As weeks follow, time whirls in the eddy of baby-time. Gear is gotten. Diapers deal doozies. Cut cord stumps shed in bloody breastfeeding bacchanalia. And one-handed mommy points unlocked with every S on the happy baby block.
The Diaper Man Cometh and he bears the chaos kiddo in his arms
Andrew's (new nick-mane Dadrew?) taken significant agency over his status as diaper master. He's ordered inserts for our flip, set up two stations, proudly discovered disposable mats like the ones they use to potty train dogs, and he had a kick ass Timbuktu daddy diaper bag. To go with his messenger bag of course!
Me? I'm pretty committed to my role as personal dairy counter. Mommy merit badge number two to three eating Thai takeout while nursing. There would be bonus points for chopsticks, although some applause may be reserved for eating, nursing and using the nifty nursing app on my phone all at once.
Well duh there's an app for that. As we gallop apace towards the Armageddon of all well intentioned plans to limit screen time in front of our daughter, I'm glad to discover that basically my phone can parent her as effectively as Mary Poppins and Nanny McFee combined. Or maybe just Nate Silver. This app, Feed Baby, does not actually breastfeed baby. Ah well. We're all suckling at the teat of the great wide interwebz but not literally yet.
No, I have a tracker to watch what I eat (myfitness pal, which refuses to believe that I've been using it to try to gain weight instead of lose it), and now I have one for Chaya. I feel like I need some kind of app to track how many power bars Andrew needs in a given day.
Feed Baby lets you track feedings with a handy timer device. If you faithfully log each feeding, Feed Baby will then create several thousand charts and graphs informing you about your baby's feeding habits- how often, how long, which side, when you hit spots of longer or shorter feeds are, etc. There are also features for tracking diapers (prolific as she is, we are less concerned with that metric), pumping, bottles, sleep patterns (take the feeding chart and invert it at this point), baths (three packs of wet wipes per day?), medicines (NOT that awful sugar syringe), vaccinations, and growth.
The vaccinations feature is wonderfully outlined in calendar form for all of Chaya's recommended shots. The growth function tracks weight, length, and head size, then shows where your baby's measurements fit on the chart of measurement-to-age percentiles (using either WHO or CDC charts for how the percentiles grow in the first few years.
My baby is a little storm of Chaya-chaos, but a thoroughly quantified one!
And a darned well fed one I should say. She's been clocking an average of eight hours of daily feeding. Thank goodness for the boba or it would probably be twice that. I swear that's the best alternative to feeding in Chaya land.
Nestled near to the rapidly gurgling river of baby juice, nice and bumpy and close and warm... Low stimulation. And oh so cute.
I rather love having one as well since it's over if the free times I can enjoy the buzz of having baby without sacrificing mobility and dexterity to the point of total dependence. There's a reason I wear the boba as a shirt many mornings! Laziness yes, but beyond that! Plus, I can stuff all kinds of other things into the boba to carry along with me. Cell phone... fudgsicle... you name it and if it's kind of small and portable, it may fit.
And now it is Saturday! I can't believe it was just a week ago that I was determinedly ignoring the pains of what turned out to be labor. I think by this time I'd come upstairs to wake Andrew with chocolate and coffee... And couldn't sit without losing my breath. Instead I just kind of sat on the bed leaving forward in a crouch position before a little curling up on my side. The first time since early pregnancy that we could actually spoon. I really enjoy being able to do that again now that I'm not a human oven. Fitting that the first time we could was during what turned it to be the beginning of the post pregnancy pangs.
For the rest of the morning I remember just doing what I could to keep the day together. I know this from the major kitchen projects that had been left disturbed by the really active part of labor: food processor, several mixing bowls, lunch fixings... Yeah I was more productive than than now. I mean if we're measuring anything other than sheer volume of mommy milk. I do still enjoy sneaking downstairs every morning after a Chaya feed and snuggle. I make coffee, start breakfast, and just grasp the tenants if morning routines past
Except in honor if my new status as walking milk machine, I've changed my morning meal. I've mentioned lactation cookies I'm sure - invariably featuring flax, oats, and brewer's yeast. Having mixed brewer's yeast with oats, I can't say how people would ever want to have it in a sweet dish. But oatmeal bridges the void twixt sweet and savory. So I've been mixing the trio o'galactagoguery with some wheat gluten, wheat bran, ginger, cumin, onion and cabbage. It's weird but tasty. It would definitely not work as a cookie!
