ooopss...Bad Blogger!

I just realized I haven't posted in a couple months. Darnit, I really meant to keep up with the blog!

Not really for my followers (sorry guys) but because I love having this sort of public diary to look back and remember things that passed. It's so much fun reading about my pregnancy and all the silly things I thought then in my pre-mommy days ;)

Life with Caleb is great. He's changed SO much in the past 2 months. I need to make a "4-month" blog post and update the world on his progress. I read one of my friends blogs recently (Hi Becca) and I love how she writes the monthly baby updates as a sort of letter to the baby, so I might adopt that.

In short:

• Caleb coos a lot now. He has a great little voice. He doesn't really babble (bababa, dadada, etc) but makes a lot of OOOoooh and ahhh sounds.
• He is a lot more interactive. He smiles back when people smile and make faces at him.
• He getting really good at standing up and sitting. He doesn't make any effort to roll over at all though. Maybe he'll be one of those strange babies that goes straight to walking...
• He hates tummy time and doesn't get enough of it.
• He love grabbing at his toys! It's the cutest thing. He gets this really intense look on his face and focuses really hard. Then he moves his hand ever-so-slowly towards the toy until he has it. As soon as he manages to grab it he starts kicking his feet and waving his free arm around. So cute!
• Caleb loves music of all kinds. It's the best way (besides sucking on my pinky finger...ugh) to soothe him. I think we have a little musician on our hands!

And his parents are doing great too. We are loving every minute with our little guy.

I went back to work about a month ago, and life is busy! The biggest difference is that when I get home from work, I want to spend every second with the baby. Whereas before work, nap time for baby was a nice little break for me, now I'm like "oh dammit, he's taking such a long nap! I want to play with him!" The weekends are so wonderful because I get to spend all day with him. Social obligations that don't involve the baby are a bummer though. I don't really want to leave him with a babysitter on the weekends, considering I don't get to see him that much during the week. My time with C is precious, and anything that interrupts that had damn well better be good! :)

I do love being a working mom. I like having time to myself that doesn't revolve around the baby, and I love coming home to him at the end of the day and appreciating every second of him.

I feel somewhat defensive about it though, and I don't like that. I try to sound cool about it, but I hate it when people ask me what I "do" with the baby all day while I'm at work, mostly because it reminds me that someone else is taking care of my baby instead of me. That is by far the worst part of being a working mom, even though I feel blessed to have the ideal childcare situation with our wonderful nanny. I also feel guilty that I enjoy being away from Caleb at all. But you know what? No matter what you choose, there is going to be some judgement, and at some point you just have to say F-it and live your life.

I know that SAHMs feel like they are judged for not working, and working mom's feel like they are judged for working. Sometimes I wonder where all this judgement is coming from. I know it's mostly women judging each other, and I wonder - do we judge other women so harshly because it makes us feel less guilt about our own situation? I think that's it for me...

Having kids teaches us so many things. Here's to hoping I can come out of the parenthood adventure being a more open, less judgemental person.

Happy Mother's Day!

It's my first Mother's day!

Caleb is relaxing in his swing, happily admiring himself in the mirror (it's one of his favorite things to do LOL). Ethan went to the grocery store to do the shopping so I'm having some me time on the couch.

Looking back on my old blog posts and remembering the past couple months, I have to say that becoming a mom was a tough transition for me. It was a big change and I wasn't fully prepared..maybe you can't really ever be fully prepared for the enormity of having a baby. It's a lot different than what I expected, and I wasn't ready for my life to fully revolve around someone else.

As hard as those first few weeks were, and as stressed out as I was, it was obviously all worth it to have my beautiful little boy. Also, the adjustment, while difficult for me, happened pretty quickly and I feel so much more comfortable in my new role now than I did just a few short weeks ago. I think around 5 or 6 weeks was the turning point for me, when the balance shifted from being overwhelmed much of the time, to enjoying being with Caleb. That's probably due to a combination of factors - not least of which is Caleb sleeping longer stretches at night.

