June and a Half

A dear college friend of mine, Erin Wunker, wrote an excellent post about reaching and setting goals yesterday on Hook & Eye. Although her post is targeted toward academic professionals, her words hit home to me too. Summer doesn't mean the same things to a stay-at-home-mom/writer/former-future teacher as it does to a current academic professional, but there are similarities. Both situations lack immediate pressure to actually accomplish anything, as well as immediate consequences for not accomplishing anything. Hey--you could even say SAHMs are on summer break year-round--although I doubt most of my SAHM friends would describe it that way. In any case, summer doesn't promise the juicy break it did when I was teaching, but since I finished my manuscript and sent it off I have felt as though I am on (a well-deserved) vacation from writing poetry for awhile. But as I posted at the beginning of June, there are things I want to do this summer.

I decided to follow Erin's advice to take the next step from posting about my goals and plans for the rest of the summer and actually write them down. All of them.



The list isn't terribly legible but I defined "summer" as today until the end of July. I included things I want to do between now and then under different headings: Amelia (learn about potty training); Writing (find books and brainstorm ideas for two writing projects I have been daydreaming about); Blog; Home; and Health. My favorite thing about the list is that it actually includes boxes to check. I think the idea of tracking progress for summer goals, or any goals that lack much outside pressure for completion, is a fabulous idea. It's easy to do but (hopefully) incredibly effective.

Although I just made the list today, my June plans have been progressing pretty well. I have been running and going to yoga about 2 times a week so I would like to up that a bit. I have posted every day of June except one. I have been reading a couple of times a week, not as much as I wanted but more than I was reading before. And I have not been cleaning! Much. The house is messier but not that bad. I am pleased with my June so far, and glad to have found an idea to help me get more specific with my goals for the rest of the summer.

Faith and Annie!

I am very, very late in posting pictures from Debra, Faith and Annie's visit back in April.



As you can see, the girls wore matching pants.



They had a lot of fun going to the park, having lunch, and playing in the backyard while Debra and I caught up.



Annie is a fabulous baby, the kind that tries to trick you into thinking it wouldn't be that hard to have a second child.



And Faith is a wonderful big sister. Amelia loved playing with a big girl.



We are hoping to see our friends from "The Springs" again soon!

19 Facts for 19 Months

1. 19 months has been a lot of fun! I somehow never imagined Amelia being older than 18 months. 18 months was a big milestone in my mind, a sort of "I've made it this far so I think I'm gonna make it!" I remember holding 3- or 4-month old Baby A, enviously staring at parents with 18-month-olds. So when Amelia turned 19 months old, it was kind of a shock: it keeps going after this? Maybe because I truly had no expectations, I have been pleasantly surprised.

Part of that is because 2. Amelia is talking more and more. With talking comes communicating, so it's easier to figure out what she wants and doesn't want. Also, it's hilarious. She repeats tons of what we say, including, this morning, "suck it." In context, it was fine--she found one of those mesh baby teether things and I was telling her what to do with it: "You suck it." She spent the next hour saying, "Suck it! Suck it!" Then she stopped. I am hoping she has forgotten it.

3. Other, less disturbing things she says:
"Momma Epyoo" (Momma help you.) She says this when she wants me to help her.
"Naken" (Naked). She loves to be naked. She needs Momma Epyoo to undress, though.
"Peekaboo!" It's adorable. She actually memorized a little peekaboo book, Peek-a-who, from the library. She has also done a few short sentences: "Momma comin'?" "Daddy doin'?" She makes it clear to us that we drop our "g's."

4. Amelia loves her extended family, and talks about them all the time. If we talk about what we are doing, she lists all of her family members and we have to say what they are all doing at that moment.

5. Amelia loves to sing. We also have to include all family members' names in one of her favorites songs, Raffi's Willougby Wallaby Woo. Other favorites songs include Raffi's song about going to the zoo, the ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Old MacDonald.

6. We really are weaned. It really is done. Overall, it has been easier than I thought. Amelia asks for "mik" fewer times each day, and yesterday she seemed to do it almost as a joke. She drinks a lot more other liquids, which makes sense. She likes juice of all kinds, regular milk, and "chocate mik" (which is really chocolate soymilk, mostly for the sake of variety).


7. Amelia still snuggles! She likes to hug, to sit in my lap, or to play a games where she pushes me over and falls on me. And the last couple of naps, she has let me rock her to sleep! This is a huge improvement over crying for 10 minutes each and every naptime. I do think sometimes kids just have to cry themselves to sleep--or Amelia does anyway--but I just cannot take it at naptime.


