Archive for the 'Reproduction' Category

To my Boy, Nearly 5 Months

admin December 4th, 2008

Dear baby boy,

In a few days you will be 5 months old. You have changed so much in the last few weeks. Before I forget all those little wonderful things that make you the boy you are right now, let me put down just a few.

Right now I am listening to you breathe having just given you your bath, wrapped you up, and put you to bed in your room. You went to sleep before I could even gather my things and leave, as you do most nights, and for this I thank you. It is easy to congratulate myself on getting you to be such a good sleeper, but I know that much is to do with you. You are such a good baby. In and out in and out, you breathe as you play: hard, fast, and with vigor. I go to bed every night with your monitor beside me, and I have found that I cannot sleep if the volume is turned too low, so that I cannot hear your rhythmical breath beside me. The monitor we have also features live video, a wonderful invention that allows me to spy on you even in a dark room. Every night just before I snuggle in with your dad, I turn on the picture to get one last look at you, your hair, your head, your nose, your little fingers, before I go to sleep.

The monitor has a green light that at night is the only illumination in your room. Sometimes when you wake up you must stare at that little light because it looks like you are looking right at me through the monitor. Please quit doing that. At 2AM it really creeps me out.

I must tell you that t is difficult for me that I still have not found a job. You may learn when you get older of the economic downturn which has made things difficult for many people in this country. What it has meant for this family is that your Dad is the sole income source and though I am a very qualified, smart young woman, I just cannot find a position in our city. This means that we can pay bills, but all saving and any kind of non-essential spending has stopped, and we are slowly draining our available reserves. I tell you this not to complain, but to let you know then how much I enjoy our days together, that I half-heartedly mentioned just the other day that I wouldn’t really care if I ever went back to work. Now, someday soon, I’d love a job. I love what I have learned to do and the potential of what I have yet to learn. But I had no idea how completely miserable I will be when I don’t get to spend the most part of every day with you. The first day I leave you with someone else, I know I will break down. And as you will learn, I am not a crier.

What do I enjoy about our days together? Recently, most everything. I love watching you explore new things, touching them first with your hands, and then your tongue. I love how fascinated you are with our dogs, and how hard you try to reach out to them, how you smile when they lean over to sniff your head. I love seeing you furrow your brow when you encounter something new, thinking, figuring, learning. I love that you smile at me when I make animal noises and sing off key to you from the shower. I love how you study me in our quiet moments, softly reaching up to touch my face. I love the squeal you make as I kiss the back of your knee, and how you now start to smile in anticipation at the first “little piggie” And though you still pull my hair and it still hurts like hell, your improving motor skills, it seems, allows you to let go a little sooner.

Most mornings I hear you waking on the monitor and after making sure that you won’t go back to sleep I go into your room to say good morning. I have to say that I have yet to find anything more delicious that seeing you look up at me, for an instant with a little frown as your little brain works to compute what it is seeing, and then watching your eyes crinkle and your grin spread all across your face, your toothless gums wide and happy. I know all mothers must feel this way, but there is nothing better than your smile. “Good morning!” I say, and you grin. “It’s your Mommy!” I say, and you grin. “Hi there!” grin.

It’s not just your smiles that have made my days with you recently so enjoyable. Now you are at an age where you love to play. You want to touch, to smell, to hear, to understand everything. For about a week I took you all over the house and held you up to everything I could think of: the printer, the window, the washing machine, the pantry, flowers in a vase, running water in the sink, and you put your hand out again and again, brow furrowed, studying. And then, you got bored. You still like these things, but they seem to hold your interest less and less so these days we go out. You love walks outside in the sling, and so do I, you with a leaf in one hand, and my finger in another; I with you in front of me, pointing out birds, clouds, the names of trees… You also love the mall with its myriad things to see, including the wonderful glass elevator. We are slowly getting to know our neighbors, the proprietors of our local stores, and various workmen who frequent our neighborhood.

I like to eat your fingers and kiss your neck. You like me to stroke your cheek. I like to smell your head. You like me to bark like a dog.

Bath time is great fun for both of us. You seem to love being naked, and regardless of how fussy tired you were just before we plop you in the water, you are all grins as you do your best to splash every bit of moisture out of both our tubs. Usually your dad helps give you a bath, and our routine now requires three washcloths: one for me, one for him, and one for you to hold onto. You still try to steal ours though. Greedy little baby.

