Showing posts with label Geneva. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Geneva. Show all posts

Saturday, October 27, 2018

Saturday morning love.

Have you ever had the best part of your entire day happen before you've even turned on a light?

Cora was in our room at 5:45 a.m., wide awake, happy, ready to face the day.  She's always so happy when she wakes up, and today is no exception.  Jimi and I were tired, though - I'd personally been hoping she'd sleep in a little and let me sleep until at least 7.  I tried to get her to lay down with us, hoping maybe she'd go back to sleep, but she was chatterboxing away - "Daddy LOVES his Batman shirt" and "Kitty Wibby scratched me yesterday" (he didn't, that was forever ago, but everything is "yesterday" right now).  Jimi got up to start getting ready for work (overtime, yay!), and I tried again to get Cora to cuddle up with me and settle in.

From the other room, Geneva, sounding a little sleepy and confused, yelled out, "Cora?"

"What?" Cora hollered back.

"I love you."

Cora yelled back, "I love you too!"

 Oh, be still my heart.  Geneva continued, "If you want to come lay in my bed with me you can."

The only thing in the world better than mommy and daddy's bed is big sister's bed, so Cora bolted up and scrambled to cuddle with her sis before sis changed her mind.  I could hear them talking as they got the covers situated, Geneva giving directions and peppering the conversation with little drops of "Good morning, little girl" and "I love you sweet girl".

Jimi called from the bathroom, "Well, that's the sweetest thing I've heard all week."
"Yep," I replied, "My heart is melted."

Happy Saturday!

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

I blog to avoid the internet.

Fifteen minutes tonight filling out permission slips and volunteer forms and her reading log - I feel so grown up!  There's never a moment I drop the responsibility, never a moment their care isn't a live current running underneath everything else happening in my brain, but sometimes, when I have a quiet moment to sit and really think, it blows my mind that I am a mother, responsible for the lives and well-being of two other entire humans.  What they eat, what they wear, when they bathe, how they play - I have a say in all of it.  Not just a say - I damn-near control it entirely.  It's crazy to me that someone let me have this much responsibility without checking to make sure I'm qualified in any way for this much power.  No Pressure.

G had her first parent/teacher conference today, and it lined up perfectly with C's follow-up pelvic ultrasound, so Jimi took the phone conference in the car with G in the backseat while C and I went inside for her appointment.  They were done with her so quickly, we were back to the car in time for the last part of the conversation.  Basically, she's awesome.  She's reading and writing at nearly a first grade level, which is awesome.  She's ahead of most of her class in math, but she needs to keep practicing on her counting (that jump from 29 to 30 fouls her up every time).  She's a little ray of sunshine, a joy to have in class, friendly and helpful to all of her peers.  I heard the part about how they had to move her to a new table because she was too social, and how they expect they'll have to move her again eventually when she gets social with this table too, and I grinned because, yep, that's my girl.

They told us not to expect C's results for a few days.  The technician took the pics, the radiologist "reads" them and sends results to our doc, then we should hear from our doc in a few days.  I want to hold a goshdang Kaizen event to get these people in line - can't we remove a step or two here and multitask to improve turnaround?  For gosh sakes.  Anytime you're in an ultrasound of any sort, you desperately just want to know, "Does everything look normal?"  She didn't halt the test and go get a doc for a second opinion or anything, so there's that, but when she was done, she did say that she needed to check with her doc and asked us to wait for just a moment.  I felt a small pit of dread drop itself into the center of my stomach, but she came back within a few minutes and said we were all set, good to go.  That doesn't answer any questions, though.  So we wait.  And keep sending out into the universe good vibes for no big deal.

My head is a mess, guys.  I'm so sad when I scroll through my social media pages - pictures of new babies and family gatherings sandwiched between horrid tales from sexual assault victims and memes joking about sexual assault survivors posted by men I previously believed to be Good Men.  I want to stay informed, but I've realized my desire to be informed is not so much keeping me abreast of current events so much as depressing the fuck out of me.  I can scroll for hours in twitter and facebook and Instagram, but I'm not gaining any new knowledge or enlightenment from it - I'm just following the crowd into the hole of chaos and awfulness.  I tried to step back last night; I drew myself a warm bath, threw in a bath bomb, turned on a YouTube meditation video to help with stress and anxiety, and tried to let it all go.  When my bath was over, I didn't feel any better, I felt lost and still so sad.  I asked Jimi if he would hold me; I just needed to lie in bed with his arms around me and feel safe.  He did, and I cried and cried until I couldn't breathe through my nose anymore.  I sobbed the big shaking sobs you cry when you're heartbroken, because I am heartbroken.

"I want to live in a world where everything is fair, where everyone is treated equally, where everyone has to follow the same rules."   Why is that too much to ask?

I am aghast at the state of our nation today.  I am appalled.  But I've been doing a little learning, and I'm learning that I shouldn't be all that shocked.  To paraphrase a post I saw somewhere by someone on some social media something:


The United States 
was formed by 
wealthy white supremacists 
to promote their interests and agenda.  
The system is working 
exactly as it was designed.  


In-fucking-deed.  


So yeah.  I'm having a hard time over here, but I'm taking steps to get better.  A social media hiatus between now and election night is on the agenda. I'm even avoiding some of my favorite podcasts, because they're political and informative and the facts they give stress me the fuck out.

Self care, right?  That should be the word of 2018.  It's the only way most of us will survive it.



Tuesday, February 20, 2018

It's Tuesday. Here's what I think:

I'm so damned impressed by these kids in Florida.  I hope they change the world.  I'm trying to convince Jimi we need to go to Washington DC in March.  I may just go by myself.

Arctic ice is melting. Russia totally fucked up our last election.  More people died because someone's feelings were hurt.  Are we great again?

So many complicated thoughts.  So many things to worry about.  My kids ate cupcakes at 8:30 tonight.  WTF?

But.  Mountain pose.  Pay attention to your breath.  Be in the moment.  Calm.  Steady.

It isn't all bad.  There's Sheli and Dot.  And Mom.  And Jimi and those sweet babies who love you so much.  And the puppy and the kitty.  Life is sweet and good.

And Sheli made sables and I brought some home.  I'm going to eat one now.  One of the ones with strawberry jam, because those are amazeballs.

The world is really fucking scary.  There are lots of bad things happening every day.  Remember to look for the helpers.

Dot moved her momma into her home tonight.  Her momma took a train all the way from Oregon to Chicago, then she and Dot's sister rented a car and drove down, but there were lots of roadblocks and hiccups along the way, so they arrived about 24 hours later than originally planned.  But there was Dot, with a smile and a hug, and a warm healthy dinner, and a houseful of beloved friends, to welcome her momma home.  She's a real helping helper.  It warms my heart to think of her selflessness in this - the work she put into making sure her mom's room was just right, the details she watched.  She's a good woman.  I hope her momma can feel the love tonight.

Geneva did not get into the school we wanted her to get into.  Knee jerk reaction from me is to look into private schools.  I went to my 20 year high school reunion this past weekend, and I had a conversation with an old classmate of mine who is a teacher now.  As I found myself in the middle of telling this woman that I think public schools aren't the best choice for my little angels, I realized I'm an asshole.  This woman paid thousands and thousands of dollars to go to school for years and years so she could make a barely-livable wage to have the privilege of working in a public school.  She's signed up to buy her own work supplies because her employer can't.  These days, she's signed up to be an actual human shield should some gun-wielding nut decide to shoot up her school.  And she does it happily, because teaching is what she loves.  And there I was, saying that wasn't enough.  What in the actual fuck, Natalie?