8. These days Amelia is napping around 12-2, give or take 15-20 minutes on either side. It's predictable, for now, which probably adds to my general enjoyment of the days.

9. And we have a pretty set little routine, something I also enjoy. Amelia wakes up between 5 and 6 (sometimes before 5, yikes, but less and less). She likes to play upstairs for a while, then come down and have something to eat and drink. If it's cool and the heat is on, she likes to sit on the big heating vent in our living room and eat her snack. There are fairly large holes in the vent. Sometimes, from the kitchen, I can hear her muttering "too big, too big" or calling "Uh oh!" I have removed a wide variety of items from the vent, but luckily there is a flat place under the vent to catch anything that happens to fall. This is not the best toddler habit but I have decided that for now it is not a battle I want to fight. And it buys me time to clean up the kitchen.

After Dean leaves for work, Amelia and I play downstairs for awhile and read some books. Then we go upstairs and I take a shower while she plays in the bathroom. I take some toys in there to entertain her or she looks at the toiletries in the various baskets I have. (All babyproofed.) This week, she discovered a drawer that contained tampons and has been having a great time dissecting them. Again: it buys some time.

Then we get dressed, a long process, since sometime in the morning Amelia usually become naken. I try to brush her teeth, and once we are ready, we leave the house. On Mondays we go to the grocery store, and other days we go to the Children's Museum or some other fun place, or run other errands, or if it's nice, go to the park. I try to have her home by 11, and we have lunch. Then she messes around till noon while I half play with her, half straighten up. We read some more books, then nap.

After her nap she likes to play with animals in her crib for awhile, and then we usually try to get out of the house again. Amelia is much more grouchy about being in her car seat in the afternoons, so I don't like to go anywhere too far. My favorite thing is to just spend the afternoon in the park, but we haven't been able to do that much lately. Apparently of the 65 non-sunny days a year Denver supposedly has, 31 are in May. So afternoons this week have been challenging.

Anyway, Dean gets home around 5:15, and we all play/work in the yard, or I go to yoga (!; see below). Amelia tends to be hungry for dinner early, between 4:45 and 5:30. We feed her, then she plays till bathtime and goes to bed between 7 and 7:30.

The days are mostly very good.

10. One of my Mother's Day presents was an unlimited summer yoga pass. I picked it out myself. It lasts through July and I have been going to yoga as much as I can. I go in the evenings to a 6-7:15 class. It gives Dean and Amelia time to play and do the bath-bed routine. We have found that when I am in the house, she is much fussier about having me be right with her. If I go to "cass," she might be a little upset when I leave but quickly gets over it and everyone has a pleasant evening, especially Momma. I love going to yoga. May has been a bit more sporadic than I planned, but I have made it to at least 2 classes a week. I am hoping to go more even more often in June.

11. Teething: Amelia is getting her canine teeth. This has truly seemed to last forever, and they seem to bother her a lot more than most of her other teeth. She has drooled, run a low fever, and gnawed on her fingers a lot over the past two months at least. It has gotten so that when she gets too fussy, I just get out the Orajel. I will be glad when the teeth are finally in.

12. In other toddler behavior news, I should touch on eating and sleeping if only for the record. Amelia's eating remains very toddler-esque: she will eat like a horse for a few days, making her mother very happy, and then seem to eat almost nothing for a day or two or more. Highlights of the eating times have been berries of all types, a return to chickpeas, and tiny broccoli florets--raw. Discovering that she liked broccoli was an accident. I gave her a crown of broccoli to hold in the grocery store and she started chewing on it. She is definitely a grazer. Her favorite snacks are salty, crunchy ones like pretzels, crackers and Veggie Straws.

13. My most hated baby-related chore--and I have thought this through--is changing crib sheets. It's terrible! The sheets are super tight and they get caught up in the bumper pad and it takes forever and I think I pull a muscle every time I do it, which is often because Amelia spends so much time lolling in the sand in the park.

14. We are not exactly potty training, but we now own 2 training potties, one that sits on the floor and one that sits on the big potty. Amelia likes to take apart or fill with toys the one on the floor but other than that has no interest in using them. But since she is naken so much she is becoming more aware of when she needs to use the bathroom. She says "pee-pee" for both pee and poop, then proceeds to go on the floor. It seems to upset her so I try to be very upbeat and encouraging about it:


Me: Pee on the floor! That's great! Let's get a towel!
Amelia: (standing naked in a pool pf pee, looking upset) Momma epyoo! Towel!

