4 Years

I hate to tie the two together but when I weaned Ramona she started sleeping through the night and I became a human being again.  I became a funnier, happier, more sane person again.  I could see the recognition on G's face and it was immediately followed by him trying to cover it up.  I was "myself" again.  Well, not really "myself" because I am never going to be QUITE the same person I was before becoming a mom.  That just isn't possible. But my humor and my energy had taken a pretty big hit from the hormones and sleep deprivation and weaning brought about a much needed and honestly, unanticipated change.  BUT weaning is a topic for another post.  THIS post is about how 4 years ago The Huz and I finished our days and met some friends at a bar where we exchanged rings and promised to show up for each other, the best we could, every day as long as we are together.  I know that sounds a bit equivocal but as the child of parents who split after 34 years together I was profoundly averse to saying "forever, till death do us part....I promise...." It all seemed totally impossible to promise and almost seemed to invite disaster.  Instead, we declared our intentions to be each other's best friend, partner in adventure and struggle, confidant and coach, nurse and maid and reality check keeper.  All of those things seemed very doable.  All of that felt very honest.

Four years later we have lived in two different houses, survived a family wedding, welcomed a daughter, became exponentially closer with at least a dozen people, started putting me through nursing school, started bike commuting and about a hundred other smaller victories, defeats and adventures.  Right after Ramona was born and really that whole first 18 months we struggled in new and different ways individually and as a couple.  We were tired and out of our depth.  We were trying to keep all the bills paid and plan for the future.  I battled some pretty shitty post-partum anxiety and depression without really understanding how bad it was until it passed.  We lost some dear friends who just didn't care to "get it" when our priorities shifted.  We never had sex anymore...or at least not like before.  The one thing that saved us though, as if I could really say it was just one thing, was that we gave the other one the benefit of the doubt MOST of the time.  90% of the time we managed to keep in mind that if the other was being an asshole it was likely because they were up against something hard them self and not because they were trying to be a shit.  When I keep this in mind it makes it MUCH easier to move through whatever struggle we are in.  It keeps me from being too resentful or keeping score because I know that sooner or later I will be in the other seat and will very much hope to be given the same benefit of the doubt.  We happen to fancy ourselves excellent communicators with one another as well so that helps but really its just keeping an open mind to the other person's struggles.  At 4 years we feel like that has carried us through the bulk of our shit thus far. 

At four years we are better friends, more in love, parents....A lot has happened since that night.  Having a child has been hell on us in a lot of ways nobody likes to talk about.  I worry about horrible things all the time.  I don't let them eat me alive but I know too much about the evil in the world to ever NOT worry.  I am tired most of the time.  I am getting better at working up to my full potential despite my tired but I was more fun when I slept more.  I feel differently about my body since having a baby.....and this is the hardest one.  I still feel like I have all of this skin and flab and I feel like a mom body in the not sexy way.  I would love to have the kind of schedule that made working out easier instead of the insane full time work 4am-4pm 4 days a week and school and a house to keep and an amazing kid I want to have adventures with schedule that means I get even less sleep than my 5 hours a night if I want to work out during the week.  If it didn't insult my belief that I can learn to love and care for the body I have I would get a tummy tuck in a hot second.  Not even lipo just a bit of help with the mom flap...Anyway, he still thinks I beautiful and that is great but its really an inside job at this point.  Its my work to figure out how to feel happy and sexy in this body while keeping up my efforts to be strong and healthy instead of fixated on a weight or a size.  I refuse to raise my daughter in an example of "dieting" or calorie counting.  My mom was body negative and obsessed and it has certainly transmitted at least at the level of the constant thoughts about how I don't fit into the clothes I wish I did or look the way I wish I did....So, no.  Not for my daughter.  She will grow up running, riding bikes, playing hard and eating real food.  Real cheese, real meat, real dairy, real veggies that still look like veggies.  She will learn to celebrate her body and to know food as an act of love and health. 
.....Anyway, I have so much to write about and so little time.  I am writing this morning as R is at her Aunties and G is asleep next to me.  We had a child free night last night to celebrate 4 years and the dogs still woke me up at 8 to give them breakfast....jerks.  But yes, 4 years is a happy landmark for us.  There will be more babies and more struggles and more adventures to come but for today, for right now I just want to take a second and celebrate how much I love my partner in crime and state for the record that had I known then what I do now, I would have said "Til death do us part".

Mindfulness in every day life.

I couldn't possibly catch up on everything that has happened since my last post, in one post.  I am not going to try except to say that life has been wonderful, challenging, exhausting, inspiring, educational and humbling.  I don't mean to sound negative at all when I say motherhood is like sandpaper to my ego and preconceived notions.  Motherhood wears away at all of those things slowly and sometimes quickly but constantly always rubbing, rubbing, rubbing it down and changing the surface of it.  Motherhood has made me such a different person in so many ways.  I care so much more than I ever thought I could about things like where my kid's food comes from and how I choose to speak to her about just about anything.  I care so much less than I ever expected about other things like what my mother thinks about my extended breastfeeding and my gradual weaning of a toddler.  I feel like everything I do with her and for her matters.  Some of it matters a lot more or less but it all matters. 

In my study of Buddhism there is a thing you do when you go to retreat called Oryoki.  It is a mindfulness practice for eating.  Everything you do and every way you move is prescribed.  The goal is to practice bringing awareness to even the minutia of how you hold your spoon.  The idea is to become more mindful of all the ways you move in the world and to let that permeate into your thoughts and speech and so on.  While my practice of meditation has been seriously lacking in the last two years my practice of mindfulness has been daily.  My life is permeated, if not totally, at least largely, by the mindfulness brought to me by the sandpaper of motherhood.

