Rad.

My daughter is apparently following her parents' lead and is becoming a string bean. V had her "18 month" doctor's appointment today (she'll be 19 months old tomorrow, we'd had to reschedule due to the puking sick baby in our bed followed by 103+ fever and naked boiling hot sobbing baby in cold bath event we got to do a few weeks ago) and she's in the 90th percentile for height (33 inches) and the 50th for weight (25lb 6oz).
She's not talking as much as her friends, or as much as most kids her age, but while the appointment started with a brief explanation of what we'll do if she's still not really talking at 2 years (hearing and speech evaluations, possible speech therapy) as we moved through the exam and V did her standard pointing, gestures and "sound effects" version of communication/storytelling Dr. G acknowledged that "she just had an entire conversation there" and said she's "not worried about her". That's a lovely thing to be able to tell myself (and others) when we get wrapped up in worry about her language development.
She was pissed about the shots and squirmed like crazy and sobbed for about 2 minutes. then we got her dressed, including hat and sunglasses, and we headed to the store:



she flirted with the nice lady in the yogurt session and babbled at her friend B (who's an old neighborhood friend of mine) who works in the meat section and always plays with her. one of our regular checker dudes said she looked like a movie star. she was calling her agent and texting her friends the whole time.
We had not a peep out of her on the subject of her legs hurting from the shots until way later, at diaper change and bath time. and even that was more an ouchy about me pulling off the band-aid (I shoulda warned her...)
I'm struck by what a neat person she is. she makes friends and is kind and gentle with her friends (and her stuffed animals, and her blocks, and every thing else in her world) and she showers affection on us and is goofy and silly and loves to laugh. we kinda scored. she's rad.

wow, it's been a while

I don't imagine anyone's even noticed that I haven't posted anything since November, but for some reason it's been six months and I'm only now thinking that blogging here might help me feel like I'm accomplishing something for myself, instead of for everyone else. That tiny, pink helpless baby girl that at last post was just 3 months old? Well, she' thriving on a combination of (organic) formula and (organic) baby food, she babbles like a fiend, has two little teeth, she scoots, army crawls, crawls, pulls to standing and cruises, and she squeals so loudly that she's scared a few of her baby friends to tears. (While I felt bad that she made them cry, I was also proud of her for standing up for herself! A girls with a nice loud voices are just what this world needs more of.)
Things have gotten a little easier, in a way, as she's gotten bigger. I almost can't talk about what a good sleeper she is, because many of her little friends are still keeping their mamas up at night. She's a cheerful, mellow, content little girl, happy to play alone or with others, and always brightening the day with smiles and laughs. The few things she doesn't like, she's let us know very clearly - peas. peas make her puke. she prefers having snot running down her face to having us wipe her nose. and don't you dare take Blue Cup away or you will face the wrath of a very angry V!
I've been back at work for, oh my god, 6 months now. I'm attempting, mostly successfully, to do 5 days worth of work in 3 days. Thanks be for a very understanding boss and supportive work friends (and I'd better mention, the blessing of local grandparents who actually enjoy and are able to have her 3 full days a week!) We are finding a balance, most of the time, between work and baby and friends and family and all the rest. Yeah, my house isn't always as clean as I'd like. Yeah, I go to bed at 9:30 even when the season premiere of So You Think You Can Dance is on. Sure, sometimes I snap at my husband when he doesn't follow through and finish a task. but we are making time for each other, and we dote on that sassy little miss like crazy. how dare I complain when there is so much sadness and hardship in the world? Did I mention she's a huge Giants fan already who was a total trooper at her first game, on a way-too-hot day earlier this month? Yeah.

babysitting my ass!

Just a quick blog, little Miss is wanting to play to celebrate having slept from 9:30-4:30 last night! But I needed to bring up something that simultaneously annoyed and pleased me. I went to church yesterday morning, because I had official Vestry duty but also because going to church is a nice peaceful way to start the week. And V stayed home with her daddy, hanging out watching football and playing.

And no less than three people at church, when they asked where the baby was and I said "at home with her daddy" replied, "oh how nice, he's babysitting!"

BABYSITTING??

She's his baby too! His flesh and blood! His DAUGHTER! Ladies and Gentlemen, it is not babysitting when a dad takes care of his child!

So I brought my annoyance at the comments home, and told David about it. And this is where the pleased part comes out: He was just as annoyed as I was, and rather indignantly proclaimed that she's his baby and it's his job (and joy) to care for her just as much as it is mine.

and that is why I know how blessed I am with my wonderful husband.

