A Mom's Reflection

Dear D,

      You are the absolute light of my life, sweetie. Yesterday was your very first birthday and I was so proud and happy to watch you cheerfully playing with your new toys, interacting and flirting with everyone, enjoying every second being the center of attention. It was just an amazingly joyful experience to watch you.

       During these past 12 months I have watched you change so much and develop this incredible little personality that I learn more about with each passing day. You're so full of unbridled enthusiasm and every time you learn some new skill - crawling, walking, pointing - I find myself feeling so excited for you because it gives you a new way to explore this world you never seem to tire of.

      I won't tell you it was always easy. Colic, sleeplessness (yours and mine), teething, sickness - we've been through it all, buddy. While I still don't always have as much as I need, you have taught me the virtue of patience in ways that no one else ever could. You have reminded me of what it is like to be a child. You have made it so that everything old is new again. There have been many nights where I actually want you to stay awake past your bedtime because I will miss you if you go to sleep. (Luckily for everyone, common sense always prevails over that temptation.)

    My favorite moments of every day this past year, the one I will never forget even though no photos or videos exist of it, are those that happen when I bring you into bed with me in the mornings to cuddle, nurse and (hopefully) fall back asleep for a little while longer. So many of those times I have stared at your sleeping face in the crook of my arm, taken a mental snapshot, and said to myself "I have never loved anyone or anything more in my life than this little creature right here."

    My darling, sweet, baby boy, this year with you has been a gift. I love watching you turn into a little boy, and I will love watching you grow into a man. I promise you I will continue to do my best every day to make sure that your life is full of love, affection, and support as you grow up and make sure you have the tools you need to do well in this crazy, unforgiving, and complicated world.

    I love you more than words, D. Happy Birthday.

Love,
Mama

It's Always Something

I've been away for a bit longer than normal, barely having time to read and comment on your pages. My Grandpa's death was like a 12 day event, with family flying in and staying with us and subsequent visiting with others who stayed elsewhere. I've also been working on planning D's first birthday party in June, which has turned into a minor clusterfuck because apparently everyone either waits until the last minute to rsvp or doesn't rsvp at all, which REALLY pisses me off.

But beyond all that, I'm feeling pretty beaten down in general. The absolute deadline for the bathroom renovation is the baby's party, which is less than a month away. That means that every single day, all day, I am by myself with D while A is at work. And when A gets home, we eat dinner, and then he goes to work on the bathroom until bedtime. So I am by myself with D all evening as well. For the past few weeks he seems to think that whining and temper tantrums over stupid shit are just the Awesomest way to spend time with Mama.

The first person among my friends to have a baby now has 2 of them, and the oldest is 5. A couple of years ago I asked her, "So how's motherhood?" At the time she still only had one.

She said, "It's pretty good. Once you realize and accept the fact that your kid is an asshole, it gets much easier. Because up until that point you constantly ask yourself what you're doing wrong and how can you fix it and it makes you crazy. But kids are assholes, and more often than not it has nothing to do with you."

I thought it was a pretty amusing thing to say and of course, back then, I didn't understand. Now, I do.

"Hi, my name is JLK, and my son is an asshole." *sigh*

I've realized it, but I haven't yet accepted it. Even just typing that sentence makes me cringe and itch to delete it and write something nicer. But that would be sugarcoating and I hate sugarcoating.

Everything right now feels like a struggle. Bedtime is a struggle. Diaper changing is a battle of wills. Changing his goddamn clothes is an exercise in futility. Keeping the child from eating the cat food, dumping their water bowl, or trying to explore the litter box makes me feel like Sisyphus, only instead of pushing a boulder up a mountain, I'm dragging a toddler across a tile floor.

It has only been getting harder.

He took his first steps the day before he turned 11 months, and hasn't shown any interest in walking since. This child is 24lbs and has weighed over 20lbs since he was 5-6 months old. I am so freaking tired of carrying him all the time that I could scream. He doesn't hang onto me to help with the weight - instead he leans over, flops around, and makes it as difficult as humanly possible. My upper body looks like Vin Diesel's right now.

There is so much going on, so many things I need to do, and I am losing my ever-loving mind over here.

If Only

There needs to be a place where, on those days, you can just drop your child (or children) off and know that he or she is in very safe, capable hands until whenever you decide to return.

Image taken from Hollands Jewelers Blog

You know what I'm talking about - a place you can put them when you're seriously on the verge of losing your shit. Where you don't have to call first. You just show up with your frazzled self, hand off the little brat, and come back to pick them up whenever you're feeling better.

I started thinking up some names for such a place:

"Mental Health Day"care

The Sanity Asylum

The Sanity Sandbox

Take a Penny, Leave a Suzie

The Kiddie Kennel

Minor Retreat

The Rest Stop

Whine to Wine

Yes, JLK is being kind of an asshole right now. It's been one of those days and I won't lie, I was fantasizing about what it would be like to have the ability to drop D off somewhere and be like "I'll be back in a few days" and head off to the shore or something for some peace and fucking quiet.

An accurate representation of what my day would have looked like. If I had earplugs.

Please don't get me wrong. I love my son dearly. But today was a nonstop whine- and shriek-fest and I thought my head was going to explode when it was barely 2pm. I kept coming back to the same thought: "When your baby has colic, you tell yourself 'He's just a baby, it's not his fault, it's his only way of communicating.' But at what point can you comfortably acknowledge that he's just a brat sometimes? 11 months? 2 years?"

When does it become okay (in your own head or otherwise) to be like "Okay, kid. Now you're just being a douchebag"?

And I was also thinking what a better place this world would be if moms could go to a neighbor (or anyone else they know and trust, for that matter) and say "I'm about to lose my shit. Can you please take this child before I sell him in exchange for a bus ticket to Hoboken?" and feel okay about it. Feel like a better parent for recognizing her limits and taking a break when needed. Feel like it's okay to take a moment (or 10) for yourself every once in awhile.

As I put D down to bed tonight, my final thought was this:

"Fuck, would it be nice to paint my toenails in the middle of the day again."

