Scientific fact: babies actually grow

We never really bothered strapping Adriana in to her gliding chair. I did strap her in the first few times, but since we were letting her nap in it all swaddled up when she was a newborn, it just didn't seem practical to strap her in. We rarely bothered turning it on, and just used it as a safe place to lie her down when we were downstairs, so even once she was out of the swaddle we just ignored the buckle. When she started sitting unsupported a couple of months ago, we began to use the chair much less, for fear that she would tip herself out, because now that we were willing to bother with the straps, they weren't long enough to reach around her. So when her chair arrived at our new apartment after the move, I decided it was time to put it away to save for future babies (shhhhh....don't tell Brian). I was about to take it apart so it would fit better into a box, when I remembered that for months it seemed like most the pictures I took of her included that chair, and I decided that one last picture was required.

Wee squooshy monkey:

Three weeks old. I believe this picture also documents the first time I put her in clothing that required something be pulled over her head. She outgrew the shirt before I got brave enough to put it on her a second time.

Less wee, less squooshy, still a monkey:

Seven months old.

Seven months

I thought about not writing a seven month post. I looked back at the others and thought they were all sappy, sounding like motherhood was all sunshines and rainbows and unicorns, and I was idealizing and romanticizing the whole thing. And then I realized that I shouldn't not write it, because I do like having some sort of record marking each month, even if it seems that the record is more about my experiences than about actual changes in the baby. I should just write honestly. So:

Some mornings Adriana wakes me up with little pats on my cheek with her tiny hand. I want to keep my eyes closed, so she'll keep doing it--it's just so sweet. But I know that when she sees me open my eyes she'll give me a big grin, and I think that's even better. Some days she naps when I expect her too and I get things done around the house and Brian plays with her in the evenings while I cook dinner, and everything is great. When she gets fussy around eight or nine o'clock, I put her in a double-thick diaper and footy pajamas, and then I read her Good Night Moon and nurse her down to sleep. And those days are perfect and wonderful and I think, I should have 10 more babies! Or maybe no more babies because now I have the exact life I want and why mess with that?

Some mornings the baby wakes up fussy, and I can't go back to sleep after Brian gets up with her. And I spend the day tired, and it seems as though the baby never naps (although she usually does), and the house gets messier and messier, and I don't feel like singing "Mail Myself to You" 789347894 times or changing another diaper, and dammit, I forgot to put the diapers in the dryer. Why on earth did I think I could handle having a baby? Is it too early in the day to call Brian and suggest that this would not be a good day for him to lose track of time at work and not get home until seven?

I am lucky, I know, that there are more days like the former than like the latter, and that most days are a mix. And I think overall I do pretty well. And so does Adriana. So that's about my experience. As for changes in the baby:

The baby, she crawls. Not really. Not a lot. But she sees something in front of her and leans forward onto her hands and knees and makes her way towards it. She moves a knee forward, then the other, then her hands. And she gets what she wants. Is amazing and fantastic and terrifying. I am totally doomed. Somehow I had come up with the idea that babies crawled around nine months, so I thought I was safe for awhile. And while she's not getting anywhere fast, I think this may count as crawling. When she first did it on Friday I was reluctant to call it crawling, but Brian and his parents saw it happen today and said it counted. So hey, the baby crawls! Yay! And also: dammit. And the cat, who was just awakened by a baby who crawled over to her and poked her says only "dammit."

Adriana began sitting unsupported not long after reaching five months, but it took her until this past week to begin pushing herself up to sitting. Last night, just before I dropped off to sleep, I opened my eyes to check that the baby was still breathing, just in time to see her push up to her hands and knees and then to sitting. She reached toward the side of the cosleeper and I grabbed her, because I already know that she can pull up onto her knees when she's like that, and I was envisioning her pulling herself over the side and landing on the floor with a thud. Because earlier this week she managed to roll or scoot off of our bed when I thought she was napping, and now I know exactly the sound an eighteen-pound baby makes when she hits the floor: thud, pause, scream. And I can do without ever hearing that again. So later on today, before she goes to bed for the evening, the cosleeper will be converted to a play yard. Which means I will have to wake up when the baby wakes and needs to eat, rather than just pulling her in with me and not remembering it (I know this for a fact because she was sleeping in a play yard while we were staying at my dad's in July), and I won't be able to just open my eyes to watch her back rise and fall to confirm that she is still alive. And really, this is all about me. Didn't you know?

Oh, and it's all about baby pictures:

'Bout damn time

From the Washington Post: Metro Sets Passengers 'Right"

Why couldn't they have done this five years ago? Although, honestly, who really thinks this is going to solve the problem? The message isn't going to play that often, and are the tourists really going to listen to the message, even when the messages are actually audible? I think Metro needs to do what London does in the tube and put signs up and down the escalators reminding people to stand on the right.

Oh, and I don't live in DC anymore. So I shouldn't care, should I? Well, maybe this will be my last post bitching about Metro.

World Breastfeeding Week

Today is the last day of World Breastfeeding Week. I've been wanting to write about it, but sort of stumped as to what to say. My birth story gets a fair number of hits with people Googling for answers to their questions about labor and c-section recovery and the like (I really hope the person who Googled "nine months pregnant back pain contractions five minutes apart" stepped away from her computer and just called her midwife), so I thought that by writing about my experience with breastfeeding, I could help someone who is searching the internet for anecdotal information about nursing.

When I was pregnant and stressed out and worried about becoming a parent, and crying because I was sure it would be too hard and I was hormonal and everything seemed like too much, Brian would try to help me focus, try to help me overcome my fears and worries by talking to me about the baby, but also by trying to get me to focus on the positive and talk about it. One time he asked me what I was looking forward to most when it came to taking care of the baby. "Nursing," I told him. "I just want to nurse the baby." I had images of a blissful breastfeeding relationship, where after the baby was born on the big bed at the birth center, she was placed against me and we were wrapped in blankets and we would nurse and she we look into my eyes and we would bond and everything would be perfect. Focusing on that image helped me get through so many of the fears I experienced during pregnancy.

And now I just have to say that nursing sucked at first. It was hard. The blissful bonding didn't happen immediately. We got there eventually, but it took work.

Adriana didn't nurse immediately after birth. At first we were separated because she needed to go to the nursery while I was stitched up after the c-section. (I'm told some women may get to attempt nursing while still in the OR, but I was bleeding a bit more than they expected, and that wasn't an option for us.) We attempted nursing in the recovery room, but she was sleepy and I couldn't yet sit up or turn on my side, so it was awkward, and I'm not sure she got much. Then I was sent to x-ray for tests and told by the radiologist that they contrast dye they were giving me would mean that I couldn't nurse for 48 hours. I panicked. I knew that my odds of successfully nursing the baby were already reduced because we weren't together nursing right at that moment. I worried about immunity and nipple confusion, but I consented to the test. That afternoon and evening, Brian syringe-fed Adriana her first food, formula. She wasn't getting immunity from my colostrum, but at least once our 48 hours were up, she wouldn't have become accustomed to a bottle nipple. I pumped colostrum, trying to get my milk to come in that night. I meant to wake up every few hours to pump while Brian fed the baby, but I was sleeping deeply, and he decided I needed the rest to help myself recover. So I slept, and dreamed dreams about nursing the baby that were realistic enough that I awoke confused about whether maybe I really had.

