8 Months and Getting Better

I haven't updated much because it seems like things with baby are starting to find their flow. I'm not quite as exhausted and drained as I've been for months, I feel less resentment towards being a mother, and I feel like things are going to work out in general.

Charlotte is 8 months now and has reached tons of developmental milestones. She has 6 teeth, she's crawling rather quickly, and she's very talkative and responsive. She also likes to smile and wave to people. She claps and "sings". She's a little person with opinions and interests. It's starting to finally feel like all those months of exhaustion were worth getting to this much more fun point.

The only thing that she seems to have missed in the whole developing thing is sleeping. Supposedly, she should have been able to sleep through the night for around 2 months now. That has yet to happen. At the very least Paul has switched to swing shift and is able to help me with her through the night which allows me to sleep more than 3 hours at at time. I just wish neither of us had to wake up at all because even though he gets up to deal with her, I'm still waking up every couple minutes to listen for signs that I need to take over. I've been trying to feed her more solids during the day to help keep her from waking up hungry. I think at this point it's more of a waking up lonely issue and nursing is really the only way to get her to go right back to sleep. Otherwise she really wakes up and stays up and is rather grumpy about it. Naps have kind of taken a hit lately too. She just doesn't sleep much during the day lately.

Her babysitters tell me that she doesn't nap with them anymore either, but she doesn't fuss as much and is getting to be more fun to play with. One of my students qualified for the state vocal competition this weekend. With Charlotte's being more at ease without me there all the time and with this boost to my teaching track record, I'm hoping that I can work on expanding my voice studio a bit.

This next weekend we're going to start looking at houses again. It's been about a year since the last time we looked at something. I'm a bit apprehensive about getting my hopes up because we don't have our whole downpayment saved yet, but I also feel like I want to find a house to picture us living in so that saving is a more present priority in my head. You're less likely to have what you don't dream about right?

With that, I must head to bed. Paul's rocking Toot to sleep so maybe we'll get to sleep before midnight! Wish us luck!

Being Reminded

A couple nights ago I was feeling really tired and frustrated mostly with dealing with teething and the restless nights and with how frustrated I am with my weight loss. I cancelled my weight watchers and for some reason this just got things stirring. I wanted to find some sort of support because I feel like the only mom I know who hasn't had any luck at all with losing the baby weight. I need someone to tell me to quit whining and get my ass in the gym. I suppose my doctor did a fair job of trying at least.

Anyway, in my moment of angst I remembered how I had joined a weight watchers group on the baby center community. I've never posted in it and I don't really read any posts in it either. Honestly, I kind of feel like I don't fit in with weight watchers people. So I went looking for another group.

I found a weight loss group for moms who had their babies last June. I figured I would get some sympathy there but my angsty post about how I'm so frustrated with my lack of weight loss didn't get any responses.

When I was pregnant I spent a pretty fair amount of time posting and responding to questions in my various groups. It was a great place to network with moms that were of a similar mindset when it came to birthing and pregnancy. After I had Charlotte and posted my birth story on my natural birth group, I sort of lost my zeal for it and haven't really read or posted anything in months. In my pathetic attempt to get someone to feel sorry for me I started to read some stuff from some of my old group pages.

There was one post in particular that I think sparked something. A lady in the crunchy mom's group invited us all to make a list of the things we do that are crunchy. It was essentially a way for us to be positive about the things we do rather than the things we don't do. Now, this crunchy mom group can be intense and even when I was active on babycenter, I didn't read posts from it all that often. There's only so much guilt I can muster for not churning my own butter, or going for days without shampooing my hair (I often wonder how that really works)...you get the idea. So when I started reading peoples lists I really expected to feel inadequate.

Surprisingly I didn't feel that way. Instead, as I read through list after list, I started to feel really proud of myself. I live with people that really don't get why I care about these kinds of things most of the time, and in spite of that, I still manage to do quite a bit for myself and my baby. I was reminded of all the reasons I wanted a natural birth, of why I encapsulated my placenta, and drink mothers milk tea, of all the reasons I use homeopathic and herbal medicines before I go hunting for the mucinex or the tylenol, of why I breastfeed and cloth diaper, and co-sleep and baby wear. I added my own list and the more I thought of, the better I felt about all of the decisions I've made as a mother.

