The roosters

I never understood what crib bumpers were about until last night. T. has been very squirmy for the past few days. She's trying so hard to roll over. She arches her back and cocks her head back until her neck is almost perpendicular to her body, but she hasn't succeeded yet. Last night she managed to turn her whole body around counterclockwise and she woke up screaming around 2:40 after hitting her head on the side of the crib. I felt terrible, but couldn't help but wonder how long she would have slept if she had a nice crib bumper to cushion her bang (at the moment of impact, it had been over 7 hours).

Today her grandmother and I got to work and made her a bumper. It's nothing fancy, but should create a more baby friendly side impact zone.

Naps or Life.

Yesterday T. was 12 weeks old--maybe things were bound to be shaken up on such a pivotal day. We'd settled into a comfortable pattern these last few weeks. Awake for 2 hours, then a nap, and over and over again until bedtime. Sometimes I've stayed home intentionally, as if I could achieve the "perfect" day by obeying strict napping guidelines. Usually by the end of these by-the-book days I'm ready to go insane, and if I don't work a walk or two in between the naps, T. is also edgy despite being incredibly scheduled and well-rested.

Yesterday we had two things on our calendar, mom and baby yoga, and a visit from one of my co-workers. Yoga messed up the schedule first because who wouldn't rather stare at other babies than take a nap. This led to an afternoon of second-guessing everything I've learned these past few weeks. Does she need another nap or was the 20 minutes power nap on the way home long enough? Is she hungry or did she eat too much? Is she fussy or am I a little embarrassed to "parent" in front of my co-worker?

And so every bit of indecision compounded. I felt bad that T. wasn't her usual giggly, chatty self when my co-worker had traveled far to come and see her, but I felt equally bad about putting her down for a nap and not letting her visit at all. I felt awkward about breastfeeding in front of a co-worker. I was nervous to try to put her down for a nap and have her cry. I'm not sure why all of these feelings of inadequacy emerged just then. This particular visitor is possibly the least judgmental person on earth, a somewhat reformed hippy with kids of her own, someone who understands what babies do, but still I couldn't relax.

I was so glad for the visit to avoid another potential day of nap obsession, but as the afternoon wore on, I started to resent the intrusion. It was such a weird place. At first I thought it was just hearing about work again, shattering the bubble, etc., but by the time she left it felt more like I'd lost the ability to interact with anyone who isn't either an extremely close friend or a new parent. It was really unsettling.

T. must have felt my anxiety or was suffering some 3 month old woes of her own. She fell asleep at 3:15 and, with the exception of several angst-ridden breaks, slept until 8 am.

Hopefully grandma's visit this weekend will recalibrate both of us.

She sleeps.

Perhaps T. heard tales of my former sleep habits, maybe she wanted to see how much fun I could be if I really had the chance to rack up some hours, or maybe it was just the heat. Regardless of the reason, she demonstrated some impressive sleep potential this weekend. On Saturday night, she slept from about 8 pm to 6:30 am waking up only once for a quick snack. Last night, she woke up twice, but went from 8 pm to 8 am. I feel like a new person. I think I reached a level of deep sleep this morning that I haven't known since April.

How am I so sure I that I slept so deeply? Because I dreamt of high school. I was back in high school after my maternity leave, and much like the "showing up late and naked for your final exam" dream, this was the "I forgot my class schedule and haven't done homework in a long, long time because I just had a baby" version. When a noise from outside woke me up, I felt really relieved. That's when I realized that the relief came not from feeling well-rested, but because I wasn't really looking for a seat in math class. It was kind of nice to refuse Mr. Doyle's (I'm shocked that I even remember his name) vocabulary quiz in dreamland. Really liberating.

In other news, the whole family got new passport photos this weekend. C. and my passports just expired, so we decided to get one for T. also. There's no trip in the works, but I like to be ready to leave the country...just in case. My picture's a little awkward, though no more awkward than my 1996 shot. T. did a much better job. She really captured the look of a nervous foreign exchange student.



It's pretty funny to write her height as 2'1" on the application. I suspect the information will be a little outdated by the time we finally do go somewhere.

Not made for the mothers' group.