The Huz and I had talked a LOT about how we wanted to raise a kid and when she appeared to us as a daughter we talked about how to foster self reliance and strength to counter the culture's prevailing message that girls are weak and dependent and fragile.  We talked about how to address things from bonked knees to first broken hearts.  We decided to try out the method of giving her space when she experiences minor injuries and physical accidents, asking her if she could tell us what happened, and then offering hugs, kisses to booboos etc, and letting her decide what she needed from us.  At 1 year it looks something like this in practice: Starfish falls down while cruising the coffee table.  Bonks head on floor.  Commence super pissed off crying.  After initial assessment that there is no blood and the baby is screaming mad (medics LOVE screaming mad babies because it means they are probably just fine but at least they are not unconscious) Mom: "Sweetie did you fall? <Pause> Was that scary? <pause> Are you hurt?"  At this point I would ask her if she wanted me to pick her up OR just pick her up if precariously positioned.  Mom: "What happened?" Baby:"Wahhhh *babble, shout cry, point emphatically*".  Mom: "Are you mad? Falling down can be scary.  Learning to walk can be frustrating.  I'm sorry you fell. Lets rub your bonked head and make it better".....In a two year old who has been approached with this method it looks like this; Starfish falls down and skins knee running home from a friend's house.  Baby: "Waaah!  Ouchie kneee!" *Pulls up pant leg and rubs skinned knee* "Make it better! Make it better! * kisses own hand and applies to wounded knee and then to bonked elbow. Turns and looks at mom who asks if she is ok and says "Wrunning and bonk knee.  Ouchie Knee.  Make better.  Wrunning!  Sree, Two, Wun!" and takes off running again.  Certainly your mileage may vary but in general, I believe kids can be taught to process with emotional intelligence starting very young.  Instead of always scooping her right up and freaking out about every bonked head you can give a kid some space to figure out how they feel about it and decide if they need additional resources to manage whatever it is.  Certainly sometimes she is being a toddler and she is tired and fragile and drops a matchbox car and dissolves into tears but that's actually ok as well.  She may or may not want to climb up into my lap and snuggle.  She may or may not want me to listen as she shouts about how she fell off of her bike or tripped on the front steps or stood up into the edge of the table.  But the important thing is that SHE decided what she needed and she ultimately soothed herself.  Nobody tells her to walk it off or suck it up.  Nobody forces kisses and cuddles either.  Sometimes she wants kisses on a booboo and then, still mad and crying she gets down out of my arms, and goes back to whatever she was doing, still crying.  I call it "working it out". 
Its not just for injuries or sad emotions either.  If she goes to a new place or meets new people and needs a minute or two to adjust we point that out to her quietly as well.  Mom: "Are you overwhelmed/nervous/scared?  Its ok to feel that way.  I get X sometimes too.  Do you want me to pick you up/hold your hand/sit with you for a minute?"  I think we are in such a rush all the time that we forget to pause and let change settle in.  We forget to take 30 seconds or two minutes to let a child or ourselves adjust to a new thing or a change in the plans.  We rush and rush and then wonder why we feel upset or have a stomach ache or headache later.  We don't let our mind and body connect and process ANYTHING and it shows. 

Anyway, I never anticipated becoming such a turbo hippie.  I never thought I would spend so much time fostering this little woman's emotional health and mental well-being from the start.  I read a lot of books that had one or two ideas that resonated with me about discipline or development and the rest seemed like crap or too rigid.  But, here I am....just cobbling it together the best I can.  Trying as hard as I can to have intention in the bulk of what I do because it matters.  It all matters. 

Learning to trust my gut (part 1)

Two weeks ago now Ramona started getting fussy.  She was a little drooly, a bit snotty and most notably crabby.  She is not a crabby kid.  She is bright and funny and silly and thoughtful (yes, even for a 14 mo) she is independent does not appreciate having things done to her without a little heads up first and does get frusterated with things that are challenging but she is not a screamer.  So, back to the beginning....After six nights all increasingly miserable and increasingly sleepless I called out pediatrician.  I had been sure it was a hat trick of teething, a little cold and a developmental growth spurt.  She was so out of sorts and had spent the last six nights violently thrashing about for hours, seemingly unable to get comfortable at all.  I left work early and biked home in time to take her to the doctor who took a peak in her ears and mouth and said she saw some redness in her throat and she suspected it was as I suspected the toddler triple.  I went home reassured and feeling confidant that I was a "good mom" and "on the ball".  We kept up the motrin and cuddles and hoped it would pass in a few more days.  I went back to work the next day and checked in on her at home with my mother in law and sister in law all day long.  She was crabby and not eating and not interested in any of her favorite things.  It was a sad day and I felt like shit for leaving her but I was still really quite confidant this was just a bug that needed tincture of time and a few extra cuddles and certainly my family was equipped to provide that so I could go to work.  Upon arriving home that night I was greeted at the door by a very crabby and now very cross eyed Ramona.  I asked the team how long her eyes had been that way and they said it was pretty recent, maybe an hour or two.  We all scratched our heads and hypothesized that she HAD been rubbing her eyes a great deal and maybe she had irritated the muscles and yadda yadda, schlocky pseudo science blah blah, rationalize something pretty alarming if you stop and think about it....That night was the WORST night yet.  R woke up at 1130 and was still screaming and thrashing about at 4.  Around 1am I called my mother in Michigan in tears.  I didn't know what was wrong and she was so upset and I was at my wit's end.  R stopped crying and just sat limply in my arms, awake but seemingly spent from crying.  When I hung up with my mom she started crying again.  It went on from 1:30 to 3:45 when my husband got home and I called the advice nurse at the pediatrician's office.  She and I talked and I was insistent that R did not seem toxic or in danger she just seemed miserable.  I told her I didn't think she needed an ER visit but I just didn't know what to DO! She was very sweet and again, R laid spent in my arms for the duration of the conversation.  I went to the guest room to try to sleep since I had now been up for the better part of 6 days but awake awake for 29hrs.  I awoke after 3 hours to the sound of R screaming for G.  He said she had passed out for a while but not long and he had just been trying to console her for the better part of the last hour and a half.  Just about then the phone rang and it was the ped's office calling to make an appointment for her to be seen in Saturday clinic. 

At the pediatrician's R was not as fussy.  The motrin seemed to be helping and she had even eaten a little toaster waffle.  The ped looked at her and saw her cross eyes and said she couldn't see anything ELSE significant but the eyes were concerning and there was no way for her to rule out something bad in R's brain without imaging.  She sent us to the ER for a cat scan.  We drove straight there and I was anxious about it all the way but also felt relieved that we would get some sort of an answer.  The ER at Randall Children's Hospital in Portland was amazing.  The doc had already spoken to Dr Tara and we were set to just get and exam and a scan no pokes or extra "nonsense".  I was so glad.  About an hour later the doc came in and told us he saw what looked like a sinus infection.  He said kids have tiny sinuses and it looked like hers had some fluid in them and that was possibly trapping her nerves running to her eyes giving her the crossed eyes.  He sent us home relieved and on a course of antibiotics that should help her feel "much better in a day or two".  We followed the instructions and readied ourselves for another 48hrs of tough but better.  Two days later no one had slept and if anything R seemed worse.  She hardly ate anything, she didn't want to play and she wasn't even nursing very much.  She just wanted to be held and to cry.  I spoke to my mom and bemoaned the situation now 9 days old.  I told her it just didn't feel right.  I felt like we should have some sort of improvement by now.  I really felt like she should be looking at least a little better.  My mom told me to call the doctor.  I had a nursing test that day so I said I would call the nurse and see what she said but then I had to go take my test (on less than 3 hrs of sleep).  I called the nurse who seemed pretty unimpressed with my story and told me to stay the course and that it takes 48-72 hrs to see improvement on antibiotics.  I was frustrated but convinced myself I was being crazy and overtired and went in to take my exam.

