It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way!

I realize that I may be burned at the stake for this post but here it goes, what the hell! What good is the internet if you can’t share your crazy opinions, lol!

When I was pregnant with Everly I vowed that I was not going to be one of those mothers in the mall with dirty sweatpants, an old t-shirt and greasy hair in a pony tail with their child immaculately dressed in the stroller. I vowed that my child was not going to become my measurement of  self worth. I was not going to let myself go and have the “awww she’s so cutes” of my baby be enough. I guess what I am trying to say is that I still wanted people to think I was attractive too, and if we are all HONEST with ourselves who doesn’t? I know there are people out there who don’t have to courage to admit that they would like other people to find them attractive (even if it is just your partner) because they think it is shallow and vein and I think that’s sad and so contradictory. Why shouldn’t we be allowed to want to look nice, especially when we are all kind of expected to (according to pop culture and media)? I am not saying that looks are all that matter, but shouldn’t they matter a little bit? Doesn’t looking nice help you to feel nice? I know it does for me… Oh I am totally showing how shallow I really am, lol!

Now maybe it is because I only have one child, or maybe it is because of my baby’s age, or maybe my baby’s temperament, but I have been able to manage to make myself presentable upon exiting my house up until now (that’s just a smidge of a boastful statement isn’t it! ha ha). Well, actually wait, let’s back that truck up I know lots of moms that still look nice and have children… so maybe it could be because I only have one child, that makes things easier for sure, but it is not because of her age and temperament because even when she was newborn I washed my hair and she is a DEMANDING child so it can’t be her temperament… and all babies have different temperaments so that wouldn’t account for all the yummy mummys I see… Maybe it’s because they, and I, prioritize a little bit of time for ourselves. Ah-ha! There it is! It’s that extra 5 minutes that I make before we leave the house where she is strapped into her car seat/high chair at the door of my bedroom or bathroom while I finish putting myself together. She and I love this moment together, seriously we do. I act all silly and entertaining and she clearly thinks I am the greatest mom, put here on the earth for her pure enjoyment. I hope this 5 minute moment continues as she gets older.

I hadn’t thought much of all this until recently when a friend commented that I was more put together than her and she has no kids, she said usually people with kids aren’t as put together as single people, I said well I guess I find the time and I make it a priority. I think I should take a moment here and clarify what I mean by put together; put together does not mean 4 inch heels and a full face of racoon make-up. Put together could be jeans and a clean graphic t-shirt or cute lulu’s and a nice hoodie with a bit of lip gloss, basically just looking like you made some effort to polish out the rough edges of dried cereal and snot he he he.

Another thing that piqued my attention was an article I read where the mom had said that because she had kids she couldn’t go to the mall to shop for herself and couldn’t wash her hair and couldn’t wear nice clothes when she went out with her kids. Shower at night when your kids are in bed… change your clothes just before you leave the house so they don’t get dirty before you leave, and then change back into your grubs when you get back to your house (thereby reducing the amount of time near the child who’s goal in life is to get everything dirty, lol!). As for shopping… well we have no problems there. I have taken Everly shopping since she was 2 weeks old and she does just fine in the mall. Sure there are days that I can’t try something on, but most stores have great return/exchange policies so you can try it on at home and return if needed (ps. I pretty much only buy things for myself in stores with policies such as this).

