ceiling fan, and baby exercises
Our son smiles at us a lot. We like this, it makes us feel special. We were at a friends house for dinner last night, and he smiled at us across the table (someone else was holding him), and we thought, “Oh! Our baby loves us so much!”
Except, of course, that we come in a distant second to the ceiling fan. As with most babies, he absolutely loves that thing that turns round and round. We have this reading light on our bed that we shine on it, and it looks even cooler. Sometimes he gets so excited he’s moving his little body in as many ways as possible, kind of like he’s doing baby exercises:
baby competition
So, I’m back at work. It’s been two weeks now, and things are getting a lot easier. However, everyone wants to ask how the baby is. Of course I say “He’s perfect! He’s the best baby ever!” He is, really:
But I was taken aback at how many people asked, “Is he sleeping through the night yet?” He doesn’t, but it doesn’t bother us - or me, more specifically, since I’m breastfeeding. Middle-of-the-night feedings are my responsibility for practical reasons. I think it’s fine - he goes to bed around 8:30, sleeps til 3, and then wakes again between 5:30 and 6. This is really not a problem, I’m not finding a lack of sleep, and neither is the Mr.
However, it’s a challenge to not be more concerned. Other people with babies say “Oh, MY baby slept through the night at 8 weeks!” Or, people suggest ways for me to get him to sleep through the night. One relatively new mom suggested that I wake Z at midnight to make sure he sleeps straight through til 6. I figure that’s just trading in a 3:00 feeding for a midnight feeding. Especially since I still tend to go to sleep around 9 or 9:30 these days, just like when I was pregnant.
Ikept coming home to the Mr, asking “Is this a competition or something?” Nothing is wrong with our baby, in fact we think he’s a very easygoing little guy. He’ll sleep through the night when he’s ready. We’ll wait til he starts rolling over until we get more involved in the baby competitions.
As such, we’re putting him on his tummy as much as we can:
He’ll be rolling over in no time! *
* I’m kidding. He can roll over when he’s ready.
Posted by Marie on November 9th, 2008 under Uncategorized | Comment now »z’s first concert
The Mr. is a musician. Since he has been at home, he has started practicing his bass a lot more, which is good. He had a thing a few weekends back, and Z and I came along to watch.
Z was so good while his dad was playing, and for the other people who were playing too. Also, since his dad likes to play that kind of music at home a lot, he was right at home with the music that was being played.
The Mr. wears black to play, as most classical musicians do. He dressed Z that morning, bringing him out in the closest Z has to black, a dark blue onesie. So that he could be wearing black just like his dad.
Dad was pretty happy, it looked like:
yay obama
I took one of those online “who should you vote for?” quizzes, and came up Nader. So we all know where my sympathies lie. We like Obama in this household (I’m not likely to throw a vote away on Nader …). We are very happy this week.
In fact, we ALL like Obama in this house
my lame halloween costume
I’m not a big fan of Halloween, I’m not sure why. I think I just never really got the idea of dressing up as something else. I don’t even like nicknames, frankly. I’m Marie, that’s who I am, why is it so fun to be something else? Note: I think I fall on the autistic side of life, so this is pretty normal for a person like me.
However, I did try to make a costume for Zeke. He’s a jazz cat. Dressed in black, has a hippie hat, and is wearing mommy’s sunglasses inside.
We’ll likely do better at this when he’s able to trick or treat. And eat chocolate.
Posted by Marie on November 6th, 2008 under Uncategorized | Comment now »Our little social … human
So, since the last time I wrote (almost a month ago!), our son has been smiling a ton, cooing, and generally acting more human.
He loves to smile at us. It’s hard to get pictures of it because once I take the camera out, he usually looks at it intently and stops smiling.
But sometimes I can get a bit of a smile caught on camera:
And I love these pictures, the ones where he is smiling at himself in the little mirror that is above his little seat:
He likes to sit in the chair, and watch one of us in the kitchen, or watch his dad practice music.
We don’t have a colicky baby, knock on wood; he’s generally very easygoing. He talks to us regularly these days, cooing and smiling and well, just being adorable.
Posted by Marie on October 27th, 2008 under Uncategorized | Comment now »I guess time really is money
As we are moving into this next phase of our lives, the one where we realize money doesn’t buy happiness, we find that time really is money. I belong to this book club, and one Sunday I wanted to place the next book on hold at the public library. I wanted to do this quickly.
Quickness is not something at which the public library excels.
First, one of my previous books was a day overdue. I owed ten cents, so I couldn’t place a hold online, I had to go to the library. So I went to the library, to return my book and pay the ten cents. I returned the book, and asked if I could please pay the fine so that I can place a hold. The guy said, no, there is no block on my account, so I’ll be fine.
You can imagine, I wasn’t fine. I had to stand in line again, and tell him I couldn’t just place a hold. And then had to walk upstairs AGAIN and use the public terminal to search for the book and place a hold. All told, about an hour at least of my time. Trouble over ten cents.