So.  Maybe we're going to try out this public school thing.  I won't lie, these kids in Florida give me great hope for our future.  They are starting a movement.  If the Russian trolls are against you, I'm with you.  And I'm thinking - if I can find the money for private school, why can't I find that same money to donate to my child's public school?  Why can't I help boost their resources, literally put my money where my mouth is?  Maybe I can talk to some people and get them to feel the same way. Maybe we can start a thing.  Maybe.

I went on a tear this weekend - I believe the issue of school shootings is absolutely a gun issue, BUT, if you don't, that's cool.  If it's an education thing, let's fund the shit out of our public schools and give teachers and counselors the tools they need to educate and support and guide our children.  If it's a mental health thing, let's fund health programs and make mental health services readily available for everyone.  If it's a parenting issue, let's fund family leave policies so parents can attend to the individual needs of their children without fear of losing their jobs and/or going bankrupt.

There has to be an answer.  If we are the greatest nation on Earth, we can find a way to stop these massacres.  Doing nothing is not an answer, and it's not okay.  I think we're seeing the beginning of a movement that will make something happen.  I have hope.

When Trump was elected, my Daddy told me, "The US has survived things far worse than Donald Trump."  True.  But he's still pretty fucking bad.  The indictments that came out this past weekend show that Russia was actively working to get him elected because they believe that was literally the best way they could hurt America.  Our sitting President was elected by people swayed by Russians trying to harm our country.  That's a pretty fucking big deal.

I'm waiting for the leaders to emerge - the ones who lead the charge of infuriated and outraged Americans who demand justice for our democracy.  Surely we have elected someone to a higher office who is up to this task?

Monday, November 13, 2017

a day in the life...

The girls lost TV privileges last night for not listening.  For three days, because that's the number that came out of my mouth with exactly zero forethought or consideration when I was doling out their punishment.  They're actually being punished because they poked a hole in Daddy's air mattress, by jumping around on it when they'd been told over and over not to do that, to lie down and watch their movie or we'd put it up.  It was patched easily, but still, when you don't listen and you break things that belong to other people, there needs to be repercussions.  Television and candy are the only currencies my children recognize and in my efforts not to give them food issues I'm trying really hard not to give them candy and treats as a reward for good behavior and, as such, I don't withhold those things when they've been naughty, either.  But TV, that magical rabbit hole, I can take it away and they feel it to their core.  They're like little junkies, and those first few hours without are always rough, but even more so if you don't have something else planned, which, of course, I did not last night as I capriciously bellowed out their sentence.  But whatever.  It's not like I planned the second kid, either - living life by the seat of my pants over here.

Cora is in a phase.  She'll be 3 in two short days, so I'm going to rely on the old fall back and straight up blame her wild behavior lately on her tender age.  She is wild, though.  WILD.  If you're reading this, maybe you've noticed the Instagram feed over there on the right - did you catch the picture of her covered in enamel model paint?  She'd been upstairs for a few minutes.  Geneva was up there too, but it's a large space for two little girls, and it's not unusual for them to play separately.  I don't know what I was doing downstairs - laundry, dinner, cleaning, drinking - but I realized I hadn't heard from her in a few full minutes.  I started up the stairs as I called her name, and I smelled it immediately - you know the smell, that fumey paint smell.  Oh shit was my only thought, and then she came around the corner and I said it out loud, "Oh shit."  Her right arm was a swirl of sticky purple and red and white and black enamel paint, the sort that comes in tiny glass jars to be applied to miniature figurines with tiny little brushes; her left hand was the same, up past her wrist, and her chin and cheeks were similarly styled.  Cora had found these 10 year old glass bottles on a shelf in a closet, unscrewed the lids, and had, I can only imagine, poured the paint into her hands and rubbed it onto her face and arms as if it were lotion.

In a blur, I checked her over with my hands and eyes the way a mom will, making sure she didn't have it in her eyes, her nose, her mouth - somehow, she didn't. I was yelling for Jimi at the same time, thinking in the back of my head, "He'll know what to do, he'll know an easy way to fix this, he knows something about everything."  When he put his head into the stairwell and saw us there, saw colorful Cora, I saw the oh shit in his eyes, and his words only backed that up - he had no idea was to do, and he sounded a little higher pitched than normal.  I don't want to say he was panicking, but he was close - he was scared, and that scared me too, but also, strangely, it made me calm down nearly immediately.  I used my calm serious voice, the one that is very matter-of-fact, and as he stripped her down in the bathroom, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed the Dawn dish soap and my phone and delivered the Dawn to the bathroom as I googled "how to remove testors model paint from skin".  The answer, if you're not interested in googling, is vegetable oil and glycerin soap.  We had vegetable oil, and the CVS up the road had glycerin soap I figured, so I left Jimi and the paint-covered child in the bathtub with a gallon-bottle of Crisco Vegetable Oil and headed to the CVS.  They had glycerin - not soap, but in a little squeeze bottle.  I figured it would work well enough, and it did, with the Dawn, and with poor Jimi rubbing and sudsing for nearly an hour.  He even got it out of her hair.

That's sort of the way it is with her right now.  The Friday before the paint incident, thirty minutes after I'd left to head over to visit a friend, she apparently decided to try to change her own poopy pull-up and covered the bathroom in shit.  I missed that completely, thank goodness.  Poor Jimi.

But yeah, 2 days before 3. She's sunshine and rainbows and silver linings - she wakes up happy every single morning; she's quick to tell me she loves me and that I'm her favorite and that I'm beautiful; when she gets in trouble she says "I'm so sorry, Mommy.  I'm so so sorry." But she's also into everything, like a little tornado.  She bounces from one thing to the next without a break in between.  I'm regularly surprised to find myself cleaning one mess while she makes another mess, again, for the 4th time, and we've only been home for an hour.  I should stop being surprised, probably, but how realistic is that?  I'm still ever the optimist, thinking all day at work about how much I miss my precious little angels and how they are going to be so sweet and loving and well behaved once I pick them up from daycare and we head home to a fabulous evening of family dinner, a game or two, maybe a walk around the block, then bath, story, bed...and then I actually pick them up and one of them is in a shitty mood and the other just wants to play but it's at the absolute most inopportune time because we're in a parking lot and there are cars and also other parents but I don't give much of a fuck about what they think but I do still care a little because i'm not going to yell "get the fuck over here right now!" the way I'd really like to do.  And then the pouty one pouts her way into her carseat as I wrestle the playful-turned-screaming-banshee one into hers and by the time I'm buckling myself into my seat I'm angry and my heart is racing and what the fuck I looked forward to THIS all day?!

But I am still an optimist, because some nights are nights like tonight, when Geneva had a good report from her teacher and was giddy with the praise, and Cora ran into my arms and hugged me and said "I missed you so much!"  We laughed our way to the car, the three of us, and got buckled without any breakdowns. Cora is newly forward-facing, so she can talk and interact in a brand new way.  We talked and sang the new Taylor Swift song on the drive home, then we danced to Katy Perry and Psy in the dining room until it was dinnertime, when we changed the playlist to The Avett Brothers.  Dinner was delicious, and so was the piece of Halloween candy they each got to choose from their stashes after dinner. 