Now I can honestly say that I am loving being a mother. Every day gets a little bit better, and a little bit more fun! I love watching him grow, and he grows so fast! He seems to be constantly changing and always learning new things. Every time he smiles, I feel so happy for him. His happiness is my happiness too, and that's a wonderful thing. I am so blessed to have him in my life. It doesn't hurt that he is adorable. I literally think he is the cutest baby ever! ;)

So even though it's Mother's Day, and of course Ethan has a ton of great stuff planned for me to enjoy today, I feel like I already have the best gift.

I should give Ethan a little shout out though - he is already going out of his way to make it a great day. First he let me sleep in with my baby boy while he cleaned the whole downstairs. When I got up he had a nice card waiting for me, and he got me two great presents - some new Pyrex glass dishes and some covered casserole dishes that I've been wanting for a long time. Then he made me breakfast and helped give Caleb a bath. Now he's out at the grocery store doing the shopping while I relax at home. Later today, we are going to one of our favorite places, the Salish Lodge (we got engaged and married there) where I will get a facial and then we'll have dinner in their restaurant. This is going to be our first date out without the baby. I'm so spoiled! :)

So happy Mother's Day to everyone out there, whether you are a mother or you just have a Mother. I hope you find a way to make this day special for you and yours.

Sleep! Glorious Sleep!

Caleb started sleeping through the night!!

Sleeping through the night in baby world means at least 6 hours in a row. That's definitely good enough for me right now. We started putting the little monkey in his crib this week on the advice of the other parents in our parent's group. It made a huge difference in everyone's sleep! Caleb immediately went from 'waking up' every 2 or 3 hours to sleeping 4 to 5 hour stretches. Last night, he slept from 10:00 to 5:00am!

I put waking up in quotes because I have realized that what was actually going on was that I was hearing Caleb's normal sleepy fussing and thinking that he needed to get up, so I was actually taking him out of his bassinet and giving him a bottle. With him in the bassinet right next to me, it was very difficult for me not to respond to every little grunt. I didn't really realize that the grunting and fussing is just what he does when he's sleeping. Also, he didn't go back to sleep very quickly after putting him in the bassinet so I would stay awake for 30-45 minutes after giving him a bottle trying to rock him and then eventually putting him in bed with me. The whole process meant mom was getting virtually no sleep at night.

In his crib, for some reason he seems to fall right back asleep without much interference from me, even after his 5am feeding. I have to admit, the transition to the crib was rough for me. I missed him a lot, especially the first few nights, and picturing him alone in his nursery was almost too much and I was very tempted to go get him. Also, he has a very quiet cry, so I was paranoid that I wouldn't hear him crying and he would think I didn't love him (haha I know, I know). I do have a baby monitor...which I sat staring at most of the night the first couple nights, waiting for any sign of distress. It has gotten easier though, once I realized that Caleb was not traumatized from being in his crib. In fact, he almost seems happier in the morning after waking up from a long sleep. I do miss him though. And I admit that I still put him in bed with me after his early morning meal, after Ethan goes to work. I can't give up my snuggle time yet.

So it's gotten easier putting him in his crib, and I do like getting more sleep at night. Last night I got 6 hours almost in a row (I woke up a few times, but was able to fall back asleep pretty quickly), and let me tell you it makes a huge difference in my mood and energy level.

Another thing that's made this a great week is that our nanny Hanna started moved in. She's a tremendous help to me during the day. Just having someone else around to watch the baby for an hour or two at a time so I can have a chance to shower, fold my own laundry, do the dishes, etc, makes me feel so great. Also, it's nice to just have some company during the day. Hanna is really good with the baby, and also just generally very easy to live with and have around the house, so we couldn't be more pleased with her. I know she's going to take great care of Caleb when I go back to work.

I have been making more of an effort to get out of the house (it's a lot easier to do that when I can shower in the morning :D ) and see people. I went to lunch with a friend last week, and we went to our parents group (PEPS - love it - highly recommend!) and I also took Caleb to a Tot Shabbat. Tot Shabbat was great. It's a Jewish Shabbat (Sabbath) Service just for kids and they sing Shabbat songs and drink grape juice and eat Challah bread. It was so cute watching all the other little kids sing songs and play together. I hope to have more opportunities to get Caleb involved in play groups and stuff like that. I think it will be a little tough for me, since I"m going back to work and most of that sort of thing is during the day, but I'm going to make it a priority to block off some of my schedule at least once a week or so for some type of group activity with Caleb, whether its a story hour or Tot Shabbat or whatever. I'm so lucky that I have the type of job that allows that flexibility, and I'm definitely going to take advantage of it.

