June 2013
6 posts
on good surprises
I live in my head a lot. I am prone to nervousness (it’s my favorite weight loss plan), and in these days leading up to our first flight with a baby, I’m getting in plenty of worry. I wake up with a clenched jaw, rock nervously in the rocking chair at Pip’s four a.m. nursing, thinking, “This time in 48 hours, we’ll be doing this in my childhood bedroom.”
I mean, there’s a lot to be excited about — friends’ wedding, Pip meeting his great-granny and seeing grandparents he hasn’t seen in months, introducing him to my college roommates and childhood friends — and mostly I am deliriously excited, but I can feel the nervousness creeping in. Two flights. ETA around midnight. A baby whose naps are getting weird and seems to be teething again. Man, I don’t know.
But then I read today that babies Pip’s age can start kissing, and I realized — he’s been doing that for a week or two now. These big, smiling, messy smacks to my cheek or chin. Tomorrow, on the road to Hartford and then our two flights, I may drive Pip crazy and I’ll certainly drive myself crazy, but let’s keep the big picture: baby kisses.
BABY KISSES, guys.
May 2013
17 posts
Dear Baby: Life with Pets & Children: The Goodness and The Struggle. →
dearbabyblog.com
I walked in the door with two tired kids last night to discover that the dogs had…
Sometimes I want to give my dog away, and I know the insane rage that follows a dog’s bark waking your just-asleep baby. It is hard, for sure. Springtime exercise (for all of us!) is starting to help a bit, though.
the claw
So the Baby Overlord and I have developed this new game we (OK, I) call The Claw. Basically, I hover his Royal Fatness over his toy basket and he fishes around inside pulling up treasures. Usually, he goes for something ambitious like a board book, then gropes for one of his bird blocks, then finally gets realistic and comes up for air with one of those plastic links, pretending that’s what he wanted all the time.
The game usually ends when he pukes into his toy basket.
Six-month-olds are very interesting critters.
Day in the Life of a Semi-SAHM at 6 months
I thought it would be worth sharing what an average day looks like for me currently, as I really don’t know how days play out for other stay-at-home-parents, and certainly wasn’t prepared for the experience when I started out.
Now that Pip is six months old, I have comparative freedom, with almost guaranteed two naps (though often both are only 30 minutes each), and the ability, occasionally, to have the use of my arms when he’s awake. I am still figuring out how to juggle it all, but I think I’m making progress.
“None of it was ideal. None of it was how I planned it, but I realized that sometimes what’s right for your family, what makes you the best mother you can be, isn’t a rigid adherence to a certain method of parenting, it’s simply doing your best for your unique baby in your current situation.”
—
Haley of Carrots for Michaelmas, “How I Almost Became the Smug Mom”
Let’s all repeat this over and over to ourselves, OK? I’ve been lucky to receive very little (obvious, explicit) mom-hate, and I’ve tried so hard not to be disapproving of what other people find works. It’s a lesson in compassion, for sure.
on sleep, his
I hate, hate, HATE when people ask if Pippin’s a good baby, and by that they mean a good sleeper.
He is the best baby, and we are working on helping him to be a good sleeper, and any shortcomings on that front are almost certainly ours.
It’s a little like owning a dog. If you have a bad dog, it’s almost certainly a failure on your part in how you treat and teach the dog.
My baby is becoming a good sleeper, just about as fast as I am becoming a competent parent.
“We live in an articulate society, continually questioning ourselves and each other. It is not fair to leave a new mother with a horrific collection of words to condemn her—and almost nothing in the way of praise for when she is doing something well. A whole vocabulary is missing to balance all the negative words and phrases.”
—
Naomi Stadlen, What Mothers Do: Especially When It Looks Like Nothing
I’m going to quote your ear off from this one in the next few days, guys.
“I kept going. Slogging it out. Showing up. Standing, sitting, kneeling. Thinking about anything else. But there came a point, I’m not sure exactly when, when I was no longer slogging or just showing up. I began to desire it. Not because it felt familiar, like home. That was certainly part of it, but it wasn’t the whole story. The Mass was steady and unchanging and familiar, but at some point I decided that it was also true. And I think, now, that it was precisely because the Mass didn’t depend on me to feel anything at all.”
—
Love & Salt: A Spiritual Friendship Shared in Letters, Jessica Griffith Mesman and Amy Andrews
(a book I loved, and highlighted way too much, recommended to me by my always wonderful undergrad advisor, Anya Silver)
six word six month poetry
- Barf in my hair. When? How??
- Kisses are your favorite, and mine.
- You look on purees as betrayal.