Ooooh. If only........

Learned From Experience....

If you start feeding your baby the same meals you serve the adults at your dinner table and he/she enjoys them, you will feel quite a sense of pride and accomplishment that your cooking skills apparently pass muster among the toothless set.

But then just like the warning about feeding your pets table scraps, whenever you sit down to try and enjoy a meal or a snack for yourself, your child will whine and beg like a dog until you give him/her some.

Dammit, Rover!

or:

NO KITTY! This is MY pot pie!!!!!

Pride & Purpose

There's a stirring in my soul these days. It's a reminder of how, once upon a time, I wanted to do something important. I wanted to make a difference in the world somehow, some way. I wanted there to be meaning behind what I do every day. I wanted to set and attain goals.

My son, of course, is the most important thing in my life and raising him is making a difference in the world and gives plenty of meaning behind what I do every day. And while I hope that someday he looks back and is proud of how his Mama loved and raised him, I also want him to be proud of who I am as a person and the things I accomplished in this world.

Initially I thought I would be earning a PhD in Social Psychology. Researching gender issues and actively working toward a society in which calling someone a "girl/boy/man/woman" was merely a descriptor and no longer carried with it all of the biases and beliefs we have about what those labels mean - how a person should act, dress, speak, etc. But as with many things in this world, I discovered that the sheer amount of bullshit I would have to wade through in order to get to the point of being a difference-maker was just too much. I feel the same way about politics right now - I know how I would like things to be, but there's just too much opposition out there to actually be able to make a difference.

I've been spending a lot of time recently with a friend who has been through some of the worst things many of us could even begin to imagine. She came out the other side of it as this amazing, compassionate, beautiful person who, without even trying, has the ability to inspire others to make better choices, to live fully and without apology, to face darkness in our lives and in ourselves head-on and to make something out of it. She has been making a difference in people's lives through her blog - simply by telling her story and its accompanying happy ending (not the right word, as the story isn't over and never will be, but that's the best I've got) in such a real, from-the-heart, nitty-gritty way that it's impossible to look the other way and not be touched by it. She is an incredibly talented writer and her husband and I are encouraging her to transform her writings into a book when she's ready, because it's just too important NOT to be shared with the world. She will continue to make a difference in the world with each passing day, in addition to the difference she makes raising her daughter with pure love and gratitude. To read her blog and the story she tells, please click here. If you decide to read through the archives, I suggest you have a box of tissues handy and no important place to be.

The stirrings within me to find a new purpose have been strengthened by getting to know her. I don't have a story to tell. But it has made me look at my life and ask "What am I really DOING every day?" The job I get paid to do does make a difference in the lives of anonymous children every day. I help schools raise money and promote literacy among their students. I directly help to put about 500,000 books into the hands of kids every single year. That's a pretty big number. But at the end of the day I am still working for a major corporation that, despite its sunshine & roses mission statement and lipservice paid to literacy partnership and promoting reading, is still out for profits, is still responsible to its shareholders, and still makes company decisions based on the bottom line. I hate that, but there's nothing I can do about it. It's not the greediest corporation in the world, but it's not a nonprofit either. So I stay, because I need to get paid.

I started to think about what my talents are, what my experience can be used to accomplish, and what types of things I would feel good about doing and would have personal meaning to me. Since moving to a rural area, my love of nature and wildlife has been rekindled in a major way, something I have not felt particularly passionate about since I was a child. I have only lived in this house since November, but in that time I have seen several species of owls including a Great Horned owl that hunts in my yard every night and a Barred owl that visited us right around Christmas. One morning I woke up to find a Blue Heron standing in the little pond on our land. There are eagles, falcons, hawks, rabbits, squirrels of all colors, woodpeckers that think our house is a giant tree, deer - you name it, I probably have it in the land behind our house.

Our Christmas owl. He was much bigger than he looks here.

The Blue Heron that stopped by for a visit.

I am not a birdwatching enthusiast, despite all appearances to the contrary. But spring has just begun and I started wondering what other animals and birds I would see as the weather grows warmer. I thought about how neat it would be to name them, and how much my son might enjoy that as he gets older. This reminded me of the children's author Thornton Burgess. I read many of his books when I was little and my favorite thing about him was that his inspiration for the stories he wrote came from the animals he saw every day on his land. 

That land was willed to the Mass Audubon society after his death, and was transformed into a wildlife sanctuary called Laughing Brook. I can't even tell you how much time I spent there as a child. There was a staff who cared for animals that had been injured in the sanctuary, rehabilitated them, and those who were unable to safely return to the wild were kept in large outdoor enclosures where visitors could view them as close to their natural habitat as was possible. It was my favorite place on earth. Floods, fires, and financial woes have all contributed to the demise of what was once a thriving nature preserve. I have returned to my memories of it many times in the last decade or so and have been frustrated by my lack of ability to DO anything about it. 

But now that I have a son who I am raising somewhat close to the area where I grew up, it has become increasingly important to me to share with him the things that were close to my heart in my childhood. Laughing Brook is one of those things. And it has been suffering. 

I realized that I might actually be able to really help. I have helped raise literally millions of dollars for schools in my territories. I have sales skills for days and days. I have strong networking connections all over New England. So I contacted Mass Audubon and told them I want to help. I told them what I have to offer. All I need from them is a dollar amount. I said "Tell me how much money you need to restore the place to what it used to be. Then tell me how much money you'll need every year to keep it going." I will get that money for them. I will make it happen. 

And hopefully sometime in the not-too-distant future, I will make the drive to Laughing Brook with D. I will tell him all about how I used to go there all the time with his Great Grandma. I will tell him how Shawnee the coyote was my favorite animal there and how I used to sit for hours and talk to her whether she listened or not. I will tell him about walking the Chipmunk Trail and counting how many chipmunks I would see. I will tell him about how Laughing Brook was forgotten for awhile and how no one came to see it anymore. 

Shawnee the coyote. Taken from Hell's Acres blog.

