Sehti.com blogs

6 months

May — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:05:17 -0600

M is 19 pounds, still 95th percentile everything. And no, this does not make me sooo Asian! There's nothing she nor I are doing special, though she does make very loud slurps and gulps and sighs while she's eating. It seems completely normal to me, but it must not be, since everyone comments about it. In any case, it's much easier to be on this side of the growth charts than the other...no one will call child services on me while this continues. It's really tough on the parents whose kids are "underweight", so I feel pretty lucky.

Most of the other parents I've met also feel pretty lucky, actually. I've only met two who definitely had colicky babies, so I could believe the 10to20%-are-colicky statistic. I think when we start trying for #2 we're going to cross our fingers really, really hard that we hit that 4/5 chance. Because man, there are still days when I don't know if I'm going to make it or not.

The thing is, when I wake up in the morning and go say hi to Mia in her room, she sees me, and then she smiles. And I smile back, and then she laughs. And then I laugh, and Cliff laughs, and she laughs again, and this round continues for minutes that I hope I never forget. They make me forget the years that have passed, the sleep I've lost, and for a moment I want for nothing.

5.5 months

May — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 14:47:28 -0600

The self-control book I finally finished talked a lot about "discounting the future", which is a new concept to me. Basically it's human nature to want a smaller reward now, instead of a larger reward later; the concrete example is most people would rather have $200 now rather than $300 in a month, even though if the choice were $200 in a year or $300 in a year+month they'd choose $300. I'm not quite sure I've fully grasped the concept, but I think I've totally been discounting the past.

I spent a lot of time last night thinking about how much I take my parenting for granted. Not the parenting I'm doing, because that's labor intensive and I'm very aware of it, but the parenting that my parents gave me. There are things that I can't imagine doing - trying to raise M without any family or friends or even paid resources around to help (rest, alone time), living in a small town without a car (isolation), worrying constantly about money and feeding my family, feeling the need to conform to societal expectations with respect to race, religion, and gender; my parents had to do all of those when they had kids, and their parents before them had similar challenges.

It's not like this realization makes me pity them, because the thankful thing about having kids (or any major life change) is that we aren't wired to regret the decision. I'm pretty sure they weren't thinking about how hard their lives were, they just made do. Like the first month (and a half) of M's life - I couldn't acknowledge* how miserable I was (sleep-deprivation, physical recovery, bat-shit-crazy-making hormones), I just made it through one day at a time. I tell people that it's the closest in my life that I've ever come to living hand-to-mouth. I couldn't think past the end of the day, a month seemed forever out in the future, and planning anything was impossible. It makes me understand why they say poor people aren't incentivized to save. What's the point of saving anything when you need it to get through today?

*When I did acknowledge it, it made me feel completely overwhelmed and unable to continue, so I just stopped thinking about it. The nice part is that every day really truly does get better. Because when you start from negative infinity there's no where else to go but up!

In any case, becoming a parent is extremely hard. All those times my parents said "When you're a a parent you'll understand."...I totally understand now. Sometimes I think of it like crossing the wall that separates the land of the dead from the living* - there's no going back. And now I understand just how much I should be thankful for my parents, and for all the things they did for us.

*Mostly a Ursula Le Guin reference, but I'm sure the underlying idea is an eternal one.

I wouldn't give M back for the world. Which is good, because I think her warranty ran out anyways.

Books that have made me throw tantrums

May — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:55:39 -0600

...because the sequels aren't out yet. By request, in descending order of tantrum intensity. I'm actually surprised how much time I have had to read, but M used to sleep a lot, and now she'll play by our sides when we read books/internet.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone - this book contains a two-word phrase that made my year. If you say it to me, I still LOL.
Graceling (less a fan of Fire)
Wise Man's Fear (lower tantrum level only because I knew the third wasn't out yet and already loved the first)
Shades of Grey - the Thursday Next Series as well.

And one that didn't: Switched. But it reminded me of Twilight, so if you're into that, more puerile fiction exists.

In the non-fantasy world, I should mention this fascinating book on poop, and I'm currently reading this book on self-control. But it's harder to throw tantrums about those.