I've found that pregnancy and motherhood have made me a much less judgmental person. Maybe it's the universality of the thing, but I've felt a lot kinder and a lot less snarky. Yet tonight, at our second mothers' group meeting of the day (Why did we even drive across town for early evening group #2 when our late afternoon neighborhood group #1 was so lovely? T. was lying on a blanket with her friend, the Olive, and the two of them nearly held hands. It was so damn cute.), those hormones wore off and I regressed a bit. I looked around at my assigned "playgroup" and felt sorely out of place. These are not my people, I thought, but then maybe the babies are T's babies. So I sat there, and as each mother/baby combo arrived, the situation seemed bleaker and bleaker. It was all pretty incredible. Here were the people I'd heard about, those other people who inhabit this same city, but whose neighborhoods I rarely visit, the people who work in biotech and are renovating their houses, the people whose nannies will make way more money than I will next year. How did these women have time to do their hair all nice like? It was like 90 degrees today. I'm sticky and smelly, my hair is gross, and unfortunately the same applies to T. I'm now the mother who lets her girl cruise around town with a big wet spot on her shirt. I'm also the mother whose daughter wears a blue t-shirt to the first playgroup meeting not realizing that everyone will ask repeatedly "what's his name?" and "how old is he?" Were we supposed to dress up? Will these people ever venture south of Market to meet at our place?

Motherhood's starting to feel like middle school all over again. Am I already scarring the little dottir by being unhip and clueless? Will she make me park around the corner for playgroup so no one sees our old compact car? I definitely don't want T.'s friends and their parents to be cookie cutter versions of our family, but I think we need to find more parents with whom we having something in common besides just parenthood, like being renters or something.

Work and Baby

It's become very clear all of a sudden that we've reached summer's downslope. Technically my leave ends on July 25th, but I've opted to take another month off unpaid and my somewhat progressive employer has agreed. Still, the end of this heady time is near, and slowly, slowly we've begun to face the reality of finding a stranger to care for T. I asked a few friends, but nothing has turned up on that front and so I started to scan craigslist and posted an ad there. What I don't understand--maybe this has something to do with the informality of these arrangements--is why someone would post a shitty ad or send a shitty reply? Is it the nature of internet job postings that you just shoot off an email without a thoughtfully worded response, let alone anything that approximates a cover letter? I'm trying to hold back any judgment of a potential candidate based on grammar or spelling because that shouldn't be the primary mode of evaluation for a nanny, and I respect someone for whom English is not a native language, but still, you should at least come off as responsible and earnest. I mean this is my freaking baby. What am I supposed to do with a reply like:

I saw your ad on craigslist and am very interested! The only problem is I wont be living out there officially until mid-September.

Oh, that'll totally work! She can just stay home with the cat for the first half of September.

It's just such a weird process. I go back to saving the world one reference question at a time only to give more than half of my salary to some stranger to take care of my girl who's way more rewarding than anything I accomplish in a workday. We can't afford to--nor do I really want to--give up my job right now, but why isn't there a better way?

In lieu of reference questions

I'm suffering from a lack of reference questions this summer and the librarian in me needs to search for something. Hence my new feature: Craigslist finds for the baby. I've been a little addicted to Craigslist lately. Here's our latest score:

T.'s a little young for such equipment, but I stumbled upon it accidentally and couldn't turn it down. Since funds and space are limited, here are some deals that might interest the SF Bay readership, all 3 of you. I vouch for nothing.

• HABA ladybug mobile -- $10
  
• Ergo Baby Carrier -- $70
• Maclaren Quest -- $25
• Emmaljunga Pram (tartan pattern?) -- $30
• Infant Stim Mobile (damn ugly, but T. freaking loves it) -- $4

Enjoy.

Cuteness trumps exhaustion, always.

A pleasant Friday has helped me/us recover from a fraught Thursday.

We received this adorable sweater in the mail from T's "Auntie" Erica. She models it here:

I think purple might be her color.

(Ed. note: I've been toying with various pseudonyms for my family, namely "Slim" for the husband, and our favorite Icelandic term "dottir" for the daughter. It hasn't felt quite right. As Slim never took hold in real life, it also feels too artificial here. I'll revert to first initials from here on out--C for the fellow, T for the girl.)

