Oh, but my fingers taste pretty good... You get the idea), but it seems to have taken second place to everything else, including eating and sleeping. It's not too hard to keep her hands under control while I'm feeding her, but since she can't leave her fingers alone, she can't relax enough to fall asleep. Well, I've got a message for you, Marie: BABIES NEED TO SLEEP, DAMN IT! I'll let you in on a secret, too: you can suck and sleep at the same time! In fact, you've already done it once.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Marie, la conquistadora
In the past few days, Marie has discovered her hands and started practicing putting them in her mouth and sucking on them. "Great," I thought, "now she'll have something else to suck on besides my nipples!" (From the very beginning, she made it very clear that she didn't want no truck with a pacifier.) Little did I realize, however, that this would have its disadvantages too. Like all great explorers before her, Marie is so taken with her discovery that she has become totally obsessed. Granted, it's pretty fun to watch her try out different ways of shoving her fingers into her mouth (Let's see. I'll put the left thumb in now. Mmm, but the right thumb's not bad either. Maybe I can suck on both at the same time. Oh cool! I can hold my left hand steady with my right hand. That makes sucking my left thumb much easier! 
Oh, but my fingers taste pretty good... You get the idea), but it seems to have taken second place to everything else, including eating and sleeping. It's not too hard to keep her hands under control while I'm feeding her, but since she can't leave her fingers alone, she can't relax enough to fall asleep. Well, I've got a message for you, Marie: BABIES NEED TO SLEEP, DAMN IT! I'll let you in on a secret, too: you can suck and sleep at the same time! In fact, you've already done it once.
Oh, but my fingers taste pretty good... You get the idea), but it seems to have taken second place to everything else, including eating and sleeping. It's not too hard to keep her hands under control while I'm feeding her, but since she can't leave her fingers alone, she can't relax enough to fall asleep. Well, I've got a message for you, Marie: BABIES NEED TO SLEEP, DAMN IT! I'll let you in on a secret, too: you can suck and sleep at the same time! In fact, you've already done it once.
Friday, August 24, 2007
unsolved mysteries
There are two questions I have for the baby experts today:
One - All the baby books talk about toys that babies of various ages will "just love." So my question is, why didn't Marie get the memo? Rattles, colorful teething rings, a bright, bold stuffed animal? She can't be bothered. On the other hand, she can stare at our fan, shower curtain or chandelier for hours. In fact, she finds them so fascinating that they often distract her from eating, which I didn't think was possible.
Two - I've mastered the art of cutting an infant's fingernails. I keep them short and filed so she can't scratch herself. Except she can scratch herself and me, and she does so daily. Why is this? How can her nails be so sharp when I pay painstaking care to keeping them short and smooth? Obviously, I haven't mastered the art after all, otherwise my décolleté wouldn't be covered in little scratches. Can someone explain this to me?
One - All the baby books talk about toys that babies of various ages will "just love." So my question is, why didn't Marie get the memo? Rattles, colorful teething rings, a bright, bold stuffed animal? She can't be bothered. On the other hand, she can stare at our fan, shower curtain or chandelier for hours. In fact, she finds them so fascinating that they often distract her from eating, which I didn't think was possible.
Two - I've mastered the art of cutting an infant's fingernails. I keep them short and filed so she can't scratch herself. Except she can scratch herself and me, and she does so daily. Why is this? How can her nails be so sharp when I pay painstaking care to keeping them short and smooth? Obviously, I haven't mastered the art after all, otherwise my décolleté wouldn't be covered in little scratches. Can someone explain this to me?
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
things I have begun to realize, part 2
Your house will be dirty and messy. Accept that now, and your life will be much easier. You will have neither the time nor the energy to pick up after yourself and clean. My advice is to get a cleaning lady if you can afford it. If you're like us and can't afford it, you'll just have to embrace the dust bunnies and move on.
No matter how environmentally consciously you live, even if you use cloth diapers, you will produce more garbage than you thought possible. I can't explain it; it just happens.
Being a Stay At Home Mom is the HARDEST JOB IN THE WORLD. All of your breaks, including pee breaks, have to be approved by someone who spends most of their time drooling. And even when your body and mind can't go on, when you have reached your absolute limit, you have no choice but to go on. And you do. Every day.