The last few days, your Dad has had to work so much that he has left before you were up in the morning, and returned after you went to sleep. Thankfully he won’t have to do this much longer, but it has driven home even more how much he loves you too. The other morning, around 5AM, I asked him to change your diaper for me. I have never seen anyone so giddy to change a dirty diaper. “He’s so cute!” he exclaimed, and I agreed. Not many people are cute at 5AM, sitting in their own feces.

So son, I hope as they say, that every age is the best age, but I sure am enjoying this one. When, not too long ago, after tearing up at yet another diapers commercial, I said to my husband, “Oh, I want one of those!” and thought about all those incredible, wonderful, not to be missed moments I would have with my very own baby, well, this is exactly what I wanted.

Things I Would have Missed

admin October 15th, 2008

If I had been at work today:

Pro: Watching my baby sleep
Con: Middle of the night break down due to sleep deprivation

Pro: “…and they rolled their terrible eyes, and they gnashed their terrible teeth…”
Con: “Just tell me why you’re crying!!”

Pro: Watching and listening to early morning birds.
Con: Picking the long deceased and maggotty bird corpse off of the rug.

Pro: Seeing my son recognize himself in the mirror for the first time.
Con: Poop explosion all over the front of my shirt.

Pro: Sleeping in
Con: Have I brushed my teeth today?

My, how the days fly

admin October 8th, 2008

Dear Son,

Yesterday you turned three months old. You cannot realize until you have your own child how much you have changed in these few short weeks. You have become a handsome and engaging little kid, and I have to say that I have more fun with you each day.

First of all, I want to go ahead and say thank you. Thank you for sleeping like a champ every night, and thank you for not having colic. You have no idea how much those two things have positively affected our relationship. We’re still working on naps, but naps are cake compared to some of the horrible times I know my fellow mothers are having at night. I understand your reluctance to take naps. I never wanted to miss out on the day either.

Supposedly babies are at their worst in fussiness at 6 weeks, but yours was the worst instead at 9. Everything that I had learned to soothe you failed. The mom with the confidence that she could quiet your crying within seconds melted away. I thought that perhaps it was due to your immunizations, but a call to the nurse confirmed that in the absence of other symptoms, shots shouldn’t be affecting you one week later. (By the way, you took those shots like a champ.) Finally I wrote an email to my friend A, and she suggested what I had suspected, which was that you were bored. I had thought that surely 2 months was too young to start getting bored, but boy was I wrong. Tired of looking at my sorry mug all day, you wanted something else to do. So, I started holding you so that you could see out, and bought you a play gym, and you have been a happy baby ever since. That thing and those birds on the mobile over your crib are your favorite things in all the world.

You have also had some digestive problems that I had sought help for through my facebook friends. One of them has suggested saving those conversations to embarrass you with much later, so if that happens, let me just apologize now. I am sure that if you are reading this, you have learned to poop at night if you need to, and gas releases just fine from your butt without having anything placed up in there. Most likely, you have learned that last one a little too well.

I finally think I have figured out that you don’t do well when I eat dairy, so I’m saying goodbye to all things made with cow’s milk, including yogurt, ice cream, and worst of all, cheese. When you are a teenager and ask me what have I ever done for you, giving up cheese will be the second thing I say, right after that horrible 9 months without booze. If when you get older, you fall in love and marry a woman, and you two have a child together, do her a favor and do without alcohol the entire pregnancy. If you do this, I know you will call me one day and say, thank you, I had no idea how bad it was until now.

In the last month you have gotten strong enough to begin to hold up your head, which has allowed you to do all kinds of new and wonderful things. One of your Dad’s favorite things to do is to boost you over his head, tummy side down, and pretend you are flying like superman. He’s great at the wooshing noises. I have to say that there is nothing more attractive than seeing your husband run your baby all over the house like a loon. You also enjoy sitting on my lap every morning on the porch looking out at the trees. Today I think you heard rain for the first time, and you seemed enthralled. I hope you always appreciate the wonders of the outdoors.

