I **** you

This is a hard post to write because it's kind of embarrassing (I can talk freely about cervical fluids but not this, apparently). But I would like to out myself as one of those weirdos who can't say "I love you." And I mean not just in a relationship - to anyone, even my own son.

Like all my bad habits, I blame this on my mother. "I love you" was never said in our house, not ever, and physical contact was kept to a bare minimum. Only later in life did my sister and I hug our mother as a greeting; I remember almost no hugs or kisses as a child (I'm not saying they never happened, I just don't remember any). I know we're not alone in this - there are many New England WASP-y types who grew up in emotionally stunted, non-demonstrative families. I remember an Intervention episode some years ago where a young addict was desperate to have her mother say "I love you" and the mother just couldn't say the words, even during the intervention, even with everyone in the room yelling at her "just say it!!!" This is how deep this stuff goes.

I so don't want Bumpus to have to guess if I love him or not. You do have to say these things out loud - kids need to hear it; you can't assume they understand that if you cook for them or save up to buy them something cool or sacrifice something you want for them that they understand you do these things because you love them. No. Kids need to hear it. Early and often. And yet.

I have lately been making a point to look B in the eye and say "I love you, Bumpus." And there are times it catches in my throat like the scene in Cheers where Diane demands Sam tell her he loves her, and he chokes on the word, "Diane, I...luh luh luh luh luh....". It's kind of like that. But I've decided this is just something that's going to take practice, like telling him the story of how he came to be. So I'm determined to overcome probably hundreds of years of uptight weirdness in our family and make this happen. We are going to be the kind of family that hugs and says I love you, dammit. I'm going to do it, even if right now saying the word makes me feel like a hole is going to form in the ground and swallow me up. This, too, shall pass.

Night #2

Continued on with the "sleep training" last night. It went about the same - serious crying jag from 4:00-4:40 in the morning; a couple more throughout, but still woke to a happy, smiling baby at 9 AM who had only eaten once in the night yet didn't seem particularly hungry. If this is how it continues for a while, I'm cool with it. I'd be up all those times anyway, I'd just have sorer nipples, and this way at least there's hope that the sleep will improve soon.

This is so much better than just leaving him alone in his crib to scream while I'm in another part of the house. Now when he screams I am right there patting his back and kissing his head. When I feel guilty I can say to myself, "he knows you're right here, he knows he's safe, he's just used to soothing himself back to sleep with a nipple so now he has to learn a new method." There is a big part of me that feels like I fucked up - that I should have had him in a crib CIO ages ago, that he could have been sleeping straight through months ago and I could be so much better rested. And I wouldn't have to be playing catch-up now. But I did try before, twice, and it just didn't feel right. Now it feels right, because I know he's darned well old enough to be sleeping better than he is. I really just needed that evidence I got on New Year's that he sleeps better without me. I just didn't have the confidence to follow through before, but I do now. Also the method feels kinder to me.

One of the things I'm learning is it's ok to admit as a parent that you make mistakes. Because with your first baby you're always doing things for the first time. There are plenty of times I've tried taking him somewhere, keeping him out, tried a certain set up or food and had it just be a big mess. So many times in the last nine months I've said out loud, "ok, that was a bad idea."

So we'll see how this thing goes. As noted there's no harm in it - it doesn't change how badly I'm already sleeping, and B seems content (except when he's screaming his head off of course). If nothing changes in a couple of weeks I may need to step it up, but I'll keep on like this and see if anything gets better, if he sleeps longer without waking.

I missed out on the comedy show tickets for tomorrow night so I am treating myself to a movie and shopping during the day instead, using the Baby Kennel as sitter. And since it's during the day I'm going to try an experiment - instead of a bottle I'm going to send a squeezy bag of food. If I could be free from pumping for sitters it would be AMAZING. Can you tell I'm kind of over breastfeeding? Any old time it's time to stop, I'm ready. I really am.

