No break for break

Lord knows I have been trying, since Eleanor arrived, to guard my free time and not let work encroach on my weekends and breaks. I have been doing a good job. Better than Josh, whose job does not allow him time during the day to grade. But between work overload and PhD requirements the upcoming winter break will be chock full of all the PhD related business I can't find time for right now: paper revisions, lit reviews, coursework planning, and PhD proposaling.

Proposaling sounds like something you might do with a mug of mulled wine, out of doors, with friends, to the tune of Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, right? Sadly it is not so.

And we are already planning ways to fill up summer break next year. Among them:

1. move temporarily to Baltimore so that HK can take half-day or full day stats and epi classes 
2. while working fulltime?
3. and starting up my work travel schedule since Eleanor will no longer be dependent on my body for sustenance and Josh will have "free time"?
4. and making family trips to California, France, Amherst, Illinois, camping, the beach, etc.

How can I get to be three places at once?

Remembering for later

I'm having a very difficult time concentrating today on work, even before learning of the school shooting in Connecticut. I can't imagine what those parents are going through and don't want to.

The blog was supposed to serve as a place to jot down memories of our baby, who is now 7 months old; we have been lax and as those early days slip further and further away it is harder to remember what was going on. The very first days of exhaustion and constant feeding and changing are dim. Somehow we were chipper until day 4, when the nursing issues really became painful. Trying to take a nap and failing because I was so wired and on edge thinking about the baby, who was perfectly fine. Failing horribly at keeping any sense of perspective. There is no perspective in the early days. The impossibility of fitting nursing, diaper changes, soaks for me, mandated morning sun exposure, naps, eating, pumping and washing pump parts was overwhelming. Daily crying about that.

At some point, maybe when Josh was done with school, Eleanor was sleeping pretty well, waking three times a night or so, or putting together 4 and 3 and 3 hours of sleep, which felt amazing. Around 3 weeks or 4 weeks maybe. Josh would get up with her at 5am and take her and Kima to the park for unfettered squirrel time. She did better and better at sleeping until we went up to Amherst to get her tongue tie taken care of around 7-8 weeks, and the change of scenary messed things up. She had started to sleep through the night. But there were also times - those first three weeks? Later? when we would be up with her for an hour each time she woke.

She stayed in the co-sleeper next to us for four months; Josh and I switched sides of the beds occasionally, sometimes it was better for me to be right there, but when my back was bad it helped to have him hand her to me. Towards the end of that period I would fall asleep with my hand on her chest next to me to help her go back to sleep. And then it became clear that her snorting and snuffling and slamming of arms was going to be too much even for my earplugs to drown out, and we moved her, in the cosleeper-bassinet, into her own room.

The earplugs were essential. They are still essential. I should buy stock in earplugs.

We have the videos...there were smiles and giggles from about 4 weeks, then more and more. Tummy time was always no fun. The pediatrician at around 4 weeks recommended getting a pack n play set up downstairs so that we could easily keep her from the dog, and that was a miracle. Of course! Up until then we had been setting her in a moses basket on a table or the couch, or in her rocker chair.

Mom and Dad, do you remember the first bath we gave her, and Dad had our meat thermometer out to take the temperature of the water, and I started freaking out and crying because it was so pointy and so close to Eleanor? It was about 4 feet away. But sleep deprivation wreaks havoc with your spatial awareness. This is why new parents are always bumping into doorframes and walls.

To combat the PPD the therapist wanted me to get an hour of morning light. I didn't get up until 10 most mornings, trying to sleep in as best I could with the baby. Once Eleanor started sleeping more the therapist still wanted me to come for visits, but really, my PPD was entirely sleep-related. The remainder of my problems were the nursing/tongue tie troubles, and getting myself healed up enough to go for walks (this was still a major problem in late July, at 3 months. Remember). She couldn't help me with those.

The mom's groups were great but it was hard to get a word in edgewise. No big deal. It was a lot like dating - you find someone who you might mesh with and you try to get them alone, go out for lunch. It has sort of worked, but everyone is so busy. The moms that are back to work now, we don't hang out with the stay at homes. Or at least, I don't.

Eleanor started sitting by herself right before Halloween - the photos of her with the pumpkin were taken quickly, both my eyes open to see if she was falling over. She could roll a little then, I think. But no serious rolling until 7 months. Between 4 and 6 months she was in the Bumbo, starting to eat foods. That process was stressful for me - what to feed her? how much? how often? every day? every other day? until it became a routine like everything else. Like bathtime. Like bedtime.