And then I will tell him how his Mama helped to bring it all back to life so that children just like him could enjoy it the same way I used to. And how proud I will be to have done it. 

Tips for Applying to a Job as a Nanny or Babysitter

As a mom who is currently in the process of trying to find a caregiver for my son, I have found quite a few things lacking in some of the applications I've received. Because of that, I decided to compile a list of tips for people applying to nanny jobs that will help to keep your application from going to the bottom of the applicant pile.

1. Your Profile Photo: Like it or not, pictures speak a thousand words and on the internet they give a first impression. If you put up what looks like a headshot for a modeling job, that suggests vanity. When looking for a photo to put on a caregiver profile, don't necessarily go for the one you think you look "best" in, especially if it's clearly posed. It's just artificial, and I'm not going to be looking for the nanny with the prettiest eyes or highest cheekbones. I'm looking for someone who is kind and genuine - photos like that don't suggest either of those traits to me as a first impression. 

Also, as much as I love to see a photo of the nanny with children, make sure the child looks genuinely happy in the photo. Many of you out there have posted pictures that clearly involve you forcing the child to sit with you while you use your camera-phone to take a photo. They're not really smiling, their body language shows they would much rather be doing something else, and it does nothing for you if I see that in your picture. 

The best profile pictures are those that show a real smile - a photo that wasn't intended to be a profile photo. Or a photo that shows you playing or cuddling with a child that clearly adores you - we can see it in their face, in their arms draped around your neck, in their almost-laughing smile. 

In my search so far, the nanny who is at the top of my list is one who I knew would be there from the moment I saw her photo. She has a genuine smile and the little girl she is hugging also has a genuine smile on her face and is leaning into her. The nanny looks sweet and kind. And when I received her responses to my screening questions, she was one of very few applicants who took the time to think about each question and provide a thoughtful, intelligent response to each one. Her answers also show me that she really does love caring for children and knows a lot about them. 

2. SPELL CHECK!!! There are no excuses for spelling and grammar errors in your caregiver profile. None. It is the equivalent of having spelling errors in your resume - it is essentially a summary of who you are, what you've done, and why you should be given the job you are applying for. Check it and then check it again. Read it out loud to yourself and make sure that all of your sentences make sense. Make sure there are no missing words, no "their/there/they're" errors, etc. 

No, a nanny job is not rocket science and I'm not looking for someone with an amazing vocabulary and writing ability. But I AM looking for someone who pays attention to detail. If you can't recheck your own paragraphs to make sure you're presenting yourself in the best possible light, how do I know you're going to listen carefully when I explain to you how to handle and prepare breastmilk or formula for my baby? Or what kind of and how much solid food to give him? Or if he's sick, the correct dosage of his medication and how often to give it to him? 

3. Responding to a Job Posting: If you see a job posting that sounds like a position you might like to have, first and foremost make sure you read it thoroughly. Most of these websites ask the parent to provide the salary they are willing to pay, the days of the week and hours they are looking for, as well as other things the parent is looking for such as first aid certification or someone who speaks a language other than English. If a job listing says $15/hr for 3 days per week, don't waste the parents' time if you are looking to make $35/hr on the weekends. If they list a salary range, make sure you are comfortable being paid with the middle amount, not just the higher-end listed. Can we put a price tag on quality care for our children? No, not really, because our kids are priceless. But there ARE limits to what we can afford. Don't apply for a $10/hr position hoping that the parents will like you so much they'll be willing to pay $20. They won't be.

4. The Cover Letter/First Message: The first time you contact the parents through an online service is probably going to be through an email. Don't just write something like "I'd love to know more about the job you posted. XOXO Stephanie." (Yes, I did receive messages like this.) Definitely don't just copy and paste the About Me section of your caregiver profile into the body of the message. That tells me you just don't care enough to put the time in to send something even the least bit personalized.

Use the opportunity to tell me why you're applying to the job I posted - do you love working with infants or toddlers and maybe you live close by? What days are you available? When could you start? Why should I look at YOUR profile and consider hiring YOU? If you want some help writing a great first message, google "writing cover letters" and use the tips you find online that are what people use for applying to jobs and graduate schools. The rule of thumb for writing a great cover letter is this: Sell yourself in 3 paragraphs or less.

And once you've done that, for the love of god, SPELL CHECK IT.

5. Your Profile: Especially after you've just applied to a job listing, go through your profile and make sure that you are putting your best foot forward. Does it include extraneous information that I'm probably not going to care about? Like how many dogs you have? Or maybe that you live in the house that your grandfather built? Or how about the fact that you work at Starbucks part-time? (Actually, scratch that. That's totally relevant if you can get me a discount on my morning jolt.)

Point is, if you're looking to work with children, you should explain why you love working with them, what type of job you are hoping to get, what your desired pay is, what your qualifications are, and for how long are you looking to be a nanny. If you're 21 years old and about to graduate from college and move to NYC to pursue a job as an investment banker, make sure you put in your profile that you are looking for a short-term position and why. 

6. Communications with Parents: First, remember that this isn't quite the same thing as putting an ad on Craig's List. Parents have to pay the online service for the privilege of communicating with you. Therefore, if I shell out the cash so I can send you an email, please take the time to read it carefully and respond thoughtfully and thoroughly and TIMELY. If I send you a list of questions to answer as a pre-screening, please read all of the questions carefully, think about them, and make sure your response actually answers the questions. At the very least, make sure your answers make SENSE. I asked all of my applicants what experience they have with potty training, the ages of the children, the methods used, etc. One girl, who used to work in a daycare, claimed that they potty trained children there in 2 weeks. 2 WEEKS!!! Now THAT I would pay $35/hr for!

I don't expect applicants to pay the same level of attention to email as I do to their profile and cover letter, but you should still scan for spelling and grammar mistakes, stay on-point, and answer emails as promptly as you can. I am still waiting for people to get back to me with their answers to the screening questions I sent over 2 weeks ago - and I mean waiting for quite a few people! If you applied to a job, ANY job, and they called you to schedule an interview - would you NOT call them back for 2-3 weeks? I don't think so, especially not if you really want the job. 