Yesterday I broke down and bought a smaller size of jeans since all of my pants hang off me and I look like I'm dragging around a soggy diaper. I am convinced all of the weight will come flying back on once I cut back on breastfeeding, but until that happens I need some pants that fit, dammit. It's not even that I'm so skinny, it's that the pregnancy took away my usually rotund butt. I am flat as a pancake there now, which has never been the case, even when I was ten pounds thinner than I am now. Apparently this is a thing that happens, hence the ill-fitting pants. So I at least have one pair of jeans I can wear until things shift around again. I got cocky enough to try on a pair of bright orange super skinny jeans. On the theme of this blog post, I thought as I looked in the mirror, "ok, that was a bad idea."

Progress

Last night I decided to try a little experiment. My Mom Guru friend sent me a really interesting article about "sleep training" which takes a very gentle, gradual approach (and doesn't recommend anything but giving in to baby's wants until at least a year, but I ignored that). It occurred to me that maybe I just need to be very patient and sloooowly move B towards the kind of sleep I want us to get (ie, unbroken). So while I wait for the sleep experts to respond to my email, last night I did this:

Nursed to sleep at 11 PM when B lost interest in playing and started whining out of fatigue.

When he woke up an hour later to feed some more, I let him cry. It sucked. But as recommended by the article I patted his back, hugged him, let him know I was right there, but there weren't going to be any breassesses. He was very angry and frustrated, but after about twenty minutes he rolled into me and went to sleep. Victory!

At 4:30 he woke again and I gave him a good long feed.

At 6:00 he woke again and I let him cry; this time he only cried for a few minutes and again rolled into me and slept.

At 9:00 he woke and I fed him so he could take on the day, then we got up.

He does not appear to be traumatized by not getting what he wanted twice in the middle of the night. I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing or what tonight will bring, I just thought a) I need to slowly reduce the number of night feedings, and b) I can't reduce them all at once because I will end up with hard, painful boobies, and he may actually be legitimately hungry.

So tonight I will do the same - nurse to sleep, offer one feeding in the middle of the night but no more, and one as we wake up. And I'll just keep doing that and see how it goes. It would be so excellent to one day only be woken up once...!

In other news, the windows went in on the attic space yesterday. It is a big step! But the space still won't look like anything until they start putting in the subfloor and drywall. It's still almost impossible to picture. This morning though I did see light coming in through the new windows from under the staircase, and that was kind of exciting. We talked about making the hole in the floor baby safe. It's going to be a challenge.

Yesterday I met with my mommy meet up group. I have made some friendships there and I like how active the group is - two to three meet ups a month, and always interesting things, like museum trips or hikes or downtown exploring. Unfortunately the group leader is moving to Florida in a couple of months, so I asked yesterday what will become of the group and offered to take it on with others. She said that's what she'd hoped, that three or four of us would step up and host events occasionally. So hopefully we can continue!

I was looking at another empty weekend and decided to see a comedy show Saturday night. I have plenty of milk pumped and I'd love a night out not gig-related. So my bandleader friend, his wife and I will go see our favorite comic and have a nice time when I don't have to be on stage or in charge of something. I'm looking forward to that!

Magical Orbs

Since everyone's blog post titles tonight are about the new year, in my usual pain in the ass contrarian way I will title mine Magical Orbs, which of course refers to my breastasiz. Which featured hugely in last night's festivities.

I am pleased to note I got through a very complex New Year's gig and New Year's Day with a certain aplomb. Loaded up the car, drove 1 1/2 hours north to drop the baby with the friend's visiting mother who was also watching their three-year-old. It hit me too late that a three-year-old boy may not understand how to play safely with a baby...but thankfully the family texted me pictures and updates throughout the night to keep my mind at ease. Drove another hour north to the gig.

The gig was in a great old Santa Barbara ballroom where we used to play fairly often years ago - so it was very nostalgic, and familiar. Also lots of old friends, including several who ditched out on my party, so it was good to get a do-over on spending time with them and catching up. Since Bumpus and the three-year-old crashed out at 10:30, I had the freedom to do something I haven't been able to do in probably over a year - go out to eat after the gig and talk shop with my fellow dancers. I miss being able to do that so much it almost makes me cry. But that's the subject of another post (FOMO). I've never once had the freedom of a sitter who wasn't on the clock until last night. You gals with willing family member sitters are so lucky!