They wanted to paint, so we made it happen.  Cora had a shower, then we played Baby Store.  We can't watch the store being built, aka them getting naked down to their underwear/pull-up (presumably because new babies are naked under their blankets?)  and into their blankets, so if we don't hear them the first time they call us to come shopping, or if we don't come to the store quickly enough, Geneva - who up to this point has given instructions to us in her lilting sweet voice "Pretend you wanted two little girls who were perfect for you but you had to go to the baby store to buy them and me and cora were the babies you buyed" - will break character and scream out in her angry voice "Mom!! You have to come buy us!"  When we go into the store (usually the living room), they'll be laying on the floor or on the couch in pretend baby beds, wrapped in bedsheets or quilts that have probably been found in the basket of clean blankets and sheets I've just carried up from the laundry room, where said blankets and sheets were just as likely to have been washed because they'd been drug across the floor by these two versus having actually been used as bedding on a bed.  They'll be goo-ing and ga-ing and making little baby-like noises, and my job as the mom is to walk up to each one of them, fawn over how precious they are, and then ask them if they want to come home with me and be my new baby girl.  They always say yes, and I never have to actually pay anyone - I just pick them up and carry them to whatever part of the house Geneva has designated our pretend home, and then we either play kitchen or start all over.  Sometimes Cora is already my baby and she and I go to the store together to buy her a sister.  Tonight the game was Jimi didn't want any babies, but said I could have some if I wanted them. I went to the store, picked out each baby individually, then carried her to her daddy, who cooed and gooed over each girl in turn. 

They were both thrilled with their game of make-believe, and didn't argue a bit when I announced bedtime/story time.  We read a PeppaPig story about George and his dinosaur balloon.  I held Cora a moment and snuggled her, but she wanted down - and promptly climbed over the rail and into her crib, where she covered herself up and said, "Goodnight, Mommy, I love you."  Jimi came in to pat her as he sang to us all. Geneva was mad when I said I was going to sit with her rather than lie down in her bed - I've slept in there a lot the last few nights at her request and my back is a wreck because of it.  She pouted, but I held her until she was over it and she let me tuck her back in without argument.  She told me she loved me, I fluffed her blanket three times, and the night, that part of my night, the awake electric bright white part of my evening, was over.

And here I sit with the dregs of hot tea turned cold, surprised at how long it took to tell you those things and at how good it felt.  At how good it feels.  These are the days I want to remember.  These are the stories I want to tell. 

Also:  Last night, Cora fell asleep early, so we sat at the table and ate dinner as a family of three.  We were probably 2 hours in to our television moratorium.  Geneva loved the mashed potatoes and asked for seconds.  She loved her family.  She was so happy to be eating dinner as a family.  She liked the green beans a little.  (These are all things she told us, verbatim.)  She and I played Go Fish after dinner until bedtime - we tied once and I won once.  She didn't even pout - she kept proclaiming how much fun she was having.  There's seriously something to this no TV thing.  I think our Netflix is suddenly broken...

Monday, April 3, 2017

The stories she will tell...

"You know what my great great grandmommy told me?  She said Pool Head Cover Off.  And then I came to you.  A better mommy.  You're a better mommy to me."

You know those "creepy things kids say" emails that used to float around and still appear occasionally on clickbait sites?  This is Geneva's contribution. 

She's been talking about her great great grandmommy, Donna, for weeks.  She says Donna died when bad guys broke into her house and killed her.  But she shows G all sorts of things and tells her all sorts of stories. 

Pool head cover off.  Pool had cover off?  A little kid drowned in a pool in the backyard of our home, years before we bought it but recently enough that we found little McDonald's happy meal toys in the backyard and basement and upstairs for years after we moved in.  The story we've heard is he snuck out the back door during a family event of some sort - a birthday party or baby shower or something - and got into the pool when no one was watching.  He was only little, 2 or 3.  Our neighbors remember it and have told us their versions.  The pool is long gone, and I use this story as a reminder of why we don't buy one of those >$200 pop-up things at Wal-Mart for some summer fun and relief.

I don't think G is the reincarnation of the kid who drowned in our backyard 15 years ago.  But her ramblings tonight were a little creepy.  Kids say the darnedest things. 


Sunday, March 5, 2017

Happy Birthday Geneva!

She's 4 now.  My sweet baby who made me a mom turned four years old today.  Well, it's after midnight now so technically her birthday was yesterday, but she was born at 11:36 p.m., so this time four years ago, I still had her naked on my chest.  Or maybe we were trying to nurse for the first time.  We weren't to our room yet, I know that - it was after 3 a.m. before I finally ate, after 21 hours of labor and only a quickly-slurped cup of potato soup Jimi snuck in to my room and slid to me between the nurse's check-ins.  Grilled cheese and fries, that's what I had that morning.  Everything was bland and a little soggy, the way hospital food always is.  I was high on endorphins and the amazement of what I'd just done, and I couldn't stop staring at that little bitty face, that teeny button nose.  She had some bruises on the bridge of her nose and across her brow and a teeny little red strawberry mark on her chest - those all faded long ago.  She's 4 now. 

She can spell her name and writes it with a little nudging.  She's learning to write numbers.  She can "read" - I know she's memorized these books, but it's really neat to hear your child of not-quite-four recite words from a page. 

She's so persistent.  She is so determined.  She's so moody.  She's kind and sweet and good.  She tries so hard to please.  She is a caring and thoughtful and loving big sister, to Cora and Finnegan (whom she calls her "puppy brother".  She has recently started telling me she wants a people brother, but I shut that shit down because no.).  She is bright and sunshiny and full of laughter and goofiness and fun.  She is also grumpy and whiny and petulant, but usually only for a short time. 

She is exactly like me. 
A better version, of course.
Poor girl.
Lucky girl.
Awesome girl. 

I sure hope I'm able to do right by her. 
I hope I can be the mom she deserves, the mom they both deserve.


Happy Birthday, Hiku baby.  You are my sunshine.

Monday, February 13, 2017

Love

I love how happy and full of life my girls are - how easily they laugh, how well they play.  Geneva makes up the best stories, the funnest games, and Cora's right there, right in the middle, picking up every nuance and detail Geneva puts down, playing along flawlessly, filling in the gaps, as if they were created from the same DNA, just slightly reorganized...

They are the best parts of every little thing.  They are the hardest parts of every little thing.  It is magic that they are able to do both of these things, all of these things, at exactly the same moments - and somehow, from the chaos, create beauty.  Exquisite, breathtaking, heartbreaking chaotic beauty. 

I love them with every part of myself.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

The Best Parts of the Week

The Best Parts of the Week were, in no particular order:

Geneva told her sitter's husband this afternoon: "My mom is pretty."  I'm not sure where that came from, but man, it sure felt good.

Know what was even better though?  Last night, she and I went for a walk around the block.  "I love you, Mommy." and "I love walking with you, Mommy."  Wow.

This morning, Geneva was reading a book to Cora.  Those girls.  Geneva loves Cora so much, and Cora searches for Geneva constantly, her face lighting up in a huge two-tooth grin when she finds her sister.  Watching them together makes me feel like maybe I understand my purpose in this life.

Geneva and I went swimming Sunday and Monday nights.  The whole fam-damily went to Columbus OH for three days so I could do some training with my counterpart in that office, and the hotel we were in had an indoor pool with so much chlorine the water had a film over the surface and my skin started to burn after fifteen minutes.  G gave zero fucks about her burning eyes and skin, though - she was SWIMMING!  We took turns being sharks, holding our hands up like fins above our heads and saying "Do do, do do, do do" as we moved in for the tickle attacks.  I wish sometimes I had a videographer who could follow me around and record all of these precious moments i'm going to forget in the next twenty minutes.  I'm adding that to my list of shit to buy when I win the lottery or come up with a multi-million dollar idea.  Videographer.  I'll build them an addition on the back of the house so they can live on-site.

