gas

The baby is in her co-sleeper next to the bed, and just tooted so loud she woke herself up. She is gastro-intestinally gifted, indeed. Pretty soon I'll have to stop saying "good one!" when she burps or farts like a middle-aged truck driver. I will do so, begrudgingly.

first vacation

The nugget is stirring in her swing, so i probably don't have a lot of time to post. It's just been ages, and i wanted to update on our first little vacation! We went to Colorado Springs to see Mike's sister for Memorial Day weekend - almost 10 hours each way (more with Denver traffic). The baby was fantastic actually. She slept and slept unless she was hungry, which we tried to stay ahead of. I did have to give her a bottle in Denver traffic because we couldn't pull over. Yuck, I wanted to barf just watching her. Sitting backwards in a carseat eating and swerving in and out of traffic - it was making me nauseous. She took it like a champ, though! It was a pretty fun weekend - low key. We just hung at the in-laws and played with the babies (Ainsley's cousin Ava is one). We had a few beers after the babies went to bed Saturday night - it reminded Mike and I of when you were little and your aunts and uncles and parents hung out and drank beer on vacation. We're so old. We also ventured to Old Colorado City - it's a little town right by Springs with a cute main street with shops and restaurants. There was a Territory Days festival going on, so it would have been fun to go walk around, but there was a HUGE rainstorm just as we were pulling in. We also missed the exit, then Ava was starving, then there was no parking. Mike got out in the rain, dug both strollers out and his sister and I were like, uh, we know it's a little late but how about we scrap these plans? We didn't have umbrellas or extra blankets or sweatshirts or anything. Ha, ha - it was also like when you're little and you try to have family outings and it ends up going wrong and everyone starts fighting, but then when you talk about it later the memories are fun. That made me laugh. Having kids is so weird. I sure have a lot more respect for what my parents went through. After the downpour debacle, we ended up just going downtown in springs to this wood oven pizza restaurant. It was warm and dry with parking right out front, and Ava got to play with pizza dough (eating a lot of it). It was fun - the afternoon was salvaged. Ok - baby is not tolerating this any more - more later if I have time. :)

baby dracula

The baby's hair has been growing like crazy, just in the past week or so. It's hilarious, she is going to have the deepest widow's peak. Today I said she looked a little like Dracula, and my husband revealed that the kids called him Eddie Munster in high school when he had short hair. Funny. It's dark, too, and we were both blond, blond little kids. Hmm, dark hair, dark(ish) complexion, I'm not entirely sure whose kid this really is. Having a kid is so bizarre. Sometimes looking at her is like staring in a mirror, sometimes it's like staring at my husband, sometimes it's a crazy, bizarro mix of the two. It's like that show that was on public TV in the 80s, where the princess was held in a castle by a witch, and the witch would come up every day and put random things in this machine and a book would pop out (apparently called Once Upon A Time, google tells me - does anyone else remember that show?! It was awesome!! Apparently it was a Nebraska Public Radio show filmed in Omaha ... but I digress). Like they would put in a toy train and a teddy bear and out would pop a book about a teddy bear that drives trains. That's what having a kid is like. Like Mike and I got dumped into Marion the Librarian's genetics machine and out pops a little Ainsley. Sometimes I walk into the room and the baby and Mike are both looking at the TV, same exact looks on their faces. So weird. But also very cool. Until she starts talking - I can't wait to see whose mouth she got. Yikes.

crap

The baby has already started watching the TV when it's on. If she's in her swing she'll turn her head to stare at the TV. Uh oh. I kind of thought we had more time before I had to worry about too much TV. Also, I should probably stop watching crap in case she subconsciously starts retaining things. I can only imagine the end product of a child raised on the Rock-of-Love-Bus-Real-World-Road-Rules-Challenge-Hills TV diet I've rocking during maternity leave. Vapid at best, stripper at worst. Her dad would be so mad at me.

whirlwind

Man, busy times. My sister left this morning. She was great to have around - she stayed here one night and even did the 4am bottle. It was fantastic. She's pretty bummed she might not see the baby again until Christmas - I know how that feels. We didn't see our niece from July to Christmas last year and we were like 'huh, where did the baby go?'. I'll have to send her lots of pictures. Anyway, the week was good - just lots of hanging out. My sister gave me a mother's day card with a coupon for a free night of babysitting and cash to go out to dinner, so Tuesday night Mike and I went up to Deadwood and had a few cocktails and dinner. It was good to have some time to just talk - it's amazing how little of that you get time to do after having a baby. I see why people say to make time for your relationship.

