On moms and depression

The news yesterday of Robin Williams's suicide hit me kind of hard. My exact words on Facebook were, "If a brilliant comedian, a man renowned for his generosity and kindness of spirit, loved by millions he's never met, with the support of the world and time and money behind him, succumbs to his internal torture, his own relentless demons, what hope have we mere mortals?"

Depression doesn't discriminate, doesn't care for status or money or fame, age or sex.

My primary thought for today is the expression that "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem."

I know it sounds trite now, but the first time I heard it, it was a revelation.

I've been battling depressive episodes for most of my adult life. I have a wonderful life, and I know I'm not just sad or depressed because things go wrong sometimes. I am unwell. And once I realized that depression is a debilitating illness, a chemical imbalance, no different than arthritis or cancer or diabetes, I understood that I needed to treat it that way too. I went off medication for a long time even, using alternatives like relaxation and cognitive training instead. But then a huge postpartum episode pushed me to seek help again when I realized it felt insurmountable, and I moved back to medication. A few years later I'm still struggling. But I am a work in progress.

As I've reminded my husband several times today, my children need me, and a sad mommy is better than no mommy. Even in my darkest hours I remember this. But today's sadness isn't the usual. It's a grieving rather than depression. It's a function of an actual sad event, and I am conscious of it.

I make no secrets of my struggle because I'm pretty much the worst at asking for help from anyone for anything; ask my family. I've realized that if I just put it out there, it makes it easier for others to jump in and help. So many of us don't want to be seen as "weak", or as a burden. We don't want to worry others with what we consider to be our own insignificance. And unfortunately it's that same feeling that helps drive suicide. Suicide is not selfish. It is born out of the inability to see that, especially to those who love you, you will never be a burden. It's a last desperate attempt to normalize the world for yourself and for those you care about. You lack the ability to see the utter chaos and devastation that follows. All you see is the permanent solution. And your life is the only thing in the way. It's the blindness of mental illness.

The sad truth is that the state of mental health in our country is a twofold problem. First, somehow, ridiculously enough, there is still a very obvious stigma attached to mental illnesses and addiction. For example, people are afraid of medication. It's not the best solution in all cases, it's not for everyone, but it's a tool. It can help. It's nothing to fear. People are afraid of people taking medication. I've always said it's the people NOT taking their medication that you have to worry about...

People also don't know how to talk about depression or other mental illness. If they are the sufferer, they fear ridicule or rejection. It's an uncomfortable subject because at our core as humans, we want to be happy. It's just as uncomfortable as talking about death or money or politics because it causes us to come into conflict with our happy equilibrium. So people avoid it. But as social creatures, we need to talk about it. We need to learn how to at least open the conversations with one another. The more we speak, the more we see we are the same.

The second problem I will illustrate through an example. So I said I'm taking medication, but I need an adjustment. My primary care physician isn't comfortable changing it because he says, "I'm just guessing. I don't like that approach. You should really see psych." So he gave me a referral to a psychiatrist (MD) to be evaluated and properly prescribed.

I saw my primary on June 6th. It took a MONTH for the referred psych office to even call me to discuss my case, then an additional two weeks to call me just to schedule an appointment. Then they told me, "The earliest appointment we have is late September." I will be waiting almost four months, more than a month from today, even, until I can see someone covered by my insurance who can prescribe medication.(I convinced my primary to let me try something else in the mean time, which has helped, btw.)

If that isn't a screwed up system, I don't know what is.

We therefore need one another. It isn't about me and I and myself, it is about we, and we are all we have. Let's have the conversations. Let's talk about what bothers us. Misery loves company, if nothing else.

Someday I will need to guide my children. I will need to let them know when they succumb to their crazy teenage hormones, I will always listen. It may seem that your problems are insurmountable. That this is the worst day ever, and that this is the worst thing that ever happened to you, and that (s)he broke your heart, and no one will ever love you. But I will try my hardest to listen without judging. I will try to listen without belittling your feelings and perspective. I will respect your emotions and not necessarily try to solve your problems, but just be a good listener. And if you ask my advice I will give it. You are not alone, and just because you can't see the answer doesn't mean there isn't one. We will find it together.

I offer the same to my loved ones. I cannot cure you. I am not a professional. I probably can't even cheer you up. But I can hold your hand. And I can listen. The first step in overcoming any problem is recognizing the problem, and clearly defining it. If you can say, in some way, "I'm hurting, and I need help," you have taken the hardest step. Go one step further and get it. Help is out there. You are never, ever alone. There is no problem for which we cannot find a solution together.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is there for you if you are hurting, or if you know someone who is. If you need help right away they can advise you, even if you have concerns about someone on social media. They have online chat if you are in crisis right now. It is free and confidential.

From their website:
If you feel you are in a crisis, whether or not you are thinking about killing yourself, please call the Lifeline. People have called us for help with substance abuse, economic worries, relationship and family problems, sexual orientation, illness, getting over abuse, depression, mental and physical illness, and even loneliness.

 Get help now:
http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ or call 1-800-273-8255, any time, 24/7.

Earn money by working from home!

In positive news, today is the first day in almost 3 years that Craig and I are working in the house together alone, sans children. The last time was when we still had a nanny for Claire, right before James was born.

People are often incredulous about our life. It does raise a lot of questions:

How did you get a job working from home? How can I work from home?
I've been remote since 2005, when I joined a technology team that was scattered around the country. It made more sense to work from home, so I've been doing it ever since. I believe that currently my whole team is remote. But before that, I was in an office. So was Craig. He worked for his company in Virginia, but when we wanted to move back to Charlotte, he lobbied to be able to keep his job and work remotely. He apparently made a compelling argument, and he's been working from our home office since 2007. So my advice would be that you will likely first need a job in an office that has the capability to be done remotely. (If you want a good job, that is. I'm sure there's some scammy ones out there that don't require that, but I wouldn't recommend them.)

How do you get any work done?
We're a team. Craig's job is very task-based, but mine is project-based. Craig needs to be at his desk and attentive at all times, so I take (took) most of the burden, except when he gets a break at lunch. I do 90% of my work at night, because it doesn't always require a lot of interaction. (Which leads to raised eyebrows sometimes when people see what time I send emails. But I'm a night owl anyway.) The 10% is conference calls or phone calls, when everyone can behave for a little while, or I do it during nap time. We juggle. It works.

How can you two work together all day and be together ALL DAY?
It can be rough never having a break in between your work life and your home life. That's probably one of the most challenging aspects. It wasn't so bad when we didn't have kids because we could each do our own thing, even though we sat at a desk across from each other. But kids demand a lot more interaction. And there's no commute time to wind down or shift gears. It's challenging for sure. But you make it work.

Which seems to be a theme for a lot of the things we do around here. In the words of the inimitable Tim Gunn, you "make it work." You do it because you have to. You do it because you love your family. You do it because you need to be able to support your family. You do it because working from home rocks, and gives you a ton of extra time with your kids and you wouldn't give it up for anything. So just do it. Git er done. Cliche, cliche. (Good) parents just do what's best for their family.

Precipice

Lately I've been having a recurring trance-vision. You know that state right before you fall asleep where you just have some jumbles of pictures and words, and sometimes they're pretty strange, until you actually fall asleep? I have the vision that I'm standing atop something very tall, very narrow, wind in my hair, gasping, and trying not to be whipped off the edge.

Tomorrow morning, James starts preschool. I have been crying for 3 days.

It's hitting me really hard. I know, again, in my conscious logical mind that it should be the best thing for a lot of reasons. And he may be ready. I don't really think so. But maybe.

I'm not ready.

The thing that's interesting about James is that his personality is basically the same as the moment he was born. He's calm, and quiet, and loves to take in what's going on around him whether he decides to react to it or not. I hope he stays that way his whole life, because being a watcher will bring him good things. (I know from experience. Once a friend described me as the person who, the day after the party, would just know everything that happened there whether she was involved in it or not. That's a good thing.)

When Claire entered preschool, we HAD to send her. And though I was a little sad, I was ready. Let me tell you about the final straw that made me know.

April 2012. James was about 8 months old, Claire was just shy of 3 years. Craig had just come through his second bout of cancer. Our nanny had quit the previous December. We spent several months unsuccessfully looking for someone else, so we'd been trying to fly solo since. Also, somewhere in here, Craig's dad had a heart attack and we spent close to a thousand dollars getting him out to Oregon at a moment's notice. 2012 was not off to a good start.

