2011

So.

2011 is officially kicking my ass. We have not had a very good year so far… luckily there is a lot of time for it to turn it around… but egh. I am just spent.

Gus brought the stomach flu home with him from daycare last week. He goes to a “kinda-sorta” daycare environment ONCE a week, so you’d think the odds would be in our favor. But yeah, it’s January, a month that tends to suck, so really I shouldn’t have expected anything less than ringing in the New Year hanging over the toilet, puking my guts out.

The Tuesday before Christmas we had decided not to send the little dude to daycare when we found out Monday evening on Facebook (via a status update) that the provider’s kids had been puking all day long. Since Dan was on vacation the next day, and was just planning on working on some on-going projects around the house, it seemed like a no-brainer to keep him home. But yeah, I wouldn’t be lying if it didn’t piss me off that I had to find something like this out from Facebook, and didn’t actually get a call from our provider to warn us that we might not want to bring our kid to her germ-infested house the week before Christmas.

We have a VERY casual thing going on with this woman, no contract, just sort of a gentleman’s agreement and a check every month for $50 per week. She’s a nice person, she only watches two little girls (the daughters of someone I went to high school with) on a full-time basis, and it was a huge relief to get introduced to her this past summer when we needed to find someone new to take care of Gus on Tuesdays.

So I’m not expecting much in the way of some professional notification, I know this thing we’ve got going with her is pretty informal, but it seems like we should have been at least told that she had a sick house. Maybe she expects me to see her status updates on Facebook? I don’t know, that’s pretty ridiculous, so I hope not.

Clearly, I’m a little annoyed.

Yeah, well I felt sort of vindicated… that’s the wrong word, I should say I was thankful that I trusted my gut… when Christmas came round and I found out that the two little girls both got sick, and gave it to their parents, and the whole family spent all of Christmas day puking and what-not. Ugh, poor dears, poor family. It sounded rough. And I was so glad that we paid $50 to keep our kid healthy for the holiday. Money well spent.

Fast forward to the week after Christmas, we thought we were in the clear to send Gus on Tuesday. And then on Thursday, Dan gets a call at work from his mom letting him know that Gus had vomited at lunch a few times.

Duhn duhn DUHN!

I was hopeful it was a fluke. Maybe the broccoli we had sent with him that day had spent more time in our fridge than we thought. Or he was eating a little too fast, causing him to gag, and that’s why he threw up.

I was in denial.

We were invited over to Dan’s grandparents house that night for an impromptu dinner, since we missed seeing them on Christmas Eve, so we scooted ourselves over there after I got home from work.

Mere moments after getting there Gus was in the corner of their living room making “that face”, so I got out the supplies for a diaper change. And yeah. Won’t go into details, but by then it was clear he was definitely sick.

Twenty minutes later, strapped in the highchair, he’s spewing all over himself.

Ok, so now he’s cleaned up, out of the chair. We’re trying to quickly finish dinner ourselves while he runs around the table, laughing hysterically. He reaches for me to pick him up, he’s on my lap, nibbling on a cookie [what idiot gave him a cookie? (it was me)], and it’s round two. All over me.

Gross. Also: my poor baby!

The amazing thing is that it didn’t seem to faze him. A minute later he was stripped down to his diaper, and again, running around the kitchen screeching and laughing and trying to jump in his own puke while we were on clean-up duty.

Dan’s poor grandparents did not have this in mind when they invited us over for pizza.

I mean come on.

Anyway, a baby/toddler with the stomach flu is actually kind of a scary thing. I was freaked out about him getting dehydrated, and he couldn’t seem to keep anything down but breastmilk and water. Thank goodness we’re still nursing, totally put my mind at east about the fact that he wasn’t getting really anything else, nutritionally, for two days. A little bit of pedialyte, but he wasn’t very into it. A quarter of a freezie-pop. A little bit of dry cereal. That’s about it.

So we survived, and on New Year’s Eve we put him to bed, hopeful that he would be on the mend the next day. We settled in for a movie. I ate a whole bag of microwave popcorn, because the holidays and my insane over-eating throughout have made my stomach the size of a dinosaur’s. I just can’t seem to eat enough.

Scratch that, I just couldn’t seem to eat enough.

Because with about 7 minutes left to go on the movie, I knew IT WAS COMING. The inevitable. I had caught it.

So I spent the night on the couch, Dan on Gus duty upstairs, and vomited off and on for about four hours. Around midnight, right after a particularly horrible trip to the bathroom, I got a text from my brother-in-law wishing me a “Happy New Year” and I was this close to texting back a big F-U. The only thing stopping me was that I knew he’d probably immediately call me back, and I didn’t have any desire to talk to anyone who wasn’t, at that moment, feeling as horrible as I was.

I woke up around 4:30 AM feeling a bit better, and went upstairs to check on my boys. By then, Dan was feeling it, so we switched places. And he had his little bout of sicky fun downstairs for the next few hours.

The next day was not pretty. Since having a child, Dan and I have never both been sick at the same time. Wow. We could barely pull ourselves together enough to feed Gus (who thankfully was feeling quite a bit better). We watched a lot of TV. There were a few instances where we both unintentionally dozed (on the couch or floor) while he busied himself with his toys around us.

A few times I started to feel really sorry for myself, mostly when Gus was being needy and a little sicky himself, wanting to nurse CONSTANTLY (which normally I would find incredibly sweet, especially when compared to that period of time when he was about 10 months old and too distracted to nurse, causing me boatloads of anxiety and engourgement), and I felt like I couldn’t even sit up without wanting to hurl.

We were hesitant to call anyone for help, because we didn’t want to put their health at risk. I mean, our house, at that point, was like a pit of despair. It smelled like sickness. But I convinced myself that Gus couldn’t be contagious anymore, and broke down and called my dad and pleaded for him and my mom to take Gus for a few hours when she got off work, so we could get some simultaneous REST.

Also, even though I was on my deathbed, the mom-guilt was still there. It is ALWAYS THERE! I could tell Gus was going a little crazy being in our house for the second straight day, and was feeling very neglected. So I knew it would do him some good to get out of the house, and my wonderful parents were up for it.