15. Our garden is planted and growing. I owe you an entire garden-related post, but we (and by we I mean Dean) have planted tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, blueberries, asparagus, peas, radishes, and flowers, and squash and beans will be planted soon. Our fingers are crossed.


16. I love my Denver friends. The playgroup has really gelled, and I spend a lot of time with my neighbor and her daughter. It makes living here so much easier.

17. I still clean too much. I am trying to cut back, I swear.


18. How many ambulance rides have you taken in your life? Because Amelia has now had two. Last week, she fell out of her wagon and hit her head. She cried inconsolably for over 10 minutes, then got sleepy, so Dean called 911. Luckily, by the time the paramedics got here, she was much better. They took her to the ER just in case. The doctors all thought she was fine but watched her for 2 hours (in hospital time, if was just over 3). We were super relieved. It was terrifying while it lasted--one of those times that reveals to you the fact that your child is your entire world--but I think it says something that I just thought of it here at the end of the post. Um, welcome to parenthood? Just as I felt when she got through the appendix episode, I am deeply thankful that she is all right, still her sunny, funny, lovely self. I would think that Amelia could be finished with ambulance rides now, though. Seriously.


19. This is my 350th post. I am glad blogging is still part of my life. I had a community of blog "friends" long before I had very many real mom friends. I love the blogs I read (and I should say I stole this idea of a listed post from Liz's birthday post on BC), and I love writing posts too. This is the only baby journal I keep, and it is so nice to share Amelia with so many others.

Welcome!

Two new babies have joined Emme in the world this week:

Dean's PDS office mate Mikey and her partner Joanne got to meet baby Claire on January 22,

and on Monday, Debra, Faith and Ryan got to meet Annie Joy!

Welcome!

Emmeline Mae Self was born on Thursday, January 13! (Someone must have written a very persuasive letter.) Welcome, Emmeline! We are so glad you are here!

Blog Meets Blog!

We finally got to welcome Debra and Faith to the Mile High City yesterday. We have visited them in the Springs (ha! I always giggle when I say that) several times but I never have a camera with me.

We had lunch and then the girls played while Debra and I discussed possible methods of turning baby #2 (who is due in 2 weeks!) from the breach position. I showed Faith and Amelia the cat/cow poses we have been doing in toddler yoga, complete with moos and meows. And I loaned Debra something akin to a heat lamp. (Use your imagination.)

Please be sure to send baby-turning thoughts to Debra! I remember that Amelia was in the breach position for awhile and I was very unhappy about it. It sounds like Debra and her doctor have a good plan for what they will do if baby does not move, but obviously it would be more ideal for baby to turn. Turn, baby, turn!



Faith and the Goodwill Elephant



Amelia and Debra



Playing with my jewelry box




We had a very nice afternoon with our Colorado friends and we will see then again soon!

Dear Baby B,

I keep putting off this letter in the hopes that you'll have arrived before I can finish, but it's time we talked.

I haven't heard from your mom in a couple of days, but I bet she is getting pretty tired. I wanted to be sure you knew how much the world is awaiting your arrival!

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't blame you: I'm not a big fan of going outside in the winter either. And you are surely nice and cozy where you are. But there are plenty of warm, fuzzy pajamas waiting for you. And warm arms. And a big brother who cannot wait to see his little sister!

Baby B, your fans are waiting! We want to know your real name! We want to see what you look like!

You might be upset because you missed 1-11-11. Consider that there is still time for a great palindrome of a birthday. 1-13-11, 1-14-11. Still cool!

Baby B, the world is one less without you here. Please come soon! We love you already.

Your friend,
Kim

Blog Meets Blog

As you will recall, we kicked off our month of summer fun with a visit from my friend Liz and her son Oliver. Liz wrote about the visit much more promptly than I did (am doing), but rest assured it was a great week.

Last weekend I had some rare free time in our cabin in Estes Park (more on that soon), and I spent some of it catching up on my reading my blog list. I was really touched to read the nice things Liz had to say about her visit here and about our friendship.

I have probably written about this before but Liz and I met at Governor's School East in 1996. We spent 6 weeks becoming lifetime friends. I LOVED everything about GSE, especially getting to know Liz, and when it came time to go home that summer, I was heartbroken--except I wasn't that sad to leave Liz. I knew--I just knew--that we would always be friends.