Craig and I were still working from home. However, my job had a significant uptick in activity because we had landed a large client. I spent a large part of my day trying to nurse a baby in between conference calls (which ultimately led to me giving up breastfeeding James, which I still regret.) Craig's job was as busy as ever. And Claire was still...Claire: hyperactive as ever and couldn't be left alone to play by herself for more than a few minutes at a time.

I remember one day in April I was on a conference call in a spare room which would later become James's bedroom. I was trying to be attentive, but I could tell there was some activity downstairs. I was ultimately distracted by what sounded like banging. Then yelling. When I finally came downstairs, Craig told me that Claire had climbed the floor-to-ceiling cat tree, and was banging on the ceiling with a book. It was time to send her to preschool. We found her a place we both loved, even though it was pricey as heck, and she's been there since.

Whereas, tomorrow morning, I could come downstairs with James, feed him some breakfast and set him up with some cars or blocks in the living room, and go about my day. I can play with him as I have breaks. We could talk and read and play together like we always do. Easy peasy. I don't NEED to send him away. I don't WANT to send him away. But I'm telling myself he needs the interaction with other kids. I'm telling myself he needs to leave here to learn and grow.

I think what I'm most afraid of is that this will ruin my son. He is so perfect the way he is, that I don't want him to change, so I don't want anything to change right now. I don't NEED anything to change right now. I don't want the world to be cruel to him, or for him to learn any bad habits, or for him to ever have any reason to cry. Seriously, he hasn't changed from when he was a baby -- if this kid cries once a month, it's a big deal. I can't bear the thought of him being sad because we've left him with strangers, with people who don't love him. He's so full of love and empathy, and I don't want him to lose even one bit of that.

I feel like I'm pushing him out for reasons that are not my own, and it's tearing me apart. He's my little buddy. He always has been. I'm not ready to let him go. I was perfectly fine not being "socialized" until I went to kindergarten. Maybe I was better off? Maybe he would be too.

Not to mention the money. Dear god, the money. If we had to send both kids full time all year, Craig would have to quit his job because the next 2.5 months it's basically his entire take-home pay. But Claire will be going to kindergarten in the fall, so we'll be back where we are now by September.

I'm hoping that by the end of the week, I will be okay with this. I'm hoping this horrible feeling like someone has punched me in the gut goes away. I hope I stop getting a huge lump in my throat every time I look over at his cars and trucks on the floor.

I hope all these things, but I really don't have a lot of hope.

Wish us luck this week.

Smart Ass

Today Claire and I were working on a Makit Bakit suncatcher. For those of you not familiar, it's a metal frame that you put on a cookie sheet, and fill with colored plastic crystals. Then you put it in the oven, the plastic melts, et voila, you have a suncatcher. This one came with 4 colors: red, blue, yellow and clear, in pouches about the size of one of those silica gel packets you get in...everything.

I put the crystals in little separate Dixie cups to make it easier for her to gently spoon them into the frame. Regardless, she's 4, and many of them went astray. I expected that. But then she began to make a bigger mess. While I was trying to clean up some of her handiwork in the frame with a pair of tweezers, she started taking handfuls of plastic beads. Naturally, they stuck to her clammy mitts, and her efforts to put them back in the cups didn't go well.

Finally I said, "Claire, please be careful. You're getting those everywhere, and I don't want to have to clean them all up off the floor."

She said, "No I'm not."

So I said, "Claire, I can hear them bouncing as they hit the floor."

So she said, "Well, you should wear earplugs so you can't hear them."

Now, out of a teenager, I would think that was a total smart ass remark. But guileless Claire? I think she really thought that was a solution!

Which brings us to an interesting point about Claire: she IS smart. REALLY smart. We had her tested.

About a month ago, we took her to see a psychologist. It was mostly for issues that have been causing concern. She's got some hyperactivity, and a serious problem with her attention span. She's got some sensory things we're concerned about. And it seemed every day she came home from preschool with another report from her teachers about how badly she was behaving that day. So we decided to seek some support.

The doctor we met with was really very nice. Craig and I met with her first, and then I brought Claire back for evaluation in two separate sessions. What we discovered, through a two-hour review with the doctor, is that Claire is even smarter than we supposed. She's reading at about a 7.5 year old level, and doing math at about a 5.5 year old level. Almost all her scores were >90th percentile. Even her "low" scores, on the bell curve, still came out at "average." I believe her overall FSIQ was 131.

What wasn't a high score for her (again, "average") were areas that relate to what they working memory, which is part of a group called executive functioning: skills that deal with planning, control and memory. Again, we kind of knew this, but it was nice to hear someone else confirm it.

So now we're trying to figure the best ways to help her. It's no wonder she's coming home from preschool saying she doesn't like it there because they're teaching her things she already knows. We missed the cutoff to be able to send her to a charter school for smart kids (because we fear she will be bored in kindergarten too) but we're looking into trying for next year. And as for her challenges, we're doing a lot of reading ourselves, and hoping to find some new methods that will restore some order around here and in school.

It's important to note that Claire has also developed a penchant for writing books. Often, she'll write to get out whatever negative feelings she's having about something, and she will write a letter about it. But sometimes she writes storybooks, and they're amazingly detailed, including illustrations, a title page and "end credits." I'm really into the idea of her writing to help get her feelings out though. I wonder why?

Hold

As you can probably tell, having two instead of one has diminished my ability to post anything worthwhile, and the last post I managed was when James turned one.

He will be three in August.

However, there's a post brewing in my brain because we are on the edge of...something right now. Stay tuned.

Time flies by in seconds

James, I'm sorry. But I'll get to that in a minute, because that's not really what this blog is about.

James, you are one year old today.

How did this come so quickly? It feels like a blur but at the same time as I sit and think, I know I can recall the pace of every single day until now. I can recall so many of those moments with you where my mind took a little snapshot [click] that I can keep in a little album in my head.

I was talking today to my family about the day you were born. I was remarking on how much it was like how you are: everything gone according to plan (mostly), with a calm, quiet joy that honored the occasion. I remember the mildly anxious time they had getting you out -- you were happy in there, and you didn't want to budge! But when they did, they raised you overhead and you cried out for just a few seconds. Then your daddy came over to tell you everything was okay, and you just stopped. And then I don't think you really cried for the next three months!

[click]

You and I had a lot of time to ourselves when you were little because you breastfed so well for so long. Claire needed Daddy because you needed me, so we had time to become buddies. Eight months, James! It would have been longer if the demands of my job hadn't been so bad around that time. They were wearing me completely thin, and we had not yet found anyone to take care of your sister. I regret it to this day that I couldn't make it work for longer, because you were just a champ. You were a great eater, and healthy and round and growing, and I was just amazed at what my body could do! And I loved our quiet time together to bond. The way you would look up at me all happy and content, and tug on my hair or touch my face while you ate. Or the way you would play with your ear as your eyes starting closing because you were just so relaxed...

[click]

But at the same time, you bit me a couple of times, and I don't know that we could have made it so well after you got teeth. So maybe it was for the best?

As much as I think Claire takes after daddy, I think you are like me.

You have the most gentle little personality. From the time you were born, you were the perfect center of calm in the storm around here. Aunt Veronica said you were like the incarnation of the Buddha, simply at peace in your surroundings. And even though your personality has grown -- you have a little temper sometimes when you don't get your way, and when you're sleepy or teething you get pretty whiny and cranky -- you are still the same serene little Baby James.

You have a beautiful smile you offer freely, and a hearty, throaty laugh that's more of a chuckle than a giggle. You still love to use your hands all the time. When you were born, that was one of the first things I noticed about you: you were really into what your hands could do and were always touching your face. You love anything with moving parts that you can push and pull and spin, and you are quiet content to sit and play for long, long periods of time with anything that really catches your interest! Amazing! Just the other day, you played with a small box on the floor that had rolls of Claire's temporary tattoos in it. You opened the box, and took them out, and put them back in, and dumped it out, and played with the whole thing for what must have been 15 minutes.

[click]

And your manual dexterity is just amazing. I noticed from the time you were tiny that you could turn things around and pass them from hand to hand, and pick things up with your bitty fingers so easily. What does the future hold for you with that skill, little man?

