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Changes are afoot

You may notice a bunch of posts you haven’t seen before if you scroll backwards. This is because I decided to import my pregnancy/baby blog into this one. It’s a little more, shall we say, frank (TMI) than I’ve been in this blog at least in places. But I think it represents a big chunk of my life and I’m more interested in being honest than pretty. Plus, you get baby pictures – lots of them! Anyway, feel free to skip over the parts that annoy, and I hope you enjoy the new content. It should be integrated with the old content, dating back about a year.

What I did on my spring vacation

I’ve been more than a little lax updating this blog. That would be because I had a baby, and it turns out they are a wee bit time consuming. Here’s a quick photographic update of the last three months:

Biological Imperative Win!

One day old.

One month old!

One month old

Two months!

Two months

Twelve weeks!

Three months

Lillian and Daddy

Lillian and Daddy

Twelve weeks!

Lillian and Mama

Lillian is a great little kid. She’s spunky and bright, and full of wiggles and smiles. I’m mostly exhausted, but we’re gradually getting better sleep and figuring this whole parenting thing out, a little at a time.

Twelve Weeks!

Twelve weeks!

I'm going to miss the crazy hair when it calms down.

Lillian is twelve weeks old today! Can you believe it? Everything seems to be picking up speed. It now makes a little more sense when people say the first year flies by. We’re looking at some big changes, like getting her to sleep without the swaddle, starting to work on getting her in her own room and crib (she sleeps in a co-sleeper next to our bed right now) and teething. And in a couple months solid food! WTH!

Progress this week: soooo much talking! All sorts of funky sounds, coos, squeaks, raspberries, and squawking. She has whole conversations with herself and us. Toxic levels of cuteness. She’s also getting really strong in the upper body. Big mini-pushups and leg strength. She’s rolled over a couple times but hasn’t figured out it can be a mode of transportation. Please don’t tell her. She’s getting more eye hand coordination and much drooly fist and thumb sucking has commenced. She turns to look at the source of sounds and tracks objects with her eyes. All of this is very cool.

Twelve weeks!

She cracks herself up.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but my whole theory of child care boils down to this: Babies are weird. They’re always changing for no discernible reason, and no way to communicate with you why. Last week Lillian started having meltdowns where she would get too pissed off to nurse. If you’ve ever nursed, this is your nightmare. 1) it can mean she’s sick (but she’s not) and 2) it’s your trump card. If Daddy is pulling his hair out and the kid is screaming her head off, just stick her on the boob and all is well. Except all of a sudden not.

The first time it happened we both panicked and tried to figure out what I’d eaten – assuming the milk tasted bad to her. Then we swaddled her and put her down, and wham! Out like a light, woke up six hours later and ate just fine. It started recurring more this week. I get neurotic about it because I’m afraid she hasn’t eaten enough. I usually nurse her after her bath and then we put her to bed. But stressing just makes it worse, and if we just put her down to sleep she usually conks out for 6-7 hours. But not having that automatic shutoff button for the tantrums just sucks. Except babies are weird, and she may change her mind about the whole thing tomorrow. Or not.

Twelve weeks!

Special thanks to my friends who have reached out with support since my last post. It means a lot. It’s really hard sometimes, but every day gets a little easier, and I get a little more flexible and better at dealing with things as they come. Still untold challenges lie ahead, and I gratefully accept and appreciate the support and empathy of people who care about me. Y’all rock!

Surprise!

Lillian on Mother's Day

Don't play innocent with me, kid.

My first Mother’s Day started off with a bang! At 4 am cleaning poopsplosion off the nursery walls. Yes, motherhood is full of serene, peaceful fulfillment and joy. Well, it is, in between screaming, pooping, nursing till you fall over, and hormone surges that turn you into a psycho.

So I’m helping David change the baby during her 4am feeding (that’s bottle time) and he lifts her legs up to get a wipe under her butt and kaplow! Green poop everywhere. We laughed our asses off. David claims I shrieked loudly but I have no such recollection. I think he’s making it up.