I got home from my exam and wasn't feeling so great myself.  I spiked a fever and had some GI upset followed by debilitating body aches that made holding her nearly out of the question.  She, in turn was insistent on being held all arched and cockeyed out of my arms and I was in pain and frustrated and made G take a turn with her that night as I sweated and moaned and puked my way through.  The next morning she was a mess.  I had called and spoken to the doc again the night before and she had offered to refer us to a pediatric urgent care to get her seen but I (medic minded mother) declined the offer feeling exhausted at the thought of explaining the whole thing to another new person.  We agreed on an office visit in the morning with the caveat of a trip back to the ER in the night if things got scary. 

The next morning, sitting in the pediatricians office waiting room R was draped across my lap quiet and miserable.  She was grunting as she breathed and looked like a limp rag doll.  We walked into the exam room and the Dr took one look at us and said she wanted the senior doc to take a peek as well.  Five minutes later the decision had been made.  Nobody knew what this was, it was not right, it was more than a sinus infection and it was time to go to the hospital for a big scary work up.  I was too exhausted to cry but I was completely scared. 

Just a breath of air

I am SO far behind in my blogging.  It makes me sad really.  I had so hoped to be keeping up better with some of the things I am experiencing this first year of motherhood....alas, I work a swing shift, am more than full time in school and we have one computer so....yeah,....there's that too.  Anyway, my dear loving mother is here visiting.  Ramona just turned ONE!  Holy fucking shit!  Pardon my French but when did that happen?! Nobody asked ME if she could walk, talk, tell me "no".  She is on and off sleeping.  On and off eating like a viking and generally rules my world with one hand tightly grasping my heart at all times.  I am blissfully happy and also so fucking tired.  I am EX-HAUS-TED!  It is not the baby it is my life.  I am running two races at once right now with school so highly prioritized.  I want to be done with my RN before she turns 18mo.  I want to be making us more money for less hours spent away.  I am ready to attend to families and to continue in my quest.  All that said, I am ready for a god damned nap too.  My brain is balking at the extra effort I require of it.  My body is a mess.  I am feeling like a cookie left on the counter too long.  Crumbly, dried out, not particularly desirable.  Things with the Hubs are good and strained intermittently.  We are both doing our best to keep up but we are tired.  We are trying to learn to run at this new faster pace in order to get to a better place but we fall down and scrape knees and get frustrated in the fog, thinking we are running alone and the other one MUST be walking because we can't SEE how hard they are working to keep up.  I know it sounds like I need a major priority check but I assure you that is not the case.  If I can just get over this wall there IS a better existence for us on the other side.  One where we can prioritize family and time and and and....I just have to keep my head down and keep charging the waves that threaten to drown me.  More as soon as I can because BOY oh BOY do I have reflections. 

Reflections in a shallow pool

This week has been hard to witness. As a member of a family, a community and humanity as a whole this week has been nearly unbearable to witness. Random acts of violence, heartbreaking losses and general struggle are everywhere. I know I live in a white, upper middle class "I buy my groceries at the fancy co-op" sort of bubble. I am insulated from the constant barrage of war, poverty, violence and danger that permeates so many other human lives in so many places. I am beyond fortunate to live in a beautiful home with my loving partner and our healthy, beautiful daughter whom we conceived with absolutely no effort or struggle and whom I gave birth to (relatively) effortlessly and without major complications (Yes, I have gained some perspective). I am gainfully employed and passionately pursuing my dreams to become a nurse midwife. I am able to breastfeed easily, sleep well enough, eat anything I want and know that while I am at work, being paid equal wages to my male counterparts, my beautiful daughter is safe in the arms of people who genuinely love her. I am the most fortunate person I know. This week I am wracked with my own version of "white guilt". I feel sick with guilt for having all of this. Watching the waves wash through this week I felt like I was watching people on the beach drown and I couldn't throw a rope. My heart broke over and over as malls were shot up, families were destroyed, mothers lost the babies they had waited their whole lives to hold.

It has been unbelievably difficult to stop myself from throwing rocks at the sky and demanding answers. I am angry and scared and sad. I am constantly finding myself looking for rationalization of this insanity. I am in and out of tears a dozen times a day. It is times like these I struggle with my practice of Buddhism. I struggle to remember that while we are all interconnected by the collective consciousness, there is no great puppet master in robes and a beard trying to teach us a lesson. A woman does not lose her child "because". Shit is shitty and it happens sometimes. Hearts and families are broken and it is awful. It is sometimes the catalyst that engenders change but it is not because...it simply IS. And this week the "is-ness" is overwhelming. My desire to reduce things to bite size so that I might brush them off my plate and avoid the emotions they stir in me is so strong but that is not helpful. It does no good to me or to my community. Thats not to say that laying down in the road and crying myself dry would be helpful but there is something to be gained in my raw broken heart. People deserve to be seen and to have someone bear witness to the joy as well as the unspeakable. We honor each other by "seeing" each other and if I brush it away I am not seeing it and therefore I am not truly honoring my fellow human's experience.

In Buddhism there is a practice called Tonglen. In the simplest terms you imagine breathing in the suffering of others and breathing out relief for them. It is a practice in compassion and selflessness. It can be very powerful. It levels up as you become more practiced. You begin thinking of a particular person and practice exchanging "self for other" for them. Next you take it to a larger and larger group until you are practicing for all of human kind. It gets tougher as you expand out because you have to include people you dislike, prisoners, pedophiles, murderers, IRS agents...all of it. People usually run up against a barrier where they cant truly include a group or individual and that is where you must practice. To loosen the binds to the resistance. Its hard. This week I find myself too upset to include everyone. But I also cant figure out who to exclude. The failures of the system, the mentally ill, the higher power... I'm pissed and I have nowhere to point my anger and sadness and blame. I know too well that this is just a shit sandwich and it isnt even "my" sandwich and I am powerless against the devastation around me, unable to fix any of it or to assuage my own guilt so I will sit and practice and I will include myself in an act of forgiveness for my inability and for my own good luck.

"Tell me about your mother(hood)'

I have a friend who has been thinking about babies and whether or not she would like to have one.  Her major concern is that she would not love it "the way everyone talks about loving their kids".  She fears she would be indifferent to the new person whom she turned her life inside out for.  She fears she would fail at the loving part.  At first I was inclined to scoff and say "thats ridiculous! Of course you will love it. Even before tiny was born I would have died for her!". But then I turned off my judgy brain and really thought about what she was saying.