The next afternoon the hospital lactation consultant breezed into the room, told me that the radiologist had been wrong, and it was time to get the baby to nurse. We struggled then and we struggled for the next few days, as we tried to find a position that worked for us, tried to help the baby latch on (and stay on--if her arms weren't tightly swaddled she tended to push herself away after a few sucks, and then scream because she was hungry and not nursing), tried to feed her every two hours even when she wasn't hungry. We didn't know what we were doing, and we were making ourselves crazy, but Brian and I were both desperate to make breastfeeding work. Our desperation made us determined, and our determination made it work. We would get the baby latched on and my milk would let down and for a few minutes I would be lost in a haze of "happy nursing hormones."

But even though it was working, it was hard. I had read that before, but I didn't realize how true it was. It's natural, I thought; it shouldn't be hard. I mean, cats don't have lactation consultants or breastfeeding videos or La Leche League meetings or lanolin, and they somehow manage. Why can't humans? With each feeding it became less of a struggle, and with each day I worried less about whether Adriana was getting enough to eat. It helped that I stopped panicking when she didn't want to nurse every two hours, and that when we saw her pediatrician when she was six days old, she had stopped losing weight, and had even gained a couple of ounces since we'd left the hospital. By the time she was a week old, we were doing okay. And then the pain set in.

It was different from the pain I'd felt the first few times I'd fed Adriana--more of a burning that was strongest right after a feed. I was reading The Nursing Mother's Companion (my favorite breastfeeding book--easiest to use when you are in the new baby haze and with the most detail on some of the problems that occur early on) while feeding the baby, and diagnosed myself with thrush. The pediatrician confirmed this at the two-week checkup, and got us started on treatment. The treatment was slow, and although our case of thrush never got as bad as some people's, I was upset that feeding the baby was causing me pain. I felt guilty when the baby would want to "cluster feed" in the evenings and I would get annoyed because I was in pain. A couple times when she started to fuss for food, after nursing only 30 minutes before, I would leave Brian to try to comfort her while I took a hot shower, just to get a little break. I was worried because my baby was hungry and I wasn't feeding her; what kind of mother was I? But I needed those few minutes away. The thrush finally cleared up about five weeks after we first started treatment, after talks with a midwife and a La Leche League leader to figure out what could be done in addition to what the pediatrician had prescribed (answer: rinsing with a vinegar solution after every feed, applying the ointment after every feed, and taking acidophilus each day).

It took awhile before I was nursing without pain. It took some time before the baby and I could get her latched on with ease. It was awhile before I could nurse without a boppy, or using a coat rolled up like a boppy. It took awhile to be able to nurse lying down. But everything is fine now. My fears in the hospital when I wasn't allowed to nurse right away were unfounded: not being able to nurse for the first 24 hours sucked, but in the long run it didn't hurt us at all. Now, every couple of hours, every single day, Adriana and I curl up together so that she can eat, and the wish that I tearfully expressed to Brian last fall has come true.

Little Giant

Adriana finally had her six-month well baby visit, where she weighed in at 18 pounds, 4 ounces (79th percentile) and measured 27 inches long (85th percentile). She screamed for her shots, but was easier to soothe than she has been in the past, and was in pretty good spirits before much time had passed--so long as the nurse who administered them stayed away from us. Any time the baby caught sight of the nurse after the shots, the screaming started again. If it weren't so difficult to hear my girl cry, I probably would have found it funny.

Avocado

At first, Adriana wasn't sure what to do with the mushy green things I put in front of her.



When I mashed them up and started feeding them to her with a spoon she wasn't sure she liked the way they tasted.


But the spoon itself, that was fun.


And avocado is great for the complexion, so at least some good came of today's experiment.

Food!

On Sunday, Adriana got her first...well, "solids" doesn't seem like the right word, as it wasn't very solid. And "food other than breastmilk" isn't quite right, either, as I mixed the cereal with milk so that it would taste familiar. But anyhow, she got her first cereal over the weekend, and it was a ton of fun watching her experiment with the spoon and react to the taste and feeling of the cereal.





I'd been reluctant to start Adriana on solids. I was determined to wait until six months to make sure she was really ready, although some of my friends, I think, didn't quite get why I was waiting. Honestly, it took me awhile to figure out while I was waiting too. I mean, part of it was logistical: I knew that it would take time and make a mess, and I wanted to wait until we were settled into our new place before getting involved. But I realized that I was also nervous about what it meant for nursing. I love nursing her, and I was afraid of losing that relationship. It turns out that a couple of tablespoons of rice cereal doesn't much interfere with nursing, and I think that's just the way it should be. Eventually she'll eat more solid foods and slowly wean, but it's going to be a long process that will give us both a chance to adjust. And I think trying her out on some avocado tomorrow is going to be all kinds of fun. By which I mean a big, slimy, green mess.

Moving in

We are settling in at our new apartment. Movers came with our furniture and 82 boxes on Thursday, and we've been unpacking ever since. Well, sort of. I may have taken a bit of a break to read Harry Potter. But Brian was unpacking (and very understanding of my lack of willpower)

Incidentally, the last time we were moving apartments? A new Harry Potter book came out. What's up with that? Last time I attempted to alternate unpacking with reading, and gave up pretty quickly and just read the book. This time I wasn't even going to open the book when it came, but yeah. No willpower. That's also why I ate an entire bag of Trader Joe's molasses cookies in two days. But that's better than eating them all in one day. Right?

So. Anyway. We are in our new apartment, after about three weeks of floating between hotels and my dad's and corporate housing. And it's good to be here, in our own space, even if that space is full of boxes and stuff that doesn't yet have a home. Even if we haven't found the energy (or space) to cook actual food for ourselves beyond veggie burgers. The cat isn't quite convinced we aren't going to put her in her carrier and tote her off to yet another location, but she is spending a bit less time hiding out in the box spring.

Unpacking boxes that the movers packed for us is a little weird. I'm not complaining. I'd rather have movers than have to pack everything myself. But there are some surprises when we unpack boxes--they are labeled with their contents, but sometimes random stuff also was thrown it because it fit. And I would have done that myself, I'm sure, but I would also have had some memory of doing it. And when I packed up my books, I would have packed them by shelf and then labeled the boxes by subject. But books were just packed, and in order to get boxes out of our house, we just put them on shelves, to be sorted later. It's probably not the most efficient way to do things, but it seemed best, although it was causing me some anxiety to have a Tennessee Williams anthology, a Michael Moore book, the Bible, The Politics of Fertility Control, and a public finance textbook all in a row on a shelf. I don't think of myself as a highly organized person, apparently my bookcases are an exception.