Remember that most parents who are looking for childcare are not particularly happy about doing so. Many of us wish we could afford to stay home full-time. Many of us wish we had family close by who would care for our kids while we work. Our babies mean the world to us, and finding just the right person to care for them is no easy task. But if you really want to work as a nanny for a great family, utilize this advice and not only will you get more interested parents, you will also make our task of finding a nanny a lot easier. 

Learned From Experience...

You can feed your 9 month-old baby curried pork with coconut and mango. He might even really, really like it!

But you WILL regret it the next day.

Oh man, will you regret it the next day.

Poll Results: Childcare Options

I did not get as many responses as I was hoping for, but oh well. I wish I could have had a better quality poll with a ranking system, but I didn't see any free poll options online that let me do that.

Anyway, the results were as follows:

1. If all costs were equal, what would be your first choice for childcare?
50% of you said that one parent staying home would be your first choice.
33% of you said that an in-home nanny would be your first choice.
16% of you said that a daycare facility would be your first choice.
0% said "other"
n=18

2. What would be your second choice?
0% of you said one parent staying home would be your 2nd choice.
58% of you said an in-home nanny
42% of you said a daycare facility.
0% of you said "other"
n=12

3. What would be your third choice?
0% of you said one parent staying home
33% of you said an in-home nanny
33% of you said a daycare facility
33% of you said "other
n=12

No real suprises here in these results, especially considering my main audience still consists of PhDs, grad students, and stay-at-home moms. However, there are still some things I am curious about.

First, those of you who said that a daycare facility would be your first choice even if all costs were equal - I am very curious to know your reasons for choosing that option. The main reason I wanted to take this poll was to get some outside opinion and hopefully help settle a disagreement between my husband and I about our childcare options. He would prefer to put our son in daycare and I would prefer a nanny. So those of you out there who prefer daycare, can you tell me more about your thoughts?

And second, those of you who chose "other" as your third option - what types of arrangements fall into that category for you? I couldn't find a poll with a write-in response option.

Problems with my poll: Inconsistent sample size - I have a different n for the last 2 polls, with the most people responding to the first question only. Also, I could not create a poll that would collect the information I was looking for in the most comprehensive, easy, and straightforward manner possible. So all in all, the information I collected is very faulty for these reasons - there are too many confounding variables.

Guess I won't be publishing this one anytime soon......

A Poll!

I'm collecting data informally. Please answer my poll and send as many people over here to answer it as you can so I can get a decent sample size!

If all costs were equal, what would be your first choice for childcare?

• One parent stays home
• An in-home nanny
• A daycare facility
• Other

View Results
Create a Blog Poll

What would be your second choice for childcare if all costs were the same but your first choice was unavailable?

• One parent stays home
• An in-home nanny
• Daycare facility
• Other

View Results
Create a Blog Poll

What would be your 3rd choice if the other 2 options were unavailable?

• One parent stays home
• An in-home nanny
• A daycare facility
• Other

View Results
Create a Blog Poll

Where The F*ck is Mary Poppins???

My childcare situation is in chaos right now. My sister, who is the closest thing to a nanny that I have, is currently trying to get a full-time job which would render her unavailable for babysitting while I work. My mother, who watches D one day a week has proven herself somewhat unreliable, selfish, and often more trouble and inconvenience than her service is worth. (But that's a whole other post.....)

So I have found myself in the unfortunate position of trying to find a nanny. As much as I abhor the idea of leaving my son with a stranger, I am running out of options. I can't afford daycare because of the minimums they charge and I only need 2 days a week. Plus with D's age, (9 months), he is beginning separation and stranger anxiety and the idea of dropping him off in a new place with new people and all sorts of strange kids would make me suicidal with guilt.

I went on FB and asked my circle of peeps where they would recommend I start my search. They suggested sittercity.com, care.com, and nannies4hire.com (which had the highest fees, so I'm skipping them.) I also inquired to College Nannies, but their hourly rate starts about 70% higher than what I am willing and able to pay.

I discovered a couple of things in my searches. First, I am swayed much more by a nanny's looks than I would like to admit. There are just way too many hot, young nannies out there - no wonder so many dudes get into trouble. Second, because of how young many of these women are, most of them are only available for evenings, weekends, and summers. That doesn't help me at all, especially since I get summers off from work like a teacher. And finally, the idea of having someone come to my house, take care of my son the way I want them to, and do some light housekeeping like unloading the dishwasher, prepping for dinner, doing the baby's laundry - is such an enticing thought that it helps to assuage some of that guilt I experience for considering handing my son off to someone I don't know from Adam.

I've never been an employer before, so this is an interesting experience for me. When a potential nanny applies to your job, you receive a message from them that is somewhat akin to a cover letter. I have noticed that while some of these people definitely know how to apply for a job, many of them don't have a clue. For example, my job posting clearly states that I am hiring for the academic year, and that hours woud be reduced over the summer to the minimum we would need to keep my son comfortable with them so that when they return in August for real, I don't have to worry about him freaking out. Not to mention the job posting clearly shows a weekly calendar where I checked off the days and hours that I am looking to fill. One girl sent me a message that says "Since I am a student I can not travel during class, but I would love to be considered for the job during the summer." Um. There IS NO job during the summer. 


Another applicant made mention of her "collegiate knowledge" as an excellent qualification, explaining how she has a B.S in teaching. I certainly appreciate an educated candidate, but my son is only 9 months old. He likes to lick things. Unless she took a class in getting babies to stop licking things, I don't see how that necessarily makes her qualified to change his poopy diapers and watch him bang on his Leapfrog table all day. 


D is everything to me. What I want more than anything else is someone who will truly care about and for him. Someone who is reliable and will be around for awhile.

Someone who won't care that I don't have cable.