My friend is quiet and shy and sensitive. Her own mother is the same way. Nobody lavishes affection on anyone and relationships are simple and unadorned. Even at her wedding, her mother did not fuss and fawn over her. Society would have us believe that her mother loves her less if she us not reenacting a hallmark commercial at her daughter's wedding, that somehow she is cold and unloving or less of a mother. If you dont constantly gush over your kid you are a stones throw from either neglect or mental delay by today's standards. It is crazy. My friend was really saying "I'm not a gooey, gushy person. What if I dont gush and marvel at my child 24/7? What if I get frustrated or tired? What if my husband and I have differing opinions on how to parent? What if my already very important relationships take a hit? What if I dont want to or am incapable of "losing myself in motherhood?". As far as society is concerned women should give birth, after a blissful pregnancy where vomiting all day and peeing all night are cute little annoyances instead of confidence shaking recurrences that fray your already hormonally challenged mental stability. You should only gain a bit of weight in belly and breast, look adorable in everything including your taco sauce stained last pair of pants that dont chafe your marbled belly. You should either formula feed or breastfeed effortlessly. By six weeks you should look mostly back to prepreg body except for awesome boobs and you should be dying to jump in the sack! You should be well rested enough to maintain the house while you are off work. You should not be crying, sweating, leaking milk and wondering if anyone got the license of the bus that just ran you over. You should not be awake in the middle of the night crying over cracked painful nipples, trying to nurse your baby while your partner slumbers gently and deeply beside you. You should not be planning ways to inflict max pain upon him when he wakes after six hours of sleep to your 90min, and then says something stupid like "what honey? Gah, I am so tired I cant even think straight". But most of all you should think everything your kid does is "The Best". Every fart, every booger, every sleepy eye rub has never been done better or cuter than your very own. You should feel no pain, no exhaustion, no hunger, thirst and certainly never fear, anxiety, resentment towards this magical creature. THAT would make you a monster!! So, I see where she is coming from. She loves her job. She and her huz have a fun life. They can afford nice things and travel. They live on their own clock and calendar. Wouldn't kids just complicate EVERYTHING? Yes, yes they do. At least in my experience. The first six months of my daughter's life were sone of the most intense months of my life for better and worse. I was happy, sad, broke, filthy, overwhelmed, convinced I would never want sex again, angry at my husband in ways I'd never felt before, tired (sweet jesus was I tired!), flabby, insecure, in pain, sweaty, stinky and melancholy for no reason whatsoever. That may seem like a long bummer list. You may be expecting me to say something like "but my daughter shits guinness cupcakes and milkshakes! She is magical and anesthetizing and worth every second of it!". I would only say part of that. She IS worth every second of bummer. Not because everything is ooey, gooey, wonderful all of the time but because it seems worthy. It is ordinary magic. The way I love her is not fancy or decadent. It does not anesthetize all pain. It does give me more joy and curiosity and wonder. Not wonder covered in glitter or joy that comes with a soundtrack. This contentment I feel is like a clean countertop or fresh sheets on your bed. It is only "perfect" for a moment but that moment is delicious. My life is not gloriously blissed out. My life is a series of tiny moments of perfect, simple, basic goodness. They punctuate the sleeplessness, they round off the sharp edges of conflict and guilt. They provide breathing room when the diapers and the laundry and the teething threaten to take over. They are the tiny fingers on my face, the shriek of glee when I come home, the curious person learning to pull herself up or crawl or put kix in her mouth by herself. They are nothing special at all really but they mean everything to me.

So, I told my friend that I understood where she was coming from. I understood the fear in the back of your mind asking "are you suuuuure?". I told her how I spent nearly the entire first trimester crying about how I had ruined our lives and then weeks 4-12 postpartum feeling the same way all too often. I told her the truth. Mothering someone is hard. But I told her its never hard because I dont love her and its never hard because I dont want to be her mom. Its the balancing act that takes constant attention and work. Communication, dedication to the other things in life that are less rewarding but very important, like the mortgage. "Its not all wine and roses"I said, "but it is the best peanut-butter and jelly sandwich I have ever had".

Some Days

And then there are days that start out hanging out at post with your favorite work partner so happy to chat and catch up that you dont nap but you dont care...you spend the day doing mostly nothing but the occasional drunk to the hospital run. You watch the Kona Ironman on TV and are just about done for the day when the tones blast forth from the radio and you are behind the wheel speeding of to a "god-damned late call". You arrive to find her in bed post-ictal? Maybe...PE? Maybe...Your partner breaks the bed putting oxygen on her and she is slowly waking up and talking to you. . You tell her "dont worry, we are going to take such good care of you. You just hang in there and let me know if anything changes". She smiles and nods she says "thank you", then she dies. The rest is a blur of living-room floor and neon green lines on the monitor, sweaty purple gloves drawing up drugs and pushing, pushing, PUSHING on her chest. The cardiologist is a tall woman who nods and says "yes, yes...I think the same thing". Pushing, pushing, pushing drugs, purple gloves, more drugs. Time of death.... Sometimes that is how your day ends and it hurts your heart. You care. She was someone's family, someone's love...she was your first code.

When you know your days are numbered

I am acutely aware that we have passed over the halfway mark of Ramona nursing as her primary nutrition source. I know that in a few short months I will have reduced her night feedings to one and then none. I will get more sleep but I will miss this secret, quiet, snuggle time. She nuzzles up and finds my breast without even opening her eyes. She sighs contentedly as she falls asleep full, comforted, happy. I feel an ultimate exchange of love and the remnants of our former closeness. It reminds me that she is of my body and the journey we shared to get her here and the weeks that followed where there was barely a separation between us.

She is growing so quickly, like a runaway train down a mountain. Time has never moved so quickly. I have never wanted to pause and just savor all of the sweetness and the struggle so badly. I love her so much it hurts. It is painful to know that if I do a good job, every day she takes a step away from me. If I support her and nurture and love her well she becomes stronger, more confidant and more independent with every passing day. Worst of all, she may never understand the true depth of my love for her. There is a secret love. It is secret only because it is not visible to the untrained eye. The training requires 9 months of stretching skin and aching bones followed by hours of labor and months of jagged sleep soaked in a potent cocktail of exhaustion, love, self doubt and utter amazement. There is no pedestrian path to this love. You must go all in to achieve it. It is difficult and wonderful all at once, and once you get there you realize that in exchange for the bliss you must break a tiny bit of your own heart every day to keep someone else thriving. I know my days are numbered so as she snores milky, drunk snores I will touch her face and smell her head and try my hardest to burn this feeling into my brain knowing how precious and fleeting it is. A perfect rainbow or the last perfect day of fall.