Full length mirrors.  I'm almost back to my pre-pregnancy weight - thanks only to the tandem breastfeeding and poor nutrition that comes from being a full-time working mother of two because I sure as fuck can't get my ass to the gym - and my body is something that gives me good thoughts more days than not.  I don't know how I look to other people, but when I see me, I see a strong woman who's given birth and life to two amazing little girls with this body...gotta respect it, you know?  And I recently bought some new clothes that make me feel a little more sophisticated than my usual uniform of yoga pants, nursing tank, light casual cardigan/blouse.  A few of the guys around the office have made some comments that tell me I'm not looking half bad for a 35 year old mother of two - a cheap thrill, sure, but a thrill nonetheless.  (she says as she slugs another mouthful of refrigerated cabernet sauvignon from the 375ml bottle her husband bought for $20 in the hotel lobby and they never got around to drinking together because the kids never go to sleep early enough for the grownups to enough energy to have grownup time...)

I'll get a check for a couple hundred bucks for my mileage for the trip at the start of the week.  Extra money is always good.

My husband is so awesome.  Wednesday was sort of, well, really hard for me.  For no particular reason, just because sometimes life is hard, even if the difficulty is of your own making or even in your own head.  Hard is hard.  I cried the entire way to work that morning.  I was miserable all day.  I got home that night and our conversation had me in tears again.  He  did what he's always done - he listened, and then he offered a couple of logical solutions, each with their own pros and cons he was patient enough to weigh out with me.  He listened to my pipe dreams and pretended with me that there was actually a way to make them reality.  He promised me that if I needed to follow through with those pretend fantasies, he'd work with me to ensure our success.  I can't make the sort of changes I'd really like right now, but it's so reassuring and comforting to know that my partner will be by my side to help me work out viable solutions to my problems every step of the way.  I love my Jimi.  For so many years now he's been my safe place, my confidant, my best friend.  The new and the shiny has long since worn off, but man, what we've got here, this beautiful thing we're still doing...we've got a special thing going, I think.  one that seems it had to have been inspired, on purpose, intended, fated, destined, meant to be.  Lucky, lucky us.

I have so many people who love me.  I posted on facebook Wednesday:  I'm struggling today with a lot of anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. My friends and family rallied to give me kind words of love and support.  They made me cry happy tears.  Sweet friends.

I harvested my first zucchini last night.  Jimi sautéed it with garlic, olive oil, then squirted it with lime juice.  Oh my goodness, it was so yummy.  I sure hope we get another one.  My eggplant flowered, I harvested one little pea pod that had the two most delicious peas I've ever tasted, we have about 8 tiny watermelons growing, and I think my seeds from Australia are actually growing.  The sweet potato vines seem to be doing well, my beans and cucumbers are flowering - even the black beans! Did you know black bean flowers are pinkish/purple?  They're so pretty. 



I made it to Friday.  Tomorrow's Saturday.  YAY Weekend!

What was the best part of your week?  And can you guess what this post was originally going to be about?




Tuesday, June 2, 2015

I'm going to start blogging again.

It's nearly 11 p.m. on a Monday night.  Our first Monday back to work after a week-long stay-cation. A week long staycation that was intended to be an opportunity for Jimi and I to catch up on some things around the house - laundry room organizing, painting, maybe a bedroom revamp. We went to the park nearly every day, and the zoo once.  We kept the girls home with us every day but Friday and we were a family all together for 8 whole days and it was wonderful.  We got our house in order (mostly) on the day the girls went to the sitter because it was Friday, the end of the week, and we couldn't possibly enter into our weekend with our house in the state it'd become while we were busy playing all week.  Nothing was painted, nothing was organized (wait- i did organize the pantry. I'm counting that), nothing was revamped.  But, hey, we spent a week together as a family.  There will be time for painting and organizing and revamping when my girls aren't tiny anymore and no longer believe my attention is the most important thing in the world.  All my life I've wanted to be the moon and stars for someone.  Now I am.  For two.  My goodness, it's a lot of work.

So yeah, I had a baby.  Back in November.  Wow.  I'm a bit late with that announcement, I guess.  Poor baby.  I've got a birth story for her drafted and saved on here somewhere.  I'll post it eventually, I promise. I have to.  If I don't, it'll give her a complex.  "You wrote about G but not about me!"  Nah.  Not happening.

Her name is Cora Jaymes, and she's beautiful and perfect in every way.  She arrived at 8:43 a.m. on Saturday November 15, 2014 weighing in at a whopping

...

It's 11:15 Monday night.  :)  Cora weighed 9 pounds 1.6 ounces at birth, and was 22 inches long.  She's also had a stuffy nose for the last 3 months and it seems to be coming to its peak here lately.  I had to step away just now because she got choked on phlegm in her sleep and started coughing and gagging.  She and Geneva share a room now (as of 2 weeks ago - we finally moved our 19 pound, six month old baby into a crib and out of the bassinet!), so whenever the baby starts to stir, I'm in there as quickly as i can be so she doesn't wake Geneva with her cries.  Also, it's a good idea to respond when you hear your infant gagging.

All of my worries were so dumb.  I gave that last push, the one where you've decided "I don't care how bad it hurts I just need this to be over!" and you give it everything you've got - I gave that last push, and she was out and on my stomach and I looked down at her little purple warm body and saw that sweet little face and my brain was like "Oh.  Of course."  She's my girl, my daughter, my flesh - of course I love her as much as I love Geneva.  Of course it's just that easy.  Of course.  It makes so much sense now, on this side of it, but my mom-of-one brain couldn't grasp the concept.  This love thing, it's fucking powerful.

I can't catch up on everything now, not in this one post.  And maybe there's nothing to catch up on.  We've been living - this time has been so much easier than the first time, but that's not to say it's easy.  Cora nursed easily, but constantly.  My maternity leave was 8 weeks of plopping G in front of something "educational" on Netflix while I nursed our newest family member.  Knowing that cluster feeding is a thing, and that it will pass, saved my sanity this go-round.  Also, placenta encapsulation.  10/10, would do it again.  Jimi's been awesome, as expected.  I think Cora's his favorite, but mostly because she's a sweet cuddly little baby and Geneva says no and screams and demands that "mommy do it".  She's the most awesome 2 year old that ever 2'd.  God, she's cool. Seriously.  Her vocabulary is out of this world, and she speaks so clearly.  She has amazing thoughts and comments and observations.  Well, maybe not, she's 2.  But she's really cool for 2.  She is incredibly polite, and i'm so very proud of that fact.  She says "Thank you" and "Please" and "I'm sorry" in context and with feeling.  She loves her little sister.  She is a typical toddler and throws tantrums a few times an hour, but man, you wave that baby in front of her and it doesn't matter how serious the pout, her face breaks out into an amazing smile full of sunshine and love and she literally starts to coo and goo at Cora.  She hugs her and kisses her and plays with her and takes her toys and tells her stories and is always concerned about "where's baby at?"  Cora, for her part, is an equally awesome little sister. She loves her big sister and watches her every move, and I expect we don't have long before she's mobile.  She cut her first two teeth this past week - we've been anxiously awaiting that day for months, because, as I said, she's been snotty for three months. What else do you blame a snotty happy otherwise-not-sick baby on other than teething?  Cora is going to be a coppery redhead, I think, and it looks like her eyes are going to be a stormy blue or brown.  She's fair like the rest of us, and favors Jimi more than Geneva does.  You can tell they're sisters for sure, and there were times early on when I would watch her nurse and swear I was seeing baby Geneva all over again, but they are each beautiful in their own unique ways and don't really look a whole lot alike.  And I am going to have to be so careful about how I comment on this in front of them, but oh my god Cora is so big compared to Geneva!  Cora is hanging out in the 90th percentile for weight and the 100th for height, whereas G has always been real comfortable right around the 50th percentile mark for both.  There's only a 10 pound difference in their weights right now.  They are 20 months apart.