You're not walking yet, but you crawl like a champ. It seemed to take you a long time to learn to roll over. Then you started out with an army crawl for a month or two before you finally figured out how to get up and move more easily. Now you're pulling up and standing next to everything, and climbing on the furniture, and sometimes even standing without holding on for a decent amount of time. I think you're going to start walking any day now.

Even if it's just because you really want to grab hold of a cat.

[click]

So why am I sorry? I'm sorry because I ever doubted I could love you. I'm sorry I underestimated what you would mean to me. I'm sorry that I was so wrapped up in my own self-interests in a BS tornado that I wasted any moment of our 9 months together when I could have been getting to know you a little more. I hope you don't think less of me, and that some day, when you read this, you know that I mean all that I say with love from the bottom of my heart.

The day you were born you gave me the most beautiful moment of my life. I can pinpoint the moment I knew I loved you. Everyone had left. Daddy went home to be with Claire. Grandma and grandpa and your aunts had all gone back to the house. The nurses finally left us alone. It was just you and me. We sat in the hospital bed, and the evening sunset cast a particularly warm glow around the room. I had just latched you on to eat, and you looked up at me with those tiny baby blue eyes. I gently touched your soft, baby hair, and stroked it from back to front. And that moment you closed your eyes, and gave the most contented little sigh I've ever heard. And in that second I knew that you and I were meant to be together, and that nothing in my life would ever be the same, and that I would love and protect you forever. THAT was the moment you moved into my heart for always.

[click]

The Secret

I think that most baby guides and articles and websites are made for those parents who need answers. "My baby won't stop crying, what should I do??" or "What is that weird thing on her eye?" Those usually sleep-deprived, weary, desperate people need advice and they need it now... And thus there is a wealth of information just a Google away! It's sometimes conflicting, but it's comforting. It's an "okay, well, at least we're normal" kind of thing. And even though the answers sometimes don't actually help you DO anything about it, it's good to know you're not alone.

However, there is a secret... There are babies out there who don't need anything, and their parents don't spend every available moment Googling or calling the pediatrician. So there's a secret group of us who are afraid to say anything at all, lest we seem like we're bragging!

James is one of those "good" babies. The whole few weeks (!) of night feedings went by like a breeze. He let me know when he wanted to eat at 2 a.m.:

JAMES: zzz.....Eh....
ME: zzzz
JAMES: EH!...
ME: Okay, I'm up.

And I would feed him and we'd go back to sleep. We didn't even wake Craig most of the time. (Except when James got the hiccups -- exceptionally loud, but cute, hiccups.) Compare this to newborn Claire:

CLAIRE: zzz...AIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
ME: Augh! I'm awake! I'm awake! Stop screaming!
CRAIG, DESMOND, SHIVA, THE NEIGHBORS: OMG!

I was afraid to go to sleep most nights with Claire because I knew I'd be awakened in a couple of hours by the screaming.

What we didn't know is that spontaneous, endless screaming isn't exactly normal, but "colicky." And that she would eventually develop reflux, which would make it worse. But somehow all the internet research convinced me that this is what some babies do, and we'd make it through it. And we did. But it was HARD.

James is EASY. He can be asleep on my shoulder in the living room with Claire having a full-on, meltdown, DEFCON 1 tantrum in the same room. Now at almost 3 months, I'm finding it a little harder to get him to sleep as easily, but it's still not a major challenge. I can lay him sideways on my arm, give him a paci, and he'll be out in a few minutes with a little bouncing. Conversely, how many HOURS did I spend rocking Claire to sleep in the rocking chair? Weeks worth.

He's not very interested in the paci either. He much prefers his hands. From the moment he came out he had them in his mouth, so they must have been his special friends on the inside. I didn't have the heart to even try swaddling him up with them in there, but fortunately he didn't really need it. He doesn't startle himself awake all the time the way Claire did either.

But lest we think I'm all down on Claire right now, she's becoming an amazing little person too. Her vocabulary is awesome, she remembers EVERYTHING you tell her -- or that she hears, sometimes to our detriment. She's strong and healthy, and growing like a weed still. And I love her to death. But this post isn't about Claire...

It's about how good my baby James is, and how much fun I'm having watching him grow. I spent all of September with him as my constant companion because Craig was working all the time. And he's exclusively breastfed (who knew I could do that?!) so he's literally attached to me constantly. And now Craig and Claire are sick, so we're avoiding them. And he's just my little buddy! He always has a smile for mommy! Especially when it's time to change his diaper; he loves that.

So the next post will be about Claire, but I wanted to get some love for James down here before I forget these things. He's cute and special and just perfect, and he's all mine. I couldn't be happier with him!

Welcome James!

James Jordan
Born August 16th, 2011
An amazing 8lbs 14oz (a big baby, yes, but nowhere like his sister!)
20.5" long

He is a sweet, peaceful angel, and as predicted, I adore him.

He's perfect, and beautiful, and just the best baby to ever be a baby that I've ever seen. He almost never cries. He is just so...GOOD. God knows what he's doing by giving me this baby, I just know it. (Especially after "high needs" Claire.)

More soon...

It's a...boy?

WHAT?! As in, "Why does that girl on the ultrasound have a penis??"

Let me preface this by saying it has taken me at least ten weeks to be able to come to terms with everything I'm feeling enough to write this post. Let me warn you, fair reader, that this is an ugly post. It's full of guilt and sadness and lots of negative things to cope with. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

With that said, I am also going to let you know up front that anyone who attempts to make comments here about what a horrible person I am, how guilty I should feel, how dare i, how ungrateful or selfish I am, or -- I should just be glad that..., or look at the bright side... Yes, I know. I've thought of all that.

So remember, you can comment, but it will be moderated. The worst I can threaten you with is that your comment won't get posted. If it's bad enough, and I know you, I will seriously re-evaluate our friendship.

That said:

The day of our "big" ultrasound was April 1st. Ha ha ha, April fools!

At the 12 week ultrasound in February, the tech made a guess. She said, "If I HAD to make a guess right now...I'd think..." and she poked around a bit... "boy."

My heart faltered a bit. Really? A boy? She has to be wrong. There's no way. I don't WANT a boy. What about all Craig's crazy chemo-sperm? There's no boys in there, right? It's too early to tell, right? She's got to be mistaken.

That lady has not been wrong yet. Why would I think she'd be wrong that time? Regardless I scoured the net for any information I could find. I found studies of the inaccuracies of ultrasound from one week to the next. Was it just too early? I looked for statistical information. I pored over other people's ultrasounds. I said maybe, maybe there was hope. It had to be too early.

And I cried. A lot.

Fast forward to April 1. I'd filled Craig in about my apprehensions and all the mixed up feelings I had about the possibilities, and he read the blog post prior, so he knew how I felt that morning. Still, I tried to be really upbeat and not just sickly nervous. We brought Claire with us because of course Craig wanted to come see too.

So we got back to the ultrasound room, and I got all set up, and Craig was holding on to Claire because she's a little bit nuts, and she's like, "WTF is going on?? Mommy??" And she tried to cling to me while I was on the table.

The first thing the tech asked me was if we wanted to know the gender and I said YES (though I tried to say it not too emphatically!) So she went wiggling the transducer around and got it to where she needed it and said, "Looks like you've got a boy! Congratulations!" And oh yes, it was obvious, even to the untrained eye.

You know that feeling you get when your boss calls you into his office unexpectedly, and he doesn't sound happy? Or the feeling of that moment when you see the blue lights in your rear view mirror? Or the dizzy feeling you have when you stand on a precarious ledge looking into a deep ravine? Combine all that "I am in serious trouble!!!" feeling into a single, sickening moment.

I lost my breath from the huge lump in my throat. Craig grabbed my hand and squeezed it because he could see I was in distress. I tried REALLY hard not to cry because Claire was there, but that just made it worse. My brain was screaming NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. I couldn't hear anything anyone was saying for a few minutes.

The tech asked me, "Are you excited?" And I said, "No."

I feel terrible now for saying such a thing, but my emotions were pretty raw.

She could tell I was upset. She started going on with the rest of the exam, checking for heart, brain, lungs, kidneys, umbilical. But I hardly heard any of it. I have a DVD of the whole 20-minute affair, but the details now are such a blur.

Craig tried telling me it was going to be okay, in between wrangling Claire. Claire was mostly interested in wanting to go wash her hands in the bathroom sink (my little baby Howard Hughes) so he took her. The tech asked me if I was going to be okay. I couldn't answer. She asked me how Craig felt about the news, and I said he was really hoping for another girl too, but honestly, he will be happy with any baby because that's just...Craig. She said she had a couple in there earlier that day where the husband really wanted a boy, and they found out they were having a girl. She said she thought the guy was going to lose it -- he was ANGRY.