5 months

May — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:30:57 -0600

Being a mom is the hardest job I've ever had. It's not like being an engineer, where I can show up whenever I want, take a long lunch, and go home when the job is done. It's 24-7, no sick days, and no vacations. I love getting to watch M change and grow, and I feel really lucky that I can be a SAHM, but at the end of the day, I'm always exhausted, because I'm giving it everything in a way that I've never had to at any of my "real" jobs before. I'm pretty sure it's "good" stress, but it makes me wonder about other people...do they live their lives at this pace? Do I need to worry about burn-out?

I constantly feel like this would be easier if I was younger, because I feel like I'd be able to deal with less sleep better. But I know I would have just wondered about all the things that I'm now missing, even though that is a misnomer. These days, I don't care that I'm no longer eating at all the new/fancy restaurants, or going dancing at clubs, or going out with friends. I've done all of those things, and I don't really enjoy going out as much as I used to (in the case of clubbing, if I ever did.) I don't feel jaded about it, just that I've had enough time to live the stereotypical unencumbered life. And in that time, I've found out that I prefer having dinner parties to beer bashes, Netflix to the Cinema, and dancing at weddings to clubs. We still go on two-person dates, thanks to wonderful babysitters, and though it adds to the expense, the rarity also adds to the appreciation.

Sometimes I feel like my life completely changed, which it did and didn't. I miss playing soccer but that's more from a physical barrier which is easy to accept, since I'm still hopeful it'll get better. And I've just started climbing again which makes me feel centered. So predominantly when I think about what has changed, I only miss quality/solid uninterrupted sleep. I really miss the way I used to sleep. There was so much less anxiety in the whole mix.

In terms of my other passion, food, it's nice to have a new angle to look at restaurants with - now it matters if they have a changing station in their bathroom, if they can handle a stroller, and if the noise level is enough to drown out some squawks but not ruin little eardrums. It's not the typical "foodie" care...which perversely makes me happy. No one actually aspires to be a foodie...it's such a vulgar, first world thing to be. Like hipsters, foodies run away from the label, and god help you if you're a hipster foodie. (Tight matchstick jeans, plaid button-up shirt, geek glasses, and home canning/pickling = hipster foodie. Though I'm 2 out of 4...I better go get some mom jeans.)

I have been able to get out to new places on Thursdays...we're now sharing a nanny with a friend on Thursdays, so I drop M off in the morning and have 8 hours to myself. The majority of the time I'm running errands/Costco/TJ's/etc and climbing/working out in the afternoons, but I still get to decide what to do with the rest of the time: sleep, eat, read, or blog. It's wonderful. It's right about the point in the week where I start feeling overwhelmed, and renews the sense that every moment with M is a gift. We're debating adding another day to it, and though it does makes me feel guilty that I'm not doing this solo, I keep telling myself that a happy mom = happy kids, It Takes a Village, Whatever Works*, etc. Bottom line - we are lucky enough to be able to afford it, and I really, really enjoy the break. Speaking of which, there's a new, hipster, Jewish deli two blocks from my apt, and a corned beef Reuben is calling my name.

*Whatever Works is my new mom motto. And it was totally stolen from Savage Love, even the phrase "mom motto". No original thoughts here, no sirree bob.

Stuff and Nonsense (4.5 months)

May — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:38:09 -0700

I am losing the war on Stuff. It's a first-world problem and paved with good intentions, but I'm slowly getting overwhelmed anyways. It was easier in the first months - babies need so little besides food and diapers. But now we have books and clothes and toys and everything falling out of the closet, and it takes dedicated time and effort to periodically weed through it all. The reason I'm so anti-Stuff is that it seriously pains me to throw things away - food, toys, clothes. You name it, I feel guilt. Goodwill is wonderful for this - even though it's too much for me, I can pretend it's going to someone who actually needs it. But there's still that twinge of doubt that they can't possibly need all of this stuff from all of the stuff-crazy humans out there. And the twinge of guilt when I throw out something my parents want Mia to have, or the ridiculously intricate, handmade set of blanket/dress/booties/hat from an aunty. But she doesn't need all of this, and we don't have the space for it, and it is seriously driving me crazy to have so much STUFF for a freaking four-month-old. ARGH.

Speaking of said four-month-old, she learned how to roll onto her side today. I believe this is the beginning of the end.