And on that note, the Chaya-beast has fouled and fed and is now offering that delivery of reward found in a nice konk on my bosom. I believe I shall join her in this little cuddle befit hey next round if in and out
The Stymied Stumps
On her birthday, our little girl passed a major lifetime milestone: she lost her cord stump. That is to say "she shed the revolting coagulated blot on our baby's otherwise strong claim to cute supremacy."
And she didn't quite lose it so much as rub it and some attendant blood off onto mommy's tummy while breastfeeding. The blood was an interesting addition to our parade of bodily substances. It was a bit disconcerting to discover it smooshed between our bodies as it was. My first guess was that a milk blister had popped/these nips of steel just officially cracked. While I wasn't keen on going full goth for my parenting by feeding my child blood milk (on the blood moon!), this explanation seemed fairly plausible and benign.
I was just on the verge of texting Andrew not to panic if he saw blood on her or her blanket later (yes mommy and daddy have failed entirely on any abstinence from screen time around the munchkin. We can argue the baby is mostly asleep but she does react to attention and there will always be an excuse... Then again in this instance, it's been very handy for mommy since she's stuck under a hungry baby and needs something -usual more food or a diaper reliever. Not quite as classy as a bell but not effective.)
But then I realized the blood seemed darker on Chaya and was heavier by her diaper. Getting moderately less chillaxed about the situation (but never wanting to interfere with a good latch on a fussy baby), I cautiously peeled her body from mine.
And tada: super gross Chaya cord stuck to my abdomen. I called out to Andrew who came running and ready for diaper action. Instead of handing off our creature, I gave him her stump. Because I'm sweet like that. And we are co-parents.
We have decided not to put it in Chaya's baby book.
She was less excited about the experience. I'm guessing it hurt a bit, but maybe she's just feeling like time is passing her by and now she will never be able to return to that comfortable little baby oven from which mommy evicted her just one week prior. Regardless, she was a fusspot all day.
But it was her party and she could certainly cry if she wanted to. Not with tears or anything, since she still hasn't got that feature. Newborns do tear up in response to things like smoke and onion, but lack the ducts to really rip out a parent's heart until they're a bit but grown. But no crying over several splashes of spilled milk needed. Chaya got her bellies' full and continued to create an obscene score of diapers.
So we were going to try the flip diaper once Chaya had cleared up that umbilical root grossness. Disposable newborn Huggies may be the death knell in mother nature's coffin, but they aren't all bad. For us newborn newbies, they feature a most convenient color-changing strip to indicate when the diaper has become wet. Seems like the sotten soggy bottom would be an obvious cue, but with with newborns it often isn't.
The planet-killers also have a nice low cut to stay stylish and avoid irritating the umbilical area. This is crucial for that sensitive first week. And perhaps longer, as it appears our gal's belly button is still a wee bit sensitive despite being 200% less gross.
So we tried. We did. We bought the infant inserts to go with the diaper cover. And we were all ready to see how it worked out. It's darned cute, the little blue diaper on our teeny girl. But we still can't tell when it's wet, and we still seem to be irritating her belly. So back to our regularly scheduled trash dump for at least a few more weeks.
In other news it's gross outside. Forest fires far away cause ashy air here. I guess I'm still a member of the vulnerable populations because I did not feel well. Perhaps for the best,I spent the day fully sedentary.
My body seems to be telegraphing that I might look the same as I did pre-pregnancy, but I am still recovering from a pretty traumatic physical event. And I'm burning a lot of caloric value just churning out the beastie juice. And maybe I should not start all this below my pre-pregnancy weight (under which I have already slipped). So bring in the sore butt and the bon-bons. Mama needs a new pair of after care pads and sprays!
Time and the Two Week Old (Almost)
We are nearly two weeks into this baby thing!