The wall.

Yesterday (or is it still today?) I hit a serious wall. I thought I'd gotten used to being tired, and maybe it was all because we went out the night before and I didn't get to sleep until a wild 10:30 pm, but I was wrecked. The morning was fine and the little dottir was as sweet as ever, but by noon, I could barely stand up. At first I thought I was just really hungry so I made a big lunch while she slept, but that wasn't it, and it turned out that she wasn't really sleeping anyway. She was just staring in fascination at her reflection in the stupid crib mirror I bought her. Why did that seem like a good idea?

I kept trying to carry out the "sleep while your baby is sleeping (or at least while she is safely contained and occupied)" mantra, but I COULD NOT SLEEP. The landlord was in the basement below our bedroom dealing with the latest flood, the sketchy dudes who live on our block were blasting their car stereos and still setting off firecrackers a week and a half after the 4th, and I just couldn't sleep. I finally called Slim and asked him to come home because I just couldn't be the responsible one anymore.

I wince when I remember what it was like to sleep 10+ hours uninterrupted. I had gotten used to it all mostly because if nothing gets done all day it doesn't matter, but as I start thinking about going back to work, I can't even imagine waking up 2 or 3 times each night and then working all day. Anyway, now it's 3:30 am, my least favorite time. I just fed the little one and it seems like she's asleep but she keeps making loud "mom, rescue me" noises. The worst thing is to fall into a deep, happy sleep only to be awakened after 10 minutes, and so I wait.

...I think she's found the sleep.

Tomorrow (later today?) we will eat fancy pastries for breakfast in Berkeley. It will all be okay.

The first dependent

I was never one to liken the cat to a child, but insofar as Izzy kept me up all night when she was a kitten and she peed all over my bed multiple times, the metaphor is apt. Life has started to settle down a bit since the little dottir was born 10 weeks ago and now I realize just how much I've been missing the original "little one."

Izzy and I teamed up almost seven years ago, before the dottir, before San Francisco, before Slim and so in many ways Izzy the cat is an easy trope for everything pre-baby. The little dottir is still so foreign, but Izzy is familiar. It took me a while, but I understand her needs, her language, her expressions. Some days when I'm so exhausted that I can't even imagine another night ahead, I look over at the feline curled up in a sunbeam and all I want to do is press pause on the baby and transport myself back to the days of our shared catnaps. And some nights, when I have to disturb Iz. one more time from her carefully selected spot in the bend of my knees and she gives me that "you suck" look, I just feel so guilty for messing up such a good thing. Then I wonder, is this how people feel after the second kid, like you've blocked out the terrible beginnings of kid #1, all you remember is the sweetness, and #2 seems like an alien beast in comparison?

There's nothing to be done about it. It's just the musing of a tired mom, remembering how things used to be a little simpler. I do wonder though if Iz. realizes that she's responsible for the fate that befell her. In addition to her many nicknames (LT, Le Tigre, Little T, Girl, Little One), some of which she's already lost to her human sister, Iz. earned the moniker "Catus Interruptus" for a reason. One night last summer, she let down her guard, and we're all living with the consequences. I just hope that one day, she stops eyeing us so suspiciously and transfers some of the affection she still seems to have for us to her newest human.

so little content

My mind feels really empty. Maybe this is the effect of too much sleep following months of way too little? The little girl woke up only twice last night. Huge, huge difference. We were also rewarded with:

Crafty, Part II

The mobile is complete:

the short one

We just returned from dottir's 2 month doctor's appointment. I've been dreading the vaccine visit, not because of the vaccines themselves, but because I am very scared of needles. I am embarrassed to admit that one of the main reasons I was so insistent about having natural childbirth is that I felt I could handle the pain more than I could handle the whole needle/IV set up. Now that I've experienced the pain, should there be a next time, I'm willing to reassess my phobia. Nonetheless, watching the needle be inserted into dottir was just too much--I had to leave the room while Slim held her. The scream was large, but she regained her composure on the walk home and now she's sleeping it off.