Since then it seems like being a mom has taken on a new light. I don't feel like I've lost some sort of sleep war when I keep Charlotte in bed with me. I don't mind dropping what I'm doing to play with her or feed her. Its amazing to me how much happier I feel when I'm not resisting my role as my baby's mother so much. I guess I just needed to be reminded that being my baby's mom is something to be proud of.

State of the Family Address

I was thinking about what I typically post in my blog and the majority of it lately has been about not sleeping. While this is a very worthy topic for a new mother, I feel that there are other things I should report about. Especially because this blog is something that my baby can go back and read when she's a mother...given that she even wants to. Maybe I'm kidding myself. At any rate, I can read these old posts when I'm feeling nostalgic about my grown children.

So my first topic is sleeping. Okay maybe I lied. After multiple visits to Ikea, we managed to get Charlotte's crib assembled in the Living Room. She's been sleeping in it the last 3 nights or so.

This would be fine except that the monitor broke and I had to send it to the manufacturer to be replaced so I have to sleep with my door open. This has me waking up more frequently because I "think" I hear something. I thought perhaps she would sleep for longer periods of time at least. I was wrong. So now instead of getting up four or five times a night and walking across my room, I have to walk across the house and sit up with her until she finishes eating before I can go back to sleep. I'd try to let her fuss a bit first to see if she'll go back to sleep on her own, but then she wakes everyone up and my mom gets up with her and I feel bad when she has to get up at 4 to go to work in the morning.

This is another issue. The living room isn't exactly a quiet secluded place in the house. So starting at 4am and going until about 8am, there are people up and around the house getting ready to go their various directions. It really doesn't matter how quiet they are since Charlotte is a light sleeper and its not really fair to ask them not to grind coffee or watch the morning news.

Another obstacle is that everyone's been fighting colds in my house lately, myself included. I've been trying to kick cold ass with a continuous supply of umcka, emergen-c, and sinusalia. They seem to be working, I felt much better today. But back to sleeping. Charlotte has a bit of a cold, but she doesn't seem too sick, she just has a faucet of a runny nose. She won't sleep without the binkie, but she can't breathe through her nose, so she's super tired when I put her down, but keeps waking up because she can't breathe. To remedy this I use the snot sucker which makes her hysterical. She practically heaves she's crying so hard, but then she goes right to sleep once her nose is cleared up. I kind of wonder if she wouldn't sleep longer in her crib at night if she wasn't sick. I suppose we shall have to see.

It's nice to have it for daytime naps at least. Before I was basically having to hold her if I wanted her to nap. I couldn't put her in her regular bed because Paul sleeps in our room during the day and she wakes him up - kind of like how she wakes me up all night. So at least I can put her down for a nap now. Lord knows I need it!

Okay, now on to other things! 7 months has brought all sorts of milestones. Charlotte started crawling a bit around 5 1/2 months but she's got it all figured out now. She's got it figured out enough that she follows me or comes to find me if I leave the room. Before I could leave her in the family room and find her sitting in a pile of computer cords. Now if I leave the room too long it starts to be a scavenger hunt to find her and what she's gotten in to. She tends to like little bits of paper and dog food.

For about a month and a half she's been standing with something to grab on to. This is pretty easy for her now and she's been trying more and more to stand on her own. I'm really hoping she'll hold off on the walking stuff for now. Crawling is enough of a challenge to keep up with!

Since she's gotten crawling and pulling herself up to standing down pretty well now, of course she finds her way to me when she's hungry. My baby is a fraud! She'll pull herself up and stand at my legs looking up at me and chattering away like she wants to give me kisses and cuddle. But as soon as I pick her up it turns into a frantic search for Milkbags McGee. She cons me every time.