Chaya is developing our evening routine pretty well. In fact the whole day has a certain rhythm to it recently. Long feeds, long naps, short feeds, an interim drowsy stupor (from Chaya too, though not as drastically as her parents perhaps), and of course the evening amplitude of fuss-feed-poop-repeat. With my little app, I can even tell you the rough times of her long feeds, her long spells in the boba (during which she's typically too insensate to notice a dirty diaper or a hunger pang or twenty), her emotional eating binges, and her cluster-feeds. I wouldn't try to set a clock by it, because babies exist to destroy time and devour schedules, but there are patterns.
Ones that become fairly the fulcrum of a gal's agonizingly sedentary life. After continually overdoing it, I'm learning that recovery demands for me to spend most of the day seated and that I limit my exercise to a particularly mindful zen slow walk. The kind that usually involves Andrew taking off several times before having to stop and wait for me to oh so mindfully join him at the prior pace.
As for Chaya, our main activities are sleeping and eating. Not necessarily in that order. I have two gigantic tupperware bins full of night-time snacks. And can typically follow the instructions "eat when she eats." There a nice annular feel about doing so. Very circle of sustenance.
Sleep?
Well I actually have maintained a relatively decent routine with my bedtime and waking time. Chaya tends to feed every ninety minutes or so and I catch some mini-cycle in between these intervals. I aim to go down at 8:30 (to varying degrees of success), am up for about an hour between 5 and 6, and then officially wake up after the 8 a.m. feeding. I know I'm probably severely sleep deprived, but I seem to be holding it together pretty sustainably.
Andrew has been a little less successful. Or he's been having a harder time getting to sleep, staying asleep and awakening from sleep as this parenthood thing evolves.
After a summer of martyrdom on the altar of air conditioned agony (in which Preggers McFlame Ears remained steamy in the direct breeze and Andrew endued himself in arctic great to greet a 70 degree room) the hubba-hubby could not sleep purportedly because the room was too hot a few days ago. Ok the day before that it was restless legs after a long ride. At some other juncture it was an itchy bug bite. I think last night it was too warm. I'm guessing underneath it all are nightmares of being devoured by packs of soiled Huggies. Still...
But that brings us to the naps. I need naps still. We both need naps, in different ways. I function on no sleep but it adds up. Andrew's sleep deprivation is apparent and prohibitive at a lower threshold. Feeling very much like getting milkin-mommy a nap is a priority for our fanily unit, Andrew has been trying to make sure to be available for solo baby-duty at some point in the afternoon. But it can be quite hard, subject to the whims of the Chaya beastie and her semi-predictable feeding schedule.
We can predict a few things (1) she cluster feeds in the evening from dinner time to bedtime (2) she's more likely to sleep for a while around noon and some time in the afternoon when she's in a boba (3) she will feed after a diaper change, (4) she'll probably want to feed if she's been removed from the boba or woken from an afternoon grog, (5) she likes to fall asleep mid-feed and just keep going. During these times she will freak out she wakes up elsewhere than the boob, (6) she will break any and all predicted times and rituals to intervene if mommy wants a nap.
I suspect sometimes it's frustrating for the non-feeding partner to lack boobage on the arsenal. I know Andrew wants very much to help me get some rest but also to have the ability to provide got out daughter's primary need at the necessary moment. There are times I hand a sweet sleeping girl to him and she turns raging boob monster in minutes. She can smell me across a room. There's something special about that?
And magical as all get out as it is to be "the one" there are a whole different set of frustrations. Sometimes I can feel like hubba hubby gets the fun parts (diapers excluded) while I get the hours of drudge suckling. Because breast is best feeding is magical but it is also work and then some.
After a summer of martyrdom on the altar of air conditioned agony (in which Preggers McFlame Ears remained steamy in the direct breeze and Andrew endued himself in arctic great to greet a 70 degree room) the hubba-hubby could not sleep purportedly because the room was too hot a few days ago. Ok the day before that it was restless legs after a long ride. At some other juncture it was an itchy bug bite. I think last night it was too warm. I'm guessing underneath it all are nightmares of being devoured by packs of soiled Huggies. Still...
But that brings us to the naps. I need naps still. We both need naps, in different ways. I function on no sleep but it adds up. Andrew's sleep deprivation is apparent and prohibitive at a lower threshold. Feeling very much like getting milkin-mommy a nap is a priority for our fanily unit, Andrew has been trying to make sure to be available for solo baby-duty at some point in the afternoon. But it can be quite hard, subject to the whims of the Chaya beastie and her semi-predictable feeding schedule.