I can't wait to watch them grow up.  They're beautiful together, and I get to help them and watch them blossom and become the amazing women they're going to be... I'm so excited that this is my life, my journey.  I am so incredibly blessed.  What did I ever do to be so lucky, to deserve such riches?

So that's why I'm going to start blogging again.  Because I've missed too much already, and I don't want to miss more.  I won't get it all, but if I can get even a small snippet of the awesome that is this moment, right now, well, it's a worthwhile investment.

It's 11:52 p.m. on the first Monday after vacation.  The alarm is set for 6 a.m., but my human alarms will ring out at 2:15, 4:00, 5:30 and finally at 5:58 with "Mommy! Milkies!"  (Yes, I'm still nursing my toddler.  STFU about it, okay?)  I've had two beers in the last hour it took to write this and I'll be honest, I've got a bit of a buzz.  A rare reminder of what it used to be like back when I could drink more than half a beer before it got to hot or, more likely, forgotten.  I've missed writing.  It feels good to do it again, like going to the gym after being away for a while, but with more beer and sitting and less sweat and moving.  I'll have to do it more often.  Also, should go to the gym.

I want to go back and edit, but editing is for suckers.  Or people who've had less than 2 beers.  G'night, friends.  Sweet dreams.

Monday, March 3, 2014

The First Year

I waited for her for so long.  Her middle name, which we've finally decided is pronounced "AyvLEEN" (Aibhilin), means "child who was longed for", and it is so fitting and true - she was longed for.  She was worth the wait. 

I can't believe how lucky we are, how lucky I am.  That we would be so fortunate to have her as our daughter - our own little baby to love and adore - I can't imagine what we must have done in a previous life to deserve such a pleasure.  We must be favorites of the one who assigns children. 

She's a year old tomorrow.  12 glorious months, 365 days filled with so many smiles my face hurts daily.  She's easy - she loves people, but she's fine with playing on her own, too.  If she's fussy, something's amiss - she needs a new diaper or a nap or a boob.  She eats nearly everything you put in front of her, and nursing is still going strong and has been a breeze (once we figured out what we were doing).  Her favorite words are Mama and Dada and Duck, but she talks all the time; her sweet little voice is more beautiful than wind chimes.  She's been walking for weeks and is nearly a pro; still lots of stumbles, but that could also be because of the 9 mo. clothes she's still able to wear - the footie pants don't have grippy feet.  She still wakes once a night to nurse, but has gotten much better at not waking when I return her to her own bed.  She's healthy and smart and so much fun. 

I can't believe how fast it's gone by, this last year.  If I think about it too much i'll start to bawl; she was so tiny just a moment ago, but I blinked, and now she's walking and talking and before I know it she'll be off to college and won't need me anymore unless she needs someone to co-sign for an apartment.  I can't believe how much I've missed.  So many hours at work missing her sweet smiles when she wakes from a nap, or watching her discover new things.  She's still a baby, but she's becoming a little girl and it makes me so sad that I didn't enjoy those brief moments a little more, that I didn't soak them in better.  But I don't know how I could have, honestly - they were gone before I knew they were fleeting.  I told Jimi, "It's like she wakes up a little more every day."  Like a flower blooming. 

There is so much to motherhood that I didn't know was part of the package, so many day to day trivialities  that you never consider when longing for a baby.  I'll be honest, even though I'm scared to curse myself by sharing this thought:  it's so much easier than I thought it would be. It's hard as hell, don't get me wrong, but I love her so much, I want to do everything for her, i'm happy to do everything for her, it's my privilege and my honor to do everything for her.  Not that I don't get frustrated, because I do, but when it is all said and done, I'm so blessed to be in her orbit, and to be her mother - it's a prize greater than anything I could imagine.  My job is easy because she is easy; I don't fool myself into believing my thoughts on this matter are typical or even that they would be the same or similar if we made Geneva a sibling (which is the main reason we plan for her to be an only child).

I kept her alive and happy for an entire year.  Do you know how much sleep I could've gotten had I known last year i'd reach this point this year?

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Lucky mom

We took a late nap today, like 4 to 7, and so we felt justified in taking little girl out to get Mexican food for dinner at 8 o'clock.  She ate cheese and lettuce and fruit/veggie/yogurt melt things and an entire pouch of pear/kiwi/spinach baby food stuff.  she probably would've eaten the heck out of some ground beef from our tacos, too, but she's not had meat yet and i'm not sure why we're holding off but it's felt like the right thing so no taco meat for the Hiku tonight. 

She decided last weekend that she didn't need her walky-walk toy anymore to get around and left it behind to walk across the floor.  She hasn't completely abandoned it or the couch or a wall to help her get where she's going, but she relies on them a lot less frequently.  Jimi and I looked at each other that first night and said "our world is about to change".  As if that's something new.  The last year has been one change after another, and I think we may as well just get used to that. 

She still nurses to sleep every night.  I don't know how to get her to sleep without a boob or a swing or a combination of both.  I imagine this has potential to become a problem, since she's outgrowing her swing and won't nurse forever, but for now it's working for us so I try not to think too much about other moms who are able to put their child in bed awake and walk away without a complete "i can't believe you just abandoned me!" meltdown ensuing.  I'm a little jealous, but not much; we just do what works for us.

Dadadada is her favorite word, and she tells nearly all of her stories using it.  From a low chatter to a high-pitched squeal, she loves to talk about her daddy.  She's almost completely stopped saying mamamama.  I'm trying hard to not have my feelings hurt. 

She'll be a year in less than a month.  The time has flown and I can't believe my teeny tiny little baby is already a walking chattering little girl.  I feel like I missed something, but I'm too busy to spend much time worrying about it.  I try to soak up every moment with her - just tonight, my arms tired from her heft, my nipples tender from her nursing, I was so overjoyed to have her sweet warmth against me, to smell her sweet milk breath, to hear her little mumbles as she drifted off to sleep, still talking about daddy.  Holding her and feeling her solidness - I dreamed about her for so long, sometimes I just want to hold her and feel her and rejoice in the fact that she's here and she's mine and she's SO FUCKING AWESOME.    I probably shouldn't use that word when talking about my sweet daughter, but jeez oh pete, she really is super cool and sometimes you just have to use certain terms to express the depth of your emotion on the subject.  She is awesome.  She's smart and funny and adorable and sweet and good-natured and spirited.  Being her mother is the hardest job I've ever had, but she's an easy baby.  We're so amazingly fortunate. 

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

The Birth of Geneva Aibhilin - The Conclusion...Finally. Sort of.

My beautiful daughter is 8 months and 1 day old.  I've not yet finished telling her birth story, and I'm ashamed of myself.  The details are fading in my memory - they aren't as sharp as they were in the days and weeks that followed.  Everything in my life now feels as if it is coated in a haze - like the glare that seems to always be in pictures taken on a sunny day, yellowish-white fingers that reach into the scenes of your memory and soften the edges and block out a few, just a few, details in the corners and edges of the frame.  It's a happy haze, but a haze nonetheless. 

So I need to finish telling the story of her birth.  For her, and also for me, because, let's face it, that was the best, most challenging, most mind-blowingly amazing thing I'll ever do - probably the only miracle in which I'll actively participate. It's sort of a big deal.

WARNING:  Below contains some pretty yucky graphic descriptions of the real stuff that happens during the birth of a human.  Don't say I didn't warn ya.

