Such a cliche, but so true: They grow up so fast. Kayla's 6-month birthday came and went. She hardly seems like a baby sometimes. It often feels more natural to refer to her as "my kid." She can scoot around on her tummy, lift herself onto all fours, and sit for short periods of time without support. She is probably days away from crawling. She bores easily, but remains cheerful and interactive as long as she has something new and interesting to hold her attention. And the other day, she gave her first hickey.
Don't worry, she gave it to me. She was having trouble getting to sleep, I suspect due to some teething pain. She didn't want to nurse, rocking wasn't helping, and she would only chew on her teether for a few minutes before crying again. I scooped her up in my arms to comfort her and she latched onto my neck. When I tried to give her a pacifier she just kept spitting out. So I let her suckle on my neck for a few minutes and she finally fell asleep.
The next morning I noticed the hickey. I wore a high-collared shirt to work and figured no one would notice. I told one co-worker the story and she laughed. Later that day while sitting around with 5 or 6 other co-workers I said to her, "I can't believe no one noticed the hickey." She said, "No one noticed, or no one said anything?" So I asked the group and they all said, "Oh yeah, I noticed, but I didn't want to say anything."
I explained how I got the hickey putting Kayla to sleep and not in some frenzied teenage make-out session, and went home wondering how many of the dozens of people (co-workers, bosses, vendors, strangers) I'd interacted with that day now have a hysterically inaccurate idea of what my weekend was like.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Monday, December 1, 2008
And how was your Thanksgiving weekend?
I have a separate mini-freezer where we keep all the extra milk that I pump to feed Kayla while I'm at work. It took me months to build up the supply, and we had enough in there to feed her for about a week if I wasn't able to for any reason. On Tuesday, Hubby must have not closed the door all the way when he got some out for her while I was at work, because on Wednesday when I went to put some away, the door was open a crack and all the milk was thawed or mostly thawed. You can't refreeze it once it's thawed, so we lost all of it.
I have been a cow all weekend trying to build the supply back up, but I had a nice balance going before & I'm basically forcing myself into over-production to try to build up enough to make sure she can eat the next time I'm away for 12 hours.
I hate modern life. This would be so much easier if I lived in a hut and could just carry her around with me all day while I gather berries.
I have been a cow all weekend trying to build the supply back up, but I had a nice balance going before & I'm basically forcing myself into over-production to try to build up enough to make sure she can eat the next time I'm away for 12 hours.
I hate modern life. This would be so much easier if I lived in a hut and could just carry her around with me all day while I gather berries.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Another Useless Study
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/11/21/baby.buggies/index.html
Um... duh?
Other things I don't need a study to tell me:
- Babies whose diapers are changed often get fewer rashes than those who aren't
- Babies left in a crib staring at the ceiling all day learn less than those who are played with or carried in their waking hours
- Children wearing shoes get fewer blisters than children not wearing shoes
- Children wearing coats stay warmer in the winter than children not wearing coats.
Use freaking common sense, people. And also, if you have a stroller that face forward, don't go running out to buy a different model if you only have your kid in it for short walks & spend the rest of the time talking and playing with them.
Um... duh?
Other things I don't need a study to tell me:
- Babies whose diapers are changed often get fewer rashes than those who aren't
- Babies left in a crib staring at the ceiling all day learn less than those who are played with or carried in their waking hours
- Children wearing shoes get fewer blisters than children not wearing shoes
- Children wearing coats stay warmer in the winter than children not wearing coats.
Use freaking common sense, people. And also, if you have a stroller that face forward, don't go running out to buy a different model if you only have your kid in it for short walks & spend the rest of the time talking and playing with them.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
The Parents Are To Blame
I was working from home today and found myself participating in a conference call from the inside of a dark closet.
My office, you see, was too noisy. So was my living room, kitchen, and every other room in my apartment. The noise was coming from a young woman outside banging on the door to the building and screaming.
I couldn't really make out what she was saying, and I didn't have the attention span to try because I was busy discussing the finer points of vendor management with co-workers on the other end of the phone.
When my call ended I peered out the window to find my landlord and his wife engaged in a rather lively... um... "conversation" with the aforementioned young lady and someone I later discovered to be her mother.
"I WANT TO TALK TO MY FATHER!! HE WON'T ANSWER THE FUCKING PHONE AND I KNOW HE'S LIVING HERE!"
"Look, you can't come around here yelling and banging on the door, telling me to go fuck myself..."
Kayla and Robin were out for a walk, so I leashed up the dog and went outside myself. The girl was waving a picture and a bunch of papers around, she and her mother were yelling at my landlord, and my landlord was doing an impressive job calmly explaining to them that whatever their beef with his tenant, they are not doing themselves any good yelling like lunatics. At one point he said, "Look, I got a lady with a baby living here and you're out here screaming."
Since I'm the lady with a baby he was talking about, I turned and looked their way, at which point the girl decided to start yelling at me.
"THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!"
"Actually, you're making it my business. This is my apartment right here."
"Well, this conversation is none of your business."
"Well then maybe you should be having it at your own home and not mine."
