Latest Obsession: Babywearing Poncho

I've been babywearing since Q was born. It's just a practical way to:
1. Take him grocery shopping while keeping him right next to me so nosy people don't get to close to him and expose him to their germs
2. Have hands free while still carrying him (and his baby-related crap).
3. Get chores done around house if he's crabby and/or wants to sleep.
I do not know how people DON'T babywear.

Anyway, winter is coming, so it's getting a little trickier. There is quite a bit of body heat between mom and baby, so even on our chilly Oct/Nov days, I can just wear a long sleeve shirt, put Q in socks and a hat, and feel confident that we're both going to be warm enough. However, it's getting colder.

Someone at a mom's group had mentioned a sweater you can wear over both you and the baby. I can't find that, but I did find a cool poncho that covers you and the baby, just exposing your heads. I must have this. Winter SUCKS, and one way of dealing with it is having the proper clothing; that's probably the biggest lesson I've learned up here in CT.

I still wear Q on my front, because he's little enough not to kill my back. I like having him where I can see him.

There's also this $300 dollar Psny Babywearing Down Coat, but I'm not a NYC mom who walks everywhere, so I don't think I need something that hardcore! Click here to read full entry.

Taylor's Cheer Captain, Kanye's on the Bleachers

She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers...

This line from a bubbly Taylor Swift song is stuck in my head, and it made me realize, My God, poor Kanye. No wonder he stormed the stage at the VMAs. I bet that song was, and is, stuck in his head, too. He is so obsessed with Taylor Swift because while part of him hates her cheery pop and another part is jealous of her success, ANOTHER part recognizes that she's brilliant. And he just can't take it, and part of him wants to be her. How do I know this? Because I remember reading clips of the crazy rant/apology he posted to his website very soon after the VMAs. He was clearly still drunk. Later, he put up a more sensible apology, but I think his first draft says it all:

I’m sooooo sorry to Taylor Swift and her fans and her mom. I spoke to her mother right after and she said the same thing my mother would’ve said. She is very talented! I like the lyrics about being a cheerleader and she’s in the bleachers! I’m in the wrong for going on stage and taking away from her moment!

Beyoncé’s video was the best of this decade!!!! I’m sorry to my fans if I let you guys down!!!! I’m sorry to my friends at MTV. I will apologize to Taylor 2mrw. Welcome to the real world!!!! Everybody wanna booooo me but I’m a fan of real pop culture!!! No disrespect but we watchin’ the show at the crib right now cause … well you know!!!! I’m still happy for Taylor!!!! Boooyaaawwww!!!! You are very very talented!!! I gave my awards to Outkast when they deserved it over me … That’s what it is!!!!!!! I’m not crazy y’all, i’m just real. Sorry for that!!! I really feel bad for Taylor and I’m sincerely sorry!!! Much respect!!!!!

I mean, there is so much repulsion in that sarcastic first paragraph, but I also read it as raging envy of her songwriting skills. He quoted the most insanely catchy line of her song! When a song gets stuck in a musician's head, that means something: it means that song is a success.

And really, how different are Kanye and Taylor? They probably have a lot in common. They're probably going to end up best friends eventually. Click here to read full entry.

My Brain is Officially Fried

Dammit! I was doing so well!
But the past few weeks, I've noticed that when I leave the house and try to have a real conversation, I act like a total idiot.
I AM SO TIRED.

Scenario 1: I run into woman from baby yoga at a park.
Her: "Hey! Are you still doing the baby yoga class?"
Me: (blank stare.)
(I know the answer. It's 'no,' but I was thinking about how the baby yoga class is useless once you know all the moves because then it feels like it goes too slowly and plus it's baby yoga and massage, and I don't want to do the massage, and... etc. But all I could do was stare at her as no words came to me.)

Scenario 2: talking to favorite salesperson at Giggle of Greenwich.
Laura: "How's the baby?"
Me: "Good!" (I look at her. Loooooooong pause as she waits for details. I can't think of anything interesting to say.) "Um. Wow. I just realized that I'm really tired."