No matter how environmentally consciously you live, even if you use cloth diapers, you will produce more garbage than you thought possible. I can't explain it; it just happens.
Being a Stay At Home Mom is the HARDEST JOB IN THE WORLD. All of your breaks, including pee breaks, have to be approved by someone who spends most of their time drooling. And even when your body and mind can't go on, when you have reached your absolute limit, you have no choice but to go on. And you do. Every day.
things I have begun to realize since becoming a mom
Showers are luxuries, never to be taken for granted, but rather to be relished for the rare moments that they are.
You will, indeed, talk to friends without children about your baby's poop. It's totally unavoidable.
We live in a very, very loud world. I mean, have you ever noticed the loud clanking noise you make when you set the table with silverware? No? Well, next time, try setting the table with a sleeping baby nearby and see how many forks you can put on the table without waking it up.
Practicality and creativity are your friends; a sense of fashion and decency just make your day more complicated.
All the baby books tell you to catch up on your sleep when your baby is napping. First of all, my baby napping? Ha! Obviously, these books haven't met Marie. Second of all, on those rare occasions on which Marie snoozes for more than a few minutes during the day, you really think I'm going to sleep? Didn't you read what I wrote about showers?!
Cars are incredibly scary, fast killing machines, driven by people who obviously are completely oblivious to the world around them and their own dangerous behavior. I assume this applies whether you are a driving or a walking mom, though I'm basing it on my experience of crossing streets while holding or pushing a baby.
You thought your back hurt during pregnancy? Try carrying a fussing, crying baby around the apartment for two hours!
Strangers have waaaaaay too many opinions about how I dress my baby for the day's weather.
You will, indeed, talk to friends without children about your baby's poop. It's totally unavoidable.
We live in a very, very loud world. I mean, have you ever noticed the loud clanking noise you make when you set the table with silverware? No? Well, next time, try setting the table with a sleeping baby nearby and see how many forks you can put on the table without waking it up.
Practicality and creativity are your friends; a sense of fashion and decency just make your day more complicated.
All the baby books tell you to catch up on your sleep when your baby is napping. First of all, my baby napping? Ha! Obviously, these books haven't met Marie. Second of all, on those rare occasions on which Marie snoozes for more than a few minutes during the day, you really think I'm going to sleep? Didn't you read what I wrote about showers?!
Cars are incredibly scary, fast killing machines, driven by people who obviously are completely oblivious to the world around them and their own dangerous behavior. I assume this applies whether you are a driving or a walking mom, though I'm basing it on my experience of crossing streets while holding or pushing a baby.
You thought your back hurt during pregnancy? Try carrying a fussing, crying baby around the apartment for two hours!
Strangers have waaaaaay too many opinions about how I dress my baby for the day's weather.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
the witching hour
For the most part, Marie is a very happy baby. She greets us every morning with smiles and flirty eyes. When you tickle her, she laughs and squeals, and she generally makes all kinds of cute sounds indicating the pleasure she takes in everyday events. But then comes the witching hour. Sometimes as early as 5 pm - and definitely by 7 pm - the demons come out and Marie becomes inconsolable. It's never really clear what's wrong. Sometimes it seems to be insatiable hunger; other times a tummy ache appears to be the culprit; and still other times she seems to be genuinely sad. And whatever the cause, I invariably end up trying all sorts of tricks to calm her down - from marathon breastfeeding through singing silly songs to her and carrying her around on a seemingly endless "tour" of the apartment to putting her in the BabyBjörn, swaying back and forth and hoping she'll conk out while I do chores or check my email standing up.
Recently, I've been trying a new tack. Since she sleeps so well at night, Marie generally takes only pretty short naps during the day. So I figured she might just be tired by early evening. But it's not as easy as putting her down for a nap. I have to catch the right moment when she's still content but on her way to tired and/or hungry and then cuddle up in bed with her. Eventually (and by that, I mean after anywhere from 1 to 3 hours later), she falls asleep and sleeps peacefully through most of the evening. But the road to get there varies. Most days, it involves a fair amount of crying. But every few days, we get in a groove and spend any time awake making goofy faces at each other. Then, after a little fussing and squirming, she falls asleep and gets that angelic look on her face that all sleeping babies have.