Her mother jumped in. "I'm sorry about that and for disturbing you and your baby, and I'll take it away from here, but now you can walk away because this is a private conversation."
My blood started to boil as I scrambled for a polite way to tell her that she was having her "private conversation" at about 104 decibels in public, and that I have more of a right to be standing here than she did, and that I will NOT walk away, and she and her skank daughter are welcome to try to make me. Then I remembered that my precious Treefrog was on her way back home and decided that I'd rather greet her calmly from inside the apartment than have her find me in the middle of beating some strage woman senseless and have to stop and wipe the blood and bone fragments from my hands and face before giving her a kiss hello.
Breathe in, breathe out.
I smiled and went back inside.
My daughter has done more just by existing to make me a better, calmer, more rational person than any self-determination, introspection, and therapy my entire life before her birth. That said, I have to wonder how gigantic a piece of shit the mother I encountered today must have been before the birth of her daughter if she is still this much of an asshole today.
As for the young lady who started this whole mess-- I pity her. She was young, mid 20's at best, possibly even as young as 17 or 18. Her father is obviously an asshole (won't answer his daughter's calls??) and her mother is probably the one who trained her to handle the situation in the most counter-productive, obnoxious way possible.
At the same time, I see a little bit of myself in her. There have been times when I tried to "handle" a situation by screaming and threatening my way through it, and I'm sometimes tempted to do things that way today. Oh, how I would have loved to leap across the conference table and gauge the eyes out of a condescending colleague last week... but that's another story. The point is, I was fortunate enough to have enough good influences in my life to get past the aggression-is-best mentality and eventually become a relatively mature, well-balanced person who can actually walk away from a senseless fight.
My goal is to be a good enough, strong enough influence in my daughter's life that she never feels the need to scream mindlessly at the empty apartment of someone who wronged her.
As goals go, not too ambitious, I hope.
My office, you see, was too noisy. So was my living room, kitchen, and every other room in my apartment. The noise was coming from a young woman outside banging on the door to the building and screaming.
I couldn't really make out what she was saying, and I didn't have the attention span to try because I was busy discussing the finer points of vendor management with co-workers on the other end of the phone.
When my call ended I peered out the window to find my landlord and his wife engaged in a rather lively... um... "conversation" with the aforementioned young lady and someone I later discovered to be her mother.
"I WANT TO TALK TO MY FATHER!! HE WON'T ANSWER THE FUCKING PHONE AND I KNOW HE'S LIVING HERE!"
"Look, you can't come around here yelling and banging on the door, telling me to go fuck myself..."
Kayla and Robin were out for a walk, so I leashed up the dog and went outside myself. The girl was waving a picture and a bunch of papers around, she and her mother were yelling at my landlord, and my landlord was doing an impressive job calmly explaining to them that whatever their beef with his tenant, they are not doing themselves any good yelling like lunatics. At one point he said, "Look, I got a lady with a baby living here and you're out here screaming."
Since I'm the lady with a baby he was talking about, I turned and looked their way, at which point the girl decided to start yelling at me.
"THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!"
"Actually, you're making it my business. This is my apartment right here."
"Well, this conversation is none of your business."
"Well then maybe you should be having it at your own home and not mine."
Her mother jumped in. "I'm sorry about that and for disturbing you and your baby, and I'll take it away from here, but now you can walk away because this is a private conversation."
My blood started to boil as I scrambled for a polite way to tell her that she was having her "private conversation" at about 104 decibels in public, and that I have more of a right to be standing here than she did, and that I will NOT walk away, and she and her skank daughter are welcome to try to make me. Then I remembered that my precious Treefrog was on her way back home and decided that I'd rather greet her calmly from inside the apartment than have her find me in the middle of beating some strage woman senseless and have to stop and wipe the blood and bone fragments from my hands and face before giving her a kiss hello.
Breathe in, breathe out.
I smiled and went back inside.
My daughter has done more just by existing to make me a better, calmer, more rational person than any self-determination, introspection, and therapy my entire life before her birth. That said, I have to wonder how gigantic a piece of shit the mother I encountered today must have been before the birth of her daughter if she is still this much of an asshole today.
As for the young lady who started this whole mess-- I pity her. She was young, mid 20's at best, possibly even as young as 17 or 18. Her father is obviously an asshole (won't answer his daughter's calls??) and her mother is probably the one who trained her to handle the situation in the most counter-productive, obnoxious way possible.
At the same time, I see a little bit of myself in her. There have been times when I tried to "handle" a situation by screaming and threatening my way through it, and I'm sometimes tempted to do things that way today. Oh, how I would have loved to leap across the conference table and gauge the eyes out of a condescending colleague last week... but that's another story. The point is, I was fortunate enough to have enough good influences in my life to get past the aggression-is-best mentality and eventually become a relatively mature, well-balanced person who can actually walk away from a senseless fight.
My goal is to be a good enough, strong enough influence in my daughter's life that she never feels the need to scream mindlessly at the empty apartment of someone who wronged her.
As goals go, not too ambitious, I hope.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
On Birth Plans
In a previous post I mentioned that birth plans often get a bad wrap by people who don't know what planning is.
