Cake

We had a little party for Jack. I secretly hoped he wouldn't like the cake as I have seen a few babies his age do. But, alas, that did not happen.

Happy Birthday to Jack

It was a beautiful day -- on the day you were born. That is what Bridget and Heather's grandmother said every time she called her grandchildren on their birthdays. When I heard that, I wondered what I would say to Jack. On the day you were born I had no idea what the weather was like because I was so overwhelmed that I never thought to look out the window? No. I won't say that because I imagine that my narrative of my first few days and months with Jack will fade and instead be replaced with my feelings for him now. It is impossible to summarize this year. Certainly, it has been the hardest of my life but not the worst. I have made a lot of sacrifices but for a worthy exchange.

If I were to convey anything to Jack about his birthday I think I would steal the sentiments from the last few pages of the lovely children's book 'On the Day You Were Born.'

On the day you were born
the Earth turned, the moon pulled, the sun flared
and then, with a push, you slipped out of the dark quiet
where suddenly you could hear ...

a circle of people singing with voices familiar and clear

welcome to the spinning world the people sang
as they washed your tiny hands

welcome to the green earth, the people sang
as they wrapped your wet, slippery body

And as they held you close
they whispered into your open, curving ear
We are so glad you've come

12 hours later

So here I am 12 hours after my labor technically started.. I was having regular contractions but nothing very strong. Since my water had broken 12 hours earlier, the midwife insisted I check into the hospital. The strange thing about remembering this time is realizing that I was in denial about having a baby. I suppose it was a coping mechanism for something that was too overwhelming to even imagine.

Last year at this time

If you asked me what I was doing on August 12 or May 23 of last year or any specific day of most years of my life, I would have no idea. But I do remember November 16, 2006. I woke up, walked to my chemistry class, had lunch at a little cafe by school, then I went to my chemistry lab where I stood for 5! hours working on the most tedious lab of my entire year of chemistry. A former chemistry professor saw me and mentioned he didn't think I was going to make it until the end of the quarter based on the size of my stomach. I really didn't think I looked that big. I got home around 5 .. I don't remember what happened until 11:30 when I felt a weird snap and suspected that my water had broken.

Here is what I looked like:



(we actually took this on the morning of 11/17. i had sort of slept that night .. but not really)

Photo shoot

I recently decided that we should have professional family photos taken.. I wanted to celebrate the end of Jack's first year. I am also aware that I am not a great photographer so I wanted some good shots. A dear friend of mine took the photos (samples of her work) at the arboretum. Here are a few of our favorites:





It's kind of weird having a family photo taken. (We do have shots of the three of us but I don't have the images yet) This used to mean a picture with my siblings and parents. But now I have a family of my own. I feel very grown-up. I suppose it's time.

Happy Halloween

A little late.

The latest news is that I started a babysitting co-op in my neighborhood. We have 6 families participating -- kids range in age from 4 months to 7. It's a pretty simple arrangement. Everyone gets 15 poker chips. Each hour "costs" one chip and the only way you get chips is to watch someone else's child(ren). Ryan and I are going out tonight (woo-hoo!) and I am watching 2 kids tomorrow night. I actually like children now whereas before I had a child, I thought they were kind of boring. So, I am looking forward to getting to know the kids in my neighborhood.

Also, Jack has mastered getting up and down from a standing position so he is much happier. He is also feeding himself and displaying preferences for food as he eats. While this is a totally mundane thing that everyone you know does, it's crazy to see it displayed for the first time in another person. Yesterday I gave him a plate of eggs, toast, avocado and cheese (all sliced into small pieces). He ate the toast first and when it was gone went for the cheese, then the avocado, and finally the eggs -- although he mostly threw those on the floor. When I tried to feed him avocado first, he shook his head no and pushed my hand away.

What I love about child-raising is how thrilling it makes the average daily event. My lunch description sounds very dull, I am sure but to me, I was completely amazed by the whole event.

I couldn't get a great shot of Jack in his monkey costume. Ryan looks a little crazy but this is the best I could do.

Appetite for Destruction

Jack is pretty proficient at crawling and pulling himself up to standing.. he is quickly figuring out how to gracefully get from standing to sitting but he isn't quite there. So he is moving even more quickly than before but with one important difference. It seems that now when Jack enters a room, he surveys it to find the most dangerous object with which to play and heads straight for it. His room has lots of nice toys and a chair to climb on but he always goes for the space heater or the cord connected to the space heater. It reminds me of the view of the Terminator's brain ..constantly assessing what will cause the most damage. I am not sure why babies evolved to do this.. although now that I think about it, maybe it was the parents who evolved. I suppose if you couldn't figure out how to watch your child you weren't going to be ultimately successful at reproduction.

