Three Month Letter

Maren,

You reminded me this month that the world is full of amazing articles--like hands and thumbs for sucking, vowel sounds for babbling, bellies for tickling, and feet for kicking. You make your dad and I laugh because you cant stand to NOT be the center of attention. Maybe its cruel of us, but we often experiment on you, purposely looking away and engaging in our own chatter to see how long it takes you to make a fuss over the fact that our eyes are not fully on yours. Just so you know, its about 8 seconds. Youve started talking a lot this month, probably because youre sick of us taking 10 minutes and 5 attempts to figure out what the source of your crying is and how to remedy the situation. Still, Im sorry to tell you that your babbles are not giving us any better clues.

What I have learned about you, my little girl, over the last three months is this: you look fabulous in blue, you love the song "barbara ann", you gain some strange security by holding onto my shirt while eating, you pretend to hate it when your dad showers you with kisses but I know you secretly love that you already have him wrapped around your finger, you have no interest in cats, you hate hats, your closest friends are the elephants and lions on your crib mobile, you love car rides but the first few minutes of stoplights really piss you off, you'd eat all day if we let you, and through all this I can already tell that youre going to be a handful.

Im amazed at all the things Ive learned about you in such a short period of time and I marvel at how unique you already are. Its so strange that you already seem so grown up and you havent even made it through an entire season yet. I can only imagine all the amazing articles youll find in a few months when we're taking walks outside and smelling flowers and feeling the tickle of grass on our toes. Thoughts of those moments ahead make me realize that strangely, time can stand still while still moving too quickly.

I love you,

Momma

Back to the Future

After a night of restless sleep and a morning of incessently checking my phone for a snow cancellation or delay, preparations for day one back at work began with 5:42am blazing on the alarm clock. The mayhem was expected but with Kakes help I was able to get out the door only 30 minutes late without battling spit up or unplanned wardrobe changes (however you know youre succeeding at breastfeeding when your shirts no longer fit across your chest). I was expecting no less than chaos so all things considered the morning went pretty well.

The work day flew by, what with hundreds of emails to go through, countless coworkers stopping by to share my discontent with being at work on a snowy Monday, and seemingly constant trips to the windowless seclusion of the defacto lactation room. By the end of the day I had scoured my email inbox and my desk, making a fresh start for this new life after childbirth.

In the end I felt bad for NOT being a soggy weepy mess my first day away from my baby. I'm sure cabin fever from a weekend stuck inside helped to increase my excitement at leaving the house and the knowledge that Maren was next door with Kristina and baby Adam also made the thought of her being without mom or dad just a little more bearable. And who knows, maybe it's just the novelty of getting to eat lunch with two hands and pee without a soundtrack of fitfully crying baby that lulls me into the false sense that this working mom thing might just suit me......until one day a couple weeks from now I'll break down crying during a staff meeting because the talk of taking baby steps to raise funds for transportation infrastructure makes me think of my little girl reaching that milestone with someone else standing by.

Regardless of how thin my threads of sanity may be a few weeks from now, I just have to remember the wise lyrics of Bob Marley "baby don't worry about a thing, cause every little things gonna be alright".

New Horizons for 2010

Many of you know that each year I "try to like" a couple things that I usually shy away from in hopes of broadening my horizons and becoming a more well rounded individual. Up to this point its always been foodstuffs, I dont know why, perhaps because my life really revolves around food? Last year my plan was to like sushi and red wine. Then March came around and I found out that babykakes was on the way so both alcohol and raw fish were off limits. This year Im picking up sushi once again and adding olives to the list as well. I currently like black olives (of course the most fattening variety) but other kinds are too salty for my taste. Until this year! 2010 is my year to like olives...hopefully. If you have any suggestions for ways to ease into sushi or olives (probably not both at the same time), let me know.

A Letter to Maren at 2 Months

Disclaimer: I realize that Maren's 2 month birthday is long gone but hopefully as my life gets back into more of a routine it will be easier to update the blog at appropriate times. We'll see.