I am not using my baby as an excuse to look like dirty and disheveled. If you want to dress sloppy in sweats and dirty t-shits, that’s fine, that’s your choice, just don’t blame it on your baby. And for the record, I don’t think that caring what you look like is an entirely shallow trait either. It’s important that a child learns that the world judges you by how you present yourself (yes I just wrote that). I am not saying that we should all look the same, or that my version of put together is the right one. I know that this way of thinking which our society has subscribed to might not be morally right or fair, but it is the truth of our world and probably not likely to change, especially when people like me perpetuate the belief, I know, I know :)- Yes I have heard that we all have the power to change the world and that I should teach my child the right way and yadda, yadda, yadda… Obviously I will tell Everly not to judge a book by it’s cover, I will tell her that the inside is really what counts at the end of the day. But I am also going to be realistic with her, something like informed consent and then she can make her own choices about what to do in a situation. When Everly goes for her first job interview or has to defend her thesis (obvi) I hope that she will remember that looking put together will help people to take her seriously, because although it shouldn’t matter in a perfect world, it does in this one.  Or maybe, by the time she is this age none of this stuff will matter and she will think her mom is as shallow as two drops of rain on a dime! She is going to hate me for something one day, it might as well be for wanting her to look nice, ha ha ha (that was an evil villain laugh).

Vote For Everly!

One of Everly’s photos is in the lead to win a photo contest(!), please   CLICK HERE   to vote for her!

Zap!

Baby’s second accident happened on Saturday morning. I had her room all set up for her Valentine card photoshoot. I had to unplug her wipes warmer so that I would not have a cord interrupting the shot. I wrapped the cord around her diaper pail so that it was out of the way. The shoot went off without a hitch, we took 32 pictures in 1 minute and got the shot (my baby is a pro by now, lol). She was full of smiles so she made it really easy! When picture taking time was over, I put her on the floor to play. My friend Lauren, who was visiting from out of town made a comment about Everly’s pink chair and then attempted to sit in it… she placed her butt in the chair only to notice that it was a little snug, and fair enough, this is a child’s chair. I boasted to her that my butt fits in the chair (just couldn’t keep my boastful mouth shut). She called fib and so I sat in there to show her. 

While I was sitting in the chair (oh yes, my butt fit, ha ha) and we were discussing our respective butt sizes, Everly screamed and started to cry. I saw right away that she had the cord from the wipes warmer in her hand (which I had thought I hid). I immediately put two and two together and felt like the worst mother around. My baby had shocked herself while I was comparing the size of my butt to that of one of my girlfriends- are you kidding me? I scooped Everly up and gave her cuddles, which did not work, she continued to cry. So I sat down and nursed her, I gave her food to soothe my guilt, oh yes I did. Everly started suckling, but she was still making whimpering noises and I still felt like garbage. 

My mind started racing, thinking of all of the possible injuries that she could have due to my carelessness- a burnt tongue, brain damage- who knew?!? Upon seeing my face Lauren tried to talk me down, telling me that accidents happen. I said yes, but this one was preventable- she said well isn’t that what an accident is, something that was preventable? I was still caught in my web of self loathing so she pushed on… she said what matters and what is Everly going to remember more: that she shocked herself or that her mom was there to make it better. Ah Lauren, you know just what to say. This made me feel a bit better. 

I shared my injury concerns with Lauren; I asked timidly you don’t think she could really get hurt from that do you? Lauren said no, it just scared her probably. Lauren could still see the concern on my face and again, she pushed on, doing what any self respecting best auntie of the year would do; Lauren took the power cord and put it to her own tongue. She said assuredly, well that was a bit of a pinch. I immediately started laughing, I could not believe what she had done and I could not believe how much better it made me feel. 

Writing this now I realize what a couple of dumbasses we really could look like, me being the larger because I created an unsafe space for my daughter, but we all learned lessons. I learned to not trust Everly and her exploring ways. Lauren learned what the end of a live power cord to your tongue feels like and Everly learned just how much we both love her. 

One of the photos from the shoot!

8:05am Cheers With The Sippy Cup

Yesterday morning I got a taste of what it would be like to be a working single mother with an 8 month old baby, let me just take a moment to say, wow- my hat goes off to those ladies who do this every day!

7:20am… B walks into the bedroom to tell me that Everly is still sleeping and that he is leaving for work. I pop out of bed like a piece of toast, amazed that it is 7:15 and she is still sleeping… what happened to her waking me up between 6:45 and 7:00? Knowing that we need to be out of the house by 7:50 I walk down the hall and open the door to her bedroom, hoping that the morning ambiance will wake her.