Although there are still boxes to be unpacked, I've stopped and instead am focusing on organizing and cleaning up a bit. I think that's good for my mental health. Sitting and reading Harry Potter (which didn't suck!) while Brian did the work was even better, but I don't think even I can rationalize a reread of it already. But I bet I could find a way to justify another trip to TJ's for some cookies.

Six months

Oh hi! I have this website where I write stuff, don't I? Actually, I have written a couple things for it recently, but I didn't get around to posting them. I found this one in my Google docs stuff this morning:

Six months

It's so hard to believe that Adriana is already six months old. It's also hard to believe that Adriana is only six months old. I'm not sure how the months manage to fly so quickly and feel like forever all at once.

I'm not so sure whether mother's intuition actually works. After months of thinking she was teething, Adriana's first tooth appeared the day after we arrived in California, with relatively little fussing. She hadn't slept as much on the plane as I had hoped, and had been a little fussier than usual for the rest of the day, but I had figured the travelling was a bit hard on her. A friend tells me she had a similar experience with her little boy, but now she can identify teething, so maybe my psychic abilities will improve with time. Another tooth did come through eight days later, and I wasn't so surprised by it, but that was because I was so fascinated by the first one that I was constantly looking in her mouth, so I saw it waiting to poke through.

I've been amazed at how well Adriana has handled the whole move. I suppose that when pretty much everything is a brand new experience and you're always getting toted around places, a cross-country move isn't as disruptive as when you're an adult settled in your ways. But Adriana seems to be her normal, happy self throughout this whole thing. We visit friends with her, tote her along with us on the ferry to go to the farmer's market in San Francisco, and this weekend we'll take her up to Napa to visit her grandparents and go wine tasting.

Shortly after arriving in California, I bought Adriana three new things: a sippy cup, a play yard, and a high chair. The sippy cup she finds interesting, but isn't convinced that she ought to actually drink from it. The play yard is okay for short sleeps and I'm glad we'll have it to keep here at Grandpa's, but as it lacks room for mama to snuggle up with her, she's not sure that spending the night in it is such a good thing (and I'm too lazy to get out of bed to return her to it after she nurses at night), so I'm glad I bought the cheapest one Target had. The high chair, though, that is fantastic. Much better than the bouncy chair we had for her at home. The high chair has a tray to bang on and let's her sit up high and see what's going on at the table. One of my professors in college would say that if he could get 1/3 of the students really into the subject, he thought he was doing pretty well; after all, if a baseball player bats .333 he's a superstar. By that logic, my shopping trip was quite the success. I'm a superstar Target shopper! Or a superstar mama!

And then I stopped typing and went to do something else, apparently. I'll have to add pictures later once I've found the cable to download stuff from my camera.

It's so hard to believe that Adriana is already six months old. It's also hard to believe that Adriana is only six months old. I'm not sure how the months manage to fly so quickly and feel like forever all at once.

I'm not so sure whether mother's intuition actually works. After months of thinking she was teething, Adriana's first tooth appeared the day after we arrived in California, with relatively little fussing. She hadn't slept as much on the plane as I had hoped, and had been a little fussier than usual for the rest of the day, but I had figured the travelling was a bit hard on her. A friend tells me she had a similar experience with her little boy, but now she can identify teething, so maybe my psychic abilities will improve with time. Another tooth did come through eight days later, and I wasn't so surprised by it, but that was because I was so fascinated by the first one that I was constantly looking in her mouth, so I saw it waiting to poke through.

I've been amazed at how well Adriana has handled the whole move. I suppose that when pretty much everything is a brand new experience and you're always getting toted around places, a cross-country move isn't as disruptive as when you're an adult settled in your ways. But Adriana seems to be her normal, happy self throughout this whole thing. We visit friends with her, tote her along with us on the ferry to go to the farmer's market in San Francisco, and this weekend we'll take her up to Napa to visit her grandparents and go wine tasting.

Shortly after arriving in California, I bought Adriana three new things: a sippy cup, a play yard, and a high chair. The sippy cup she finds interesting, but isn't convinced that she ought to actually drink from it. The play yard is okay for short sleeps and I'm glad we'll have it to keep here at Grandpa's, but as it lacks room for mama to snuggle up with her, she's not sure that spending the night in it is such a good thing (and I'm too lazy to get out of bed to return her to it after she nurses at night), so I'm glad I bought the cheapest one Target had. The high chair, though, that is fantastic. Much better than the bouncy chair we had for her at home. The high chair has a tray to bang on and let's her sit up high and see what's going on at the table. One of my professors in college would say that if he could get 1/3 of the students really into the subject, he thought he was doing pretty well; after all, if a baseball player bats .333 he's a superstar. By that logic, my shopping trip was quite the success. I'm a superstar Target shopper! Or a superstar mama!

And then I stopped typing and went to do something else, apparently. I'll have to add pictures later once I've found the cable to download stuff from my camera.

Home again, home again

Last night as we drove from our dinner in Arlington with friends down to our hotel near Dulles, I looked out at the monuments across the river and wondered if I was going to cry. I am ordinarily someone who cries very easily, so you would think that leaving the place I'd been for five years would be just the thing to set me off, but instead I'll be adding last night to the (short) list of times when I expected to cry but didn't.

It was a full week: a few "one last times", like a free concert at the Kennedy Center*, dinners at favorite places**, visiting with friends; a couple of sightseeing trips to the National Cryptologic Museum and Tidal Basin; and that crazy business of getting all of our stuff weeded through and packed and out of the house. It wore me out considerably, which is odd, considering that there were guys who came to pack up our stuff*** and put it on a truck, and my dad was in town to help with the baby while Brian and I got stuff done, so it wasn't as though I had to stay up until ridiculous hours to try to finish things after she was asleep.

Anyhow, we survived getting our stuff packed up and managed to make it through airport security and deal with a cross-country flight with both a baby and a cat. Now we're in California, and I am definitely not crying now. In fact, I'm smiling a lot.

*Erin Mckeown, who did a great show, and sang a lot of my favorite songs that I hadn't heard her do live before. I even have a picture of her and Adriana after the show, but it's on my cell phone and hell if I know how to get pics off of there.

**Brian really wanted to go to El Tamarindo. I told him that parking would suck on a Friday night, that the food and drinks there weren't as good as he remembered, and that he liked it so much because of fond memories of getting drunk with Becca there. But the food was actually quite good, as were the drinks, and we found parking almost immediately and only about a block away.

