nurse this.

This post is a shout-out to my sister-in-law (who, to be honest, does not read this blog, but I am putting it out there in a kind of 'good karma' way, as if it could somehow reach her by Osmosis of the Internets.) (Quite a mess of the English language, there).

I have four sisters-in-law. One is married to my younger brother, and she is pretty much awesome.  We disagree on a few things but nothing of huge consequence. One is married to my youngest brother, and she is a little more complicated, fairly high maintenance and tends toward arrogance, but she is smart as a whip and I feel like our relationship is getting better.

One is my husband's sister. She is 13 years older than I am, but we have a lot in common. We have a great time together and I miss living closer to her. Her kids are all in or graduated from college and I really appreciate her parenting perspective. 

And the last one is married to my husband's brother. I've mentioned her before: she and her husband are SUPER conservative Christians who can be pretty judgmental, so we tend to avoid topics like politics, religion, meaning of life, books, movies, culture...the weather is pretty safe. We talk about the weather a lot. And also how we like chocolate.

She and her husband had a baby about two weeks ago. They tried for awhile - about a year - and when we visited them last spring, she and I sort of bonded over the difficulties of getting pregnant. She had recently suffered a miscarriage. 

So it was exciting when she got pregnant (and, I mean, it must have been practically the week we were there). Baby due on January 1. These two people have - and there's no way to say this without sounding like a total asshat about it, but it's the truth - absolutely NO, zero, nada, zilch experience with babies or children, so we have had a few giggles about the shift in life they were about to undergo. Like the day my brother-in-law said that he didn't know why they needed to get a changing table since, and I quote, "the baby only needs to be changed once a day and [my wife] will do that."

**insert chirping crickets here**

Yeah. So, the baby arrived a few weeks early and they've been doing okay, pretty normal, and we have managed to keep our snickering to a minimum, like when we called them after about a week and my brother-in-law said, in a voice that suggested great umbrage because certainly no parent has had to do this in the history of ever, "we've been sleeping in shifts." Yes. Welcome to parenthood, dude.

But last night, my sister-in-law called. For the first time. In seven years. In the whole time I have known her. Because she is having a lot of trouble breastfeeding and I think she just needed to talk about it, and my heart broke for her.

She is basically alone, no family in the area, and although I am not my brother-in-law's biggest fan, I know that even his best support can only go so far on this one. All of a sudden I was flashing back to those early days of breastfeeding which were, to put it kindly, the HARDEST MOTHERF*%#ING DAYS OF MY LIFE, so much so that I prefer not to think about them. I told her she was doing a great job, and she should be so proud of herself for working so hard at it, and she should not feel at all guilty for using formula, it's just fine, and breastfeeding is SO SO SO SO HARD at first, and it really does get better, and so many women struggle with it but nobody really tells you the truth about this, probably because they are worried about scaring the life out of you, and also because it's really hard to describe it without bursting into tears. 

And it got me thinking about all those women out there who are breastfeeding right now and struggling with it, and all those women who feel guilty about giving their child formula (I did, for the longest time, until a breastfeeding guru I went to said to me, "the most important thing is that the baby eats. That's it. If you nurse her, great. If you feed her formula, great. She just needs to eat." She was a word of sheer grace to me).

Here's what I want to say to my sister-in-law, and anybody else:

You are amazing for working so hard at this. You should be hugely proud of yourself.  You are not alone. It gets better. And formula, at any level, can be your friend. Do not feel guilty. Do the best you can and do not beat yourself up. YOU ARE SHEER AWESOME. Do not doubt this.

To my sister-in-law: I really mean it. No snickering. No judgment. You rock. It will all be okay.

second time around

It's odd to be doing everything now for the second time, with her.  It's her second Christmas.  (What?)  I realized this when we went to take the Santa photo.  Last year's was an adorable shot of her sleeping on Santa's chest (I keep mistyping, "Satan," which is a whole other image and probably less adorable) .  This year, she had a look of Extreme Concern, much as if she anticipating being left with this bizarrely-dressed bearded guy and was none too excited about it.  No crying, though.