Maternal Guilt

I've been providing breast milk for my daughter since she was born 11 weeks ago. Due to latching issues and a scary weight-loss in the first week, I've been exclusively pumping, and storing a ton of extra milk in a freezer we bought especially for the purpose of providing additional milk for her after I stop pumping and go back to work. I was so excited, filling those little bags, carefully noting the date and amount, stacking them in the freezer and watching as the surplus of white gold grew and grew. I felt like Super Mom - I am entirely responsible for providing the nutrition that is helping my darling baby grow bigger and stronger! I am amazing! my boobs have purpose!

And then we tried feeding her some of the frozen milk, just to see how it went. And she threw it up, impressively, all over herself, me, my clothes, the couch. Huge fountains of that white gold spurting out of my still-tiny darling girl. She immediately burst into tears, more I think because she was messy than that the process of spitting up hurt her. And I felt the intense pangs of the dreaded Maternal Guilt: what have I done? I have caused my helpless baby anguish. And because I am selfish and don't want to continue breast-feeding until she's two years old (not even past three months, if we're being honest), she will be relegated to either mommy-milk that makes her barf or the horrible Formula, only created because of the terrible mothers out there who care so little for their babies that they are unwilling to continue having their bodies be responsible for the growth of their child.

I am a bad mother.

Never mind that I was exclusively formula-fed and am not only physically healthy but perfectly well attached to my mom. Never mind that plenty of moms are unable to breast-feed for any number of physical reasons. Never mind that formula is perfectly healthy and also helps babies sleep better, which is a big plus for the parents. Never mind that being able to go about my day without having to plan when I'm going to pump so I don't leak all over my clothes or worse, suffer with the incredible stabbing pain of engorgement that makes it almost impossible to hold my daughter will make me a happier, calmer mom better able to care for my darling girl.

What is wrong with me? And more importantly, what is wrong with the huge stash of milk I stored to help alleviate my guilt over stopping?

After much heartache and Googling, I learned about a condition that many moms have: higher levels of lipase, an enzyme that apparently breaks down the fat in breast milk even when frozen, rendering it sour and inedible. Fabulous. Why no one mentioned this I don't know.

Actually, I do know: because mothers are supposed to naturally take to direct breast-feeding without any assistance. It's supposed to magically work, immediately, and be so wonderful and pain-free that it's an emotional wrench for the mom to wean the baby even when the kid's old enough to walk over to her and ask for her breast in a complete sentence. And because of that, no one mentions the option of exclusively pumping, which allows Dad and others to enjoy the thrill of feeding the baby, or the possibility of storing milk for future use when Mom goes back to work. So of course no one would bring up a condition that apparently effects many women and damages those hard-earned little bags of baby food, leaving all those new moms to find out about it only in the threads of comments on grassroots websites and not in any of the "official" medical information out there.

So now, a few weeks before my baby girl is supposed to be happily living off my lovingly prepared backstock of frozen milk, we're struggling to figure out if any of it is any good. And I'm wallowing in huge amounts of guilt over something that my mind knows isn't the end of the world, but that because of the nursing nazis out there, the screaming websites that proclaim formula as an evil and unacceptable choice, and even the notice on every single container of formula that states "breast milk is the ideal food for infants, but if you must use formula this brand is designed to be a close second" (you'd think the formula companies would want to make their product sound a little better, but hey) I'm second-guessing the decision I made for my own sanity and well-being because I'm worried that my sweet girl isn't going to thrive on formula.

I wasn't expecting this. I didn't think the hardest part about having an infant was going to be my boobs. They are a constant issue, they're gigantic and uncomfortable at best and painful, aching, leaking blobs at worst. I wake up at night from the discomfort, I have to make sure I pump before she gets up otherwise I am in agony when I'm cuddling with her, none of my clothes fit because of them and I feel like a cow on a daily basis. I've been so looking forward to being done with this part of the process and being able to enjoy my baby girl without this pain in the ... chest ... but now the guilt is almost more uncomfortable than my boobs. And I've got the double whammy of all that wasted money and time represented in the hundreds of spoiled bags sitting useless in our freezer.

And I look at the sweet tiny face of my sleeping baby, and I know she'll be fine no matter what. It's the love and affection she's getting from her father and me that's making her thrive, not the liquid in her bottle.

Pink

Holy crap. I've done what I always said (with some forcefulness) I would never do. I dressed my baby girl in pink, from head to toe. Pink onesie, pink bonnet, pink flowered blanket, pink binkie. Me, the woman who thinks black is the new black, worries about whether my blacks match and thinks that jeans are formal wear. This is not good, she's only 8 weeks old and already I'm programming her to be a girly-girl.

But how can I resist? she's already pink from head to toe, thanks to genetics and the fact that she hasn't started tanning yet (and I imagine her generation won't go in for baby oil and tin foil the way mine did) and she's just so damn cute when her outfit matches her skintone. The question is, how do I reconcile this with my screaming feminist wanna-raise-a-kid-without-gender-specific-language self? I don't want her to aspire to be a Disney princess, and while I suppose I'll have to let her take ballet classes I'm quietly praying she'll be more into basketball.

