Happy Halloween!

Some great pics that Mia took of Jack in his 3rd (and last) halloween costume

 

Blah blah blah

So as I write this, someone is cleaning my house. Between her and my nanny, I now employ TWO people to do things that previously I did myself (watch Jack and clean). This is weird for me. I've had someone clean my house exactly one other time, and that's when I was 9 months pregnant and had just had construction done so there was plaster dust everywhere. This is different. This is vacuuming and dusting and basic cleaning that I just haven't had the time to do. As everyone knows, to really clean the house you need a good couple hours and I just don't get that kind of time chunk with Jack. And when I do, I don't want to spend it cleaning the bathroom (let's be honest, did I EVER want to spend my time cleaning the bathroom?) when I could be playing with Jack or sleeping or cooking or ANYTHING else. Hence the cleaning lady. But aside from the new financial burden this places on me, it's also cause for a bit of guilt. Not so much with the cleaning lady (since I have no problem with the fact that I no longer clean my shower) but with the nanny. Having her has allowed me to be a little more...indulgent during the day. I'm working from home mostly, so there's obviously times that I find myself with a spare 15 minutes or so and like every other worker in the world, I browse my random websites and check Facebook. But since I can hear her and Jack in the other room, I feel terribly guilty when I do because I think, oh I should be going in there and hanging out with him when I get a free second. But it's been really nice in a lot of ways and I realized how much I missed the little me-moments, which also includes going to meet friends for lunch and running errands on the days when the nanny is here. Maybe I'm just always going to feel guilty for enjoying things without the baby? Or maybe this is a normal result of being tethered to him for 3 months and now the leash is a little looser and I can actually venture out on my own a bit (literally and figuratively)? But it's also still strange to not have him with me all the time. I was riding the subway the other day (without Jack) and I thought about the last time I was on the subway, which had been when I was 9 months pregnant and people would give me a seat and ask when I was due and I was completely defined by this huge belly and the baby inside it, and now here I was just another person on the train. And I kept thinking to myself, they don't even KNOW that I have a baby at home, I just look like a normal person and not necessarily like Jack's Mom. It's like a weird identity crisis, since I guess I had started thinking of myself in relation to him rather than as my own person, and the idea that others wouldn't necessarily see me that way kind of threw me for a loop.

Well I just re-read that paragraph 2 days later and sorry for that total babblefest. I'll try and reign in my self-analysis and stick with the cute baby stories and pictures! In baby news, we are no longer swaddling (yay!) and have moved on to sleep sacks, which are working well. Also, I've been doing the 'put-the-baby-to-sleep-when-he's-still-awake' method and that is also working out well! Prior to this, I needed to rock him to sleep and then hold him for 20 minutes to make sure he was really asleep before putting him in his crib, so this is a real game-changer. Sometimes he lays there for 15 minutes "talking" to himself before he falls asleep but so far, there hasn't been any real crying it out... we'll see what happens. Now if I can just wean him off this pacifier so I don't get woken up 3-4 times a night to put it back in - he's "sleeping" through the night in that he doesn't eat between 7:30pm-5am, but I'm still getting up to stick that stupid pacifier back in since he spits it out while sleeping and then when he wakes in the night, he can't fall back to sleep without it so I dig around the crib until I find wherever he's spit it, put it back in his mouth and he falls right back to sleep. But it's not the best sleep habit for me...

Here are some more pictures - I think he looks completely different depending on the lighting, the pose, and the outfit. Will post his 3rd Halloween costume later today!

Halloween Costume #2 (it's a hot dog)

You know that he's outgrown pants
when they give him a muffin top! 

 

Three Months

Jack is 3 months old today!

The official end of the "fourth trimester", according to the Happiest Baby on the Block.

He's definitely moved out of the infant phase and onto babyhood proper. Officially less of a pod creature and more of a baby boy. This week he's begun actually grasping at things where he can reach for something and actually get it rather than just gripping something if you put it in his hands. It's pretty fun. You can see him concentrating really hard when you hold something in front of him - he brings both his hands in from the sides really slowly and grabs on to the thing, like it's a complex calibration of movement to bring his hands together, which I guess for him it is.

The work/nanny front continues to go pretty well. I still really like my nanny and going to work still sucks, but working from home has been pretty successful, so hopefully that continues. We had a screening on Monday night so my  mom came down for the day, since I thought it was still a little early to have the nanny put Jack to bed at night and my mom's done it before.

I think I'm ready to move Jack out of his co-sleeper an into his own room. He's still waking up 2x per night (though there are those delightful nights when it's just once) but I don't know how much of that is related to his acid reflux (which continues to plague us even though he's on the medicine now and feeling MUCH better than he did a couple weeks ago). Right now, he goes to bed between 7-8pm and wakes up once at 12-1am and then at 4:30/5, then between 7-8am he's up for the day. I want to cut out that midnight wake up (the early morning one doesn't bother me as much) but I don't know if it's time for the tough love stuff yet or if I should wait a little longer. I know he's capable of sleeping 8-5 since he's done it before, but he really does seem to be hungry when he wakes at midnight, so I don't know if he's ready for it even if I am.