She had that cold in September, three weeks into Daycare. Sometime around then her sleeping went to hell and I lost my mind again, just for a few days. I think we were starting to get rid of the pacifier. When was that? 4-5 months? When she was still in the cosleeper but in her own room. Thank god we got rid of the pacifier. She just falls asleep now. Like a boss.

She is trying to eat Cheerios since Thanksgiving, getting a little better every day.

We took her out to eat at Lemon Hill, Calaca Feliz (twice so far), The Belgian Cafe (twice), the crepe place, we took her on the train, and we're getting on a plane on Wednesday.

We don't get these months back. And I can't hold on to them forever. I will be like all the ladies at Josh's faculty party yesterday, eager to clutch at the babies of younger coworkers once mine is walking and walking.

I saw two moms at the park today, with two toddlers and a baby in the Ergo. The Ergo-mom was walking slowly, that new-mom walk, you could tell there was a sleep fog around her, that nothing could move very fast, that her back probably hurt all the time, and she was just _in it_. I see my neighbor, with her two month old, just starting to come out of this phase. Appearing to be together and yet mostly not together.

When I see toddlers, especially if they are girls with brown wavy hair, it's like a preview. The games and songs of the 2 year old next door are a preview. Our friends kids are a preview. All of a sudden we will be there. And all the past will be the past. So if I can just take enough pictures...and write down the memories...maybe that will be enough?

Halloween at daycare

Daycare dressed up the kiddos on Halloween and this is what we got - man that princess stuff starts early.

Happy Halloween!

We didn't quite manage to get the dog dressed up as a baby, but Eleanor's Dalmatian costume was a big hit! She helped us hand out candy to the witches, zombies, scary clowns, princesses, a lone Indian, and our neighbor ladybug, of whom roughly half though she was a boy and the same percent saw her in a 'moo cow' suit.

Daycare sent her home with a super goody bag of teething biscuits, a sippy cup and snack bowl, a bib and a matching hat that said Boo! So her loot haul was on par I would say, and even mom and dad got to enjoy some leftover Halloween candy at the end of the night.

Tyger Tyger burning bright

Boo at the zoo

Tiny Winston Churchill

New favorite toys

Wissahicken

Gorgeous day along the wissahicken - beautiful fall color!

Sound Memories

Our immediate neighbors on both sides have been wonderful since we moved in last year, inviting us to shindigs, letting our dog out when we've been running late, and we routinely hang on to packages for each other that get delivered when someone's not home at the intended address. Our neighbors on the right just had a baby boy two weeks ago, and while I had heard him making those small cries through the walls on occasion since then, I hadn't met him. So it was with more than the usual excitement that I knocked on their door the other evening to pass along a package of theirs that had been delivered to us. As I handed over the box, his dad held him in the crook of one arm, wrapped untidily in a blanket, and I saw the little hands come up as if ready for boxing. His old man face squinched together and the mewling - the bleating - the soft but insistent infant cry that is somehow so recognizable and yet so indescribable - emerged from his crooked mouth and through his turned up nose. He shook his head from side to side. The lamps were lit but it was not quite dusk, that transitional time between day and dark, which has always to me held a sense of sadness and loss, just the briefest of heavy-hearted sighs, before we settle into the night. As the baby grunted for his mother I had an aural flashback to our own first two weeks with Eleanor: the confusion, the steady feedings, no matter the hour, day, night, dusk, dawn, one constant stream of sleeping, nursing, frantically consuming calories through straws, exhaustion, happiness, despair and wonder. We so quickly forget the impossibility of those first weeks - the impossibility of her smallness, of her presence; the impossibility of being able to sustain ourselves on 2 hours blocks of sleep; the impossibility of breastfeeding without pain; the impossibility of her ever growing up, ever changing, because she is so perfect right now.

Of course she is always perfect right now, and at the same time bigger than she used to be, a paradox I am coming to accept. And I am thankful - so thankful - that now, nearly six months in, I am at a place from which I can flash back to those early days. Over last weekend and the first few days this week her sleeping was atrocious, and mine followed accordingly, compounded by insomnia. The fury of lying awake at night. The unrelenting anxiety of 4am, knowing she is about to wake up, the way you cannot stop yourself from listening for any snuffle, cough or cry. The next day spent entirely in anger at the wasted hours. We've dug our way out of that hole, thanks to Josh, and earplugs, and going cold turkey on the pacifiers, and bringing back the white noise (I picture Eleanor's future first visit to the beach - a small child running on the sand, then slowing, then laying herself down and curling up with an overpowering urge to nap). And so it goes - exhaustion, depression, recovery, wonder and happiness, just trying to stay above water, keeping the sleep deficit to a manageable level. It is touch and go. But so much better than those first few weeks.