I think of myself as a really good conversationalist, so it's sad to see myself failing miserably but be too wiped out to do anything about it.

I mean, obviously the baby is worth the brain-fry, but this makes me wonder how I'm going to do my teaching job when I go back in January. I think I need to give the baby a full feed, rather than a half feed, when he wakes up at night. I keep thinking, "Oh, he's supposed to be able to sleep through the night, so he doesn't really need this food (breastmilk), so I can just give him one side and maybe he'll go 3-4 more hours before he wakes again." But noooo he'll wake after 1 or 2 hours, and it's killing me. I just have a feeling that he needs the calories, because he is not crazy about solid food. He likes hummus, but those baby fruit and veggie purees, he could take them or leave them. Maybe I should puree some of the turkey chili I'm making today? Kidding, kidding! Click here to read full entry.

Breastfeeding: Wish I'd Heard More Good Things!

This month I’m thrilled to be participating in Blacktating’s Carnival of Breastfeeding, where moms contribute posts on a theme. This month’s theme is “If I’d Known Then…” Links to other blogger’s thoughts on the topic are at the end of this post.

I’ve been breastfeeding for almost seven months now, and it’s been so much cooler than I expected. I wish I’d known ahead of time how wonderful and easy breastfeeding could be.

I’d heard terrible things about breastfeeding; how it hurt, how it was hard - general doomsday stuff. But I had a hunch it could be OK, because on my visits to my sister I saw her breastfeed my nephews and niece and it didn’t look that awful. In fact, she made it look easy. Maybe it will be that easy for me, I thought to myself. But when I was pregnant and people asked me, “Are you going to breastfeed?” I’d say, very casually, “I’m going to try.” I’d heard so many stories of failure that I dared not hope I’d be able to manage it. I think I also didn’t want to hear any more bad stories about breastfeeding, so I tried to give the most noncommittal answer possible. Now I hate to think of how wishy-washy I sounded, and I wish that I could have given a more confident answer.

So far I am amazed by how much I have enjoyed breastfeeding. I didn’t know that in those tired days after the baby is born, breastfeeding makes pleasant hormones course through your body. I didn’t know how breastfeeding teaches you to read your baby so well. I didn’t know how it was so convenient to be able to feed the baby at a restaurant, in the car, or while walking around Target without having to do anything but adjust my shirt. I didn’t know how easy breastfeeding made life with a baby. You can pacify a baby on a 6 hour flight to CA with hardly any effort. I had no idea! You can let a fussy baby nurse for an hour straight when nothing else works… and you can lie down doing it! Does it get much easier for an exhausted mom?

Don’t get me wrong. We’ve had a few problems: bruised nipples from a bad latch at day five (my fault, not the baby’s), clogged ducts at month three, and a decreased supply after the baby nursed poorly at month five when he had a bad flu. I got through it all with the help of the lactation consultants at my local hospital. I cannot say enough about how much they have helped me. I was also lucky enough not to be working, so I had plenty of time at home to resolve the issues with little outside demands on me.

There are a few other things I wish I’d known. I knew I didn’t want many visitors at the hospital so I could focus on feeding the baby, but I didn’t know that even having a few visitors would impact my ability to feed my baby on demand. The baby was fussing while company was there, and I tried everything else except feeding him to calm him down. I was still too new at breastfeeding to be able to nurse in front of people I wasn’t fully comfortable with, and plus, I didn’t really understand that my baby was fussing because he was hungry. I couldn’t fully fathom that babies needed to eat ALL THE TIME those first days. I think back to how I rocked and shushed him until the visitors left, and I feel terrible because now I realize I ignored my baby’s hunger signals. I have to wonder if that’s why my milk took an extra day or two to come in, which made the baby a bit jaundiced and the doctor worry about his weight. It worked out fine, but with the next baby, I’ll do a better job of feeding the baby often right from the start.

