Quietly Blogging

In addition to listening to do-re-mi and Lonely Goatherd regularly, I (and the LO, by extension) have some favorite things we have discovered in the process of getting to seven months old.  In no particular order, here are the things we could not live without. 1.   Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Puppy .  This is the first toy LO played with and she is still in love.  It does not really sustain her drooling on it, but she still lights up when she hears itsy bitsy spider.  You can set it to autoplay too, especially helpful when you need 5 minutes to do anything. 2.   DK Noisy and Pop-up Books (especially the Sophie the Giraffe and Animal ones).  Okay, maybe we are teaching our girl that all books have sounds.  But she is really getting into opening the pages and seeing what is behind each of the little peek-a-boo flaps.  We actually sit down and read together with these books - we've been doing it for months! 3. Convertible Woombie .  This little peanut shaped sack single handedl

This is probably because I am tired.  But today I'm feeling pretty invisible.  A woman attached to a baby - a baby I love and adore, and do not resent.  She is wonderful even at 4 am (after I get out my slew of curse words and a few tears).  I love her so much and she is the joy and light in my life.  I love our little family, our cocoon. Instead, I'm feeling some resentment towards those who make me feel invisible, and sad - the ones outside the cocoon.  The ones who say "let me see that baby" and proceed to play with her without looking up once, to see how I - the caretaker, the chauffeur, the vessel - am feeling.  The ones who when we FaceTime don't care if I or my husband appear in frame.  Who forget that in the past year I had a c section, fell down a flight of stairs, lost a tooth and a gallbladder, and am still in nagging post partum pain. I can cry in the presence of others unnoticed if the baby is around.  I've done it.  I did it today, and am doi

Right now my girl is napping in her crib in her room for the first time.  6 months into her life.  And there were no tears (this time) - she just passed out the minute I put her down. I am far from an expert.  I'm a first time mom.  But when people reference crying it out, I cringe.  Our LO never cried it out.  She screamed it out, she shrieked it out, but she never cried herself to sleep successfully (in the traditional CIO sense). As new parents in a co-sleeping arrangement (not bed sharing, room sharing), we made sure not to touch the baby until she started crying.  We let her grunt, moan, make all kinds of noise without our interference.  No one told us to expect or do this, we just went on gut.  She really didn't need us until she cried, right? This was at night - naps didn't come so easy.  We tried everything to get her to nap independently.  We held her until she was dead asleep and put her in a little bassinet from the pack n play.  Occasionally she would nap

Dear Momma coming home from hospital, You got this.  That percoset fueled glaze from your C-Section and 18 hour labor will soon be replaced with a lack of sleep.  You'll savor getting four hours of sleep in a row like someone without kids enjoys sleeping in.  Keep chocolate around.  It'll be a great reward for getting up in the middle of the night to try and breastfeed.  Have everyone who is not related to you over at once.  This is why god created sip and sees.  You do not want people visiting unless they will do chores while you breastfeed from the comfort of your couch (thanks family!). I know feeding the baby was tough in the hospital.  Impossible actually.  But breastfeeding will get easier.  And if it doesn't, formula is your friend!  Remember how the baby wouldn't eat right away, so you spent every two hours shoving a breast in her mouth begging her to at least try?  So many tears, so much pain!  And when all else failed, we visited lactation consultants, an

My #1 advice to new mommy's - as if I'm in the position to give it, ha - is to not google it.  Just don't.  Not only because you'll find totally contradictory advice out there on topics such as: Crying it out (CIO) Where/when/how to nap When to feed How to feed What to feed Starting solids and baby led weaning (BLW) Sleeping through the night (STTN) Cribs vs. bassinets vs. baby sharing vs. rock n play (RNP) Exclusively breastfeeding (EBF) [note - anything with an acronym is exceptionally well documented on the internet, so much so these acroynms are ubiquitous.  Did I forget anything mommies and daddies?] But also because it is not helpful.  Notice I didn't even begin to put medical maladies on here - these are simply procedural day-to-day items that get our knickers twisted.  You'll find something to justify whatever you are doing, eventually (even if it takes hours of searching).  But you'll also be convinced that whatever you are doing is wr