While Gus was running around at the mall and having a grand old time, we changed the sheets and did some laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and we slowly started to pull ourselves out of it, with the help of a Sister Wives marathon on TLC, and a quick trip to Subway for something bland to put in our stomachs.

Holy crap, that Sister Wives show is just… completely engrossing and compelling. I don’t really have much of an opinion about it, just that Cody and his family seem both wackadoodle and oddly normal at the same time. What a bizarre existence. But how awesome would it be to get to live with your girlfriends and your husband like that? To get to have these women right there to depend on and shop and cook dinner with, and raise your kids with. I mean, sharing your husband with them is bound to get a little weird, but I would think once you got over the initial hump of weirdness, it could be a pretty good life, no?

Any. Way.

Like I was saying, 2011 can go suck it.

We’re getting back to normal at home, but still, Gus’s sleep has been completely screwed up. He was getting a lot better, we were starting to have less and less night-wakings. We started having Dan more involved at night a few weeks before the holidays, and it seemed like the little guy was beginning to realize that his sole purpose for getting up at night (my boobs) were no longer something he could expect to be there. So for the most part, we were getting a lot more sleep in our house. Well, I should say I was getting more sleep, Dan was getting up in the middle of the night, consistently, for the first time, so short term it wasn’t necessarily a better situation for him. But yeah, we felt like we were making progress.

And then our four-day Christmas extravaganza happened, and Gus’s schedule was all outta wack.

Oh well right? C’est la vie. We were rolling with it.

Now, it is straight up horrible again. Worse maybe. He slept with us when we were all sick the one night, which was fine, probably because he was sick and actually slept, but for the most part, co-sleeping just isn’t working for us anymore. Sunday night was a prime example of that. All he did for about 2 hours in the middle of the night was roll around half asleep smacking us in the face, one second rolling on top of Dan and pinching and pulling at his facial hair, and then in the next moment he’s rolling the other way towards me, mouth open, looking to nurse and angry to end up with a mouth full of t-shirt.

Last night Dan was up with him three times between 11:30 and 1:30 AM. Between 2:00 and 3:30, he was up three more times, and I was the lucky winner who got to deal with him then. At 5:30 AM, as Dan was getting up for work… another waking.

We know he’s teething again, but also, this kid just sucks at sleeping. I hate saying that about him, because gosh I love him, but we’re getting to the point where I just can’t wait for him to grow out of it anymore. For my sanity, for his health. It’s just not working.

Last night I was helping him put himself to sleep at 2:10 AM, laying him in his crib as he scrambled to grab his blankie and stand up, reaching up to me. But I wasn’t having it. He doesn’t even want to be rocked to sleep, he can’t seem to get comfortable in that rocking chair anymore, so when he arches his back and head-butts me when I’m just trying to cuddle him and help him go to sleep, clearly that means he needs his own space.

So I’m crouched over the crib, got my hand on his back, he’s tossing and turning, but not crying, not even really fussing. This boy is tired. And not minutes later, he’s asleep. Hallelujah! I sneak back to bed, fall asleep, feeling smug. My inner monologue gushing all over the place, “See! He can put himself to sleep! We can do this, soon he will be doing it on his own and everything will get better and he won’t make my parents’ brains explode when he stays with them for four whole nights while we’re on vacation and away from him for the first time (tear!).” And then I drift off to sleep.

And then I’m awake again, he’s whining in the next room again, and I look at the clock.

2:35 AM.

Seriously. It had been about twenty minutes.

I still can’t stomach a hard-core cry-it-out approach, it’s just not for us, but I think we’re going to have to do something different. What’s that Albert Einstein quote? “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Yeah.

Also, I shouldn’t even be writing about this sleep stuff right now, because clearly we’ve had a bad few weeks, and some outside influences have been the major culprits. We’ve got like the holy trinity of sleep problem contributors happening: (1) Screwed up schedule, (2) Sickness, and (3) Teething.

So I’m totally in “that place” right now where it just all feels so dire and unbearable. It’s not always this bad. But the fact that it gets this bad is a problem. Because eight night-wakings is a problem.

Blergh.

So don’t comment and tell me how terrible this all is and how you feel bad for me. That’s not at all what I want. I’m not trying to throw a pity party, just getting it out there, purging.

Instead, if you’re looking to make a girl feel good today, tell me something sucky that happened to you recently. Come on… make it something really terrible. We can all be miserable together!

Oh oh! Something I alluded to above, the silver lining, if you will, of not eating for two days straight, is that my stomach has seemingly shrunk. I can’t eat half of what I was eating, portion-wise, a week ago. Awesome right?! Also, I don’t seem to want to really eat much of anything, since the SICKNESS it all makes me a little queasy. So if anything, the stomach flu was like a Christmas cookie/candy/cheesy-potato detox of sorts. Hopefully this will lead to my pants fitting a little better again.

Or I'll just buy something that is decidedly NOT a clog

I ditched the clog fixation. I mean seriously, what was that?

I think all the analysis I did to put together yesterday’s post really helped make it clear that none of those shoes were really what I wanted. I should put that kind of consideration into every purchase I make, write out detailed pro and con lists, ask people for advice. Just think of all the money I’d save! (Not to mention all the time I’d waste…)

My brother and I ran into Kohl’s at lunch today because he had to get a few links taken out of a watch he got for Christmas (we work for the same company, in the same department, with the same boss… if you didn’t know). While he was dealing with his little errand, I ran up to the shoe department to check out their selection, to see if they had the perfect elusive clog I was desperately searching for, at a much cheaper price mind you. And they were all ugly. Because Newsflash! Clogs are ugly.

But they did have these cute little boots on sale, for $30. And they totally fit the bill.



Cute. Flat. Not bulky. Inconspicuous. Comfortable. Easy. Cheap. Perfect.

So behold, yesterday I was prepared to embrace my inner frump and purchase a pair of $100 clogs, and today, instead, I bought $30 boots from the juniors section at Kohl’s.

Yeah, I’m pretty much THAT all over the place in the rest of my life as well. Thanks for humoring me yesterday ladies.

Sensible Shoes

Ok, so this is going to be a bit of a tangent from my normal postings of domesticated mom-ness, but bear with me. I need some advice.

