Why yes, yes, yes.....I have begun this entry over three times now but constantly find myself getting interrupted. Now I can truly understand Virginia Wolf's concept of "A Room of Her Own" but that has only come after 3 months of being a mom. And how my life has changed in these short 3 months that have flown by so quickly.
My girl is growing and changing every day along side with her Momma who is constantly being reconditioned and taught how to keep her control freak tendencies in check. It's amazing how much I have changed since Motherhood begun. I was reading a site on Monday that really struck a cord with me. It was about different parenting styles and discovering which one will make you the most popular at your Mommy and me group. If I did attend a group? I am pretty sure that I would not be well liked. I am positive I'd be labeled as a "Mean Mommy". This is based on all that I read on other Mommy blogs, you know, the "Nice Mommy" labeled ladies out there. I'm not like those other hip, cool, nice mommy's. Case in point:
Camille and I have never co-slept, I have always had her in her crib with the occasion co-nap together. But mainly? I cruelly threw my girl in her big cold scary crib. And if you can even believe it, she sleeps much better and peaceful on her own, in her own room. When she wakes up in the morning she never cries but rather coo's and talks to herself until I come in.
Do you want to know how I got Camille to sleep through the night? At 8 weeks? Brace yourselves, I let her cry. OH MY GOSH YES!! I actually allowed her to cry, the indignity of it all. The blogging mommy's out there must turn me in, really. But yes, I never played the "It's 4 a.m. let's play a game", instead I'd rock her, burp her, kiss her and lay her back in her crib. She would complain for a minute or two and off to sleep she would go. Now she has learned to sleep straight through the night only waking occasionally but drifting back to sleep a couple minutes later.
But, yes, I do let her cry every once in a while. But what I can't decide is if I'm following Ferber's method or the Attachment Parenting method. For her naps, she likes to fight them. So, while she is screaming hysterically I typically will cradle her in my arms while I let her cry it out. Sometimes I have to lay her down crying and rub her back. But I'm still letting her cry out. On one hand I loose major points with the "Nice Mommy's" but then I gain them back because I hold her while screaming, right?
My point here really is to say, if you read all the other "Nice Mommy" blogs, and then come to mine, you will quickly learn that I just don't play those games, really. I do what is right at the time for Camille. I am not opposed to any technique, I give them all a try. We are an equal opportunity get the baby to stop crying and start staying on a schedule type of people. And before you run to the head "Nice Mommy", looky here, does she look like she's really being raised by a "Mean Mommy"?
I haven't been to the mall in four months, shocking isn't it? I despise the malls here so much that I instead just eBay. Or, I get my shopping fix during my many travels. My favorite place for shopping fulfillment? D.C. baby, the one and only place in my heart. The malls, oh dear Lord the malls there are so pretty, the clothes there are so pretty. Here, in Antarctica, the malls are ugly and they're full of ugly clothes from stores like Penny's and Sears....yuck, ew, bleh.
Tonight I could no longer put off the inevitable and had to venture out to said ugly mall. I scrapped the edge of my Clinique base clean this morning leaving not even a trace of makeup so I knew it was finally time to head to Macy's for the Clinique bonus time. So, reluctantly I left, baby free so you would think I'd be giddy. I wasn't until, as I walked out of Macy's I was shocked to discover that the mall was uglier than ever, uglier than how I had remembered it. The floors were torn up and walls had been torn apart. But, the fact that it was uglier than normal just might be a sign that maybe, just possibly they might be fixing it up? As I walked into Gap I eagerly searched for the first sales person I could find and when I found my target I asked the question I had been dying to know. She satisfied my curiosity by assuring me that yes, indeed the ugly mall was getting a face lift. But that wasn't the end of it. My friends, I tear up when I think of the amazing news that followed.
We, here in Woodchuck land, where the malls our full of EMS shopping fanatics, are getting, brace yourselves:
Nordstrom
And, if that wasn't enough to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside for this place I at times refer to as the Frozen Tundra, we are also getting a:
CHEESECAKE FACTORY.
Holy smokes, I'm still on cloud nine.
Are you disappointed by this post? Are you sitting there asking yourself why on earth you even bothered? If so, I am truly sorry and that only means that you totally don't understand my deep love and appreciation of fine clothing and snooty malls with their snooty stores. Tsk, tsk on you for not knowing me better.
But, I know for certain, that there is one reader here that is so appreciating my excitement. I would leave the link to her site so you can know who she is, but her new baby boy is just so cute you might hunt them down. Ms. Panama, share the excitement with me here if no one else can!