3 months +

May — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:33:20 -0700

I keep thinking of great ways to turn a phrase about Mia, and then inevitably being called back to duty and forgetting them before I can blog. Which is no great loss for the Internet, but makes it a bit harder to consistently produce content here. My other excuse is that the majority of my posts are written when Mia is asleep; because the packandplay/crib thing is next to my computer, I wake her up with my 70 words-per-minute clicking (ok, more like 60 now that I've switched to Dvorak). I just typed this paragraph on the iPad, and it was non-literally painful. Though apple's auto-correct isn't bad.

Luckily, Mia also loves playing in her playgym, so now that she's awake I can type this while she entertains herself. I found out that she was ready for one when we had a playdate at a friend's house, and she wouldn't stop playing with this one. I thought it was the cutest thing, but when I mentioned I wanted to get one, another friend ended up loaning us this one (not exactly, it's a few years older). My biggest lesson from baby-raising: beg and borrow, but don't buy everything you think you need. M barely uses the super-expensive swing that we got, but loves hanging out in the changing table. And she's gonna outgrow both in another month or so. You just can't know how they'll use things.

I thank the stars that she's still very independent for a baby - she looks around for us, but she'll hang out by herself for hours, which other moms tell me (with envy) is unusual. I think that's starting to change, however, with her growing awareness and sight. Now she can see me if I'm typing when she's in her crib, and will make cute or demanding noises. Since I'm not sure I'll be getting as many chances to blog, I've set up two Twitter pages: one for me, and one for her. Actually, that makes it sound like there was foresight or wisdom involved in this decision, when actually at 5am this morning my brain decided that people would stop reading my blog unless I posted more, therefore I should post more, but since posting these long, verbose pages takes writing time that is hard to find, I needed to set us up accounts on Twitter. Once I decided to do that, it let me fall asleep. I'm unused to following my brain's middle-of-the-night cravings, but I figured I'd run with it. I probably should have just eaten some leftovers instead.

Thursday's 4am brain-demand was that I wake up and offer to make C a sandwich before he left for work. It's like it decided I needed to punch feminism in the face, or something.

Month 3 has started off much better than 1 or 2. She sleeps from about 7pm to 9am, waking up twice during that and wanting to feed. Once around 2-4am, and once from 5-8am. I usually take the first, and C the second, so not only does everything feel more "fair" than it used to, we're both getting a decent amount of sleep for new parents. Although it takes us both a long time to fall asleep again once we're up - that's the really hard part. I would assume that since I'm spending 12+ hours Trying to Sleep that I'm well-rested, but it really varies day by day. The bad days I'm running on 3 hours of sleep, the good ones usually 7. So I try not to count, for fear I realize how tired I really am. Mia actually slept 9 hours straight the other day, but I couldn't take advantage of it because at 2am I woke up and waited for her to wake up, only to doze off again and wake up a half-hour later. This repeated until 5am, at which point she woke up and was starving, and I was a sleep-zombie the whole next day. It's a weird combo of having a routine and constant change as well...it means every day is different, and also that I have no idea what's coming next.

M's head control has really improved to the point where it only flops around if she's tired, so C has taken to handing her to people willy-nilly in order to make them more comfortable with babies. We both agree that it's unfortunate that in the US, by the time you're having a baby, it's not likely that you've actually had much experience with them, so the learning curve is steep. Ok, she's napping again, I have to take a break...

2 Months (plus one day)

May — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:34:40 -0700

Ok, I shouldn't have mentioned the 7 hours thing, because the last three days it's been 6 instead. Which still sounds a bit like parent humblebragging, but man that extra hour would be soooo nice...sigh.

In any case, here is photo evidence of the double chin. If she wasn't mine, I wouldn't post such an ugly photo of her. But I think it's pretty funny. Poor M. When she starts school I'll have to archive my blog somehow and take all these things off the internet. But until then...

A friend sent a link to this article hoping to liberate me from breast-feeding guilt. It certainly worked - I feel much more ok with the idea of giving M formula, even though that is really going against the parenting tide these days. I really like the idea that assuming breastmilk is "free" gives no value to a woman's time.

2 Months (almost)

May — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:40:09 -0700

We continue to have an awesome baby. The developmental changes are so welcome but subtle...she holds her head up a little more, she looks at you a little longer, her smile stays longer on her face. I think I heard her laugh the other day. It's just amazing to watch. And she is getting huge - her double chin has connected her chunky cheeks for a while now. Which is actually hard to clean, unfortunately, but I'm lucky to have such a healthy growing baby. One thing you hear a lot of from other moms is "I can't remember when my baby (no matter what their age) was that small!" And now I know why - I saw a friend's baby who is a month younger, and I said the exact same thing to her mom.