I can't believe I only have 5 more weeks left before I go back to work. Time is flying by now...it's kind of bittersweet. Every day Caleb gets a little bigger and a little more interactive. He's already out of all of his newborn clothes and can only wear size 0-3. He also smiles a lot more now. We can count on several smiles a day, usually in the morning. He is concentrating better now, and follows toys and lights with his eyes. This week he started grasping at objects with his hands. I don't think he really does it conciously, but he'll definitely open and shut his fingers around almost anything in his range. It's amazing how quickly they change. Life is full of little tiny miracles these days. But while I can't wait to see what the next moment has in store, I can't help but realize that in the blink of an eye these tiny baby days will be over and he'll be crawling, then walking, and someday even driving, so sometimes I wish I could stop time and just keep him this way. :)

But I guess there's always more babies...hehe...Ethan better watch it or we'll end up like the Duggars!

Oh How Life Has Changed

I had lunch plans with someone today, and they cancelled at the last minute. You know who you are :p. Now, it wasn't their fault, and I'm not mad or anything...but..

The thing is, I organized my whole day around that lunch! And it just strikes me as funny because it really brings home to me how different my life is now. Gone are the days when a 1pm lunch date meant sleeping in and plenty of time to get ready. Today I got up at 8:30, which is super early for me. I realize that doesn't seem early to most people, but it means less than 7 hours of sleep for me.

Last night Caleb had dinner at 8:30pm. I was hoping we'd do bath and bedtime by 9:30 or so, and if I were lucky, he'd sleep till midnight, giving me about 2 hours of sleep as well. No such luck. Caleb didn't feel like sleeping after his bath. So he fussed until 10:30pm, and I went ahead and fed him again. By the time he ate, burped, got his diaper changed, and was put in his bassinet it was 11:15. He fussed in his bassinet for a while and didn't want to sleep, so I put him on my chest and he slept in our bed like he usually does. Yes that's right, we bed share with the baby. It's not really by choice, but sometimes you do what you have to do to get some sleep. Finally around 11:30 we went to sleep. He was up at 1:30 to eat. So that's 2 hours of sleep for me.

We got lucky and he went back to sleep (in his bassinet!) by 2:30am and he didn't get up again until 5:30am, so I got another 3 hours (in a row!!). Then he was back asleep by 6:30, and we got up at 8:30. that means I got almost 7 hours of sleep, but all broken up, so it doesn't really feel like 7 hours. Usually I would go back to bed for an hour or two after his 8:30 feeding, but this morning I got up so I could get ready for our 1pm lunch date. Now, you might be thinking 5 hours is more than enough time to get ready. Barely.

Caleb got done eating, burping, and being changed by 9:30. I also had to fit a pumping session in there, so that takes a bit longer. I have mastered the art of pumping and bottle feeding Caleb at the same time. It's not comfortable at all, and sometimes it's messy, but it saves time. Anyway, I got him back in bed and swaddled, hoping he'd go back to sleep. He didn't but oh well, I let him fuss it out while I went downstairs to put dinner in the crock pot - bbq chicken tonight - and put some coffee on. Then I went upstairs to wash the bottles and the pump attachments. By the time I got in the shower it was after 10am. Thankfully Caleb quieted down on his own during this time, allowing momma to have a peaceful shower. I got out of the shower, hooked up the baby monitor and went downstairs to eat breakfast...where I found out that my lunch plans are cancelled.