Tough stuff

Let me start by saying I love my husband. Let me next say I adore my daughter. I am very VERY happy to be a wife, a mother, a woman living this particular life. All of that said, this is some tough stuff.

Hubbs and I did a LOT of talking about how we wanted to raise this tiny person. We talked about sharing, being equal, continuing to communicate openly. The last two weeks have been hard. I feel like every time I find us in a "stage" I think there has never been such a tough one. That is of course, a lie. The first six weeks were the hardest. That learning curve is second to none. However, this most recent one has been harder than any of the others since week six.

Tiny girl is mobile, talking and teething. This means many things. She hasnt been sleeping very well. She gets overwrought and then sleeps in 90min chunks nursing hungrily and frequently. She wakes at 430 ready for the day. She is mobile. She is now strong enough to pull herself up to standing in the co-sleeper. This means she could easily swan-dive out, head first onto the floor. This means my mommy senses are piqued to shoot me from sleep at a moment's squeak. I rocketed awake to find her standing teetering on the edge just the other night. Needless to say, there are a few modifications in the works. For the immediate time being (the last two nights) she is sleeping in between us in the king size bed. Its not bad. I'm sleeping better knowing she is safe. (Cue the co-sleeping safety fear mongers). Anyway, sleep, yeah, she wakes up screaming mad and crawling. We have taken to interpreting the angry, inconsolable screaming as pain and have been treating with occasional motrin. It makes me feel guilty, like I should be able to soothe her some other way but fuck if I can figure it out so, motrin it is!

In the mean time, the Hubs and I are doing our best to keep from falling apart. We are trying to keep the house together (we are slobs and *shriek!* we have a mouse). We are trying to get through our own ickies (G a cold and me an infected toe (gross? You friggen bet)). We are working nearly full time 48 and 36hrs respectively. We are trying to carve out time to get me through nursing school. We are trying to be available to spend time with our friends more often. We are also trying to continue to cultivate and nurture our relationship as two adults who love each other independent of the incredible little soul we created together. This is the hard part.

I get tired and naggy. I get overwhelmed and short tempered. I feel like the last two weeks I have spent more time nagging him about helping me find some non mommy time, dishes, laundry, a leaky toilet, saving money, eating healthy and "participating" more. Gahh! When I look at this list I feel horrible. I know this is not even a comprehensive list!! I'm insane!! Poor G!! I feel like I dont have any extra energy and so I say the utilitarian stuff in a way that lacks any hint of garnish or sweetness. It sucks. I know he is tired and thus, he struggles to find the extra energy to find new ways to help me ir new ways to engage with the family. We get tired and we get stingy with our energy and that makes some poor, tired, crabby people. Instead, we really should pour what little we have in the tank into the other person. We ALWAYS feel best when we are taking care of each other. We are more fulfilled, more in love, happier and connected to one another. We just need to remember, when we feel poorest we need to give it ALL to one another.

I wish I could say I know it will get better in time but I cant. Its not that simple. It may get easier to work on with time, but probably not. But the key is the work. You have to work and not just on your partner's self esteem or last nerve. You need to work on loving each other, giving to eachother, offering up all the rest of your energy to them. If you have the right partner they will give you all they have too abd you will be full of love and not just exhaustion.....there will still be exhaustion but its sweeter somehow. So, there you have it. I'll check back in a week and let you know how it goes but for now, I am going to take my feverish, teething, bucket of drool abd chub down to my loving husband and giggle together as we feed her dinner and watch her make faces. This is the life of a mother, a wife, a woman doing her best to get it right.

Being "The One"

I nannied for years. I was paid to care for the children of others for nearly ten years. I had many different families in those years. Some I thought I loved. I took care of some of them through the best and worst, from weeks old to school age. No matter the family or the kiddo one thing is 100% ubiquitous. When a child wants mom there are no real substitutions. You can be the best babysitter/aunt/best friend in the world and it.does.not.matter. Mom is mom. Accept no substitutions.

I now have a daughter of my own and I have to tell you, I love being "Mom". I love finally being "the one". Tonight we put R down to bed and she awoke two hours later screaming and upset. We both had flu shots yesterday and I suspect she is teething so I gave her some baby motrin. She fell asleep in my arms and as I tucked her in under her fleecy blanket I sighed relishing the simple moments where just being mom is the soothing element she needs. I know they are fleeting and because of that, I make a point to be actively thankful for the chance to be enough just by "being"and knowing where the motrin is.

Wanting more for us all

Nursing school...Midwifery...Another baby...Thing X for the Hubbs...I want more. I have been thinking a lot about the future and realizing that life is never going to get less complicated. The time is now.


Flash forward six weeks...I have a seven month old, a full time job an a letter welcoming me to nursing school. I am doing this. The Hubs and I are working out schedules to get me study times and I am on fire. I am so excited. I have been destined to become a midwife my whole life. My first birth, at ten years old, awoke a calling in me. At times I have doubted what I was hearing. For a long time I thought my Mom's calling was what I was hearing drowning out my own. I tried the Maritime Academy, pre-med, paramedicine, now back to nursing. As I think it through I realize how specific my calling is. I could not be happy as a floor nurse or an emergency nurse. I am here to help moms and babies and families. Midwifery is like breathing. It is something I have tested my ability to avoid but have found elemental to life instead of optional. I am ok with that. I look forward to treading in the steps of my mother, the women who held my face as I labored with Ramona, the women who sit quietly in dark huts in the jungle and those who ride through the city streets in the middle of the night to "attend" to families. I cannot wait to be of service to women and families. I cannot wait to bear witness to the beauty and the heartbreak, the humbling power of families growing. Birth....it is not just a new baby but a new MOTHER and a new family. Birth leaves an imprint on everyone in the room, every time. I want a thousand imprints.... I want to be a fully awake and realized person. I want to show my daughter what following a twisted path to a dream looks like. I want to have more money for my work and more time for my family. I want to be able to offer G time and financial support to go after his dreams too. I want more, more for us all. So, for now I will work hard, study hard and love with all my might. It seems like the best way to start.

Reality

At my doctor's office today for an infected toe. "Oh my gosh! You look great! How's mommy life?!". "Great! She is amazing, G is amazing, aside from three months of thrush its a dream come true, really.". "Mah!, thrush is no big deal. Once you stop nursing it will go away.". I love my doctor but that was such a dude thing to say. Even the nurse rolled her eyes when he left and said "You can tell he never nursed!"

7 Months

You are strong and opinionated
You are wise and very old
My favorite traveling companion
The sweetest touch to my cheek
My alarm clock and my lullaby
Story teller and audience
A tiny mirror to my best intentions
My motivation to work harder, to love myself more, to try try try

In the past seven months you have crumbled old walls and awakened the siren call of a future I had nearly forgotten to go get. Everything is different my dear.
Faster and less busy
Exhausted and more alive
Simpler in this complex new web
I thought "this is survival!" but I now understand this is living.