For your viewing pleasure, Halloween Costume #1 (of 3) I couldn't get him to hold the "Cock-a-doodle-do" candy bag, but you get the picture...

Back to Work, Day 1

So this morning, I handed Jack over to a virtual stranger and went off to work. It was horrible. The nanny seems great - I only ended up interviewing 2 in the end, and I really like her and feel great about her. BUT she is still someone I've only known for a couple days and it took all my willpower not to call her every 5 minutes and make sure all was well and Jack was still alive. She came recommended from another family in the neighborhood - she's been their nanny for 2.5 years and now that their daughter's in preschool they don't need a full-time nanny anymore so we are "sharing" this nanny. Which means basically that she's with Jack alone until about 2:30 and then they go and get the other little girl and have both of them until 5:30. I like this because a) it makes me feel better knowing that this other family has known her for years and really likes her, and b) because she's been nannying in the neighborhood for a while, she knows all the good kid spots, where the storytimes are, etc... c) it makes it less likely that she will run away and sell Jack on the Baby Black Market. But it still sucks. It's also pretty damn expensive. I still think I will likely move him into daycare when he's a bit older, maybe when he passes the one-year mark? But who knows. Maybe I'll love this situation so much that I'll take out a second mortgage to keep the nanny.

I don't know what the answer is to the whole work-mom question. Even though it isn't remotely an option for me, I know I couldn't be a stay-at-home-mom. I'd go insane. But I certainly wouldn't say no to a LITTLE more time with him. Especially when I go back to work for real in the new year and I'm on a much more normal work schedule. It's going to be a real bummer seeing him for an hour or two in the morning and then an hour or two in the evening and that's it, 5 days a week.

Oh well. It's not like any of this is new territory. I know mom have been dealing with this for ages and dads even more so. It's just so different to think about in theory when you're pregnant and know that you'll be going back to work. All day today, taking the subway, walking down the street, it's like I kept thinking I'd left something at home and then I realized I had...Jack. After 3 months of literally almost never being more than 10 feet away from him, it's so strange to be a train ride away. All day.

Sorry for the slightly bummer post. At least you don't have to read the rambling paragraph I wrote and then deleted about America and it's bastard policies on work/family/mothers. It was pure drivel.

And as always, a pic of the little man. 12 weeks old today. He's getting more and more hair!

Childcare

So my original plan was to take 6 months off after Jack was born. I had saved some money - not a ton, but enough to not freak out about returning to work right away. But then on Wednesday I got a call from the people I was working for before he was born and they offered me the chance to finish up the project I was working on before. They kind of made it really hard to turn down, since they're cool with me working essentially from home 3 days/week and it will just be til Christmas, which is kind of a great way to transition back into things. So I'm going to do it. Now of course, I have to figure out who will watch the child while I make this work. I had long thought that a nanny would be the most sensible option - both because then she could be at the house with him so if I'm working in my bedroom, I could still come out and see him when it's a slow morning. I could also save a pumping session or two if we were both in the apt at the same time, which is always a bonus. I also figured with my work schedule, where I have certain times where I'm not working conventional hours, that it would be easier to work that out with a nanny rather than figure out each day who could pick him up from daycare. So I figured nanny now, and then when he's a little older, segue into a daycare scenario.

So just for the hell of it, I went to check out one of the in-home daycares in my neighborhood. It was kind of horribly depressing. There was about 5 pack and plays lined up on one wall, the tv was blaring in the corner, and it just seemed rather bleak and miserable. Now I'm sure it wasn't as bad as I think it was, I think I was just kind of shocked at the idea of leaving Jack there for 9 hours a day a week from now. Maybe if he was a little older it wouldn't have seemed so bad? But it only strengthened my resolve to find a nanny, even though it's triple the price of a daycare. I'm interviewing one woman tomorrow and one on Tuesday, both come recommended from moms on the local parents group who've had them taking care of their children for several years each, so I feel good about that. But it's very strange to think about interviewing someone not to work with me at my job, but to work FOR me in my home. Someone that I'm entrusting to take care of Jack all day long. It's going to be strange. How do you know who's a good fit for your kid and how can you guarantee they're not insane and they won't leave him crying on the floor all day while they talk on the phone and watch tv?

I'll let you know how the interviews go...

And I'll leave you with a little series of pictures I took of Jack yesterday in our chair. He is nowhere near being able to sit up on his own, but if you prop him up against something, he can fake it reasonable well. Until he can't...

Doing great.

Starting to falter

Tries to recover

Going down

Fail.