactly how the game is played, he laughed for the first time Thursday afternoon, at my parents' house, while my dad was making faces at him.

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Happy Egguinox

Last Saturday, Nico and I went to a cookout that my cousin Amethyst hosted to celebrate her daughter Custard's 10th birthday. My cousins had heard that at 12:32 PM on the Spring Equinox, it's possible to stand an egg on end. Sunny managed to get the egg balanced just so, and it stood there for a few minutes until Custard jarred the table and the egg fell over. After that, Sunny couldn't replicate the feat. I had heard the egg / equinox thing before, and our experience seemed to corroborate the tale. But, being a science nerd and someone who is in charge of teaching science to kids, I always triple-check my sources before talking about anything vaguely sciencey in order to avoid looking like a dumbass. Turns out this is a good thing, because the balancing egg story is a myth. It's possible to balance an egg on its end any day of the year, if you're talented enough. Click here for a cool article explaining the whole thing.

Even though the myth is busted, I think we can all agree it's still pretty impressive that she managed to balance an egg on a folding table set up on a deck on a breezy day.

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World's smallest crankiest leprechaun

By the numbers

8: weeks since Nico's birthday

12: pounds of baby at this week's checkup

24: approximate inches of hair gone

29: my age today

4: friends who joined us for cake

2: hours spent playing an epic game of Chinese Checkers

9: people having dinner at the Thai restaurant

1: hilarious photo of my kid (taken by evilducky)

The master contemplates his first move.

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Hair today, gone tomorrow

I have an appointment to get my hair cut at 10:00 tomorrow morning. I haven't had my hair cut since the week after I got married, back in 2004. Before that, my last haircut was in 1993. Nineteen ninety three. So I've had two haircuts between the ages of 12 and almost-29, and OMFG I am nervous. I have no clue what I want, so I'm going to let the stylist recommend something, with the caveats that it can't require a flat iron or hairdryer to maintain and I don't want bangs. NERVOUS.




And, after:


It's not as short as I expected, but I suppose I can have more taken off later if I want. This is after it was dried with a diffuser, sculpted a tiny bit with a curling iron, and then treated with Moroccan oil and a fancy-pants gel for curls. In other words, it'll probably never look this good again.

Nicosaurus Rex

Our friends H & C gave us this super cute dinosaur outfit at Nico's baby shower. I think it's supposed to be a Halloween costume, but it makes a perfect warm suit for walks on sunny but chilly days.

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Minutiae

Holy shit, it's March? How did this happen, and how can we appeal? In the meantime, have some loosely connected bullet points and baby pictures!

>> There's an ice cream shop near our house advertising a "giant cupcake -- serves 12!" I'm pretty sure that's just called a cake.

one month old
>> My maternity leave is half over, a fact that I can't think about too much lest I feel like I might cry. Right now Nico's sleeping on my shoulder, and I don't have anything pressing to do or anywhere to be...and I hate to think that in a few short weeks we may not have time for these long naps anymore. Not to mention being away from him all day, gaaaaah.

>> On Saturday there was a funeral Mass I wanted / needed to attend. MB was teaching and my mom had to work, so I chanced it and took Nico with me. I bet he'll never be that good in church again. He took the two small bottles of milk I'd brought without shouting about it first, and then passed out on my shoulder and slept until it was over. I was so grateful. That evening we took Nico out with us to meet MB's work friend and his wife for dinner, and he slept through that, too. It's quite possible that I owe him a pony.

How hilarious is this getup? He looks like an
old man getting ready to mow the yard.

>>Nico is growing so fast it's ridiculous. See this cute little outfit?

(modeled by six-day-old Nico)
On Sunday I tried to dress him in that puppy onesie, and the sleeves were about two inches too short. Then that night I put him in a really cute pair of 0-3 month size footie pajamas after his bath and his legs were too long. I'm so very glad that he's thriving and growing and healthy, but it's killing me all the same.

>> Speaking of his bath, it was only his third tub bath ever because we don't want his skin to get really dried out in the winter air. We have one of those plastic baby tubs with the little hammock thing for Nico to sit in, and when I first put him in the tub with his butt down in the water, he started crying. But it was just the shock of it, because after a few seconds he stopped crying and was just totally digging it. He doesn't coo yet, but he has this painfully adorable interested expression when he's really into something. He was just totally loving the bath, and I thought about how much I love baths, and then I realized how awesome it is that he's literally learning how fantastic baths are right in front of my eyes. To him, all these things he's experiencing are completely brand new and wonderful, and it feels like an incredible gift to be able to watch him as he learns about the world.

>> And then this morning, Nico was chilling on a blanket on the floor while I pumped milk for him, and when I said, "Hey, Nico, whatcha doing?" he smiled at me. Like, totally on purpose. And holy crap, y'all, that was an insanely great moment. He didn't do it again all day, until MB got home from work, and then he smiled at MB, too. Way to play it fair, kid! Just yesterday MB said he sometimes worries he's missing out on a lot of Nico's smallhood, so I am pleased he got a smile as well.

>> The pregnancy books don't include any warnings about this, so I'm just going to come right out and tell you that baby farts are often just as loud and offensive as adult farts. The more you know.

Somebody has an opinion!
>> Now that my restrictions are lifted and I can do laundry by myself again, I'm finally going to try some Bum Genius cloth diapers on Nico. I'm slightly nervous, having seen the volume of poo this tiny kid can produce, but I'm going to give it a shot. I'll let you know how it goes (as if most of you care...ha! ;) ).

>> Since I spend a huge part of each day sitting on the couch feeding Nico, I've been using the time to finally watch Bones on DVD. My sister loaned me the first four seasons, and I pretty much ripped through them. I watched the last episode of season four yesterday, and now I'm on the lookout for another good series to watch. It has to be available on DVD, and it would be nice if there were at least 2 seasons. Ultimately the local library will also have to have a copy available since we don't have Netflix, but they have a pretty good selection. Any recommendations?

Six weeks old, napping on MB.
>> I managed to prop up a book while Nico nursed for the first time today, so I may actually be able to read again instead of being limited to watching TV or surfing the internet via my phone while he eats. I started The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which is the March book for the Book Lushes. I've never once been invited to join a book club until now, so I'm super pumped about this one. It doesn't hurt that a bunch of my very favorite blog people are doing it, too.

>> One more thing, and then I think I need to stop. Does anyone have any really good oatmeal cookie recipes? I tried making these and even though the texture was fantastic, they were really bland. Then I made the oatmeal scotchies recipe from the back of the butterscotch chips bag, and they were tasty but a bit too crispy. And so, the search continues.

Oh, Lord, where has my tiny baby gone?
January 17, two days old