Lists

I've joined the ranks of Pinterest. Whatever spare moments my life used to contain, they are gone now. Ha! But it has made me want to get cracking on some house projects. I've been getting better about making lists for myself to keep track of all the things I need to do. I do it at work, and I've been making house cleaning lists for my days at home with Tris. It works pretty well, although I've noticed that everytime I accomplish something NOT on the list, I feel serious frustration at not being able to cross it off or erase it. Sometimes I write it down, just so I can cross it off. I feel more productive that way.

Here's a quick list of house projects I'd like to start or finish this summer.

Fix the uneven front step- no budget
take the fake turf off the step and clean the concrete- no budget
evict Mr. Chipmunk- $15
plant a front flower bed (shade loving plants essential!) $50
plant a beautiful, welcoming flower pot for front step $25
Fence the back yard- $2,000 budget
Stay on top of the veggie garden in the back yard- no budget
Reset the paving stones into a walking path around the side of the house- no budget
Consider and budget for changes to deck.

Tear up and replace carpeting in living room, front entrance and hallway.
decorate T's room- $200 budget
Fix lazy corner in living room- no budget
Re-do and organize the laundry room - $150 dollar budget
Consider and budget for changes to the kitchen.

Find sturdy chairs to go with our dining room table. -$300
Refinish the bakery chair- $25-40
Frame the mirror we took off the wall in the bathroom and hang in the living room. $25-40
Look at replacement options for drapes in living room.

Ruby Giant Crocus

I have taken a sick day today. Brett and the little guy are hanging out with his visiting family, so for the first time since Tris was born I have an empty house all day and orders to relax. I stepped outside to take a few shots of the Ruby Giant crocuses that have just started blooming in the last couple of days. There's tulips too, but they'll bloom later, if they escape the small burrowing creature that apparently likes to eat flower bulbs.

I had planned to plant a whole border of crocus and tulips along the front stoop, but when I found the little chipmunk tunnels I stopped. I'm surprised as many of them made it as did. The rest of the bulbs I planted in a beautiful black pot and kept sheltered in the garage. A few weeks ago I noticed that it had been thoroughly dug up by our resident mouse. Not sure how many of the remaining bulbs survived the mouse attack, but I'm on the warpath now for rodentia. Anyone know a reliable fairly humane way to discourage chipmunks from living under your front step?

In any case, this is what is left: a few gorgeous crocuses blooming in my yard. Hiya, Spring! Stick around, won't you?

My dogs are barking...

Long day downtown at the Marathon today. We left the house this morning at 4:30 sharp, and got home around 6:00. Brett and Nicole ran 26.2 miles (and walked about three or four more to get around downtown) . They ran in honor of their Grandmother and each raised about a thousand dollars to support Alzheimer's research. Great goal, and a great effort by both of them. They did get separated around mile 13 and each struggled far more on their own than they would have if they had each other to talk to and keep each other motivated.
Christi, the baby and I guess we walked about 10 or 12 miles ourselves, trying to see them at the best spots for them to get snacks or encouragement. We saw them twice, and they saw us the second time. Then we saw Brett at mile 20 and missed Nicole. To accomplish this we walked very many blocks, braved the loop, two two El lines, went up to Old Town and down to China town. The kiddo spent a lot of time looking around, some time snacking, and some time napping and the whole time being a super trooper.
Now we are relaxing at home and I'm not looking forward to going to work tomorrow. Ugh.

Square One

Back again. It's been, what, a month or two?

Brett, T-man, Honus, Chester, Abby and I now live in an actual house which we own. We own the dirt outside, the cathedral ceilings in the living room, the noisy and inefficient dishwasher plugging away at our dinner dishes. We moved in August 31st and have been working on unpacking and making it home since then. The former owner was an older lady named Bernice, and we think of her often as we clean things up, and make repairs and alterations.

The living room wallpaper came down and we painted it a warm apricoty peach. I was going for parchment, but I do like the color we wound up with. The Besta wraps around the wall and hides the 80s era fireplace. In the bathroom, Brett changed out Bernice's old handheld shower sprayer for a cheap-and-cheerful $3 showerhead from Target. I couldn't be happier with it. He also removed the handrail for the bathtub and the splash guard. Then he took the overwhelming 4 foot by 3 foot mirror off the wall, pried out the medicine cabinet mounted in the wall to the right of the sink, patched the hole, spackled and sanded the marks where the mirror mastic was left on the wall and picked a beautiful denim blue color. We painted, put up a new white framed mirror/medicine cabinet, set our linens and shower curtain up and I love that room. It's probably my favorite room in the house right now!