Jack's mean face. I think he is mad because he threw soup on his face:


Jack with straight hair:

new talents

Jack and I are both expanding our skill base. Jack sleeps mostly on his stomach now. Generally, we have to change his diaper in the middle of the night otherwise he wakes up completely soaked. Whenever I try to roll him over, he rolls back onto his stomach. So now I just change his diaper in the face-down position. It was challenging at first but now I have mastered it. He never even wakes up. It's like I'm the clint eastwood of diaper changing...or the yoda of diaper changing or whatever. you get the idea.

Not to be outdone, Jack has started pulling himself up to a standing position. Everywhere. He is no longer safe alone for more than 10 seconds because he doesn't really know how to get out of the standing position so he inevitably ends up falling and hitting his head which is distressing for all involved. He is not yet the michael jordan of baby-standing but I am sure he is well on his way.

Here is the requisite baby butt shot. baby butts are so darned cute..

Gums

When I was pregnant I learned quickly that I was better off not reading any books or looking anything up on the internet regarding pregnancy or labor. It was all bad news.

Sadly, however, I have not been able to ditch the few baby books around my house that tell me where Jack should be in the 80 different kinds of developing that he is currently doing and will do until he is like 22. So this is going to be a long 22 years of worrying. Basically, according to the books, Jack is a little behind in a few things.. for example, he has no teeth. I don't know any babies this age that have no teeth. So I look in the book. What does it say? Most babies have teeth by 10 months. Then I think, do I know anyone who never got their teeth? Really, I have never met anyone without teeth so I am pretty sure he'll get them. But since everything is controlled by your DNA and the DNA arrangement we get is seriously more random than the lottery, it seems theoretically possible that at least one person has never gotten their teeth. But I hope not.

On an unnrelated note, here is Jack in one of his favorite shirts:

It's the 70's Baby!

When I went home I got baby pictures of my brother, sister and me. I wish I had one of Ryan -- he is working on it.

me (10 months):


my sister (13 months):


my brother (12 months):


Everyone says Jack looks just like Ryan but I think he looks at least a little like my side of the family.

Weekend in AZ

Last weekend, Jack and I traveled to Arizona. The last time I took Jack on a plane, he was 4 months old. It didn't occur to me until the morning of my flight that things would be different this time. jack moves all the time now unless he is asleep. so i bought baby benadryl just in case I ended up in some desperate situation.. plus I thought he had the sniffles so perhaps I could justify drugging my child. Not surprisingly, no one sat next to me. A woman my mom's age sat down in the aisle seat of my row and told me later she sat there because she knew there would be no one between us. She really helped me out because Jack was a wiggle-worm the entire time.

When I arrived my mom and stepfather and brother met us. They dropped me off at the house of one of my high school friends and took Jack back to their house. Then 3 of my high school pals and I went to Prescott for the weekend. It was a lovely weekend of just sitting around, drinking mojitos and enjoying the sun. I slept in until 9am. It was pure craziness. My mom had a good time too.. although she was not that into waking up at 5:30.

Here are some photos of the events:
Sitting:


Hiking:



Sorry these pics aren't great but you get the idea. I snapped a couple of my brother, dad and stepmother but then got lazy about photo taking (sorry mom!):




Once I got home I went through a little mini-depression then I had a realization. I profoundly miss my old life -- the life before Jack where I did mostly whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. At the same time, I am so happy Jack is in my life. He is a small package of joy. I realized these two things don't really contradict each other -- its not either 'I miss my old life and regret my decision to have a child' or 'I love my child and have no desire to return to my old life'. It's that I miss my old life and I love Jack's presence in my new life. Both at the same time... sort of a strange paradox.

More bb fashions

I dig the baby fashions. Luckily for me, I have a few very fashionable people in my life who either have children a little older than Jack or who enjoy buying children's clothing, so Jack has some great stuff. Here are a few of my faves:


casual at the park in levi's and a T with moose on it

(this is also a pic of Jack's immune system strengthening before your eyes as he chews on the plastic rake he found at the park)

hipster with a message

(it says "my mommy loves me")
business casual for the golf course or dress-down fridays


keeping the collar up on a cold day


life of the party in polka-dot jammies


this hat was a gift from my mom's aunt... it's a wee-bit small but we stretched it.