Anyway, I had a really nice time, except for my giant, angry boobs that by 4:00 am and twelve hours since the last feed were so engorged and painful that it was almost unbearable. When I got back to the apartment where B was being watched and I was spending the night, and found him asleep, I ripped off my shirt and dangled my left boob above B's face like a magical orb just to see what he'd do. Even in his sleep he sensed The Force was in the room with him, and immediately turned his head, reached up, and suckled. It was too much for him and he puked back much of it (sorry TMI). Still and all that night even waking him up from time to time to make him eat wasn't enough - I still woke up with hard boobs. It reminded me of when my milk first came in - and I started to worry about ending up with mastitis or something.

Today I spent a pleasant afternoon on State street in Santa Barbara with my single girlfriends trashing men (my favorite hobby) and walking around with once again angry full boobs. It's amazing how one long night not feeding the baby will jack your whole system up! When I got home tonight I just strapped on the pump for some relief, and pumped out about 7 oz, a personal record. I finally feel better.

I did have a bit of a revelation, though, one that raises unpleasant realities. I often wondered why B sleeps so much better with sitters or at the Baby Kennel. I had an inkling it's because my magical orbs are not there at the ready. And I think this may be true - last night, if he really did fall asleep at 10:30, he didn't wake until I woke him at 4:00 or so; and then didn't wake much after that either. Which means he slept a longer stretch without me than with me. Which confirms my suspicion that he's only waking a lot at night to snack or use my breasts as pacifiers - not that he's actually hungry. Which makes me wonder - should he sleep separately from me? If he did would we both sleep better? Is the allure of my milk-filled jugs too much for the little guy? How the hell do I get him to sleep without me at this point? Ugh!

And boy would I kill for an unbroken night's sleep! Can that be my New Year's resolution? Sleep longer than four hours just once? Sigh.

Here are some pics of me at the gig and the baby having fun with his babysitters. He rang in the New Year in his tuxedo onesie.

2012 round up

What can you say about the year your first and only child was born? It will be forever etched on my brain much like my own birth year. It's a year that meant something. Inspired by a fellow blogger, here is 2012 as I remember it (I probably should have read my own blog as a refresher first, but I'll try to do this by memory):

January I was all wrapped up in baby showers, nursery planning, and making parenting decisions before the fact.

February was my shower, the registration for my event began, and I started to feel lousy.

March Robert was born! His birth still ranks as the worst experience of my life, but hey, it ended well!

April was a haze of breastfeeding, diaper changes, and sleeping with the lights and TV on. But little B survived and thrived.

May saw B get past those rough few first weeks, start smiling and connecting.

June saw our first trip east, followed by July in which B met most of his relatives and I had my first event as a mother! I also turned 40.

August was our second trip east and event cool-down.

September saw big changes with the B - outgrowing his swing and bouncy seat, crawling, pulling up to stand, reaching for things, and my resultant panic at facing the new challenges of a baby on the move.

The last three months I've happily adjusted to these changes and feel like I have a handle on the future with my planned attic playroom.

Bumpus won't even be recognizable this time next year - right now he's all baby; bald, toothless, co-sleeping, breastfeeding. By next December he'll probably be weaned, have teeth, more (red, I hope) hair, and who knows what our sleeping arrangement will be when he's nearly two! It'll be a big year of changes with my event moved back five weeks to Labor Day and the whole flow of the house changed by the addition.

This'll be my first full year as a parent. Crazy!

Happy 2013 everyone!

Cooking the blues away

Last night I cooked my butt off in an attempt at filling time. This is a strategy I learned in my late teens as I went to work while all my friends went off to college and I was bored as heck - I would cook all weekend, read cookbooks from start to finish, and taught myself all kinds of techniques: pickling, preserving, bread making, etc. It's been fun to revisit some of these skills now that I can (temporarily) eat like a kid again.

I bought a crock pot and made a lovely chana masala, then while that bubbled away, made my favorite white bean soup, corn muffins, and my usual weekly pot of black beans. This morning I made a blackberry coffee cake to bring to Bed Rest Friend. I would cook more if I had any more space in the fridge.

