"You Know We've Had Our Share..."

I am the worst for using snatches of old rock songs as post titles.

That song has been in my head a lot lately. "Good times, bad times" seems to sum up life with an infant pretty well. I don't think it takes a genius to infer from some of my posts (and lack thereof) that I find motherhood incredibly challenging. On the other hand, one reason behind the lack of posts is that motherhood has taught me the important lesson of slowing down. When I only attempt to tackle so much in one day, I am a happier person. Usually all I attempt to tackle these days is taking care of Amelia and doing what needs to be done for school, plus the usual household chores.

Anyway, I was thinking "Good Times, Bad Times" would make a good theme for a regular blog post. I'd like to do a better job of recording Amelia's babyhood. By definition, it is more than halfway over. She turned 6 months (and 26 weeks) old last Monday. She is 27 weeks old today. (As you recall, she was born on a Monday.) I think trying to jot down a few good and not so good things that are going on with Amelia and/or my life each week would help me get back into writing, as well as more accurately capture the realities of motherhood.

So, here we go--

Good times: it is spring. I love spring. For a while, in high school, I hated winter so much I counted down the days till the first day of spring. This spring has been early and beautiful, with only a few of those cold and windy days that creep in to torture you after everything blooms. We did have a few oddly, terrifically hot days creep in to torture us, but I withstand heat much better than cold--like rosemary--so that wasn't all that bad for me.

On the Amelia front--she is currently taking a nap--which is more than good; it is excellent. I've realized that 2 and 1/2 hours after she wakes up is a a good time to try for her first nap. We've started a little nap routine: going outside, diaper change, reading stories on the bed (A chews on the board books as I recite Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See and Moo Baa La La La from memory), then I nurse her a little and put her in the crib. I've been making sure she is not actually hungry at naptime, so that I can experiment with the "Pantley Gentle Removal" from The No Cry Sleep Solution. (Don't ask. You can probably guess.)

Another good thing is that I am trying to come to terms with the fact that I do not get to sleep through the night anymore. I guess I only recently realized the real conflict that might or does exist between sleeping through the night and breastfeeding. Again, as we recall, Amelia slept for 7-8 hours straight through from about 9-15 weeks and it was wonderful. So around 4 months when she started waking up 2-4 times a night to eat I was very upset--and exhausted. Now at 6 months she wakes up 1-3 times a night. Usually she only nurses on one side and I really don't think she's that hungry, but our experiments with crying it out didn't make anyone happy. Amelia seems to get to a point of being so upset that she just can't calm herself down. So I continue to bring her into our bed to feed her and then put her back in the crib. I am just trying to tell myself that eventually I will get more sleep. I haven't dropped dead from exhaustion yet (or thrown myself down the stairs, although the thought has occurred to me more than once) so I will probably make it through. Since I am blessed with a very healthy baby and a great milk supply, I assume that everything is going as it should be, and I try to remember to be thankful for those two incredible blessings.

Other good things: Amelia is learning to sit up on her own. She has some new solids: carrots, green beans, and this morning she sucked on a prune in a little mesh thing my mom sent her. She likes to eat ice in the mesh thing too. She laughs a lot, and she is rolling from back to front quite regularly. She is working on pushing up from her belly to hands and knees. It is not her favorite thing to do, but in the sake of her future mobility, it must be done.

Some bad times involve the grunting, whining Marge Simpson noise A makes when she does things she does not like to do. It drives me CRAZY! I think she might actually be teething, because she makes the noise so very much--and drools more than the drooliest drooly dog you ever met.

In general, I am sick of teaching, and I can't wait for the semester to be over. I feel like I am not doing a good job with teaching this semester. I never have enough time. I notice that I walk around with my shoulders leaning forward, something my yoga teachers attribute to "living in the future" and trying to accomplish too much. Makes sense to me.

On that note, I am going to try to use the remainder of A's nap time to practice a little yoga on my own. Speaking of good and bad times, though, we had a pretty big piece of news this week, which I plan to write about in a post of its own before the week is out--and oh! I have some great pictures of Amelia to put up--so stay tuned.

Nap Training

So we are trying out some nap training these days. Specifically this is Day 3 of my efforts to make sure Amelia has her morning nap in her crib. She has been crying up there for 46 minutes. Every now and then a long silence fills me with hope, but then the silence is broken by an offended, angry wail.

I think that part of motherhood is constantly being filled with doubt.