We’re still dealing with the gastric issues. Our baby is cute, funny, happy, and sleeps like a champ. But she definitely can’t process either dairy, soy or both. Last weekend we went to dinner at Odd Duck Trailer – it’s gourmet locally sourced tapas place – and ate some great food. Unfortunately, something either contained dairy, soy or both and we started the whole poop thing over on Monday, and we still don’t know what the mystery ingredient(s) is/are.

On Sunday we went to the in-laws’ for Mother’s Day bbq from Rudy’s. Which I could eat none of since they marinate it in milk and rub it with soy oil. Joy. So I got to nurse in the other room while everyone was eating, and then eat some pork loin I brought and overcooked the crap out of. It wasn’t my best day ever. But David got me a nice card and we’re getting the Bob stroller next week. It’s the ultimate running/walking stroller and it makes mama very happy.

In other news, Lillian sleeps like a champ now. We started a ritual a few weeks ago – eat-bath-eat-sleep by 8:00, and we do as much sensory deprivation as possible in the bedroom so she doesn’t get overstimulated. This kid likes to look at stuff, wiggle, pump her legs, coo, and generally spazz out. But after the cuteness comes the babypocalypse. Harbingers include:

  1. Pumping of the legs and giggling
  2. Hiccups
  3. Wide adorable eyes

One minute it’s all cuteness fun and the next it’s screaming and misery. The trick is to get her on the boob or into the bath or bed or something soothing before she gets so wound up she can’t calm down. We’re doing a lot better at it. David is also really good about letting her self-soothe when she can, I tend to overdo the rocking and shushing. Between the two of us she’s getting better naps and better sleep at night (and so are we praise be the Jesus).

Lillian was eleven weeks old this past Thursday. It’s hard to believe she’s coming up on three months. Her personality gets more developed every day, and she’s much more vocal than she was. She’s got a whole new vocabulary of coos and squeaks, and has great head control and legs. She’s going to be unstoppable when she figures out how to roll, which looks to be very soon.

I'm hungry.

Lillian and DaddyYes, I’ve been a slacker. Being a new mom is not conducive to well, anything except nursing, changing diapers, and trying to sleep. In addition, we’ve been dealing with some digestive issues with Lillian that have necessitated me cutting out dairy and soy. Do you know how hard it is to avoid all dairy and soy? Really freaking hard. Pretty much eating out and any prepared food at all – anything that comes frozen or bottled – is out. I now have to read ingredient lists obsessively, call restaurants in advance and ask about what they cook with, and mostly just cook all my own food. And while this is probably way healthier than the plethora of junk food we enjoyed during Lillian’s first six weeks, it is very time consuming. I’m kind of over it. It’s been three weeks so far and there’s no end in sight. Some of Lillian’s more distressing symptoms are gone (specs of blood in the diaper, discomfort) but some remain (lots and lots of green poop. you asked).

Have you ever heard of soy lethicin? Neither had I until this happened. It’s in EVERYTHING. And so is soy oil. Crisco, margarine, and vegetable oil are all made from soy. It turns out soy is way harder to avoid than dairy.

On the plus side, we’ve re-upped our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture – weekly organic vegetables) subscription and have started shopping at the farmer’s market on the weekend. I’ve also become a huge fan of Jamie Oliver’s Food Nation. He’s right – there are way too many ingredients in most of the food we get at the store. Everything at the farmer’s market is made locally and doesn’t have ingredients you don’t recognize. It’s nice. We’re subsisting mainly on rice, vegetables, and meat. And that’s not a bad thing really. Because bacon is meat. Bacon is my new cheese.

Meanwhile, the baby is doing great. Her skin looks great, she’s sleeping great. She’s cute as a button. Well, cuter because who ever said buttons were cute? But she’s dang cute. She’s 10 weeks old, is hopefully approaching 10 lbs, and is 10x more fun than she was a few weeks ago. Lots of smiling, happy shrieking, scooting, and general trouble-making. And mama is having a hard time not buying her cute new clothes every day.

Lillian and Daddy

Hanging out with Daddy

Playgroup

Rocking the Bjorn

Two months!

Modeling the latest in Carter's Coture