craftastic II: miss mopsey magoo! December 3, 2009

as of this week, my little magoo has become a fan of taking a luxuriously long afternoon nap – up to 3 hours at times!  this happy new change has afforded me lots of extra hands-free time, so i’ve been taking advantage while it lasts by keeping myself busy while pooks snoozes.  i pick up the room, organize the diaper bag, put away clothes that pile up on and around the dresser, and when there’s time left over for little old me i bust out the sewing kit and craft my ass off!

my recent favorite has been making decorative bibs.  i say “decorative” because these cute little guys are not particularly absorbent – i think they are mostly polyester and probably wouldn’t hold up well at mealtime (at least if your kid is anything like mine and loves to grab the fud off the spoon and immediately wipe it through her hair and then allll over her bib (and belly, and face, and hell, her feet for that matter!)  so, despite being only moderately functional, they are fun to embellish with snappy designs, which is where i come in:

aaand because i was hit with the sudden urge to make a special something just for poppy, and because i had some awesome amy butler fabric that had been screaming to be used, i created this dress for my darling offspring to wear:

i am completely in love with how the dress turned out!  it’s lined with bright red, extra soft fleece so it’s perfect for winter wear, and the bird applique has vintage fabric and buttons to give it a unique touch.  fashioning this dress made me realize how badly i need to get my arse over to the sewing shop down the road to take one of the free classes they offer – if i were using a machine instead of stitching by hand i’m pretty sure i could knock out a dress like this in about an hour.  slowly but surly, etsy, here i come!

(p.s. – check out p’s new trick in the last few photos – standing like a big girl!  granted, her back is against the chair for support, but she keeps herself vertical for up to 30 seconds at a time.  it’s fun to get a glance of what she’ll be doing on her own in not-too-long.  crazy babe!)

(;

you smell like beef and cheese! you don’t smell like santa. November 30, 2009

only, unlike buddy the elf, the mall-santa we visited today was completely awesome (and so far as i could tell, did not smell like beef, cheese, burbon or anything else inappropriate.)

poppy’s first meeting with santa was a hit! i figured she may be, well, justifiably terrified if i tried to perch her in the big guy’s lap all by her lonesome, so i convinced david to seriously geek it up get into the holiday spirit with me by dressing up (down?) in festive pajamas so we could join p in the photo shoot. it turned out to be a great idea – poppy was able to get acclimated to the setting while i held her in my lap during the family shots, so when i slipped away for her solo shots with mr. kringle she wasn’t scared at all.

and so, i now share with you all the results of today’s photo shoot. the icing on the cake? i’m the proud owner of a disc of over 40 high-resolution photos, free of any copyright restrictions, which i can copy and print and post all over the internet to my wee little heart’s content! and all for under 40 duckets. i, for one, am calling this one a success. cheers, and happy holidays!

meh? November 24, 2009

why is it that on the average night (and by “night” i specifically mean poppy’s sleeping hours e.g. 10pm-8am) my little biscuit chows through 4 or 5 4oz bottles, waking up every 2 to 3 hours to eat… but then there’s times like right now when i realize she’s been asleep for 8 hours and has only needed 1 bottle in all that time? ONE. as in, i only had to stagger over to the fridge and warm a bottle with my eyes crusted shut ONE time last night, which after over 7 months of never sleeping for more than 4 hours straight basically constitutes a miracle… WHY oh WHY if she can do it now, can’t she make this happen at least a teensy bit more often? what is the secret to further encouraging this good behavior?

i would attribute the incident to poppy’s recent switch from mama’s milk to formula, which i wrote about here. but, you see, i kinda sorta haven’t done a very good job of actually making the switch… so poppy is still currently getting about 75% breast milk. this isn’t because i’m against formula in any way (it was my idea to wean her, after all.) it’s just that since i let myself off the hook as p’s only available food source, things have gotten so much easier – i no longer live by the clock, obsessing over my supply and omg it’s waaaaay better this way. i’ve actually been deliberatly stretching the time between my pumping sessions to 8-9 hours, thinking that it would cause my supply to natually dwindle (i’ve read in dozens of references stating that going longer than 6 hours tells your body to stop making milk) and i’ve cut the time i pump for down significantly. but even so, i’m still producing up to 12 ounces every time i pump, which at 3 times a day equals out to be nearly enough to still breast feed magoo full-time! so for now, i’m letting things continue going the way they are; if my supply holds and i can keep giving biscuit my milk that’s great. but if things finally dry up around her, that’s fine as well. where was i going with this? oh yeah – i don’t think poppy’s magical sleep escapade had anything to do with receiving formula, because she didn’t receive any to speak of yesterday…