I never want her to second-guess her strength and power because of her gender. I hope she never submits to the low self-esteem that her mom went through when all her friends got boobs and she continued to be perfectly comfortable running around braless (hell, just now her mom is dreaming of going back to her pre-pregnancy body so that braless can once again become a way of life, or at least of sleeping!) I pray my daughter wholeheartedly believes that comfort is more important than fashion, at least as far as shoes are concerned. That being a tough, smart, strong woman is the only way to be, and that anyone that suggests otherwise is living in the 50s and should be ignored.

Am I undermining her ability to charge ahead and take control of her life by dressing her in pink? I guess as long as some days she's in band t-shirts and sports gear, she'll find her own balance.

ten tiny toes

I've always had a love-hate relationship with my toes. Perhaps "always" is an overstatement; I don't actually recall having any feelings at all about my toes before age 8 or so. But certainly by the time I was well into elementary school, I was aware of the fact that my toes, while very important to such activities as standing and walking, were not going to receive the treatment they deserved. You see, by that time I was on my way to a long relationship with ballet, and I quickly realized that my toes were going to take the brunt of the impending damage.

Yup. Those small nubs on the ends of my feet were going to find themselves shoved into pointe shoes, holding my entire body weight up for hours upon hours. And the most I would do to protect them was some first aid tape, maybe some moleskin if they were really good, and a lambswool pad stuffed between them and the glue-and-fabric blocks of my pointe shoes. No wonder that now at age 31 I'm still sporting toenail bruises from a bad pair of Blochs from the winter I was 13! I still can't wear open-toed shoes without nail polish.

Small price to pay, I suppose, for the pride I have for the commitment I made to dance, for the strength of body and mind I earned by spending my life in a ballet studio, rehearsing while my "normal" friends were at the mall, or the beach, or on ski trips or summer camp. Never mind that I did take a long break, from age 19 to 24. That time away from ballet allowed me to shift my perspective, and come back to the hard work with a new level of dedication - made easier by the unwavering support of my darling husband - one I hadn't had when I was a teenager.

What's the point in all this? I stare at the tiny toes of my two-week-old daughter and I wonder, will she want to follow my path? Will the siren song of ballet rope her in too? Will I be able to handle it if she wants to trade a normal childhood and adolescence for the probable pain and suffering that is the unfair trade for the occasional joy of a good performance? Or will I find myself tempted to keep her away from the romance of a dusty, sweaty ballet studio, wanting to lead her instead towards safer pursuits like basketball, rock-n-roll, or college? Her soft, sweet toes will carry her to a future I can't even imagine now. She'll probably paint her toenails all sorts of colors, squash her feet into uncomfortable shoes because they just go so perfectly with the outfit, and most certainly she'll stub those toes on furniture and swear like her Dad does when he does the same thing.

The swearing, at least, I can be absolutely certain of.

Oh, irony

Remember how I thought the Olympics were going to be a great distraction for the unending final weeks of my pregnancy? Well, go figure - I went into labor less than 24 hours after my first post! My water broke at 9pm Saturday, we were at the hospital by 10pm, and an IV of antibiotics, pitocin, more pitocin, a shower, a birthing ball, more pitocin, fentinol, lots of tears, an epidural, the best nap ever, 8 more centimeters and an hour of pushing later, little Miss V made her joyful debut at 4:41 Sunday afternoon! She showed off her healthy lungs as hubby and I checked her for the right number of fingers and toes, and she scored 9s on her Apgar tests. Clever darling.

Those two days in the hospital are now a bit of a blur, filled with many nice nurses, lots of ice, and a slow realization that a) I was no longer pregnant and b) we were someone's parents. Miss V might well be the cutest baby in the entire world, not that we're prejudiced or anything. She is surrounded by a huge gang of loving family and friends, who seem to agree with us on the cuteness factor. We're settling into a routine at home, and while both of us would prefer to sleep through the night just once we're not complete zombies (yet). V will be two weeks old tomorrow (two weeks! how is that possible?) and on Wednesday, I'll be 40 weeks pregnant. HAH!

As it turns out, the Olympics have been a wonderful companion for V's first days of life. We've held her, fed her, tickled her and kissed her as Michael Phelps won 8 golds, as Nastia Liukin won the overall, as the US track teams dropped batons and May&Walsh rocked the heck out of beach volleyball. And thank goodness (mostly) for DVR, because even sleep-deprived new parents need to go to bed sometime and we can catch up on the events the next day (the mostly is for when events run beyond the scheduled time and the DVR cuts off before the final round of gymnastics or the last set of volleyball - grr!)

One final note: Bob Costas is my hero.