***One thing about the guys who handled our move on the Alexandria end: our stuff has to go into storage because our place isn't available until mid-July. For some reason, this means that the contents of our dressers had to be packed into boxes. When the packers left at the end of the day on Thursday we discovered that they'd packed up everything but my underwear drawer. I don't know what that's all about but it cracks me up.

No place like home

On our house hunting trip, we flew to Oakland and headed straight for Santa Cruz. We weren't meeting with our relocation agent until the following morning, so we wanted to take advantage of some of the free time we would have during the trip to see friends and maybe ride a roller coaster or two. I was prepared to enjoy the time in Santa Cruz. I didn't expect it to make me so sad.

At first it was just the pleasant nostalgia I always feel as we drive into town. On our first trip back to Santa Cruz after moving across the country, we turned onto Mission Street and pulled up beside a hybrid car with Nader and rainbow bumper stickers. It made us smile and feel at home. As we drove along Mission on this trip, I commented to Brian that everything always looked pretty much the same and that no matter what the restaurant was at the corner of Mission and Bay, I'd always be stuck calling it "that place that used to be Marcelo's." I was smiling and felt at home once again. It's kind of like seeing a beautiful young woman on the street as opposed to seeing my sister: when I see the beautiful woman I don't know, I'm struck by her appearance, but with my sister people tell me she's pretty, and of course I think so, but when I look at her, she just looks like herself to me. When I came over a hill after getting off the freeway in Laguna Beach in April, my breath was taken away by the sight of the ocean, but Santa Cruz just looked like itself to me as we drove into town. Santa Cruz in comfortable and familiar even after five years of being away.

(I'm sorry, did that simile not really work? It's the first thing that comes to mind and that's the best I can do on a Sunday morning, I'm afraid.)

Later on in the day, as I walked into Natural Bridges from the park's back entrance on Delaware, enjoying the mingling scents of the ocean and the eucalyptus trees, I suddenly wanted to cry. That was when it hit me that we really weren't going to be moving back to Santa Cruz. I've know that for some time, and I also know it doesn't make sense for us to move back: houses are expensive there, there aren't really jobs for either of us, and pretty much all of our friends have moved on. Still, that knowledge didn't really hit me until I was walking down a path to my favorite beach, a path I'd walked countless times in the past: to go lie in the sun with Brian on the weekends when he lived on Beachview; to have picnics and fly kites with friends on holiday weekends; on long walks from campus to home as I was training for my marathon. Then I realized that that path, that beach weren't going to be part of my day-to-day life the way they were five years back. It was somehow easier to accept the loss of that when I was on the other side of the country.

I know we're making the right decision with where we're moving, but it's hard to realize that moving back to California doesn't mean walking to the lighthouse to watch the surfers at Steamer Lane, or getting our burritos from Taqueria Vallarta. We won't just make an impromptu trip to the Boardwalk to ride the Giant Dipper once, or spend the afternoon wandering up and down Pacific Avenue. I've been away from those things for some time now, and I'd stopped missing them the way I did when we first left California, but I'm missing them again now I'll be much closer but not getting them back. I suppose I've idealized Santa Cruz to a certain extent, because I don't find myself feeling the same attachment to Martinez, where I spent my entire life up until college. Maybe it's because Santa Cruz is where I "grew up" and found an identity apart from my parents. It's where Brian and I met and fell in love. It's beautiful in both immense and minute ways. It was gorgeous when we were there last week--sunny and warm, with nice waves out on the bay. But it had seemed perfect to me in November, too, on the grey day when we drove up the coast for lunch and that evening when we went up to campus in a misty rain. I suppose that a lot of the beauty of the area for me isn't just in the actual surroundings, but in the familiarity and memories.

Does one have to be stupid to decide to go to Target on Saturday, or does being at Target on a Saturday make one stupid?

Next time someone asks me about my decision to stay at home with Adriana I'm going to tell them it's less about quality time with my daughter than about the ability to go to Target while everyone else is at work.

House hunting

Last weekend, Brian, Adriana, and I headed to California for a house hunting trip. The experience was very different from finding a place to live in the DC area five years ago. Back then, I came out to DC on my own, spent some time looking around, and figured out what I wanted for myself. Of course, we'd talked extensively before I headed out about what we wanted, but I didn't have to negotiate with anyone as I realized that neither the Virginia high rises that Brian thought might be a good idea nor the Georgetown basement apartments that I had envisioned were right for us. After a weekend of riding Metro and taking wrong buses to get around, we ended up in a condo (above ground, but not in a high rise) in the suburbs for a little more than half of what we were paying for our little house in Santa Cruz.

Now we are moving back to California. Our rent is going to go up, although we fought it (and fought with each other over it). We both went on the trip this time. Instead of newspaper listings, a cell phone, and a Metro card, we had easy access to Google maps and the VTA website so that we could check commute times, as well as a relocation agent who took us first on a general neighborhood tour around the South Bay and Peninsula, and then pulled up listings and took us to view various condos and apartments. The whole experience was vastly different. We negotiated with each other and bounced ideas off the agent.

I think we'll be happy in the place we chose. It's in Mountain View, which we wanted but then decided we couldn't afford. Before we left for California, we decided that we would focus on San Jose, and after an evening wandering around we decided we loved the idea of being right in downtown San Jose. Then we discovered we couldn't afford it. Well, we could afford it, I guess, but we weren't willing to pay that much. During the neighborhood tour, I started thinking Campbell might be good, with lower housing prices and a cute downtown area. Unfortunately, the commute for Brian didn't look good. Then we fell ridiculously in love with a complex in North San Jose that was everything I didn't want in a neighborhood: office park after office park after office park. We are apparently suckers for pretty views and granite counters. But Mountain View seemed like a better bet and the apartment is spacious and seems pretty nice. I feel like such a housewife whenever I say it, but I am excited to have a kitchen larger than what we have now (not that it would take much), in spite of the fact that the stove is electric rather than gas, and I love that not only do we have our own washer and dryer but that they are not taking up room in the kitchen. Brian is already totally in love with the balcony, which gets lots of morning sun, so we're planning on growing herbs and maybe geraniums. We'll be able to walk to the library, parks, and restaurants, and on Sunday we saw that the farmer's market looked big and crowded. I'm excited about our move.

I'm not sure at this point which house hunting method I prefer. I liked the independence of looking for a place on my own, but I'm glad that Brian and I found a place together. I felt that I was exploring more as I visited places using public transit, but the relocation agent and his car made it easier to see a lot of places in one day. The hotel we stayed in was more comfortable than the hostel I stayed in five years ago, but I didn't meet cool women to go out to bars with. But one thing was definitely better about this house hunting trip: when my plane landed at BWI five years ago, it was ten at night and the pilot reported that the temperature outside was over 90 degrees with ridiculous humidity; on Thursday when we touched down in the bay area it was relatively cool and not humid at all.