I also wish I’d heard about cluster feedings before I experienced them. It’s hard to believe a baby would nurse for three hours straight… until midnight, 1 am, and a couple times, 2 am. It’s easy to start thinking you don’t have enough milk. A couple times we even broke into the formula cans we’d received in the mail and made a bottle, but each time, I looked at the bottle and said, “I’ll feed him just a little more.” I kept nursing him and eventually he fell asleep. If I weren’t such a stubborn person, I would have used the formula, and in doing so, possibly not allowed my breasts to know how much milk the baby really needed from me. Breastfeeding is a leap of faith, and you have to trust both yourself and the baby. If you trust that your baby really is hungry, even if it’s only been an hour or two after the last feed, the milk supply will most likely follow. My lactation consultant emphasized that theme in the hospital’s New Mothers group, and that lesson of listening to the baby and reading his signals has driven pretty much all of my breastfeeding decisions since then.

I hope to be able to spread the good word about breastfeeding. I know some people have a hard time, but for me, it has been intuitive, calming, and yes- easy. I don’t want other people to end up with a long list of “things I wish I’d known,” so I offer simple advice to my friends who are pregnant. I tell them to line up a lactation consultant ahead of time, so they know they can call someone in the morning for help (after a 3 am freakout!). I also tell them to get a copy of The Nursing Mother’s Companion, which I think is one of the easiest to use and most organized breastfeeding books. I think every nursing mother needs support, even the ones who have a relatively easy time like me.

Read other mothers' stories:

--When breastfeeding begins badly, and what I should have done about it by The Milk Mama

--What I Wish I'd Known Back Then About Breastfeeding by Christina at Massachusetts Friends of Midwives

--If I'd Known Then... by Whozat

--You don't have to grin and bear it by Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite!

--Robin Elise Weiss at Birth Activist

--Barbara at Three Girl Pile Up

--Adria at Happy Bambino

--What I Wish I'd Known Then: A Poem by Lisa at My World Edenwild

--AP Principle #2: What I wish I'd known when I started breastfeeding by Hobo Mama

--I wish I would've known! by strwberryjoy (Maria)

--Rebekah at Momma's Angel

--Breastfeeding Mums: 15 Breastfeeding Facts I Wish I'd Known as a First Time Breastfeeding Mum

--Rita at Fighting Off Frumpy: When Breastfeeding Feels Wrong

--Cave Mother: Nursing Wisdom

--Breastfeeding 1-2-3: Trust Yourself and Your Body

--Breastfeeding is life changing at Blacktating

--Claire at Mum Unplugged
Click here to read full entry.

My Mini-Me

It's weird, how attached I feel to this baby. I just can't get enough of him. Looking at pictures of him is weird, because pictures make me try to see objectively what he looks like- but all I can see is a little extension of myself, and someone I know so well that he feels like me.* I am so lucky to get to be with him full time for ten months.

Holding him feels so natural. It feels odd to be without him. Right now he is sleeping, which is why I have to time to write and reflect. I guess his better sleeping is one of the ways that he and I will become separate as he gets older.

It is so easy to go about my days with him. I love grocery shopping with him, I love going out with friends with him. I love eating lunch while he plays on the floor beside me. I love feeding him while I watch TV (because you have to tune out for just a little during the day, fo real). I like changing his diaper. I like sitting him in the exersaucer while I shower, talking to him while I shower, and opening the shower door to peek at him and make him laugh.

Only down sides of a baby:
Can't go to the gym.
Can't go have long dinners out with husband (altho as we are getting back on a schedule after our trip and illnesses, I can see how that would actually be possible).
Can't get tipsy (have to feed baby).
Less time for crosswords and blogging.
(And, I'd like to get tipsy during those dinners out, but if baby wakes and needs to eat, have to be able to feed him; I'm too lazy to do bottles and pumping.)

But I totally love it.
I am already thinking of the next one. I mean, is that terrible?