Craig and Claire returned just around the time the tech was looking for the heartbeat. Claire responded to that sound with her, "'Gain? 'Gain? 'Gain?" plea! (So we heard the heartbeat twice more before we left, of course.)

And through all that my mind was just RACING. What am I going to do? What are we going to do? No. What? No. It can't be. I just wanted to cry but there was no way I could let it out there.

We finished up and got our "souvenir photos" (which I stuffed into the diaper bag) and went on to see the doctor. That whole part of the day is really a blur because it was the three of us, plus the doctor, plus a nurse in that tiny exam room, with Claire swiftly losing patience. She was busy going apeshit, with Craig trying to hold her, while I talked to the dr/nurse, but of course I couldn't pay close attention. The doctor asked why I was so upset and I told him. He tried to make me laugh by reminding me it was all Craig's fault! ("Thanks a lot!
said Craig.) I remember telling him I would be okay eventually because what choice did I have? None. I would just have to come to terms with it because there was no other option. Both the doctor and the nurse tried to tell me that it would be okay, but I just couldn't hear it.

Driving home was rough. While it's a skill I thought I had perfected, driving and crying is not recommended. We put Claire down for her nap, and then I was inconsolable. For hours.

Of course everyone who knew where we were going that day wanted to know the result! Craig messaged his family, and I finally got it together enough to do the same for mine. I wanted to talk to my parents so badly but they were on a cruise in Central America somewhere. Thankfully, I didn't have to actually call anyone to tell them. The feeling I had was almost like...shame? Like I couldn't bring myself to even tell anyone we were having a boy. It was such disappointing news to me, it just felt...yucky to have to admit it.

And I have spent the better part of the last two months trying to come to terms with all that yuckitude. I will admit I've had horrible thoughts. The most horrible you could think of, harming anyone and everyone to try to "fix" this situation. I'm not proud of it, but I put it here because I know it's something others have gone through, and I'm not alone. Google "gender disappointment" -- It's very real, and it even has degrees. Disappointment like mine is typically rated "extreme."

WHY? Why, I hear you ask. I hear it loudest from those of you who have boys. I'm sure they're lovely. They're your boys. But for starters, I just don't like little boys. I never have. I've never once sat and thought, "Oh, it would be so nice to have a son."

Wait, I take that back. When I was about 17, I came up with a name for a boy that I thought, "If I ever have a son, that would be a nice name." And that's the last I thought of it.

Let's start shallow and work our way to deep. Wade into it, so to speak.

Majorly shallow reasons:
-- Boy color scheme is ugly. I hate combinations of primary colors. Blue, bleh. Green, guh. Yuck.
-- Boy clothes are not cute. Everything has a stupid collar. If I wanted my infant son to look like a preppy douche, I would...well, that would never happen, so it's irrelevant. There's just an abysmal selection of colors and styles.
-- I'm not interested in: sports, construction vehicles, astronauts, or war toys. I can feign an interest in dinosaurs, zoo animals, puppies and safaris. Maybe I could get into the rock star thing. But those are all my big "theme" choices, as well as a wide swath of toy choices.
-- Little boys are not as cute as little girls. Purely inexplicable personal prejudice. I just don't think they are.

More complex thoughts:
-- I can raise my girl to like "boy things." Claire is fairly gender-neutral in her toy selection and preferences. She likes airplanes and trains and animals, but also her baby dolls, sometimes. It is MUCH harder to employ the same equality with a boy.
-- Boys are rambunctious and aggressive. Don't get me wrong: Claire is a bundle of pure, unbridled energy, and has been ever since she learned to roll over. But she is not actively aggressive. I really think it's the lack of testosterone. Boys just have that gene/hormonal balance that makes their brains work a certain way that girl's brains don't. They hit and bite and want to whack things with sticks and jump off of everything. So we can try to make him a "nice boy." But probably try as hard as I might to fight it, I fear society will just sweep him back their way.
-- Penises. Peeing standing up. Peeing on the floor. Raising the toilet seat. Peeing at diaper changes. Random erections. Touching it in public all the time. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.

Downright worries:
-- CIRCUMCISION. More about penises. To snip or not to snip? Will I be scarring my child for life, or making things easier? Does it make a difference one way or the other? I've got my mother in one ear telling me she thinks it's "barbaric" and a whole mess of other things in the other ear. This is such a complex argument, it makes my brain hurt to even consider the path of this decision. So I'm not going into it here. You get the idea.
-- COST OF "STARTING OVER". Do you remember me mentioning all those boxes and boxes of clothes I had? 90% of them are useless now. Whee. Our whole swing-high chair-stroller-play yard-car seat theme is wrong now. I think we can replace the covers for a couple of those pieces, but while cheaper than new stuff, it won't be cheap. They can't share a room, so we've got to renovate a new nursery out of my art room. Fortunately books and toys are mostly gender neutral, but otherwise... I don't make that kind of money.

Stupid emotional goulash:
-- We are only planning on two children. This is it. I have no other chances. I will only ever have one daughter. (This thought hurts. A LOT.)
-- I wanted Claire to have a sister SO badly. Especially one that would be close to her age. The sister-sister bond is probably the tightest there could be. While she will hopefully be close to her brother anyway, everything I hear is that it is just not the same. (And how could it be?)
-- Two little girls = AWESOME CUTENESS. Boy/girl combo? Not so much.
-- Girls tend to grow up and stay close to their families. Boys do not. Men follow their girlfriends and wives. I hear I should start praying now for a daughter-in-law who will allow me to still be as closely involved in my son's life as I want to be (obviously without REAL intrusion or anything.) This thought is disturbing.

Deep rooted crap:
-- As this is our final child, I get what I get now. Maybe we shouldn't have gone down the road of having a second child if I couldn't handle this possibility. I actually find myself thinking that a lot, more when I'm feeling especially guilty. It's not just the fault of finding out the gender, I also have this thought when Claire is being particularly difficult. Like maybe we should have stopped at one. (I have a feeling I am not the only one, nor will this be the last time(s) I have this thought.)
-- I have two sisters. I've always loved how we are "the girls." Even my dad says he's one of the girls. It's cute. I know all about little girl things. I understand little girls. There haven't been any boys in my family...ever. WTF am I going to do with a boy?
-- I will be the first to admit, I have lots of REAL problems with men. I'm not sure why. I don't have daddy issues; my dad is someone I love and respect and would be an excellent role model for any man. Maybe I've never placed much value on attention from the opposite sex. Maybe because it seems so easy to get. And that's why I gave up early on trying to get it. No challenge in it.

I can probably count on my fingers the number of men I really, truly respect and like. The rest? Some only have a few shortcomings, and those are the ones I count as friends. But the majority? Ugh. On the other hand, how many women do I respect and like? SO many. And while it's openly biased, I value some of the same individual qualities more in women than I do men. For example, bravery can mean two completely different things in the context of gender. Brave women are generally more impressive to me than brave men. I cannot say why for sure.

So in the last 10 weeks, I've had a lot of these thoughts in my head all the time. I am prone to major depressive episodes, and I'm pretty sure I'm in the midst of a bad one right now.

I've done nothing to prepare for this baby, and he will be here so soon. I feel like we haven't bonded at all, the way I did with Claire. He kicks away at me all day, and I'm only mildly amused sometimes. But it still seems surreal, and sometimes I wonder if it won't be real at all until he's here in the world.

I've realized that I am not sad I am having a boy. I am sad I am NOT having a girl. I've thought on it long and hard, and there's a very significant difference.

I realize so much of this is really unfair to a baby who has no say in the matter. I know.

I know I'm lucky to be able to have a(nother) child at all.

I know I'm lucky that he's healthy.

I know it would be nice to have one of each.

I know that gender doesn't necessarily determine personality or intelligence or any of a zillion other traits.

I know that as soon as he's born I will love him until the ends of the earth. I know that somehow I will be able to love another baby as much as I have already loved Claire. I know he will be the cutest thing I have ever seen and I will want to snuggle him and bite his toes. I know a lot of this will seem petty and simple and irrelevant in retrospect.

But right now I am still mourning the loss of the little baby girl that I won't get to have. Somehow she was very real in my head, and it feels as though she's died and gone forever.