When we left off of Part One, I was heading into transition, still riding those waves in the tub, thinking about how I was going to make sure the world knew Jimi called me a manatee while I was trying to birth his baby.  Bless his heart, though - the things he saw that day.  When the nurse checked to see if my water had indeed broken, she released a flood of yuck, so I'm told.  I can only imagine.  I was unaware of said yuck, and had no hindrance when it came to dunking my head and face under the water for relief between waves (contractions).  At one point, I vividly remember leaning my face up to kiss Jimi, and he sort of pulled back and urged me to wait while he wiped something off my forehead with a washcloth.  Eww.  And that was just the beginning.

When I started feeling the urge to push, I was nearing 9 cm dilated, and it was time to get out of the tub. Oh, how I dreaded getting out of the tub.  I just knew the pain would be too much.  My wonderful nurse brought huge heated blankets to wrap around me, and helped Jimi lead me to the bed.  I think I lay on my side for a while, but the waves were so strong, and I just knew that if I could get on all fours, they wouldn't hurt as bad.  So that's what I did, for a long while.  I don't know how long I pushed - time was sort of irrelevant.  I remember shivering through transition, and I heard Jimi ask the nurses and midwives if I was okay, and hearing them reassure him with the answer that I already knew but hadn't fully come to realize was happening to me at that moment - the time was so near!  They told me I could push whenever I felt the need, and I did, there on the bed, on all fours, covered for a while with those now-cold warmed blankets, then with my bare ass shining out for all to see.  I remember looking down and seeing the bloody mucus hanging - oh my goodness, there were four women staring at my ass as I slowly dripped yuck.  And my husband!  He was seeing this too!  In talking with Jimi later, I think he missed a lot of that because he was up with me, at my head, reminding me to breathe, and release, and relax.  He was calm and gentle and strong and wonderful, and at one point my audience, comprised of two nurses, my midwife, and her student midwife, was heard to whisper - "His voice is so soothing, I feel like I could go to sleep."  I can hear you!-I thought.  A good chuckle was had by all. 

I pushed for a good long time, but nothing was really happening, at least not that I could tell.  So I turned around and used the bar at the foot of the bed to support myself as I squatted and pushed.  Jimi just reminded me the midwives kept saying "good sounds, good sounds", as I moaned and aaahhed my way through my waves.  If I hadn't been so otherwise engaged, I would've had a hard time controlling my giggles and the peacenik hippie images they brought to mind - I saw myself in the same position in the center of a green field, surrounded by women in long skirts and flower wreaths circling their heads atop long flowing manes of blonde hair.

The squatting wasn't working, and I was becoming less and less concerned about my naked ass in front of these women, and more and more concerned with the fact that Geneva hadn't arrived after a couple of good pushes.  It felt like nothing was happening. 

So back on all fours I went, again, for another good long while.  (All told, I think we've pieced together that all of these good long whiles lasted a total of probably 2 hours, maybe slightly longer.  They seemed an eternity at the time.)  Progress was slow, and I was tiring quickly.  My midwife could tell, and encouraged me twice to lie on my side, which I refused, fearing it would make the pain so much worse.  Finally, she insisted we try it, and I was so tired, so desperate for this to be over, I relented and flopped over, allowing the student midwife, Jimi, and the nurse to prop various parts of me with pillows before the next wave came on.

It was the right thing - the next wave was intense and I could feel Geneva moving down inside my body.  I felt very full in my hips - I guess now her head hung out there between my pubic bones for a while, as I pushed good and hard a couple times, but stopped short at the last second because (I thought) I could feel myself pooping.  Despite everything else these people had seen of me in the few hours we'd been acquainted, I was concerned enough about my dignity that I did not want them to see poop come out of my butt.  The third time, though, the phrase "fuck it" when through my mind, and I pushed and didn't pull back, I followed through.  I still don't know if I pooped - I think I did, and Jimi says he couldn't say for sure, that if I did, they had me cleaned up immediately so no one could've noticed.  He says that because he loves me.  It seems so ridiculous now, knowing what came next.

So, after the poop push, Geneva was right there, you could almost see her head.  I pushed again, but I could feel myself stretching, at the top of my vagina, and I was so afraid I was going to tear, so again, I held back at the last second.  Poor Geneva. They said her head was RIGHT THERE, and asked if I wanted a mirror to see - "No!  I just want her out of me!!"  I was so poetic that night.  I wasn't going to be able to hold back again - it was time for her to be born, and this thing was going to have to happen. With the next wave, I pushed with everything I had, and when I felt myself start to tear, I again thought "fuck it", and pushed harder -

And she was here.  She slid out of me like a slippery fish and was flopped onto my naked belly.  I was so dazed at first - I looked at her and she was purple and so small and she has hair and she's SO BEAUTIFUL.  Oh my goodness, my daughter was bruised and scuffed and had bloody rings around her irises for days because of the cord that was around her neck once and the time she spent in the birth canal as I tried not to poop or tear my vag - but she was the most beautiful creature I've ever seen.

I shamefully remember thinking "My daughter is so small and petite! I have a petite daughter!  Holy crap, Jimi and I made a petite daughter! How did that happen?"  I say I remember that shamefully because I absolutely do not want my daughter to equate her self worth with the size of her jeans.  I do not care if she is a size 2 or a size 20, so long as she is healthy and happy with herself.  But our society values small sizes, and a lifetime of indoctrination that slim = good overcame me in that moment.  But seriously, how did Jimi and I make a small baby? 

I'd sought an all-natural childbirth for several reasons, but one was that I'd heard an awful lot about that high that hits you once your child is born - I was totally trying to get high on life.  I read about waves of euphoria washing over you once you see your child's face, the immediate endorphin rush that makes all of the unpleasant things that immediately follow birth - delivering the placenta, getting stitched back up - not quite so bad, or even noticeable, really.  I think the women who tell those stories might be liars, but i'm not sure.  As I stared at my beautiful daughter, thoughts of "I thought it was supposed to stop hurting now" and "Oh my god, my vag stings so bad!" kept crowding in on my awe and adoration of Geneva.  Her umbilical cord was stretched taught, it felt like, and its path from me to her lie directly in the tear she'd made on her way out.  It stung like a sonofabitch.  Finally I couldn't take it anymore and I reached down to move it - "No No No!" The midwives stopped me immediately.  "But it stings!" I complained.  Moments later, it was time to cut the cord - I'd decided

********************

I wrote all of that LAST Tuesday night.  It's Tuesday again, and Geneva is another week older, and her birth story still isn't posted.  Shame, Mother, Shame.  Anyhow...

So I'd decided to let the cord stop pulsing before it was cut, a decision I thought wise and well thought-out pre-birth.  We'll come back to that - it was time to cut the cord, and Jimi couldn't do it.  He'd told me in prior discussions that he wasn't sure if he'd be able to handle the, um, texture of it.  I totally understand what he means - the way I can't handle killing any bug that crunches.  So someone asks Jimi "Dad, do you want to cut the cord?" and he hesitates, but finally he calls it and declines - saying "I just can't do it."  "I'll do it!" I piped up, "I don't give a shit!"  SO Eloquent, Geneva's mother is. And so with my new daughter on my belly, I reached around and below her and took the scissors they handed me, and aimed where they pointed me, and I severed the physical connection I'd nurtured for so long. 

My daughter was born.
 

*****************

I started this effing blog entry 4 weeks ago.  Four!  It's the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and next week Geneva will be 9 months old. 

There's more to tell to this story - the people who were there before and after, a 24-hour stint in the nursery for observation because of G's "thick" blood, our extra night in the hospital that was on the house - but for now, this will do. 