Another thing moms will say to each other is "How are you doing?" For people who haven't just had a kid, this phrase usually means you whip out your stock answer of "Great, you?" But for moms, this phrase means "Tell me about your mental state and whether you're feeling post-partum depression, and then lets talk about this in detail." It took me a bit to figure out why I was getting such puzzled looks when I automatically used the stock response.

I got pretty lucky post-partum, I think, as I only broke down crying twice. Both times felt more due to serious-lack-of-sleep/other frustrations than to hormones, but who knows. What people don't tell you about having babies is that the first month to 6-weeks is really, really hard. Fucking Brutal, in my opinion. The reason varies from baby to baby, but there's practically no one out there who has an easy first month. There are some relative differences, i.e. M usually doesn't scream her head off when she's upset, or if she does scream it doesn't last long, but that's no compensation when you are completely incoherent due to interrupted sleep. But then you somehow get over the hump, and things start getting slowly easier. For me the peak was about 3-4 weeks into it, where I felt that if everything continued going the way it was going, I wasn't going to make it. But then she started sleeping a 4-5 hour period during the night. And then she started smiling. And then breastfeeding got easier and C could start giving her a bottle, etc. And now I'm really enjoying my days again and it's such a luxury to be able to bond with my daughter like this.

We took her to Hawaii for a week, which was soooo nice. When I first bought the tickets, I thought "even if I just see the inside of two other apartments for the week, it'll at least be a change." But I got some beach time, some hangout-with-other-moms time, some lay-in-the-sun time, and my parents got more time with M. And flying with her was much easier than expected, although the first night was rough because I'd had so much pre-flight anxiety that I hadn't been able to sleep. And if you can't tell by now, because certainly I don't seem to be changing my behavior to get more of it, when I don't get enough sleep this whole thing breaks down. But other than that, it's been surprisingly easy to continue our lives, even with a new baby in the mix.

Places that I have now breastfed in that surprised me:
Michael Mina (a 1 Michelin starred restaurant)
Airplanes and Airports
The beach
My car's driver seat
Other people's apartments
Chinese restaurants
Cirque du Soleil

Mia slept 7 hours last night. SEVEN. OH MY GOD my life is AWESOME. I'm firmly in the camp of "we do not brag about wonderful things for fear they never happen again", but OMG SEVEN HOURS SLEEP. Superstition would have us repeat what we did Sunday all over again today, but that would involve C making us waffles, lazing around on the couch, C going to work while the baby and I napped, and then Cirque du Soleil. So that would get expensive to do again. Maybe I'll try the napping thing again...

The faces my daughter makes when pooping

May — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:09:39 -0700

Alternate titles for this entry:
Reasons she'll blame me for therapy
Might as well put her on the internet first
or
The closest I've come to peeing in my pants this year.

I can't get the animated gif to display well in Firefox, so you can find the whole thing here, or a full color video on GooglePlus.

2 Weeks Old

May — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 13:42:27 -0600

M is spoiling us. She's such a mellow, chill baby that it makes me scared to have a second. There's no way another baby will be this good. Every now and then she'll get super gassy, and that's about the only time we have to listen to unstoppable crying, but even then it's not really all-out-crying, it's more "this is really uncomfortable and I'm going to make sounds and faces to show it." And then when she finally farts/burps/poops we're so relieved because now she'll be able to sleep...having a baby really opens your relationship to bodily functions. We've taken to congratulating each other for them, in order to be consistent for her. Except the stinky ones...those we still try to hide. But for the most part, once you've had a diaper change misfire and start running down your leg (jeans for C, bare leg for me), you really relax about the whole thing and get much less grossed out by it. Last night was a go-thru-two-diapers-and-the-whole-changing-pad type of change, and I just nonchalantly rinsed her off in the kitchen sink before we went back to bed. The most surprising thing to me is how fast this confidence develops - 2 weeks ago I barely knew how to pick up a baby or change a diaper and I was terrified of bathing them. Now I can do 2 out of 3 before she even wakes up completely.