7:25am… I am in the bathroom having a hooker shower with a face cloth and wetting my hair, just as I start brushing my teeth I hear B walk into her room and pick her up (wasn’t he leaving)? He plunks her down on the floor in the bathroom and says see ya later- thanks babe, (secretly I was hoping that she would stay sleeping until I was dressed).

7:27am… she is hungry and not being shy about telling me (of course), I realize that I am going to have to feed her as I do what I need to do to get ready. In the high chair she goes as I mix up her breakfast, am thinking this might be better because now she is contained. I drag the high chair to my room where I take turns giving her spoonfuls of cereal mixed with fruit and getting myself dressed. One spoonful, 2 socks, one spoonful, underwear, one spoonful, bra… until I am done and she nearly is too- aha! We have a system.

7:37am… I sit to feed her the last bits of her breakfast and suddenly I am aware of the towel still on my head. I drag her high chair to the bathroom door and take turns putting product into my hair while feeding her the last spoonfuls of her cereal- thank goodness she choose to cooperate and eat this morning is all I can think of… thank you patron saint of feeding babies. I pause and wonder what would the patron saint of feeding babies be called? Emeril, Rachel, Top Chef? Maybe that guy who swears all the time… okay focus, focus.

7:45am… time to nurse Everly. I thought we might be able to wait to do this until I got her to my cousin’s (who was looking after her), but no, she would have none of it. I am tapping my foot on the floor as she guzzles; said guzzling is partially because I am squashing my boob with my free hand to make the milk come out as fast as possible… I have seen how this kid can throw back a bottle, I know she can handle it.

7:50… we were supposed to be leaving the house at this point but nope, it’s only time to get Everly dressed. Getting Everly dressed is kind of like trying to get a lobster into one leg on a pair of pantyhose without the pantyhose being snagged; it isn’t easy. So we wrestle and sing songs and eventually she is ready to go. I put on her coat and strap her into her car seat.

7:56… I am a pack mule waking out to the car with Everly’s diaper bag, my work bag, Everly’s daycare supplies bag and my donations for work bag… oh and Everly in her car seat- which now officially combined weighs over 25 pounds. I hobble and hop and get half way to the car and realize that I am still wearing my slippers. I trek on despite the slippers, I have come too far with my load to turn back, I am closer to the car than my door. I play put stuff into the car tetris and then quickly run back into the house for some shoes- awesome, we are ready to go and only 10 minutes behind schedule.

8:03am… I am in the car at an intersection and hear my tummy growl, I feel my throat- heechk (a bit dry and pasty), is it possible that through all of this I have not eaten or drank anything, YES. Food I knew I didn’t have, but water hmmm, I took a quick look around the inside of my car and miracle of miracles, there in the cup holder was one of Everly’s sippy cups. I grabbed the cup and tried to get the lid off so that I could down the water inside, yeah, no, they don’t make these lids easy to get off do they. So I started sipping. I learned yesterday morning that it takes a lot of effort to get water out of a sippy cup, so I was sipping hard. I started to feel like I was being watched and sure enough I was. The lady in the car on my left was staring blank faced right at me. I found myself embarrased for a nanosecond and then I took the cup out of my mouth, raised it in a cheers like fashion and drove away as the light turned green… at least I gave her something to tell her friends at work.

8:13am… we arrive at my cousin’s house, 13 minutes late but everyone present and sound. I drop her off without any trouble and head to work. I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly… ahhhh work the vacation day in my week.

55 Minutes!

New post on the Kids In Victoria Blog!

Excerpt from post:

A girlfriend of mine was planning a road trip with her family for Christmas. She was concerned with the comfort and safety of her 6 and a half month old baby on their long journey so she started looking into a change of car seats. Her little guy was in the traditional infant bucket seat still and she though that maybe he would be happier in a 3-in-1; so began the search. She tried different stores, comparing features and prices. Her search eventually led her to one locally owned business near her home, she had no idea what she was in for!