Today the baby and I are just chillin'. She's been sleeping a lot, I think having people around kept her awake more than usual and she's making up for it. She's a pretty social little thing - if we're at a family thing she definitely likes to be part of the action. I suppose it's good sometimes - it keeps her sleeping at night. I counted today, and I only have 10 days of maternity leave left (where we won't be traveling - we're going to Colorado next week). It's sad. I think I'm going to let all the dishes and house stuff go so there's more time for snuggling!

mother's day

What a busy weekend. My sister Kari came from Boise on Saturday, and we picked her up at the airport. She hadn't seen Ainsley yet and she is the (self-proclaimed) baby whisperer, so she was super excited. We couldn't leave without taking the baby out of her carseat so Kari could hold her in the loading/unloading zone for a little bit. Afterward we stopped to see Great Grandma T at her apartment and she was funny as usual, secretly smoking in her apartment (there were suspect ashes in the toilet and a bit of a haze). Ah, to be 83 years old and still sneaking cigarettes. If I live until 83 I might sneak cigarettes, too. I'll definitely drink cocktails by myself in the daytime - probably martinis. I say if you live into your 80s, you've earned the right.

The only damper on the day was that it was the first full day of not breastfeeding, so I felt like I had the hindenburg strapped to my chest. Man, that was super uncomfortable, even worse then when my milk came in. I was pretty distracted from my guilt all day, but once we got back to town and things started to calm down toward bedtime, I mentally downward spiraled pretty quickly. I ended up breaking down and nursing once before bed, because the baby was fussy and rooting like crazy and wouldn't go to sleep. I've decided to try and continue to do it just once in the morning and once before bed, if more for my emotional benefit than anything else. I'm not sure if the boobs will allow it though, I pretty much wreaked havoc on the supply by stopping for two days. Ah well, if there's nothing there, there's nothing there, and then the decision will be made for me and we'll be done.

Sunday was my first Mother's Day. I woke up at probably 6:00 and could hear Mike sneaking around in the living room, so I thought something must be up - he's not naturally the earliest riser. A few minutes later he came in with a card and a pretty diamond necklace - he's such a thoughtful guy. It's funny - every time I get nice jewelry from him, it's always on the heels of me acting like an total asshole. Saturday night before I was all distraught about the breastfeeding and sort of chewing him out, then I was cursing him during the middle of the night bottle because he didn't have to work the next day and didn't offer to help out. Then I wake up to jewelry - oops. :) The night before we got engaged, I drank way too many mai tais (we were in Hawaii) and was in the hotel lobby, bawling about how he would never propose, blah, blah, blah. I am such a loser sometimes.

So the rest of Sunday was good. We went to my parents' house and Mike cooked king crab legs and all the sibs were there. I had grand plans to write this sappy mother's day post last night, but we didn't get home until nine and I was done for. Luckily, as a mother's day present to her mommy, Ainsley slept for six hours straight last night!

9:53 pm

Well, we've made it this far and I haven't caved on the boobfront, amazingly. I don't feel any better, and as soon as Mike got home from work tonight I commenced with losing my shit for about two hours straight, and then went out to my parents' house to pick up the dog and stayed for a beer. They, of the strictly-formula-child-rearing generation, thought I was nuts for being so bothered by this, which was good to hear. Ugh, I just can't hold the baby and have her rooting around, it's terrible. She's just keeps looking up at me like, come on, lady, we had an AGREEMENT. I think Mike might be on holding duty for the rest of the night. The silver lining of all this is that I'm currently drinking a gigantic glass of pinot grigio for the first time in 11 months.