We can predict a few things (1) she cluster feeds in the evening from dinner time to bedtime (2) she's more likely to sleep for a while around noon and some time in the afternoon when she's in a boba (3) she will feed after a diaper change, (4) she'll probably want to feed if she's been removed from the boba or woken from an afternoon grog, (5) she likes to fall asleep mid-feed and just keep going. During these times she will freak out she wakes up elsewhere than the boob, (6) she will break any and all predicted times and rituals to intervene if mommy wants a nap.
I suspect sometimes it's frustrating for the non-feeding partner to lack boobage on the arsenal. I know Andrew wants very much to help me get some rest but also to have the ability to provide got out daughter's primary need at the necessary moment. There are times I hand a sweet sleeping girl to him and she turns raging boob monster in minutes. She can smell me across a room. There's something special about that?
And magical as all get out as it is to be "the one" there are a whole different set of frustrations. Sometimes I can feel like hubba hubby gets the fun parts (diapers excluded) while I get the hours of drudge suckling. Because breast is best feeding is magical but it is also work and then some.
Sometimes the way Andrew talks, my boobs are magical little baby fountains. I need only place her at the font and panacea attained. Forget the hours of soothing, attending, anticipating and adjusting to the billions of moods of baby involved in just getting a feed accomplished. It can make it easier to feel like my mothering mojo is mere mammary ebb and flow. And well, I lack a certain freedom in my role. We will pump eventually but both agree it's very to wait for a few months and get that latch established.
Needless to say, we'd both be thrilled if she would deign to give me the odd nap and spend some quality time with daddy. And she does. Sometimes. If the timing is just right. Yesterday was not one of those days. She'd just fed and worked herself into a nice little coma. The thirtieth of the day. You never know which will stick and evolve into baby sleep and which will result in a mad plummet back to awareness and raging absence of boob. But we do know that directly after a feed is the time-maximizing approach to the nap swap.
I made it all the way upstairs (only roughly fifty minutes after Andrew had offered to watch her, due to some interrupting milk breaks). I actually managed to get cozy and comfy and even start my first zzzz before the familiar sound if footsteps and hiccups galloped up the stairs. And thus, Chaya returned to me and I found myself nursing baby Chaya with Andrew napping (waiting for the feed to finish) at my side. I had suggested he might want one too! Chaya eventually did finish feeding but at that point, it was almost four, a time when my friend Jon claimed to be stopping by with macaroni and cheese for us. I decided a shower would be an adequate compromise and left the other Wrights to their own devices. Might have gotten a nap after Jon stopped by, but by golly she did want to feed again by that point.
So today. Maybe today. Today I almost managed to get Chaya to nurse in the boba. Well she did say first but got stuck and caught a nasty case of angry hiccups. I will be forgiven when she's forty or so.
Terribly Terrific Twos and the Chromatic Cries
We have a two week old for better and worse! The better is thoroughly exciting. Our delicate little alien creature has rounded herself right into a baby. A baby with big blue eyes and moments of lucid fascination. She's engaging and full of faces and utterly awake sometimes while still offering plenty of huggable sleepy moments. As of her two week pediatric visit (a nightmare abutting several preferred feeding times and including a needle prick to her foot) she is now a whopping 7 lbs 5 ounces and 20.6 inches. That's up a pound and an inch from hey discharge from the hospital!
There is a down side as well. As she graduates to the next phase of babyosity there are new storms brewing for Mommy and Daddy. Call it overstimulation. Call it gas. Please call it late for dinner. And maybe even can it the beginning if the purple period of crying but it is a force...
She gets fussy and agitated at times (usually evenings) now. Usually she will desperately want to feed but be so upset that the boob lets her down in what can only be read as the most opprobrious of betrayals. She'll refuse to latch in favor of wailing and fall off with a frenzy to re-latch that involves thrashing heads and wild-eyed grunting.