When the woman working at the store asked if she could help, my friend told her the situation she was in. The woman said that baby might be most comfortable in the seat he had already gotten used to and that a long journey in a new seat might not be the best thing (good point). The woman had done her job as a salesclerk, but do you think that’s where it ended? Nope, it’s not. Upon getting more information about the journey, the woman informed my friend that she had better stop every 55 minutes and take her baby out of the car seat or he would develop ADHD one day. I am not kidding. My friend said well I don’t believe that riding in a car seat for longer than 55 minutes will give a child ADHD, I think it’s genetic or maybe other environmental factors. The woman said no, there were studies done and these studies said exactly 55 minutes or the child will develop ADHD. My friend left the store with no plans to return when the time did come to get a new car seat for her son!

Now, I have been privileged to receive a lot of information on all things babies over the last 4 years in my career as an Infant Development Consultant, but never have I heard of this 55 minute rule of travel. You would think, that as someone who works with infants I would have been privy to this very important information. After my friend told me, I agreed with her that it sounded like a pile of paranoid poop. When I went home I scoured the Internet and I couldn’t even find one mention of such a study… if it isn’t on the Internet, it doesn’t have much street creed, lol, because there is all kinds of crazy on the Internet! Where did this woman hear this information?

All I can think of now is how many poor, worry prone mothers this “well intentioned” woman is going to share this information with. Will they be stopping their car every 55 minutes to let their child out? Poor worried mothers. Will they wake the baby if they are sleeping? Many infants have 2 hour naps at 6-9 months old where they are still and quiet in their beds, why would it be any different if they are in a car seat. How many mothers now are going to be paranoid that their child will have ADHD… what if your commute to daycare is longer than 55 minutes (in some metropolitan areas it might be)?

Now I understand that you should not leave a baby in a car seat for hours at a time and not respond to their needs, obviously you should and obviously my friend did respond to ALL of her baby’s needs appropriately. I also understand that only at a certain age should long car rides be planned due to a risk of asphyxiation, but her little guy was 6 and a half months and fully supporting his head on his own.

There are so many holes in this information, but unfortunately many moms will buy it hook, line and sinker and why is that? It seems like we are all afraid to go against the grain of the current “fad thought” even if it sounds kind of silly or is completely unfounded information.We don’t want to be caught with our pants down by not doing what every other family is doing. You will get the glance from other mothers, the judging stare, the raised eyebrows, the “pfft” air release from pursed lips accompanied by shocked expression (I have seen them all).

I think we need to approach these situations like my friend did- talk about it with other moms and do a bit of research before we worry your fool brains out. It seems like there is new information every day. Some of it is helpful, like the “back to sleep” campaign, but some of it is going a little bit overboard. There are real dangers out there to our kids, let’s pour our energy into protecting them from those!

<!– –>

Baby Slow Down!

A friend and I were talking today about how demanding and competitive parenting has gotten since we were babies. 25 years ago parents just raised their kids, sure they read books and had to listen to advice given by the generation before (and thus be judged accordingly), but there wasn’t the same “air” of you have to do it this way or your kid is going to be messed up/slow/a low functioning human. What ever happened to happy? There was a time when parents said I just want my kid to be happy and they meant it! It seems that today parents focus on getting their kids to do things faster and grander than ever before. When you ask about how a baby is doing most moms will give you a developmental milestone update (myself included), why don’t we ever just say, you know what my baby is really happy and we are having fun. Why is there all this pressure for our children to be ”the best.” Shouldn’t we first try to achieve our personal best and then expect that of our children, I know that I am not at my personal best! Do we forget about ourselves and put all of our eggs into their tiny, innocent little baskets? Everywhere you go you hear moms comparing babies. Some moms do this innocently or from genuine interest (you know who they are) and other moms try to act like it is innocent and genuine but it is coming from somewhere competitive (you totally know who these moms are).