so what’s the secret? if it happened once it can happen again, right? i think i provide poppy with a good setup that’s condusive with sound sleeping – i impart the same bedtime routine every night, including a meal of organic oats for her about an hour before she goes down to sleep in the hopes it will stick to her ribs and she’ll snooze for longer. but her sleep habits as a 7 1/2 month old are roughly the same as when she was only 2 months! when she wakes at night, it’s obvious that she’s hungry – in fact i wouldn’t even call it “waking” really, because her eyes don’t actually open. she just grunts and whines and roots – turning her head from side to side until i stick a bottle in her mouth, which she latches onto furiously and drinks in a fashion so ravenous you’d think it had been days since her last meal. when she’s satisfied (which is almost always after 4 ounces, no matter how much i offer) she pushes the bottle away with her hand, eyes still closed, and immediately going back to sawing logs. and while she looks completely adorable while dream-eating at night, this mama is DAMN TIRED of still being up so many times throughout most nights. which is why last night is so confounding to me, and why i want to know how to make it happen again like NOW!

friends, how do your little ones sleep at night? were your kids sttn by 6 months? any comraderie is appreciated here, cause i’m beginning to think there’s a sleep conspiracy going on against me. either that or all the people who have babies that sleep through the night are secretly sneaking burbon into their bottles (KIDDING!)

and now, here are some totally unrelated photos from the other day of poppy being generally adorable:

cheers!

can i has a witness? November 17, 2009

just wondering if any other mamas out there have a child whose physical looks don’t resemble you AY-TALL, to the extent that if it weren’t for your pregnancy people might actually wonder about paternity? (actually in my case people have asked whether poppy was adopted, SO FUNNY!!)

you see, i made her myself:

but she looks like this:

miss magoo has medium-brown hair, full eyebrows, a button nose, rosy cheeks and of course her daddy’s asian-shaped eyes (david is half korean = dominant-ass genes, bitches.) i absolutely LOVE poppy’s looks, in fact both david and i are amazed and delighted with the mix of features she ended up with. but i’m pretty sure that no one is going to come along and accuse poppy and i of looking alike anytime soon! anyway, just thought i’d sent this inquiry into the bloggy void: mamas, how do your babies’ looks relate to yours? did they get a mix from both parents? do they strongly resemble you or your mate? or are their looks completely their own? this lady wants to know!

(p.s. i welcome answers to this post from any secret friends out there – if you’ve been reading my blog and have never said “hello”, now might be the perfect time! i promise i’m friendly and i seriously enjoy making new acquaintances! plus i’d love to read your blog too, i just don’t know about it yet!)

cheers to all, new and old and big and small! (-:

seven months old, in photos! November 11, 2009

 

two happy’s are better than none. November 8, 2009

it’s been a trying month in the bilbrey household.  what with david being gone at work/commuting for 60+ hours every week and then my mastitis and his oink flu, and then my job loss and a bad head cold, the head cold which got passed on to poppy and turned into croup with stridor so she needed steroids for the coughing, the sad sad coughing where she looks at me with her bambi-eyes like “HALP me, mama!” and i can’t do anything but hug her and DIE A LITTLE ON THE INSIDE CAUSE MY KID IS BROKEN AND I CAN’T FIX HER and yeah this month has sucked.

so last night david and i were commiserating about all of these events while i completed biscuit’s evening routine.  she didn’t have much interest in her dinner of organic baby oatmeal (probably because of her sore throat) so since it was honing in on bebe’s bedtime i thought i’d get her into a fresh diaper and jammies so she’d be set for snoozin’.  that was when poppy suddenly pulled a cute-overload:  as i finished putting her dipe on and reached for her pj’s, she flung her arms up, turned her head from side-to-side, smacked her lips, and went to sleep.  just closed her eyes and went to sleep a la newborn, right in the middle of the bed.