Last night it took me three hours and every S in the happiest baby on the block book (plus a few extra) to get her to nod off. Andrew was there at the start, the point where she went from normal little hungry baby to disgruntled wolverine. The transition was rapid, and followed a perfunctory but hearty evening feed that ended when she slipped off on a sleepy stupor. Things amped from there apace despite our efforts to resist. We sang a rousing round of Frere Jacques (perhaps that really started the fit -everyone is a critic) and Andrew put her in her sleep sack. Seeing that she had latched and appeared to be calming, he said his good nights to our kiddo and went down to finish off his evening rituals.
Leaving me alone with the hellcat that had possessed our sweet two weeker. She roused and raged at successively surely levels, sobbing at points and all but tearing her swaddle sack. I shushed myself into hyperventilation and swayed myself dizzy. I offered several appealing deals and made eloquent arguments for a detente. She would have none. The only thing that truly worked was patience. Finally, just burping her and holding her for long enough slowed the mudslide of pure emotion. She allowed a latch after this and that allowed a drowsy deafening of that twosome tempest. Enough time to lay her in the bassinet and finally use the bathroom. Another feed and she finally fell into a sweet slumber. The remainder of the evening consisted of her normal sleeping and feeding patterns... But of course I know the inconsolable beast still lies within.
Purple? The purple period is kind of a catch all term for a phenomenon observed in human and other mammalian babies. Between about two weeks and two months they successively escalate in inconsolable crying spells before these taper off. When the escalation is severe they might call it colic, but every baby experiences some increase.
"Purple" is possibly evocative of course but also an acronym. It's one slightly tortured to describe these spells themselves: the peak is at two months and dies out around four months, the crying is unexpected and unrelated to basic needs, it resists soothing, the baby may be distressed enough to appear in pain, the spells may go as long as five hours a day, and they are typically worst in the evening between about six and midnight.
Of course it's possible she's just generally overstimulated or having gas while feeding, but I suspect it's best to steel ourselves for some sleepless nights and learn not to insist that there is some tweak we can make to prevent these spells from happening.
As our labor nurse says, it's a phase and we must focus on not divorcing and not shaking the baby. The rest is negotiable.
In the meantime, our little milk maven keeps me pretty much off my feet and out of commission for much other than the one-handed tasks I can do while feeding. I've gotten superb at one handed dining for instance! And I've recently hacked walking while nursing. Which is life changing, I assure you.
I can trick her into a boba sometimes and squeeze a little bit of time for myself. And Daddy loves Chaya so much we still have to negotiate who gets to hold her at various points.
Needless to say, we'd both be thrilled if she would deign to give me the odd nap and spend some quality time with daddy. And she does. Sometimes. If the timing is just right. Yesterday was not one of those days. She'd just fed and worked herself into a nice little coma. The thirtieth of the day. You never know which will stick and evolve into baby sleep and which will result in a mad plummet back to awareness and raging absence of boob. But we do know that directly after a feed is the time-maximizing approach to the nap swap.
I made it all the way upstairs (only roughly fifty minutes after Andrew had offered to watch her, due to some interrupting milk breaks). I actually managed to get cozy and comfy and even start my first zzzz before the familiar sound if footsteps and hiccups galloped up the stairs. And thus, Chaya returned to me and I found myself nursing baby Chaya with Andrew napping (waiting for the feed to finish) at my side. I had suggested he might want one too! Chaya eventually did finish feeding but at that point, it was almost four, a time when my friend Jon claimed to be stopping by with macaroni and cheese for us. I decided a shower would be an adequate compromise and left the other Wrights to their own devices. Might have gotten a nap after Jon stopped by, but by golly she did want to feed again by that point.
So today. Maybe today. Today I almost managed to get Chaya to nurse in the boba. Well she did say first but got stuck and caught a nasty case of angry hiccups. I will be forgiven when she's forty or so.
Terribly Terrific Twos and the Chromatic Cries
We have a two week old for better and worse! The better is thoroughly exciting. Our delicate little alien creature has rounded herself right into a baby. A baby with big blue eyes and moments of lucid fascination. She's engaging and full of faces and utterly awake sometimes while still offering plenty of huggable sleepy moments. As of her two week pediatric visit (a nightmare abutting several preferred feeding times and including a needle prick to her foot) she is now a whopping 7 lbs 5 ounces and 20.6 inches. That's up a pound and an inch from hey discharge from the hospital!