As things worked out, we were--but also sort of weren't. We thought we might be college roommates, but then went to different universities. After college, we went our separate ways and only rarely wrote each other very short emails. But when somehow--I don't quite remember how--I started reading Liz's blog. Then I started my own blog. Then Liz and I shared some pieces of writing through email, and then she had a baby. Then I had a baby--and we were in touch constantly.

I wouldn't call Liz one of my "mommy friends"-- those are the friends you have just because you are a mom, people you wouldn't really have much to say to if you weren't both sitting on blankets in the park, trying to prevent your babies from eating too much grass. Liz is my friend because she is kind, funny, and super smart, because she is just one of those people, rare in my life at least, that I liked immediately and liked more the more I got to know her. But she has been one of my most important friends who is also a mom. Oliver was born a year and a month before Amelia, and not only has Liz patiently dispensed advice regarding breast pumps, diapers, baby monitors, and God knows what else, watching the adventures of Liz and little G has also, more importantly, given me a model of what life as a mother can look like. Liz is a mom but also a teacher and a writer , a wife, a sister and a daughter, a blogger and a friend to others and someone who takes time for herself--not to mention a pregnant person. And now she is also a PhD student. She wrote that she is nervous about this new venture, understandably so, but if anyone can do it, it's you, Liz! I have no doubts. You will make a truly outstanding professor of education.

Anyway, so Liz and Oliver came to visit! We had a great time, especially considering that due to A and G's different ages and nap schedules, one of them was sleeping for a great part of each day. We managed trips to both the zoo and to Book Babies, and had daily picnics in the park. Liz was very patient with some of Amelia's more difficult nap episodes and my fear of driving on Denver's Interstate 25, which made our travels from and to the airport take longer than they really should have. (I have since conquered that fear--yea me! I am a grownup who can drive on the busiest stretch of interstate in Colorado!--but at the time I insisted on taking the long way.) It was a real treat to have so much time to catch up with Liz and to really meet Oliver, who I have read about extensively but spent little actual time with. He is a fabulous kid. He is calm, happy, loving--and he can put away an impressive number of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!



Speaking of the airport, I cried when we dropped them off. Thanks for visiting, Liz. I wish you lived next door, but I know we will be friends wherever we are.

P.S.! The fish oil smell is all gone. :)

We're Busy Resting

As July ended, I looked forward to August as a month of rest* and relaxation. Beginning July 31st, we've had visitors or been traveling almost every day. Liz and Oliver came to visit, then we went camping, then Amelia and I went to visit grandparents in NC. Yesterday we had a one-day break in the action, and this afternoon I pick up DC Laura from the airport! Next week Jim and Luli will stop by on their way to visit the newly-arrived Micah, and then Meg and Sophie will visit. We will finish up with a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park over Labor Day.

So that doesn't exactly sound restful, I guess, but I have happily put writing and major errands or household chores on hold. I had gotten into the habit of overplanning for Amelia's naptimes, and then being stressed the whole time she slept because there was no way I could get everything done. I vowed to devote August to going with the flow, so I just do whatever I feel like doing while Amelia sleeps. Today it involves sitting around in yoga clothes (a step toward actually doing yoga? We shall see), and eating figs and blogging.

I have been enjoying homemaking. It is not all that boring. For one thing, Amelia has become super action funtime baby. She is very, very interesting. She crawls and stands and laughs and throws balls and turns the pages of board books. She chats and sings to herself while she plays. She can entertain herself with a pan and a spoon while I clean the kitchen. She "helps" me fold laundry (by systematically knocking down stacks of folded clothes). So it is both more fun to hang out with her and more possible to get a few things done around the house with her around than it was 9 or 6 or 3 months ago. I have actually always somewhat enjoyed tasks like cleaning and going through mail, within reason, probably because of the sense of accomplishment I get from creating order. Of course there are many moments when it all gets exhausting and seems perpetual--which of course it is. But as long as I don't set my sights too high and overplan, and think of it as what it is, a job with pros and cons, lately the homemaking enterprise has been rather satisfying.

In other Amelia news, I think she might have said her first word. She recently learned to wave, and two or three times she has said what sounds like "bye-bye" while waving at people or things we were leaving behind. Of course "bye-bye" sounds a lot like "ba-ba," which she says a lot. So it's too early to say. But it is exciting still.