And there you have it.






Thursday, October 10, 2013

My little girl is growing up.

She is getting so big, so fast.

Her first tooth popped through today.  I felt as if I'd won a prize.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Awesome and exhausting, motherhood is

Blog titles since Geneva's birth have been her age in weeks/days - it's been long enough since my last post that I've lost track of exactly how old she is.  28 weeks?  Something like that.  I'm an awesome mom.

Life is busy.  There's not much time these days for much more than what has to be done, and blogging hasn't fallen on that list in quite some time.  My carefree days full of hours of nothing to do and no plans has become a life so full that sometime I feel like I need to add "shower" and "make coffee" to my daily to-do lists so I can make sure I find a way to work those important things into the day.  (Plus, I really like checking stuff off on my to-do lists, so I find adding simple things like "shower" and "make coffee" gives me a boost, because I know I'm going to get those things done.  Fuck cleaning the floors, but momma needs her coffee.)

Geneva is amazing and I'm going to regret terribly the fact that I've not recorded every moment of her life here, so I can go back and read it all later.  I already miss the tiny bundle she was while I was home on maternity leave - she's changing so fast every day!  I spend her awake hours playing, singing, dancing with her, between the feeding and the changing and the bathing.  When she's asleep, there's laundry and dishes and dinner and maybe 20 minutes for yoga and 10 minutes for Facebook.  The day is over before I know it, even when it starts well before dawn. 

She's still my little milk baby and I don't even have the words to describe how proud I am of her little fat rolls on her legs, ankles, and wrists.  At her 6 month check-up, she weighed in at 16 pounds 10 ounces and was 26.5 inches long, and I was sort of disappointed they didn't throw me a party or at least offer me a sucker - I mean, I've been growing this little lady for well over a year now, and look at what a great job my body has done sustaining her!  I'm in awe of my body - I'm in awe of her, and the fact that she came from me, and that I'm able to keep her strong and healthy.  What an amazing experience motherhood is. 

I love breastfeeding, and I'm so glad we've been successful at it.  I hate pumping.  I tip my hat to mothers who pump exclusively - that's some dedication I don't know if I possess, and I'm grateful I didn't have to find out.  Because the awkwardness and discomfort aren't enough, it also is time-consuming and has made my job so much more difficult.  I'm less productive because of the interruption two to three times a day, and my co-workers are resentful because of my unavailability during those times.  I also suspect they secretly believe I'm kicked back with my feet on the desk, taking a short siesta while my milk flows - in reality, I'm hunched over with an elastic band strapped tightly across my chest, chapped nipples peeking through holes in the fabric to be fed into plastic cups that pinch and pull at the delicate skin, bare back covered in goose bumps as the AC blasts and my shirt lies wadded on the corner of the desk while I try to sort my pile of billing without moving too much (don't want to spill anything from the bottles dangling from my tits), hoping to accomplish something during this 20 minute torture session so I don't get further behind and have to stay late or take work home.  And then, when it's over and I emerge from my cave with my bag of milk and nearly-obscene bottle/flange contraptions coated with milk droplets, I'm greeted with "It's about time!" and "Finally!" and "Oh, she just came out, hold please and I'll get her on the line."  Pumping is a fucking party, let me tell ya.

Nearly seven months in, I've managed to keep up with her demand pretty well, but I have next-to-no stash of extra milk.  Patricia (a friend I've known forever and Geneva's Other Mother/Babysitter during the workweek) has maybe two days' worth in her freezer, and I have four bags in mine.  So yeah, not much milk stored up.  It's a constant worry for me, and I'm stingy with that expressed milk the way Scrooge was tight with a penny.  But we're making it, and we're going to keep getting by. 

She's just starting to learn solids.  I don't know what in the hell I'm doing or how to feed her - she's trying a bit of this and a little that, a mix between jarred babyfood I swore I wasn't going to give her and chunks of things we have around - like banana, avocado, peaches, lemons.  She really loves the purees and happily takes the spoon into her own hand and guides the food into her mouth on her own.  The chunky foods seem to be more for holding and squeezing than actually eating.  When the chunks do make it to her mouth, she never seems glad they got there.  She still hasn't had cereal of any sort, and I've got no plans to change that any time soon. 



She sleeps pretty well these days - nursing to sleep around 8, then up again for a nightcap at 9, then one more meal in the middle of the night, around 4:30.  She'll sleep on her own until 7, and if it's not a workday, she'll go back down until 9:30 or so.  (That's why I've found the time to write this morning.)  On weekends she takes two good naps, about 2 hours each, but I think she has a hard time staying asleep that long during the week.  (Other children - and shiny things - are incredibly distracting, and she doesn't want to miss anything.) 

She is so sweet.  She's so good.  She laughs and coos all the time.  Her smile is radiant.  Her eyes are such a magnificent blue, and so wide and deep.  You can see her brilliance.  Her hair is starting to come in more fully, but we still can't tell what color it will be.  Strawberry blonde seems the most likely contender here lately. 

She sits up and plays quietly with her fabric vegetables and fruit, or will bang wildly on her little baby piano.  She's not quite crawling, but she can get anywhere she wants to be by throwing her hands forward and pulling herself, using her feet to push forward.  She'll get up on her hands and knees, but hasn't figured out yet that putting them one in front of the other will move her more quickly.  Last night, she started pulling herself up onto her knees using the edge of her crib - time to lower the mattress, methinks.  Bath time is still her favorite - she loves to splash! 



She loves everyone she meets, and most often has a beautiful gummy smile to share.  (No teeth yet.)  She recently started testing us, seeing how we react to certain screams and demands.  I think we're still winning, so far, but she is a clever girl, and we're going to have to stay on our toes with this one.  It's going to be hard to not spoil her - I want to give her the world. 

Jimi and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary.  He's a great husband, and an amazing father.  Geneva and I sure lucked out.  A woman told me once that if I wanted children, I should hurry up and have them, but not to expect any help from Jimi, because he's lazy and wouldn't be there for me.  Sometimes I wonder if he's so involved because he knows that accusation was made.  Mostly I think that woman just didn't know Jimi and was running her mouth because she was a sad lonely person who didn't know how to say anything good about anyone. 

I can feel my free time running short, and I really need to heat up my coffee - I've had less than half a cup and let it go cold.  I miss you, bloggy world - I want to say that I'll try harder to come back and do this more often, but we've all heard that before and know that it's probably not true.  It sounds nice, though.    

Monday, August 26, 2013

25 weeks

I can go from a seated, cross-legged position to standing with a sleeping baby in my arms and not drop or wake her.  (lying her in her bed without waking her is another thing entirely.)

She has fat rolls. On her ankles and wrists and in the middle of he little fat thighs. I did that. I made her that way. Awesome.

This is the best adventure in the world. I think raising this girl is the purpose of my existence, why I'm here. I'm so lucky.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

21 weeks 6 days, or The Best Five Months Of My Life

She's a wiggle worm at diaper-change time. 
She sits up, sometimes even on her own. 
She stopped sleeping through the night weeks ago.
She is happy almost all the time.
She pinches and squeezes and bites while she's eating.  That's fun.
She has the sweetest smile. 
She is amazing. 

Thursday, July 25, 2013

20 weeks 3 days - The time, it flies!

This parenting gig is no joke, y'all.  We're just breezing along, enjoying every day with our beautiful daughter, doing the best we can, hoping we're doing enough and doing the right things in the right time.  I imagine all parents do that - just do the best they can, with the information available to them.  Why, then, are been there/done that parents so quick to criticise those of us who are new to this game?  Why are people so willing to tell me I'm doing it wrong?