There is a down side as well. As she graduates to the next phase of babyosity there are new storms brewing for Mommy and Daddy. Call it overstimulation. Call it gas. Please call it late for dinner. And maybe even can it the beginning if the purple period of crying but it is a force...
She gets fussy and agitated at times (usually evenings) now. Usually she will desperately want to feed but be so upset that the boob lets her down in what can only be read as the most opprobrious of betrayals. She'll refuse to latch in favor of wailing and fall off with a frenzy to re-latch that involves thrashing heads and wild-eyed grunting.
Last night it took me three hours and every S in the happiest baby on the block book (plus a few extra) to get her to nod off. Andrew was there at the start, the point where she went from normal little hungry baby to disgruntled wolverine. The transition was rapid, and followed a perfunctory but hearty evening feed that ended when she slipped off on a sleepy stupor. Things amped from there apace despite our efforts to resist. We sang a rousing round of Frere Jacques (perhaps that really started the fit -everyone is a critic) and Andrew put her in her sleep sack. Seeing that she had latched and appeared to be calming, he said his good nights to our kiddo and went down to finish off his evening rituals.
Leaving me alone with the hellcat that had possessed our sweet two weeker. She roused and raged at successively surely levels, sobbing at points and all but tearing her swaddle sack. I shushed myself into hyperventilation and swayed myself dizzy. I offered several appealing deals and made eloquent arguments for a detente. She would have none. The only thing that truly worked was patience. Finally, just burping her and holding her for long enough slowed the mudslide of pure emotion. She allowed a latch after this and that allowed a drowsy deafening of that twosome tempest. Enough time to lay her in the bassinet and finally use the bathroom. Another feed and she finally fell into a sweet slumber. The remainder of the evening consisted of her normal sleeping and feeding patterns... But of course I know the inconsolable beast still lies within.
Purple? The purple period is kind of a catch all term for a phenomenon observed in human and other mammalian babies. Between about two weeks and two months they successively escalate in inconsolable crying spells before these taper off. When the escalation is severe they might call it colic, but every baby experiences some increase.
"Purple" is possibly evocative of course but also an acronym. It's one slightly tortured to describe these spells themselves: the peak is at two months and dies out around four months, the crying is unexpected and unrelated to basic needs, it resists soothing, the baby may be distressed enough to appear in pain, the spells may go as long as five hours a day, and they are typically worst in the evening between about six and midnight.
Of course it's possible she's just generally overstimulated or having gas while feeding, but I suspect it's best to steel ourselves for some sleepless nights and learn not to insist that there is some tweak we can make to prevent these spells from happening.
As our labor nurse says, it's a phase and we must focus on not divorcing and not shaking the baby. The rest is negotiable.
In the meantime, our little milk maven keeps me pretty much off my feet and out of commission for much other than the one-handed tasks I can do while feeding. I've gotten superb at one handed dining for instance! And I've recently hacked walking while nursing. Which is life changing, I assure you.
I can trick her into a boba sometimes and squeeze a little bit of time for myself. And Daddy loves Chaya so much we still have to negotiate who gets to hold her at various points.
Of course when she's a raging demon, mommy gets her by default.
Breastfeeding might not be the panacea but it's frequently enough involved in the calming that I seem to be the final hand in those moments.
Making the battle over those lucid and happy or irregular and sleepy moments all the more heated. I get the raging beast and Andrew gets the pissing poop monster. We kind of both deserve some sweet and dry time with the little one. And since moods are hard to predict, it been be challenging to lay the odds correctly. But we manage and stay ever vigilant with our duties. Ok sometimes mummy needs the bathroom and daddy's outside practicing wheelies (long story) but usually not at the same time!
And sometimes daddy is hypervigilant. The night before last, he was hell bent on changing her diaper regardless of need. Must have been a dream ultimatum mixed with her increasingly vocal feeding style. He got up several times, out of bed and in glasses while I whispered "no you're fine, go back to bed!" for fear he might somnambulantly rip her from the feed.
Last night I returned from the bathroom to find him shock upright in bed starting about himself in a daze. Apparently he had not seen Chaya in her bassinet and had been puzzling in a panic over where she might be. Little gremlin has cast a spell over both of us obviously.