Speaking of Milkbags McGee, I'm starting to feel kind of over breastfeeding. I've never felt like I produce enough milk to keep her satisfied, I don't enjoy sitting with her and feeding her and I can't pump anything. It feels like I have to try so hard to just to do something I dread. But it's awfully cheap and awfully convenient. Theres the rub. She still wants to all the time though so I'll keep doing it as long as she wants to. I feel kind of guilty that I've never enjoyed it. I've really tried to though. I try to think about how I'll miss the quiet time with my baby who needs me. And then she bites my nipple and I'm pretty much over it again.

This Saturday will be our third swimming class with her. Honestly I could probably do without the "class" but since we paid for it we make it a priority to go, and that's what matters. Most of the babies tend to have a "what the hell is going on here?!" expression on their faces during the class. It's rather amusing actually. Charlotte seems to be comfortable kicking in the water and getting her face wet, but she hasn't started really having fun with it yet. Part of the problem is that she's so skinny and the pool is kind of cold. We had to pull her out before the class was over last week because her lips were turning blue and she was shivering really hard. I ordered her a baby wet suit that we should be able to try out this week. Hopefully being less cold will make the class more fun for her.

We have multiple things to look forward to on the horizon. Friday is my NATS competition (National Association of Teachers of Singing). Hopefully I will be well enough to sing! As soon as we get our W2's in the mail we can file taxes and start our downpayment fund which means we can start to look for houses. My hope is that we are moved by May. Our goals after we find a house are to find Paul another job that pays enough for us to make our house payment and doesn't make him work 50+ hours a week on the graveyard shift. Ideally this job will allow him to continue his nursing degree track and will afford me some time to have a part-time job during the summer. In this magical happy land I'll find a part time job teaching voice lessons at a community college and Paul's classes will be at a discount!

I want to finish my post with the thing that makes it all worth it. I really love it when Charlotte's tired and I pick her up and she rests her head on my shoulder and stares off into space. I love stroking her hair and feeling her dead weight. That's what keeps me going!

Sacred Sleep

Having a baby means relinquishing control over elements of your life that you never thought you'd let someone else dictate. Most of these elements aren't so bad. I take my baby to work with me, I eat when I get a chance, I take her to various meetings, lunch dates, shopping trips etc... I can maintain most of my life with some adjustments. But sleep is a whole other thing.

My baby won't go to sleep at night. I spent two hours trying to put her down. I tried holding her, swaddling, feeding, covering her in a heated blanket, singing, shushing, following her sleep cues, changing her position in the crib, massage, teething medicine, warm water. But after two hours of trying to make sleep a non-negative event I just let her scream herself to sleep. An hour and a half later, she was up again. Then again at 4:30. And she doesn't just lie there anymore. Oh no, she pulls herself up to standing and watches me from her crib. She watches me, and she yell cries at me!

I make a lot of changes at the whim of my baby. But now I'm being taunted by a 7 month old! It's as though she's standing in her crib saying, "MOM!!! YOU DON"T GET TO DO ANYTHING UNLESS I SAY SO!!!"

Sure, people warn you that you'll not get any sleep after you have a baby. I even had a couple months where she slept 6 hours uninterrupted. It was a lie! A bait and switch!
I was warned I'd lose sleep after my baby was born. No one said you're baby would mock you! I'm exhausted, she's exhausted, my whole family that has to hear her all night is exhausted. Where's the off button? WHERE IS IT?!!!

This baby seems cute and innocent right?
WRONG. The truth is he's trying
to BREAK YOU

Good News!

Today has been a good day. I had a rehearsal with my accompanist for NATS that went very well, followed by a visit to my mortgage agent. After she left our first bank I didn't have any of her contact info but luckily she called me and I gave her my info so I could have her be our agent again. She's really awesome if you're looking for a good lender, I'm happy to pass on her information.

For the last several months we've been attempting to pay down debt in order to qualify for a home loan and the Oregon Grant. The Oregon Grant is a down payment assistance program that covers a 3% down payment. The problem we were having is that the criteria for the loan that works with the program is a bit more particular. So we were paying down specific credit cards and trying to get Paul's credit score up. The loan officer that had been assigned to us after our first officer left seemed less than enthusiastic about getting us qualified. I had to ask him several times to rerun our credit to see if any improvements had shown up yet. So when she called me I was thrilled to have her back!