I’m in the market for a pair of clogs. Yup, you read that right, I said clogs. FRUMP ALERT! Yeah, I know. Seriously though, over the last month I’ve come to the realization that I need the Minnesota Winter equivalent of a basic flat or moccasin, which is what I live in during the spring through fall months. Something with a little more oomph than a flat, that I can easily throw on with jeans or cords, or maybe even work trousers, that will not freeze my little toes off while I’m running multiple errands with Gus in tow, or trouncing through fresh snow in the darkness of my work parking lot at 5:00 PM, brushing off and scraping the windows of my car.

If anyone has a better idea than clogs, please, I’m listening. I simply can’t wear boots every day; they don’t work with all outfits. Skirts and dresses, sure, but it’s not feasible to do that every day, nor is it feasible to wear skinny jeans every time I go casual.

I’ve considered these cute oxfords pictured below, but when I really think about it, I only see myself wearing these with dresses and tights, skinny jeans or slim cords. If I threw these babies on with a basic pair of boot cut jeans I’d look like a little boy. Or just a really unfashionable, dumpy woman, stuck in the 90’s.



But hell, maybe clogs will just give me the same look?

I don’t know, am I being that person on What Not To Wear who keeps whining to Stacy and Clinton about how “comfortable” a certain pair of really ugly shoes are?

I swear, I’m not going to throw out all my cute heels and boots. It’s just, well, some days, when there’s a foot of snow on the ground and you’re looking at a day of doing the car seat dance with your toddler, (in and out, in and out, “Please cooperate honey, I know you’re sick of being repeatedly strapped into this thing, here, how about a cookie! And here’s your favorite book! {singing} The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout…”), well you know what I’m talking about. I need an easy pair of mom shoes that are not hideous and are not tennis shoes (puke).

So I’ve found a few clogs that might work, all of them have their own virtues and follies… you tell me. Which pair of only slightly offensive sensible footwear is worthy of my spending my Christmas money from grandma and grandpa?

1. I know these pretty much look like slippers, but they sure look sensible, and comfortable! And I like the red. If I’m going to embrace this kind of look, then why not do it with a funky color at least? These I would definitely not wear at work, maybe on the way to work, but I’d have to change into something once at the office. They sure look like good car-scraping shoes though. But definitely, ultra-casual. Too casual?



2. Gosh. I don’t know about these babies. Every time I look at them I change my mind about them. First I’m all, “cute details with the stitching, I like the buckles!” Then the next moment, I don’t even know if they’re even remotely cute. The width of the toe frightens me a little, do they resemble clown shoes a little too close for comfort?



3. Very simple, classic clog, but with a twist. And that twist is metallic? A little wedge? Hmm… I like the slight heal, but the metallic thing reminds me of Betsy’s silver spacey moon shoes from our freshman year of college. This could be shaky territory.



4. These are adorable. I mean right? Adorable. I could even wear these with a cute little skirt and tights, or a sweater dress. They are almost in that bootie territory, but not quite. Definitely chunky, but for some reason the chunkiness is not freaking me out. And chunky seems to sort of be coming back into vogue. I also like that the toe doesn’t seem so wide, it’s a bit more tapered than a lot of the other clogs I’ve seen. My only hesitation is the heel. Does it go against my driving need here for something that I will be able to slip on and run out the door with the boy? Will it go with a tee and cardigan, my basic at-home uniform?



5. I am a lover of all things moccasin, and these are cute… and simple, and inoffensive. And very Minnesooootan (said with my very best Midwestern accent). Not as versatile as the last ones though, that’s for sure, you can’t dress these guys up. But yeah, I like. And they’re on sale and much less expensive than the others. I could take my remaining $50 and go buy a sweater!



6. Gosh, I like the last two, and now the rest of these shoes seem really lame. These last ones especially, I mean, ugh. I don’t even know why I bookmarked these ones. At this moment I can find no reason to put these anywhere above any of the others. I guess they’re pretty classic Danish clogs. So there. With ugly buckles. Ok, no.



Ok, so there you have it. Now I’d like your opinions, if you have them. Which ones are contenders? Or are you still reeling from the fact that I’m considering buying clogs, and that I’m talking about them on my blog?

Ha! Clog! Blog! Sweet, an unintentional rhyme! Neato. Seriously though, help!

And so it begins

We’re in the home stretch, of the “Holiday Season” that is, and I could not be more excited. Per usual, it’s a little overwhelming, juggling both of our families and trying to find a way to actually spend quality time with everyone rather than feel like we’re constantly running from one place to the next. There always seem to be hurt feelings on someone’s part, but we really do try so very hard to make it work.

We kicked off Christmas last night at my brother’s house with a laid back night of Chinese take-out, a huge batch of my mom’s home-made Chex-mix, and pecan turtle cookies purchased from the local bakery down the street from my house. Dinner was followed by some competitive Wii tennis, a rowdy game of Pictionary, and Sid the Science Kid.

Re: Sid the Science Kid… our rambunctious little toddler had to be somewhat distracted whilst the adults attempted to play a board game. And for the most part, a few episodes of that strange PBS show did the trick, though Gus did steal the little plastic hourglass timer at one point. I won’t lie, getting it back involved a bit of negotiation.




After getting home last night at 9:30 and putting a very sleepy little boy to bed, I had the very sudden realization that the rest of our weekend looks to be insane. And that made me very sleepy as well. My friends, we are in for lots of CHRISTMAS over the next few days.

Tonight is Christmas with Dan’s immediate family. I can’t wait. There is likely to be insane amounts of shrimp and cheesy potatoes and cookies eaten, hilarious stories told, squeals from little children, manic dogs ripping apart wrapping paper… all the stuff that you can expect from a big family being together to celebrate the holiday. It’s hard to explain it, but the chaos, the anticipation, the wide-eyed babies… it’s just all so wonderful and insane. It is Norman Rockwell on crack. It is family to the nth degree. It is CHRISTMAS.

Friday I will hopefully have time to get a few of my last-minute things done, Santa still hasn’t wrapped Dan’s stocking stuffers that he went out and bought yesterday during his lunch break, and a long time ago I promised to bring a salad to my grandma’s, so that probably means a trip to the grocery store on Christmas Eve. Hmm… that sounds pretty much like my worst nightmare. Maybe I should try to take care of that today.