This is really happening, isn't it? Part 2

We have a place to live! We've put a holding deposit on a place in Mountain View. I don't know why I find it so surprising when we do basic things like this. I wonder if I was in so much shock when we were making progress toward our move to DC five years ago.

Father's Day

Every father loves his baby, but it's been wonderful to see Brian with Adriana. To see the way he holds her and cares for her and loves her. I know the first few days after she was born were terrifying for him (and for me!), but I think he changed every single diaper the first week and it was amazing to watch him with her. And still I don't think there is a better sight than that of him holding her.


Minutes into fatherhood


Two days


Two weeks


One month


Two months


Three months


Four months


Five months

Happy Father's Day!

Five months

One day recently, I was giving Adriana some "naked time"--letting her play around on a thick towel on the bedroom floor. She was lying there completely naked, smiling at me and trying to fit her feet into her mouth, while I put away laundry. I looked down at her and suddenly realized that someday this baby will yell at me and slam a door. Will get a driver's license. Will go off to college. I thought for a moment that I might like to stop time right now and stay here forever.

Right now she is just a wonderful, beautiful five-month old baby who rolls around naked on the floor. She likes when we dance around the house with her and when we sing to her. She likes having raspberries blown on her belly, and playing peek-a-boo. Giggles and growls and coos lead to shrieks and belly laughs as Adriana explores her vocal range. Sometimes I think she sounds like something out of Jurassic Park, but mostly I just try to get as many laughs out of her as I can, because I have never heard a more wonderful sound. I think I need to make a recording of her baby laughs and squeals, so that I can play them back some day far in the future when she yells at me and slams a door.

She charms people wherever we go with her big gummy grins and funny baby noises. "Are you always such a happy baby?" people always coo at her. Sometimes I want to invite them over for one of her fussy days, the days where she still giggles and smiles, but intersperses those with fussing for no apparent reason. One of the days where I think that the only thing I haven't tried is getting up and dancing for her, and suddenly I turn on some music and do a funny dance and she laughs. And then five minutes later she's fussy again because she's hungry, but she can't concentrate on eating for more than a minute at a time because the cat just walked by, or the dogwood branches outside the window caught her attention, or she suddenly realized that the spinning ceiling fan deserves her complete attention. But mostly I say that yes, she is a very happy baby, because most of the time she is. I know that I have a very easy going kiddo.

She lets us pull her up to sitting and sometimes will support herself for a couple of seconds in a seated position by leaning forward onto her hands. She rolled over from her tummy to her back for the first time the day after she turned four months old, and immediately did it twice more when I rolled her back onto her tummy. Then she didn't do it for three more weeks. Recently she's been focussed on going back-to-front, and sometimes, despite my explanations about "back to sleep" and AAP recommendations, she rolls onto her tummy to sleep. On Friday morning when I set her down on my bed, she rolled from her back onto her tummy and saw a blanket that she wanted. So, with a lot of grunting and wriggling, she used her knees and feet to push herself toward it (with her face shoved into the mattress). Finally she grabbed the edge of the blanket and rolled onto her back, shoving a corner of the blanket and her thumb into her mouth. "Am DOOOOOOMED," I emailed a friend. This little girl wants to be mobile, and I see my job getting a lot harder in the near future.

But I don't actually want to stop time right now. Even though it seems that everything is going too fast, every new stage, every new development, every single little change seems so amazing that nearly every day is better than the last.

This is really happening, isn't it?

Today I booked one-way tickets to Oakland. I think we might actually be moving back to California.

Not even the rain

Adriana holding her great-grandfather's hand. Photo by Brian.

Eight things

Eight things you may not know about me, brought to you by Ann and my insomnia:

1. I've had the same recurring dream about someone breaking into my house since I was a child. Well, it's not exactly the same every time, but close enough: someone comes to the door and I know I shouldn't open it, but I do and they force their way in. It's been going for so long now that when I'm in the dream I realize it's a dream, except then it turns out it's real life and it's really happening. Except then I wake up. It does make me nervous about answering the door sometimes.

2. I have this thing about socks: specifically, I don't like the way they feel. I am very specific about what socks I am willing to put on my feet because of this. Brian does not have this concern, so he has many socks that feel "wrong" to me. Because of this, we have a crate in our bedroom that I throw all socks into when I'm putting away wash. That way I have to touch them as little as possible. Although it does mean that I have to dig through the yucky feeling socks sometimes when I need to find some. I am so glad it's summer and I get to wear sandals all the time now.

3. There's a major part of me that doesn't want to be vegetarian anymore. I frequently decide that it's too much work, that it makes me seem ridiculously picky, and that since I don't really have ethical issues with eating meat, I should just give up vegetarianism. Then I realize that this would require me to actually put meat in my mouth and chew and swallow, and the whole idea makes me feel rather ill.

4. When I was little I was afraid of the dark and liked the hall light left on when I went to bed. When I was in the second grade, firefighters came to our school to teach us what we should do in the event of a house fire, and one of the things they told us was that we should sleep with our bedroom doors closed. Such a dilemma: I was terrified of fire, and I thought keeping my door closed would keep me safe, but then my room would be too dark. My fear of the dark won out.

5. I have "internet friends"--a group of women I met on a public internet message board. There are 12 of us and I've met 5 "in real life" now. The other six I still consider friends, and I will sometimes say, "my friend said..." and then realize that I'm talking about someone I've never actually met. And when someone asks me how I met one of these friends, I'm always embarrassed to admit that I met them online.

6. In the summer after dinner my dad would sometimes walk us up to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream. I nearly always picked Gold Medal Ribbon. Brian and I walked up to Baskin-Robbins after dinner the other night. I considered the Gold Medal Ribbon, but went with World Class Chocolate instead. I felt sort of guilty.

7. I like movies where people talk a lot and nothing much happens. But sometimes I think the best moments in those movies happen when no one is saying anything. And just so I don't sound really boring, I also really like alien invasion movies, so long as they're not too scary.

8. I love the oaks and dogwoods and magnolias and cherry trees here, and the way things blossom in the spring and burn with color in the fall, but I have missed the cypress trees that show you the shape of the wind. I am looking forward to seeing those more often.