It started at work a few weeks back - in my afternoon production meeting, my coworkers asked if Geneva is eating cereal yet, and when I told them no, they promptly told me that I'm starving my child, that I should've been giving her solids for months now.  That my girl won't know how to eat food because I'm denying her.  They brow-beat me, made me question decisions I'd made after lots of research - so I went out and bought her some cereal. 

The cereal is still seal in the unopened box in my pantry, though.  I've decided, again, not to give it to her.  Not yet.  Maybe not ever.

Mom has been sort of on my case since day one about the breastfeeding - "it'll free up a lot of your time if you just give her some formula"; "your aunt breastfed her babies and says she didn't have to feed them constantly"; and (my personal favorite) "you're DENYING me!  i want time with her when she's this age, but you always say you don't have enough milk - let me just give her a little formula."  I don't know what her deal is - it's almost as if she feels I'm questioning her parenting decisions by making choices that are different from hers, as if I'm somehow implying, by breastfeeding my child, that she did wrong by hers by giving us formula. 

Anyhow, so I was talking to Mom last night, and she asked me if we'd started Geneva on the cereal yet.  I told her we hadn't, and that I've decided we probably won't.  I'm going to breastfeed for her first six months.  After that, when I feel she's ready, we'll start her out on real food - specifically, avocados.   You'd have thought I'd told my mom we were going to feed that baby poison. 

I'll be honest - I'm over it.  I'm tired of feeling like I have to be apologetic about the way I'm feeding my baby.  ESPECIALLY when I feel like the choices I'm making are best for her.  ESPECIALLY when all the research says I'm making the choices that are best for Geneva.  I'm not giving my baby formula if breastmilk is an option.  I will not feed her empty calories to fill her belly so she sleeps more.  My job as a mother is not to make the decisions that are easier for me - i have to do what is best for my baby.  And doing what I'm doing is not all that difficult - this is our new normal, so telling me how much better my life will be if i give her formula and cereal is not a selling point.  Breastmilk is free, readily available, and not messy; and it's the best thing for her.  That last part?  Ends the discussion.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

18 weeks 5 days

She's rubbing her little blue eyes with her left hand, her right hand tucked in behind her right ear, elbow pointed out, like a little diva.  Diva Geneva, Kristina called her today.  She's fighting sleep as she rocks back and forth in her swing, tucked under a fuzzy pink blanket, her paci near her feet.  She's not making any sound beyond the occasional audible breath - her nose is a little stuffy.  Her left eye itch satisfied, she tucks her hand in behind her left ear - now she looks like she's sunbathing - all laid back.  Her eyes drift closed and her left hand drifts down into her lap - the right stays tucked behind that little ear. 

She's perfect and beautiful and miraculous in oh so many ways.  I'm so lucky I get to be her mom. 

Thursday, June 6, 2013

13 weeks 2 days - The sleepy dance

Nurse, poop cleanup, bath time, nurse, swaddle, swing to Bluegrass music on the Pandora - this is our routine tonight.  The poop and bath are options, appearing every other night or so, but the rest is becoming somewhat normal for us.  We're figuring it out.  She's usually asleep by midnight, but because I just wrote that, she'll be up until 1 tonight.  She's usually good to sleep for a solid 7 hours, but because I just wrote that, she'll be up every 2 hours tonight.  (Please let me be wrong about that.)  Once she's asleep in the swing, we'll move her to her bed, turn on the monitor, tiptoe out the door, and breathe a sigh of...something.  The feel of the house changes when she's down for the night.  It's not relief, though it sort of is.  I miss her when she's asleep, but when that door latch softly clicks into place as I leave her room, I feel like I used to when I worked the late shift at the liquor store and I'd finally turn off that neon "OPEN" sign. Like I'm able to take off the Responsible Mom hat I wear, if only for the few minutes between her bedtime and my own. 

I've got new stretch marks on my breasts, and this realization hit me kind of hard, mostly because I know it's my fault for not wearing a good supportive bra at night...or on those days I'd rather just wear a nursing tank.  I hate every piece of clothing I own.  Every. Single. One.  I feel frumpy and unattractive and tired and like a hot mess.  I need to take better care of myself - shave my legs, take the time to lotion my skin, blow-dry my hair - but who has the time?  I could make the time, I guess, but then it seems like so much work...

Jimi is an awesome babydaddy.  He packs her diaper bag every morning, while I'm nursing her.  He washes bottles, he folds baby laundry, he stuffs pocket diapers, he makes the solution for the flannel wipes.  He sings to her and plays songs for her on the ukulele and gets her dressed for bed after bath time.  He sprays out every single poopy diaper...that right there should earn him blowjobs for life.  Don't tell him I said that.  He brings me water and snacks and the Kindle and has only snapped at me once for bossing him around.  He's been amazing, and I couldn't have made a better choice for a life partner and co-parent. 

I can't believe how lucky I am that this is my reality. 
Life is so fucking beautiful. 

She's asleep - time for the swing to crib transfer.  Wish me luck. 

Sunday, June 2, 2013

12 weeks 6 days - My life is upside down.

There are pacifiers on my nightstand, on the floor in the living room, in her bed, in her carseat, in the diaper bag.  The kid doesn't like pacifiers, yet they've multiplied and made themselves at home in every corner of my home.  There's a rattle under my dining room chair, a play mat - the sort with crisscrossed padded poles attached to each corner, so you can dangle toys above baby for them to swat at - hangs over the mirror, hooked on by a corner, in an effort just to get it up off the floor.  Not that it matters - a stroller takes up all the floor space underneath.

Baby socks hide between the couch cushions, receiving blankets litter every sitting space.  "Hippos Go Berserk" and "Heroes for My Daughter" are the books found on end tables.  Cloth diapers and flannel wipes are constantly being washed or folded or both at the same time.  Baby washcloths and baby shampoo hang out on the edge of my bathtub. 

She's a breastfed baby, but I have to work, so there are still bottles to wash every day, and pump parts to clean and reassemble.  And I only bathe her every other day, but somehow last week we found ourselves without a single clean baby towel in the house.  (She seemed to enjoy the grown-up towel better, though - not one tear after tub time was over.) 

I love it. 

I love every single little part of it.  Every bottle to wash, every toy to step over or pick up.  Every time I hang up those little cloth diapers, stringing them on the line to dry, I remember the way I felt the first time I washed and hung them, getting them ready for her arrival, as she moved and kicked inside me; I was so excited to use them on a real live baby of my very own.  And now I am!  She pees in them every day! 

I have hampers full of baby laundry - clothes actually worn by MY baby.  She spits up on them, or her diaper leaks, or she just needed to be changed into something cuter - lots of baby laundry around these parts.  I love it. 

And I have to wash bottles and pump parts every day, so the sinks are clean all the time - they have to be.  And we're spending so much time in there cleaning bottles and pump parts, we might as well keep the rest of the kitchen clean too.  And we take baths together all the time, so the bathtub is super clean.  And we have to wipe down the entire bathroom with Lysol after every poopy diaper (because the poop-water gets sprayed in the process of spraying the poop off the poopy diaper), so the bathroom is pretty clean every other day or so, too.  (She's not an every day pooper.) 

And we can't go out to a restaurant at the drop of a hat anymore, so we're eating at home more often, which means we're saving money and eating healthier.  And our relationship, which has almost always been so easy, is being strained and tested in ways we've never experienced before, and we're coming out on top of each challenge, stronger and better than ever. 

This little girl is the most amazing thing that's ever happened in my life.  She's changed everything.



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