She has also learned to kiss, bit wet kisses. She lunges at you, mouth open, dripping with drool. The French-kissing baby.

What else? I have been trying to read more, to some success. I have some ideas for new poems to write in September. I plan to post more pictures, including pictures of our camping trip, soon!


*Well, as much rest as you can get with a baby who still isn't sleeping through the night. Amelia slept through the night for maybe a week or so--it was heavenly--and then started sitting up in her crib. And not being able to lie back down. When we tried to let her just figure it out, she fell asleep in a forward bend, her head between her knees. So I am up with her about 3 times a night again after she sits or even stands in her crib. I am currently trying to figure out how to solve this, simultaneously hoping it passes suddenly and SOON.

Words on Words

As usual, I have been doing more writing in my head than on paper or a screen. My friend Corrie just had a baby, and I have been composing an elaborate "Letter to a New Mother" during the hours of 3 and 4 am, which is when Amelia now enjoys talking and singing to herself. I finished--or came to a stopping point on-- a long poem last week, and I am kind of stalled on poetry. (I reread the long poem this morning and was much less enthralled by it than I was last week.) I have been playing around with a series of essays on the first year of motherhood, but I tend to forget what it was I wanted to say. Par for the course, I guess. I also think that I am having trouble re-entering the space of very early motherhood, which is what most of the essays so far are about, as well as when I started some of the essays (noting that by "started" I mean I wrote about 6 words). Very early motherhood was a scary space for me, a fact that I think was at once both obvious all along and one I am just realizing). However, I have been working somewhat steadily, if also somewhat slowly, since we got here, so I have hope for a productive year.

As I have been writing this post I have also been opening news tabs and reading other blogs. I really enjoy my (recently updated) blog list even though there is really no cohesion to it whatsoever. Or maybe because there is no cohesion. I only know about half of the authors whose blogs I read. Some of the authors are pretty different from me. Most but not all are moms. I think what draws me to blogs is the personal aspect. I was the kind of child who would read someone else's diary. I really would. I didn't do it to be mean; I just (1) loved to read and (2) loved to know what other people thought, as well as how they worded what they thought. Only as a near adult--when I had a college roommate who was also my best friend--did my desire not to invade other people's privacy outweigh my overwhelming desire to know about them through their own firsthand accounts. (Meg, I never read your diary, if you had one. I promise.) Anyway, blogs are great because they are about life AND they are public! Perfect. (And speaking of blogs, Debra has some news, and Liz just announced hers, and here is a brand new blog by a very beautiful writer (by which I mean the writing is beautiful, as well as the author herself).)

I realized (while cleaning the bathroom sink, incidentally) that all of the blogs I read are by women. I was imagining some poor English grad student's dissertation 100 years in the future: "21st Century Women's Blogs (Insert Colon and Clever yet Insightful Play on Words Here)" . I was thinking about blogs, specifically "mom blogs", as "women's writing," whatever that is, and I guess about the intersections between the domestic, personal, and larger or more political or worldly spheres. In other words, how I write about Amelia a lot but also about writing. (Or used to.) And what it means. I came to no conclusions. I think MPJ wrote about this sort of thing much better than I am a few weeks ago. Yes, here.

I guess I am thinking all this (whatever "this" is) because, in the back of my mind, while, for example, my body is at Book Babies and my hands are helping Amelia stand, and my voice is singing "One, two, three four five, once I caught a fish alive," I am wondering just what it is I am doing here. In Denver. With, you know, my life. In the distant, pre-Amelia past, when I would think about having babies, I didn't exactly have a clear idea of what motherhood would be like. And truthfully, much of the time it is great. And when I hear that little whisper asking just what it is I am doing here, part of me has a quick answer: I am raising Amelia.

But--and should I mention I just reread The Awakening?-- but. A part of me misses being well-rested, having a place to be at a certain time, participating in a larger world of work and school (which has pretty much always been the same place for me, unless you count those summers I gardened or temped at the law firm ("Keller and Heckman, this is Pam.") I don't want to go back to any of the things I used to do, but I can't exactly see just where I am going with anything besides motherhood.

Still, if there is one thing motherhood has taught me, it's that there is no point over-speculating about the future. The path will appear when I round the bend. AND--here's where it all ties together--sometimes the blogs I read help me feel that path developing. Like when I read about Caroline's VBS projects or Liz's plans to have another baby AND get a PhD. I think, Oh, so this is how you do it. This is how you keep going, how you can be a mom (a role that, in an interview I was reading, Sarah McLachlan described perfectly as "unrelenting") and yourself. Not your old self exactly, but yourself nonetheless.