BRF and I talked about space management today, ie, where the baby sleeps, where his toys go, where he plays when he's big enough. I'm glad even people with big houses have these concerns! I don't know how breastfeeders don't co-sleep; I can't imagine getting up and walking into another room several times a night for feeds. Or maybe it's because I co-sleep that Bumpus still wakes up a lot? I'll never know the answer to this question. And my guess is it's different for every baby.

I do feel tons of relief when I think about that upstairs space being the new kid space, where all the toys can be slung about and B and his friends can be as loud and crazy as they want. But I am concerned about safety. There will be windows - should I put bars on the outside to prevent falls? Then there's the staircase - it's in a hole in the floor. How do I keep him from falling down it? Or his little friends? It's pretty dangerous. For the foreseeable future I'll always be up there with him, but still I have to figure out how to make it less hazardous.

Tomorrow they come to finish the electric, then I'm off to our gig in Santa Barbara. I have not decided if I'm going to try to crash at the house of the people who are watching B or not, or if I should attempt the drive home. I guess it all depends on how I'm feeling.

Well, happy New Year, everyone! I hope those of you in the trenches of trying for babies see your wishes come true in 2013, and those content with where you are continue to be healthy and happy!

Here is a before and after picture of my hallway with the old square attic access and the new unpainted pull-down ladder.

FOMO

Last night I had yet another experience with FOMO, or, Fear Of Missing Out. A friend invited me to a special night at her dance club, and I had known about this night for some time but really didn't have any interest in going, just assuming no one I know would go and that I wouldn't have a good time. Well, she called and begged me to come, and I knew I had no other plans this weekend, so I figured I would strap the baby in the carrier and go. But it was not to be - I had one of those rare evenings where the baby just conked out early on my lap and stayed conked out. He slept from about 8 until 10, the window of opportunity for me to get dressed and go. People kept texting me asking if I was going; I contemplated waking him up and dragging his ass across town on this cold, potentially wet night, and taking him to a loud, crowded nightclub...and I just couldn't do it to him. He's still recovering from this cold, he had a doctor's appointment, the contractors have messed up our sleep and eating schedule...I just would have felt horrible doing it to him. But.

Then today I wake up and see all the pictures on FB, all the people saying what a great time they had, the numbers advertised (over 350 people, which is about 5x normal turnout for a dance event around here), and I thought about this entire weekend stretching ahead of me with nothing to do, and I felt pretty lousy.

Do I blame poor, innocent little sicky Bumpus for taking away my fun? No, of course not. The reality is had this been a couple of years ago I probably wouldn't have gone anyway and regretted it equally the next day. I just wish there was a way to guarantee having a good time - knowing well in advance that an event is worth going to, that you'll see all your friends and get some fun dances in, that it'll be worth the money you'll have to shell out on a sitter. But there's no way to predict these things.

Right now my single girlfriends are on their way up to Santa Barbara to take part in the weekend-long event that ends with my NYE singing gig on Monday night. And as mentioned I am home all weekend with no plans and nothing to do. Do I wish I was with them? Yes, until I remember what it would FEEL like to be part of that group.

On the surface, sure, it would be about the excitement of getting dressed for dances and being out of town for a few days, the relief of having something to do on New Year's Eve. It would look good on Facebook. But for me underneath would be that same maddening chant - another year gone by with no relationship and no children, another year older, another year watching all my friends get married and get pregnant. I've had many, many a miserable New Year's, even with plans, even with guys to dance with. Unless you're newly in love, New Year's is kind of bleh.

Do I think all single women spend New Year's wondering when they're ever going to meet someone and have a baby? Not necessarily, although I'd bet that thought lingers at least subconsciously. Does having had a baby take away all desire to be out having a good time with friends? Obviously not. I'm quite bitter I'm stuck at home bored while everyone else is out (looking like they're) having fun. But I blame myself for not having planned ahead. I was so focused on managing the actual night of New Year's I forgot about the weekend before. Oh well. It's cold and rainy out and I've got a fire, good movies, and fresh corn muffins. Oh, and a cute Gingy baby in a jumperoo. I have to admit that beats awkward small talk and bad dances any night.