This is the point where I think, couldn’t they have a netflix for books? Even though we’re being frugal these days, I’d seriously consider paying extra money for extra service.
Similar to the post office. I personally like the UPS store where you pay a little extra to actually have customer service. The post office where I go is so terrible, it’s like all of the women behind the counter have contests to see how long it will take them to serve people.
True story: I was sending a gift to one of my friends, and I had forgotten to put the card inside the box. So I taped it on the outside. This is against postal regulations, unless the card is also addressed (or something). The clerk wanted to have me spend a lot of time to fix this, and I just said, really, it’s no worry, I’ll just take the envelope off and email my friend saying there wasn’t an envelope. She argued with me, telling me to address the envelope - and I finally had to say, “Look, I just don’t want to waste the time of these people behind me!” She and the woman at the next window looked at each other and laughed out loud. I had to be adamant that I didn’t want an extra, time-consuming transaction, and she wasn’t happy about it.
I can’t even console myself that these people are probably making minimum wage. Probably they are not.
Posted by Marie on October 27th, 2008 under Uncategorized | 1 Comment »starting and stopping work
Z is just over 8 weeks old, so I should have four weeks of motherhood-bliss ahead of me. However
- the state of maternity leave in the United States is terrible. I could have four more weeks off, if I didn’t want to be paid for it.
- we could probably manage to live without four weeks of my paycheck, but I’m nearly as frugal as my brother Brian, so I don’t want to.
So I’m working a few days a week until I’m back full time when he is 12 weeks old. Sigh. On the days that the Mr. has off, I go into work, otherwise I work from home. This is not full time, this is more like one day spread out among two days of the week. So mostly I’m still being a mom, but sometimes I’m being a systems analyst. And sometimes, when I breastfeed at the computer, I’m both.
And the Mr. gave his two weeks’ notice today, so that we can have a little more practice of me leaving and pumping breastmilk and having him practice being Mr. Mom before I start work full time.
Posted by Marie on October 2nd, 2008 under Uncategorized | Comment now »talking about breasts
While I was pregnant, I happened to be sitting between two mothers at my book club. One mother had a 2 year old, and the other mother had a two month old. The newer mother was asking questions about breastfeeding, and the more experienced mother was giving advice. I swear, I listened to them talk about breasts for 30 minutes straight.
So now my son is two months old (Sunday!), and here is my obligatory post about breasts.
It is much easier now to breastfeed in a public place - now that he’s a little bit older, he can latch on so much better, and stay on, that I can much more discreetly manage the whole nipple-in-the-mouth business.
No, I haven’t gotten any grief for showing my breast in public. My breasts were always large, and now (if you can believe) they are larger, and I am not really a fan of displaying them for the world to mock - I prefer to mock them myself in the privacy of my own home. So I choose the darkest corner of the restaurant, or a secluded bench in the park, or I’ve even sat on a public bathroom floor. I would much rather do this in the privacy of a dirty public bathroom than in a crowded public area.
Again, again with me being somehow apologetic that I’m not a militant feminist. I know breasts aren’t obscene, and women should be able to show them for breastfeeding, no problem. However, I think it’s like the freedom of speech - just because we can do something (speak out against someone, or show our breasts) doesn’t mean we always should.
And, I’ve just this past week started to feed him while I work at the computer. More blog posts, less reading of books*.
*Since the book post, I’ve read a biography of Robert E Lee, a book of short stories by Flannery O’Connor, and I’m halfway through Jackson’s Dilemma by Iris Murdoch.
Posted by Marie on October 2nd, 2008 under Uncategorized | Comment now »fresh out of the oven
I’ve heard the phrase “fresh out of the oven!” a few times a week since Z came home. We go for walks with him, shop with him, go to festivals with him. And nearly without fail, when we go out, someone (usually an older woman) will squeal with delight and say “How old is he?” followed by “Oh, he’s just darling, aren’t they so cute at that age?” I think Sam gets more oohs and aahs when he takes him out alone, you know, a father taking his baby around.
The people who say “Fresh out of the oven” don’t usually stop and say hi, but they say it loud enough for us to hear.
Z isn’t very difficult to manage, in my opinion, but there is still the element of him being awake every three or four hours to eat, crying without knowing exactly what the problem is, having to be with him almost constantly. However, one woman who had a toddler said to me “As much as I was frustrated and cried when my son was that age, I look back and think how much easier he was then - at least he couldn’t say NO.” That’s heartening.
Posted by on September 21st, 2008 under Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
- ceiling fan, and baby exercises
- baby competition
- z’s first concert
- yay obama
- my lame halloween costume
- Our little social … human
- I guess time really is money
- starting and stopping work
- talking about breasts
- fresh out of the oven
- my life as a stay-at-home mom
- updated pictures on flickr
- but I do believe in miracles
- our little o negative baby
- blamers and the nuclear family
- his feet look like mine
- pictures on flickr
- new baby in the house
- We just joined the “buy more sh&t” club
- tomato sandwiches
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