This issue really picks my bum. When I was at a get together of a group of children another mom gave Everly and I a lovely compliment, saying that Everly was  speeding along nicely in her development. Yes she is and we are proud of her I replied, I also said that try as I might I can’t slow her down, lol, this is her pace! Another mom said that since I do what I do for a living Everly should be ahead in her development because I can make her do things. Really? Have you read my blog? This is not the blog of someone who has successfully figured out how to make her daughter do things! stubbornness aside, you can’t make a baby do anything before they are ready (both cognitively and physically); if you could my work with families would not last long and we would never need additional therapy services. If you could just “make” a baby crawl or talk, there wouldn’t be a baby around who was “behind” and they would all be walking and talking at 2 months old (okay that’s an exaggeration, but do you get what I am getting at here?). I don’t want to be accused of forcing my child to do something she isn’t ready to do and I want to enjoy my baby being a baby. As excited as I get for her to meet milestones, I also get a little bit sad every time because it means that she is that much farther away from being an infant, which means that she is growing up and that I can not stop time. Everyone says to me that she will be walking in no time, and they say it so excitedly. I always reply let’s hope not and roll my eyes and then I get these blank stares, lol.

The same idea goes for her sleeping. I realized that trying to “train” her to do something she just wasn’t ready to do was not working for us, so rather than let it consume me again our family took a break in December. I was focusing too much on trying to get her to sleep 12 hours solid at night because of course everything says that she should sleep such and such hours and blah, blah, blah. Of course you want to believe the blah, blah, blahs when you are tired, so you go with it. Well a few months later and nearly 5 books read I have found that not one “sleep solution theorist” has the answer for our family, and you know what- rightly so, as they have never met Everly. For the past few weeks I have married many different ”sleep techniques” and have given Everly a bit more of the lead when it comes to sleep and shocker or shockers, she is sleeping better than ever. I have given her what I need to give her and have allowed her to find her way and do the rest. This isn’t to say that every sleep time in our house is blissful, it isn’t and it will never be, because every sleeptime isn’t blissful for me, I am realistic about this now! But we are not fighting each other and keeping logs and making it the focus of our day (and night). Some kids are easy to put to sleep and like to have long naps (Q buddy, that’s you!) some babies aren’t this is Everly.

On a tv show the other day I saw that the mom was using a program to teach her toddler to READ. I was like, are you kidding me? This toddler has the rest of her life to read, and will learn to when it is truly developmentally appropriate, why are you rushing this? I can just image how much google lit up that night from parents searching ”baby reading programs” so that they could get it for their own unsuspecting infants before their friends do! But seriously people, reading toddlers? I understand that some geniuses start reading very young, but newsflash eager beavers, these children usually pick up the books and start reading on their own with only having been read to themselves as intervention. Reading with and to your baby is still the best option to promote early literacy, you don’t need some special kit and program.

I am not trying to say that we should stop telling people when our children do wonderful things, of course that should be celebrated. I am saying that the pressure should be taken off of our children and that sometimes just being a happy baby should be wonderful news enough.  When will we start to let our babies be who they are? When will we just relax and enjoy the ride. I say this for myself as well. I always have the developmentalist part of my brain telling me “when” Everly should be achieving certain skills. I was acutely aware that she had a minor delay in gross motor skills in September, lol. But look how that turned out, it goes to show that every baby has their pace for development and learning! I have slowly learned to let go. Things will happen when they are going to happen, and there is no point in getting caught up in it, comparing her to other babies or obsessing. I am challenging myself to enjoy her for the person that she is, because she is wonderful and if push came to shove, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I-Teethe

I have been a bad blogger this week. Things have been busy, but no more busy than usual really. I guess I kind of don’t have an excuse other than I have been lazy. When she goes to bed, I go to bed right after her. The bonus of this- I have been getting so much luxurious sleep lately, and that Martha is a good thing! 