Booze & Boobs (Yup, That's What I'm Going With)

In an informal poll I recently looked at, about 70% of breastfeeding mothers say that they drink alcohol. What I wonder though is how many of them actually have all the facts about drinking while breastfeeding. Because I've been doing it for 9 months and apparently I didn't have a fucking clue this whole time.

Truth is, I'm still not sure I have a fucking clue.

After a particularly social weekend, I realized I never did look up how, exactly, breastmilk production works and how alcohol enters and leaves it. Following the majority belief that "pumping and dumping" is the only way to deal with tainted milk, I went on that way this entire time. I had purchased some alcohol test strips for breastmilk before the baby was born, (which I highly recommend, by the way), and they worked really well to confirm what I often already knew about my milk supply.

Until one day, when I had pumped and dumped the night before and gone to bed. 5 hours later the baby woke up and needed to be fed. I felt off, but wasn't sure if it was from alcohol in my system or lack of sleep. I really hadn't drank that much the night before, but just to be on the safe side I decided to test my milk before feeding the baby. The result was positive. WHUCK???

From that point on I became pretty paranoid about drinking, never having enough to even earn a buzz, especially not unless the baby was asleep for the night and I knew he wouldn't be waking up. But it bothered me that I didn't really understand how it all worked. I read that alcohol would be out of your milk about 1-2 hours after having a drink, and you should never feed your baby if you feel even slightly buzzed, and that pumping and dumping was an alternative to waiting the 2 hours. I personally just never understood the waiting thing - where did it go? Any nursing mom can tell you that when you don't feed your baby, your boobs get bigger and bigger and more full as time goes on. There is certainly no physical evidence to suggest that milk cycles out of your boobs as time goes on. (Unless you're weaning of course, but that's another story altogether.) So to me, pumping and dumping just made sense. Get rid of the "bad" milk and let the "good" milk come back in.

But it turns out that's wrong. 

A little research on the internet turned up the info that alcohol enters breastmilk through the blood, and so the amount of alcohol in your blood is what affects the amount in the milk. As long as the alcohol is still in your bloodstream, it's still going to be in your milk. But if it's clear from your blood, it's clear from your milk because your body has metabolized it all out.

Supposedly, anyway.

I just still don't get it. And two of the claims from the same site just don't sit right with me. First, it says that most milk is made on-demand for the baby while he/she is nursing. But again, see what I said above about your boobs in between nursing sessions. That suggests otherwise, wouldn't you say?

And second, it says that drinking alcohol to increase milk supply is a bogus old-wives tale. Now I have no access to research that might show this to be false or whatever, but my anecdotal evidence is solid. When I pump after having a drink or two, I pump WAY more milk than I normally get after the same amount of time has passed when I haven't had anything to drink. And second, Bethenny Frankel's well-paid, live-in baby nurse gave her a glass of beer to help her with milk production. The woman was a NURSE, for pete's sake.

And of course, in case this all wasn't enough for you, here's some more conflicting information. Wait 6-7 hours before nursing again after a few drinks? Wait 2 hours for every drink you consume?

Fuck that. No one has any freaking clue. I think I'll just stick to my test strips, thankyouverymuch. 

But I Wanna Be on HIS Team!!!

About a week ago, D figured out how to pull up to standing from his tummy. Using only the floor. He stands on his own for a few seconds at a time with a big grin on his face like he knows he's doing something awesome.

I'm so screwed.

He also thinks he can walk. He can't, of course, but he likes to try and just get up and go. It nearly always ends with me clutching my pounding heart in one hand and his round little bottom in the other. My guess is that he'll be walking by the middle of next month.

So, SO screwed.

I was flipping through WTE the other day and looked at the section on 10 month-olds. It includes a subsection on discipline and how to go about teaching your baby limits early-on. And I realized that this is how everything is going to change.

Up until now just about everything my baby does has been viewed as progress and we have accomodated HIM accordingly. I wasn't going to try and "teach" my baby that outlets are dangerous once he started tooling around in his walker - so we installed tamper-proof plugs in the entire first floor. Problem solved. There are tons of examples just like this. We've all been on Team D, running the same race, holding hands and singing Kumbaya together.

But soon, very soon, D is going to be starting his own team. And A and I will be his opposition. And so begins the next 18+ years of our life until he grows up and we find ourselves in non-competing divisions. (I'm really not that into sports for the most part, I swear!)

Pretty soon I'm going to have to drop "No"'s like they're hot. I'm going to have to designate a time-out spot. He is going to throw tantrums and say "I hate you, Mommy!" And this.......this is what I think is going to make me want another baby.

Because it's only that first year that everyone gets to play on the same team, with the same goals. And I think I'm really going to miss that when it's gone.

To Breed or Not To Breed

A and I have started talking a little bit about the possibility of having a 2nd baby. This question isn't an easy one for us - on the one hand, we never intended to only have 1. But on the other hand, the desire to focus all of our attention and resources on D, my reluctance to undergo another c-section if the pregnancy came to that, as well as the still-fresh memories of colic and continuing sleep difficulties make the image of another baby a bit less than desirable.

If you had asked me a couple of years ago, I would have said I wanted 3 kids, each about 2 years apart. D is almost 9 months old and still nursing - a 2 year age gap would mean trying to get pregnant again right after his 1st birthday in June. That's a long-ass time for my body to not be my own. Selfish? Yeah, probably. But I'm human. I wonder if it's better to get it over with sooner or to take a break while planning on giving it up again in the future.

There are really only 2 reasons that come to mind for having another child:

1. Everyone I know who was an only child says they would give anything to have a brother or sister. I don't want D to grow up thinking he missed out on something; Which those of us with siblings have to admit, he would be missing out.

2. To avoid someday regretting that we didn't have another one. Selfish? Yup. But again, only human. I worry about potential regrets - things you can't take back or undo, missed chances. For me, they are the worst feelings in the world.

Sure, I could probably add others to the list, but these are really the only 2 that stand out consistently as important reasons, at least for us.

But I worry - can we handle it? How will I divide my attention? How will the timing work out? Will I still be able to work or would I have to quit? If I have to quit, can we really afford another one?

