Category Archives: Motherhood

Patience, Grasshopper!

Scene: Dinnertime, 6:30 p.m. I am standing at the kitchen counter, Husband is leaning against the sink.

Me: I swear, Bean seems hungry every hour lately. I’m chopping up some vegetables for her. [Bean is clinging to my butt, whining in hunger.]

Him: What did you make for dinner?

Me: I made chicken ratatou–ee-yOUCH!

Him: Did you cut yourself? What’s wrong? [He immediately steps over to check on me.]

Me: Bean bit me! The little rascal just bit the back of my thigh!

Him: Oh, I thought you’d cut yourself.

Me: She bit me! She bit me! What an impatient little stinker.

Him: Well, she takes after her mother. [wink]

You Put One Foot In Front Of The Other

Guess who took steps without assistance today?

Bean took her first two when I was at our friends’ home. Then after her afternoon nap, Bean got to work again with Uncle T nearby for support. After many tries, she took three steps. They weren’t graceful, and they weren’t actually one in front of the other. But that’s why we call them toddlers!

She was thrilled. We cheered and clapped, she shrieked, laughed, and clapped. I didn’t get it on video this time. I’m sure we’ll soon have lots of movies of her tearing up the carpet on two feet.

O Hai!

I’ve been sick and am recovering slowly (I caught Bean’s cold). Uncle T is having a good time with us. Bean is doing her darndest to walk unassisted and today took two teeny tiny steps in succession. Does that count? We were visiting a friend at the time, so I have witnesses. 🙂 Bean’s sleep and naps are all whacky in part, I suspect, because she’s very busy integrating the walking. She isn’t drinking as much milk anymore since she got sick (I’m a little concerned), and I think she lost a little weight from being sick too. A mother’s job is worry. But she looks pretty healthy here! This was taken yesterday. There are a bunch of new photos and videos uploaded on Flickr for users who are friends and family on Flickr. In one of them she is saying the word “baby.” That seems to be her first distinct word.

Oh, and I keep forgetting to mention a few more tidbits. Bean really seems to favor the color blue. She always grabs for whatever blue toy (block, ball, bead); she will even grab it out of our hands. She now puts balls in her Tiny Love sorter without using the funnel. And she loves making the S sound; she often sounds like a leaky balloon. Ssssssssssss!

happy kid

Bean At Eleven Months

Bean is better; her fever broke yesterday. Now I have a sore throat and a low grade fever, and I hope this passes just as quickly.

My morning started with feeling punky and then turned odious. (Warning: somewhat gross details follow.) I was eating my toast at the table and Bean was playing on the floor. I had not done a visual sweep of the room as I have learned, having a cat, to get in the habit of doing. For some reason I happen to look over at ?, who was sitting by the sliding glass door playing with ochre-colored chunks of something. It took me a couple seconds that it was not Cheerios. Yep, Stella had regurgitated right there, and for a couple of minutes Bean had a ball playing with all the squishy stuff. Ugh. I caught her just before she put the hair ball in her mouth. I whisked her away, washed her off, and then proceeded to work on the mess. Thank goodness for the Spotbot. It took me about a half an hour because the mess covered about four square feet. Thus began the day.

Right now she is napping and I am stealing a few moments to get this post written. So, what is Bean doing at 11 months?