So now it's after 11, and I was going to go upstairs and get dressed, blow dry my hair, put makeup on and feed Caleb one last time before we go out. It's important to feed the baby as close as possible to the time before leaving the house to avoid fussiness while out and about. Now I don't have to do any of that and I have a whole free 45 minutes while Caleb sleeps. So I have time to blog! yay! And I don't have to put on regular pants and can wear PJ's for most of the day. Another plus. I don't mind wearing regular pants, I just don't have any that actually fit! haha :)

I was kind of looking forward to getting out of the house though. Yesterday I left Caleb with Ethan and took a trip to the grocery store just to have a reason to get out :)

Anyway, if, like me pre-baby, you have ever wondered why people say it takes them forever to get out of the house with a baby, this is why. And I'm sure that my friends who already have babies totally understand what a production it is trying to plan out a day with an infant in tow.

I hope this doesn't sound like a big complaint-fest...it's not really meant to be - more like documentation of my current reality. The day is very routine, just very busy. In a way it's easy to plan things out, even though it takes forever to get around to doing the things that I used to take for granted, like taking a shower and blow-drying my hair. I wonder if life will ever go back to the way it used to be pre-baby. I kind of think it won't, because even though he will eventually sleep through the night, and feeding/burping/changing won't take so much time, there will be other things that take up that time.

I do have a ton more respect for stay at home moms. I always suspected it was a difficult job, and now I know it is! The hard thing about it isn't the work of being a mom - that's great and so rewarding - it's the fact that it just never ends. It's 24/7/365. When you are a stay at home mom, it's like you are always on duty, and nothing ever changes. Of course the routine changes as the baby grows, but it's still the same work, every day, day after day. Even if I leave the baby with Ethan for a while, it's not like I'm having a complete break, because I'm still wearing my mom hat and thinking about how long until the next feeding or whatever. I think it's not the same for Ethan in that way, because he can rely on me to keep track of all of that stuff. It's much easier for him to just put the baby aside and do other things, because he knows that I am on top of it. It's not a criticism, it's just the way things are.

I'm glad I'm going back to work. The hardest thing about that will be missing the 1:1 time with Caleb, but honestly, I'm not one for routine. :) I can't wait to get back to my office and computers and meetings with grown-ups. I know it's going to make me appreciate being with him so much more as well when we do have quality time together.

Mommy Guilt

I think I'm going to have to give up this idea of blogging about "chunks" of time in Caleb's life. When I was pregnant, I blogged weekly about everything that happened in the previous week. Now that Caleb's here, I keep thinking I'm going to catalog the time in this blog, and it's not happening! There is never time to blog and then when there is, I can't seem to remember what happened day to day. The week just sort of blurs together and when I think about an entire stretch of time as long as a week, it seems like nothing has really happened except the routine of taking care of the baby.

I decided instead to just blog about the current moment whenever I get a chance and feel like blogging. So I won't be catching up about Caleb's last dr. appointment (except he's doing great at weighs almost 9 pounds now!), this weeks trip to the office and BRU, and the lacatation consultant.

Right now Caleb is resting on my lap. He just had a full bottle of breastmilk which is great for us because it takes me 2 or 3 pumping sessions to get that much for him. We had a pretty up and down couple of days with breastfeeding this week, which I won't go into all the details, but I was all over the place emotionally - from feeling hopeful thinking that I was finally going to be able to breastfeed normally, to feeling totally frustrated and dissappointed again and having the "this is never going to work" mentality. Finally after much discussion with Ethan, we decided that although if I stick with it, there is a possibility that we could still make this whole breastfeeding thing work, the amount of stress and frustration it is causing me is not worth it and we are better off just bottle feeding. It's such a tough decision for me to make, but ultimately, we have to do what is right for all of the family. I cannot say I don't feel guilty about this, even though everyone tells me I have tried so hard and don't have anything to feel guilty about. I think it's just something I have to deal with and it is what it is...I can't change wishing that things were easier and that the breastfeeding worked out. I sort of morn for my idea of what breastfeeding could have been like, and it's hard for me to let go of that.

There are a lot of things like that for me with parenting. I wish I hadn't had so many preconceived notions of what things should be like, because it does sometimes make it harder for me to just relax and enjoy the way things are. I do love being a mom, but it's moment by moment for me. For example, last night, we had a pretty rough night and Caleb was up from 2:30am to 5am, just fussing. I changed him, fed him, burped him, rocked him, fed him again, and nothing seemed to be working for him. At one point I just buried my face in my pillow and groaned and thought "What was I thinking having a baby?". Of course then I felt horrible even thinking that. Finally Caleb fell asleep on my chest and I put him in his bassinet, still feeling pretty frustrated. When I woke up this morning, Ethan had already gone downstairs and put Caleb in his sleep positioner (little pillows that keep him in place) on the bed next to me. I looked over and saw his sleepy little face, and was so in love with him all over again. So that's what it's like, for me, being a mom. Lots of ups and downs.

