Kansas-bound

We're busy gearing up for Evelyn's first plane travel--well, okay, her first travel of any kind--this weekend. It'll be a whirlwind weekend packed with a wedding, two showers, and various immediate and extended family visits. I'm trying to figure out if we really need both a stroller and a baby carrier while Craig is trying to figure out how to arrange drop off and pick up at LAX when we need a baby carseat. Neither of these hurdles should be too difficult to work out. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, we're getting Evelyn excited to visit the Little Apple with the KSU apparel some old coworkers of mine sent our way. Go CATS!

Our BIG Bundle of Joy

Well, it's been 9 weeks and our new life is finally starting to feel like a real life again and not just some some strange aberration. I zip out 2-3 freelance articles a day while scarfing down salads at lunch and banana bread at breakfast. I make sure Evelyn gets a little tummy time (despite her wails of protest) during play time and I try to get her to bat at various toys. Mostly I'm just happy if she waves her arms and grins. When she loses interest, I read to her, and what I read to her depends entirely on the day. Since today is grocery day, for instance, I just finished reading her the Mirin Glazed Salmon recipe from Nigella Lawson. Yesterday, because I was tired of the "Icky Sticky Frog" and the "Icky Sticky Anteater" (yes, they both have basically the same title and are about various sticky-tongued creatures' eating habits), I read Evelyn a chapter or two from East of Eden. She shows equal amounts of interest in all these books. I read that babies just like the sound of their mother's voice and, since I rarely go around the house talking to myself, decided reading anything I could grab would suffice. It seems to. I think she seems to prefer those books with poetic cadences, but maybe that's just my preferences coming through.

Apparently, though, I need to start encouraging more tummy time and other active types of play (despite her squalls). At her last appointment Tuesday morning, she weighed in at 12 lbs, 13 ounces and 22 inches long. Apparently, these measurements put her in the 50th percentile for height and the 99th for weight! Our doctor told us that if Craig and I were overweight or if Evelyn was on formula, she'd tell us to monitor her food intake and weight closer. But as it is, she said I just have particularly rich milk and Evelyn's weight is entirely healthy. Unfortunately, that evening I read an article claiming that babies who weigh more tend to develop such motor skills as turning over and crawling later than other babies. Apparently that additional weight is a bit much for them. Which could explain why Evelyn gets so worn out when I put her on her tummy. 

My life ... again!

We found a "new" cheeseburger joint over the weekend. I know I should be ordering salads and, in fact, this joint has some pretty amazing salads on the menu, but when it comes to cheeseburgers and pizza I just have a really hard time saying "no." Thankfully, most of the pregnancy weight slipped blissfully away while I continued to eat cheeseburgers and failed to do anything more strenuous than walks around the park a block away. But that seems to have ground to a halt and I find myself hovering at five pounds left to go before I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight (and 10 pounds left to go to my ideal weight). So I ordered a new Tae Bo workout video. I told Craig, while eating my cheeseburger, that once it's apparent the video alone won't be enough THEN I'll start ordering salads like a good little almost-29-year-old-trying-to-stay-25-year-old female.

Yes, it seems my days of eating like I'm pregnant are numbered. I suppose they should have ended weeks ago (9, to be exact) but pregnancy creates terrible habits that are hard to break when you find yourself breastfeeding and still every bit as hungry (maybe even more?) as when you were pregnant.

But I think I'm glad that my diet life is about to return to normal. It seems to symbolize a return to normalcy in general and, really, this past weekend saw a lot of "normal" return. For one thing, Craig and I returned to the movies! Our last movie was in early May when I was weeks away from delivering and we sat through almost 3 hours of Robin Hood; I thought I was going to die I was so uncomfortable! This time around was much better. We left Evelyn with some friends (her first time staying with non-family) and went to see "Inception," which is also almost 3 hours long but was much more bearable--even enjoyable.

Also of note: we left Evelyn with the church nursery for the first time. Since she's getting her two month vaccines tomorrow, I'd planned to keep her with me, but when I headed to the nursing mother's room, I found the nursery workers standing around twiddling their thumbs because they didn't have any babies! So I decided to give them something to do, dropped her off and asked them to feed her her bottle. Which meant that I actually got to sit in the sanctuary with the adults and take notes ... though I didn't actually take notes because I'd mistakenly left my pen in the diaper bag with the nursery workers. Well, getting back to normal can't happen all at once.

Two Months!

It's amazing what changes in eight weeks. And no, I'm not talking about what changes in babies.

No, what I'm talking about is the change from a clean, orderly home to one littered with damp burp cloths and various pieces of baby furniture--the bouncer, the soon-to-be-outgrown Moses basket, and the still-unused highchair. The change from actually drying and putting away dishes to letting them air dry for 24 hours before putting them away and washing the next batch. The realization that going to the movies can no longer be a last-minute decision on a lazy Sunday afternoon but must be planned out days in advance--a babysitter must be arranged, emergency contact list filled out, and milk provided.

I've begun speaking in the 3rd person and altered my already-mild expletives: "Stink! Mama has spit-up all down her shirt." My baby does not crap or even poop. She "poos" and her diaper is full of "poo." My husband and I have left off debating how Calvinistic election works and instead argue over what to call the pacifier and even over the need to call the pacifier anything other than "pacifier." (Mama's tired of coming up with cutesy names for everything.)

But these changes are not bad and could even be called beautiful. Mama might even say the cluttered house is more beautiful than the clean one she once tried (rather unsuccessfully, to be honest) to keep clean. And, of course, the changes wrought in Little Evelyn Grace these past 8 weeks have been extraordinary, as can be seen from these photos:

Evelyn Grace 3 days old

Evelyn Grace 8 weeks old.