We attend church on Christmas Eve with Dan’s family and it’s my favorite service of the year. All the little girls decked out in their white tights and satin and velvet dresses with big bows, the beautiful sanctuary decorated for the holiday, and the countless familiar hymns… The closing hymn is always “Silent Night”, for which they turn down all the lights and pass out these little white candles to everyone in the church. It’s incredibly serene and beautiful, and every single year leaves me with goose bumps and a little lump in my throat as the service comes to an end.
We don’t make it to church very often throughout the year, but the Christmas Eve service is usually one that rejuvenates my faith and sort of inspires me to get more serious about joining a congregation. I’d like to really do that this year, instead of talk about it, and I think Dan and I have decided to become members at the Lutheran Church his parents belong to, and to really get more involved in their community. So hopefully we make that a reality in the New Year.

After church, this year we’ll be heading to my grandparents’ house for the traditional Christmas Eve dinner of potato soup, sausages and sour kraut. How very Midwestern-y German of us… It’s so funny to hear what every family’s traditions are, I love that they all seem to have their own very distinct way of celebrating the holiday. Especially here in the Midwest, everyone’s meals are so… well, weird. I’m not going to pretend that my grandpa’s (very distinct) potato soup (lots of onions, very thin cream based, mashed potatoes as opposed to chunks) is not a strange tradition to have on Christmas Eve. But for me, it is Christmas Eve. Just the smell of it brings back memories of thirty people all crowded into their tiny living room, opening gifts, one by one, youngest to oldest. My brothers and I sleeping on the floor of my grandparents’ porch, dreaming of Santa Clause and candy canes and scooters, while my parents sneak out to midnight mass.

On Christmas morning we’ll have brunch with my parents and brothers, and exchange gifts amongst my immediate family… then it’s off to Dan’s aunt’s house for more food and cookies and games and family.

It’s a lot. And my motto is definitely to “go with the flow…” Because if I think about the logistics… about Gus staying up super late 4 days in a row and how THAT might go, about fitting in his nap on Christmas day during the one-hour drive from my parents house to Dan’s aunt’s… about making sure we bring the right gifts to the right houses… it all sounds very overwhelming. But I do think it’s worth it, and it’s hard to complain about the fact that we have “too” much family to see over the holiday. We’re really so lucky and blessed to spend time with all these people we love so much.

Soooo… here goes nothing. Merry Christmas everyone!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

The tree is up! Saturday after Thanksgiving we drove an hour north to our favorite little family-owned tree farm and cut down a beauty. And this year we didn't inadvertently pick out a massive monster of a tree that would completely take over our sweet little old house with its charmingly tiny rooms and little walk-ways. Yay!

This place is really everything you could ever ask for around the holidays. It is quintesential Minnesotan. A family who runs it that remember you year after year, homemade spritz cookies, popcorn, and apple cider to warm you up, a bin of toys in the corner of the cabin for the little ones to play with, and plenty of room for little pent-up city dogs to run. The absolute perfect place for Gus to have his first dose of "winter wonderland".

Gus went crazy for the sled, even cried if we would attempt to take him out. He took a face plant in the snow at one point, but didn't seem to mind.



He did plenty of exploring in his ridiculous outfit that is way too small for him and is made for big babies, not little toddlers. I bought that blue Columbia suit for him last year. Yeah, he's our little guy and we love him and his tiny-ness.





Look ma! No hands! (He refused to wear his mittens, so he lost the priviledge of having hands.)



Then he went on the swing with his cousin Megan (how cute are his little boots?). Not sure what to think at first, but then loved it. And again, cried when we tried to get him down.







He loved when Daddy would throw the leaves up for Bella to go crazy at. What an insane dog.





But yeah, tree is up, lights are on, and that's as far as we've gotten. And it's crooked and we can't seem to get it to not be crooked. Ughhhh. I think we may just have a crooked tree this year, because I can't handle any more putzing with it. So all my pictures of the tree may have to be angled like this, because it sort of disguises the bastardly crookedness.



Doesn't look crooked from the kitchen.



But yeah, crooked.



Baby sneak attack!

On the other side of the dreaded Baby Cold

Wow. What a difference a week makes.

The fog of sickness has lifted from our household and we seem to be on the other side of that mess. And people, may I say, the other side is lovely.

Relief. I feel like myself again.

Gus slept like a dream last night. I woke up to him babbling to himself on the monitor in the middle of the night, and almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I looked at the clock. A quarter to two! What what?! I know, some of you who have good sleeping babies are amazed that I would be happy with being woken up at 2:00 AM, but honestly, that is HUGE for us. Gus is usually up around 10:30 PM, which corresponds to when we’re going to bed, at which time he refuses to go back in his crib.

When that becomes the norm, when there are too many nights in a row where I just finally go to bed at 10:00 PM because Gus won’t go back down by himself, I start to feel like I’m suffocating under the weight of the mass amount of nighttime parenting he seems to require. I resent him for not being able to snuggle up with my husband at the end of the night, laughing and talking about whatever it is we talk about as we fall asleep. I resent him as I lie in bed, starting at the clock, afraid to fall asleep because hearing him cry out right as I’m drifting off is just about the worst thing ever. I resent him on Saturday nights when we are hesitant to start a movie at 8:30 because it’s so unlikely that we will actually be able to get through it before he wakes up.

On Monday night, Dan and I started an episode of How I Met Your Mother at like 9:45, and when Gus woke up about 10 minutes into it, I released my inner five-year old, outwardly groaning as I whined, “He ruins EVERYTHING!” (I did not stomp your feet, in case you're picturing that.) To which my level-headed and wonderful husband replied, “No he doesn’t, you don’t mean that. It’s really not a big deal, we’ll watch it tomorrow.”

And he’s so right. This too, shall pass. I need to constantly remind myself of that, and of the fact that I am committed to this kind of parenting, because it is what I believe in. I believe that Gus will benefit from a secure attachment to his parents. He will be a better child, a healthier, more emotionally developed kid, because he has parents who were steadfast in responding to his needs, who didn’t leave him to cry-it-out, alone in the dark, hurt that no one is coming to his aid, confused by the fact that his only way of communicating is being out-right ignored.