The other news from the appointment was a confirmation of just how much the little girl has grown. She may look like me (for now), but she her height will come from her 6'5" father. I remember when I outgrew my mother, albeit only by 1/4" or so. I felt triumphant, even as a 5'5" thirteen year old. Little did I know that I had peaked. I haven't grown since, except for a variable yoga inch, but I've always felt tall. Until I hit that peak, I was always the tallest girl in my class, and the early growth gave me the confidence of a tall person. Maybe that's why I've never felt strange walking down the street beside my very tall husband--I've retained a little bit of the tall person aura. Still the thought of my own daughter outpacing me, early and by a large margin, makes me feel small for the first time, and the memory of me insisting that my mom, "the short one" in the family, ride in the backseat makes me feel like I'm stuck in a whirlpool of karma. Motherhood.

Two months

Dottir celebrated two months ex-utero yesterday, and in honor of the day we took her to SF MOMA. She didn't show much interest in the Matthew Barney exhibit or in any of the other art hanging on the walls, but she does seem to be a bit of an architecture junkie. When she tired of the sling, Slim carried her around and even with her limited head/neck control she couldn't get enough of the post-modern vibe. As a result, I couldn't focus on the art either, only on my little dottir peering over her dad's shoulder to try and make sense of the space.

On the way out, we stopped in the Museum Store to pick up a little two month "birthday" present. We settled on Look at the Animals by Peter Linenthal. This takes the board book to a whole new place. Like all babies her age, Dottir loves high contrast images, and the black and white drawings in this book are beautiful. She also just figured out how to look in the direction of the book when we're reading to her. Instead of looking at our faces, the ceiling, the window, she focuses on the pictures. It is quite endearing.

What pleases me even more about this book is the knowledge that at least the books marketed to kids are beautiful, thoughtful, and imaginative. We've noticed how terrible all of the "parenting" books we've encountered are. I'm not talking about their message/theory/perspective, I mean the actual style/editing/presentation. Slim had to distance himself from Happy Baby, Sleepy Baby the other night because its "powerpoint generation" layout is so off-putting. In another life, when I had more time and flexibility, this is the type of literature I would take out from the library. I was about to compare it to wedding-planning books, but honestly those are all about pictures and evocative scenes so the publishers have to maintain certain standards. On the other hand, these parenting books are literally disposable, meant to solve a temporary need, with no long-term shelf life. So really, if this is your scene, don't bother reading, let alone purchasing HBSB. I will save you the trouble and sum it up here. For small babies, sometime around 6-8 weeks you will notice that they get drowsy/irritable/sleepy, but can no longer fall asleep as easily as they once did, essentially because the world/you are too exciting. It may not have occurred to you as it did not to us, but you can put the baby down for a nap (if the baby has been sleeping a lot in the car seat/sling/stroller, you might try something motion-free) and she just might fall asleep long enough for you to do something useful like take a shower or surf the internet for sale-priced pleasing wooden HABA toys.

Getting all crafty

Slim and I tend to be pretty project-oriented, but it was only yesterday that we thought to apply some of this energy toward the baby. Yes I had knitted the girl a few things over the winter, but it was hard to know what a baby would like until we interacted with her firsthand. Here she is modeling one piece, the garment that was known around the house as the "sprout-fit." Then there was the 1906-Earthquake Centennial-wear venture.

And more recently, I spent a day making this sun hat after losing her store-bought one. The day consisted of many cycles of me feeding her, handing her off to Slim and going back to the hat. She sported it on a recent berry-picking trip.

Anyway, yesterday we made our first trip over to SCRAP. We used to be frequenters of the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, but that was in our East Bay days. Both places are incredible, but SCRAP seems to have a better organizational scheme, one that a librarian can appreciate. We both had different visions, mine more soft-toy, fabric based, his more geometric and angular. Mine has not been fully realized, although in an act of protest against the Gymini by Tiny Love and its cohort, I did rig up this bar I found at SCRAP from which to dangle baby-fascinating objects. Bar not pictured, but Slim's first platonic solid, the dodecahedron hangs from it.

All of this energy has inspired us to host a monthly? crafting salon. More on that soon.