Today I finally got to meet up with her and have her run our numbers. The great thing about Jenny is that if she hits a wall with one program she'll keep looking for other options. The Oregon Grant is out of funds right now so that was a dead end, but we do qualify for an FHA loan. The challenge with this is that we'd need a down payment, but we aren't left at the mercy of Oregon Grant funds. What's awesome is that not only do we qualify for the FHA loan, we qualify for about $50k more than what we were approved for a year ago. Thank you lower interest rates! This higher limit also is still within our monthly budget.

So now we're on a mission to get a down payment saved and to find a house!

Seasoned Travelers

Yesterday Paul, Charlotte and I got home from our 5 day trip to visit Paul's parents up in Northport Washington. If you've never heard of it, you're normal. It's literally a 3 block strip of buildings on a highway you probably wouldn't be on unless you're going to Northport or a town you've also never heard of in Canada.

The time leading up to our trip ended up being far more eventful than I had expected. My Oma died Saturday night which led to a week of making arrangements for her funeral. I wasn't too involved in all of this other than having to learn some hymns to sing for it, but it still felt like I had lots to do. Still, I managed to get all three of us packed so we could catch our flight the next morning.

I learned quite a bit in traveling with our baby. First, Southwest has a customer for life. They were very accommodating and even made a copy of Charlotte's boarding pass for her baby book. They also let us take her carseat on the plane both ways (something you usually have to pay for) for no extra charge.

Having the space to ourselves in the loft was extremely nice. Right now our living situation is one where we have no option but to have Charlotte sleep in the same room with us. This makes sleep training virtually impossible. After one night of fussing, Charlotte slept nearly the entire night in her own room the rest of the time we were there. She also napped longer during the day. It was delightful. It was also blissful to have Paul around to take on some of the parenting duties. He changed her and put her down for her naps most of the time during the day.

I took two things away from this.

First, we need a home of our own asap. Charlotte's new favorite activity is to pull herself up and stand on her own. We don't have a crib that fits in our tiny bedroom and is deep enough to keep her from toppling over the railing. She also doesn't sleep as long knowing mom is a few feet away. It was so nice having a space of our own and having her things in her room. I miss it even now as I sit in my bed trying to keep my computer out of her reach as I type. Her reach that shouldn't even be an issue because she should be asleep in her crib in her own room right now rather than wriggling all over my bed at 11pm.

Second, Paul needs another job. I'm grateful that he has a job that provides him with a minimum of 40 work hours, decent pay, good benefits and vacation time. I am not grateful for the mandatory overtime that takes away his weekends and nearly any time he could spend with Charlotte during the week, the graveyard shift that has me dealing with Charlotte alone at night and has him sleeping during they day leaving him barely functional when he is awake, and his never being able to take his vacation time when he wants it. Having him present and awake was a reminder of the kind of dad he could be if he was able to be home after a solid night's sleep and of how much easier parenting is when you don't have to do it by yourself all of the time.

Okay, so perhaps I already knew that I wanted our own house and for Paul to have a day job that didn't require him to work 50+hour work weeks, but getting a glimpse of what that might be like made me want it more. Perhaps having a taste of what we're working for will be what we need to get things moving!

New Years Resolutions

I went to bed with Charlotte around 8:30 this evening. Unfortunately after playing with her, reading with her (she read her book and I read mine), feeding her and getting her to sleep I could not convince my brain to shut down. I attribute this to two things.

First, I've started reading Thom Hartmann's book "Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight." It's about our use of fossil fuels and their impact on our species and our planet etc... basically some deep shit! I feel like its my responsibility to at least try to keep up with current events and to at least do something about what I think is wrong in the world. This is something I think is wrong in the world. Very wrong. I couldn't stop thinking about the impact of what I'd just read.