Anyway, Caleb just finished his meal, and I had to interrupt my typing because he suddenly got a horrible case of the hiccups and was spitting up a bit with each hiccup. I feel bad when he does that because he hiccups so violently and it just looks pretty uncomfortable! He typically gets the hiccups when he eats...I think it's because he eats pretty fast with the bottle. Also, I think his digestive system is still adjusting and he struggles a little with gas. I can't wait until this constant gassy/fussy/grunting stage is behind us! They say around 3 months is when they are able to regulate their digestive system a little better and it's not such a struggle for them.

Today is a beautiful day, and we are going to take Caleb on his first walk out in the sunshine on the Cedar River Trail in Renton. We've taken Caleb out a lot to stores and to visit people, but this will be our first outing just to enjoy time together as a family, and I'm looking forward to it. :)

Caleb is over 1 month old now. On his 1 month birthday he weight 8lbs and 6oz! That's more than 2 pounds over his birth weight, which is great, especially considering how much he lost the first week.

Things are going well on the homefront. Ethan went back to work, which means that I now take all the night feedings. Caleb gets up to eat every 2 or 3 hours, which means I get up 3 or 4 times a night to feed him. It sucks getting up all the time, but it's not so bad considering I can sleep in as late as I want to in the morning. :)

I was worried about Ethan going back to work, mostly because of the night time feeding issue, but actually it's not a big deal. I sleep in pretty late, and Ethan comes home around 2pm, so really it's not that much time without him around. Our routine is pretty simple right now. After Caleb gets up between 10am and 11am, we both stay up after that.

Caleb has started staying awake after his late morning feeding, so I try to keep him entertained in his swing or I put him in my moby wrap so I can get myself some breakfast and coffee (yay! Having my daily coffee is definitely a highlight!). Then I play with him for a while. Sometimes we do tummy time, but he doesn't do much. He does look at things now, which is fun. He likes to stare at pretty much anything that lights up. Yesterday, I was holding him on my lap and he totally started smiling at the wall. It was so cute! I can't wait until he actually smiles at me in response to me. He doesn't do that yet, but I'm thinking it's right around the corner now.

Anyway, after we play for a while, he will get hungry again around 1 or 2, so I feed him again, and then he usually fusses and then sleeps for a while. Then for the rest of the day, I feed him and he sleeps/fusses off and on. Usually in 2-3 hour intervals. Sometimes he has "calm and awake" time and we read to him or play with him, but that's not very often in the afternoon. Then it's time for bed. I'm trying to get him into a semi-bed time routine, which is eat/bath/book/bed. The start of his bed time is tough to predict though, it depends on when he eats. For example, last night we fed him at about 8:30, then bath at around 9pm, then we read him a book and it was almost 10pm by the time he got in his bassinet. But he didn't want to sleep, so he just fussed off and on and finally at about 11 I got him up to feed him. His actual bed time ended up being close to midnight.

So it's pretty routine right now. I guess my least favorite part of being a parent is the monotony of the routine. feed - sleep, it just never ends. I love being with Caleb, but I am also looking forward to going back to work eventually and having a non-baby centered part of my day to look forward to.

There is more to write about, including Ethan and my joining a new parents group called PEPs, a successful visit to the lactation consultant, and Caleb's first visit to my office to meet my co-workers, but the little guy is waking up and fussing, so that means it's time to feed him. :) I'm going to try to make a part 2 of this post in the next few days.