I mean shit, it's not like we have a college fund started for the one we have. (Note to self....should really look into that at some point......)

The timing thing really gets me. I love 3-4 year-olds. I can't wait for my son to reach that age so we can play with things like Legos and play-kitchens and all that. The thought of missing out on that time with my son because of a new baby in the house makes me sad. So I think to myself that a 2 year age gap would work, but if that didn't happen we would have to skip ahead to a 4-5 year age gap. But then I wonder - is that too far apart? My sister and I are 3 1/2 years apart and we're not all that close. I wonder how much of that has to do with age and how much of it has to do with her moving away with my mom when my parents divorced.

My husband and his brother are just about 2 years apart. They are also not close, but used to be. They have this competitive dynamic between them that just creates a major wedge. They can't talk about ANYthing in their lives without it becoming a contest somehow. I don't want that shit going down in my family.

I didn't love being pregnant. Most of the time, to be honest, I didn't even really like it. There were things that were cool, and many things that sucked. And I was lucky enough to have a very easy pregnancy, albeit one that culminated in a nightmare labor and delivery, but the prior 38 weeks were mostly a cakewalk. So I'm not one of those chicks who's like "Ooooh.....I can't wait to be pregnant again! It was the happiest time in my life!" No offense to any of you who ARE that chick, that's just not me.

Nor am I one of those chicks who's like "My baby's growing up so quickly......I just miss him/her being small and cuddly and I really want to have that again." Nope, again not me. I vividly remember the hours of my colicky infant screaming inconsolably and counting the days until the 12 week mark, saying to myself "That's when this is supposed to end.....3 months.......just make it to 3 months without killing yourself......." Then reaching 12 weeks and still no end in sight. It was about 15-16 weeks before it stopped. That was the longest 4 fucking month period of my entire life.

And sleeping. Ohmygod sleeping. This one could go either way - wait to have another one, get normal sleep back sooner but have to give it up again later, or be complete zombies for the next 2-3 years but get  that part over and done with so by 2015 or so we can maybe get 8 hours a night every night. Be still my heart......just the thought makes me swoon!

I want to hear from the peanut gallery out there. If you have a post on your blog somewhere about your decision to have or not have another child, link up so I can go read it. If not, tell me about it here in the comments. For those of you with more than one - how'd you come to the decision if it was on purpose? What was the transition like to go from 1 to 2 kids? Did you purposely space them? If baby #2 was more of a "surprise" how did you react? If you only have one and only want the one, how did you arrive at that decision? Etc., Etc., etc.

Basically, tell me all about it folks.

Tuesday Evening Ramblings

As I sit here on this Tuesday evening, drinking a glass of cheap-ass wine after putting the baby to bed, besides thinking about how drunk I'm going to be after 3-4 sips of this shit riesling, I find myself thinking that I'm feeling a bit isolated these days.

Yes, Aunt Becky, I'm going to write that post you skipped after deciding it was too whiny.

I have plenty of acquaintances who are moms, but none who I'm really close with. I have one who I've been "mom-dating" pretty steadily, mainly because her daughter is only a month older than my son, but we're by no means exclusive BFFs. We know each other well as moms - it's the only context in which we've spent time together - and though our parenting styles can be very different at times, we both accept and respect each other's way of doing things and actually enjoy talking about our differences because of that.

But as women, it doesn't seem we have much in common. Our personalities are different, our senses of humor are different, and although the gaps are not too wide to bridge, they can't be ignored completely.

The closest thing I have to a best GF is a friend who is not yet a mom, who still parties pretty hard, and has a husband who makes it virtually impossible for her to hang out with her friends on her own because he's also friends with all of us. And ever since we moved 25 mins away (even though it's only 8 miles), it's been extremely difficult to coordinate a way to spend time together.

Because I work full-time (albeit from home), I can't really join a playgroup and I'm not sure I'd really want to anymore anyway, and I'm living in a new town where I don't know anyone. I also do not live in a "neighborhood" setting - I have one neighbor on one side with a 6 year-old son who is never home, and a neighbor across the street with what appears to be a 2 year-old daughter, but I'd never know because she has never introduced herself or even waved. (Though she has no problem letting her goddamn dog on my lawn......but that's another story for another day.)

So where does this leave me?

In the motherfucking blogosphere, that's where. And frustrated, to boot.

"Why are you frustrated, JLK?"

I'm so glad you asked. Thanks for caring about my feelings, Blogosphere. See, every day I read these wonderful, awesome, kick-ass blog posts from these amazing women who bare it all for The Internetz to see. In some ways, there are bloggers I feel I know better than the people in my real life because of the things they choose to share on their pages.

Now of course here I am giving the benefit of the doubt (or as my husband says, benefit of doubt - who is right????) and just believing that the public persona matches the private persona of these women. But even if it doesn't - it would take a heck of a masterful writer to pull off some of these personalities if they were in no way a reflection of self. (Again, here's looking at you, Aunt Becky!)

I am constantly hunting for bloggers who live in my neck of the woods. PhizzleDizzle up and moved far, far away (not that she was that close in the first place, but driving distance at least) and she was really all I had. I've looked at blogs from people in my state who identify themselves as such, and so far I have to say, they're written by women who I don't think I would have ANYthing in common with whatsoever.

There are so many of you out there though who I absolutely adore - those of you whose pages I read and think "Now THIS chick is someone I could get drunk and have great conversations with!" But then I find out at least in general terms what your geographic location is, and I think "Goddammit! We'd have to get drunk over Skype or some shit!"

And we all know that's just not the same. You especially know this if your spouse/partner is in the military.

Ahem.

Anyway. So I'm grateful to have found all of you over there on my blogroll, because you've made me realize that I am not alone in this crazy ass journey of motherhood/adulthood/womanhood and that there are people out there with the same sick sense of humor and appreciation of random shit that I have. I love you all for it. But I also wish you were all just a car ride away where we could meet up for Mexican food and margaritas or hang out at my place with a glass of ass Yellow Tail riesling or some Captain & Coke Zero and make fun of stupid people. Or something.