You have expanded us and boiled us down to what is more important. We walk just to walk now, not only to arrive. You have made it clear to us, the walk is just as rich as the arrival.

Thank you for my home, my family
Thank you for this new love pouring out of me and my new eyes
It is beautiful here
All sleepy and grinning
I kiss your head and fall in love
A thousand times a day

The Space Created By Exhaustion

Having a baby is a lot of work. News flash right? I thought so. But truly. The first three months are weapons grade exhausting and then things get easier just for a bit while life starts to catch up. I went back to work at five months but the Hubbs stayed home for six weeks so I came home to dinners and a happy baby and didnt have to worry about child care... Pretty dreamy. In addition, he is an amazing dad so I only really had to worry about me. Tiny girl hardly noticed I was gone.

Anyway, this past few weeks have been totally beautiful and exhausting. Tiny girl is learning to crawl. She gets up on hands and knees and rocks back and forth. She works so hard. She has been waking up at night to practice this too. She wakes at 1 and is up until 3 or 4. It is insane. She is happy and chirping and awake.

I occasionally freak out in the middle of the night when this is happening. I loose my composure and the sleep deprived self centered teenager erupts saying things like "I cant take it! She wont go back to sleep!" and "This is bullshit! Your turn" followed by me handing a happily squawking baby to the Hubbs and bailing out to the guest room for at least a few hours before she needs to nurse again. In those moments I feel so much emotion bubbling up inside and I just spark like a blown fuse. I loose perspective in the grey half light of dawn.

I have been reading a really awesome blog https://unraveledword.wordpress.com
And this mother is exploring spirituality through the lens of parenting. She has some really amazing observations but none yet have struck me as deeply as that about parenting, exhaustion and the work it does on ego.

I lived my entire life in a state of duality. I thought about everything all the time. How I looked, what I wanted, what my thoughts and desires said about me. I was constantly observing myself and levying judgement upon myself for every little thing. In addition I spent a great deal of time labeling things good/bad/neutral. I would find myself happy or sad or exhausted and very self indulgently spend all day grasping or rejecting or ignoring whatever it was. I was working hard to manage and control my experiences. Then I had a baby....

I have never spent so much time being totally present. It is very much as if there is nowhere else to be. I find myself too exhausted to manage and to in love to reject. All that is left is being right on the spot. Loving something so much and being so exhausted seem to cancel out eachother. I am pinned to the now or maybe freed to the now is a better expression of it. It is amazing to feel myself want something or need something but then to know that it is just not going to happen right now because Tiny needs something mire important. In my past that would have been too much. I would have bitched and whined and been miserable. The constant demands on me physically and mentally are grinding away at my sense of 'Me' as I have known for so long. I no longer think of myself as the pinnacle of importance I once did. Now, I have others I want to give to. Others I want to see happy and at ease. This is not to say I dont care about myself or I no longer have an identity. No, I still have some of that. It just doesnt seem to hold the same value anymore. It is no longer SO important to protect my 'ME'. She is tough, she is soft, she loves others more than herself (most of the time). These glimpses into 'Now' and more distilled Bodichitta are beautiful and quite ordinary. I find them most clearly in the days following the most sleepless nights. I have no choice but to get up and once I do there is so much to fall in love with it becomes hard to remain miserable.

Learning to trust myself

A little while ago I was sleep deprived and looking for answers to help me help tiny sleep better. She has never slept through the night. She is six and a halfish months old and I was certain it was my "fault" that she was still waking 3-4 times between 8pm and 6am. I was looking through my library and found a book on all things baby. It promised to help me troubleshoot everything from sleep to solids. Awesome. After reading about half of it I started to feel a cold panic set in. It talked about co-sleeping and night nursing as obstacles and encouraged a modified cry it out method to help teach my baby how to put herself to sleep. I started to feel like a bad mom. Some of my favorite things about our laid-back attachment parenting approach (co-sleeping, nursing on demand, no rigid sleep/wake/feed schedule, lots of cuddle time) were being listed as potential roots of my baby's "problem". I started spiraling into a tornado of self doubt.

I told the Hubbs that we needed to start her on a more strict schedule and we needed to start putting her down and letting her fuss a bit more if she wakes up at night. I told him we need to start trying to get her to sleep without feeding her. I was feeling dizzy with anxiety and insecurity. I was a horrible mother! I was coddling my baby and ruining her!! I collapsed into bed on the fourth day, crying and feeling utterly crappy. Then I called my mom buddy J. I told her everything and told her what the book said and how awful I was and what a terrible parent I was. She said "Listen to me and don't get upset but this might sound harsh and I don't mean it to. You are one of the most intuitive moms I know. You have a great relationship with R and she is a happy, confidant, well adjusted kid. She is little. If she needs you she probably needs you. She's not waking up to be a jerk. I dont think this book knows you or your baby. It doesnt sound quite right for you". I was taken aback. She was right. I had made it six months without killing or obviously damaging this tiny person. Hell, for a six month old she was really very happy. Hardley ever cries, happy with other people, puts herself to sleep really REALLY well. So far, all signs point to "doing a pretty good job with this mom thing". Why, all of the sudden, am I now going to trash all of that and decide I am a horrible parent who is ruining my daughter?

I decided to take my dear friend's observation and advice and continue to listen to my own inner compass and intuition. I know my baby and she knows me. She trusts me and G to be there for her, to feed her when she is hungry, cuddle when she is in need and not to abandon her at night or any other time. Sorry baby trainer lady! It just wasnt going to work for us. I know a lot of parents who have had success with varying degrees of cry it out but I just couldn't and really didn't think it was necessary. I opted to trust myself, trust my baby and take it day by day.

We dont nurse to sleep. She has her own sleeping space. She is allowed time to self soothe and fuss a bit without anyone rushing right in. But we dont let her cry. Her fuss and cry are very different and she really only cries when something is wrong (diaper, hungry, cold, pain, very tired, too long in car seat). I dont want her to have to feel like bedtime is so sad that she has to cry. I DO want her to learn to calm herself and soothe herself. So here is how we do it and it is working like a charm. Around 7-715 she gets changed into jammies and disposable diaper. We then head upstairs and sing a few songs and maybe read a book. Final top off nursing is next and then she goes into her bed (sidecar co-sleeper). While she is calm and quiet I let her roll around snuggling up to her "sweet puppy" blanket. I lay in bed nearby but dont interact. I dont talk or pat or shush or anything. If she seems to be wound up and struggling I will put my hand on her back and discourage her from rolling all over and say "its time for sleep. I love you" once. I keep my hand there only until she stops struggling against it as I want her to fall asleep "free" to move in any way she feels most comfortable. Most nights she doesn't need my hand or any words at all but plenty of nights she'll doze off and wake up and look to see if I am there. Once she sees me she falls quickly back asleep.