The first week home for the hospital, we had friends over every night, and they brought take-out. I had no idea how helpful this is, and now I feel bad for not doing it for friends who had babies earlier. We were just getting settled into our new routine, so I could barely think twice about food, and having ready-made plans and food show up was AWESOME. They got to meet the baby, we got adult conversation, and everyone got fed...everyone won. Especially when they brought extra and I could eat it for breakfast and lunch :)

We've been mostly using disposable diapers with occasional naked time on a waterproof pad and the occasional cloth diaper, but I'll probably try to start EC soonish. She's amazingly competent at sensing when a diaper comes off and pooping immediately, which seems like it'll work well for EC, though it makes changing her diaper an anticipatory stand-off. I finally caved and bought a changing table from IKEA, and it does make things easier. We were fine using the dining table, but changing time is now much less fraught with worry if I go wash hands mid-chnge. Besides, C wanted one, and since he's been doing a majority of the changing, he gets what he wants. So on the front of avoiding baby furniture and stuff, my big caves have been a swing (not used much yet, hear it comes in handy soonish...), a pack-and-play (used as a crib), and the changing table (foldable). Not too bad so far. The pack and play is super useful - I'd figured we'd all just co-sleep (baby in our bed), but the first night made it clear that I can't sleep with her that close to me - instead I'll lie awake all night neurotic with "is she still breathing?" worries, which once again everyone always says, and I didn't listen to. In my defense, you can't know how you're going to react to your own baby. We've napped together successfully in bed, but at night I find it much easier with her in the pack and play near our bed.

Everyone asks about the sleep, so here's the low down - as a breastfeeding mom, I get to sleep about every 2-3 hours, as much as I want to as long as it's in intervals, because she eats every 1-4 hours now. So a typical night time is getting ready for bed around 10pm, letting her eat as much as possible, then going to bed while C changes her and swaddles her and puts her in the bassinet/pack-and-play. At first she'd wake up at midnight, 2am, 4am, 6am, 8am, etc. and want to be fed, and feeding would take about 20-30 minutes. After 3 days when my milk came in, I started (unintentionally) waking up when she's stirring, getting her, changing her, feeding her, re-swaddling her and occasionally letting her fall back asleep on my chest before putting her back down and going back to sleep. C is totally willing to do the nighttime changes and burping, and I know some couples do this as a way to keep things "fair", but in my mind it doesn't make a ton of sense since I'm already used to the interrupted sleeping from pregnancy (I was waking up every few hours to pee) and am going to be up anyways. So C mostly handles the day changing and burping instead. In any case, like I mentioned before, the first night home from the hospital with the every-2-hour feedings was really rough, but since then the feedings have spaced out and become almost pleasant. I can't say I love getting up, but I'm happy after that. She rarely cries during the whole thing, and now the timing is more 10pm feeding, 1am, 4am, 7am, with feedings taking 10-20 minutes. Last night was 10pm, 2am, 6am, 9am...which was awesome and I hope keeps up. As long as I remember to get a nap in during the day, I feel pretty rested, but on the days that I forget or have to skip a nap I tend to crash around 8pm.

After a month, the breast-feeding advocates say that you can start using bottles/artificial nipples, but we've been doing so well weight-gain wise we may start earlier so that C can take a feeding or two. It's been going relatively well, in comparison to some horror stories I've heard, though it still hurts a bit when she first latches. However, my breasts have developed a mind of their own. I keep asking C if this is what being a guy is like. When she cries, or it's feeding time, or sometimes for no reason that I can tell, They'll start tingling and leaking breastmilk. It's pretty common, but certainly new to me, and occasionally I'll just stare in bewilderment as I start dripping on the carpet. Sleep-bras are very, very useful. I should have ignored the nursing bras and just bought more sleep bras, which are basically easy-access sports bras. Much more comfy. But the nursing bras are useful for going out in public, so they aren't all bad, and they remind me that I used to care about what I was wearing more than "can I whip my breasts out to feed when I'm wearing this?" Priorities!

I typed most of this while wearing her in a Hotsling, though now our visiting family is over and holding her. Baby-wearing is wonderful - you can do almost every activity you do pre-baby with them next to you, and it keeps them happy and content. We're going out to a fancy family dinner tonight, and probably someone will be holding/wearing her the whole night. So far we've gone out for dinner, dim sum, and lunch each once, and it's gone really smoothly. Best baby I've had so far.

I can has your nose!