When we decided to become parents, we knew it wouldn’t be easy, there would be sacrifices, and this first year (plus) of parenting? Well, I’m realizing it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s hard to have that kind of perspective in those moments of frustration, but I’m working on it. Dan is better at it than I am. He makes me smile on those difficult nights when I am feeling bitter and annoyed, when he kisses Gus’s little head as he lies between us nursing, whispering to me about how sweet and cute our little boy is, legs all curled up into me, his arm reaching up to touch the hairs on the back of my neck.

So last night I was almost joyful as I stumbled into his room, scooped up my baby, and climbed back into bed with him in my arms. He promptly fell back asleep after a short nursing session and barely stirred the rest of the night. Maybe once or twice more I nursed him. I don’t even know, but it was a great night. And when I snuck out of bed this morning and watched his little perfect eyelashes flutter while he slept, I remembered that this was all worth it. When I had to wake him up this morning to get dressed for Grandma’s house, and he proceeded to wrap his arms around my neck and burrow his head into me, smelling of apple-scented baby shampoo and just pure deliciousness, yeah. I remembered then.

This life is good. Not always easy. But really, really good.

We had our first appointment with our new pediatrician on Monday. Since he was about 6 months old, I've complained ad naseum about the fact that I hate Gus's doctor, and this week, we finally moved on.

I knew it was time, when I realized that I had continued to put off making his 12 month appointment because I dreaded seeing her so much, dreaded her judgement, dreaded the way she talked to you without making eye contact, or the way she would answer my questions with lectures about something else entirely. It was definitely time.

I am so relieved. This new pediatrician is so perfect for us.

Perfect example... Gus has been having constipation issues for a while now, the dirty details of which I will spare you , and we're sort of at our wit's end about it. We're constantly worrying about everything he eats, when the last time he "went", trying to get him to drink more fluids, it's exhausting. And Dan and I, being really adverse to using medications when there are more natural ways of approaching things like this, were both at the point where we were ready to medicate away, if it would solve this problem. Poor guy, it kills us.

Anyway, our doctor is not ready or willing to resort to that, and I took that as a really good sign. We discussed a lot of different methods of attacking the darn pooping issue, and I feel so much better about it.

Then there's the weight thing. Our old doctor gave me an insane complex about his weight, I swear she was "this" close to suggesting we supplement with formula on multiple occasions, all because Gus was dropping percentiles very slightly at each visit. New pediatrician didn't even say a word about it until I mentioned it, at which point she looked at the growth chart and said, "Looks pretty normal for a breast-fed baby, especially one that had such a high birth weight, they have a way of self-correcting for being born big. Slim is better! Considering the high rates of obesity in children, I prefer that they're in the lower percentile range. He is perfectly healthy, perfectly normal."

I was practically grinning from ear to ear. While my instincts had told me to ignore the stupid comments my mis-informed doctor had made, that hasn't always been easy. For a majority of his baby-hood, spurred by her comments, the thoughts were constantly in the back of my head, that I didn't produce enough milk for my son. That I wasn't enough for him, that I was going to fail at this breast-feeding thing. That by continuing, I was somehow not doing the right thing for him. Ugh. I wish I could make it so that no breast-feeding mother ever has to feel that way, it is such an isolating place to be.

I am so happy to have found this new pediatrician, all thanks to Dan's mom and Aunt. And as if I need any more examples of how much we jive with her, on the sleep front she recommended a book that I have already read, cover to cover, and loved, Elizabeth Pantly's "The No Cry Sleep Solution". I openly shared that we co-sleep, and there was no judgement, no pushiness, and instead she presented a relatively good case for why we might not want to wait for Gus to just magically start to sleep better, especially since it is causing us some issues during the week with napping when he's not with us. And she didn't simply present a good case for change, she gave us ideas for how to attack the issue, gently. Without crying. All while reiterating that if we're fine with how things are going, and aren't ready for a change, that we don't need to, and shouldn't push it.

So yeah, like I said, what a difference a week makes.

A good night's sleep. What's that like again?

Whew. It was a long weekend, and not really in a good way. Gus has been sick since Thursday evening, and has basically been terrorizing our household with his runny nose and neediness and inability to sleep more than 45 minute to one hour stretches. I am exhausted. He’s only had about three colds since he’s been born, but gosh, I forget how horrible they are until we’re in the trenches again.

Of course I got whatever he has, and tending to my poor sick child pretty much all night long has not helped with my recovery. I feel like death.

In related news, I’ve created a monster. My child is obsessed with his mama and basically only wants me in the middle of the night. He gets so worked up when Dan tries to take a shift, to the point that it will take him two to three times as long to get him back to sleep, so it just doesn’t seem worth it to switch off. Half the time I lay in bed listening to them in the other room, stressing out over Gus’s cries, getting frustrated that Dan can’t do it right. Also note: I am a control freak. So yeah, my control freak ways REALLY come back to haunt me when I’m sick and my child wants me and only me.

Last week we toyed with the idea of taking down Gus’s crib and setting up a Montessori style bed on the floor in his room. This would make it easier to help soothe him back to sleep in his own room, because when I am faced with the choice of the rocking chair or our bed, in my hazy middle-of-the-night state I will almost always choose our bed. And there he will stay for the rest of the night. If I could curl up with him in his own bed and sneak out when he falls back asleep, that would be a hell of a lot more preferable to the careful dance of leaning over the crib ever so slowly, trying to be as still as possible, inching my arm out from under him ever so carefully. I hate that dance. Damn crib.

We know we need to make some sort of change because we’re going on a ski trip in January with some friends, meaning we’ll be leaving him overnight for the first time. 5 days, 4 nights at my parents’ house. Good God, suffice it to say, I am freaking out a little.

So we need to get on top of this sleeping thing a little, try to get him to the point where he will sleep by himself in his own bed for a good portion of the night, and if that’s not working, at least get him used to having someone tend to him besides his mother and her almighty boobs. We decided against ditching the crib for good at this stage in the game, (mostly because we do like having a place in the house where he can be safely contained!). So we set up the toddler bed in our room, right next to our bed, up against the wall. So basically we are a bunch of hippies with a big old family bed that takes up our entire bedroom. The plan is to get him to sleep more on his own in that little bed, where he’s still within arms reach, he’s not alone in his room which we know he hates, and he can still be soothed quickly and easily when needed. And the best part of this arrangement is that it gives us so much more room. Like seriously, the extra space is a god-send.