A friend of mine had a baby just after my girl's first birthday.  She, too, did IVF after a long time of trying and several losses.  All during her pregnancy, she referred to our girl as her "crystal ball baby," saying that she loved looking at her photos and thinking about what would be her life in one year.  Today, she posted their girl's first Christmas photo, which looked almost identical to the one we had from last year, and it made me weepy-nostalgic about How It Used to Be.  Now her girl is our "remember that?" baby.

It's this phase of early-toddlerhood, when the infancy days seem far away, that makes you want to have another baby. (Or, makes me want another one.)  (In theory.)  So far no luck in the "trying naturally" department, which is not unexpected.  So 2012 may bring a frozen cycle with our one totsicle; we'll see.

All yesterday she was in this mommy-only-clingy-whiny stage, which is the sort of thing that not only makes you NOT want to have another baby, it also makes you want to hand off the one you have.  She pinches me while she nurses, and although this makes me sound like a wimp: it hurts.  Especially when her fingernails are a bit on the long side.  I am so resistant to giving up nursing, for a number of reasons, but chief among them is my deep fear that I will never get to do this again, and once I let go of breastfeeding, it's over.  Forever.  (Given how hard breastfeeding was at the beginning, I can hardly believe I feel that way.)  But I'll be on an international trip for a week in May, and I've decided we will wean before then.  I hate for her to adjust to a week without Mom at the same time as a week without Mama Milks. 

She still insists on waking up between 5:30 and 5:45am.  Gaaaaaaaaah.  This is my least favorite time of day.  Naps are getting better, but the early wake-ups continue.  My husband thinks I should stop the morning nursing.  Any thoughts on whether that might help her sleep later?  At this point I'd probably go for it.  Just nursing before bedtime would be okay with me.

And molars? Suck donkey balls.  I need to work on my empathy skills.  Some days I just want to tell her to "get over it."  But this is not going to work.  And it's mean.  That's not good.

She is completely obsessed with a mole I have on the left side of my neck.  She fondles it while sucking her thumb, while nursing, anytime she wants comfort; she'll push my head to the side and find it (and pinch it, aaaaaaargh) and sigh with relief.  The other day I asked her what it was, and she said, "mo." 

Awesome first word, kid.

nap? nap? wherefore art thou, nap?

Yesterday I went to the grocery store.  While bagging my groceries, the very sweet teenaged girl doing that task asked me, "how's your day going so far?"

Here is what I said: "Just fine, thanks."

Here is what I said in my head: "Well, my child - who is adorable, thanks for mentioning that - is also cranky right now because I dragged her here mostly so we could get in the car, because for some reason, she has decided that she is not going to nap today AT ALL even though we spent damn near two hours trying to get her down, so we are here because I have an insane need to get one freaking thing done with my one day off and after this we are going to drive in the car until she falls asleep and I don't care if we end up in Colorado, THIS KID IS GOING TO TAKE A NAP for me just once, since she seems to take two-hour naps for everyone else in her life but has no interest whatsoever in taking one, just one, blessed nap for her own mother."

Perhaps you can see why I did not say that out loud. 

Naps.  Why is it that she takes them for everyone else except me?  Really?  Does anyone have any tips on this?  Because I am about to lose my mind.  She goes to daycare on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, where she regularly takes a 90-120 minute nap.  Every time.  At home, she took a 90-minute nap on Sunday when her dad put her down.  Once or twice a month, she goes to my parents' house on Fridays, where she almost always takes at least a 60-90 minute nap.

For me? 40 minutes.  Maybe 45.  Once I got 90 minutes out of her but that was apparently a complete fluke.

She's getting some molars, I'm pretty sure.  She still sleeps well at night, for which I am grateful (but if one more person says to me, "well, at least she sleeps at night, my kid didn't sleep through the night until she was 24 so see how my life is so much worse than yours?" I am going to kick some as$).

But why won't she nap for me?  What is this about?  Anyone?

one small step...

I doubt that Neil Armstrong's moon walk would have created more excitement in our house than the few, faltering steps we witnessed on Sunday night.  I mean, I realize his had more cultural significance and historical value, but whatever.  She walks!  Just a few steps, and there's a lot of sudden-butt-falling as a result, but it's true!