Almost 3 weeks old

Caleb, Ethan and I have spent the last couple weeks trying to figure out this whole baby thing. :) It's been so busy! We have had a lot of visitors, guests, and appointments. Almost every day we've been out of the house running around - to doctors, the lactation consultant, to the grocery store to get food, or to target or Costco to buy formula and diapers. We've also been out for passover, which was fun and educational (I've never been to a seder before) and we've had several trips to Baby's R Us to get small things we missed. I was getting so exhausted - I told Ethan that I want one day with no appointments or visitors to just spend time with Caleb. Finally today we had a whole day with no appointments, and I didn't have to leave the house. It was awesome!

Caleb is doing really well now. He gained almost a whole pound in the past week and he now weighs over 7 pounds! He's still pretty sleepy, but he's starting to act more like a 'normal' newborn - having a lot more alert time, and even crying more often!

Someone asked me recently what surprised me most about being a parent. That was a tough question for me to answer, because I have to say, honestly almost nothing is like what I expected or planned for, from the birth on. Although honestly I was so focused on the experience of being pregnant, I didn't spend THAT much time thinking about the details of having a baby. The things I did imagine were sort of fuzzy, and very idealistic - visions of peacefully snuggling with the baby (which does happen sometimes, and is very nice). :)

The biggest example of this is probably breastfeeding. I know I talked a little about this in my last blog, but breastfeeding has been a huge struggle for me, and an on-going source of guilt, frustration and disappointment. Caleb was not a great 'sucker' from birth, and this led to problems. Because of his jaundice and weight loss, we started supplementing with formula right from the beginning. From there, he struggled with the SNS system, so we finger fed him. Finally, we started with a bottle. Bottom line is, Caleb has never had one successful breastfeeding session.

I have to confess, I sort of hate breastfeeding him. Every time we try, I get frustrated trying to get him to latch, and then waiting for him to suck and trying to keep him awake. Then even when things seem to be going ok, I know he isn't actually getting anything from me. (we did a before and after weighing at the lactation consultant, and he barely got 12 mLs after over 20 minutes). I pump 8-12 times a day and sometimes more, trying to get breast milk for him, but my milk supply isn't very good, and part of the problem with him learning to breastfeed is that my milk doesn't flow fast enough to keep him interested. I take fenugreek, which isn't helping much. My lactation consultant suggested Reglan, but I'm not sure about the side effects (potential depression), so I'm holding off on that.

I feel really guilty that I don't breastfeed him more and we end up giving him a bottle the majority of the time. It's not so much the nutrition - because I know plenty of formula fed babies that are healthy and thriving. It's the bonding time. I definitely envisioned have a special bond with Caleb that no one else would share, just me and him, and I feel like because I don't breastfeed I am depriving him of that special time. I also feel like it's my fault, even though I know we tried (and are still trying), I feel like maybe I don't try hard enough because I get frustrated with the amount of time and effort it takes to feed him and give up. It's a tough thing for me, but I know at the end of the day he's healthy and growing. I also try to give him extra snuggle time in his moby wrap and sleeping on my chest to make up for it.

Other than feeding Caleb (which is a huge part of life for me right now), he mostly sleeps. Just recently he started staying awake after some feedings, and he looks around at things. He likes lights and faces. I love watching his facial expressions and I can't wait until he starts making eye contact more and smiling at things. Now that he's awake a little more, we are trying out some of his toys. We set up his play gym today and he had his first attempt at tummy time. He really enjoyed looking at the bear that lights up and plays music.

Also, we finally got to start using his cloth diapers the past couple days! We couldn't use them at first because Caleb was so small, and because of his circumcision. I love using cloth diapers! They are cute (though still a bit big on him), and they aren't that hard to put on once you get a little practice. The best thing is that they don't make as much garbage, and you don't have to continually buy new ones. Worrying about running out of diapers and having to spend money on diapers only to go through 2 or 3 at a time during botched a diaper change sucks! The first time I put a cloth diaper on him, it leaked everywhere. But that is because I didn't put it on right. We use the angel wing fold now, and put the prefolded cloth under a Thirsties cover, and it's working out great so far. Here is a picture of the finished baby:

He's definitely a handsome little guy, and I feel so blessed to have him in my life. The best moments are when he falls asleep in my arms or snuggling on Ethan's chest and I watch him sleeping. Being a new parent is hard work, and sometimes it sucks (especially 3am feedings), but those little moments make it all worth it. :)