*Not to leave the husband out of all this. My husband also feels like an extension of me- or rather, part of me- like, the other half of me- so that I often forget to tell him things, because if it's in my head, it feels like it should be in his head too.

But my baby and I get along GREAT. I want to see who the next one is gonna be, if I am lucky enough to have another!

This post is rambling and absurd, but whatevs. I just want to think about how darling this baby is. Click here to read full entry.

One Thing I Wish I'd Known About Breastfeeding

I'd wish I'd heard about cluster feeding, where, in preparation for sleep, the baby NURSES HIS HEAD OFF FOR LIKE THREE HOURS. The reason this is an issue is:
1. You cannot fathom that your baby needs to nurse AGAIN.
2. Your spouse has just gotten home and wants to hang out with you/eat with you
3. You begin to think you have no milk.

What you need to do is just sit on your butt and nurse, but it is so hard because you really feel like you need to be putting on a good, cheery face for your husband. I am so glad that my husband and I realized that evenings might not be so easy and like they used to be. In those first few weeks, if the baby fell asleep at 7, rather than hang out with Corey, I'd go sleep too. I mean, it's total guerrilla tactics, but to survive and thrive as first time parents, you have to do crazy things like nap from 7-9 pm. (Because your damn baby is gonna want to nurse non-stop from 9 to midnight.)

I was just reminded of this when reading Nina Planck's Real Food for Mom and Baby. Yeah, I'm a hippie.
And this is me nursing Q when he was a couple weeks old, not in my nursing nook, but in the living room, still in maternity clothes, of course!

My biggest tip for cluster feeding is:
1. Get an awesome nursing pillow so you can nurse hands free
2. Get a laptop or a book and set it right in front of your nursing chair- better yet, get all the trashy tabloid mags, because your brain is fried.
3. Get a system, like unlimited texting for the iPhone, so you can summon your husband or mom to refill your water bottle, bring you socks for your freezing feet, or whatever.

I finally read "Bringing Your Newborn Home" AS I was nursing in those first few weeks when I was nursing 5, 6 hours a day, letting Q nurse as long as he wanted.

Letting your baby nurse as long as he wants is good for:
1. Making sure he gets to the fattier hindmilk at the end of the feed
2. Stimulating your prolactin receptors so you will always have enough milk in the later months of nursing
3. You, relaxing, reading, while the baby does his thing.

All that stuff about "don't let your baby use you as a pacifier" does NOT apply to the first month or two. Your baby is hard at work making your boobs into nursing boobs, and you need to ignore pressure from the outside world who say, "Didn't you just feed him?" "He's just using you as a pacifier." "Are you sure you have enough milk?" This is the kind of stuff that makes you feel bad about your nursing capabilities, when really, you are ROCKING IT.

Here are a couple of my fave nursing shots from the first month or two:

Nursing Q while visiting our friends Daniel and Zaida, who had their twins a few weeks after Q.









Nursing while watching Biggest Loser with my friends/coworkers. I swear, I nursed ALL THE TIME in that first month or two! Time or place, didn't matter. Just wanted that baby to gain weight.




The one thing I'm going to do differently with my next baby is nurse him or her more often in the first 24 hours. Long story, don't feel like getting into it right now.
Click here to read full entry.

New Item I'm Coveting: Svan High Chair

I'm on the hunt for a high chair for Quinton.
I of course am coveting the most beautiful, pricy one, the Svan chair. A couple of our good friends have it and love it.
However, with me not working, we don't really have the $270 bucks to spend on it.
So, in the meantime, I'm hoping to buy a $15 high chair off craigslist, because I am dying to get Q
a) eating some solids
and
b) able to drink milk from a cup so I don't have to try to get him to nurse from a bottle. I'm stressing about the transition to daycare in 3 months. He does not like the bottle, and it's notoriously hard for a nursing mom to get her baby to take the bottle- you usually need someone else to do it. I'm hoping I can instead train him on a sippy cup, so I got suggestions yesterday from other nursing moms about what their kids like best.