i couldn’t even handle how precious it was.  and in an excited-whisper i was all, “babe, LOOK!” and david was all, “aww, that’s so cute, it’s too bad we have to get her up to put her pajamas on” and i was all, “PFFT like hell we do, that’s what BLANKETS are for, DUH!” and her was all, “oh.”  so then poppy looked like this:

and it was awesome.

the other high-point of yesterday came when i finally secured 10 minutes of free time to rifle through my dresser and remove all the summer and maternity wear that had been overflowing from every drawer.  as i neared the bottom i decided to be brave and try on my old denim – lovely and unique designer pieces which i had attempted to stuff myself into at like a week postpartum (genus idea, btw), and at the time my post-baby flabdomen just laughed in my face like “yeah right crazy lady, you’re never going to fit in to those bitches again!”  so anyhoo, i muster up some courage and grab my old twisted-seam true religions.  first leg in, then the next, up they went and ZIP!  and even without the dreaded muffin-top!  BOOYAH!  also on my re-discovered pant repertoire are some great levis, brown diesel trousers, a-pocket sevens and some taverniti sos.  this is going to take my winter wardrobe up, like SEVERAL notches, and for FREE.  welcome back, old friends!  mama missed you!

and so it was, that some poppy-charm and bit of denim-induced confidence is really helping my mood about things.  i guess it’s a good reminder that sometimes it really is the little things that matter most.  cheers, all!

wean on me. November 5, 2009

like many other mamas across this great green planet, especially the ones from my particular generation, i am an enthusiastic advocate for breast feeding. i’ve mentioned this before when i shared my story of my first few months of nursing (and then un-nursing) poppy, and since that post i’ve continued to be a good little lactavist – so proud to be sustaining another human on my milk as nature intended! over the last very-nearly seven months, so many decisions and plans were made specifically to support and ensure my continued ability to breast feed my kid. i’ve adjusted my diet to eliminate foods that didn’t agree with biscuit, faithfully taken my giant prenatal vitamins daily, and toted my medela pump in style around anywhere i had to be for longer than 4 hours. and for pretty much all of these seven months, if you’d asked me how long i planned on breast feeding for, my automatic answer was “at least a year”, with my subconscious thinking “pfft, duh, obviously i’ll do it for at least a year cause it’s the best thing for my baby and everyone knows that and i’ll do WHATEVER it takes to keep it going barring my tits actually FALLING OFF.”

so yeah, i would say it’s more than a little ironic that i’m currently in the process of weaning my almost-seven-month-old off of my milk and onto formula (and no, dear readers, my boobs did not, in fact, fall off.)

now, i realize that posts like this one may make it seem like breast feeding has been going amazingly well for me – and while i do think it’s lovely and wonderful that i’ve been able to feed poppy exclusively my milk all this time and even end up with extra to donate, let me make this clear: BREAST FEEDING HAS BEEN A BITCH FOR ME SINCE PRETTY MUCH DAY ONE.

first off, there’s the fact that my darling girl never got the hang of nursing, so after roughly two months of being bitten black and blue and having poppy pull off the bewb over and over during every single feeding and the nipple shields and the thrashing and the 4-hour cluster feeds and AAAAHHHHHHH i switched to exclusive pumping. while this decision initially solved certain problems and created a good supply of milk for magoo, it decidedly created a whole different set of issues. **pauses to think of where to even begin.** for one thing, there’s the fact that i have had to do all the work of a breast feeding mom, plus that of a formula feeding mom – i’ve been spending two-plus hours a day pumping, including the middle of the night so my supply wouldn’t dwindle (it did anyway) plus all the time it takes to bottle-feed, then wash and sanitize all those bottles and pump parts. which, seriously friends, is small potatoes compared to the SENSITIVITY ISSUE. i can’t even type about it without implying that it needs to be yelled: SENSITIVITY ISSUE!!! SENSITIVITY ISSUE!!! ROOAAARR!!! actually, i think that my SENSITIVITY ISSUE deserves it’s own paragraph. ahem:

best that my midwife can figure, my SENSITIVITY ISSUE stems from poppy’s initial impersonation of an african snapping turtle while nursing as a newborn, which probably caused internal damage to my nipply bits. the constant bite-nursing, then continued pumping, has meant that my business hasn’t had time to rest and heal. which for me means OMG SENSITIVE BOOBS. so ginger, so sore, so prickly and ouchie are they, that even now drying off after a shower is torture if i don’t delicately pat dry with the softest towel possible. after which i get to put on not one, but TWO bras (yep, you’re reading that right – a regular underwire plus an elastic sports-style one EVEN AT NIGHT) because the slightest friction from clothing feels horrible. so i bet you can imagine how fabulous it feels for me when i’m changing poppy’s dipe and she kicks me square in the nip. (betcha didn’t think “sweet bride of christ” and “holy hell fuckall” could be used together in a sentence, but oh can they ever!)