We're getting ready to make some serious sleep transitions in this household - LO is rolling over actively and she just doesn't seem comfy in the Rock N Play all bundled up.  I'd gotten some advice on how to smooth the transition, but thought I'd float a request out to a new mommy group I belong to on facebook.  I specifically asked for advice on how to make the transition out of swaddle and into crib.  I proceeded to get some choice non-advice such as: -  "once they can roll over they shouldn't be swaddled." -  "I don't even know what a rock n play is." -  "Mine never slept in the rock n play." -  "Mine never liked the swaddle." -  "We never used anything special to get them to sleep." Grrr.  Especially to the first one, who added a smiley face. Basically, my post had become a place for these new mommy's to pass judgement and talk about themselves without providing any real advice.  Because they wo

I remember at some point starting a mommy blog.  Like, months ago.  And then the weeks came and went.  LO and I learned to exist in the world together.  We found a groove.   We went from endlessly nursing with a nipple shield to nursing without one, and eating solids.  We've gone from no naps, to napping on mommy, to (for the past week) napping in a pack and play.  Baby is in her own room at night, still in the rock n play.  From swaddle to woombie.  From feeding to sleep, to putting down "drowsy but awake."  No pacifier to teething with one.  Rolling over both ways. Standing with assistance.  Size 3 diapers, size six month clothing.  Crying to screaming, giggling and laughing.  From no sleep for mommy and daddy, to some, with a little "me" time built in and an early bedtime.  Unpredictably napping, to napping every few hours.  Nursing tanks to nursing bras - good ones, with underwire!  Hating baths to taking showers and playing in a paddling pool. It tru

I hate even writing a post about nighttime because ours have been going so well with our LO these past few weeks.  But last night she woke at a different, earlier hour.  And I was quick to lay blame on lots of things - she didn't go to bed early enough, she napped too late, she didn't get enough milk.  I don't react superbly when there's an appearance of a pattern that disappears (she slept well for 3 days straight), I rightfully tick my husband off too with my excuses and overly emotional reaction. My husband is right, I know he is - but logic escapes me at 1 in the morning.  She is a baby.  Our little unpredictable creature who has been very good to us in the sleep department, is going to have nights where she wakes up and wants to eat/cuddle/fuss/poop.  It's nobody's fault, except nature. I take it as my fault, too, if she wakes up AGAIN too early after a night feeding.  Did I not feed her long enough?  Did I eat something strange?  I already cut out dair

Our baby makes a lot of noise for something that can't talk yet.  Sometimes it feels like we took on an old sailor as a boarder.  She farts like an old man, and passes out after drinking a lot of milk (and pukes if she has too much, and she doesn't know her own limits). And now as I type, over the baby monitor all I hear are grunting noises.  We googled it, and it's common for babies to make such noises (and, apparently, sleep with their eyes open). It's fine when you've gotten enough sleep, but when she does it as she is falling asleep... needless to say I wear one earplug to bed to help deafen the noise. When the noises aren't driving us crazy, my husband and I laugh about it.  We call her our gremlin.  Cute, but temperamental as F***.

It took me almost 30 minutes to get my girl to nap today.  Everytime I thought she'd settled, she'd start to try to tear my shirt off and bury her face in my chest.  It's seemingly code for "I'm hungry" but I learned last week - after giving in a couple of times - that she nurses herself to sleep in a matter of minutes if she does this.  I'm not really into "non-nutritive" nursing.  I'd prefer we bond by playing together, or napping together.  Nothing annoys me more about breastfeeding than her "snacking." So I get a moment to post!  And I am super cabin feverish.  I need to send this carrier pidgeon out into the world to remind myself I still exist outside the four walls of our living room (which are closing in on me as they pile up with kid crap).  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE our daughter.  I'd prefer to love her in 60 degree weather at a park though than under several feet of snow.  I pushed her stroller in the parking l

I guess I'll be a cliche, a first time mom starting up a baby blog.  Given that I've decided not to return to work until the next school year, I need a little something other than my LO (that's little one for you new to the baby board lingo) to occupy my mind, certainly not my time though! I've started blog posts for weeks now.  But "we're" only just getting good at napping now [read - mom realized baby has a major case of FOMO and will not nap on her own].  So I've saved the drafts and closed them, unsatisfied with what they said and how I said it. So I decided during this current nap to give it a final go, try to get this blog up and running by writing my basic birth story.  It likely won't be quippy or cute but it's nice to just get it down on paper so to speak. LO was due on December 14/15.  At my 40 week appointment the nurse told me little other than I hadn't made much progress since week 39.  She didn't tell us the size of