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Mostly a baby update
Mar. 21st, 2015 11:07 amLexan is 4 months old. There was a huge change about a month ago, where he started smiling a little more and acknowledging me, that I'm embarrassed to say helped me feel far better about motherhood. It also helps that he started, once in a while, sleeping longer stretches. My mother claims he can sleep through the night, but that's because she ignores all the new parenting rules and sleeps with him under covers, next to her, and she isn't trying to breastfeed him. Because that would be weird. I horrified the pediatrician by saying we put him in his bed at midnight (it's sometimes 2 am), but really, he's still sleeping after most meals, so what does bedtime even mean? And if he's going to sleep a 6 hour stretch, I want it from midnight until 6am, not 8pm to 2am. Anyhow, he's very healthy: up until a few weeks ago, he was averaging 1.5oz of weight gain a day (the goal is 1 oz a day) and at his last pediatrician visit, he was in the 5th percentile for weight for 4 month old babies, i.e. not a preemie adjusted age.
Alas, I wish I could say his parents are doing as well. I'm writing this from my mother's laptop, because less than a week after my last momcation, I went back to their house, because my brain was still foggy after 3 full nights of sleep. ( Read more... ) Babies are hard, yo.
My prenatal masseuse runs a mommy group I've been attending. It's nice to hang out with other mothers, in a space that's so baby-friendly: we have conversations while changing poopy diapers or breastfeeding. I tried the mommy & me yoga class once: the prenatal yoga teacher I hated was teaching it and was somehow far less annoying. It was alas more baby-friendly yoga than baby yoga, but oh well. About half the mommy group sessions though involve a speaker, like a lactation consultant or a babywearing cultist. The last two speakers I heard drove me nuts: one was a baby/child psychologist on attachment theory, who mostly made me worry that I traumatized the baby all those times I didn't jump quick enough to deal with his needs, and the other was a baby movement therapist who had lots of interesting techniques but was talking about stickers for your cell phone to keep the "EMF" away. I need to find baby friendly ways of feeding my brain again.
The other thing that makes me crazy about mommy group is that many of the mothers are talking about heading back to work or nannies. I still haven't felt my way to a narrative about what's going on that works for me. Honestly, one of the reasons I'd like to go back to work, along with the obvious financial benefits, is that I miss having something to say when people ask me what I do. I know that even if I'd decided and come to terms with being a stay at home mom, this would be difficult. Part of the problem of course is that I haven't really decided. I told my former colleagues in January that I was ready to go back, that I had a nanny lined up as soon as I had an offer. With my brain this foggy, I'm nervous that I'll get an interview and embarrass my contacts. (We'll leave aside the fact that my new breasts don't fit in any of my jackets, let alone an interview suit for a white shoe firm.) And on the other hand, I have a nanny lined up - Lucky's nanny still works for the family, has babysat Lexan several times, and has said she wants to be his nanny too - but her personality is not what I need in terms of an employee. Every time Lucky tells us about her favorite TV shows, I question my commitment to returning to work.
OTOH, anyone talking about TV shows annoys me. My father drove me nuts yesterday by not only narrating every part of his day to me in real time, but by sharing his misinterpretation of a show about the Little Ice Age. I started wondering if being foggy is so bad. He also likes ranting about what terrible shape his in-laws are in. My grandfather, in the past few months, suddenly stopped being able to walk normally due to back pain and he's started not being able to remember things. It's been a while since either of my grandparents could microwave food for themselves. After reading Atul Gawande's Being Mortal - highly recommended to anyone with older relatives or thinking about how they want to structure their own decline - I wondered what makes life worthwhile for them. Oddly enough, my grandmother who has been completely senile for some time and doesn't always remember how many grandchildren she has, let alone recognize their pictures, will scuttle as fast as she can when she sees my son in the room. I'm so glad she has that pleasure. Between that and seeing more of my uncle-who-lived-in-HK-and-feeds-me-great-wine and my SIL, well, maybe momcations aren't so bad.
Alas, I wish I could say his parents are doing as well. I'm writing this from my mother's laptop, because less than a week after my last momcation, I went back to their house, because my brain was still foggy after 3 full nights of sleep. ( Read more... ) Babies are hard, yo.
My prenatal masseuse runs a mommy group I've been attending. It's nice to hang out with other mothers, in a space that's so baby-friendly: we have conversations while changing poopy diapers or breastfeeding. I tried the mommy & me yoga class once: the prenatal yoga teacher I hated was teaching it and was somehow far less annoying. It was alas more baby-friendly yoga than baby yoga, but oh well. About half the mommy group sessions though involve a speaker, like a lactation consultant or a babywearing cultist. The last two speakers I heard drove me nuts: one was a baby/child psychologist on attachment theory, who mostly made me worry that I traumatized the baby all those times I didn't jump quick enough to deal with his needs, and the other was a baby movement therapist who had lots of interesting techniques but was talking about stickers for your cell phone to keep the "EMF" away. I need to find baby friendly ways of feeding my brain again.
The other thing that makes me crazy about mommy group is that many of the mothers are talking about heading back to work or nannies. I still haven't felt my way to a narrative about what's going on that works for me. Honestly, one of the reasons I'd like to go back to work, along with the obvious financial benefits, is that I miss having something to say when people ask me what I do. I know that even if I'd decided and come to terms with being a stay at home mom, this would be difficult. Part of the problem of course is that I haven't really decided. I told my former colleagues in January that I was ready to go back, that I had a nanny lined up as soon as I had an offer. With my brain this foggy, I'm nervous that I'll get an interview and embarrass my contacts. (We'll leave aside the fact that my new breasts don't fit in any of my jackets, let alone an interview suit for a white shoe firm.) And on the other hand, I have a nanny lined up - Lucky's nanny still works for the family, has babysat Lexan several times, and has said she wants to be his nanny too - but her personality is not what I need in terms of an employee. Every time Lucky tells us about her favorite TV shows, I question my commitment to returning to work.
OTOH, anyone talking about TV shows annoys me. My father drove me nuts yesterday by not only narrating every part of his day to me in real time, but by sharing his misinterpretation of a show about the Little Ice Age. I started wondering if being foggy is so bad. He also likes ranting about what terrible shape his in-laws are in. My grandfather, in the past few months, suddenly stopped being able to walk normally due to back pain and he's started not being able to remember things. It's been a while since either of my grandparents could microwave food for themselves. After reading Atul Gawande's Being Mortal - highly recommended to anyone with older relatives or thinking about how they want to structure their own decline - I wondered what makes life worthwhile for them. Oddly enough, my grandmother who has been completely senile for some time and doesn't always remember how many grandchildren she has, let alone recognize their pictures, will scuttle as fast as she can when she sees my son in the room. I'm so glad she has that pleasure. Between that and seeing more of my uncle-who-lived-in-HK-and-feeds-me-great-wine and my SIL, well, maybe momcations aren't so bad.