Sunday on the river

Plum clafoutis

We got these pretty plums in our farm share last week. They were a little too squishy for eating, so J wanted to make them into a cobbler. He wants everything to be made into a cobbler.

I'm sure I saw some fancy food blogger writing about clafoutis recently so it came to mind as a cobbler-alternative. In the end J made the batter in the blender while I facetimed with E and my folks. Dead easy recipe (google for Julia Child's version). Amazingly it has no butter, which unnerved me, until I checked it against our hard copy of The French Chef.

Delicious and easy. And a great way to run down our egg share, which ha a tendency to overwhelm us every weekend.

Humor me

E discovered the other day that if she sticks her tongue out at us, we stick our tongues out back! Many giggles ensued.

Bike Reduction Fail

So I started last week intending to get rid of the Italian bike and possibly the Peugeot, and ended by keeping both and ordering new alloy rims (well, wheels) for the Peugeot. After-the-fact rationalization is always easy, right? The Italian bike is fun to ride, it fits both Josh and me, finito. The Peugeot cannot stop in the rain with steel rims, so even if I were to sell it later on I would feel bad about it being dangerous on a wet day. And maybe we can get a kid's bike seat on it when Eleanor is 8 months or so. And it's my mom's frame.

So I still have four bikes and Josh has a more respectable two. Someday, someday, we'll figure this out!

Tumblr

More pictures here: oldhomeplace.tumblr.com.

Bike date on the river

I rode the Italian bike down the bike path to meet Josh at daycare. We parked, grabbed E and spent some time down by the Schuylkill in the evening's ending light. Then Josh rode the bike home and I drove the baby!

This might need to be the new Friday routine.

Too Many Bikes

A man is coming in about an hour to look at my Italian bike. I suspect he is interested in turning it into a fixie.

I've had this bike for 5 years and have ridden it once, seriously, and perhaps three other times, less seriously. It is beautiful. Bright shiny lugs, fork and rear stays - brilliant blue paint. It is light and responsive and well-geared and full of nice components. It is more an art object than a bike, since I never ride it. So isn't this the right time to sell it? When my next bike project has to be putting together a bike I can attach a child seat to?

There are no strong memories attached to this bike, no special rides with a special someone, no rainstorms ridden through, no countless hours spent rebuilding it from the frame up, sourcing obscure bottom brackets. I replaced the tires, the brake pads, the brake levers, the bar tape. Finito. So why is it so hard to let this one go?

We have no space for it in our upstairs porch-storage room; there are already three other bikes there, plus two strollers and an exercise ball. I can't fit a child seat on it, front or back. But...we have this wonderful bike path just a half mile away. I could ride it there...by myself, since Josh would need to watch Eleanor if I was gone.

I could ride it to daycare to pick up Eleanor and then return with her by bus, leaving Josh to pick it up on his way back from school or soccer games...

It's not a good rainy day or winter bike....

You can't carry anything on it except yourself...

And maybe that's the crux of it. It's my solo escape bike. No baby, no husband, no errands, no groceries. Just me and the promise of the open road, unfettered, unfendered, gleaming in the sunlight, and free.

High chair shenanigans

Tongue Tied

Eleanor is 9 weeks old today and it feels like we are finally getting to a good nursing relationship.

My first Peace Corps assignment was to promote breastfeeding among women who had just delivered at the local maternity ward in our health clinic. The midwives and matrons laughed me out of the waiting room when I told them this so I turned to HIV prevention and sex ed at the high school instead. But I have a long history of believing that breastfeeding is best, and it's what I wanted for my baby when the time came.

Right after she was born our doula latched her on, and helped me out every day I was in the hospital. Another lactation consultant came to our house the day after we got home and had us get a pump from the hospital so that Josh could give Eleanor a bottle in the middle of the night and I could sleep a little longer.

The cracks started at some point; there were weeks of weeping and screaming at about half the feedings, exacerbated by lack of sleep. I went to two lactation groups a week once I got out of the house (week 3). I searched the internet endlessly for clues as to what might be causing the pain - thrush, tongue tie, lip tie, all of which were ruled out by our pediatrician. I reviewed videos and illustrations about latching. Nothing was helping. She would chomp vigorously on the nipple, click and lose suction, and the cracks remained.