The saga continues ...

We do our best. We carefully note what time Evelyn eats. We lay her on her brand new Baby Einstein floor gym (complete with motion-activated music and lights); we shake rattles to the side of her head to make her eyes track; we lay her down for naps after an hour and half of wakefulness. In the evenings, we bathe her and massage lotion all over her body; we wrap her in footed pajamas and read to her from a book; we use two nursery nightlights (one with music and moving animals); we give her gas drops and vitamin drops; we swaddle her; we unswaddle her; we rock her in our arms while making up words to what we think are lullaby tunes; and, finally, we bring her out to snuggle with us on the couch until 11pm or so, at which time we feed her again, sing and rock her in our arms again, turn on the Twilight Turtle, and (this time FINALLY) watch her drift peacefully off to sleep.

We try to limit her late afternoon napping and we try to wake her at a reasonable early hour, but for whatever reason Little Bird does not want to go to sleep at her 9pm bedtime. We've been told it's gas. We've been told it's her afternoon napping schedule. We've been told she just wants to be with us. We've been told we've spoiled her. Who knows? Regardless, Craig and I have decided we don't particularly care if she gets held until 11pm. Yes, we'd rather she went to sleep at 9pm. Yes, we care about her learning to put herself to sleep; yes, we're worried that we're creating a future 2 year old tyrant. But "letting her cry it out" isn't working. We tried that. She cried so long, the next thing we knew it was time to feed her again. And no, she doesn't cry when we lay her down for naps in the middle of the day.

What all this means is that little Evelyn has had her first Star Wars experience! Since she won't sleep until almost midnight, and since Craig and I have been watching the Star Wars saga this past week, she has gotten to fall asleep on Craig's belly while listening to that unmistakable sound track:

da da da daaaa dum da da da daaaa dum da da da daaaa dum da da da dum....

Maybe that's what we should try next: a Star Wars soundtrack lullaby CD!

Light, Water, and Other Fetishes

For the past couple of weeks, things have been rough in our household come about 8pm every night. Little Bird may be the very model of a quiet, happy, and content baby but every evening, that quiet, happy, content little baby has been replaced by a screaming, crying, discontent bundle of tears. We've blamed it on long active days, too many naps spent in car seats or laps, gas, hunger, boredom, and loneliness.

We've learned a few things since then. For starters, we've learned that Little Bird doesn't like the dark. I don't say she's afraid of the dark, because I'm not quite sure what she'd be afraid of this young in life--but then again, who knows. Why are any of us afraid of the dark, really? Anyway, this realization came around 1am Saturday morning (i.e., Friday night) after three hours of rocking, singing, burping, gas-drop-giving, pacifiering, and nursing. At 1am, Craig had just laid her back down after another round of rocking, crawled into bed, and shut off the light when she started screaming again. We looked at each other in tears and said, "I just don't know what to do any more."

Well, it was my turn to take her, so I pushed the covers off and got out of bed. I started rocking and singing to her, which quieted her down. Then before I put her back in her Moses basket, Craig said, "Is there light in the room when she naps during the day?" Well, yes. Even with the lights off and the curtains drawn, there's more light in the room during the day than at night. So I turned on the light in the entryway to our master bedroom, rocked her a bit more, laid her down, got into bed, snapped off our bedside lamp, and....nothing! Sweet, absolute nothing until 7am. Hallelujah! Since then, we've used a crib toy her Nana bought for her as well as a "Twilight Turtle" that glows blue and shines star constellations on the ceiling.

We've also learned that our Bird much prefers the sound of rushing water to whale songs, static, and heart beats. The other day when she was crying (and the nightlight was on), I headed in to try the pacifier but decided to switch her recording from whales to water and rub her belly a bit. The moment the whales stopped and the water came on, she quieted down and shut her eyes. Guess she's a water baby like her mama.

With these few key pieces of information firmly known, our Little Bird is now able to completely relax and sleep.

Taking an Artistic Turn

The first "normal" day of motherhood after saying goodbye to all our guests wasn't a very restful one. After waking up for her 10am feeding, Evelyn decided she didn't want to take any more naps that day. I think she was too excited about her new tree to sleep and stayed up all day waiting for Auntie D to get off work so we could start painting.

I'd picked out a tree design that I liked but needed D for her perfectionist artistic sensibilities (I don't have the patience to go slooowly smoothing out rough paint edges). So when she got here, she drew the design onto the wall in pencil, asking me the whole time if it was the right size, placement, etc. We ended up washing the pencil off and starting over again to make it a little smaller. But once D had the drawing finished, we were able to start painting it in!

And, okay, we may have goofed off a bit too.

But we still had it finished by 1am and felt pretty good about ourselves. (Though this picture doesn't show it very well, the branches are pink and the birds/flowers are white.)

And, of course, Evelyn cried throughout the whole 5.5 hr process. Which means she was up pretty much the whole time from 10am Thursday until 1am Friday. Thankfully, once Auntie D left and things quieted down a bit in our household, she fell right asleep. Unfortunately, Craig somehow messed up the alarm clock so that she didn't wake again until 7am. Which means she went eight hours between her 11pm feeding and her 7am feeding. She seemed perfectly content when I woke her at 7am but I feel bad all the same. Not sure a 5 week old is supposed to go 8 hours without food. Guess she was tired. But with this amazing new place to sleep, who can blame her for not wanting to wake up?