The early bed times of this week have got me to thinking of all the things you never thought you would do or would happen once you became a parent, it’s funny how 9:00 all of a sudden became late at night. To be out past 9:00 is even more of an accomplishment. On Friday it was Brandon’s birthday and we went out for dinner, then to a friend’s for cake. We didn’t get home until 9:30 at night (wooo-hoo, living it up). I thought Everly would revolt with this schedule change, but the little sucker went right to bed and slept sound all night; her best night of the week actually so go figure. I took this as a sign that we can get away with outings like this more often  

Another thing that I never thought about experiencing once I became a parent was seeing my husband suck spit from the speaker of his iphone. Brandon has games on his phone specifically for Everly (or so he says), one of these games makes animal noises when you touch the respective animal. Everly is never satisfied by merely experiencing something with her hands and eyes, it needs to go in her mouth, so in went the iphone. We thought it was funny at first, her sucking on the phone while little “oink oinks” and “quack quacks” came out, it’s still funny now when I think of it. But then B was receiving a call and the phone would not ring, the sounds stopped- the iphone was silent. In a moment of panic (iphone users know what I am talking about here) he put the speaker to his lips and sucked, you could hear the drool exiting the phone as he did this, it was a lovely crackling noise. I yelled out ewwww, as he demonstrated the return of sound, thereby eliminating the need to feel embarrassment by my grossed-out-ness. He looked at me and said, put that on you blog, I said, oh don’t worry, I wasn’t waiting for your permission, lol. 

And while we are on the subject of Brandon and Everly interactions and things I never thought of I would like to bring up food sharing. I for one, am not opposed to sharing food from my plate with Everly, provided it is a healthy choice for her, some parents don’t like to do it, but I really don’t care. Brandon shares with her too, so she has come to have certain entitlement issues to anything that we are eating naturally. One day last week, while Brandon was watching football, he made himself a plate of nachos to enjoy. He sat down in the living room and prepared to enjoy his melted cheese on salty chips (my mouth is watering now). Everly saw that he was eating so she pulled to stand at the couch and cruised her way on over. She stared at him with her big blue eyes, sweeping the floor with her lashes. She reached towards his plate with a smile on her face, he looked down at her and said NO, she backed off for about 30 seconds and tried again, he said NO a little bit more seriously. She made a concentrated lip pucker, scrunched eyebrow face and once again leaned in for what should rightfully be her’s, he looked at her and said No- go to Hell. I said excuse me, did you just tell the baby to go to Hell? He said yes I did, she was trying to steal my food. I reminded him that she is going to learn to say what we say and asked if one day he would like to have her tell him to go to Hell, he said well if I was trying to steal her food then she should. Men. 

We have seen some MILESTONES in the past month that I just have to share because, well, I just have to! All of these new skills are making her more and more fun, I think that this age is my favourite so far. She now has 4 words that she is trying to use on a daily basis (mama, dada, “dog” and “hi”). The mama and dada she has down pat, dog and hi are new in the past week or so. She now elicits games of peek’a'boo by pulling things over her face and then ripping them down with an expectant smile on her face. She has started walking with her wheeled walker and will bend down to pick things up off the floor while holding on. The first time I put her to this walker she pushed it out waaaay too far and her legs couldn’t catch up. After a few tries, her legs caught up and she realized the power she could soon harness. I recognized the look of revelation that was written across her face. I felt the same way when I was 12 and grew boobs and discovered how boys were then puddy in my hands- if Everly takes after me this day will also come for her, I am laying the groundwork now to make sure that she uses this power for good and not evil! 

BOO!

Dog Park = Toddler Play Group

New post on the Kids in Victoria Blog, this one explores the similarities between dog parks and toddler play groups… can you add to the list?

Are You There God?… hello you’ve reached god, I’m not home right now, please leave a message after the beep.