Second I wrote down my to-do list for tomorrow - it's rather long since I've been putting several chores off over the holiday and especially because we'll be flying to visit Paul's parents week after next. I have some work to do! I also decided to write down my New Years Resolutions.

In the past I've avoided New Years Resolutions usually because there's a stigma (at least to me) that they're meant to fail and that they're always about the same things - losing weight and being a better person. You are who you are, how you live isn't going to change because the planet has made it's loop in the solar system. In spite of all this I wrote some anyway. I'm going to justify it this year because I've already been working on them, and I made them the sorts of goals that I'll meet at different points throughout the year.

Here's my list:

1. Spend more face time with important people in my life.
2. Have an "unplugged" day once a week.
3. Walk 20 minutes EVERY DAY.
4. Start Dragon Boating again.
5. Cut out all sugar for the month of January and July.
6. Give a recital.
7. Find a paid position singing at a church
8. Journal my dreams.

Now here's my justifications - not because I think you need to know them, but because I can't sleep for thinking about them.

1. One of the major reasons we wanted to move to the east side was because we wanted to be closer to our support system of friends and family. We did just have a baby and this tends to throw a wrench into making plans with people and Paul works 50+ hour work weeks so this is rather challenging. But I'm a social person and the people I surround myself have a big impact on my day to day life. I want to surround myself with the people that support me and make me feel good about life and myself. So be warned, I may become rather annoying at trying to spend time with you.

2. I was listening to talk radio - something I tend to do often - and I don't remember who had said it but the host talking struck a cord (chord?) with me. He said that he and his wife had come to an agreement when they had their first baby last year that they wanted to be present for their children. This means something very different now than it did even 5 years ago. In this day and age it is very easy to get swept up in technology. I consider myself a key offender. I already find myself mindlessly ignoring my baby because I'm on facebook. I don't want my baby to grow up feeling like she has to compete with my computer.  So I'm going to try to block out one day a week - or the equivalent spread over the week - where there is no tv, no computer, no smart phone, no video games.

3. This goes back to my high cholesterol problem. My doctor told me the key issue is my lack of exercise. I need to make it a priority to get my butt moving in one chunk of time every day without fail. I can add other exercise that's more challenging if I want as an alternate, but I need to be doing something and since I had Charlotte it hasn't been happening. So come rain, come shine, come hell or high water, I'm taking to the streets. 20 minutes a day. Every day.

4. I missed Dragon Boating so much last year and what's worse is I had conflicts whenever there was a race that was close enough for me to go support so I didn't get to see my team once last year. I miss them terribly! I miss the invigoration of being out on the river. I miss being a part of something. So come spring, I'm getting my chubby butt back out on that boat and starting from square one again. I just hope they'll have me!

My reward if successful.

5. This is also related to my cholesterol, but also because I find it kind of disturbing at how thoroughly addicted I am to refined sugar. This includes fake sugar too. I'd like to make this something I do more permanently and I may adjust the frequency that I do my sugar detox, but for now I'm going to hit a 30 day cleanse.

6. I've been thinking about doing this since the Fall anyway, but if I put it on paper, I'm more likely not to back down from the challenge. I want to grow as a singer. This is how I'm going to do it. I don't care if I sing to an audience of 10, I'm going to make it happen!

7. I'm debatable about this still. First it conflicts with dragon boating quite a bit - although most church jobs give you a sabbatical during the summer when paddling is in full swing. But I would like to be singing on a regular basis and I would like to be earning a paycheck. The other nice thing about this is the hours are conducive to a full time mom.

8. This is more for fun than anything. I watched a documentary on netflix about dreams and there was a doctor that did a study where he found that over a long period of time, thematic elements in dreams really gave insight into peoples mental state about their lives. I'd like to keep track just to see if I'm heading in the right directions.

I feel like my list has some manageable challenges in it. Perhaps if I start to succeed at some of these goals I'll be able to get to sleep easier!

On a completely off tangent, I'm listening to a recording of Choral Cross-Ties singing Lauridsen's Madrigali. It's absolutely breath-taking. I hope I get to sing them with a choir of equal quality someday.