Today is Sunday and time begins for contemplating the future. My official maternity leave is up though I have few plans to leap back into a full swing with the little money. Andrew's leave is just beginning (after two weeks of personal time) and he could have up to two more months. In theory. In reality I think he's more than ready to be halfway through this period of vigilant idleness and back to a familiar grind. That's despite knowing how much he'll miss Chaya (maybe me too I hope!) And despite knowing how tough it will be readjusting to his commute and work with such limited sleep. He had several things here wanted to do while on leave and many of them remain to be done because the biggest thing (Miss Milk Monster herself) is a bit all costuming. I'll be interested to see what makes the final cut. Maybe it can wring one more week out if his chosen leave period. And hopefully it will be more a light bullet then s dark and stormy purple people eater of a period!
Furnishment Follies and the Beastie Baby Ba
Yesterday afternoon Andrew had the coffee-christened revelation that our home was never quite completed after the move. There was a severe dearth of flat surfaces for said coffee to be placed safely. That led him to reflect that instead of the intended black out curtains, our biggest window was still lined with cardboard. And that shoes plopped themselves willy nilly about the downstate with no regard for law and order. Pictures had never been hung. And perhaps we had too many booster seats...
Apparently I had discouraged the establishment of said proposed coffee table previously. I had suggested that even if we had one I would likely still knock beverages and other things to the ground when distracted by our baby, and that surfaces are prone to clutter as much as they are to helping reduce such clutter. I thought the subsequent "but a coffee table would be a good thing to have. Let's get one" was the final word, especially since he then direct the evening researching them online and I inquired about his progress several times.
Nothing came of that. At least until the house was so booby trapped with cabinets and counters that Mr. (W)right was doomed to devastation! Yep all part of my devious plan. Bait and switch and demotivate before siccing the fussy baby on an unsuspecting husband. But then it was off to the store and maybe some races!
The table search turned into an odyssey from what I hear. From Pier One to Goodwill to Value Village to that bastion Target, as a result we own a large box with a deconstructed table inside. And some kind of shelf to put our shoes on. At least once it's fixed. It broke in the parking lot.
The Ms. Wrights barely registered all the hubbub, torn between milking battles and triumphant naps as they were, but there was some awareness of the grand purge and clean that preceded it. Since Adella had been largely restricted from her maniacal tidy binges, it was mostly a relief although one must always observe the cleaning frenzies of others to protect one's own possessions. I've learned that from several maniacal binges of childhood, during which my sister would heave any bit of clutter into my room regardless of what said clutter considered of.
Still my main focus was the beast baby! She was rapidly alternating between inconsolable need naiad and heart melting angel so quickly as to cause vertigo. All a parent can do is appreciate the sweet moments and keep trucking through the mad moments with every attempt at soothing imaginable. Very few things have brilliant repeatability but somewhere between shushing, walking, swaying, singing, burping, feeding, changing, cooing, rocking, rolling, and negotiating... Something will stick. For at least a nap. And what naps they were.
We even ended in a high note, with a surprise post diaper change mellow in daddy's arms. I may murmured that such mellowing for daddy was technically unfair, but honestly was just grateful for an idyllic little family moment with our suddenly sweet and lucid love.
Yesterday was an all around post-apocalyptic sort of day. We were spared the outages thrust upon large swathes of the country by Saturday's bluster, but our forest paths were littered with detritus. On our morning walk, we found - or rather did not find - the path so saturated in debris and fallen branches as to have returned to the forest.
This was the ground zero of Andrew's cleaning binge. At least he lingered behind as I walked (painfully slowly so as not to continue overdoing it) back to the house. It smacked crisply of autumn and redolent with baking spices and hearty fires. I'm told the weather will take a summery turn again but will enjoy this little spell. Today there be rain in the forecast and mysteries abound over which of the many faces of Chaya mommy and daddy will encounter. But by good they're will be a coffee table. In a box or out... There will be one!
And sometimes daddy is hypervigilant. The night before last, he was hell bent on changing her diaper regardless of need. Must have been a dream ultimatum mixed with her increasingly vocal feeding style. He got up several times, out of bed and in glasses while I whispered "no you're fine, go back to bed!" for fear he might somnambulantly rip her from the feed.