The bottom line is she is a baby. She is only 6 months old and she still needs us. I dont have a problem with that. I do want to keep working on expanding her capacity for independence ESPECIALLY emotionally. I want her to trust we will always be there but also feel confidant that she doesnt always need us. I never imagined cultivating and supporting a strong, tender nature would start so soon. But maybe thats the ticket. Dont wait until your kiddo is three or seven or fifteen to try to teach independence, self reliance, trust and emotional intelligence. Start the day they are born. Listen to them (different from listening to your wants and wishes for them). Listen and observe what they are asking for and what they are capable of on their own. It will delight and astound you.

Baby steps...

So, the breasts are still a mess. I talked to my mom today and apparently three weeks of ground glass breast pain is "pager worthy". I got ahold of my Midwives (who I worship like the magical goddesses they are) and tomorrow I start two weeks of meds for this icky stuff. I think my boobs feel a little better tonight just knowing help is on the way. The funniest part of the whole thing had to be when I told her I had been hurting for three weeks and the Queen of the midwives (the toughest, smartest, sorta socially awkwardest) said "oh Honey! That sounds horrible!". And then went on to lament lactation consultants who try to treat systemic yeast with "boiling things and topical creams! It drives me crazy!" It made me laugh.

So, this morning after a totally wild night on the part of the starfish, I pried myself from bed just about the time she decided to nap. I got a wild hair and set to work with phase one of baby-proofing. In this phase you have to purge some shit and move some other shit and make space for things you don't want in the baby's paws or mouth in other rooms while trying to maintain some semblance of "adultness" about the house. I have begun this process in the most predictable way. I found some free furniture on the side of the road. No? Not predictable? Huh. Anyway, I was out running with tiny and this guy was just putting this cool old dry sink out with a free sign on it. I told him I wanted it and boggied home to get the Jeep. This piece is ideal because it has doors and is thus babyproofable. It has replaced an open book case that was our ever cluttered front door catchall. Today I cleared out the bookshelf and yadda yadda yadda moved a ton of stuff to better homes and tossed a big box of crap. It felt soooo good! I have been following the tumblr "unfuck your habitat" and it is all about tiny steps to help us mere mortals live less messy, chaotic lives. It recommends 20 minute cleaning flurries and simple daily tasks to help avoid the overwhelming super cleans. All morning I just kept telling G "I just want to finish unfucking the front room, the baby room, the kitchen, the WORLD!!". I was on a roll! It was amazing. I am happily sitting in the living room (not totally unfucked yet but waay better) enjoying a cocktail feeling pretty good about life.

After "The Great Unfucking" as I will be referring to it, we went hiking. We did a 5mile hike in the beautiful woods downtown. Starfish was quite happy to ride in the backpack and we kept up a hearty pace up and back. It felt awesome. There is a big part of me that feels like being pregnant was such a cardiovascular demand that I never really stopped working out. I swam and hiked and ran for the first half too. I didn't really slow down until after R was born. In fact, the day I went into labor I swam in the morning. It was more about managing the swelling but I swam for 45 minutes none the less. Thats right, I was a giant swollen tough girl. :)

Anyway, my point is that my recent workouts have been much easier than expected. Pushing the jogger is fun AND leads me to better posture making my back much less sore. But best of all, it makes working out something I can do with tiny. I was so afraid that I would be too lazy or weak to be one of those women who worked out after baby. Well, this girl is a smaller, less swollen, flabbier version of the badass mentioned above and she IS totally the kind of mom who runs long distances with a kiddo in the jogger! I meant what I said about making a serious effort to be a positive body image role model for my daughter and well, it isn't going to happen on its own. So tomorrow is another day, full of things to do and spaces to baby-proof but happily it will start with an early morning run. One foot in front of the other.

If everyone knew how glam breastfeeding is they'd all be doing it

So, I have been back to work for a month now and all in all its going pretty well. Pumping is hugely inconvenient and way more stressful than I had anticipated. That said, I am thrilled to be producing enough milk to more than keep up with her demand, no matter how crappy it feels to have to put my ambulance out of service to pump OR worse yet, to be trying to stealth pump without going out of service and to get a 911 call as soon as I manage to let down. Ffffff! Its the worst.

Yes, I am managing, even with the crazy crazy heat, to keep up. I am not however, managing to do it without a price. I have a totally awful yeast infection (breast not lady land) and it is 1.Super hard to get rid of and 2.Makes me want to drive my car off a bridge. Seriously! I have painful lumps and sore pink nipples and owie owie owie!
I saw a lactation consultant last week and she gave me ideas. The problem is that during the work week I dont have time to take proper care of my gear or my "gear". If I am pumping in back of the rig (ewww gross! Hate soo much!) I dont have access to a sink or any other way to clean up. When I get to a hospital and get to pump in a real pumping room I have only so much time and thus rush around maybe getting to steam my gear maybe not. It sucks to feel so rushed and to have to hurry to the point of giving myself this infection. I hear people when they say "you have to just do what is best for your baby and work can wait" but unfortunately that just wont work. I need to be a team player. I need to keep my dispatcher happy. I need to write charts, and care for patients. Like I said, this is a LOT harder and more stressful than I ever expected. So, here I am. I think I need to call my midwives. I think I need some meds to help with this. I am sore and exasperated. I feel like a failure for not keeping clean and healthy. I want to just go back to being home and not pumping four times a day. I want a money tree in the back yard.... And a pony.

Then you wake up to a 6 month old!!

Tiny girl turns SIXMONTHSOHHOLYSHIT! Old next week. I have been back to work for three weeks and Papa has been keeping the home fires burning. He is doing a phenomenal job too. He cooks, cleans, caters to our ever increasingly demanding, MOBILE ( more on that later) daughter with tenderness and insight that moves me to tears. He is loving, adventurous and kinda hot as a "dad". He is also being super honest with me about how tough it is to be 100% present for the baby for 13+ hrs a day for multiple days on end.

At first I was frustrated. I heard a loud voice in my head anytime he expressed feelings of tiredness or overwhelmedness. "You think YOU're tired?! I have been growing this critter and now feeding her for over a year! It has LITERALLY been I don't know how long since I have slept for more than 4 hours! You have absolutely NO concept of tired or overwhelmed!". Then I stopped, shook it off like one of those St Bernards in Beethoven part 2, and realized that it is ALL about context. He is tired. He is overwhelmed. This is the most a lot of things he has ever been and he is just as entitled to his feelings as I am and a good partner puts that bitchy "let me tell you..." voice in timeout and hears her partner out with a quiet mind and a soft heart. This shit is tough folks. There is a lot that we cant fix. There are even plenty of things that we cant take the sting out of *coughmyutterlackofsexdrivecough* but we (I) can try harder to show up for him. I can dig deep and find a few more bits of energy to give to him.