so along with my SENSITIVITY ISSUE there’s also the problem of figuring out what to actually do with the baby while i pump. This has gotten exponentially more difficult with p turning into a crazy-active-increasingly-mobile-six-month-old and david returing to work. when pooks was a tiny little swaddled thing, it was easy enough just to lay her beside me on the bed while i took care of business. now the pumping goes smoothly when, and only when, poppy is asleep. but mimicking a natural breast feeding schedule when using a machine means never going longer than 6 hours without expressing milk, or you run the chance of your supply dwindling (again, mine did anyway.) and you can be sure that poppy doesn’t give a crap about my pumping schedule! so when it’s time to pump and bebe isn’t tired, it goes something like: wash pump parts, grab several hand fulls of baby toys, put biscuit on the bed and sprinkle said toys around her, undress from the top down, and assume the posish. turn pump on, grip bed sheets and clench jaw for 30 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on degree of pain on that given day. offer now irritated baby every toy she owns, watch baby squawk, smack the toys away and lunge at me with her arms up in universal baby language for “PICK ME THE HELL UP, YOU NEGLECTFUL WENCH.” plead aloud or silently for baby to please understand, mommy is making your milk and you just need to be brave for a few more minutes and oh shit now she’s really pissed, she’s really pissed and starting to cry. do my best to pick up an angry, thrashing, 16-pound baby with my arms extended forward three feet to keep her from accidentally pulling the pump off my body. baby suddenly realizes she is in love with a new toy – breast pump tubing! remove pump tubing from baby’s fists and mouth, place baby back on bed out of reach from pump parts, listen to baby hysterically holler in protest, and blink back tears from the stress. continue pumping to whatever degree i can tolerate, get up, re-dress, distribute milk into bottles, retrieve furious infant from bed, and try to ignore the now-searing pain resonating in both boobs. end scene.

i don’t think it takes a great stretch of the imagination to see that i have had a pretty rough go at breast feeding. even so, i’ve kept it up since poppy’s birth and i genuinely thought i’d make it to the one-year mark. of course i’ve fantasized many times about how wonderful it would be to wean and be done with the pumping and the pain and the stress, but i really thought the nutritional benefits to poppy outweighed the inconvenience to me. but this week i reached my breaking point – a moment when i realized i could no longer force myself to tolerate the hardships to my physical and mental well-being for another 5 months. first, david became the proud host the the h1n1 flu (yes, it was officially diagnosed by a medical doctor and everything, we aren’t trying to jump on the trendy-illness bandwagon.) it came upon him furiously with a high fever, chills, full-body pain and difficulty breathing – so severe were his symptoms that he was prescribed an albuterol inhaler and tamiflu, and was on orders to confine himself to a separate area of the house from the baby and i. even while diligently wearing a mask and applying buckets of purell, he wasn’t allowed to hold the baby for fear of infecting her. so after an already crazy week of taking care of the baby while david was away at work, i had to tack on another 3+ days of being the go-to person for absolutely everything baby. that’s a lot to handle, right? well, here’s the part where things get even worse. i went in to work at my job as an office assistant on monday morning (as i have every monday morning for the last 5 years, barring illness or vacation.) halfway through my 5-hour shift, i was called into my manager’s office and told that due to my recent reduction in hours (which i had no choice about – david’s new job schedule meant i had to drop down from 3 days to 1) they would be filling my position with a full-time replacement, and that i would only be allowed to work 2 further mondays. e.g. i got LAID OFF. no more work. no more income for emily. that’s that. clean out your locker and go.