I don’t even technically believe in God, but right now I am getting pretty desperate. Consider me crispy… fried… burnt out, whatever you want to call it I am just so done. My body aches all the time, my mind is screaming, my insides feel like tar, no I am not sick or dying of some incurable disease- I live with an 8 month old baby that would like to continue running our household. When she was little I subscribed to the babyled schedule thing and the feeding on demand, but now that she is getting older and starting to get into things it has become time for discipline, it is also time for the sleep training to commence. I believe that toddlers and young children thrive on predictability and routine and since Everly has not begun to create her own, we have had to help her along. I have used some ideas from the Baby Whisperer book to assist us in this massive undertaking, and when I say massive I mean huge, like universe never ending huge. We have a stubborn baby who doesn’t know what’s good for her.

For the last week sleep has been a bit of a non issue in our house which was a blessed event. The first 3 days were a bit hard, but nothing like the first 3 days of the Sleepsense program (lethal). We started getting into a routine, I can actually guess when she is going to nap withing 20 minutes of when she actually does and she was going down easy. I remember reading in the Baby Whisperer that around 1 week there is some backsliding, um, I think we hit that tonight. As I write we are going on 3 hours of lovely, melodic crying. As I write I am fighting the urge to grab the pencils from our pen jar and stick them in my ears, piercing my ear drums and thus my ability to hear. For the first 2 hours we stayed in the room with her, using the sleep cue words and gently layed her back down on her back every time that she rolled on to her hands and knees and stood up/pulled to stand. I lost count at 100. B took the first hour, I took the second hour and then I decided that maybe it was time we all took a break from each other. Funny thing was that she didn’t cry as hard when we weren’t in the room. Here I think that she is more comforted by us in the room, but I wonder if maybe it’s more frustrating for her because we are in there and not doing anything for her except laying her back down when she pops up. I just don’t know. My intention for tonight was to hammer through the “wall” and hopefully set the precedent that no amount of hullabaloo gets you out of bed when it is time to sleep (all things considered of course- she is fed, she has a clean diaper, she is not in pain, she is safe, she is loved). You know, if I cried for almost 3 hours I would be exhausted, I don’t even know if I could cry for 3 hours to be honest- where do babies find all this energy?!

For the past week she has been going to bed around 7:30pm, then gets up at around 4:30am or so to eat and then sleeps in until 7:00am; this was a schedule that I could live with, sure it’s not pure bliss, but it’s also not bad at all for a baby of Everly’s age and I would not complain if we could continue on with it. For tonight, I know it is wishful thinking, but it would be nice if she skipped the 4:30 and went right to 7:00, considering that it is now 12:20am. In the past I would have given in at this point, but not tonight, we have come too far and all of the giving in just causes confusion and makes this last longer. I do not want Everly to be toddler/child with sleep issues, I want her to be well rested, happy and ready to face her days and learn. This means that we pave the way now and undo all of our “accidental parenting.” Tough job this parenting. Ahhh, I am just waiting for the “you are a monster email” from a disgruntled reader about this, lol.

I think that the separation anxiety contributes to my crispiness too. All day she fusses and moans and screams if she can’t see me for 10 seconds. Then when we are next to each other all she does is claw and grab and scratch and bite (another reason the discipline is starting); I feel so claustrophobic. It’s confusing to me that I could love her as much as I do, yet want to be away from her as much as I do. I have had a lot of guilt around these feelings of wanting to get away from everything. Tonight, if someone had shown up at my door with a ticket to Vegas I would have left with just the clothes on my back and no toothbrush. Yeah, I might have had regrets once the plane took off, but all I could think about while standing next to her crib was escaping. My sense is that this is normal for anyone who is experiencing challenges with their child and I don’t think that it makes you a bad parent to think that way, I think what leads you to “bad parent” territory is how you react to those thoughts and feelings. I think that the fact that you are having them means that you need to get away a little bit and I also think that you will be a better parent for respecting that need. This is just my opinion of course and I am sure there is someone out there who disagrees and thinks I am horrible for writing this (but I bet even that person who thinks I am horrible for writing this has had that thought and just didn’t admit it to anyone).