My next 10 weeks I will continue to struggle with that until I've cried my last tear over it. Until I've put out of my head all the little girl things I wanted to save and do and look forward to. I will work on coming to terms with all the things I see as negatives. I will try not to feel sick every time I realize how little time is left before I have to welcome this boy child with love and really mean it.

And I think, for the first time in my life, I will be actively seeking therapy. I can no longer do this on my own, and it's beyond my husband's ken and capability, and it's not fair to my family to rely on them any longer. I feel weird about it after working for YEARS to manage things on my own, but I feel like I can't afford not to.

Claire's First Knock Knock Joke

Claire runs over to fridge and knocks on the door and says:

"Knock knock...who's there?...Claire!"

So I say, "Claire who?"

And she says, "Boo Boo." (Which is one of my little nicknames for her.)

The comedy stylings of Claire Collin, everyone!

Mommy Guilt Starts Early

Here it is: This Tuesday I'll be 20 weeks pregnant with our second child, and I have yet to even mention the poor thing here!

I feel guilty about it, believe me. I'm concerned because I've barely had time to think about him/her. I haven't bonded the way I did with Claire. By this time in the last pregnancy, I was really comfortable with the fact that it was starting to show. Now, I've started showing earlier, and because in my brain the pregnancy hasn't sunk in "right", I just feel fat. I went to meet my boss uptown the other day, and the night before, I went through every decent outfit I could put together, and I settled for the one that made me look the most pregnant and the least like a big fat bear. Not a good attitude!

I have concerns about the way he/she is growing. I've been sick twice this pregnancy. I'm 20 weeks, and I've only just started feeling the flutters. I've been stressed out beyond belief. My job is super-busy. Claire is a handful and a half right now. Craig is critical or in a bad mood 85% of the time. His job is making him miserable. The house is a disaster. Don't get me started about money. Shiva won't stop barfing everywhere. We haven't done our taxes yet. We need to buy a new car, but I don't even know where to start. I can't seem to accomplish half the things I need to in the time I have. I stay up late to get work done and don't sleep nearly enough. I'm wiped out. This can't be good.

We're going to get help though. We've been posting for and interviewing someone to come to the house and watch Claire for the first half of the day. I'm going to hire a cleaning service to come bi-weekly, and maybe we can get the dust under control. I've been using the grocery store online shopping to save time having to go to the store, and now I can plan some meals so we eat out less. The crock pot has been a lifesaver.

But if one more thing breaks, throws up or has a tantrum around here, I am going to lose it.

So all that bitching was to illustrate the point that I WANT to be so happy about the new baby, but I just can't get a grasp on it. I feel like I'm drowning most of the time. I just don't know how to pull my head above water yet. Once I do, I think I can really feel much better about the whole thing.

OMG HOW AM I GOING TO HANDLE TWO KIDS?!

We have our "big" ultrasound scheduled for this Friday, April 1st. April Fool's Day. Seems sort of fitting, doesn't it? A big step for me will be finding out the gender. I know it's important to Craig too, because he hates saying "it" and "him/her" is just so awkward.

We have something like 15 totes of girl clothes in storage right now, so I don't think you will have a hard time guessing which I'm hoping for. I would also LOVE for Claire to have a sister. And I totally know how to take care of girls. It would be a piece of cake, comparatively. And I could use that right now.

But I feel guilty about that too. I feel bad that I have such a strong preference about such a seemingly arbitrary thing. And poor little baby has no choice of what it is, but still needs a mommy to love it. I'm just scared I'm going to harbor some kind of disappointment or even resentment if the baby turns out to be a boy. Don't get me wrong: I know I have the capacity to love the baby no matter what it is because it's mine, and I'm not worried about that part. I'm worried about how I'm going to feel when it's the middle of the night, and the baby is peeing everywhere because I took his diaper off, and it's just NOT like it is with a little girl where it's nice and contained, that sort of thing. Random gender-differential situations like those. I know it sounds stupid. I know it makes me sound like a bad person. But I'm sick just thinking about it.

But 5 more days and we'll know for sure.

I've lost touch with my friends. I hardly talk to my family, except the usual conversation with my parents once a week. I've pretty much lost all my hobbies and interests, if for no other reason than lack of time. I've essentially lost my sense of self, which is what I hear happens, sometimes, when you become a mom. But I'm hating all of it right now. I spend a lot of time jealous of childless friend's lives. It would be so much easier if we had a way to take a break once in a while. We don't even have a person who can come over once in a while so Craig and I can go out to dinner together. We're struggling.

So I'm sorry, little baby. I love you, but I've got to get it together for us people on the outside right now. I'm going to have a lot to make up to you once you're out here with us, I know. But I promise you I will do my best.

July? Really?

You say it's what month now?

I feel like I've been in some kind of alternate universe where time slips by unnoticed, and one day I'm going to zip back, and no time will have passed in the real world.

The days themselves are unremarkable: an endless litany of everyday activities. But they are marked by moments of brilliance that always come in a little 3 foot tall package, and they explode in a shower of giggles and love and warmth, and sometimes they are the only thing that makes me smile or laugh that day. The good news is that they are delivered every day. Every. Day.

Sometimes I just sit in the quiet dark at night and think about how amazing Claire is. I would scare the bejeezus out of someone if they turned on the light because I'm lying there in the dark and grinning maniacally to myself! (I wish I were exaggerating.)

Every single day she grows in some way that makes us so proud of her. Teaching her sign language was truly the best thing we could have done. She knows around 75 signs now. Her frustration level is typically about 0 because she's able to tell us all about what she's seeing and thinking and what her needs are. She rarely has a tantrum, and if she does, it's because we took something dangerous away from her, and then it's over in a second. (Especially if you just sing the "Dangerous" song to her.) We give her something else to think about, and she's immediately there, on to the next adventure.

Her imagination is growing by leaps and bounds. For example, she has a little teapot set that she got for her birthday. She understands all about how to pretend to pour and drink tea, and makes believe that she's eating the tiny plastic petit fours, and gives them to us to watch us pretend to eat them too. Of course, now she sometimes pretends to eat some of the real food I give her to eat too, but she thinks she's being funny. Or she knows that it makes me mad when she drops her food on the floor. So she will pretend to do it, even if there's nothing on her tray, to see what I do. Wise guy.

Or, we got new carpet in the living room so we moved all the furniture into the dining room while they installed it, including our big, black Ikea Expedit entertainment center. While Craig and I were sliding it down the hall back into the living room, Claire toddled over and started signing "train!"

Or there was the day she wandered into the room, carrying something she had swiped from Craig's desk. She looked at it, looked at me and signed "cracker." It was a white Post-It note.

There are so many ways in which she makes bridges to things with signs that she knows. I've been playing Picross on my DS for a while, and one day to amuse Claire, I showed her a completed puzzle animation of a polar bear diving into the icy water. She thought that was hilarious and giggled at it over and over. Once she realized the way to open and close the DS, she now signs "bear book" to tell us that she wants to see it again.

One day Claire led Craig out of the office signing "bird." She brought him over to the living room window, and Craig assumed she had seen a bird outside the window. When she pulled back the curtain, she revealed to him a giant spider on the carpet instead! (Yes, in NC you can make that comparison given the size of the spiders here.)

It's stories like these that I need to sit down daily and record in a blog. But there never seems to be enough time at the end of the day after all the work and housework and cooking and just spending time with the other people who live here... I'm hoping we can keep enough of an oral record to remember the ones I'm not writing down.

So, some things I want to remember:
Claire's favorite food is raw tomatoes. Which is so hilarious given how hard I craved them while I was pregnant with her! But she will stuff handfuls into her mouth and still sign "more more more!" I can't keep them within eyesight of her high chair.

Her favorite Yo Gabba Gabba character is Brobee. She sees him on the screen and says "BEEBEE! BWEEBEE!" (We're working on it.) Consequently, I'm pretty sure her favorite color is green. It's the one crayon color she picks consistently, and the one color sign she gets right almost every time.

Speaking of coloring, Claire loves to color! Not just scribbling all over the paper. (That is so three weeks ago!) She now wants you to draw things for her so she can color them in. And her accuracy (for a one year old) is really, really good. You don't know how happy that makes her art-school mama!