  • She has a habit of swinging and banging her right foot and only her right foot. When she goes down for sleep, she rolls to her stomach and starts banging her right foot on the mattress. Sitting in the high chair, she’ll kick the tray rhythmically.
  • The last few times I have taken her to the baby story hour at the library, Bean has ambled off on her hands and knees right up to the front of the room to be near the librarian. It’s a large room, and all the mothers and babies sit on the floor. Bean rarely looks back to check if I’m still there. So, on the one hand I am happy she is so confident, and on the other hand, I’m aware that this extroverted child who likes everyone she meets is quite independent, and I’m going to need to keep both eyes on her so she doesn’t walk off with the nearest friendly hand. I also felt a little twinge while I sat there among the mothers who were all playing with and singing to their babies, while I had no one — a reminder for me that all is in transition and to embrace what emerges rather than cling to what is passing.
  • She is becoming aware of funny situations. Recently was in my arms having her bottle and she passed gas. Then she laughed about it! Bean has this habit of wrinkling her nose a little when she is being silly and funny. It’s really beguiling.
  • The words “kiss kiss” will often garner a kiss from her, though she hasn’t learned to plant them on a cheek. She also often makes a kiss sound in response to one made to her, and often, she will make a kiss at me (or her father) just because.
  • There’s a section in a book we read that says, “These are the things that babies hear: songs, whispers, claps, cheers,” and Bean will clap her hands every time.
  • Bean understands the sentence, “Do you want to read books?” She will crawl at top speed over to her bookcase and sit in front of it, ready to pull off her choices one by one and be read to.
  • Bean is beginning to self-feed more adeptly. Chunks of banana, cut up beans, carrots, and broccoli, bits of pasta or chicken all make their way into her maw. And she has also started feeding me bits of her food. She has great fun trying to get a Cheerio or bite of peach into my mouth, laughing throughout the attempt.
  • Bean has a standard way of sitting on the floor in a position that enables her to take off into a crawl any second. The photo below will show this. It’s the hurdler’s stretch position and she’s very cute in her consistency. (It’s not an ideal photographic back-drop with the vacuum cord and chair nearby, but it’s candid!)
eleven months old

I’m in the process of coordinating her first birthday party. I’ve decided to keep things simple: serve appetizers and cake, do only a little decorating, and skip the party favors until next year. The party will begin at 2:00, and the singing and cake serving will happen at 3:00. My mother-in-law will be here to assist, and I surely will need it!

Eleven months. Wow.

102.7

No, not a radio station, and not the current heat index. That was Bean’s temperature at bedtime, and having had Tylenol. She cuddled me and her teddy bear all day, and I wore her in the Moby wrap as much as my back could stand it. I feel for her.

miserable

Earlier in the day, she even tried to be cheerful. Look at that little red nose!

tries to be cheerful even when ill

Ten Things Tuesday

I’ve never participated in this meme before, but Gerry does so I thought I’d do a quick brain dump. Reader beware: the quality of what comes next might be less than intelligent. I should also mention that the meme focuses on 10 things one is thankful for; I wrote it more generally, though it could be said that everything on this list is something for which I’m grateful.

  1. Gas Prices: they are lower here. The cheapest I’ve seen is $4.11 per gallon. I was certain they’d keep climbing, so it’s a relief to see them drop a bit.
  2. Nature: I was out this evening searching fruitlessly for something and ended up at Target. When I emerged from my car I happened to look up and saw an enormous double rainbow! It was a complete arc; one of them was vivid and bright, and the other was muted and soft. I leaned against my car and stared for several minutes. I didn’t find what I wanted to buy but got something better for free!
  3. Oreos: I don’t often do it, but I bought a package of double-stuff Oreos tonight. As I drove home I passed a drugstore and the thought occurred to me: They sell Oreos too, and they are the exact same quality as what I bought elsewhere. Just think about this. You can find the same comforting, fattening, sugar-laden cookie at any retail outlet that sells food, and you can be sure it will be the same all over the U.S. Perhaps individuality is sacrificed, but there is something to be said for consistency. Am I weird, or what?
  4. Music: on this gorgeous 70-degree day I drove home from Bean’s music class and hit the classic rock station. I happened to tune in just as Peter Frampton’s classic “Do You Feel Like We Do?” was on. OMG, I was transported back into the 1970s to when I was about 13. I had a huge crush on Frampton. That song was seven minutes long, and I was in a reverie. I didn’t know until I searched on Google, but that song was recorded live at SUNY Plattsburgh in 1975. (This is relevant to me because I attended a SUNY college, grew up in New York State, and my father is from Plattsburgh.)
  5. More Music: Bean’s got rhythm! At class she loves to stand and rock back and forth to the music. She does this holding on to my hands, and we dance together.
  6. Reading: I’m currently reading a novel that barely holds my attention. It’s supposedly set in the 1780s, but I’m finding the style affected and over-wrought, and I’m skimming much of the book now. Why don’t I quit? Because I want to find out what happens to the heroine, though all along I’ve been able to predict this. Please recommend some good novels to me.
  7. Reading Again: (Is this cheating, using the same topic over?) Bean and I finished the summer reading program at our local library. Bean’s book reward was How Do Dinosaurs Learn Their Colors?, and the family-oriented book I chose was I Love Dirt!: 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature. It seems like a good companion to the book Last Child In the Woods, which I started a few months ago. The activity book is slim and the ideas are simple and obvious, but it was free and is bound to provide a jumping off point for exploration in the future.
  8. Intuition: late this afternoon, Bean sneezed frequently. By the end of the day, she was more tired than usual and clingy and verged on cranky, despite the fact she got the usual solid sleep she gets. Perhaps a cold is coming? I feel it might be. We’ll see if my mother’s intuition is correctly tuned.
  9. Social Networks: I recently joined Facebook because a friend is on it, and that’s where she puts up photos of her child. I’m not sure that being on yet another network is of much, if any, use. But I’m there, and if you’re a member too, find me and be my friend.
  10. Sleep: the magic number of hours for me to feel actually rested and vital is… eleven. Yes, 11 hours of sleep daily seems to be what I need. It isn’t what I always get, in part because I spend about 12 hours a day mothering Bean and would be totally depressed if all I ever did outside of that is sleep. However, speaking of sleep, I should go get some.