By far, the best part of these last two months has been your smiles. There is nothing in this world like going in to get you after a nap and seeing you look up, recognize me, and grin your gummy grin all across your face. I love to sing you songs or dance you around, or show you those wonderful ceiling fans, just to get a few grins out of you. And just about the time that you are getting tired of me, your Dad comes home and you seem to think, “DAD! It’s Dad! Oh my god! Dad!” And then you melt him with a grin, just like you have been doing to me all day. It seems to me that adults lose this ability to be so completely happy. Well kiddo, every day you help me remember.

And one more thing, little baby. Just the last few days, you have started doing this thing where you emit these horrible, loud, high pitched screams or grunts or screeches, and then you look at us. You seem to have figured out that when you make these noises, we immediately run to you, thinking that surely you are about to die. And then after we do this, you give a smile, but not one of your big wide smiles, so help me, it looks like a smirk. I am starting to think you know what you are doing. I think you have already started to test us. And if this is true, then that means that I will really need to be on top of things to be a good mother to you.

When my mom had talked on and on about how smart you looked when you were born, I thought that she was just being a doting grandmother. But more and more people are making these comments, people who don’t tend to make things up just to be nice, and I myself have started thinking that I agree with them. This means, little baby, that you are smart and precocious just like your parents. This is something that your father and I knew could happen, and talked about at length even before I got pregnant. Both of us gave our parents some real challenges as kids, and we could only imagine how if that combined you would test us. Now that it appears to be coming true, let me say this:

Bring it, little baby. Bring it.

Truly, I can’t wait. Happy Birthday.

Mourning

admin September 25th, 2008

As an only child I’d always wondered why people had multiple children. Everything that you could experience with two or three you could more easily do with one. The egg hunts, the fairs, the forts, the apple picking, the cupcakes, competitions, childhood exploration, developmental milestones, and I love yous are all just as open to parents of singles as multiples. Admission to children’s events, as far as I know, don’t discriminate. Likewise I had seen how tired the parents of multiple children seemed. Always doing something for one or another, they never seemed to have any time for themselves. I had watched parents who had easily integrated one child into their family take on a look of chaos and fear with the addition of another. Why? I thought, why do it?

I still think that logically, one is a good number. I like still being able to believe that my husband and I will be able to do many of the things we enjoyed sans child as well as all those wonderful things that I am so looking forward to experiencing with my son. But I think I’m beginning to understand those parents. I’m beginning to imagine what kind of mix another genetic roulette spin might produce. Our son is so cute. What would his brother look like? What would our little girl look like? How would another child’s personality mirror his? What does he share with us and what is really, distinctly, his?

And there’s another thing people don’t tell you. They don’t warn you that you will have to fall in love with your child over and over again because the baby you hold in your arms this week is not the same one you fell in love with last week. “Take pictures!” they say “They grow so fast.” Great advice, yes, but incomplete. They don’t tell you that the baby in those pictures is a different person, one you will want to remember, one in a blink you will never see again, one that yes, you will mourn. Sure every morning your baby is lying in the place where you left him, but he is different, every time you wake him. Every morning, he is new.

So I think some people have another child to get to meet a baby like that again. They want to hold their child 1 week, 1 month, 1 year old again. They want to fall in love again with their baby, knowing now that as soon as they do they will have to mourn him and replace that love with what he has become.

Goodbye my newborn. Goodbye my one month old son. Goodbye my tiny scrawny little baby.

I loved you.

A Perfect Evening

admin August 22nd, 2008

I made a wonderful dinner. I had a drink. I watched a movie with my husband. I danced with my son. We had a wonderful time. The three of us. Three.

Twenty years ago Friday nights were spent with a couple of friends, chasing away the daylight, running, chasing, laughing. Ten years ago my Friday nights were spent with my closest friends, playing pool, driving around, laughing. Five years ago my Friday nights were spent partying with new friends, dancing, meeting new guys, laughing. What memories I have, of these nights.

Tonight I spent at home with my new family. Laughing.

I will have more crazy nights. I’m not ready to give them up. But tonight was plain, and I went nowhere, and and it was perfect.

This is why I did this thing. This night. May you all have nights like these.

A new moon

admin August 9th, 2008

Dear Kiddo,

Two days ago you turned one month old. I think you should know that though your birthday was not celebrated with cupcakes and candles, the last month has been one long birthday party for you. All of your grandparents have come to see you twice. Friends from other states have driven miles to come to see you. You have had easily over a dozen visitors. The pictures of you we post to friends cause my inbox to fill each morning with exclamations on your cuteness. You have already been the hit of a party. You now have the popularity I would have traded for my soul in middle school.

