The benefits of ppd

I was talking to a friend who has a child Jack's age recently about the loss of one's social life after a baby.. or rather .. the change to one's social life. As my friend said, 'it's a new way to be.' She mentioned her husband was fairly blue about it and she asked me how that was for me. I realized that I wasn't really sad about it and I wondered why since that was always an important part of my life.

Here is my theory: one (ridiculous) cure for a migraine is to have someone punch you in the arm for one minute straight. the idea is that you'll be distracted from your migraine then when the punching ends, you'll be grateful and relieved that it's over.. then your migraine doesn't seem so bad. I think having the baby would be the migraine then the post-partum depression is getting punched in the arm. For three months, I was convinced I would never experience joy again. So when it was over, pain from the loss of a vibrant social life didn't seem like much to deal with... not that I recommend it but it does make most other types of emotional discomfort seem .. well.. not that uncomfortable.

I know it's blurry..

but I had to post this one:

Bye Bye Lumpasaurus!

When Jack hit 5 or 6 months or so, people started asking me questions like "is he crawling? or "is he sitting up on his own" or "is he pulling himself up" or "is he flipping over a lot" or "can he do long division?" Well, not that, but my response to all of the questions was a similar kind of exasperation that the long division question might provoke. The answer to all the questions was no, no, no, and finally, no not that either. If there were a string of questions, I would say, no, he's just kind of a little lump, happy to lay there. If he were a drinking man, he'd probably just sip on a margarita. To make light of all that business, Ryan and I began calling him our little lumpasaurus.

But those days are over. Jack is scooting and sitting up, and he spends most of his time on his tummy. He grabs my hands and cries unless I pull him to standing. He sleeps on his side or on his belly usually. In order to resist sleep, he flips over onto his tummy then ends up face planting when he just can't resist any longer. We've had to lower the crib mattress.

Oh the times they are a changin.

Here is Jack thinking about long division:



Me and the little guy:

Mad Skilz

Jack is almost 8 months old, and all of a sudden he is a lot more interested in moving around on his own terms.

He sits up pretty well and he also scoots everywhere on his tummy but only backwards or in circles. He even tried to pull himself up using the chair this little i-have-no-idea-what-that-green-thing-is-called hangs on. He quickly discovered it's hard to lift all of your weight without the use of your legs.



We also went swimming for the first time with our PEPS group at a great outdoor pool. Jack was ok in the kiddie pool but more tentative in the big pool. Other people in our group said their kids started out similarly apprehensive but after a few swims they loved the pool. Hopefully, this will happen to Jack since we have three weeks of swimming lessons coming up in August.

The Creeps

About a month ago, the New Yorker wrote an article about Paul McCartney. The writer spent several days with him. At one point, they were walking down the street in London and someone jumped in front of them asking for a photo and an autograph. McCartney was gracious and later the writer pointed out that the exact same thing probably happened to John Lennon on the day he was shot. The writer said that guy who jumped out at them could have been another Mark David Chapman (the killer) and McCartney replied yeah, but he could have also been jesus.

I appreciate this sentiment.. one can't live in fear and most people who approach you do not have malicious intentions.

With that in mind, I was in Trader Joe's the other day with Jack in the ergo. We were in the checkout line when a man in his late fifties walked by and exclaimed what a beautiful baby and could he see him (I took this as asking permission to approach us). I said sure and he made a funny face at Jack who smiled. Then the guy said, see - he can tell how much I care about him.

In the two seconds that it took for all of my blood to run cold the guy made another face at Jack who just looked away and I simply turned around. It was one of the creepiest moments of my life and it has really been bugging me. I completely froze and fled as soon as my motor neurons got the message from my brain that this person was a freak... and more specifically, dangerous. I wish I had reacted more aggressively.

I don't want to live my life in fear of people like this. They are few and far between. But when you encounter them, you do (to paraphrase anne lamott) want to stand guard outside your house with a shotgun for the entirety of your child's life.

Rituals

Months ago, when Jack was a tiny tike, the nurse practioner who moderated our First Weeks discussions reminded us that we can create rituals even at an early age. People talked about the rituals they remember as kids.. it was very sweet but at the time, I didn't have much energy for it.

Luckily that changed and now we have a couple of rituals we all enjoy. The first is that we always read to Jack before he sleeps. His favorite book is Baby Beluga. Every time I pull out that book, he smiles a big open-mouth smile. The other thing that we do is two days a week Ryan and I take Jack on a walk in the early morning hours just after he has woken up and eaten.. for a while this was 6am now its around 7. We go to one of the many espresso places near our house and then check out the sites. He looks around and inevitably falls asleep by the end of the walk. It's very peaceful, and the short trip always renews our spirits and reminds us how lucky we are.

eating disorder

is it possible to have an eating disorder focused on someone else's eating? You obsess about what the other person is eating and how much... it would also be the opposite of anorexia .. want-your-kid-to-eat-more-exia.

I have this illness. It started when Jack was in the hospital and he HAD to eat a certain amount within a 3 hour period. It was so stressful because he always fell asleep and sometimes the whole ordeal took 3 hours then we just had to start over.

Ever since then he has never eaten what he's supposed to.. maybe its just a big F you to the establishment that force-fed him. My latest theory is that he doesn't like eating from a bottle. He loves solid food and gets really excited to drink from a cup or eat from a spoon. So today, after he only ate a couple of ounces of formula, I poured it into a little bowl and spoon-fed it to him. He loved it and ate/slurped the rest.

He is a little man of mystery.