Since he’s been sick this weekend, we haven’t seen much progress, actually it’s probably gone the other way as anyone who has dealt with a sick baby would probably guess, but hopefully the little change will be good for our family.

Seriously though, he is such a stubborn little stinker, the kid just wants to sleep snuggled up to you all night long. If he’s not face all up in my chest, he’s spreading both of his arms out to touch Dan and me, making sure we’re both still there, and sleeping spread eagle, taking up about ½ the bed himself. Last night I kept trying to put him in his own little side bed, and he would just roll and squirm over to me within 5 minutes. At one point, I think it was around 3:30 AM, he dive-bombed over my body to get between Dan and me. And when there was no room between us, he just snuggled up, closed his eyes, and decided he would sleep sprawled out on top of the both of us.

When Dan left for work this morning he was sleeping horizontally, half in our bed, half in his, his head in my armpit and his feet up on his pillow. I mean this is what I’m dealing with. Such a character, it’s a good thing he’s so gosh darn cute.

Monster Mash!

We had a wonderful Halloween this year. Lots of family, lots of laughs, lots of chances to dress up my little dude as the cutest dragon that there ever was with the most smooshiest cheeks and the most kissable nose and the most hilarious toothy grin.

First up was the annual costume party at Dan's grandma's house on Friday night. Another year where we waited until the last minute to find something to wear. Ugh. I hate last minute costumes because I am just not one of those creative types who can make something amazing out of empty paper towel rolls, duct tape, and old sparkly tube tops. But since I'm a procrastinator in everything that I do, most years I end up trying to come up with something just a few days before the party. This time, it was the day of.

Gus and I took a trip to the Halloween super store on Friday morning after I decided Dan and I would be a somewhat haphazard prince and princess, to go along with Gus's dragon diggs that we got months ago for about $7 at Costco. (What what!) Well... I couldn't find a crown for Dan to wear, and had to buy a child's sequined tiara for myself. Ended up spending $50 on that, a black hooded cape for Dan, and some stupid midevil looking weapon and king's crown. Thought, hmm... Dan could be an evil king holding me hostage in his castle, guarded by an adorable dragon? Ok, whatever. It's something.

I think Dan wanted to punch me when he saw the crown and strange spikey-ball weapon I spent that much money on. Also, the crown just was not going to stay on his head. It was cheap and rubber and a completely regrettful purchase. Then I tried on the pink strapless bridesmaid dress from Betsy's wedding that I had planned on wearing, and when zipped up, my boobs were absolutely crushed to the max. Those suckers were not going to last a whole night smashed like pancakes. (Damn breastfeeding!) So the dress was a no-go.

Instead, we dug out some wigs we wore a few years ago as Daphne and Fred. I sorta looked like Princess Fionna from Shrek when I put on this old vintage thrift store green dress that I had in my closet. Sorta. Well, the hair did. Sorta. Not really. (The Little Mermaid might have made more sense but I certainly was not going to wear a shell bra, nor would I be creating some sort of mermaid fin in the next hour.)

And Dan in that ridiculous 70's wig with my recently purchased princess tiara? Total Prince Charming. Basically him in that wig is just hilarious. So yeah, whatever. We had our costumes. No one knew who we were dressed as, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that we participated. And really all anyone cared about was that we brought our cute baby to the party.

The party was a blast, as usual. I love how the whole family goes all out with the costumes and childrens crafts, pin-the-tail-on-the-cat, and the toilet paper mummy game. It's all pretty awesome.

(Yeah, that's Gus's little blonde head sticking out of that pile of toilet paper. The mummy game gets pretty crazy, and where there's crazy kids screaming, there is my child wanting to get in on the action.)

Saturday evening we carved our pumpkins. Carving pumpkins with a toddler is a lot different than carving pumpkins without a toddler. Basically, there was no messing around with pre-printed templates and poking little holes for an hour before even getting to the carving. It literally took me about 4 minutes to carve Gus's little pumpking. I just grabbed the knife and went to town. If I'm honest, I think I like the haphazard "homemade" carvings we did better than any professional-looking template. Cause they're totally us, mistakes and imperfections and all.

We made a huge mess of the kitchen, and I completely forgot about my intentions to roast the pumpkin seeds until after they were all in the trash with the rest of the pumpkin guts, but it was so worth it to see Gus sticking his head in pumpkins, hesitantly squishing the cold insides between his fingers, wandering the house gnawing on the tops. (Raw pumpkin is ok for babies right?!)

Of course just as we finished them and were trying to take a good picture out on the front steps that wasn't blurry, my camera battery died. So you get lots of the before pictures, but not a lot of the finished products.

On second thought, maybe it was the hat. Gus just wouldn't sit still, and I didn't have the where-with-all to take a picture of the stupid pumpkins without my kid in it. Before the camera died that is. Oh well.

Finally, today, on the actual Halloween, we had a birthday party to go to. My grandpa turns 83 tomorrow, so the whole family got together to celebrate. I think once you hit 80, every party should be a big one! We skipped the trick-or-treating, because we were all three of us tired after a long day, plus Gus is 14 months old for goodness sake, and only this weekend had his first taste of candy. (I couldn't help it, I was hit by the holiday spirit!) But Gus of course went to the party all dressed up and adorable. And so you get just a few more pictures. Because I am obsessed with this kid!

Shrug it off

There were a few days last week (Dan might say more than a few) when I was just, I don’t know… tired. Cranky. Sullen. Last week was just one of those weeks when I found it hard to cope with the drudgery of everyday life. I was worn down, glassy-eyed. Blank. I don’t know what was wrong with me, really it was nothing. It was a regular week, but for some unknown reason I was not of the frame of mind where I could just shrug stuff off.

Sometimes life just feels overwhelming. Our house is almost always a DISASTER. I’m not exaggerating. It is overwhelming. And I hate it, but I just can’t seem to dig myself out of the clutter, the dust, the piles of laundry, the dog hair. So I ignore it. I try to brush it off, tell myself that it’s not a big deal. But it sort of is a big deal, because when it gets that bad, I can’t relax. I tell myself that I’ll tackle one thing on the list when Gus goes down for a nap, but then, somehow, I waste away the majority of his nap emptying the dishwasher, wiping down the counters, organizing the mail. I still never get to the actual cleaning… the stuff beyond the everyday load of laundry, the sink full of dishes.

