they say it gets harder after they won’t stay where you put them. she’s on the move
she’s sporting her first hair-do: the faux hawk
her daddy hates it, but it is the only thing her hair can do right now
Category Archives: Motherhood
Give the gift of time
I had a dream last night that the hospital had actually sent home a second baby with Veronica, but I hadn’t noticed. Since I hadn’t noticed the other baby, I didn’t feed it and it hadn’t had anything to eat during the night.
It was a dream,so it was only one night I hadn’t fed the child. Veronica didn’t need to be fed during the night because she’s past that, but the new little baby I’d forgotten did and I HAD STARVED HIM.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had that dream, where I neglected and endangered the life of a little new baby. But last night there was a twist:
This little baby was starving hungry because I hadn’t fed it, but it turned out to have the head of a falcon with a big scary beak. I got ready to nurse this poor starving baby -MY FAULT FOR STARVING IT-and I had to try to put my breast into its big scary hungry beak.
Of course the beak was more likely to bite my nipple off than to suck milk, but I had to try anyway. Poor starving thing! and since it was MY FAULT that it was starving I had better not shy away from being bitten and damn well feed this poor helpless thing.
But beaks can’t suck. And so I kept trying to get a different angle to succeed, which wasn’t working, until I contemplated squeezing milk out drop by drop into the beak so that it could get some food.
Then through sheer wish-power the baby turned into a normal baby with lips and I tried to feed it, but it just *wouldn’t*
Then I woke up, and thought “What a weird dream!”
It wasn’t until I was at work and had cried three separate times about this dream that I realized it was a nightmare. Also, that I really need to quit obsessing about feeding Veronica. I’ve got to be a better police force on my brain and blow the whistle on this stuff.
Eating is something that accumulates over time. She is getting enough to eat, and I KNOW she’s getting enough to eat because Chris gives her huge huge bottles twice a day when I’m at work. I don’t know for sure how much food she’s getting when I nurse her, but I know she’s satiated when I am done.
So, taken on the whole, she’s getting plenty to eat and is very healthy. I need to seriously get over it and stop worrying.
Give her time. Give me time.
She’s fine. I’m fine. We’re fine. I just need to practice being fine.
improved tummytime
I’ve been trying and trying to get V accustomed to being on her tummy. Her brain will apparently atrophy in horrible ways if she doesn’t.
But when she is on her tummy, she screams.
Today, however, the dog caught her attention. It helped that her head was up:
winning the war against the worry monsters
i just think of her smile, and the is no room for the monsters
communication
She’s learning to use her voice, and it seems she’s invented a new language that her toys understand
happy mother’s day…
…to me.
She keeps growing and learning. She’s getting better control of herself. Her hands in particular:
But her feet and legs are more active too. Here’s an example. I like it also for the song that’s playing on the radio as I record:
Cameo by Lucy Dog. Veronica seems to like her, judging from the happy expression on her face.
the working mother’s dilemma
So, it’s thursday and the first week back at work has gone okay. I can see how this will work out. I’ve gotten through the slightly less sleep (not too bad) and the handing off of child to her father (harder, but we’re doing it). I’ve managed the gauntlet of pumping and storing milk for the little one three times a day while maintaining my professionalism.
There is one more hurdle: hitting the road. My job requires that I travel. I have to figure out a way to do this. 9 o’clock and 1 o’clock I have to attach a milking machine to my mammaries and stay that way for at least 10 minutes. THEN I have to unattach and clean up.
All while maintaining my dignity and professionalism.
I really don’t want to have to pull over at gas stations and hog their bathrooms for 15 minutes. Not sanitary or comfortable. My thoughts right now are to get a big dark sheet and throw it over myself while I do setup and take down.
The DURING I have figured out and can maintain modesty if not dignity. But hooking up needs something.
It reminds me a little of when I went camping with my family, and had to change clothes INSIDE my sleeping bag.
Big dark sheet that allows me to move around to get set up…Deep breath….it’s just what I’ll have to do.
Not about me
I made it through the first day back at work. Four months ago, actually 137 days ago, I left work a swollen person, but I was recognizable to myself.
In the ensuing days between I went through permanent and profound changes. When Veronica came out of me, she had her little fingers spread out (in a way that has become familiar to us now) and she was looking hard at her hands. It’s as if she was thinking “That’s what these are! That’s what they look like! That’s who I am!”
I’ve found myself saying similar things to myself. That’s what this is? That is who I am? This is what it feels like? When Veronica was born into a new life, so was I. It was unfamiliar and terrifying. Also, it was featureless; the landmarks I had learned to use in my life up to then were nowhere to be found and I was completely lost.
I was desperate to find my way from one hour to the next–from one second to the next! I was in so much pain and so exhausted and none of that mattered at ALL because I had a very big 8 pound 10 ounce load of responsibility to carry and it was heavier than the whole world.
As a matter of fact, the world had disappeared and I was afraid I had disappeared along with it. I was ALONE.
But then people reached out to me. I was in deep dark water, but like pings to a submarine in the dark, people reached out to me and gave me reassurance. There were emails and texts and lots of phone calls when I breathlessly told all about what was going on and what I was learning and trying to do. I was trying to say how things were going to be okay, and if I said it enough times I might learn to believe it.
People who loved me listened to me and told me that it would be okay. I was lifted up by a multitude of hands and carried out to when it finally was okay. I was so needy and people gave me what I needed.
A lot of what I learned is to get past what I needed. My daughter needs me and she can’t wait for me to get around to her. I have to get over myself and what I think I need. Even what I really think I really need. Sleep? I need that. But I’ll have to not need it for a while. Food? Going to the bathroom? I need those, but they come second. Because it’s not about me.
It was SO HARD. It was so relentless.
And now, it’s not that it’s over, but I’m at work and I get a break. An 8 hour break where the need relents.
It’s Daddy’s turn now. Mommy is at work.
And I want to tell him all about how to do it right. I’ve spent so much time with her and HE HASN”T. I know how this works and I know what she needs and there was been a PLAN and things are going WELL according to the plan. I have all this hard-earned experience and skill now and he needs to hear it.
Not only hear it but APPRECIATE all I’ve learned and appreciate ME. Because I need to be appreciated.
only…i just learned that it’s not all about me. and it’s not about what i need. i don’t necessarily need what i think i need.
What I need to do is find the answer that is not about me. When Chris tells me “She cried unless I walked around holding her while we listened to the annoying nursery rhyme CD!” I don’t need to say WHAT DO YOU THINK I’VE BEEN DOING FOR THE LAST HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN CENTURIES?!
I don’t need to say “If you just held her in this one way while showing her this particular toy and …and…she would stop crying!”
I need to find the answer that’s not about me.
Cube
I’m back in my cubicle. First time this year. In a lot of ways, it feels exactly the same.
I promised myself to take it easy. Usually I break that promise, but maybe I have learned something since I had a baby. I feel like I have.
I’m not stressing about being away from Veronica. I feel like her daddy will do a fine job. I worry a little more about him, that he will find it difficult. But then, I found it difficult at first too. So I am not uncomfortably worried. I”ll be home before too long.
I have a huge huge amount of things to write about. I will get around to it. For now, I am taking it easy and not pushing it.