The little guy is doing great, growing strong and healthy after a trip to the doctor for a checkup. He rolls over often, sits up and babbles with us, grins when we get his bedtime story out, giggles when his Dad blows raspberries on his belly and laughs when we laugh, which is usually right after he has an amazing spit up or ill timed fart. I worry what that might be teaching him... He's in his first week of sleep training, which I know is a sensitive issue on the interwebs. Personally, I think it's the best thing to happen to our family in a long time. We have a set bedtime and a good bedtime routine of personal hygiene, pjs, snack, book, and saying goodnight to everyone, then he lays down in his crib and stays there until he falls asleep.

He had no problem sleeping from 8:00-4:30 at about 2 months old, as long as we were in the room with him, but he's almost always cried at least a few minutes before falling asleep. In the beginning it could be an hour of constant screaming waiting for him to fall asleep. Even when he was sleeping his best he would cry for five to fifteen minutes in our arms. When we moved into the new house and he had his own bedroom, sleeping through the night was over. He would wake up every hour or hour and a half and cry, so I also got up every hour and a half and fed him until he fell back asleep. We could get him to fall asleep after fifteen minutes of crying, but just setting him into his crib would immediately wake him even from a deep sleep. Eventually this was so exhausting, I would just nurse him to sleep in our bed and he would stay there with me. If I left he would wake up, so we had the same bedtime most nights.

I was glad he was content, but I was miserable going to bed at 8:00 every night. I never got anything done around the house, or spent time with my husband, or had a time to myself to write a blog or do some knitting. The sleep I did get was tense and uncomfortable as I snuggled around my baby, to protect him from anyone rolling around in bed. I had a lot of practice side sleeping like this while pregnant, but it wasn't ever really relaxing. Between waking every hour or two to nurse and not sleeping deeply between feedings I'm afraid I was rather miserable to be around. After a month of this, getting the Dr.'s encouragement to try sleep training has been a huge relief.

Now we do our bedtime routine and he lays down in his own bed. He always cries, but after five or ten minutes (with some reassurance from us after five that we hear him and love him and checked to make sure he's ok, but now is time for him to sleep) he sleeps and sleeps well until four am or so. We're teaching him to sleep without us, and I think everyone is sleeping better. He sleeps more calmly, we sleep more comfortably. It's awesome.

I'm not sure if it will translate into more blogging or knitting, but I'm going to at least keep the kitchen clean and snuggle on the couch with Brett.

Upcoming projects:
Mark out garden bed for 2012 veggies.
Knit T a pair of mittens.
Organize front closet.
Plan for Christmas!

three weeks and a bit

turns out it's getting better. I'm still entirely on baby time, so the hour of the day means almost nothing. 3 am on the clock now doesn't mean the same thing that it did a month ago. Instead of, "it's the middle of the night; why am I awake?" it means, "The baby is hungry." breakfast lunch and dinner happen if and when I can set the baby down for a half hour. It is now legal to nap at any hour of the day. Showers and teeth brushing are no longer a morning routine. But we're making it work and I'm getting sleep and getting help and occasionally getting out of the house. Giving up on old routines without giving up on the things that help me feel normal and happy has been very important to feeling better.

But when i get to see Brett and Tris snuggling on the couch, watch him fall asleep with a full tummy, take him for a walk in the stroller, or see our families' faces light up when they see him I know that he is worth any amount of stress and frustration.

Two weeks

I was going to talk about how amazing my husband and baby are, as they lay snuggling on the couch next to me. But then The Child burped an impressive amount of milk all over Brett and the couch.

Ah, the joys of fatherhood!

Brett's mom has been here for a few days, helping with the baby, and it's been great for me. Brett and I managed to have a date yesterday and went to see X-Men. It was wonderful. Today the power of the moms combined and with a fantastic gift certificate from my mom and babysitting from Christi, I got myself a fancy haircut. Probably the first time I've brought a picture to a stylist and left with exactly that cut. She did a great job and was very sweet.