Bottom line - if any of you are heading out to New England anytime soon - hit me up. Because JLK needs more people in her life like you guys.

Babes In Toyland

D is getting bored with the toys he has. He doesn't have a lot - just the basic stuff like blocks, those dangly stuffed animals with little mirrors and crinkle sounds, stackable rings, rattles, etc. I need to get him some new stuff to play with, but I have no idea what to get. 8 months is such an odd age for buying toys. I would like to find some toys he'll play with for awhile before outgrowing them.

Any Mommas or Daddas have any suggestions for me?

Frustrated by The Crazies

Thanks, Mompetition, for pointing this one out. I thought I was done with Blossom's bullshit, but she keeps shoveling it onto the Internetz:

First, read THIS STEAMING PILE

Then, read THIS AWESOME PIECE OF BLOGGY GOODNESS

Here's my comment on Valerie's post:

All I could think when reading her goddamn awful post was that there is a difference between letting your children learn at their own pace, and letting them learn at YOUR pace. She said in her first blog about being an attachment parent that she believes in "wearing" your children - as often as possible, as much as possible. 

Common sense (as well as my degree in psychology) suggests to me that perhaps carrying your child around everywhere is the reason he didn't walk until he was 17 months old. Or roll over until he was a year old. 

GAH! I hate extreme parenting!!!! I believe in letting kids be kids while teaching them the things they need to know in order to be good, responsible, independent adults. I just can't imagine purposely hindering my kid's development and then justifying that hindrance - calling it child-centered anything!

The balls! The BALLS OF BLOSSOM!!!

Gerber Is Undermining My Credibility

I don't do well with contradictory information. Not when I have no idea wtf I'm doing.

Hello, parenthood!

Shortly before my son was born, I went out and bought What To Expect the First Year. I figured, "Why not? I mean, I have no idea what to expect!" I have never treated it like a bible, but I've used it pretty consistently as a guideline for things I don't want to bother my awesome pediatrician with.

Like beginning to feed D solids. Most of it is pretty simple and straightforward - start with cereals and simple fruit & vegetable purees, move up to the mixed stuff and thicker purees, feed the baby the same thing 2-3 days in a row and check for reactions. Did all that.

Now D is 8 months old, has 2 bottom teeth, and we've started giving him little bits of table food in addition to his regular baby food. (He LOVES my Italian Beef Stew!) I had wanted to venture into making my own baby food for him so I went out and bought Cooking Light: First Foods because, as you all know, I am obsessed with Cooking Light.

Nothing particularly interesting or controversial here, just basic baby food recipes. It gets really good when you get to the toddler stage. But I digress.

So What To Expect gives you a list of things you are not supposed to feed a baby until they reach a certain age - nuts, honey, certain fish and shellfish, egg whites, citrus fruits and juices, etc. I was like "Okay, no big deal. There's plenty of other things to try in the meantime."

But my husband is convinced that this book is bullshit. All baby books, actually. He wants to feed D scrambled eggs when he makes breakfast on the weekends. He wants to give him little bits of orange and strawberry. He wants to let him try peanut butter and lick the salt off of his snack peanuts. And I'm all "Oh noes! You can't do that! WTE says you can't do it because of food allergies and blah blah blah and ZOMG please don't!!!"

He just gives me a withering look and says "Helicopter much?" Which really pisses me off because if I have one single goal as a parent, it is to not become a so-called Helicopter Parent.

I managed to convince him to just let it go, at least for now, by arguing that there are so many other things we can feed him, we don't need to be in a hurry for those specific allergy-risk foods. He rolled his eyes, but let it go.

On a recent trip to the grocery store during which I needed to stock up on some jar baby food, I noticed a couple of things. First, Gerber makes level 2 purees that include fruits from the no-no list - oranges, pineapple, strawberries. Second, many of the level 2 mixed foods such as mixed veggies with whole wheat pasta contain EGG WHITES and TUNA OIL.

WTF???

So now I'm kinda pissed. Why does WTE tell me that I can't feed my kid oranges, but it's okay for Gerber to do it? Why do they tell me to only feed him egg yolks, not the whites, but it's okay for Gerber to do it? And most importantly....

What the hell do I say to my husband NOW??? (Besides you were right. Ugh, I gag just typing that!)

The bastards.

Sleep: The Experiment

The Problem: D's sleep has been going haywire for a couple of months now. He used to sleep from about 10-10:30pm until between 6 and 7am. When he woke up in the morning, I would take him back to bed with me, nurse him, and he would go back to sleep until about 8:30-9. It was glorious. His naps during the day were shorter - he would be awake for 2 hours, sleep for 45-90 mins, and go through this cycle again about 3-4 times during the day. 


Now, he goes to bed about 9-9:30pm. Sometimes, like last night, he will sleep until 5-6am. We have a rule in our house - No Babies In The Bed Until 6:30am. So when he wakes up, I nurse him and try to put him back in his crib once he falls back asleep. Lately, this doesn't work and he wakes up as soon as you put him down. Then I try bringing him back in bed with me. No dice. He kicks me, pulls my hair, whines, does everything BUT go back to sleep. This means that on the best nights, when he doesn't wake up several times in between, I get 6 hours of sleep. And That. Sucks. 


So we get up, he plays. Then he gets exhausted and whiny and goes down for a nap around 10am. This nap has been known to be as long as 3.5 hours. Later in the afternoon he might take another nap for 45mins-1hr, and sometimes if we're lucky we'll get an early evening nap after dinner. 


In summation, the kid's sleep pattern is fucked up and I need to fix it before I lose my mind.


Literature Review: A search of The Googlez, a flip through What To Expect The First Year, Baby 411, and every other baby book, message board, article I can find recommend Crying It Out, The Ferber Method, and various other so-called "Sleep-Training Methods" that others find successful. D does not respond to any of them. He will cry until his little lungs collapse and then not only did no one get any sleep, but I feel guilty as hell on top of that.