D and I have really been trying to get to church for the past few weeks now. We've been quite neglectful to our religious duties and haven't been since Thanksgiving. Now, before you go throwing the holy water on me let me state my excuses. First of all, because I'm "Mrs. Last Minute" and didn't sign up for the Lamaze when I should have, we didn't have much to choose from. I didn't even look into the classes until my 34th week of pregnancy, I know, very bad. We ended up choosing the Sunday morning class so that wiped out church for December but the alternative was a 7 p.m. weekday class and after working all day I was barely able to stay awake for my 30 second commute home.
Then Camille was born and I was sick you know, so that wasn't happening for a while. Once I did finally get better and could physically get to church, there was no way I was able to get my act together to even get out the door. You try sleeping periodically through the night then get up to feed baby, dress baby and then pump? If church began at 3 p.m. we would have been set. Well, the past couple of weeks things have begun to settle and Camille has become more predictable allowing us to plan getting out of the house. With her sleeping through the night now, we are also more rested and not desperate for sleep. We were ready to go back to church.
Well, we might have been ready, but despite our best attempts, fate has had something else in store for us.
Sunday #1: Camille began coughing, a lot. She had been a little congested earlier that week but had cleared up completely. Until late Saturday evening. Out of the blue it came back.
Sunday #2: We had a good friend over who seemed a tad bit lonely at the time. Despite D's best efforts he stayed until 2:30 a.m. the next morning.
Sunday #3: Woke up all ready to begin our rush. Went to warm up the bottle only to find there was no hot water and now that I thought of it, it seemed a wee bit chilly in the apartment. Umm..yeah, the hot water heater called it quits.
Sunday #4: WE WILL GO TO CHURCH NO MATTER WHAT....except for sewage water linking from our sealing. Yes, yes, yes, freakin SEWAGE WATER WAS LINKING FROM OUR CEILING!! Apparently the apartment above us, their toilet was clogged really really bad which they didn't know considering they had just moved in that day. Welcome to the neighborhood, now would you mind removing your sewage water from my ceiling?
I give up. When God has sewage dripping from your freakin ceiling I think it's a sign you're not wanted in church.
The fun...oh my gosh I almost forgot to tell you all about the fun, fun part of this whole ordeal. The lovely cause of my 103.5 lingering shake inducing temperature.
But, for you to fully appreciate how fun it was, I must back up to 7:45 p.m. Saturday, walking through Nordstroms at Tyson's Corner Mall. And, may I say, it is a cruel, cruel world when this type of fun puts a damper on my Nordstrom experience, really, you don't mess with Nordstrom's you gods of shopping. Here, in woodchuck land, we have no Nordstroms, instead the natives live in EMS, the land of no Franco Sarto or Baby Lulu for baby girl. So, here we are, standing in awe of the greatness of my store when I feel a sharp shutting pain running through my under arm. It had been since morning since I had pumped so I figured it was just that. Unfortunately pumping 8oz. of milk didn't do the trick and that is when I found myself shaking uncontrollably with a throbbing boob. Sore to the touch, sore to even look at at this point.
Fast forward to Monday morning as I sat at my OB/GYN's office with baby girl in tow. And by the way, may I add, as I sat waiting for the doctor, for a moment there I felt a little sheepish, really, the same doctor who just saw all of me just 11 weeks ago and now I'm shy about him looking at my poor sore boob.
Anyway, moving on.
So here we go folks, Mastitis, that's what it is. But just not Mastitis alone, I also got the flu along with it as a added bonus. I feel so lucky. And to add a cherry on top, my milk supply dropped, nose dived from 30oz. a day to 24oz. a day. And how does one get that supply up? Pump over time, because that whole supply and demand thing. Cruel, cruel.
I don't like being rescued. I pride myself in my sheer independence and mental strength. I just don't ask people for help, ever. I'll go through an airport pregnant and carry my own bags just to prove to myself I can. I'll carry in a weeks worth of groceries laced up one arm with the baby in her seat on the other arm all the while having the neighbors looking on. If I was to pinpoint the root of this personality trait I think it came from being raised in a house full of women. The male parental figure lived 1 1/2 hours away so even if I did call him for help, by the time he would get there it just made sense to always just do it my own darn self. I never had that luxury, you know?