(I just realized I kind of answered the questions posed in Motherlode linked in MPJ's post. I feel unoriginal. But I really didn't reread her post till just now, after I drafted all this. And I promise I can't remember ANYTHING from May.)

Anyway--in conclusion--The Awakening was beautiful. I read it accidentally. I try to read during Amelia's afternoon nap and for poetry I am reading Lorine Niedecker, so for prose I thought I would read Virgina Woolf (whom the Neidecker introduction says she read a lot). But instead I picked up Chopin. She was definitely a Romantic. The book does make painfully obvious First Wave Feminism's focus on a particular class and race of women (white, wealthy ones). But I love the book's ending:

She looked into the distance, ad the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard her father's voice and her sister Margaret's. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air.

In case you're wondering

how the sleep training is going, it's kind of a draw. Amelia got a cold, seemed to get better, and then suddenly had really watery eyes and a runny nose again, so we were hesitant not to check on her when that was going on. She's recovered. I had a low point of rage and despair the third time I got up with her, oh, maybe Sunday night, and we did the crying thing again the next night. The last couple of nights she has cried really early, like 7:45 and 8:30 pm, so after looking in the room to make sure she wasn't tangled up in her giraffe lovey or something we just let her cry because what could she possibly need that early? Then she has been sleeping till 2 or 2:30 and I let her cry for about 15 minutes, then break down and feed her, and she sleeps again till 5:30 or so. So. This is as much as I can really do right now when we are about to move halfway across the country and then return to NC for a wedding a week later and then go back to Denver a week after that.

I realize I've been strangely silent on the subject of moving but we are in fact moving in 4 days. We have been calmly preparing for weeks but I am starting to get stressed out about things like cleaning out the refrigerator and packing for the trip and starting a new life under the shadows of the comical and unlikely Rocky Mountains.

Right now I am more concerned with leaving the house in the next hour. Amelia heard I had plans to leave her at her father's office to go shopping for an hour and she decided to take the Longest Afternoon Nap in the History of Amelia. She did have a big morning of eating small pieces of solid things* (cheese, cherries, turkey, puffs) and practicing standing up (she reaches for your hands, grasps them, and pushes herself to her feet, looking quite pleased with herself) and then Lucy came to visit. But I really want to go to H&M. I figured trying to write would make her wake up. I might just go rustle outside her door.

*Amelia refuses to eat anything off of a spoon or that you try to hand to her. Having discovered the pincer grasp, she will only eat what she can pick up off her high chair tray. Or the floor.

Five Months

Amelia is five months old today! Happy March 5th, Little A.

I know I haven’t been writing much. Amelia-at-four-months has come and gone without much documentation. But she is a Q.T. Pie. She smiles all the time and is beginning to laugh a lot. She pulled herself up from a reclining position into a sitting position the other day—so exciting!!!—and she is working hard on learning to roll over. She makes a variety of noises, including squeals, squeaks, shrieks, cackles, grunts, and a Marge Simpson-esque grummbly hum. She gets visibly excited about new toys and new events: her eyes light up and she kicks her feet and waves her arms with joy. And she has started to notice Suki; this morning she was whooping and clutching for Suki’s fur while I brushed her.

Dean and I have made some strides in integrating having a baby into our lives, too. For the past two Fridays, I’ve taken Amelia to the grocery store. This gives me and A something to do and gets what used to be a weekend chore over with before the weekend. I think A actually really likes the grocery store, and if I put her in the Ergo I can get what I need with two hands. And we’ve taken some longer outings with Amelia on the weekends. I think we will do that more and more as spring arrives. (I can’t wait. I am so sick of cold and wind.)

I wish I did a better job of documenting A’s babyhood. One of the main inspirations for this blog is Liz of AD and BC, a wonderful friend and my go-to person for all things baby. She has done a great job of documenting her son Oliver's progress on her blog. It's very reassuring to me to be able to go to her blog and look up what Ollie was doing at Amelia's age. It makes me feel like I am on the right track.

I was looking at AD a lot last week to see what Liz did as far as starting Oliver on solids, and then I read about his sleep at 4-5 months. I was glad to see that his sleep habits weren’t so different from Amelia’s. Sleep is a huge topic in our home these days. We are tired.

So tired.