Equity will look very different for a while still. I am trying hard to get my body back in good shape for work as much as for vanity and I am still pumping and nursing. It takes a lot of time and I am not sleeping so I am pretty wiped out but it is time to toughen up and adapt for the Huz. He needs his teammate back and I dont think it is too much to ask.

In the words of The Weepies "the world spins madly on". Ramona started crawling, summer is wrapping up and life is fuller than ever. I would not change this life for all the gold in the world. It is both harder and richer than I could have ever imagined or hoped. I can see the days pass and tiny grow bigger, stronger, more curious right before my very eyes. It is a wild and wonderful fog of wiggles and diapers and soft chubby limbs. At six months I can say I have never known this kind of love...now to get the rest of my life back together :)

The things we do for love...

I went back to work last week. The Hubs was still away at our last festival event this summer. He was on the clock and making bank so we decided it was worth the stress and worry I faced returning to work without him around. At this point Starfish had barely started taking bottles. She would MAYBE drink an ounce. I was worried. My mother and sister-in-law were around and had lovingly agreed to watch tiny while I was at work. The day before I went back I popped out for a quick visit with a girlfriend, leaving tiny and MIL home alone for a test run. I was feeling pretty good until MIL called. I could hear tiny screaming bloody murder in the background. "I think you should come home" she said. I walked home quickly, already feeling the cold panic spreading through my stomach. "What is she going to do tomorrow?! What if tiny wont eat?! What if Nanna cant hack it and our childcare plan goes to total shit in the course of a single day?!?!". I was short of breath with panic by the time I went to bed that night. In the morning I got up and got ready before tiny awoke. I managed to squeeze a final snack in for her before I left the house and cried my whole way to work. Throughout the day I was blessed with sweet pictures and honest updates about tiny. My SIL told me of the meltdowns and sent pictures of the happy times. It helped to feel like I knew the truth about how her day was going. The next day there was less crying but it was still very hard to leave her. By the time I got home Hubbs was back and tiny was happily in his arms.

All in all the first week back was not as horrible as I had feared it would be. I hate leaving her. I hate hate hate it. I'm not getting nearly enough sleep yet but thats just the shape of my world right now. I will write next about pumping at work and how that is a special hell for lady-mommy-medics but its not so bad overall. When I get sad (usually on my way to work and again around hour 8) I remember why I am doing this. I think about how important it is to show Tiny what a successful, working woman looks like. I want to keep working to keep myself open to new opportunities (*cough*nursing and midwifery*cough*). I think most importantly right now I can give G and Tiny a chance to spend quality time together. They have the next month together. If I weren't going back he would have to pick up OT to make up the income. The burden would be all on him to make ends meet. If he were in a job where just the weekly paycheck covered us comfortably it would be a different conversation but right now its not the case. Equity in our relationship is just as important as equity in other areas like parenting. I want Tiny to know G just as closely as she knows me. I want him to feel as important and involved as I am and I want them to have as much physical time together as possible. All of those things are mine to give them but only if I go back to work. So I go. I go happily and with comfort and confidence in my purpose. Love is a wonderful motivator and an even better anesthetic when the pain of leaving catches up to me.

Four Months Old. Friends make all the difference

Ramona turned four months old this week. Holy shit! Where has the time gone? I feel like a second ago I was pregnant, half a second ago I was holding her on the couch contemplating just how long and hard the days were and how lonely and emotionally overwhelmed I was. Those first eight weeks were a fucking doozie my friend.

Now, I am really enjoying being Ramona's mom. Really REALLY relishing all this time we get to spend together. I like knowing her signals. I like our routine and that she knows I know what I am doing and she is relaxed and confidant. She struggles but she is a happy girl almost all of the time. Overstimulation is our number one cryptonite but honestly, she does what I want to do when I get overstimulated so it is hard to get very upset. In fact, 99% of the time, when she freaks out I feel bad for her. Sometimes it IS hard to be a baby. But most of the time, especially this last two weeks, being a baby is happy, full of smiles and coos and gurgles and fun. Even the rough nights are made beautiful with the smiles I get in the morning. Think hateful things if you must....I can take it....but really, we have a beautiful thing going and even when we dont I love her so damned much its cool. It really is.

All that said, this morning, after a huge week of travel, flying cross country twice, visit with Mimo hijacked by ten-bazillion family members wanting to visit and a less than awesome carseat, followed by arriving home in the middle of Hubs work week leaving me still on my own for chicken duty, and a scream fest with the lactation consultant two days ago, I went for a pedicure with a friend. I left R with daddy and split like a fugitive. It was fucking awesome! We got coffee, pedicures, chatted about nothing, hit Target to hilariously try on clothes and came home to a crying baby and a pretty chill husband considering. It was beautiful. I was so happy to see them. I was so proud of them. I felt recharged. My toes look adorable. I was ready to be mom again. I was gone 3hrs. I felt like I had slept for a week. This was just what I needed.

Earlier in the week I met my "new mom friend" for coffee and a walk on Alberta. It had been a very nonsleeping day for R and I was still jet-lagged as F! I needed to do anything to kill the hours between 4 and 7. Meeting J was perfect. We walked, had coffee, got pinwheels for the baby girls. We talked about babies, husbands, families, gay mons, life, TV... It was sooooo easy. Our girls are mere weeks apart. We have so much in common aside from the girls too. It is crazy! I never could have imagined we would be instant friends when we swapped numbers at the midwives picnic.

I also went to moms group this week with my neighbor buddy. I met a fee new moms, realized I am not new anymore as R is one of the older babies, heard a handful of other moms talk about going back to work and talked at length, with another mom who is a few months ahead of me but still experiencing some of the same sex and intimacy issues I am experiencing. I left feeling awesome. I dont have it all figured out but I am making some great friends who dont have it figured out either and that is awesome, comforting and reassuring. There isnt any negative talk or complaining but an openness and curiosity about it. Nobody is "suffering" or poor me-ing, just talking, exploring this new life and new identity. I must say I find it amazing.

So, in conclusion, month four is starting off awesome. I go back to work in a month (boo but yay), we go to fair in two weeks ( bust out cha tie dye!!) and I have some awesome new people in my life. I owe it all to this little girl. She upended my life and gave me a new one. Thank you sweet pea! Now, do mommy a favor and sleep in tomorrow ok?