The one who enjoys you the most, though, is your father. You really should thank me later for picking him out for you. He is working part time so that his afternoons are spent with you sleeping on this shoulder, or with you slung across his arm sucking his thumb like a little monkey. He swoops you around the house like an airplane, holds you high and jiggles you like jelly, and doesn’t complain about changing your diapers. While I think that you are cute simply because you are a baby, he is convinced that you really are the cutest baby ever, most likely because you look exactly like he did when he was a baby. Your hand even perfectly mirrors his palm creases.

This whole month I have had no other real job than to take care of you. You sleep until around 7 AM and despite my efforts to stay in bed a little longer you wake up and are ready to play. So every morning we get up and after you are changed we have playtime together. Sometimes I put a toy on you and let you bat it around. Sometimes I show you around the house and describe everything. Sometimes I just let you gaze into my face. Recently you have started smiling and making this happy squealing noise that is the most incredible thing I have ever heard.

Early on, before I knew how to properly soothe you, back when you were nursing promptly every two hours, I went through several difficult days. Unfortunately I am just not one of those women who falls in love with a baby the instant she sees him, nor did I suddenly realize that mothering was what I had always been meant to do. I was worried that I had made a terrible mistake becoming a mother, one that I knew I could never undo. I worried that I would never enjoy this role, and that it would prevent me from accomplishing all the other incredible things I want to achieve in this life of mine. I worried that I had traded my life for yours, and it was a swindle.

But don’t worry kiddo, because I’m pretty sure I was wrong. I love the little sighing noises you make while you sleep, and how you can gaze at me for hours. I love how you squeal and open your mouth when I kiss you all over. I love your little round belly. I love how soft you feel, and how you stroke me with your hand and toes while you nurse. And now that I am getting more sleep and more confidence, I just can’t wait to discover other wonderful things about you, those moments and memories yet hidden away far from my view, secrets you will keep until it is your time to reveal them.

Happy Birthday!

Momma

An Open Letter

admin August 6th, 2008

Dear Woolite Pet Stain Remover People

I am writing you to commend you for a wonderful product. Over the years, your product has kept our carpet and furniture looking and smelling new, pet accident after pet accident, including one involving a lab puppy who mistook a bathroom garbage can for a shiny new dinner plate, and another involving our mutt and, well, let’s just say it was really bad. However, I had no idea that when my weeks old baby shot yellow week old baby poo through the air, over the changing table, and out onto the carpet, that your product would perform so spectacularly. Not only did Woolite Pet Stain Remover completely clean the area after being left to set for several hours (no Virginia, that 1AM poop explosion was not just a bad dream), but I feel confident that as the bottle advertises, the deodorizing effect of your product will dissuade my child from resoiling that spot again in the future. I thought that this new use of Woolite Pet Stain Remover should be brought to your attention in case you would like to utilize this information for marketing purposes in the future.

Sincerely,

WPSR’s biggest fan

And a New Day Dawns

admin August 1st, 2008

First of all, thank you so much, Gillian, for your comments. You made me feel so much better, sitting there, holding my hand with your words. I also posted a cry for help in my facebook profile, and was buoyed by many comments left by people I know and love all over the country. You know, I remember some kid’s show from a LONG way back with some truly awful jingle about how great friends are (Sesame Street? Mr. Rogers?) and I remember thinking, “Well duh you dumb people. This is so stupid.” But that was back when a “friend” was that kid you just met at the pool: “What’s your name? What’s your favorite color? Want to be my friend?”

So thank you to all my friends, the ones I know and those I don’t. My favorite color is blue.

Because today has been much better. My Mom is here to hold and console the baby, who strangely doesn’t feel the need to cry nearly so much. Our friends arrived early to take care of him, and we got to the graduation site in plenty of time. Graduation actually was nice, and I felt some sense of accomplishment.

I like to rub my velvet stole…

Apparently the baby didn’t cry at all while I was gone, and he is now back to his three hour feeding schedule. And Saturn aligns with the Moon and Pluto in the Southern hemisphere… So things are good, for now. And now I have heard that this is the toughest time, that things will get better, so the bad days will not be for the rest of my life, and OH MY GOD how good does that make me feel.