So tired that a moment ago I just typed that Liz was a "onederful" friend.

Amelia, who was a champion sleeper between 9 and 15 weeks, started waking up 2-4 times a night again at around 15 weeks. If you google "4 month sleep regression" you get a zillion hits, so apparently this kind of sleep pattern in common in babies her age. It is still a terrible blow to my sanity. I am a sleeper. Generally I am a pretty happy, patient, and generous person, if I do say so myself, but I discovered in college that I become depressed and grouchy without consistent sleep. And that's putting it mildly.

Due to the sleep issue, it's been hard for me to really enjoy Amelia some days. It's just very hard to get up 2 or 3 or more times a night--it's not even that A stays awake--she eats and goes back to sleep right away 99% of the time--but it's that more often than not it takes ME a long time to go back to sleep. I start thinking and worrying and tossing and turning. (And sometimes I think Suki and Amelia are plotting against me. If Amelia goes back to sleep at 4:30, Suki will come in at 5:00 and scratch my desk or meow for breakfast.)

Naps have been another issue. Amelia’s naps have never been terrible regular but about two weeks ago she went on a nap strike. It was almost impossible for me to get her down. Even though she was very sleepy, rubbing her eyes, yawning and generally being a grouchpuss, she would not go to sleep. I had to nurse her, rock her, and nurse her some more. Once she fell asleep I had to carefully stand up and kind of dance around shushing and nursing even more. Then there was the s-l-o-w easing of her sleepy self into the crib—and as soon as I let go of her, more crying. I tried the pacifier, which sometimes worked, as well as trying to sort of lean over the crib and rock her while she was in it. More often than not these episodes ended not with Amelia napping but with BOTH of us in tears.

And—here’s the icing on the cake—when she did go to sleep, she woke up in 30-45 minutes. Which is NOT a long enough nap for her. So she was still fussy.

All of this is written in past tense because as of yesterday afternoon, we are in nap training. I have decided I can no longer handle these scenes. So when I think she is getting sleepy, we have a wind down time in a quiet room, then we go into Amelia’s room and read 2 or 3 stories, and then I hug her, tell her I love her, put her in her crib and leave the room.

She then cries.

So I wait.

And wait, as long as I can, or until I think she is getting too upset. Then I go in, hold her for a minute, tell her I love her, tell her she needs to sleep to be a happy baby, a baby that other people can stand to be around, and put her back down.

She cries again.

Yesterday afternoon, our practice ended in Amelia not taking a nap. She got herself into a second wind and I gave up. This morning, we had a bit more success: after the fifth or so time I went in, she fell asleep as I was comforting her and didn’t wake up when I put her down. She then slept for AN HOUR AND A HALF!!! (She also fell asleep both on the way to and coming home from the grocery store, more evidence that she is overtired.) And this afternoon, she got so upset that I decided to nurse her, she fell asleep, and again, didn’t wake up when I put her down. She is sleeping now.

So maybe that doesn’t sound all that different than before, because she still isn’t falling asleep in the crib on her own. But my mindset is different. As opposed to just desperately trying to get her to sleep in any way I can, I now have a plan that I think is a good one. She does need to learn to fall asleep on her own, and I think this nap practice might eventually facilitate that.

Letting her cry is hard. The other night, I was putting clean sheets on our bed, and I used these sheets that came from my grandmother’s house. Somehow they still smell like her house, a clean, Clorox and floral-laced scent, even after all this time. And I was thinking about how my grandmother and mother always made me feel so safe, and always took care of me, how they would never have just let me cry alone in my bed. And I thought, that’s why I can’t let her cry it out.

Still, yesterday I was talking to Meg (while Amelia cried, as a matter of fact), and I was telling her about the sheets, and she pointed out that my mother and grandmother also had to let me learn things on my own. Also that I don’t remember being five months old and that I probably did sometimes cry in my crib. So for now, we are not not crying, but we’re not exactly “crying it out.” I am not even sticking to any particular rules, such as a time limit on the crying or saying I will never nurse her to help her sleep. I am just trying to follow my intuition, striking a balance between helping her learn a skill that will make her a happier baby in the long run and not letting her become too hysterical at any given moment while she learns it.

And besides—or perhaps MOST importantly—if she doesn’t eventually sleep more, I will lose my mind. A sane mommy is a happy mommy.