Speaking of Gus. The everyday mom stuff can be hard if you’re not able to get into the “shrug it off” mode. And last week that just wasn’t happening. I had a meeting one night that I had to go to right from work. I was feeling ok about it, actually feeling like it might be nice to have a day where I wasn’t rushing home to help get dinner on the table, struggling to get Gus to eat something, doing dishes, squeezing in some fun time with the boy, then onward to the bedtime/bath routine, getting his bag packed for the next day, vegging out in front of the TV for an hour with a glass of wine before going to bed by 10:30, only to be woken up by crying on the baby monitor within twenty minutes of my head hitting the pillow.

So yeah, I thought it might be a sort of nice break to not have to rush home for all that. I met Lisa for coffee, after which we headed to the meeting where I got to talk “business” with adults over a nice meal. But then the meeting went a bit late, and I felt guilty. I needed to get home. At nine I was finally home, and I immediately snuck upstairs and peeked into Gus’s room to find Dan rocking and singing to a little toddler who did not look like he was cooperating with this whole “bedtime” thing. So I took my boy and nursed him and a half hour later he was asleep in his crib. By that time, Dan was almost through with dishes and putting together everything for the next day, and instead of feeling relieved, I felt guilty.

Guilty for not being there to help out. Guilty for having spent absolutely no time with my kid the whole day. Guilty for being pretty much the only one who can (relatively) easily get my son down at night. Guilty that Gus went to bed so late and because the next day was Thursday, he would have to be woken up at 6:00 AM so Dan could drop him off at his parents. And then guilty for still just being super exhausted and worn down, despite a night off.

I don’t know, I just couldn’t seem to shrug anything off last week. I mean Dan had just spent the evening doing day-care pickup/dinner/bath/stories/bedtime all by his lonesome, but I was the one that got all cranky about it. From the guilt! Ridiculous.

It’s so easy to let the little stuff get to you. I’m always worried about how much sleep Gus gets, because the “experts” all seem to say he should get more, but he just doesn’t nap very well for other people, and he’s at three different places each week, making a routine really hard to come by. Some mornings when I’m getting up for work it is impossible to get him from our bed to his crib without him waking up. So on those days, he’s up at 6:00.

And then I stress even more because I’m dropping him off somewhere where he will probably not get much more than an hour’s nap throughout the day. And then if that’s the case he’s a crankfest when Dan picks him up. So he has to decide to either a.) put him down for a nap at 4:30 PM, meaning bedtime is inevitably pushed out to 9:00 and thus perpetuate the cycle of not getting enough sleep, or b.) keep a tired and weary little boy content enough to make it through dinnertime and a bath, then it’s bed by 7:00 – one whole hour after I get home from work.

One guess as to how many mornings I was able to successfully transfer Gus from our bed to his crib last week. Zilch. Nada. None.

Good news though, we’ve started out this week much better than last. Gus slept until 7:00 this morning, at which point I actually had to wake him up to get him dressed and ready to go to Jasmine’s. And then at Jasmine’s, instead of sobbing when I said goodbye like he has the last few Tuesdays, he smiled at me from her hip and looked excited to run around and terrorize the rest of her household. Thank goodness, because my heart just can’t take those tearful goodbyes.

I made a much needed hard-core trip to the grocery store this weekend, so the refrigerator and pantry are stocked, making week-night dinnertime much less stressful. And the cherry on top of that sundae is that I made a big batch of chili this weekend so we already have one dinner ready to go! Leftovers are awesome.

Also, I vacuumed the whole main floor yesterday, and Dan (is awesome) hung some hooks in our living room/dining room that I bought a few weeks ago. So there is finally a place to store and hang our coats/bags/miscellaneous items that usually end up on the backs of our dining room chairs.

At my ECFE class yesterday the instructor totally blew my mind during our talk about toddler eating. I stress out a lot about how much Gus is eating, because not only is he becoming so much pickier than he used to be, but he also seems to be eating so much less. I’ve tried to stay zen about the whole thing, I know that at this age he’s not growing as rapidly as he was in the first year of his life, and he doesn’t really need as much food as I think he does. But who am I kidding, I’m an obsessive first-time mom.

Anyway, my instructor is awesome, love her, and she showed us actual visual representations of the portion sizes a 12-18 month-old should get. One serving of cheese, for example, is a pair of dice. A PAIR OF DICE! Um yeah… so it’s probably a good thing, rather than bad, that Gus is no longer eating whole sticks of cheese in one sitting, and I need to calm down. As for grains/carbs, (i.e. pasta/waffles) a toddler’s portion size is about the size of two dominoes. Like for reals.

Consider my mind BLOWN.

And finally, last night we had one of those nights where Dan and I both kept prolonging bedtime for Gus, not because we were dreading it or feeling super worn out, but because he was just being so sweet and wonderful and hilarious and adorable. He was starting to get to that point of the night where we were crossing over into over-tiredness, but he just had us in stitches, chasing a spinning bowl around the dining room, uncontrollable giggling, I just didn’t want to say goodnight to him. He was just too much, makes us so happy.

So anyway, here is to a good week! Not like last week was even that bad, I made it through, even if I felt a bit like a zombie at times. Really, I should say, “Here’s to shrugging it off!” because that seems to be the moral of the story.

My way

I’m not going to pretend this is some sort of enormous revelation, but grilled cheezus if I am not at all the type of mother I envisioned myself being, way back when. “Way back when” being… I dunno, as a 22 year old newly married know-it-all? The girl who thought this family she married into had a bit of this crazy-hippie thing going on with their homebirths and homeschooling and non-vaccinating ways, and she was a little… dare I say judgy?

I give myself more credit than that, I didn’t openly judge any of the parenting and personal choices my in-laws made, but I certainly dismissed a lot of it as “out-there” and unquestionably not for me. I didn’t get it. I didn’t know. I was young, and I had only my own upbringing to fall upon as “the way”.

Well that and TV and the Movies.