Having a baby does a number of your self esteem. I think I'm evening out a little bit, but I found myself sobbing at the mall last week looking for a good nursing bra. Between being tired, feeling physically not like myself, and feeling like I wasn't doing anything right as a mom, I spent a lot of time weepy the first week. Having a stranger tell you how good you look, how nice your hair is, how nice your skin is, is really really lovely.

I've also had a ton of support at home. Mom is over often, cuddling her grandbaby and telling me I'm doing good. Christi ran all over town on errands for us, and helped us get up and out of the house. Most importantly, Brett has been amazing. When I'm crying because I've been feeding the baby for the last two hours and he's STILL HUNGRY, he sits with me and tells me he loves me and that we can give him a bottle and still be good parents. He keeps my spirits up with encouraging words, super help, and even a bouquet of roses. I couldn't ask for more!

Baby-riffic

So what's new with me? Oh, you know, not much. Except everything. I'm a Mom now to a beautiful baby boy who is, at this 4:07 AM moment, sleeping soundly in his chair next to the couch. Brett is taking a much needed and deserved sleep break, after taking charge of feedings and diapers for eight hours while I got something like a normal night of sleep.

I've been told to sleep when the baby does, which is great advice, and something I hope to do more of. The Child has been asking to eat about every hour or so and wiping himself out after a half hour of nursing, giving me all of 30 minutes to try to fall asleep. And it's hard to really let yourself relax when you're primed and wakeful at the first hint of a fuss or wimper. Knowing Brett is there to care for him has helped me keep my sanity and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.

My plan has been to keep a written journal for my boy to read when he's older about my pregnancy and his first months. I don't plan to turn this blog into an all-baby all the time channel, any more than it was all about Brett's life after we got married. Of course, these two fellas are hugely important in my life and for a while I'm going to be pretty focused on them. But knowing I'm going back to work (shortly!) and will be gone for ten hours at a time doing my own thing means I'm just that much more eager to gobble up every moment of this on-demand motherhood experience.

Thursday was a pretty normal day for me. I got up at 7:30, dressed for work, spent the day working on projects, getting things set for my summer seasonal, and took time to get my seasonal situated so that he would be comfortable taking over for me when I left for a month. I felt agitated and remarked on Facebook (something I rarely do) how hard it was to relax. I was impatient for the baby to come, "tuned up" awaiting the first contraction, or, more embarrassingly, my water breaking. I was on edge, and had been for a while, but I joked on the walk up to our vehicles that now that Ed was up to speed, maybe tomorrow I would have the baby. Maybe he was courteously just waiting for that.

I had made last minute plans to have dinner with my Dad before he moves out of town and we talked about how great it would be if the baby were to come early so that Dad could have a chance to meet him. I ate a delicious sausage, roasted pepper and pesto pizza, said goodbye to Dad and we headed back home to watch the Bulls game. Unfortunately, it was a miserable defeat at the end of the fourth quarter by the Heat. I headed to bed at 11:00, ready to head to work the next day.

Instead, I woke up around 11:30 with pretty painful stomach cramps. I figured the delicious meal was too much for my tummy, and spent some time hunched over in the bathroom. The pain in my gut was intense and constant, accompanied by continual sharp pain in my pelvis. The doctors had identified this feeling, which had occasionally shot like fire through one hips or the other as ligament stretching, but this was pretty solid agony. After about a half hour of this, I grabbed the stop watch from the hospital overnight back and tried to time the stronger waves of cramping pain. Because everything seemed to blend into one big mass of unhappiness (which I was still attributing to diet) it was hard to tell when one started and stopped, but I was timing things at well over a minute. I finally woke Brett up, crying, telling him something was wrong. He called the hospital who asked me a bunch of questions I gaspingly tried to answer. They suggested I come in to get checked. I knelt over the edge of the couch while Brett took out Honus and grabbed our bags, my purse, my toothbrush, everything he could remember we would want.

I remember he asked me something outside by the car, to which I snappily replied, "Let's just GO!" or something to that effect. Apparently I said it louder than necessary, as our neighbors heard it and figured out I was probably in labor. Poor Brett; he took such good care of me!