I still don't know what ails her on these afternoons and evenings. It doesn't seem to be a textbook case of a colicky baby (and even if it was, no one knows what causes colic either). But I call it the witching hour, because whether or not Marie has demons that haunt her little mind yet, her inconsolable suffering inevitably brings out mine, and it takes a lot of strength not to let them get the better of me. I know that these are not the times to be questioning my mothering skills because my anxiety becomes contagious and only makes little Marie more miserable. I never realized it before, but hearing your own child in pain - whether emotional or physical or both - is just about the most brutal experience imaginable, and I think it might just be one of the few things in life that makes us capable of rising above our own demons, telling them to shut the hell up for a while because the only thing that matters at that moment is to rescue someone else in pain. It reminds me of the fact that my own mother is scared of spiders, but she always killed them for me because that's what mothers do for their babies.
Recently, I've been trying a new tack. Since she sleeps so well at night, Marie generally takes only pretty short naps during the day. So I figured she might just be tired by early evening. But it's not as easy as putting her down for a nap. I have to catch the right moment when she's still content but on her way to tired and/or hungry and then cuddle up in bed with her. Eventually (and by that, I mean after anywhere from 1 to 3 hours later), she falls asleep and sleeps peacefully through most of the evening. But the road to get there varies. Most days, it involves a fair amount of crying. But every few days, we get in a groove and spend any time awake making goofy faces at each other. Then, after a little fussing and squirming, she falls asleep and gets that angelic look on her face that all sleeping babies have.
I still don't know what ails her on these afternoons and evenings. It doesn't seem to be a textbook case of a colicky baby (and even if it was, no one knows what causes colic either). But I call it the witching hour, because whether or not Marie has demons that haunt her little mind yet, her inconsolable suffering inevitably brings out mine, and it takes a lot of strength not to let them get the better of me. I know that these are not the times to be questioning my mothering skills because my anxiety becomes contagious and only makes little Marie more miserable. I never realized it before, but hearing your own child in pain - whether emotional or physical or both - is just about the most brutal experience imaginable, and I think it might just be one of the few things in life that makes us capable of rising above our own demons, telling them to shut the hell up for a while because the only thing that matters at that moment is to rescue someone else in pain. It reminds me of the fact that my own mother is scared of spiders, but she always killed them for me because that's what mothers do for their babies.
Friday, August 10, 2007
growing pains
When our little Marie was born, she was 48 cm (18.9 inches) long and weighed in at 3,110 grams (6 lbs, 13 oz). Yesterday, at her 2-month checkup, she was 56.5 cm (22.2 inches) long and a whopping 5,870 grams (12 lbs, 15 oz)!! Our little cherub has nearly DOUBLED her weight in only 9 weeks!! I suppose that explains where all the breast milk goes....
With the 2-month mark, however, Marie was due for a modern infant's right of passage - her first immunizations. Lemme tell ya, I thought I was familiar with Marie's most desperate crying, but that was all nothing compared to her screams of pain while receiving 2 shots yesterday. I nearly cried myself, and to be honest, it's going to be really tough witnessing the whole thing again when I have to take her in to get the many follow-up shots needed to establish full immunity. She was a trooper, though. She fell asleep in the BabyBjörn soon after, and although she slept more during the afternoon and evening than usual, she seemed to be in reasonably good spirits. She developed a temperature in the night, but not a full-blown fever. And to look at her this morning, you wouldn't know what she went through yesterday.
Three cheers for Marie!
With the 2-month mark, however, Marie was due for a modern infant's right of passage - her first immunizations. Lemme tell ya, I thought I was familiar with Marie's most desperate crying, but that was all nothing compared to her screams of pain while receiving 2 shots yesterday. I nearly cried myself, and to be honest, it's going to be really tough witnessing the whole thing again when I have to take her in to get the many follow-up shots needed to establish full immunity. She was a trooper, though. She fell asleep in the BabyBjörn soon after, and although she slept more during the afternoon and evening than usual, she seemed to be in reasonably good spirits. She developed a temperature in the night, but not a full-blown fever. And to look at her this morning, you wouldn't know what she went through yesterday.
Three cheers for Marie!
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