I may have concocted somewhat of a Hollywood-ized version of what it was like or should be like to start a family in the 21st century. I saw myself as a latte-sipping, suit-wearing, daycare dropping off, city-dwelling, working mother of 2 (a boy and a girl of course). All of my baby’s clothes would be unique and perfect and come from specialty boutiques rather than big-box stores. My kids would grow up eating sushi and using sign-language, and would certainly be potty-trained well before the age of two.

They would be well-mannered little angels who always did as told. We would go to church every Sunday as a family and I imagined the compliments we would receive from the elderly couple behind us about how wonderfully behaved our children were. We would still travel as a couple quite often, I mean what is wrong with those people who can’t leave their children for someone else to watch? Cut the umbilical cord already!

My house would not be cluttered with offensive plastic toys and baby contraptions, specifically the living room would be off limits for those kinds of messes. Oh, and HELL to the NO would I be bringing my baby to bed with me, that is horrifying! Babies belong in cribs!

In short, my life would be somewhat of a cross between Ally McBeal and the movie Stepmom, except I wouldn’t be a stepmom, I would be the real mom, and I wouldn’t have cancer and my daughter wouldn’t be a total snot. That’s really confusing because I need to reiterate that I wouldn’t be divorced, and my husband would not have left me for a younger woman, and neither would I be that other woman. Basically I would just look effortlessly beautiful like Julia Roberts all the time, live in a fantastic and chic loft, and have some sort of amazing kick-ass professional career. And my kids and I would spontaneously break out into song in the car as a way of cool-mom/kid bonding.

Anywaaaaay….

What I’m getting at here is that it’s interesting to see where I’m at, a little over a year into this whole parenting gig. A lot of the clothes Gus wears were purchased at thrift stores and garage sales by my mom, or given to us as hand-me-downs from Dan’s mom. Otherwise they’re from Target, Kohl’s, JC Penny, or Old Navy. Gasp! All very mainstream, big-box retailers. My inner 22-year old yuppie is horrified when she sees another kid wearing the same Carter’s dinosaur onesie that Gus has. Yeah, not really.

My absolute FAVORITE place to buy baby/children’s clothes is from Comfykid.com, specifically, I am obsessed with Zutano baby clothes. And honestly, their prices are not that unreasonable, but when it comes to buying clothes that my kid is going to grow out of in a matter of months, $20 for a pair of striped cozy knit pants or ridiculously adorable coveralls with little aliens and spaceships all over them is even too much for me. So I save that website for when I need a pick-me-up that only periwinkle sherpa overalls can provide.

Again, I am getting off track, cute baby clothes will do that to you. The point is, any normal day, set me loose on the table of $4 basic sweatpants and t-shirts at Target and I’m good to go.

At about the 6-week mark of my maternity leave I had a meltdown when I realized I couldn’t fathom going back to work full time and bringing Gus to the wonderful in-home daycare we had set up. So now he spends most of his time with his grandmas while I’m at work just three days a week, and I couldn’t feel more lucky or thankful for how everything has worked out. We’ve been able to find the work-life balance that works for our family and of course it looks nothing like what I thought it would.

As for our posh sushi dinners, I don’t even like or eat sushi, so my kids will have to settle for deep-fried sunfish and popcorn shrimp at grandma and grandpa’s cabin in Wisconsin. Sign-language has been a big old parenting fail, something I talk like I’m going to do but don’t actually do, and future Alicia will worry about potty training because this one doesn’t even want to think about it yet.

And the rest of that about my perfect family with well-behaved children who clean their plates and quietly play with their educational/developmental toys in a very specific corner of the house? That doesn’t even sound appealing AT ALL. I mean who are those people? What kind of life is that? Where’s the fun, the spontaneity, the messes, the yelling, the chasing, the chaos, the laughter?

Anyone who knows me knows that becoming a mom has brought out my inner-hippie. I am officially down on The Man, I don’t seem to quite fit in with the moms at my mommy-and-me class, and my friends think I’m crazy because I still haven’t spent a night away from my 13 month old son. I had an unmedicated Bradley birth and am still breastfeeding with no plans to stop anytime soon. My baby spends about 4 hours, at most, in his crib every night, and the rest of it snuggled up next to me and Dan in bed.

He’s nowhere close to sleeping through the night, but I can’t let him cry-it-out. I just can’t. Life is so short, our babies are only young once, and I am pretty sure, one way or another, he’ll be out of our bed someday and I’ll miss his sweet breath on my neck. The inconveniences I feel today of co-sleeping will seem so trivial when my baby is no longer my baby and I would give my right arm to go back in time and cuddle him all night long.

So I pretty much break all the parenting rules, and let my instincts guide my decisions. I “get” why people homeschool (and there are so many different reasons). I “get” why some people choose not to vaccinate. And homebirth? Gosh, sometimes I think I might even consider it if the idea of cleaning up the mess afterwards didn’t appall me so much. ;)

Mostly I’ve learned that there is no one way to do this. We’re all figuring it out, we’re all doing what works for our families, and I’m ok with that. Dan’s mom wrote something in an email to me once that just said it all, explained perfectly how it feels to be in charge of a life. We were talking about child care, my “Tuesday nanny” moved away this summer and I had the daunting task of finding someone new to watch Gus once a week, and of course I was a wreck about it. My brother was a bit dismissive, said something like, “people drop their kids off at daycare everyday and they’re fine, you’re being crazy”.

And I know, I probably was being a little crazy, but no! He is MY BABY and he is helpless and I am in charge of making sure he feels loved and cared for and trusting of his environment. I get why someone without a kid might say that, but gosh, when it’s YOUR BABY it IS different. We’re not just talking about some kid. That’s my kid. Though these days I can’t even look at a child and think of them as just “some kid” anymore.

Anyway, my mother-in-law said this to me, “When you’re the advocate for someone so trusting and small and you’re leaving him there, all by himself… that’s a responsibility that feels very huge and serious.”

YES! That is exactly it! And that is exactly why we all need to figure out for ourselves how we’re going to do this parenting stuff, and we all will probably do things a little bit differently.

So yeah, I’m surprised by what end of the parenting spectrum I ended up falling on, that’s for sure, and it’ll be interesting to see what kind of mom of a preschooler, pubescent teenager, and adult I end up being. Life is full of surprises, it’s something new every day, and I can thank God that I didn’t have it all figured out at 22.