She likes to watch some things on tv, but only if they have lots of music. Too many words and you lose her. I think it's good that we've exposed her to some tv, because she seems to ignore it if it's on (unless it's something that draws her in with a song.) And when she does watch it, she doesn't sit there like a zombie. She interacts -- with us, looking to see if we're laughing at the same thing she is, or dancing along, or signing and pointing at things she knows.

Desmond is Claire's buddy now. She tries to play with him, and he circles her feet looking for attention. One day this week, we went to get Claire up from her nap, and who wanders out of her room when we open the door but Desmond! Apparently he wanted to take a little cat nap with her too. Craig told me this week that Desmond was lounged out somewhere, and Claire went and laid her head on him and made a happy little "hmm" sound. He proceed to clean her hair (as best he could given its length.) Love. :)

Claire is thrilled that it's Christmastime. Lights are her favorite right now. We put up the tree and turned on the lights, and she did a crazy little hopping dance around it saying "Preee!" (pretty) She wants to count every one of the lights on the tree (and pretty much any lights she sees anywhere,) one by one. She will get angry if you don't count with her!

She is currently obsessed with counting and knows the numbers 1 through 5 well. She also loves to find the letters o and e everywhere, and knows how to sign c, z, and w too.

Claire onomatopoeia: moo, baa baa, jingle, beep beep beep, meeeooww, arf arf, growling, and a bird sound I can't even imitate because it literally sounds like whistling, but it's somehow made with her throat.

How the Other Half Lives

Craig is in DC for work this week, so I took a week's vacation at work to play stay-at-home-mom. I figured taking off work would be the best idea because we have no way of knowing how Claire is going to react to her daddy being gone all week, and she should have as much of my time and attention as I can possibly give her.

So I get to see what it would be like to be a SAHM.

What will complicate this experiment is that I am also combining it with the experience of being a single mom. And I don't know if there is such a thing as a single, stay at home mom. Unless one came into some kind of big settlement or was somehow independently wealthy, that would be a tough one to do... So it may skew the view a bit, but we'll see.

DAY 1

I decided to take it a little easy today because I didn't sleep much last night. Craig had to be up at 3 a.m. to leave for the airport at 4, and so I couldn't sleep well either. So even though I tried not to work too hard, it was still pretty tough on very little sleep.

Craig and I have our days worked out to a solid system, down to the objects we get together for naps and bedtime, and the whole bedtime routine. And having that expectation already set and organized made it a little easier. However, the system only works really well if there are TWO people. Otherwise, it takes a long time to get everything prepped, and to add in things like...eating. Or showering. Etc.

I am now comfortable with peeing with the door open in front of Claire! ("Pee pees! Hooray for Mommy!") She thinks it's a riot because she's not normally allowed in the half bathroom downstairs, so it's like a forbidden wonderland to her. I have to remember to keep the blinds in the office closed though...

I got really anxious at bed time because I was afraid that was going to be the one time Claire would truly notice her daddy wasn't there tonight. When she goes up to her bath, she climbs the stairs and Craig is usually at the top encouraging her. I'm pretty sure she was looking for him tonight. On an ordinary night, before she gets out of the bath, I start rinsing her off, and say, "Let's call Daddy!" and she goes, "Da da da dd ddaaddeee!" Then Craig helps me get her into a towel. Tonight I only asked her if she was ready, but she still called out and looked for daddy. It almost made me cry.

Otherwise she went right to sleep! And then it took me an hour to clean everything up. Ugh.

But the house is weird when I'm here by myself. Every noise is amplified, and I'm just anxious about everything. I never used to feel like this in my apartment, but the house seems so big and empty and, well, scary. Having the alarm set makes me feel better though...

DAY 2

Okay, I totally need to quit my job and be a SAHM. My stress level is just about zero. The only thing giving me any stress at all (and it's minor) is trying to keep Claire on a schedule while getting everything done by myself. But we even managed TWO trips out of the house today: once to the vet to get Desmond's medicine (where Claire got to meet [and sign] doggies!), and then to the grocery store.

BTW, Claire LOVES going in the car. She's like an excited little dog when you say, "Want to go for a ride in the car?" She frantically signs CAR! and makes a beeline for the garage. It's pretty cute.

So we did all that, and now I'm just spending the rest of my night cleaning up. The monkey wrench this evening is that garbage has to go out to the curb for tomorrow, but I'm not marching out there in the bug-infested jungles of Charlotte at midnight to do it. So I'll get it all together and just take it out in the morning.

If Craig were home, my life would be a piece of cake. Three things I realized:

1. I bet a lot of people put their kids to bed at 6 or 7 pm just so they can get things done in the evening, and spend time together as a couple. (Also, I realize, if the kid has to get up mega-early for daycare. Slugabed Claire doesn't wake up until 8-ish.) If I were a SAHM, I might do the same. I don't like early mornings though.

2. If Claire wasn't in an inflatable tub inside the big bathtub (which we do for safety reasons) post-bath time would be an easy cleanup. (Also, she was more splashy tonight than I've ever seen her. She must've spent a good 10 minutes just splashing her hands around.)

3. I wish cats liked to eat people food off the floor. (aka, I wish we had a dog.) That would definitely save some time.

DAY 3

I'm desperately thinking of ways to replace my income so that I can take care of my baby full time instead of working. I'm even considering buying lottery tickets.

Claire definitely got up on the cute side of the bed today. How did people as goofy looking as me and Craig make such a beautiful, awesome kid?!

Claire and I are running out of things to say to one another at meal time because there's no Daddy to provide running chatter, but I'm improvising.

I've come to the conclusion that stay at home moms that say they're bored must just be boring people.

DAY 4

I will start buying weekly lottery tickets this weekend.

DAY 5

Not even worth typing up a whole thing about it. This week has been completely awesome, and probably the most fun, interesting week I've spent in the last year.

I am totally in the wrong line of work. Hell of a time to realize it though.

The Signing Pitfall

Today Claire was sitting on the floor with me, and I was trying to show her the sign for "I love you."

I said the words, and showed her the sign and said the words again. And she studied my hand and my face, as she does when she's trying to concentrate hard on what I'm saying and doing.

And then she looked at her hands, and looked at me and signed...

CHEESE.

I love you too, cheese.

Sometimes you just gotta go with what you know, I guess!

Happy Birthday, Claire!

I feel like a bad mommy for not writing this sooner. But then I realized that I've not written this sooner because I've been so busy taking care of you! So I can't be that bad a mommy, I guess...

Well my sweet girl, you've made it through your first year! Or more specifically, we've all made it through your first year together!

Your daddy and I can't believe how much you've grown. We look at how big you are and how you just go bombing around the living room on your own and we can't believe you're that same little bundle that used to fit on my forearm! That tiny baby with the big eyes and the even bigger appetite! When we get ready for bed at night, I sit and look at you, and remember wistfully how I used to hold you, and how the soft music used to put you to sleep. And then I'd carry my tiny sleeping bear up the stairs, being so careful not to wake you on that creaky 7th step, to lay you down gently and send you off to Slumberland. Now, the best I can do is tell you it's "night night time" and get you to give me that paci-grin before you rest your head on my shoulder as I carry you upstairs. (And that's on a "good" night!)

You're learning things by leaps and bounds, and you amaze me with something new every single day! I love to watch how your brain works as you puzzle out a new toy, or hear the little giggles that erupt when you figure something out for yourself. You're learning ASL signs that we haven't even bothered to try to teach you, and when we do actually point one out to you, you pick it up in an instant. And then you show us again and again how you know it now just to prove a point. (You try so hard to show us how smart you are, but we already think you're just brilliant!)

We are already so, so proud of you, Baby Girl! I'm so excited for this next year to see the many other ways you will astound us. I can't wait to see the little girl you are only now hinting at becoming. I can't wait to have talks with you and more time for us to do things together. I love you so, so much, and I know that every day I will continue to love you more, just as I have every day until now. I never knew so much love was possible, until you showed me. As much as I am helping you grow, you are helping me learn new things about myself every single day.

God bless you and keep you always, and Happy Birthday, my sweet, sweet baby.

Love with all my heart,
Mommy

HAH!

I only lapsed two months this time!

Claire is back to sleeping like a champ! It happened only a few days after that last post. And we only changed two things...