Babykakes,

This month has been a roller coaster. The first week of your second month was hellish with a growth spurt and a serious textbook example of acid reflux, complete with projectile vomitting, lots of laundry, and not a lot of sleep. There were moments where I understood that mythical idea that as a parent, you would do anything to help your child and make her feel better. Seeing you cry and in pain made me want to cry too (and sometimes made me want to take Bishop's lead and hightail it out of the room). Lucky for both of us a small dropper of medication lessened your discomfort, resulting in less spit up, less laundry, less crying (for both of us), and more sleep.

The improvement of your reflux seemed to set off a positive trend and soon you were smiling--lighting up faces and melting hearts well into 2010. As many others have said, seeing that smile made all the days, and nights, of exhaustion and frustration and seemingly thankless effort, worth it. Your smile is so contagious that I know there will be days ahead when I feel overwhelmed or tired and you'll pick me up with your gummy grin. And this reminds me that happiness and laughter is truly infectious.

So my new years resolution for you is to always show you happiness. There will be plenty of time for you to learn about the ample tragedies and sadness rampant in this world, but for now, you can be blissfully ignorant, thinking that everyone makes googly faces, blows raspberries, and plays peek-a-boo on a daily basis.

All my love,

Momma

The first 30 days

I should have written this post a few weeks ago but life seemed to get in the way so here it is now, by the grace of the better late than never rule.

As many people warned me, the first few weeks of parenthood just downright suck.......usually. And perhaps I was one of those lucky pregnant women who had very little morning sickness and swelling, no acne, minimal fatigue and heartburn, fairly quick and easy labor etc , but sadly this luck did not follow me out of the delivery room.

What I did take with me from the hospital was a grab bag of narcotics, hemmorhoid cream, and sanitary pads large enough to double as couch cushions.....which only scratched the surface of the accoutrements I would need over the next few weeks to maintain my post partum body.Though some women quickly recover from pushing a watermelon through a passage the size of a prune, my physical recovery was a long and painful journey that unfairly colored my first few weeks of mommyhood with negativity. Between the hemmorhoids that caused nurses to gasp and offer more pain medication, a tailbone that felt surely bruised, the sore and burning nipples from hours of tugging and suckling, and the myriad small aches and pains from the IVs, stitches, and uterine cramping I was truely a hot mess---physically, mentally, and emotionally. But I will say that after just a couple weeks most of these issues had gone or were on the mend and life as a mom was looking up...slightly.

We made it through Marens first growth spurt and some minor acid reflux issues before the first month closed. By the time we were in the thick of Christmas shopping my crotch no longer emited agonizing pains, I was no longer crying during Mastercard commercials, and we had both mastered changing a diaper without getting covered in bodily fluids.

As the first 4 weeks came to a close I finally had an answer to my daily question to self-- "what did I get myself into?!" Because despite the aches and pains and crying fits for both Maren and I, I began to realize that parenthood really does get better and I knew that the days of smiles and giggles were just around the corner and that anticipation was enough to keep me motivated through the days of sleep depravation, sore nipples, and poop dodging ahead.

Welcome to Parenthood

Those of you that have experienced the first month of parenthood probably know why the blog has lain dormant for so many weeks. Those of you who were like me just a season ago, and wonder why people with kids are never on time and usually arrive smelling of sour milk, probably think Kake and Jelly are both kind of lazy and lack time management skills. How hard is it to spend a few minutes in front of a computer when you're home all day every day? Babies nap right?

Well yes, technically this is true but in the early weeks of parenthood, when you are consistently getting 3 hours of sleep each night and (I for one) feel like someone put an anvil on your seat everytime you sit down, you quickly find more important things to do with said precious nap time --- like take narcotic pain killers, clean the house so everyone thinks you have everything under control with plenty of time to spare for vaccuumming, and of course research how you're supposed to react to this experience according to baby related websites. As you can see, with all this activity there is no time for blogging......until now.

With the percocet bottle long empty and the nightly sleep hours frequently totalling a staggering 6-7 hours, Ive realigned my priorities and am ready to spend more nap time updating our life in cyberspace. It also helps that Kake gifted his itouch to me and I just found an app that allows me to update the blog via the itouch. So rest assured that most of the posts in 2010 will be crafted in the wee hours of the morning while Im feeding Maren. It should go without saying that the timing of these posts may lead to multiple spelling errors and misuse of simple grammar but please believe, I haven't entirely lost my marbles, they're just in a bag in the back of the closet for safe keeping.