Why, yes, this is the bloggy equivalent of a chain letter. Nevertheless, I am tagging:

Christie
Eleeza
Champ

4:30

Sometimes the nighttime wake-ups don't go as well as they might. Sometimes instead of helping the baby latch on to eat and falling back asleep, you hear the cat hork something up, and you lie there wondering if your husband heard it too, but even though he's not breathing as deeply as he was, he still seems to be asleep and you figure you're awake anyhow, so after the baby finishes eating, you get up and get a drink of water and go looking for the cat puke. You find it and clean it up and then dig through the hall closet looking for the carpet cleaner, not bothering to be quiet for your husband's sake, because it's too early to be that polite, when suddenly you remember that you didn't double the baby's diaper before she fell asleep, so she's probably soaked, and if you don't want to deal with diaper rash or changing the sheets, you're going to have to change her and risk waking her up. You find the carpet cleaner, spray the spot on the rug, and go to change the baby. When you pick up the baby you realize that she is soaked and the diaper has leaked, so you also have to change her clothes, which means she will almost certainly wake up, even though nothing has to go over her head. And yes, when you unsnap her clothes, her eyes open and she smiles, and changing her is a struggle, because now she is wiggling and trying to play. Finally she's changed and you put her back down in the bed, and go to wash your hands and wipe up the carpet cleaner, and feed the cat while you're at it, because she's going to come around asking for food in another hour anyhow, as she still likes to be fed at the same time she was back when you had to get up early to get ready for work. When you come back to bed, the baby is awake, cooing and giggling and kicking her legs, while she watches the ceiling fan. You climb in between her and your husband, and curl your body around her, and she turns to look up at you and smile. You groan inwardly because it's too early for her to be really awake, but then you kiss the top of her head, so that you can feel her soft hair and smell her new baby scent, and you rest your hand on her lightly, and her eyes slowly close. And everything is okay, perfect, even, and 4:30 in the morning isn't so bad after all.

In fact, it might be exactly want you wanted. (Well, except for the cat puke.)

Mid-May miscellany

Gonna see the folks I dig. There has been an awful lot of off-key singing of Joni Mitchell around here these days. The reality that we are actually moving back to California has sunk in at last. I'm trying to get our place cleaned up enough that the landlord can show it to potential renters, and weeding through old clothes and papers so that we don't end up hauling crap we don't need all the way back across the country. I browse Craigslist and the MLS every single day, and think gleefully about the full service movers that we're getting. On muggy days, I think good thoughts about bay area weather, and when we have thunderstorms I consider how much I'll miss them. And then I eat some ice cream, because that is how I cope with even positive stress like this.

***

Nurse-in update. The nurse-in last Thursday was kind of fun. A lot of moms and babies (and a few dads) gathered on the terrace at the Cannon Building. My friend Melanie and I admired various baby carriers and the babies that were in them. A photographer from Mothering took our picture, and Melanie and I took pictures of each other with her camera. Adriana got hungry and I tried to nurse her, but she was too distracted by all the people around her (and you try to explain to a four-month-old that she is missing the entire point of the nurse-in). When they decided to start, we were encouraged to move behind the lectern where people would be speaking. I couldn't hear a word anybody said, but I clapped when everybody else did. And then Adriana was finally hungry enough to eat, so I sat down on the steps and fed her and changed her diaper and we all went home.


Me and Adriana, Melanie and Eliza

***

Pachuquitos. The other day I pulled up at the stoplight outside the high school. It was a beautiful day, and I had my windows down and the radio on. A car rolled to a stop beside me, windows down and some Spanish-language rap playing so loud that it drowned out the music I was listening to. I glanced over to see four teenage boys, three with backwards caps, one with a bandana, all slouching in the car. Very badass. Except for the fact that they were driving someone's mom's Volvo stationwagon.

***

Oops. Did you know that the expression is "to put the kibosh on something," not kibbutz? Which, I guess putting the kibbutz on something doesn't make a lot of sense. But saying it wrong will totally make your husband laugh. And maybe that's what you're going for.

But the day after someone around here made that error, there was an interesting piece on Marketplace about kibbutzim.

***

Baby photos!

The other day I picked up my camera to take a picture of Adriana and discovered that Brian had grabbed a few shots of her that morning while I was sleeping in.










Those photos make me so happy. I guess I think it's sweet to think of them playing downstairs together so I can get some extra sleep after taking care of the middle of the night feedings and diaper changes.

Also, my in-laws seem particularly enamored of this photo:



Baby sunglasses! Heeeeee! And you should see her when I put my sunglasses on her, because they are even bigger and funnier. Only I can't show you that, because I lost them at the pediatrician visit on Monday (which totally sucked, by the way, and I am beginning to suspect that a large percentage of the people who choose not to vaccinate just don't want to hear their baby cry, and the people who space shots out and end up with more days of shots must be absolutely nuts, except, I mean, I considered it, so I see their reasoning, but oh my god the crying), and I went right back in to look for them, but couldn't find them then and no one had found them the next night when we took Adriana in because she was still running a fever (which, yes, I know a fever is a normal reaction and hers wasn't even that high, but the advice nurse told us to bring her in, so stop laughing at us as crazy neurotic first time parents, Dr. On Call, and didn't you learn in medical school that pointy stilettos are totally unhealthy?), so I suspect that someone found them and kept them, and then threw them away because they were the prescription ones I got last spring, and they will make anyone else extremely dizzy because of my particular screwed up eyes, which sucks because they were expensive, and that is totally why I should never buy expensive sunglasses, except having prescription sunglasses is very awesome.

I'm sorry. That was a long sentence, wasn't it? My apologies. Here, have another baby picture.

Mother's Day

After my mom died in 2001, I did my best to avoid Mother's Day. The first year was actually the easiest, as Brian and I spent all of that May traveling around Spain. I didn't look too closely at a calendar before we left, so I wasn't even entirely sure which Sunday it was. The only other Mother's Day I remember in particular was one a couple of years later, after we'd moved to Washington, when we decided that spending the afternoon at a bar near our house watching NBA playoff games would be fun, and that the bar was likely to be free of people celebrating Mother's Day. After all, who takes their mom to the billiards bar to watch basketball on Mother's Day afternoon? The bar was fine, but getting there wasn't much fun, as we walked down the row of restaurants where families were sitting outside enjoying the sunshine and their late Mother's Day lunch.

For six years I indulged a rather Grinchy feeling on Mother's Day. I didn't get to celebrate it, and I didn't want to watch others celebrating it. I told myself it was a fake holiday, one created (or at least marketed) by Hallmark to sell more cards, made sure Brian got a card and flowers to his mom in time, and then did my best to ignore it.

But now I am a mom. This weekend Brian brought me home a bouquet of gerbera daisies, my current favorite flowers. He gave me a card and a bird guide, and after going out for brunch (french toast and a bellini--yum), we drove to Mason Neck for some bird watching. It was an altogether perfect day, with my perfect little family.

Now Mother's Day doesn't seem so bad. I mean, dude, it's totally like getting my birthday in May. And I love my birthday. I should have a baby every year.

Four months

One day last week I was feeling particularly sleep deprived, so in the afternoon, after nursing Adriana to sleep in the armchair, I stayed where I was and closed my eyes. I couldn't actually fall asleep, but it was nice to relax there with her sleeping on my chest, her head nestled into my neck. We used to nap that way when she was brand new. But now she's big enough that when she woke up, she pushed up so that she could look me in the face. I smiled at her, and she smiled right back. I felt sentimental and happy.

Then she spit up down the front of my shirt.