So, you can only imagine the mental pain I experienced last Wednesday having to call D home after my unfortunate back episode. But throwing out my back wasn't enough to keep me in NY for the weekend. I had big plans and my back be dammed, I was driving to PA to pick up my sister to head down to my Mom's for a all girls weekend. And of all weekends, this was the one that I needed to be busy as it was the one year anniversary of my miscarriage. I got to PA in one piece and Jenn and the babe and I packed into her car all set to go when only 20 minutes into the trip, her car calls it quits. Now, you would think that by this point I would give in and say it wasn't meant to be, but I didn't. I wanted to go home and see my mom. I wanted to go shopping and attend this huge consignment sale that I was not only going to shop at but also sell at to help feed my addictions. We turned around, unloaded her mini-van and squeezed everything (including the babe, we didn't forgot her) into my Civic and off we went. The only catch was that I had to drive, again, after driving 3 1/2 hours already because my dear, sweet, ever loving sister can't drive stick, and that was okay because I love her and she buys Gymboree for my girl.
We got to VA, safe and sound. Had a great weekend. It was so incredibly fun that I didn't even blink on Saturday or even think of the emotional torture I was experiencing just a year earlier. But all of that would end that evening, as we made our last stop I felt just a tad chilly. Jenn wasn't cold, but I was shaking like I was standing in the middle of a blizzard. No big deal I thought, I had just pumped 8oz and figured I might had screwed up my system because I had waited so long. But after shaking and shivering for over an hour, I realized something bigger was going on. And I was right as the thermometer flashed 103.5 alerting me that yes, indeed I could actually shop till I dropped (ha, get it?!?). Anyway, to make a sad, long story short, Jenn had to be back to PA on Sunday no later than 2:30 because apparently pilots can't just call in late. There was no way I could drive. None at all. You know what I had to do, again? Less than a week apart? You guessed it, I had to call D to once again rescue me. He flew first thing Sunday morning to Baltimore where I picked him up and let me say? I've never felt more relieved to see my husband before.
It really felt good to be rescued, regardless of how hard it is to ask.
This is percisely why I hate not having any family close by to call. Yes, I have friends, but no one who can drop their world and run to my aide as I lay helplessly with my baby in my arms. Thank goodness I was able to track down D, he was 40 minutes away but jumped in his car immediately when he found out and rescued me. Well, techinically he rescued Camille. Momma isn't as fun when she can't move and babies get sick of laying in the same spot for 40 minutes. So here I sit. I should be on my way to PA right now so I can then go to DC to visit my Mom. Tomorrow should be fun. D at work, me at home. Alone. Let's hope Camille learns how to walk and fend for herself in the next 14 hours.
I'll make a deal with you internet:
The first person to leave a comment gets to fly to NY and come take care of Camille tomorrow.
A year ago today, exactly this particular day, March 8, 2005, D and I discovered we were pregnant for the first time. It would be an understatement to say that I was ecstatic. I remembering staring at that stick, at those beautiful two lines as they kindly reminded me that yes of the best news I could have possibly heard. I would run back and forth checking the results throughout the evening, just in case it changed it's mind. I would also go out that night and buy some food because I knew once I was pregnant I would have to begin eating meals such as breakfast, and that no, coffee did not count when you have another life to sustain. I would buy Orange juice and Granola bars that evening only to toss them out just one week later because you didn't need that kind of stuff when you weren't pregnant anymore. But let's not focus on the aftermath right now, let's just sit with the memory of the joy that I felt for those short lived days and remember the bliss of sheer ignorance of what was hiding around the corner.
My lovey, she's getting so big and developing so quickly I can't keep up anymore. I caught her grabbing a toy while playing under her baby gym and her newest trick? Kicking her blanket hard enough that we find it closer to her face than her feet. She thinks it's funny, I am not finding as much humor in this as she is. And the cooing, loving that.
However, she has acquired a flare for the dramatic and has begun to arch her back when I've angered her. And what angers her the most? Making her wait 2 hours and 1 minute for her bottle, taking away the bottle to her burp her, and everything that has to do with the carseat, she's so not into that. Her newest petpeeve, which I'm slowly beginning to look forward to each day (sense the hint of sarcasm here) is sleep. Oh how my girl loves to fight her sleep. Tired? Don't sleep, scream because you're so tired and while you're being rocked? Arch that back and kick your legs while screaming, no make that screeching in your Momma's ear, now that is the good stuff.
Life here is falling into a nice routine, it might change a little each day, but I'm able to predict how it will go each morning. And she's begun to actually sleep in her crib for an hour at a time compared to her only sleeping in the swing. She used to detest the crib, it was her enemy and I out of desperation would give in and let her sleep in her swing. But now that we had the night time routine down I knew it was time to tackle the crib.