But I really want to try to stick to this plan for at least 10 days. I think that Amelia and I would both have better days if we had some sort of routine, and a morning nap seemed like a good place to start. Amelia generally gets tired and grumpy about an hour and a half to two hours after she wakes up in the morning, sometimes sooner. Once she starts rubbing her eyes and making this Marge Simpson-esque droning, grunting sound, she is no fun to be around and has no fun herself. So I have started a little nap routine: a diaper change, reading three book, a short nursing session, and into the crib. The first day Amelia kind of talked to herself for 25 minutes, then cried for 25 minutes before she fell asleep and slept for an hour and a half. Yesterday she cried for about 20 minutes and slept for 40. (That was not long enough for her; she was grumpy again half an hour later). Today she is apparently testing my resolve.

I am going to try to make it 10 more minutes.

In other news, everyone agrees that Amelia is the prettiest baby in town. People stop us when we are out in the stroller to comment on her lovely eyes and fabulous hair. Even the other mothers in the play groups we go to talk about what a beautiful baby she is.

Also, A has moved on to a few more solids: broccoli the other day, which she did not really like, and an applesauce plum concoction that, when I mixed it with rice cereal, tasted like pie filling. It was delicious; she loved it. She likes to grab the spoon when you feed her and try to do it herself. I think tonight we are going to try green beans.

Now and Then

Last year at this time:



This year:

Sweet Baby A.

A tisket, a tasket...



Bananas and cereal



First taste of apples



Learning to creep

200th Post!

I am surfacing from the vast and various alternate universes of my students' papers to try to write a bit. I am graded 7--yes, that's SEVEN--papers so far today, and Amelia is about to finish out hour 3--yes, that's THREE--of her nap, so I figure I have about 15 minutes to write.

The 200th post is a milestone, or it seems like it should be. But this will be rushed. I feel like I have a lot to say and not much time, so here are ten facts about our lives lately, in no particular order:

1. We are still tired. Last week Amelia gave us 2 glorious nights of a full 8 hours of sleep, then went back to her old pattern of waking up 2-3 times a night. Sometimes she will go back to sleep on her own, sometimes not. Is she teething? Lonely? In some sort of new developmental leap? I don't know. I have grown weary of speculating about it. All that gives me hope is how many people promise that eventually she will sleep more. Today I was looking at the pear trees that have bloomed behind our house, whose white blossoms somehow reminded me that last year at this time I was throwing up every morning. So next year, maybe I will the pear trees blooming will remind me that last year at this time, I was so, so tired, and it will have passed.

2. Amelia is sitting up on her own! Sort of. If you're not right there with her she'll wilt or flop down and bang her head on the ground. Still, it's fun to be able to read to her or play with her without always also holding her.

3. Amelia has become more interested in rice cereal, especially since 2 days ago when we mixed in a mushed up slice of banana. We are going to try applesauce and green beans this weekend.

4. It occurred to me yesterday that teaching part time and staying with Amelia the rest of the time is the hardest thing I have ever done. Although it's great to have all the help we have, when I am alone with A during the days, I feel like a just do a rather bad job at both preparing for school and caring for her. However, I suspect that any combination of working and having a baby--working full time and leaving her with someone else for most of the week, or staying home with her exclusively-- would still be the hardest thing I have ever done. So I am reminding myself to enjoy all the benefits of the situation I am in, particularly all the wonderful grandmother time A enjoys.

5. I have written exactly zero poems or poem-like things since I began grading these
godforsaken papers. I got a little note from the American Poetry Review yesterday; shockingly, they did not accept the poem I submitted for publication. I have had lots of ideas for poems, though, and have scribbled some of them on scraps of paper. So that's something, I guess.

6. Amelia is waking up. So only 6 things about our lives. I am posting this without rereading it. Wish me luck on the papers, and I'll try to post more pictures soon.

We have been busy with a lot of travel over the last two weeks, and I am now grading my students' first papers, which is taking up all of my free time. I have written many blog posts in my mind. Hopefully I will get to write them on the blog soon. For now, here are a few pictures for all of the Amelia fans out there.

Sunday Paper

Dean and Amelia enjoyed the Sunday paper over the weekend.



A likes to stay updated on current events.



In the end, no one really got much reading done.



Like me, Amelia prefers the Post Magazine to the actual news.



Once she was finished with it, though, there wasn't much left.