i won’t delve into the details of why i find these circumstances terrible and on many levels unfair, because this is the internets after all and this blog is open to the public. i will say that this layoff means another huge burden for our little family. i was also starting to feel sick myself (it turned out to be just a head cold, not the oink thank jeebus) and my milk supply had taken a fairly big dip, meaning in order to keep up with poppy’s demand i’d have to mimic a growth spurt by pumping every 3 hours for at least a couple of days (which i’ve done twice before = pure torture.) after some serious thinking, some bitter tears and a massive tension headache over the course of that afternoon, i reached my decision. i realized that i wouldn’t be able to take good care of poppy if i couldn’t take good care of myself, and with so much shit hitting the fan and having no control over any of it, there was one thing i could do to make life a little easier. i could be done with all of the awfulness that goes along with pumping. i could wean my baby.

i don’t feel good about the decision to wean. i feel fucking GREAT about it. as soon as i said it out loud to david, it was like a tremendous weight was lifted of my back. on tuesday i marched in to the wic office and informed them of my decision, and left with vouchers for formula and a feeling of utter victory. right now i’m taking things slow to ensure poppy tolerates this change well – i’m continuing to pump milk and mixing 1/4 to 1/2 formula into her bottles. so far, she doesn’t seem to notice any difference, which is fantastic. i’m hoping to get poppy on to formula full-time and be done with pumping by the end of the month. and it feels AWESOME.

i am not even going to pretend to feel guilty about giving my baby formula before the one-year mark. i’m 100% confident that i’ve given her a great start and am really proud of myself for sticking it out as long as i have. this is the absolute right decision for myself and my baby, and i am truly looking forward to having my body back, sipping a rum and coke with dinner, eating as much garlic as i damn well please, and being able to take dayquil if i get a cold! i’m also hoping these crazy bewbies will return to some proportion that matches my frame, cause let’s face it, being a size 4- and a 34d+ looks a tad silly…

so there you have it friends. lactavist to formula mama in under 8 months. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: ALL MOTHERS deserve support and respect when making tough decisions like the one i just made. so if you’ve got some judgement for me on this, i’ll be happy to tell you where you can cram it. and you can follow it up with a heaping side of similac advance…

**right after this photo was taken, poppy said, “thanks for the formula, mommy!” no seriously, just ask david. he was there. (-;

day one. October 14, 2009

as i mentioned recently, my wonderful husband david is returning to work this week for the first time since being laid off in april. which subsequently means that i will be at home alone with the p monster for 55+ hours per week while david is away. while i am perfectly aware that this is a typical family dynamic for many couples raising a child (dad works while mama stays home with offspring), it hasn’t been typical for this mama, who got absurdly spoiled more than a little used to her hubby being at home all the time to lend a helping hand. as such, this week is a major adjustment for me – missing the crap out of my pal/partner in crime, and learning how to tend to an energetic 6 month old all by my lonesome…

::pauses from writing momentarily to wallow in self-pity::

ok, moving on. as with any major life change, i figured what better coping technique to apply than blogging about my new adventures as a nsahm (nearly stay at home mom = i still work one day a week, for 5 hours. sups career-mom?) so i thought i’d offer a breakdown of this first day, for the purposes of venting/camaraderie/self-gratification/memory-keeping. here’s the course of events in chronological order:

tuesday october 13th, 8:50 am: biscuit wakes up. after giving her some milk i know she’ll be happy to lay in her crib with a toy for roughly 10 minutes, so i hand pooks her dragonfly rattle while i pee, brew my coffee and gather my hair back and out of my face. right on cue, after 10 minutes poppy’s happy grunts turn in to frustrated “pick me the hell up” squeals. i oblige, and she thanks me with a big gummy grin.

9:05 am: pooks amuses herself in her ring-around (e.g. “excersaucer” or “stationary entertainment center”. why can’t they come up with less obnoxious names for these devices? pfft.) i scarf down some eggs, rice, and a generous slice of the banana chocolate chip bread i’d made the day before. nom. as i finish my coffee i put bebe in her high chair and administer a serving of milk n’ naners – she seems less than thrilled and only eats a couple of spoonfuls. i don’t really care, cause she’s so freaking cute sitting in her high chair, so we play with a toy until she gets bored.

11:30 am: poppy and i have been playing for quite a while and she finally seems hungry. we settle into the rocking chair with a bottle of milk, and after a few minutes p’s eyes are fluttering shut. this is AWESOME timing because i’m already overdue to pump (‘yall can read why i do that here if you’re interested) and if she takes a nap now i can do so in peace. i sloooowly get up, gently lower poppy into her crib, careful not to dislodge the bottle from her mouth… easy does it… CRAP. she’s awake. she awake and she’s pissed. she’s pissed and suddenly she’s not tired, not even close. she squawks at me with a furrowed brow and smacks the bottle away with her hands when i try to feed her. apparently she only wanted to sleep if it was in my lap. crib nap = fail.