Last night I returned from the bathroom to find him shock upright in bed starting about himself in a daze. Apparently he had not seen Chaya in her bassinet and had been puzzling in a panic over where she might be. Little gremlin has cast a spell over both of us obviously.
Today is Sunday and time begins for contemplating the future. My official maternity leave is up though I have few plans to leap back into a full swing with the little money. Andrew's leave is just beginning (after two weeks of personal time) and he could have up to two more months. In theory. In reality I think he's more than ready to be halfway through this period of vigilant idleness and back to a familiar grind. That's despite knowing how much he'll miss Chaya (maybe me too I hope!) And despite knowing how tough it will be readjusting to his commute and work with such limited sleep. He had several things here wanted to do while on leave and many of them remain to be done because the biggest thing (Miss Milk Monster herself) is a bit all costuming. I'll be interested to see what makes the final cut. Maybe it can wring one more week out if his chosen leave period. And hopefully it will be more a light bullet then s dark and stormy purple people eater of a period!
Furnishment Follies and the Beastie Baby Ba
Yesterday afternoon Andrew had the coffee-christened revelation that our home was never quite completed after the move. There was a severe dearth of flat surfaces for said coffee to be placed safely. That led him to reflect that instead of the intended black out curtains, our biggest window was still lined with cardboard. And that shoes plopped themselves willy nilly about the downstate with no regard for law and order. Pictures had never been hung. And perhaps we had too many booster seats...
Apparently I had discouraged the establishment of said proposed coffee table previously. I had suggested that even if we had one I would likely still knock beverages and other things to the ground when distracted by our baby, and that surfaces are prone to clutter as much as they are to helping reduce such clutter. I thought the subsequent "but a coffee table would be a good thing to have. Let's get one" was the final word, especially since he then direct the evening researching them online and I inquired about his progress several times.
Nothing came of that. At least until the house was so booby trapped with cabinets and counters that Mr. (W)right was doomed to devastation! Yep all part of my devious plan. Bait and switch and demotivate before siccing the fussy baby on an unsuspecting husband. But then it was off to the store and maybe some races!
The table search turned into an odyssey from what I hear. From Pier One to Goodwill to Value Village to that bastion Target, as a result we own a large box with a deconstructed table inside. And some kind of shelf to put our shoes on. At least once it's fixed. It broke in the parking lot.
The Ms. Wrights barely registered all the hubbub, torn between milking battles and triumphant naps as they were, but there was some awareness of the grand purge and clean that preceded it. Since Adella had been largely restricted from her maniacal tidy binges, it was mostly a relief although one must always observe the cleaning frenzies of others to protect one's own possessions. I've learned that from several maniacal binges of childhood, during which my sister would heave any bit of clutter into my room regardless of what said clutter considered of.
Still my main focus was the beast baby! She was rapidly alternating between inconsolable need naiad and heart melting angel so quickly as to cause vertigo. All a parent can do is appreciate the sweet moments and keep trucking through the mad moments with every attempt at soothing imaginable. Very few things have brilliant repeatability but somewhere between shushing, walking, swaying, singing, burping, feeding, changing, cooing, rocking, rolling, and negotiating... Something will stick. For at least a nap. And what naps they were.
We even ended in a high note, with a surprise post diaper change mellow in daddy's arms. I may murmured that such mellowing for daddy was technically unfair, but honestly was just grateful for an idyllic little family moment with our suddenly sweet and lucid love.
Yesterday was an all around post-apocalyptic sort of day. We were spared the outages thrust upon large swathes of the country by Saturday's bluster, but our forest paths were littered with detritus. On our morning walk, we found - or rather did not find - the path so saturated in debris and fallen branches as to have returned to the forest.
This was the ground zero of Andrew's cleaning binge. At least he lingered behind as I walked (painfully slowly so as not to continue overdoing it) back to the house. It smacked crisply of autumn and redolent with baking spices and hearty fires. I'm told the weather will take a summery turn again but will enjoy this little spell. Today there be rain in the forecast and mysteries abound over which of the many faces of Chaya mommy and daddy will encounter. But by good they're will be a coffee table. In a box or out... There will be one!
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