Good plans include contingencies. Your birth plan will basically be a list of contingencies and preferences. For example:
"I would not like to be offered an epidural. If I want one, I will ask for it."
"In the event of an emergency C-section, I would like to remain conscious unless there is a medical reason to put me under."
There is nothing stupid or naive about wanting your partner, doctor/midwife, and others present at the birth to all clearly understand your needs and preferences, especially where they may differ from the norm. Lord knows you won't have the wherewithal to articulate them when you're in labor.
A birth plan should not be a laundry list of demands, like, "I want to be able to move freely" or "I insist on being allowed to eat solid food during labor." Those are the kind of things that are allowed or restricted by hospital/birth center policy, and you should speak at length with your provider about the policies and regulations for the facility in which you plan to give birth. If an act is against hospital rules, having it in your birth plan won't do a damn thing. It's not a legal document and no one is compelled to follow it. If your provider says that the policy is one thing but that they can make an exception for you, get the exception in writing and add it to the labor bag.
The process of writing a birth plan should be an experience of discovery for you. Look up birth plans online and consider all of the various points they touch upon. Do you agree or disagree? Would you want the same thing mentioned in this plan, or something different? Does your facility allow for your personal preference? What if circumstances change, like the baby's heart rate drops or you turn out to have a higher or lower tolerance for labor pain than you're currently predicting? Write it all down. If you did it right, a few weeks later you should end up with about 10 pages of soul searching and know yourself a little bit better than you did before. This is not your birth plan yet.
Now take the main points of those 10 pages and skin it down to a single-page, bullet-pointed list for your health care provider. Take it to your next appointment (or if they schedule a longer appointment for just this purpose like many providers do, take it to that one) and discuss it.
Remember those contingencies. For every "I want" or "I don't want" on your list, try to think of a situation where that would change, and include it in the shortened list. For just about everything you don't want, you can add "unless deemed medically necessary by the attending." For just about everything you do want, you can reword, "I would like the option of..." since you really don't know what you'll want until the time comes. If what you want is already hospital policy or standard procedure, don't bother including it. No nurse is going to read a list of your preferences and take them seriously if they look like what she's trained to do anyway. For the brief plan that you'll share with those at the birth, focus on that are unconventional.
And if you mention your birth plan to someone with 5 kids who says, "HA! Good luck with that... it's so ridiculous to try to map out exactly how your birth is going to happen," just tell them that yes, moron, it would be ridiculous to do that. Good thing that's not what a birth plan is.
Good plans include contingencies. Your birth plan will basically be a list of contingencies and preferences. For example:
"I would not like to be offered an epidural. If I want one, I will ask for it."
"In the event of an emergency C-section, I would like to remain conscious unless there is a medical reason to put me under."
There is nothing stupid or naive about wanting your partner, doctor/midwife, and others present at the birth to all clearly understand your needs and preferences, especially where they may differ from the norm. Lord knows you won't have the wherewithal to articulate them when you're in labor.
A birth plan should not be a laundry list of demands, like, "I want to be able to move freely" or "I insist on being allowed to eat solid food during labor." Those are the kind of things that are allowed or restricted by hospital/birth center policy, and you should speak at length with your provider about the policies and regulations for the facility in which you plan to give birth. If an act is against hospital rules, having it in your birth plan won't do a damn thing. It's not a legal document and no one is compelled to follow it. If your provider says that the policy is one thing but that they can make an exception for you, get the exception in writing and add it to the labor bag.
The process of writing a birth plan should be an experience of discovery for you. Look up birth plans online and consider all of the various points they touch upon. Do you agree or disagree? Would you want the same thing mentioned in this plan, or something different? Does your facility allow for your personal preference? What if circumstances change, like the baby's heart rate drops or you turn out to have a higher or lower tolerance for labor pain than you're currently predicting? Write it all down. If you did it right, a few weeks later you should end up with about 10 pages of soul searching and know yourself a little bit better than you did before. This is not your birth plan yet.
Now take the main points of those 10 pages and skin it down to a single-page, bullet-pointed list for your health care provider. Take it to your next appointment (or if they schedule a longer appointment for just this purpose like many providers do, take it to that one) and discuss it.
Remember those contingencies. For every "I want" or "I don't want" on your list, try to think of a situation where that would change, and include it in the shortened list. For just about everything you don't want, you can add "unless deemed medically necessary by the attending." For just about everything you do want, you can reword, "I would like the option of..." since you really don't know what you'll want until the time comes. If what you want is already hospital policy or standard procedure, don't bother including it. No nurse is going to read a list of your preferences and take them seriously if they look like what she's trained to do anyway. For the brief plan that you'll share with those at the birth, focus on that are unconventional.
And if you mention your birth plan to someone with 5 kids who says, "HA! Good luck with that... it's so ridiculous to try to map out exactly how your birth is going to happen," just tell them that yes, moron, it would be ridiculous to do that. Good thing that's not what a birth plan is.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Sesame Street is Not For Kids
At least, it wasn't when I was watching it. As a kid.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18wwln-medium-t.html
“These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”
I wonder if this explains my demented sense of humor. But then, why don't I eat pipes?
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