We made out way on deserted 1:00 AM streets towards the hospital, listening to Garth Brooks and Brett coaching me through deep breathing. The difference was that in practice, there had been painless moments between contractions, spaces to rest and catch your breath, hope to cling to when the pain was unbearable. For me, the whole thing was unbearable. I remember screeching to a stop at a light I could tell Brett was thinking about running, being pleased with Brett's musical choice, and commenting that one of three things could happen at the hospital: they would tell me I was fine and to go home, they would tell me I was almost complete and we would have a baby in minutes, or they would say I was in labor, but barely started, and I would beg them for drugs. Obviously, I had my preference.

When we got there and checked in, I was so dazed and confused by the pain that I could barely undress. We worked with two nurses in triage who got me monitored, stuck with the IV and did an internal exam (agony!) and pronounced me nearly 4 cm. I said "Thank GOD!" that we were in labor, and immediately determined that I wanted the epidural. Brett held my hand, kept me connected to something positive and calm. He got me a barf bucket when that previously wonderful pizza made a second, third, and fourth appearance and then still let me breathe RIGHT INTO HIS FACE to get through the next wave of pain. Nurses kept asking me if the contraction was over, trying to work between them, and all I could say was that I didn't know. I still couldn't tell the contraction pain from the constant pain.

We walked down to the labor and delivery room where I was sat in bed (ouch). The nurse was very pleasant, but not very helpful. Brett asked if I wanted to be talked out of the drugs, but I didn't. He told me to breathe, demonstrating and coaching me. At one point, I switched my out breath to a low moan, and the nurse admonished me to breathe. I charmingly replied, in Brett's direction,"THAT'S. NOT. HELPING!" but tried to do as I was told.

The lovely anesthesiologist came and explained what he would do, told me about the epidural, while I gasped out affirmations that yes I understood, yes I wanted, yes yes yes to an end to the pain I had been in since I had tried to go to bed. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, arched my back and waited for him to work between contractions. Brett sat facing me, and looking into his eyes kept me from drowning in the pain. He was amazing. At this point, sitting up, I opened my jaw and moaned my way through the next handful of contractions. Maybe they were getting stronger, but now I could pick them out from the background pain, when they came, and I leaned over and moaned, I could feel things opening, working, progressing. Maybe if that had happened sooner I would have been able to forgo the drugs, but I'm glad I didn't.

The little stick in the spine was no problem, hardly felt through everything else and when they adjusted the medication to suit me, the background pain faded and the contractions were easier. The shuddering slowed, and I got my sense of humor back. They checked me again (pressure, but no pain), said I was 8cm (nearly there) and we waited for the doctor to come look at me. Mom came at this point and it was great to have her support there too. I floated through the next while, sleeping on and off, and when the doctor came at 4:00 AM, he said I was ready to go, but that my water was still intact. He suggested breaking it to encourage the urge to push, but I elected to wait another half hour, since things had moved so fast so far, I thought it might happen on its own. We called him back at 4:30 and he broke my water at 4:45. At 5:00 I started pushing.

Brett monitored my contractions, which I could hardly feel except as a little more pressure than usual, and told me when to push. He counted through my breaths, and I crushed his hand as I tried to bear down and move things along. The sun rose. The nurse was not only unhelpful, she seemed to delay things. I felt my pushes were stronger when I breathed out during them, but she said I had to hold my breath. My back was on fire and I longed for a change of position, some Tylenol, anything to relieve that burning sensation every time I pushed. I looked at Brett and knew I couldn't deliver this way. I was sure the baby was stuck and I was so tired. He told me I could, that I WAS doing it, that I didn't have a choice. So I clung to him for dear life, screamed, and pushed some more.

I pushed through the end of the shift (7:30) and when the next nurse came on, she said I could breathe out. By 7:45, she had called the doctor and I was getting prepped for delivery. Two or three pushes after the doctor arrived and there was a new person in the room! He cried once or twice.

They put him on my belly right away and then he was so quiet, staring up at me with big blue eyes. Brett cut the cord. The nurse cleaned him dry, measured and weighed him while the doctor took care of me. When we were both ok and fixed up, the nurse brought him over for his first meal. He latched really well right away and nursed about 45 minutes in one shot. Amazing!

All things considered, it was a quick delivery, especially for a first. I went in almost 100% effaced and got to 4cm in about two hours on my own. Another 6cms in another four hours. Three hours of pushing. About 20 minutes of sleep in those nine hours, which is more than Brett got.

He's healthy, I'm healthy and now I know what to expect for the next time. (you never know!)