4 and 40 Blackbirds

I have been meaning to write for a while now how thankful I am for my blog friends. If you don't explore the links to the blogs my friends write, you should. Actually not all of them are technically my friends. I only really know three or four of the authors, but I found the other blogs through their sites, and I think of all of them as my friends because their writing inspires and encourages me.

I have a plan to write a bit about each of my blog friends in the coming weeks. Today I want to write about Caroline at Beyond Friendship Gate. Caroline and I met because our husbands went to law school together. The first time they came over to our house she saw a book by Julia Cameron on my table, and she told me about The Artist's Way. Commitment to art + lovely southern accent = someone I immediately like a whole lot.

Caroline has a beautiful new website. And I am terribly inspired by her Forty Forts project. I am not going to try to paraphrase her project. To understand the rest of this post, you will really need to follow the link and read Caroline's explanation of her project. So go do that now.

Okay--you're back. So, I am pretty private about my spiritual life as well. This is partly because I too think that spirituality is extremely personal and partly because my spiritual life involves way more questions than answers. But like Caroline, I grew up around Baptist influences. One of my best friends from middle and high school was Catholic, though, and I was somewhat enchanted with her religion. I liked the rituals I witnessed and what I perceived as the formality of it all. I guess a better word is ceremony. For the past 3 or 4 Christmases, I really wanted to have an Advent calendar. Last year I finally found one. And I have always liked the idea behind Lent.

Last night I was reading Caroline's blog, and everything she said hit home. I feel that I have already given up plenty up this year. And for way longer than Lent. But I love the idea of adding something to my life for the Lenten season.

So I am blatantly copying Caroline. I have the idea of 40 poems in 40 days. Less than 40 days, since Lent started last Wednesday I think. It's 40 days from Easter, not counting Sundays. (Easter, I learned, is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of spring.)

There are rules. Each of my poems will have 40 words. Probably 10 lines, 4 words each. And each will be "inspired" by another poem--I'll find a poem to read and take 4 words from it. Those 4 words will be the title.

I've been struggling with a series of poems called "40 Weeks." And A is 4 months old. So all of this 4 and 40 business is quite fitting. Thank you Caroline--your project came along just when I was throwing in the towel on writing forever.

Tying Up Loose Ends

Since I never finished Thanksgiving parts 5, 6 or 7, I thought I'd end the year in gratitude.

I am thankful

-for my family, by which I mean the family I came from and Dean's family. Now that we have Amelia I feel like both families really are "our" families. I am thankful for everyone who loves Amelia so much and spent so much QT with her over our vacation while Dean and I did such things as go on our first post-baby date, walk on the beach, read, and eat dinner at the same time!

-for my mother and Luli, who have each agreed to come stay with us once a month to babysit when my new semester begins. It makes me so happy that A can be taken care of by her grandmothers (and sometimes grandfathers) even though we live so far apart.

-for Dean's and my own flexible jobs, which will allow us to work/teach from home twice a month to cover the other days A will need care

-for the rainforest playmat that is currently entertaining A while I write

-for the breastpump, which I also sort of hate, but I am thankful for the freedom it gives me to both feed my baby breastmilk AND occasionally leave her for more than 3 hours

-for my wonderful friends. Even though I rarely get to see most of them, I am so thankful to know such smart and capable women.

-for yoga

-for this blog--it is a fun space to think, record, and write. And I am thankful for my readers! I am always a bit surprised when I realize that people actually read what I write. I am sorry my posts are so sporadic lately. (Blame it on little A.) And I am thankful for my little blogging community, which are some of the best mommy friends I have.

-that, despite all of the uncertainty about the future, I have a happy and healthy little family here in our cozy rented townhouse in DC, where we will make pizza for dinner and continue our tradition of going to bed well before midnight on New Year's Eve!

Namaste, Junky's Wife

A long time ago, when "Question Air" was a blog title that actually made sense for this blog, I had a blog role model, my friend JW. Her site and encouragement (and maybe a little bossing) are what caused me to start MY very own blog. Catching up on blog reading today, I saw that she has decided to end her blog. She's still blogging on The Second Road--you can see that I have updated my links.

You can read a lovely tribute to JW from MPJ of A Room of Mama's Own here. I stole this post title from it, actually. Well said, MPJ.

I wanted to chime in my own farewell to The Junky's Wife. I have been awed and inspired by JW's journey. She is one of the very best writers I know. The blog was funny, clever, insightful, honest and beautifully written. Thanks, JW, for showing me that blogs could be meaningful, a "real" place to write.