Included here is a photo of the boss making sure we're performing our duties to an acceptable level.

Kake and Jelly's Last Day as a Couple

For those of you interested in the details of Maren's arrival, and with strong constitutions in the face of such graphic details involving discharge and legal narcotics, read on.

Sunday started like most at the household of Kake and Jelly with softball on Kake's part and errands for Jelly. Different this day was Jelly's breakfast date with a friend (where she got eggs benedict for any desperate pregnant women looking to try anything to go into labor) and a small amount of housecleaning and yard work in preparation for the HOPEFULLY last week of work before babykake's arrival. Little did we know, this would be the last "normal" Sunday morning for awhile.

(Times are estimates as we were preoccupied and sleep and food deprived for most of the rest of this journey)

12:30pm--A usual bathroom trip includes a loud unexpected plop--apparently this is what the pregnancy books call a "mucous plug" and it is no longer plugging anything
2:00pm--"Theres something going on in my pants" I said to Kake. Upon closer inspection it seems it COULD be the first signs of my water breaking.....or it could be a strange discharge which is not uncommon in late pregnancy.....so the Dr was called for advice
3:00pm--Upon the advice of the Dr, we packed up a few last minute items and headed to the hospital for what Kake was sure was the arrival of his son/daughter and what I insisted was nothing but the alarmist attitude of my Dr. But be sure that we set the DVR to record the Eagles game before leaving so we could catch up when we got home later in the evening
4:00pm--We were checked into Labor and Delivery and, through the use of the high tech method of a color changing qtip, it is confirmed that the ongoing gushing that has soaked two pairs of my pants is indeed amniotic fluid and not incontinence (whew! How embarrassing that could have been)
Initial exams showed that I was about 3cm dilated and 75% effaced......
10:00pm--After a few hours of walking the L&D halls with consistently stronger but not entirely unbearable contractions, heaven arrived in the form of a geriatric halitosis ridden anesthesiologist and a pertinear 6 inch epidural needle....and some pitocin to try to help speed up labor considering that once your water breaks there is limited time in which its safe to deliver the baby
2:00am--Kake enjoyed a nice nap on a reclining chair, interrupted by my frequent calls to the nurse to see if it was normal that I felt an intense need to pee every couple minutes--apparently the epidural takes away pain but not pressure hence my desire to pee during every contraction...this I never knew! After a shocking and startling exam by the Dr it was determined that I was ready to push this babe out, BUT, he /she had recently taken the opportunity to turn sunny side up, which is not ideal for anyone involved, so the plan was to wait another hour reclined on my side to see if this would coax the baby to flip around again, or at least move lower so the Dr could manual turn him/her around
3:30am--Turn up the Salt n Peppa and "Push It"!!! For a first baby 40-60 minutes of pushing is fairly lucky. And that is also misleading as, in the words of my Dr, I apparently have a pokey uterus. My once 2-3 minute apart contractions somehow slowed to a relative snails pace of 5-6 minutes apart, resulting in a lot of waiting in precarious positions over the following hour and a sore arm for Jake who had to hold my leg up the entire time.
4:12am--BabyKakes made HER arrival with a full set of feverishly working lungs but otherwise limited fanfare. My shock and disbelief of babykakes being a girl--I was absolutely convinced I was having a boy--was not lost on the medical staff as I made repeated comments like "Really? A girl? Really?"
The Rest--As you may imagine the rest of the morning raged by in a blur. I think I had the best seat in the house as my rotund belly kept me from seeing the graphic entrance of babykakes into the world, as well as the bloody hot mess that resulted at the end of the bed. Kake valiantly hung in there for the upclose version of the "Miracle of Life" and even participated by cutting the cord. There was some minor stitching involved for me and lots of cleanup and monitoring for babykakes with Jelly left in the middle looking back and forth trying to decide who's hand to hold.

In the end we both decided that babykakes might have entered the world in a startling fashion, and might have surprised us with being a girl, but she was of course the most perfect baby we could have ever asked for.