In the meantime, I'm dreaming about my Svan chair.


How other obsessions worked out:
1. Bugaboo stroller: AWESOME I LOVE IT
2. BOB jogging stroller: HATE IT, SUCKS FOR A KID UNDER AGE ONE FOR A LOT OF REASONS.

Click here to read full entry.

I Find People Funny: The Kid Who Dunked on LeBron

I just discovered ESPN's video page and got a chuckle out of the interview with the Xavier player who supposedly dunked on LeBron during a Nike camp. Specifically, I giggled when he said the high school kids who were watching started "running around." I love imagining the euphoria of those kids, knowing they'd seen the NBA's biggest star get dunked on by a regular young player! Too funny.




I have adored LeBron ever since he hosted SNL and was soooo funny.

I cannot find the LeBron skits on the SUCKY ASS nbc video site, but I also really liked this video of Kanye West mocking himself on the LeBron SNL:
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/106-and-park/161982/#


Click here to read full entry.

Baby is Actually Sleeping in His Crib!

Well hello Fancy Pancakes! How are you? Long time no see. Now that my baby is MIRACULOUSLY asleep IN HIS CRIB for going on TWO HOURS now, I have a few minutes to blog. I hung out with husband, researched video monitors, and now that I have had more than like, an hour away from my baby, my brain has had time to formulate some sentences that are not totally about him.

I was just chuckling to myself because I just did that thing you read about new parents doing: the kid is finally sleeping like he is SUPPOSED to, and you are so shocked that you have to go make sure he's breathing.
"I cannot believe he's sleeping!" I said happily to my husband. "Wait- maybe he's dead!"
"Go check on him."
"I can't! The floor is so creaky. I don't want to wake him up... if he's still alive. And I can't even see him because we got those room-darkening shades. And I don't have a flashlight!" I whined.
"Use the iPhone!" he said.
So I did, but all that showed me was that the baby's face was not covered with the blankie I had laid over him. So, then I felt his arm. Felt pretty warm, but not really, so I put my hand under his nose to see if I could feel him breathing. I couldn't. So, I put my hand on his chest, and it was definitely moving... a little. Babies are tummy breathers, so I moved my hand a little lower to his belly- sure enough, it was rising and falling. YAY!

Since there are VERY creaky floorboards in his room, I'm going to go out and get a video monitor tomorrow so I don't always suspect a sleeping baby is a... smothered, SIDS baby. I'm sorry, that's morbid, but that's what I'm (slightly) worried about now that he is more amenable to sleeping away from me!

There, wow, a sort of coherent thought. Click here to read full entry.

My Baby Sure Does Look Like Me

New friend to me yesterday: "He looks just like you!"
Me: "Thaaaanks!"

After I said that, I was like, Huh? What do I even mean?

People aren't necessarily meaning it as a compliment, for goodness' sake. So why am I saying thank you?

But I do mean thank you... because I am delighted he looks like me. I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting him to look like my husband, and was looking forward to that. You know, he's a boy, he'll certainly look at least somewhat like his Dad. I was looking forward to seeing little parts of Corey in him. Well, as soon as he was out of the womb, I could tell that baby didn't look a thing like my husband. Not his nose, not his hair... I felt like I was looking at myself. Or, at least not at my husband. I could tell right away that he had the mouth from my mother's side, and the cleft chin that both my parents and sisters have.

Once I got used to the idea, I was totally into having a male mini-me. From the first week he was here I'd say, "He looks like me, right?" People, including my best friends and mom, would say, "I'm not sure he does." Of course, I thought them all idiots, or in denial, or maybe resisting because I so obviously wanted it to be true that he looked like me, and were trying to collectively spite me.

Well, a couple months in, when I started going out and about and meeting new people, I started hearing ove and over, "Oh my gosh he looks just like you!" Like, repeatedly.

I hate to say I told you so. Just hate it. So, I'll write it: I TOTALLY TOLD YOU SO! Click here to read full entry.