Around week 5 or 6 the pain began to lessen from excruciating to very, very painful. I was getting more sleep, however, and it seemed like this might be manageable. Josh was upset at seeing me in pain and kept suggesting that I pump to put an end to the cycle, to let everything heal. I could only make it a couple days before I began to fear that giving her a bottle would just make things worse in the long run - she would forget how to latch, and I missed having her close. The logistics of pumping, feeding her, warming milk and washing up were too much for me. Breastfeeding was painful but at least it was simple.

I got another lactation consultant, an IBCLC with international certification, to take a look, and she broke it down for me. "It's some combination of flow and function," she said. Flow was the fact that my milk came out super fast, overwhelming her and causing her to chomp down in order not to choke. Function in that her tongue was a "little tight". I scheduled an appointment with an ENT who was known for doing tongue-tie cuts (most pediatricians don't believe that tongue-tie presents a problem); he clipped what he called a posterior tongue tie on June 20th. Things were a teeny bit better afterwards but I was still concerned that her lip, also tightly connected to her gum, was preventing her from getting a good latch. So we scheduled another appointment with Dr Kotlow in Albany, after much agonizing. Is this just elective surgery for no good purpose? Were we going to inflict serious pain on our tiny daughter with no result because the pediatricians were right? The day before we left I got mastitis, but it resolved in time for us to make the drive up to stay with the Ratners. It was a go. Nine days after her first surgery Dr Kotlow used a laser to fix her lip tie and to re-do her tongue tie, which had healed over because we hadn't done any stretches (following the ENT's directions).

Three days after the laser surgery as I fed her at a Wendy's on our way back to Philadelphia, I noticed that one side had healed up completely and we were having a pain-free nursing session. I felt like telling everyone I saw! But I refrained. The other side looked like it still had a ways to heal, but she was now sucking instead of chomping. The clicking hasn't gone away entirely but most of the time it's no longer the click-and-chomp. For the 10 days after the laser surgery we did stretching exercises 3 times a day and massaged the areas each time she nursed.

Bottom line - I won't ever really know if the surgery was the tipping point - it's possible that she is growing into her mouth and things would have gotten better without it. But it's hard to believe that, really. It finally feels like this is what she is supposed to be doing, rather than something that feels wrong. I had been living with the pain for so long that I was afraid I wouldn't ever know what breastfeeding was supposed to feel like. But this feels pretty good. Let's hope it continues that way!

Before surgery:

Accomplishments

I think it was the Rookie Moms blog that introduced me to this - the "did do" list. Not your "to do" list, which is always longer than you want, but a list of things you did do. So without further ado (har har):

1. vacuumed (once) while wearing E
2. ate a burger at North Star and fed E
3. ate a burger at the bike race with neighbors and their nice friends
4. ate a burger at The Belgian Cafe
5. cooked two real dinners!
6. figured out one must use the liners in the GDiapers for them to be leakproof
7. went to moms' group
8. got phone number of two moms from moms' group
9. had lunch date with mom1
10. had two new and one veteran parents over for tacos
11. grew E by 2 lbs
12. did laundry
13. sent birth announcements
14. read one book (Bringing Up Bebe)
15. did (minor) revisions and submitted my first peer-reviewed article
16. went to a job interview
17. went out to dinner for my birthday (thanks grandma and grandpa!)
18. took E on the bus!

Cute things

1. ear fur
2. her 'baby fox bark' when she is sleeping. This is one way I know she is asleep.
3. snuggling into your neck.
4. when she is done eating, she stretches, raising both arms over her head like she is champion of the world
5. cooing
6. baby sneezes
7. big blue eyes
8. milk breath
9. the way her hair gets curly in the humidity
10. grins (of course!)

Meet the New Boss

It was Monday, and she was due Friday. I assumed she would be late, like most first babies, but I knew time was running out and I had a PhD proposal to turn in and a lot of work left to do. I sent a draft to my advisor saying that I was panicking a bit about the delivery and that I wanted to get him something to look at now, and I would fill in additional sections on Wednesday. Tuesday I spent most of the day revising an article I had contributed to, promising to make additional revisions the next day. Eleanor had other plans.

Around 9:30 Tuesday night, May 1st, I went to bed, but had some cramping. Irregular and mild, they got a little more intense around midnight. I spent the night mostly awake, timing them with an iPhone app, staring at the dog as my point of focus. In the morning Josh woke up and I told him he wasn't going to work. We called the doula around 9:30 and she arrived at 10:30, just as we were about to head to the hospital. It seemed like it was time - they were four minutes apart, but still a bit irregular. Ellen calmed me down.