My confidence that was shakey on Friday has become a little more solid again. I have reminded myself that ignorance is bliss and have stopped doing research all together on this pumping/weight gain thing. As it is, I'm doing this whole pumping thing incorrectly, but am getting the same results if I was doing it the "right way" based on the literature I've read. I shouldn't have such a large milk supply because I don't have Camille nursing nor do I pump 8 times a day. People who are pumping like me says I shouldn't get anymore than 8 oz. a day but I shock them when I inform them that I indeed get 26-27 oz. a day with only 4-5 sessions. And I know she's growing. And I know she's getting calories. She is not failure to thrive, she's busting out of all of her clothes and as you can see from reading here, she's developing at a normal rate for the typical 2 month old. The nurse at her doc's office told me not to worry, so I'm not going to. Instead I'm going to do what I've done for the past 9 1/2 weeks, go with my Mommy instinct, it hasn't let me down so far.
It's 1 a.m. and I'm up and the baby is asleep, D is asleep but strangely I can't sleep. Actually, it isn't to strange to me, I know why I'm up. I'm stressing and making myself overly anxious the way I guess all good mommy's do..hmmm.
Tuesday Camille had her 2 month check up. I was all worried and upset leading up to the appointment about her shots, four of them to be exact, but little did I realize that I really should had been more concerned about her weight. She only gained 1 lb. over 4 weeks bringing her grand total to 12 lbs. which puts her in the 75th percentile down from the 90th percentile. I wasn't alarmed when I heard her weight, she is on breastmilk exclusively with the exception of one 4 oz. bottle of formula a night. But apparently the doctor didn't like it. I haven't been to stressed about it until tonight when D let a little comment slip, almost accusatory in a way, like I'm not feeding her enough because I wanted to wait 15 minutes so I could give her the last feeding and rock her to sleep.
Now I can't sleep. What if all this work I'm doing, the pumping and all the fun rituals that go along with it, isn't enough. Ignorance is bliss and at times I forget but am quickly reminded like now after doing "research". This whole plan of mine is quickly taking a nose dive and is about to crash and burn forcing me to grab our life jackets full of formula as our last alternative. What if it isn't enough? What if I've done this whole thing wrong and those damn lactation jerks were right the whole time? Have I not pumped enough? Have I waited to long in between pumps so that I've diluted the fat content of the milk? Am I just a loser for not forcing her to the breast so then none of this would be an issue? Maybe I haven't eaten enough making my milk full of as many calories as water.
Yes, those are all rhetorical questions. This post is completely pointless except to say I'm stressed and now, here I thought I was beginning to really get a hold of this mommy thing and feel confident in my abilities and then a comment is made and my walls of security just crumbles and now, because of me and my desire for my child to follow some type of pattern maybe she's not gaining weight. And maybe that's what I deserve for not being some super woman and having my child strapped to my breast because I was to damn emotional to go through the whole forcing her off the bottle thing, now I'm paying because I really thought this other way would work.
I totally suck. I'm going to go now and finish kicking my own ass which I will most likely do daily until March 30 when I hear my fate. Oh lordy I hope she gains that extra pound.
And, to add to my guilt, I let her cry today because, dear God I needed a shower and she woke up from her nap and I should have fed her maybe instead of showering but it was 2:30 p.m. for goodness sakes.
I've gone and done something that some of you might not like, well, or might not even care about but nonetheless, I'm going to tell you anyway, after I first explain what led me to do it.
As you all know, because I've said it over and over again, I was never and have never been Ms. Popular. I've been this way since elementary school and stayed that way through high school, where it really did count. My less than popular state from high school and beyond was more of a personal choice than a forced position in life. I never liked the popular kids. They always thought more of themselves then they should have and once you got to know them, there wasn't anything special there. But more than anything, they went around and made the less than cool kids feel inferior to them. I attended a private high school after my ninth grade year hoping to escape this vicious cycle. I assumed if I went to a school where people actually wanted to learn I wouldn't be face with so much of the superficial. Obviously I was wrong and even in a class of 27 (yes, 27, that is not a typo) the snitty snuck up girls somehow found their way in. The stranger thing was, this was a even worse strand of popular because they also had the "Christian of the year award" dangling from their necks which made them feel even more superior. I made it a habit not to be a part of their groups and would always befriend the girl that no one would ask to go to lunch with. And as it always goes, those are the people who have actual substance to them. So the point here? I've never liked the popular kids and stay as far away from them as humanly possible.
I've taken certain sites off my link list. I hate to be such so cliche and a lot of the sites that were on my list are also on the list of many many others. Plus? I always like to leave a nice little comment on sites if they've written a post that I find intriguing but they never seem to return the same courtesy. And before you call me childish, I know for a fact that one of my readers out there feels the same way, so blah and off the list they go.
Now, don't go getting upset if you see you're still on my link list and think "So, she's saying I'm not popular hey?" No, what I'm saying is that if your still on my list it's because you either know me in real life and I like you or you always return the same courtesy and I like you. So either way it means I like you, I really do!!