And now so that this blog isn’t entirely frustrated rants, here’s a bit of trivia about the phrase “T-minus” entirely stolen from that little gem, the urban dictionary.

T minus zero

“T minus zero” means “out of time.”

This comes from a countdown convention used in by both the American military and NASA.

Generally, it is used when counting down to a major event that will happen at a specific time.

Mathematically, T is time, minus whatever amount of time is left until the event happens.

If the News Years ball is dropping in 10 minutes, one could say “The ball is dropping in T minus 10 minutes and counting!”

Therefore, “T minus zero” means that there is no time left.

Interesting, no?

A Cry in the Dark

admin July 31st, 2008

So I haven’t written here in a while. Well, as they say, I’ve been busy.

Sometimes I feel guilty for not writing. I feel that slight guilt I feel when I really need to mop the floor, but choose to do something else instead, like it’s something on my to-do list that I ignore, but shouldn’t. And sometimes I feel silly for this guilt. It’s not like anyone needs me to write here. It’s not like I get paid, or someone is inconvenienced. But then again, I will never have more than a handful of readers if I never create something to be consumed. And don’t I know that feeling of disappointment when I visit my favorite blogs day after day to find nothing new?

But today, today, I write because I NEED to. I need to do something creative. I need to reach out. I need to have someone tell me, “me too.” I can’t help feeling that some time in the future I will take this post down. I will feel embarrassed by my weakness, or will be afraid that my son will read it many years from now. But at the moment, this is something I think I need. So here goes.

I graduate tomorrow. I walk across a stage while friends and family cheer for me, celebrate me, and applaud me. I take the final symbolic step to complete this incredibly trying, incredibly difficult, incredibly esteemed thing called the PhD. I do this thing that I have been working to do for the last half-decade. And all I want is to get it over with.

All I want is to get it done because of this other thing I have, this baby. This baby cries off and on all day. This baby forces me to wake several times every night. This baby I must keep alive day after day. This baby keeps me from doing other things. This baby is constantly on my mind.

Because I can’t expose this baby to germs, I am having some friends come by to take care of this baby. I am stressed hoping they get there in time, hoping we get out in time, hoping this baby doesn’t scream the whole time they are there, hoping this baby takes the bottle OK, hoping that I don’t get too engorged while I’m away from this baby, hoping I sleep the night before. This is half of me. The other half just wants to run away.

Really, this baby isn’t all that bad. He sleeps at night except for the hour he takes to eat every three hours that I feed him. (Isn’t an hour feeding a little long?) He doesn’t cry constantly, just off and on most of the time he’s awake during the day.

But still I can’t push out the nagging feeling that I have gone and done something horribly horribly wrong. Because, this, this is not fun. Why do women other seem to enjoy doing this? Can I please just give him back and have my old life back? I want my old life back. I want my husband and my sleep and my LIFE, my LIFE, the life I know how to live. And I want a job – any job that will get me away, and doing and thinking and not having to worry about this baby. Screw the dream job; screw me making a new start, a new career. I just want something that will make me enough money to have someone else take care of the baby for a little while. Someone who can do it better than I can.

And who thinks like this? What the hell kind of mom am I? This thing, this thing can never be undone. Never. What have I done? When does the fun part start? What is wrong with me? Do other moms worry that their lives will never be as good again, that they have made a terrible mistake? What if I’m just not the motherly type? What if it never gets better? Oh please tell me this will get better.

The thing is, I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t know if it gets better, or just different. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to relax, to enjoy myself and my husband. I don’t know if I’ll ever get a job I really love, now that I don’t have time to devote to making that happen. I don’t know if this one decision has thoroughly screwed up my life. So please, tell me there is a light, that this gets better, that soon I will love my life again, that it’s worth it. Because right now all I want to do is go hide in a closet, and this graduation thing tomorrow just seems like some cruel joke. Congratulations, your life is over.

Dichotomy

admin June 12th, 2008

Defense is soon. Very very soon.

Soon I will answer to “doctor.” Soon I will answer to “mommy.”

I don’t know which one I am more excited about. Would it be a bad thing if it were the latter?

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