12:25 pm: i’ve got a very much awake poppy strapped in the bjorn (as opposed to the cute, custom-made babyhawk which i love but she suddenly hates. grrrr…) i’ve managed to clean up the kitchen, wash bottles and pump parts and take about 35 laps outside around the house, but not pump yet and damn those bewbies were fillin’ up! david calls and i talk to him for about half an hour, trying to cheer him up cause his first day at work sucks and he’s clearly bummed. i get winded and sweaty cause i’ve already been walking like, forever and i’ve got a fat baby strapped to my chest and good lord i just want to shower and empty my giant boobs! at the same time david has to get back to work, i notice p is finally drooping so i say goodbye to hubby and rush to the bedroom, where i transfer my sleepyhead kiddo into her crib. she mews in protest but i stick a bottle in her pie hole and she takes it, drifting off to slumbertown in a matter of seconds. crib nap = WIN.

1:15 pm: i’m finally able to pump. my business looked straight-up SCARY. sooooo full/huge. i end up pumping 16 ounces – that’s a starbucks grande, people. i don’t know whether to be proud or grossed out, so i decide to sit on facebook and not think about it…

2:00 pm: naptime over. i don’t really mind the short break because, hell, at least i got a break. poppy and i play and walk and we both end up bored so after an hour i give her a bath which we both like. we do the dancey-dance in the bathroom mirror and she laughs hysterically, which makes me tear up because david is missing it.

4:00 pm: i suddenly realize i’m starving. i eat some grapes, 2 of the corn muffins i made yesterday, and a hunk of sharp cheddar cheese, and call it a meal. i once again find myself feeling blue over david being gone, because normally i would make us a decent hot lunch, or we’d go pick up some taco del mar or pita pit. a little sad; i’ll have to get used to it and plan my meals ahead more often so i don’t end up limited to pantry items. i also need to remind myself how lucky i am that my hub is only at work, as opposed to overseas fighting this ridiculous war or absent completely… yes, i am lucky and i need to be a big girl now and cheer the hell up! ::does the cheer-up dance::

4:45 pm: pooks wears herself out and falls into a serious nap sprawled out in my lap. i’m stoked that i don’t have to get up and do anything, so i cuddle with her for an hour while she snoozes. so far, this is the highlight of my day.

5:50 pm: poppy wakes up, and david will be home soon! i plunk the baby into her ring-around and quickly grab ingredients to make some baked mac and cheese to go with yesterday’s veggie chili. poppy plays happily while i grate cheddar and smoked gouda, make a quick roux, boil noodles, and throw it all together in the oven. remind myself to make things involving baked cheese more often, cause it smells completely amazing…

6:15 pm: DAVID IS HOME!!! i run towards the door, bug-eyed, arms pinwheeling wildly. poppy doesn’t know what the eff is going on, but then sees her dada is is stoked. we hug and kiss a disgusting number of times, and then settle in and enjoy our delicious meal, followed by a relaxed evening complete with a roaring fire and a stiff drink for mommy…

alas, i survived this first day of many to come, however not completely unscathed – i woke up this morning to pump at 6 am and realized (to my complete horror) that the milk in the right-side collection bottle was bright red. as in holy fucking shit there’s blood in my breast milk red!! uuuuugggghhhh. when i got up to dump the scary-ass devil liquid down the sink drain, i felt dizzy all over and had to crouch to the ground to keep from passing out, after which i spent several minutes hovering over the john, sure i would puke at any moment (though i didn’t). after taking my temp i realized that along with my freakish bloody milk, i was also running a 99.5 degree fever, so i called in for the first available doctor appointment…

turns out i was enjoying a lovely case of “mastitis, which is resolving itself and therefor antibiotics are probably not needed.” the midwife figured it was due to my engorgement from the day before, coupled with stress which temporarily lowered my resistance to such a problem. i’m on orders to rest, stay hydrated and pump regularly, which is a hell of a lot easier said than done considering i’ll be at home alone with p for the next 3 days! the whole ordeal has shaken my “super mama” confidence a bit, but i’m trying hard to be optimistic and take things a day at a time. after all, what choice do i have than to forge ahead and make the best of things? so, dear readers, wish me luck during the next 3 davu-free days, which will hopefully be easier and free of freak boob infections or any other pseudo-disasters. cheers!