5 good things

Glancing through all my posts, I seem to write about the negative/worrisome stuff a lot. I need work on that. Because there is positive stuff about motherhood so far, LOTS of positive stuff. To prove it, here are some things I'm enjoying or feel like I'm doing well at ...

1. The baby is healthy. All that worrying about her not eating enough in those early weeks were apparently unfounded. She is huge and strong and holding her head up already.

2. Every day we have "coffee talk" where I pretty much just talk nonsense ("what did we do today? go to the park? did we see trees and flowers? blah, blah, blah"). And she gets all excited and kicks her legs and "talks" back at me. It's adorable, and she's obviously gifted (nobody tell me these things are normal at 6 weeks, I won't believe you anyway).

3. We're actually venturing out, despite mama's irrational fears of germs and baby snatchers. We've gone to the gym or for walks every day this week. We've been to WALMART - ew, germ circus! We're picking my sister up at the airport on Saturday in Rapid City. We're even planning a 10-hour drive to Colorado to see my in-laws on Memorial Day weekend! (Ok, that last one might just be crazy).

4. We're getting slightly more sleep at night. The baby usually goes a five-hour stretch at night before needing to eat again. And she crashes pretty hard at 9:00-ish, like she knows it's bedtime.

5. If the dog eats the last pacifier, we'll be ok. We've tried other pacifiers, but the baby will only take the orange ones we got at the hospital (probably because they cost us, like, $80 apiece). Two of the three we originally had have fallen victim to Cooper, and I once shuddered at the thought of losing the last one. But the baby has been falling asleep most of the time without a pacifier at all. Awesome.

6. And last, but certainly not least, smiles ...

done day (i think)

I think I'm stopping breastfeeding today. I say "I think" because I was going to stop last night and ended up feeding her in the night. It's way harder then I thought it would be (on me, the baby doesn't seem to give a rip - she just loves to eat, clearly). I have terrible knots in my stomach and I feel like the worst mom - I'm sure for the first of many times. I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about how terrible and unnatural breastfeeding felt to me. The thing is, I don't feel like that anymore. It's much easier, I enjoy the bonding and it breaks my heart to stop. I just feel like it will be too difficult when I go back to work. I don't think office pumping is realistic (and that's when we're in the office, not out at meetings or traveling). We've been giving the baby a couple of bottles of formula a day, and she takes it really well. After her bedtime bottle, she actually makes these full baby sounds while she's falling asleep. Soft little coos instead of the grunts and squirms she makes in her sleep after I feed her. I swear, she also spits up less after formula feedings. But, whatever. The truth of it is I am a control freak and want to have a couple of weeks to get her on a schedule that will be similar to what she'll be on when I'm back at work. I want to have some idea of how many ounces of formula she eats in a day. So "I think" this is the right decision, I just didn't know it would feel so awful.

next, college

So my trepidation at packing the little one off to daycare was not lessened today when I stopped at daycare to fill out some paperwork. I had to grab someone out of the baby room because the director was out at lunch, and there were all these babies there. Babies just laying there. Without parents. Because their parents just LEFT THEM THERE. Like I will do.

So, ok, the babies looked fine and happy. They were playing on mats and in exersaucers. And the ladies were watching and playing with and feeding them. But still, ugh. My diabolical scheme to stay for awhile and spy didn't pan out, because I had to fill out the registration form as fast as I could and then go to my car and cry. I am NOT looking forward to the first morning of work.

working mom

There's just a little over three weeks left of my maternity leave. Now that I'm in under the month mark, I'm not sure how to feel. When it was over a month, over two months, it was ambiguous enough an amount of time that I didn't really think about it. It just felt like, well, forever. But now, not so much.

Part of me is devastated to put the baby in daycare, part of me is ready to rejoin the ranks of adults. I'm nervous that I will have forgotten everything because I want to do well, and I'm disconcerted by how little I've actually thought about work in the last couple of weeks. (But I suppose I've been a little preoccupied, you know, raising a child.)