Even though I was tired that day, mostly I'm not too sleep deprived. For the past month Adriana has been waking up a little bit more than she used to, but it hasn't too bad. She nearly always goes down at a reasonable hour, and when she wakes up to eat she falls back to sleep immediately. But the real reason I'm so well rested is that after she wakes up in the morning to eat, Brian takes her downstairs and plays with her while he gets ready for work, allowing me to sleep in. And on the days he works from home, I sometimes even manage to sleep until 8:30 or 9, which leaves me rested and full of energy--and in shock as I remember that in my "past life" I was the sort of morning person who slept in until 7:30 on weekends.

Sometimes I think she's waking up more often because she is teething, but so far I can't feel anything through her gums. Sometimes I think it's a "sleep regression" because she's developing new skills, like a couple of weeks ago when she began rolling over. She still only goes back to front, and it involves a lot of wiggling and grunting. The first few times she was unhappily surprised to find herself on her belly, but I'm pretty sure at this point that she's doing it on purpose. She is still fascinated by her own hands, and I laughed yesterday as she moved one back and forth in front of her face, opening and closing her fingers with amazement. She is also reaching for her feet these days, and studying them carefully.

She's very aware of the world around her at this point, the world beyond her own hands and feet. Nursing her anywhere but at home can be a nightmare, as she is too distracted to really eat and spends most of her time pulling away from me to look around. She smiles at strangers in the grocery store, and coos and laughs when they talk to her. She likes toys now, and the touch-and-feel books we have are getting a lot of use. Her favorite toy, though, is the cat, and Adriana is always trying to reach out and touch her. At one point I glanced down at where baby was lying on the floor to see that Cecilia had settled down beside her. I wasn't worried about them, since I was right there, but I clearly wasn't paying enough attention, because a couple of minutes later when I looked, Adriana had grasped the cat's tail (the most fascinating part of her, since it sways back and forth and fits so nicely in a fist) and the cat was looking at me as if to say, "If you don't put an end to this, I will." I quickly released the cat and promised to watch them more carefully together. I think Cecilia will soon learn to steer clear of the baby.

It's amazing to me how much she's grown in the past four months. On Monday we'll have a pediatrician visit and I'll get to find out exactly how big this child has gotten, but I think she's about fifteen pounds and probably 26 or 27 inches long. Last week, after a middle-of-the-night diaper blow out that required a "costume change" for both of us, the first sleeper I tried to change Adriana into didn't fit. She had gotten too long and couldn't stretch out her legs. So, over the weekend I went through the box of clothes that I've been waiting for her to grow in to, and picked out most of the "6-9 months" items, and that's what she's been wearing for the past week. I don't know who comes up with these sizes, since I've never met anyone who found that they were accurate.

Our love for her grows faster than she does. That sound horribly corny, but I can't think of a better way to put it. In the first days after her birth, I would look at her and cry because I was so overwhelmed by the strength of my love for her. If someone had told me that my love would only get bigger, I don't think I would have believed them. I've got the crying pretty much under control now. But every day I notice little changes in her. Every day she laughs when I blow raspberries on her belly. Every day I cradle her in my arms as I nurse her and look into her eyes. And I think that everything is just perfect.

Baby's first rally

Today Adriana and I are headed for Capitol Hill, for a nurse-in to support the re-introduction of Congresswoman Maloney's Breastfeeding Promotion Act. You can read about the rally and the legislation here. And if you're in DC, you should join us.

Why, yes, Dr. Sears, I'd love some more of that delicious Kool-Aid

A review of baby carriers...and an excuse to post more photos.

Before Adriana was born, I was buying baby carriers. Actually, to go back a bit further, before Adriana was born I was researching baby carriers. When I lived in California, I was always seeing people with their babies in simple canvas slings. Then I moved to the DC area and noticed everyone with front pack carriers. I assumed I'd go with one of those, until I met my friend Tonjia and she introduced me to the world of silk ring slings, fleecy pouches, stretchy wraps, and fun mei tais. Actually, next time Brian starts making comments about my various carriers, remind me to just blame Tonjia. I think we were mostly pretty frugal in our preparations for Adriana's birth, but with carriers I didn't even bother trying to rationalize my purchases; I just clicked "submit my order" and waited for the next one to arrive. By the time the baby arrived, I had a ring sling, an adjustable pouch, a wrap, and a mei tai. I saw carriers as a great way to get around town with the baby. I take a lot of public transit, and I didn't want to deal with folding a stroller up every time I had to get on a bus. And I didn't want to lug the carseat into restaurants and the grocery store with me; that just looked painfully heavy. Now I take pride when a friend comments on how light we manage to travel with the baby, showing up with just a small diaper bag and the baby strapped to one of us in a sling of some sort.

I was right that the carriers are a great way to carry the baby and keep my hands free while I'm out and about, but I didn't know I would become so addicted to wearing my baby. Or that Brian would be too. Or that Adriana would be addicted to being worn. Brian dismissed my ring sling and mei tai as too girly, with their beautiful brocades (although he did discover that the mei tai can be worn inside out so it is a solid khaki, with the dragonfly-print silk hidden so no one will question his masculinity), but was fascinated by the wrap and pouch. When Adriana was about a week old and we had recovered from the shock of her birth (OMG, we have a BABY????) we started playing with the carriers. I was being overly careful at first, because my abdomen was still sore, but Brian was soon folding laundry with our daughter nestled against his chest in the wrap. Once I was feeling stronger, I was popping her in and out of the pouch, which was the simplest to learn how to use and taught me to love wearing my little girl.

Kangaroo Korner Adjustable Pouches

Our favorite sling at first was the adjustable fleece pouch from Kangaroo Korner. I was in the market for a pouch-style carrier, and Jennie praised this one enough that I decided I had to buy it. I had been considering getting the fleece Hotsling, which I've also heard good things about, but the size charts made me realize that the Kangaroo Korner one would fit both Brian and me. I bought a medium sized sling in elephant grey, and we wore it all winter. It was easy to learn to use: I successfully lowered Adriana into it in a tummy-to-tummy hold on the first try when she was about a week old. Brian also likes that hold, and once she got a little bigger, he masted the cradle carry, which keeps her more out of the way when we go out to dinner (although she still sometimes gets crumbs in her hair). We've worn her all over town in this pouch, and she spent an awful lot of time in it in the house too. The nice, snug fit is sort of like a swaddle, one that keeps her close to us. Putting her in the sling was one of the most reliable ways to calm her down the first couple of months, and usually a few minutes of walking around with her in the pouch lulled her to sleep.



The Kangaroo Korner pouch, keeping baby cozy.