First, I changed her crib sheet. I had a theory. Claire likes a paci to get to sleep. I usually put another one or two in her crib in case she wakes up in the night and feels the need to grab one. However, at the time she was having all this wake up trouble, she had a busily patterned crib sheet. There's a good chance that it was too dark and the pacis were camouflaged by the sheet pattern so she couldn't find one to get back to sleep with. Because seriously, as soon as I changed that sheet she slept almost all the way through the night that very next night!

Second, I realized one night (after a couple of good ones post-paci-incident where I could get some sleep and think more clearly) that we can't always rush right in there. I realized this because my pants were missing. Usually I keep a pair of pajama pants by the bed that I can throw on to stumble down the hall to the nursery in, because otherwise that rocking chair is a little cold and hard on the rear at 3 a.m. But one night I forgot to put them out. So Claire started crying, and I woke up. I realized I had no pants, so I tried to find them, but it was dark. After about 5 minutes of trying to scrounge around in the dark while not disturbing Craig I found a pair, put them on, and went out into the hall.

It was quiet.

That was almost MORE alarming than the crying, but I decided to wait a few minutes anyway. After I didn't hear anything more, I slipped into the nursery, and Baby Girl was completely sacked out.

So the next night she cried, I intentionally waited and watched the clock. I determined that I would let her cry no more than 5 minutes before I went in there, but I was going to give her a chance to work it out. At about 3 minutes, she started crying less. By 4 and a half she was just muttering to herself. And then she went to sleep! It's been like that ever since. She almost never cries more than a minute or two now!

I really think, in retrospect, that all the sleeping problems were also mostly teeth related. She now has 7 teeth showing! That's huge for just a few months.

What else exciting has happened?

SHE'S WALKING. I mean full-on walking. I mentioned that she started taking some steps around the time of my mom's birthday. Less than a month later she was pretty comfortably toddling from one piece of furniture in the room to another. And now, she's goood at it! She can even step over small things, and when she trips, she often recovers her balance without much trouble. I'm so proud!

On the other hand, that lends itself to a whole other slew of complications. A fully mobile child is just plain more difficult to manage than one who crawls to get to stuff. She's becoming a full-time job. It's about time Craig and I started looking for some help. A part-time nanny, or a sitter or someone like that. I don't think we're ready for day care yet. Claire would probably be fine; us, not so much.

Since Miss C has mastered walking, she's now burst forth with learning many other skills.

Words Claire recognizes and shows she understands when you use them:
water
eat
ball
dog
kitty
Desmond
daddy
blankie
paci
Night night
nap
and phrases like
Come here
Do you want...?
Where's...?

She's trying to say them too. Right around Father's Day, she conveniently learned to say "Daddy", which sometimes comes out like "Gah-ghee" or "da da da da" but we know that's what she's trying to say. "Kitty" is "yee-eee", and her new one, "blankie" is "bwah bee" or something similar.

And she's SIGNING. We've let her watch some of the Signing Time and Baby Signing Time videos at meal time, and she LOVES them. We also do the signs for her every chance we get to use the words. And it's amazing how fast she's picked it up! The first one she learned was "more", but she really didn't get the concept. (I think she's starting to now, though.) Then she got "milk" and "cheese" (which she performs close to the sign, but not exactly, though we know how to interpret it.) And now she's trying "bird" and "dog."

But the real kicker is that she learned a sign we didn't even try to teach her! In the theme song, Rachel repeats, "It's signing time with Alex and Leah" and does the signs for "signing time" while she sings. Claire picked up the "signing" sign (rolling your hands inward) and now it's her way to tell us she wants to watch the video while she eats!!!

Every day is something new and exciting with her. I love to call my mom and dad and tell them all about what she's done today and the new things she's experiencing.

And now someone is up from her nap, so I have to go, but I'll try to get in one more time before HER FIRST BIRTHDAY. (omg!)

Unintentional Hiatus

I can't believe it's been 3 months since I've updated this blog, but it's been a total whirlwind! In an effort to catch up again, let's break this down by month...

February:
Claire learns to crawl, and makes her first real trip across the room on Feb. 19th. Here's a lovely video!

From Claire - Feb 2010 - 7 months

That music you hear is the sound of our impending doom... We soon learn that the only reason she wanted to be able to crawl was so that she could crawl TO things and pull herself up! Since that day, she's been non-stop cruising around the furniture and frantically crawling after Desmond and Shiva! She also learned to climb the stairs.

At the same time, her reflux issues aren't getting any better. We go to see a different pediatrician, and he basically gets frustrated with me challenging his, "She's gaining weight so she must be okay!" attitude, and passes us off with a referral to the gastroenterologists. The GE specialists love her because she is such a big healthy looking baby, (I can only imagine the sad cases they see!) but basically they increase her Zantac dosage slighly and it totally solves the problem. Why the ped couldn't do that, I don't know, but my theory is lazy doctoring!

At this time, Claire also stops sleeping through the night. We hoped once she figured out crawling that she would settle down again, just like she's done with every other major milestone she's gone through, but as you will see we were terribly, horribly wrong. She starts waking up, crawling to the crib rail, standing up and crying until we come to put her back to sleep, sometimes three times a night.

At the SAME time, the very same week she learns to crawl, we see her first tooth! Just a little white spot on her gums at first, but then... Oops we're wrong -- it's TWO teeth. Both bottom front ones. We hope the end of this round of teething might get her back to sleeping through the night. But no.

March:
We decide we need to put carpet in the living room now so someone doesn't bust her lip open (again) every time she falls down. Note: It is mid-April, and this still isn't done, but we're a lot closer. The whole month of March is a wash basically because Craig and I are still waking up multiple times a night to put Claire back to sleep. During the day we juggle our jobs, and making sure she's fed, cared for, has time to play and takes some naps. Claire is trying hard to drop her third nap during the day, but sometimes she takes it. Neither way fixes her sleeping through the night. She has also managed to outgrow all her footie pajamas, so we need to transition her to the top and bottom kind. NOTE TO RETAILERS: It's still cold in March! Stock more pajamas with sleeves! We couldn't find anything with sleeves in her size. We try warm room, cold room, feeding more solids, Tylenol before bed, any and everything we can think of... No use. She's still waking up two or three times a night.

April:
Aunt Veronica comes to visit for Easter on Good Friday. Claire uncharacteristically spends the evening screaming and crying! Nothing we do makes her feel better or stop crying. I run out to CVS to get some infant Motrin. I have to ask the pharmacist whether to get infant or childrens Motrin -- am I supposed to dose by weight or by age? The cut-off for the infant Motrin is 24 lbs or 2 years old, and then it's up to the childrens' med. God bless my 9-month old, 24 lb baby! The pharmacist says use the infant one because she's still young, and she's only just at the max weight. We try to give Claire the medicine right away with the syringe, and in typical fashion, she barfs. So it goes into a couple of ounces of formula, and she gets some sleep that night.

The next day she's got a little temperature, but she only seems a little grumpy. We hope that's the end of it.

Easter Sunday she's got 101.4 fever and goop in her eyes! We have a pretty Easter dress for her to wear, but we decide she will be much more comfortable in her jammies all day -- who wouldn't, right? It's a very mellow Easter, and 70th birthday celebration for Grandma. Claire doesn't nap well all day, but is easy to put back to sleep during the night.

Her 9-month checkup on Monday turns into a sick visit instead. She's got pink eye in both eyes, they're puffy, swollen and red, and she's got an ear infection.

Claire's first real illness! Oh no!

I got through it a lot better than I thought I would. A week of amoxicilin-and-eye-drops later and it was over before I even really noticed.

To celebrate her recovery, we take her to the neighborhood playground, and put her on the baby swing for the first time. She LOVES it!

From Claire - April 2010 - 9 months

Now when we go on our evening walks, if we go near the park, she gets really excited and we know it's because she wants to go play on the swings!

Claire started taking her first steps last Sunday, and though we haven't caught them on video yet, she's still taking tentative toddles from object to person to object as often as she can. I have a feeling she's going to be walking more confidently within the next month or so. We REALLY have to get that carpet installed in the living room!

So mid-April, my 9 month old is 24lbs and 12oz, and about to outgrow a bunch of her "accessories" that have a 25lb weight limit! She's also 30.5" tall, which means she's still proportional, on the same growth curve she's always been, and >95 percentile. Crazy baby!

We've begun to decrease her formula for her two middle feedings of the day to add in more solid foods. This was working really well until a couple of days ago, when she went on a food-spitting rampage again! But she's trying more table foods -- bits of cut up fruit, cheese, crackers, etc. and it's cute because she TRUSTS when I go to put something in her mouth! She carefully watches us while we eat, and she always wants to try whatever Mommy's eating because, well, it must be good, right? Mommy wouldn't give me anything bad, she thinks! So cute.