Going Nowhere

broken lift spring

Yesterday, the garage spring broke, leaving us stuck in our home because we couldn’t get it open. The property manager couldn’t get a repairman out until (we hope) this morning. We didn’t even have access to the stroller, which is in back of the CRV. No clearance to get to it.

With a busy girl who wants to do lots of things, I felt a little bit of cabin fever yesterday! Husband was also working from home all day, and a friend came over with her daughter for awhile.

Update 10:45 a.m.: Fixed!

A Long Day

I sit at the dining table, just having put Bean to bed at 7:45 p.m. Husband is out seeing a movie with a friend; he deserves an occasional fun outing too. The challenge has been that last week I started doing something different with Bean’s schedule, and today I’ve decided it probably isn’t working out.

Before last week, our routine was thus:

Wake at 5:45 or 6:00 a.m., have a bottle
Play until sleepy around 7:30-8:00 a.m., go down for a nap
Up around 9:00 or 9:30 a.m., eat breakfast, play or go out
Bottle at 11-ish, play, then a second nap around 12:30
Up at 1:30 or 2:00, lunch, more play
Another nap around 3:30 or 4:00 sometimes
Dinner at 5:30, play, Husband home for dinner at 6:30
Play, bath, bed at 7:45 or 8:00

Last week I began trying:
Wake at 5:45 or 6:00 a.m., have a bottle
Back to sleep in the crib until she wakes at 8:00 or 8:30
Breakfast at 9:00
Bottle at 11:30
Nap at 1:00
Lunch at 2:00, bottle later, then dinner
Up until 7:45 or 8:00

Even though she is getting the same number of hours of sleep, I noticed with the new schedule she is cranky, more tearful, and tired. She seems to need a nap at 10 or so, but she won’t fall asleep. She has a mid-day long nap, but then ends up exhausted, clingy, and whiny in late afternoon; however, she won’t nap then either. So it makes for many many hours between sleep periods where she is just not her best self.

Tomorrow I’ll return to the former schedule and observe how this works over the next week. My hope is that she regains her cheerful balance. I think she simply needs more frequent, if shorter, naps.

I wish I had more to say, but at this time of day I’m lucky if I can form a thought at all! A novel and bed await.
—

Next on my to-read list (once I can get a copy from the library): The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage

The Throne

The next step up from “the bucket” we had her in. This is another sign of change, of Bean growing up.

new throne

We call it a throne because she sits so high up, so now she can see the world roll by, and because it cost a pretty penny (although we think she’ll be able to use this until age five or six or 65 lbs.)

Tide Change

My energy seems to have returned, which makes me feel cheerier and optimistic. This shift occurred over the weekend when I got some time to myself.