Our tub was useless - too cramped, not deep enough. The birthing ball was also useless. I spent most of the rest of the morning holding onto the sink or the banister, and focusing on one of Josh's eyes. I was worried it would just go on forever.

Around 2:00 we decided it was time to go - I was starting to feel the baby moving down. I figured I was about 5cm and I was in for a lot more labor at the hospital. Josh grabbed the bag and put down a garbage bag and a small Ikea rug in the backseat; I knelt on the floor of the backseat facing the rear of the car and he drove to the hospital. The whole way I focused on this one dog hair. I was not as affected by the potholes along the way as I feared I would be when we did the dry run. My water broke at Pennsylvania and Fairmount.

At the hospital I was still leaking fluid as I checked in, giving them my social security number between contractions. Multiple times. I just wanted to get into the PETU for evaluation. Signs on the walls said "Quiet hospitals promote healing" and I felt bad but damned if I wasn't going to keep on yelling and moaning from the pain. The midwife checked me out and when she said "you're 9cm" I was so relieved. I figured things would go quickly - she certainly seemed to think so. Josh had left the birth bag in the car and left to go get it. There was some discussion about whether or not to put in an IV, I didn't care. Just put it in.

I walked down to the delivery room, making more of a mess on the way. They had me start pushing on a birthing stool (which didn't seem very effective; I wasn't really feeling a huge urge to push). A couple times my blood pressure went down (or up?) and they had me lay on my left side for a bit. I did some pushing holding onto the end of a length of cloth. An hour passed. They put me on my back and told me to push with my feet up against their hands. Josh, the nurse, and the doula and the midwife all took turns. This didn't seem like the best position for pushing according to my birth classes but here I was, making slow progress. Another hour passed. There were a lot of ice chips. The pushing didn't hurt, but I was exhausted.

I hadn't had any back pain, and the ring of fire the nurse was telling me I was feeling was nothing much either, so I figured she was coming out face down and evenly. They told me they could see her head and I thought I was almost done, but it was another half hour at least before she came flying out, face up, all at once. In two seconds she was on my chest, wailing, pooping and peeing. Josh cut the cord. We decided on her name. I delivered the placenta.

They called in a doctor to do the repair of my third degree tear. I sang as they stitched, sang to Eleanor. Josh held her for a while after they weighed her - 8lbs, 1 oz, not a small baby. The nurses and the midwife kept telling me what an amazing mom I was, what an amazing job I did; it was nice, but I was thinking they must say that to all the women! They're never going to say "you know, that was pretty average."

I called my mom and started crying when I told her how sorry I was for all the pain and suffering I had put her through during labor, and afterwards! They were so shocked to hear that Eleanor was already here, I think we had told them we would try and let them know when things had gotten started. But we weren't thinking of that. We called Josh's parents. They were still stitching me up. Our doula got us started breastfeeding, Eleanor latched on like a champ.

I felt like I had pushed my eyes right out of their sockets. The tissue around them was swollen for days. I just wanted to sleep, but she had to breastfeed every two hours, so the nurses kept bringing her in. In the morning she wouldn't stop crying until the orderly who brought my breakfast leaned over to her saying "Who did this to you, sugar? I'm gonna get 'em, yes I am, you just tell me who did this to you!" My roommate was French and they spoke so softly, and their baby was so quiet. It was their second, and I believe they walked home. I could barely move.

The breastfeeding problems started immediately. She was losing weight and had high bilirubin. We rented a pump from the hospital on Saturday. Her heel was pricked for four days until she turned the corner. I was delirious from lack of sleep and nauseated and ravenous at the same time. Josh made me smoothies and I ate mostly granola bars. My thirst was endless. I'm still not sure how I made it through that period. The first ten days were impossible. Everyone had competing priorities - the lactation consultants wanted me to feed her every two hours; the pediatrician and therapist wanted me to sleep as much as possible, six hours; the doctors/midwives wanted me to find 20 minutes to soak so that my tear would heal, 3 times a day. It did not seem possible, at the time, to do all those things at the same time. I felt bombarded and pulled apart. When we added pumping it got even worse.

Putting together blocks of 3 hours of sleep began to help; my appetite improved by the time my parents arrived, when she was almost two weeks old. I could smile and make a little conversation. The more I was able to sleep the cuter she got. I did not expect to get such a cute baby! She was hairy and jaundiced just like Josh was, but was definitely not an ugly baby. At one point I dissolved into tears, so confused as to how it was possible that she was ours, that she had even come into being. "Where did she come from?" I asked Josh. "It's so amazing, how could it possibly be true?"