Free time!

Now that I don't work constantly, life is better. We took a little vacay to the oregon coast.. we hiked, walked along the beach, and listened to the '4 hour work week' ( an entertaining and kind of hilarious book on how to live more and work less ).

My first day

After quitting my ER job, I started a few weeks ago at a women's clinic. I work three days a week. The days I work are long so I don't see Jack much then but I have four days off with him and that is working out great.

The clinic where I work is a little different in that it receives a fair share of bomb threats. My first day the entire staff attended a training regarding what to do when and if this happens. Among the many conversation topics were who among the staff would be willing to actually look for the bomb if someone says they have planted one ( a highly unlikely event). No one said much for a few minutes but a few women volunteered that they'd be willing to do it since their children were grown. That turned out to be the dividing line -- if your children were not yet adults, you wouldn't do it, and if there were, you would.

I am not sure what I would have said before I had a child to be honest. However, it is clear now that our childrens' well-being is far more important than all of our strongly-held beliefs.

PEPS photo found

One of my peps pals pointed me to this early photo of our little ones. Jack is at the far left doing what he did best for the first three months of his life:



Here he is again.. mellower and bigger.

Our first summer

I haven't had much to write lately on the blog .. mainly because all I have been doing this summer is working. I have really been struggling with the balance thing. I recently accepted two part time jobs and I still have one more class to take next quarter. Now that the jobs have started I can see this was a bad idea. I am so used to doing as much as I possibly can but the problem with that now is that I don't see Jack. So it's not working.

I plan to quit one job and have a sane life.. it will probably delay my entry into graduate school but I don't care anymore.

In Jack news, our little one is commando-scooting (not exactly crawling yet but definitely moving forward). He is also a lot louder these days. We were told by his doctor that he had to gain weight so we've been feeding him super-high-fat cream of broccoli soup and yo-baby yogurt and stuff like that. According to a 1977 growth chart, Jack was in the 40% for weight but according to an updated 2006 chart he is apparently in the percentile with anorexic super model babies.

One of our few fun activities this summer was a pool party with our PEPS group. All the babies are around the same age... I wish I could find one of our earlier photos because they have all changed so much.

Swimming Lessons

We took swimming lessons this summer at the Colman pool -- a lovely outdoor salt water pool right next to the puget sound -- with our friends Megan and Maggie. Jack sort of enjoyed himself.. He definitely does not like swimming in the cold and there have been many cold days lately. Otherwise, he occasionally smiled but he wasn't enthusiastic. We'll try again next summer.




Maggie and Jack


The woman in this picture was in my chemistry class last fall. Her daughter is very into the water and I thought her shades were hilarious.

9 months

Last week, Jack had his 9 month birthday. He has now been on the outside as long as he was on the inside. It's been a rough couple of weeks as I finished my chemistry class and then started my first of two new part-time jobs. I was very cranky since my class ended with a cumulative exam covering the entire year of general chem. Jack was also very cranky and I didn't make the connection until I mellowed out these last couple of days and so did he. They certainly are observant. Who knew?

He is now getting confident on all fours and rocks back and forth. He really wants to go forward but he doesn't quite know what to do first. We cheer every time he gets on his hands and knees so he might just be satisfied with that and think he has arrived at the apex of his motor skills. I had heard that parents get so excited about every little developmental step. It's true. It's funny how interesting it is to watch your baby become a little person.. everything seems miraculous.

getting strong now

Jack has mostly been scooting in circles these last few weeks but he just started pushing himself up. He occasionally gets on his knees but never for too long. He has been pretty fussy during this process like he can't believe how hard it is.

Sometimes chemistry makes me feel that way.

Worse living through chemistry

This summer, I am taking my last general chemistry class. It's a ten week class condensed to 8. It is taking a great deal of my time, and I am not doing very well.. as far as I can tell, this will be my worst grade. It's irritating. I have more child care and I work on it when Jack goes to bed and sometimes even when he is awake. In the past, I spent about 25 hours a week on my chemistry homework.. but now I simply do not have that much time. I have to pay attention to Jack; he is my first priority. And I have to work when Ryan is home on the weekends.

I hear a lot of moms who work outside the home talk about this new mediocrity. Before a child, they excelled at everything they did and now their best is not as good only because they don't have as much time as they used to for work. It is hard to make peace with my less-than-good grade especially after I have given the class so much energy.

Here is Jack with Bridget (who sees him more than I do it seems)



Jack and Lily (the other baby Bridget watches)

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.