Some of the literature suggests that babies at this age begin to change their nap routines - adding and dropping naps, sleeping longer or shorter amounts of time, taking naps at different times. But there seems to be something else going on here because his nighttime sleeping is also being affected.

He is no longer sick. He is not currently teething.

Hypothesis: The disturbance in his sleep seems to coincide with the winter equinox. It has been gradually getting worse. In this amateur scientist's opinion, it is very likely that the lengthening daylight hours have been fucking with my baby's head. This possibility is not mentioned in any of the literature to date.

I believe the fact that my room has an eastern exposure and no curtains means that the earlier sunrise is making it difficult for D to fall back asleep in my room, but that he also won't go back to sleep in his room because he knows it is time to go lay with Mommy in her big bed. I think this is why his first morning nap is so long, because he is making up for the earlier waking time through a routine nap.

I think this problem is compounded by the later sunset, which seems to make him think that bedtime is sometimes actually his evening nap. When he does not have an early evening nap, he tends to sleep until 11:30-12 and then wakes up again and we have to nurse him, rock him, dance him back to sleep.

If we can get him to go back to sleep in the morning after his first awakening, I think it will reset his internal clock back by a couple of hours and his routine will fall back into place.

Materials: Room-darkening curtains to be placed in the master bedroom, since the baby's room already has some. 


Method: Bribe my husband to finally, Finally, Finally put up the curtain rods in the master bedroom so I can hang up the curtains myself. Once they are in place, I will retry the method of bringing the baby into my room to sleep in the morning. Data will consist of whether or not the child returns to sleep, coded as "Yes" or "No" and the amount of the sleep recorded if the response is "Yes." 


Data will be collected beginning on 2/23/11 and continue until Mama gets some motherfucking sleep. 


Check back for the results.


Oh yeah, and wish me luck!

Why Can't Someone.....

...make Nyquil for babies???

First, I got sick. Then the baby started coughing and sneezing. My husband followed suit.

The last time D was sick you couldn't even tell if it weren't for how congested he sounded. This time he's miserable and refuses to sleep, waking up every hour/hr and a half last night. He was supposed to go to my mother's today because I had traveling to do for work, but I ended up keeping him home and cancelling my meetings.

Thankfully he doesn't have a fever, at least not yet. But he's so miserable, the poor thing. And all I want/need him to do is rest but he just can't seem to relax. I'm nursing him constantly to give him as many of my antibodies as I can, which feels like robbing Peter to pay Paul. But hey, Paul is more important.

But seriously.....Nyquil for babies would be Awesome. I would invest right now in that R & D.

I have some posts in mind for you guys if I get a free moment today or this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed for my well-being.

When Mama's Away

After I had D I was fortunate enough to be home with him for 11 weeks. My husband had to go back to work after 3. Prior to the baby, A had said he thought it would be very important for us to each have a night away every week (or a day) to go out and do stuff on our own or with friends. I thought this was a great idea, but also knew that I would not ever be the one to get out every single week.

During that first 11 weeks I came to learn a lot about D, mostly through trial and error. A wanted to figure things out on his own, so I tried my best to hold my tongue when he was around and let him work it out for himself. Sometimes this worked, sometimes not so much.

After about 6 weeks, I decided to take my first night out away from the baby for a couple of hours and bring a friend out for drinks on her birthday. I came home to find a screaming newborn, a stressed-out hubby, and chaos in general.

3 weeks later, I tried again. I went out for a couple of hours with old friends from high school. After the first hour I texted my husband to see how it was going. No answer. I tried again. No answer. At that point I could no longer focus on having fun and relaxing, I was too worried about what was going on at home. So I left and headed home. I walked in the door to a screaming infant, a stressed-out hubby, and chaos in general.

2 months later, I tried again. I went to a friend's house 5 mins away from where we lived at the time. I texted A to see how it was going. 20 mins later he said it was going okay. I breathed a sigh of relief and enjoyed myself for a couple of hours. I came home to find a sleeping infant, a bitchy hubby, and an argument waiting to happen. "Right after I told you he was doing okay, he started screaming and didn't stop for like an hour and a half. I just got him down like 20 mins ago. Now I'm going to bed. Goodnight."

Goddammit.

If I have gone out since then, I don't remember. Just this week I had to go out grocery shopping at night because of the impending ice storm the next day (when I had planned to go originally). I was gone for a little over an hour. When I came home, A informed me that D started freaking out right after I left and didn't stop until right before I came back.

Seriously, WTF.

Now, while I don't want to imply that my husband is doing something wrong, no one else seems to have this problem. My mom watches him and most of the time he's fine all day. My sister watches him and he's always fine unless it's nighttime and she needs to put him to bed without us. But for some reason, when it's A's turn to do single-parent-duty, D apparently loses his little GD mind as soon as I'm not there.

For the last 3 weeks, between work, the constant shoveling/snowblowing/roof snow removal, volleyball tournaments, etc., A has not really been around much and I have been doing single-parent-duty all day, every day, and most nights. This weekend is a drill weekend for him which translates to a 7-day work week. We have a military event to go to tomorrow night after he is released from drill, and then Sunday night is the Superbowl so the 3 of us will be going to a friend's house for the game.

I have an opportunity to go out tonight for a couple hours with a friend for some girl time. I can't decide if I want to or not. I know I need to get away from childcare duties for a little while, but the horrific guilt I feel when A has a hard time with him overshadows any fun I may have had. Not to mention the fact that I haven't seen A very much these past few weeks and won't see him alone at all this weekend.

But part of me is tired of only being able to leave the house when I am paying a babysitter. A gets mad at the slightest suggestion that he doesn't know what the kid wants, so I feel like saying "Then suck it up, buddy" when I go out and the kid is miserable.

But the other part of me is also guilty over thinking the kid is going to be miserable all night and if I was there he wouldn't be. I hate disrupting his routine. But the separation anxiety is going to kick in full-force pretty soon and then I will be screwed.

How about you guys? Did any of you deal with this in the past or are dealing with it now? What do you guys think?