I am partly excited and partly terrified.  As a friend of mine posted on Fac.ebook about the news, "life as a series of near misses begins."

I think about that, sometimes: near misses.  How the world, which often seems enormous and inevitable and impossible to change, can shift entirely in just a moment, a breath.  I look at my daughter and, every once in awhile, without bidding or my permission, the photo of two tiny embryos floats into my head.  One of them is her.  I think about that microscopic bit of life, which is now tottering around on two unsteady feet - which will soon be running, giving herself the occasional black eye, walking into kindergarten, asking for the car keys.

I might be overreacting.  I mean, she took a few steps toward my husband and the first thing I thought of was, "now someday she will walk away from me," which is true, but going off to college is still a ways off.

For now, we're heading into a gratitude week with one more thing added to the list.

For this crazy, exhausting, sometimes tedious, sleep-deprived, early-waking, full life: thank you.

tiny first world problems

So, yesterday I went to Tar.get.  [As an aside, let me say that I truly adore Tar.get.  I mean, I try to resist rampant consumer materialism, but Ta.rget has such cute stuff and my only big problem is that I go there to buy one thing, spend $100, and then forget the one thing I came for.  Like yesterday: q-tips.  But I did get an awesome clearance-priced t-shirt for the baby girl.  $3.00!  Come on!]

But I digress.  I went to Tar.get and parked my car.  Now, let me say that I have a pretty ordinary-sized car - rhymes with Hubaru - one that should be amply provided for by a basic parking spot stall.  And the two cars next to me - also non-Hummer sized - were parked within their lines, as was I.  And yet, I could barely squeeze myself between the two cars to retrieve the child from her back-facing carseat and get her out without a.) ramming her head onto the top of the car or b.) scraping the crap out of the car door next to me.

HEY, TA.RGET PEOPLE: until we all start driving Smartcars, YOU NEED BIGGER PARKING STALLS.

I was all hot and bothered about this and used a lot of language that, fortunately, my child cannot (yet) emulate (I'm working on that) when, all of a sudden, this fantastic post from the brilliant women at Rants from Mommyland popped into my head. If you don't have time to click over there (trust me, come back to it later when you have time, it's worth it), I'll summarize: while we all need to rant from time to time, about very significant and life-altering things like the inadequacy of parking stall sizes at Targ.et, we also need to realize that those problems may be, occasionally, overstated. We need a little perspective. Or, a lot of perspective.

Such as: "This m$%^erf&*#ing stall is too bloody damn small; what is wrong with these idiots? What am I supposed to do, ride a freaking bicycle over here and strap my purchases to my head?" could be assisted by an additional internal monologue, like: "Boy, I sure am fortunate to have a car and enough money to put gas in it and go to Target in the middle of a Monday afternoon on my day off (because I am fortunate to have a job) (and a job that I like) to buy q-tips and six things from the clearance bin."

In other words: I spend a lot of my ranting time on tiny first world problems. So I am working on that. It is, however, helpful to get them out there. Just acknowledging them gives me a little perspective for the next time a HUGE GIGANTIC PROBLEM comes marching my way, like, say, when the drive-thru line at Star.bucks is too long.

In no particular order, then, here are my current tiny first world problems:

1. Seriously. Those stupid parking stalls. TOO DAMN SMALL.
2. My child has everything she needs so I can't figure out what to get her for Christmas. But getting her nothing seems kind of heartless.
3. I kid you not: every single road I could possibly use to get absolutely anywhere from my house is currently under construction and has been for the past six months. GAAAAAAAAAH.
4. My kid takes 2-3 hour naps at daycare every time she is there. Every. Time. At home? 45 minutes, tops.
5. I can't figure out where to put the stroller in the garage. Every conceivable spot somehow makes it impossible to get the child out of her carseat. I don't know how this is possible, but it is.
6. I still love breastfeeding, but I am really, really, really, really tired of pumping. Really.
7. After three months of waking up between the grand old hours of 4:30 and 5:00am, we had finally gotten our child to sleep until 6:00 (sometimes 6:30! WOO HOO!) and then daylight savings time hit and we're back to 4:f@#cking30. DAMN IT.
8. Some kids took the carved pumpkin off my porch on Halloween night and smashed it in the street and, over a week later, I am still resentful about it. I want to hunt them down and explain to them that I carved that pumpkin by myself during a day when my child took hardly any nap at all and that is a real feat, you bloody hooligans, and then threaten them with the future someday they are home by themselves with a baby and they look back at their wasted childhood of pumpkin mischief and weep about what they have done. But I do not think they will find this all that scary.
9. The email on my phone keeps shutting itself off randomly and then I have to start over again.
10. The other day I had to rush home to pump because I had forgotten it at home, and I only had 10 minutes to get it done because the house cleaner was coming over and a.) I didn't want her to catch me with my boobs attached to the milking machine, plus b.) I had to pick up the toys and the massive pile of clothes at the bottom of our bed so that she doesn't think we are complete slobs.

See?  Tiny problems.  Tiny, tiny.  Ridiculous, mostly.  And yet I spend a lot of time being very het up about stuff just like this.

Today's goal: perspective.

We'll see how that goes.

a birthday story

Once upon a time, there was a mommy and daddy.  They knew they were a mommy and daddy, but they had no baby.  That made them sad.

"Do you have our baby?" they asked the sun.  "No," said the sun, but it shone on them and warmed their skin and made them smile.

They asked the rain, "do you have our baby?"  "No," said the rain, but it watered the ground and made the green shoots poke out from the earth in the spring, and that gave them hope.

"Do you have our baby?" they asked the wind.  "No," said the wind, but it rushed and blew and made the fall leaves dance, and that made them laugh.

"Where is our baby?" they asked the mountains.  "We don't know," said the mountains, but they were great and tall and they made the mommy and daddy remember that the world is wide, and big, and full of beauty, even when they were sad.

"Do you have a baby for us?" they asked of the sea.  "No," said the sea, as it rushed in and out, onto the sands and back again.  The mommy and daddy walked on the sand and watched their feet make prints, and watched as the sea swallowed up their prints again.  The sea reminded them that all things change, and end, even very good things, and even very bad things.

"Would you give us a baby?" they asked God.  And there was a long silence.

A very long silence.

It seemed to last forever.  But, finally...

"That is a good idea," said God, "but we are going to need a lot of help with it."

So God sent them doctors, and nurses, and friends, and family, and people they didn't even know who listened to the stories they told in voices and written words.  God was right: it took a lot of people.

But, one day, the mommy woke up.

"The baby is coming," she said.

And then there were more people, all together, waiting for the baby to arrive.

The sun shone down, through the windows of the room where they were waiting.

The rain sent drops of water to tickle the windows of the room where they were waiting.

The fall leaves danced in front of the windows of the room where they were waiting.

The mountains hid in the clouds, not far from the room where they were waiting.

Far away, the waves rushed onto the sands and back again, far from the room where they were waiting.

All the people in the room held hands and helped and waited.

And God waited too.

And then...

"Hello," said the mommy and daddy to their baby.


A belated happy birthday to our baby, who gave us the best names we have ever had.

where did that month go?

So I was all proud of myself for keeping my blog up-to-date and then, as I was reading other people's blogs last night, I realized that some of my favorites haven't written for awhile, and I thought, "what's wrong?  Are they okay?  What's going on that they can't update their blogs?  I mean, I need stuff to read!  COME ON, PEOPLE!" - and then looked at the date of my own last post.

Hello, black kettle.  Meet pot.

It's been a busy month, and I have posts bubbling up that I hope to get to in the next few weeks, but the big event in our house was The First Birthday last Sunday.  How does it happen that, one day you have a squeaky infant who's up every two hours of the night, and poof! - you're complaining about how she wakes up at 5:00am but you neglect to notice that she sleeps through the rest of the night?  (5:00am does suck, though.)  You know what makes that happen?  Evolution.  The ability to block out the pain of childbirth and the happy-yet-exhausted daze of those first months is what makes the human race keep going.

Anyway.  All is well over here, and I'll be back soon.