A Guatemalan friend recommended some authors to me, so on Thursday I dove into Antigua and My Life Before, by Marcela Serrano. I finished yesterday completely satisfied with the encounter. I have not read much in recent months. In part this is because in recent years I turned to non-fiction more often, and I find I can’t sustain my attention on it now. Slipping into another reality via a good story is what I need. The next book is The Bejeweled Boy by Miguel Angel Asturias. My friend also encouraged me to try Gabriel Garcia Marquez again; I had tried to read One Hundred Years of Solitude several times but it did not engage me. She has suggested I try Love in the Time of Cholera, so this is on my list to borrow from my beautiful local library.

In addition to reading, I was able to go out shopping to use a gift card I’d won at a social event. It was at Lakeshore Learning, so it was still oriented toward my child, but I love to look at educational games and teaching supplies, and I had fun there. And I took a relaxing soak yesterday evening. These moments rejuvenated me.

I have another reason to feel happy as well. My parents have booked a plane flight to visit us in October! We are thrilled and excited they are making the long journey from Syracuse, especially because they are in their mid-70s and travel is not so easy for them (and many others) any more. They will get to meet their granddaughter in person! We have a busy season coming up; visitors are coming in August, September, and October, and then holiday season begins. Every day I pay attention — as often as I can — because so much happens, and Bean is changing so fast. I try to embrace and yet not cling.

The Problem With Blogging

Well first, it takes time and energy, which are increasingly scarce for me.

Second, and more importantly to me, it creates an often one-sided relationship with people. It puts people in a spectator role and removes incentive to connect directly with me, because they already know what’s up in my life.

That doesn’t provide the most fulfilling relationships for me.

I’m so exhausted that I have few words and less energy. I go to bed at 8:00 p.m., am unconscious immediately, then arise at 5:30 a.m. (or whenever Bean wakes), and feel exhausted all day. I think that the energy required to be a mother — the vigilance, the constant availability — just calls for more energy than a good night’s sleep can provide.

I have less to say, and less desire to share in the blog what little I do have to say. I may be evolving out of blogging. Or at least headed toward a hiatus.

This Is What We Do At The Park

In addition to riding the swing, pulling up grass, scrunching sand between our fingers, and generally trying to put all interesting items in the mouth:

chasing pigeons

And happy, happy news! Uncle TP is coming for a visit to meet my Little Bean in August! It’s funny, because he came out in August last year for a visit when I was huge and so ready to give birth and be done with pregnancy. A year? Already?! (I say that a lot on this blog, don’t I?)

Nasty Drivers and Spoiled Fish

For reasons I don’t want to go into (mostly because they’re boring), the past couple days have been rough for me. I am raw and short on energy and patience. At a stoplight, I had my right turn blinker on. It’s an option to turn right on red (unless there’s sign prohibiting it). I was about to turn when the driver behind me honked. So I didn’t. That’s the kind of mood I’m in — something mean within digs in its heels. She honked again, and I saw her gesticulating in the mirror. I waited until the light turned green and went, and waved at her as she roared past me all the distance of one block to turn left; she flipped me the middle finger through her sun roof. I know it’s not mature or honorable behavior. I don’t like it in myself. This all happened within a mile of my home as I returned home from a nice outing at the park with a friend. I know, I should have walked instead — except here there’s a risk we’d be run over by the same driver. Such is life in an overpopulated area. Grrrrr.

I got home to cook the salmon I bought yesterday to find it had turned bad. It smelled fishy, which is a sign of very old fish. The whole fridge smells funky now.

Bean is starting to arch her back and thrash and scream when something happens she doesn’t want, or when something she wants doesn’t happen. Toddlerhood tantrums already?

I got NO time to myself this past weekend (except for one nap, but I’d like some awake alone time), since we had family errands and housecleaning and some social commitments. I also have very little say over my schedule as far as when things happen (nothing is much in my control), even on weekends.

Something I started to knit I had to frog (“rip it” out) because I made a mistake and couldn’t figure out how to fix it.

What’s so very bothersome to me is the way incidents such as those in the first paragraph stay with me, and how a sour hatred toward humanity rises up in my throat when I’m feeling this raw.

Cranky, cranky, cranky. Will someone show me some love in the comments? If you need incentive, here’s one:

loves the fan