So that's been the last 3 months or so. She's STILL not sleeping through the night. Craig and I are taking turns with who gets up with her. Except now, we've put an air mattress in the living room for the person on baby monitoring duty so they don't wake up the other. This way each one of us will get a good night's sleep every other night.

But we had a breakthrough on the sleeping thing last night, because even though I heard her wake up a few times, she put herself back to sleep!!! The only thing I changed yesterday was her crib sheet. I changed it to one that was a solid color. My theory is that now she can see the pacifiers in her crib, whereas before with a patterned crib sheet she could not. So when she wakes up, she gets fussy, but grabs her own paci and goes back to sleep! We can only hope!

Keep your fingers crossed, because I'm taking a second shift on the air mattress tonight as Craig feels like he's coming down with a cold and he needs his rest. There will be a wild celebration if this baby goes back to sleeping well!

Cry it out? Not on my watch.

I read a really great blog post today about the "cry it out" method of "sleep training."

First, "sleep training?" I think the concept of training someone to sleep seems really counter-intuitive. I think it's double-speak for getting your baby to sleep on a schedule that you decide works for you. Because you know what? Babies sleep all on their own right from the time they're born without any special training, go figure. It may not be when or how YOU want them to, but tough. Newborns have their own innate schedule.

On "sleep training" methods, we got a copy of the "Babywise" sleep training book from our neighbors, and on the back it says something about being an "exciting infant management plan!"

Roll that around in your brain for a minute. "Infant management." When did we stop being parents and become "infant managers?" Have we devolved to such a level that we can no longer care for our children; we're just in the process of constantly "managing" them? My baby is not my employee! (Sometimes I kid with her that she needs to get a job, but that's different!) She's my daughter. I can teach, care for, instruct, love, guide and provide for her. But I don't "manage" her. She's not an animal. I'm not her handler.

So that brings me to the blog post. It makes me literally cry to think of the babies who are put through nights alone in the dark so that they will have a bed time that's convenient for the parents.

This post means a lot to me because it comes on the heels of a few day stint here where my ordinarily good sleeper is trying every last bit of our patience at nap and bed time! At times I have to step out of the room and take a deep breath or get Craig to go in to help her, but there's no way I could just let her cry alone in the dark. I understand the insanity you feel when the baby is crying and you just don't know how to stop it and you're so tired and you just want her to sleep because you know she's tired too! I'm not talking about having to let the baby cry to take a few minutes to catch up with your logical brain and regroup. That's normal, and actually a really good idea. But if my baby is crying it's because she needs something, even if it's just a few more minutes of being held. So I'm going to tend to her until I figure it out and she stops crying.

She's so little, and the world is so big...

She doesn't know anything about anything but what we show her. I want her to be independent and secure, but at 6 months old she has no concept of how to do that on her own. It may mean a 2 am bed time for us on a week night because she's holding out, but I try to remember that this too shall pass. One day she'll be big and I'll miss these nights of holding her in my arms in the rocker and waiting until she's taking those big sleep breaths under my chin to lay her down. There's plenty of time in life for her to be on her own, but not so much for her to be my little babe in arms...

Blog post:
Woman, Uncensored: "Just let her cry"

And that's why I can't do "cry it out." And I feel sorry for those who feel like that's the only thing that will work for their family.

Extreme Weaning: final thoughts

This week has been full of real challenges, emotionally. I have been through a lot.

It started on Saturday with the overnight move to the crib.

Sunday, Claire turned six months old, and I pumped for the last time. We bought her a new convertible car seat because we knew she was about to outgrow the 22lb. limit on the infant seat.

Monday, Claire had her last bottle of breast milk, and we installed her new car seat.

Tuesday, she went to the doctor for her 6-month checkup (21lbs. 12oz., and 28 inches!) And vaccines: there were FIVE of them because they added the H1N1 and the seasonal flu because she's six months old. I always have to wait in the hall because I can't stand the sound of my baby shrieking in pain (Craig stays with her) and while they were giving her the oral one, she puked all over the nurse. Bad Mommy that I am, I forgot to bring her a spare outfit, so we had to take her home in the freezing cold in a blanket. (Luckily we live about a mile from the ped's office.)

And through all this -- Not only was there the milk weaning, and the move to the nursery, and the fact that I'm sleep deprived... Claire has decided she doesn't want to sleep in my lap any more.

Before she moved to the nursery, we would put her to bed or down for naps a few different ways. Most of the time, we could put her down in her bed drowsy with her blanket and a paci and she'd put herself to sleep. (I know some parents are cursing me right now!) But if she was having some trouble (or Mommy needed some baby time) I could hold her in my lap on the couch until she was out, or pretty close, and carry her off to bed. If she was having a really rough time, we'd sit in the rocking chair in our bedroom in the dark, and I'd rock her until she was asleep.

Now, when she finishes her last bottle of the night and gets drowsy, she starts to fight in my lap. I can't get her to want to drift off. She'll show all the signs of wanting to sleep and then suddenly start yelling and arching her back and trying to sit up. So at that point I bring her up to the crib and lay her down, and she goes to sleep almost immediately, so I know the problem isn't that she isn't ready to sleep. If we do try to put her down and she isn't ready, we get her back up and let her tire herself out for about another half an hour and try again, and that usually does the trick.

As silly as it sounds, this not wanting to sleep in my lap feels like another rejection, another separation. I miss our closeness and feel like we're so far apart from where we once were. Then there was the co-sleeper incident last night... I feel very "apart" from my baby this week, very separate. She's happy and smiling still, so I know it's not having an effect on her (God love her!) but it has been a long, heartbreaking week for me.

In other news, she is absolutely gorgeous! (New pics are up in the gallery, link to the right.) She is sitting up by herself now. And we are training her to be a nerd just like her parents, as evidenced by her Star Wars onesie.

I know this is all part of being a mom, and it will be equally heartbreaking at other milestones in her life -- when she goes to school, etc. But maybe with other milestones I won't have to tackle them all in one week.

Small Victories and Addenda

The crib transition has been going well. I get up a couple of times a night to "reset" Claire. Somehow I will lay her down longways in the crib at the foot, and she ends up perpendicular at the top! So I pull her back down, put the paci back in, fix the blankets and she goes right back out. (I myself have been relying on Benadryl to get back to sleep again.)

I did have a breakdown moment last night. Craig was trying to help out so he disassembled the co-sleeper. It felt like a Band Aid being ripped off. I just wasn't ready! He had said previously we would take it down this weekend, so that's what I had in my head. I figured maybe we would take it down together, and it would help me with the reality of it all, so when he just went and did it... Ouch. I cried hard enough that he put it back up before we went to bed! (LOL)

I returned the hospital breast pump on Wednesday, and it took a 20 minute drive to the hospital for the lady to be like, "Thanks. Here's your form that says you returned it! Bye." I don't know what I expected, but it felt really anticlimactic. The dry-up hasn't been a big deal because I was down to pumping just a couple times a day anyway. I'm a little lumpy, but no big deal.

As for the "milk guilt" post, I had an additional thought. From the get-go I had asked Craig for his input on what he felt about breastfeeding and providing milk for the baby. His stance has always been, "I will support whatever you want to do." He figures he's not the milk-maker, so he's not going to tell me what to do with my body. While that's a very noble stance, it has only made the choices harder because they've had to be my own.

But because he's my husband and I know him well, I've been able to discern a subtle opinion. In the beginning I know he was very pro-breastfeeding. But he saw what a hard time I was having. I know he was frustrated every time I had to feed the baby because he wanted to help relieve some of that burden for me and he couldn't. It made him happy when he could help with bottles, so he embraced the role of "manager of the milk stores." As time went on though, and the struggle got worse, I sensed his opinion turning, and he secretly couldn't wait for us to be finished! He knows the challenges we've had with feeding our large baby and me trying to hold down a full-time job and a household while pumping out milk and what the hormones (or lack thereof) do to me. I think he's ready to have his wife back again!

So while I'm happy that he's been so supportive every way he can, and it was nice that he tried to have no stance so I could not feel pressured, it made it harder to decide what to do along the way. Especially because I had a feeling I knew what he was really thinking but wasn't saying...