I don't know, I think I'm just overwhelmed at the thought of trying to do both motherhood and career. I know many women do, but it somehow feels different on this side of the fence. It's a lot to ask of women, I just didn't really know how much, before (and I haven't even gone back to work yet). I think no matter how far we go as a society, no matter how equal we say or pretend we are, there's something profoundly difficult about being a working mom, in particular. Maybe it's the crushing sense of responsibility that grows through pregnancy and then labor and sometimes breastfeeding. Maybe that sense of responsibility is so crushing because thousands of years ago it had to be, so we didn't leave our babies out in the rain to freeze to death or be eaten by sabertooth tigers. But we carry that responsibility into our jobs and our marriages, and then we have kids and it becomes a heavy load. Yes, men have an innate sense of responsibility too, but maybe because they were out hunting and protecting and warring for all those ancient years, they don't feel quite the burden on the homefront.

Or maybe it's the multitasking thing, maybe as women we take on the household stuff and the work stuff and the parenting stuff all at the same time because we can. Or at least, we think we can.

Like I said, I'm not sure exactly what to think. My modern brain fervidly wants to have a career and contribute to something bigger (and, truthfully, our finances require it). I need to socialize and learn new things and have adult conversations. I like to work and I (we) have earned that right. But another part of me, an older and deeper part, feels deeply guilty and heartbroken that my daughter will be cared for by others for the majority of her infanthood. And I'm not sure how to reconcile the two.

holy giant baby!

We took the baby in for her 6 week check-up and she's in the 95th percentile for head, weight and height! I guess I'm not surprised, thinking back on how big our niece was at six weeks, Ainsley seems much gangly-er. The doctor even said we could start her on cereal at two months if she's still super hungry. Oh, giant monster baby. So grunty and squirmy and giant! She looked great though, she's really healthy and the doctor was impressed. I'm calling it now - she's going to be a wild one. She flails and kicks so much that I think she'll be happy when she can finally crawl and walk. She's just stocking up for that.

uphill

Tuesday marks six weeks since the little nugget was born. I got the go-ahead to start working out at four weeks, and have been taking it pretty easy (walking and eliptical, a few arm free weights). Today I decided to stop being a loser and actually try. I ran intervals for 30 minutes, did some arm stuff and actually did crunches - hooray! I can't believe how hard three sets of abs were, it was ridiculous. But you gotta start somewhere, and I'm not sure where working out will fit in after I go back to work so I'd better take advantage now. It sucks - I can't really justify spending an hour of what little time I'll have with the baby working out. I'm thinking I could either go really early in the morning or after she goes to bed at night (assuming we can successfully get her bedtime moved up to eight or nine instead of 10 or 11). Maybe Mike and I could trade off going to the gym after she goes down for the night. Honestly neither option is going to be very fun with working all day as well, but I have to try. I feel icky right now, body-wise, but for me working out is way more about my mental health. I am a MONSTER when I don't work out.

kudos

I have to say my insurance provider through work (Dakotacare) has been FANTASTIC through the baby stuff. I was just going through my claims on their site, all of which have been processed from labor and delivery. We're paying peanuts of the total cost (which is OUTRAGEOUS, but that's a topic for another day). And I don't even think my premiums are that high each month. And their customer service is great, to boot - every time I've used their email help, I've received a response within 24 hours.

Also, I had supplementary disability and sickness policies through Aflac. These paid part of my salary for maternity leave and a lump sum based on hospital confinement, surgery, etc. I had a check within a couple of weeks, and I only had to fax one form.

Now, I'm all for universal, government-sponsored health care - I mean, how can a basic democratic right be effectively privatized? It's like having privatized law enforcement. BUT, that being said, I don't mind paying in the meantime for good, effective, fair coverage (and I feel like my premiums and deductible are fair). When we go the universal route as a country, and I think we will, I hope the gov will work with the good guys in the industry and help them be a part of it.