half-birthday! October 12, 2009

my darling poppy madeline reese turned 6 months old yesterday! six months. HALF A YEAR. to say that time has flown would be an epic understatement. i can barely wrap my head around the fact that six months ago today, my poppy girl was a 5 1/2 pound little newborn peanut, with chicken legs and overgrown fingernails. six months ago i was hearing the sound of her precious helium voice for the first time, staring at her in amazement, looking her over top-to-toes and realizing she looked exactly as i had pictured her. she was freshly baked, her head bruised from labor, she was swaddled in hospital blankets. she was brand new, and she was perfect. six. whole. months. i remember it like it was literally yesterday. (darling girl, would you please slow down?)

poppy must have known it was a special day, because she woke up uncharacteristically early at a little before 8:00am. already feeling sentimental, i was excited to hang out with my little birthday biscuit so i didn’t mind the early start one bit. i got my coffee brewed, changed p’s dipe and scooped her up to give dad some quiet sleepin’ in time. poppy and i had a good, relaxed morning eating breakfast (me, not her) taking a walk outside and then settling in to a good long nap (her, not me). after david was up and about, we took turns entertaining pooks so we could both get ready for the day. i even managed to whip up some celebratory cupcakes in honor of magoo’s half-birthday, and damn were they tasty! more on that later…

after i got myself cleaned up i gave poppy her honorary birthday bath. she loves getting a bath and mugged it up for me while i snapped (way too many) pictures:

it’s fun to look back at previous bath photos – poppy fills up the whole tub now and pretty soon it will be time for a new bigger one! **sigh** the time really does fly by…

so as i mentioned in poppy’s  last ‘birthday’ post, we decided to hold off starting solid foods until goo reached the six-month mark, and it was finally the big day! david dug the previously unused highchair from out of the garage, and after a quick wipedown it was ready to go. poppy looked so adorable sitting at the table like a big girl. she’d been watching us eat with growing interest and intensity, and it was obvious she liked being at the table the second we put her in…

once she had settled in to her new throne, we presented biscuit with her birthday cupcakes and sang “happy half-birthday to you!”

she seemed pretty pleased, but then started repeatedly lunging for the plate so we thought it best to move on to something she could actually have – her first taste of solid food! on today’s menu was breast milk mashed with organic banana. poppy made the classic bitter-beer face upon tasting the first bite, but then immediately broke into a huge grin, babbling, grabbing for the spoon and slurping down mouthfuls of the gooey stuff! i still can’t believe how much she loved the fud – we had a ridiculously great time with this one:

first bite…

down the hatch!

fud = no?

booyah.

eventually i decided we should stop with the banana madness, as i was afraid my kiddo would end up with a bellyache. she ate SO many spoonfuls! i was really surprised at how much of it actually went down – it gives me high hopes for introducing her to other solids in the future.

all cleaned up! surprisingly without any bananas in her hair or nose holes. we’ll have to try harder to make a mess next time…

i’m so incredibly proud of my six month munchkin! poppy is an amazing kid – sweet, funny, adorable and so cuddly. i seriously can’t imagine being a happier new mama, and i feel so lucky all the time to have a happy and healthy baby. so, to all my bloggy friends and family, i hope this post finds you well this october day. make sure to bundle up, and don’t forget the hot cocoa! cheers!

the end of an era. October 8, 2009

two weeks after poppy was born, our little family was dealt a pretty intense blow at the news that my husband david was being laid off from his job of almost three years. this was extremely difficult news to digest for many reasons, including the obvious: we had a newborn to provide for! shit timing, anyone? also on the list of reasons d’s layoff was awful were the fact the he had LOVED his job as a media technician for university of washington, and were it not for the economic downturn and ensuing layoff, he was fully planning to make a career as an employee there. he was making great money and we had planned our family’s entire budget around his income and schedule – after my maternity leave i planned to be back at my job 3 days a week, working around david’s schedule so one of us would have poppy at all times (no daycare! no babysitters! whoot!) the loss of his job meant serious financial setbacks for our new family, the eventual loss of our medical insurance, and total chaos for my postpartum work arrangements. basically, the situation REALLY FUCKING SUCKED.