12:29am, blissful, wonderful silence… (positive though)- this will last until 7:00am…

Do The Babies Have Large Talons?

One thing I forgot to ask in the prenatal class was if the babies come out with large talons… I am not sure if they would have told me the truth and said yes, they would have probably lied and said no. It’s fitting that this crucial bit of information was left out like so many other “gems” that may affect one’s decision to procreate. So I am here to tell you that yes, the baby comes with large talons, maybe not right away, but they grow in and they are sharp. Once the nails start growing you realize that you are going to have to cut them. I am not sure there was anything about infant care that I was so terrified about. You are holding this tiny baby hand with it’s 5 paper thin, nearly microscopic nails and you are meant to clip them with razor sharp cutters (okay maybe the cutters are not razor sharp but they might as well be for how scary it is). I made Brandon do it the first few times. The first time he cut her nails she bled, and since fingertips bleed like gutted pigs, the blood kept pouring… reminding us that we had failed on this one. Fortunately she was so tiny and tired that she barely noticed (thank God!). The next few rounds of cutting were uneventful, I think it was once he got confident that he accidentally cut her again, this time she was awake, alert and livid. She cried and bled for what seemed like hours but was probably only 5 minutes. I volunteered to take over after that. So now nail cutting is my job and I do it while she is eating at night (her most naturally sedate time). It’s a good thing that by this point in time I have gone pro nail cutter, because my daughter’s nails grow so fast, I could cut them twice a week if I really wanted to be picky about it, come to think of it the time may have come to get picky. 

Baby and Daddy!

 

Lately each breastfeeding session results in my boobs clawed up, (like I said, those little f***ers are SHARP! Everly has a need for a lot of tactile stimulation right now, and by tactile stimulation I mean clawing, scratching, pinching, twisting and pulling; all of the above are currently offenses committed by her on my sensitive boob skin and nipples. Right now both my right and left breasts look like google maps- little scratches like little streets and scabs that might represent a school or shopping mall. Yes we have started the discipline thing and I take her off the boob and hold her hand and say NO! I have even taken it one step further and I hold her hand and run my finger along the top of it and say ‘gentle’ so that she knows what a gentle touch feels like. But all it takes is one second and she is really good at getting that one second in! I was very near to weaning her from the breast I was so fed up with it, instead she now wears mittens or gets swaddled, which you can guess she really appreciates. How funny does that look, my little baby tucking in for a meal with pink woolen mittens on her hands. The good that has come out of this is that the swaddle really helps her to relax before sleep, thank you breasts for your sacrifice… should have known that the brain in it’s quest for sleep would be willing to sacrifice other body parts.  

Yes, the topic of sleep, always an interesting one in our household. How I wish I could go back to the days where she slept with us in our bed without a peep for solid 8 and 9 hour stretches, only we would all have enough room. In this fantasy my ass wouldn’t be hanging off the side of the bed while B’s leg hangs off the other side, while Everly ‘queen of the bed’ spreads out like a snow angel in the middle, life would be good. But no, life didn’t continue on like it does in dreams and we had to put her in her crib. If you have been reading this blog you know the ordeal that has been for our ’spirited’ baby. Well it seems that the Baby Whisperer (who told us our child is spirited) has helped this family. I say seems because so far things are going pretty good. She is only waking to feed once in a 12 hour stretch (I am totally willing to live with this) and she is sleeping in her own bed. When she goes down for sleep times it can sometimes be a bit of an ordeal and may take up to 30 minutes, but I feel okay with that because the Baby Whisperer said her worst case had her standing next to the crib for nearly 2 hours. I feel better knowing someone had it worse than us, isn’t that mean, yes it’s mean, but it doesn’t change the fact that I still feel better about it, lol! 

Pickle likes her crib!