to be honest, that initial shock and anxiety we felt never waned 100%. it remained with us as we penned down lists of expenses and mulled over ideas for coping with this crappy hand we were dealt. we both put on a good front and were supportive of one another as we discussed what the future would hold, but there was surely a good deal of bitterness and stress over what was happening, and as many “why us?” moments. luckily my mister and i make a pretty great team, if i do say so myself, and we never once fought over what was happening. we bitched, we moaned, we wallowed and we threw back an extra drink (or three), but we never once argued or blamed or accused, which i will always be proud of. instead of fighting we forged ahead, reminding one another constantly that as long as we stuck together, we could make it through this and anything else that would come our way…

over the early weeks following the news, bright spots emerged in the midst of trepidation. first off, we had this delightful, beautiful, and incredibly easygoing little newborn girl, and it didn’t take long for us to realize how lucky we were to both be at home to enjoy her and see every new step together. david was also still receiving full paychecks from uw all the way through july, at which point his (huge amount of) vacation & sick time would be paid out, and unemployment would begin. and because he had been earning a pretty hefty salary, those unemployment checks were no small potatoes – in fact they equaled out to more than i had been making working full time at my job of 4 years!  so, alas, we realized we would indeed be ok and after a month or so, began to freak out less, relax more, and take things a day at a time.

snapshot to now:  poppy will be six months old this sunday (holy shit REALLY?!)  six months that david has been at home with us, every day.  six months of d and poppy bonding on an amazing, wonderful level i don’t think would have been possible had he been working.  six months of wednesdays being the new saturday, family dinners and relaxed evenings, movie nights end entire days spent doing nothing more than watching our daughter grow before our eyes.  granted, in these six months there has been a good deal of stress as well:  david has spent countless hours applying to over 80 jobs, feverishly calling in favors to any and all former contacts to no avail.  and the rejection letters that would arrive in the mail every week were not exactly an encouraging sight. but on the whole i would have to say our circumstances could definitely have been worse; no one is sick or hurt and it’s just money after all.  and seriously, seriously, we had SO MANY amazing times and truly priceless memories that were built thanks to this hiccup that adult life sent our way…

which is precisely why, when i heard the news earlier today david landed a new job that he’ll be starting on tuesday morning, i wanted to hug him proudly but even more i wanted to hang my head and cry.  the job is an amazing opportunity – it’s his exact former position in another uw campus, the pay is great and we’ll get to keep our medical insurance.  even more important is the fact that david is thrilled and that makes me so happy.  but i am just going to miss him so much!  in our five plus years as a couple we’ve never spent this much time together, and it coincided with our daughter’s first half year of life – i’ll forever be grateful for this time and the fact that we’ve seen every one of poppy’s “firsts” together.

and so, the next week will be another massive transition for the bilbreys three as david starts his new job and i experience, for the first time, being home alone with baby.  luckily i’m a pretty independent person, fairly easy to please and an extremely happy mama, but even so this is going to be a tough adjustment.  i fully realize that i have no actual sense of reality on what to expect – david has never been more than an arm’s reach away and it’s going to be a shock to not have him there during breakfast or poppy’s cuddly morning naps or afternoon playtime in the yard.  if she’s teething and fussy i’ll have to handle it on my own and figure out how to entertain her while i pump milk and dress her and feed myself and make my own coffee…  if she has a massive giggle attack he won’t hear it from the other room and come hurrying in to watch, because he won’t be in the other room, he’ll be 50 miles away and what if he misses a “first” something?  what happens when i need something from the store but i’m in pajamas with dirty hair and the baby is asleep in my lap and AAAAHHHH THIS IS GOING TO SUCK!!!!

le sigh.

i know.  i know what will happen, what i have to do.  i have to suck it up, stick out my chin, support my man and be a good mama to my kid.  it will be different, it will be sad.  i will miss my best friend terribly while he’s away, and i will mourn the loss of our long days with nothing to do and countless fits of silliness.  but i will make the very best of our evenings and weekends.  i will have dinner ready for d when he finally makes it home.  i will send him retarded amounts of pictures of the baby, and i will regularly burn through the battery in our digital camcorder because you bet your sweet behind i don’t want him missing any milestones!  and i will always, always think back fondly on the last six amazing months with my husband and daughter by my side.  that much i know for sure.