The weather has gotten warmer, and even though we've gotten better at using other carriers, Brian and I still both love the simplicity of the pouch, so a couple of weeks ago I ordered another one from Kangaroo Korner, this one in a lightweight stretch cotton. This one is light blue with cream trim--I would have liked something prettier, but since I share this one with Brian, I knew it had to be something he would approve of. One thing about these pouches is that as we have become more comfortable with them, we've begun wearing them more snugly. I think we are more skilled at getting Adriana in and out, so we don't need as much extra room to do it in, and a tighter fit somehow distributes her weight on our backs a little better. So, I ordered our cotton one in a small, rather than a medium. The two smallest rows of snaps on the medium are the same as the two largest on the small, and since that's where Brian and I were wearing our medium, and I was thinking I might like it a little snugger. I'm glad I made that decision. The material of the cotton pouch stretches even more than the fleece, so a tighter fit is definitely necessary. I don't like the cotton one as much as the fleece one. I'm not sure if that's the sling itself, or whether I've simply gotten used to other carriers that do a better job of distributing the baby's weight. The cotton pouch is nice and small, so that I can roll it up and fit it into the diaper bag.

ZoloWear Silk Ring Sling

I laughed at a couple of my friends when they bought silk ring slings from ZoloWear to carry their babies in. I mean, serious, SILK? That has to be DRY CLEANED? To carry a baby who is going to spit up? Whatever. Except...they were so pretty. And then I got a positive pregnancy test, and I was so excited, and the blue one with the butterflies...that would be good for a boy or a girl. And there was only one left in size small. CLICK. Oops.

I love the way my Zolo looks--the material is beautiful and I like the way the "tail" flows. My yoga teacher described it as glamorous, and really I have to agree. I had to have some help figuring out how to use it, but now I tuck Adriana into it with no problem. It doesn't adjust as easily as a cotton rings sling would, as the material is so heavy, but I haven't really found that to be a problem--I have it adjusted the way I like it, and I just don't mess with it. The problem comes when I try to wear her in it for longer carries: it's a one-shoulder carrier and the fabric across the back and over the shoulder is narrow compared to my pouches (and to other ring slings I've seen). I wore my Zolo when we went to see the cherry blossoms and after walking from the Smithsonian metro around Tidal Basin to the FDR memorial, my left shoulder was killing me. Still, it is my prettiest sling, and I still wear it when I'm not going to be using it for long, just because I like the way it looks



Wearing the Zolo at Tidal Basin.


Moby Wrap

Brian was the first of us to try babywearing, and he decided to start with the Moby Wrap. I guess he thought it was more manly in appearance than some of the other carriers. He got Adriana into it in a cradle hold on the first try, when she wasn't quite a week old. He felt that she was secure there and went around the house with her sleeping like that. I didn't get up the nerve to try it until Adriana was about six weeks old, when I went to a NINO* meeting to find out how to use it. It was such a relief to have someone walk me through the steps, because this style of carrier is intimidating. It's basically a gigantic strip of material that you tie around your body to hold the baby against you. A friend said that you need a degree in fabric tying to be able to use it, and she's not too far off--it sometimes takes me two or three tries to get it tied in such a way that Adriana and I are both comfortable. Nevertheless, I do like this carrier, as it does the best job of any of them at distributing Adriana's weight. I spent several hours at the Air & Space museum with Adriana against me in a tummy-to-tummy hold, and my back felt fine. I would use this carrier much more often if I were able to get her in and out more easily. With other carriers I can pop Adriana in and out fairly easily for diaper changes and nursing, but I've found with the Moby that once I take her out, I have to re-wrap and re-tie the whole thing in order get her back in securely. Maybe with a wrap that was less stretchy that wouldn't be a problem--I think that taking her out stretches the material a bit too far so that it's too loose to hold her.



The proud new dad with baby in the Moby.



Out for a nature walk in the Moby at Mason Neck State Park.


Divas 'N' Babes Mei Tai

Full disclosure: My friend Tonjia, the one who made me realize that the world of baby carriers was not limited to New Native slings and Baby Bjorns, runs Divas 'N' Babes.

I was more intimidated by my mei tai from Divas 'N' Babes than by wrap even. Something about the rectangle of fabric with ties coming out of each corner struck me as complicated, and it didn't look like it would be all that secure. Again, I learned how to use this one at the NINO meeting, and I was glad I did. It doesn't do quite as good a job at distributing the baby's weight as the wrap does, but it does get a substantial amount of her weight onto my waist, and it's easier to put on and to get right on the first try. This has become my carrier of choice these days (with the cotton pouch tucked into the diaper bag, just in case), as it's pretty and practical. I do find that Adriana slips down in it a little when she falls asleep, and the ties need to be tightened after awhile. I'm willing to tolerate those issues in exchange for having a comfortable, pretty carrier.



Hanging out in the mei tai in Laguna Beach.



The carriers hold Adriana close to our bodies, so she can share our body heat and relax with the vibrations of our voices. We have spent countless hours pacing our bedroom floor and dancing around our living room with her in one carrier or another, soothing her when she is fussy. She sleeps quietly against me when we go out to dinner, and looks around at people and places when I take her on errands with me. I think she recognizes the carriers now. After she's been fed, changed, and played with, she often gets fussy as she begins to tire out. But when I put her down for a moment so I can tie on the mei tai or wrap, or slip the pouch or ring sling over my head, she smiles at me, knowing what is coming. Sometimes she is instantly soothed when she goes into the carrier. Sometimes the carrier doesn't result in an instantly calm infant--she continues to fuss for a few minutes as I bounce and sing--but it allows me to free my arms up a little bit, and to not have to worry that if I put her down she will be instantly awake; instead she spends her whole nap close to me, and I can go about my business--folding laundry, paying bills, reading blogs, whatever--without worrying about listening for the baby.

*NINO is great. I've only been to one meeting, but I may go to another to try more carriers (shhhh....don't tell Brian). Basically, it was an informal meeting where everyone brought all their various baby carriers so that other could try them out, and people who knew how to use certain styles offered instruction in how to get your own carrier on.

So fast

I was going through some photos looking for the ones I wanted for a post I was writing, but I got distracted.

How did we go from this wee squooshy monkey



to this already?




Oh, and so long as I'm posting gratuitous photos, I really love this one of Adriana and my sister.

Three months

This gets more fun every day. Adriana is suddenly much more aware of the world around her. This has some downfalls--she's easily distracted when I'm trying to feed her when we're out and about, which makes it harder to be quite so modest--but mostly it's just incredible to watch her notice things. She reaches out to grab the toys handing from her play gym, watches the cat come down the stairs, stares intently at the other babies in our yoga class.

She's stopped minding her tummy time. Now when I put her on her belly, she pushes up and kicks and smiles. Usually. Sometimes she still is pretty sure that tummy time is a vast right wing conspiracy. After I fed her on Sunday morning she accidentally rolled from her side onto her tummy as she was dozing back off. After a few seconds she woke back up grunting angrily and giving me an accusing look.

A couple of weeks ago, she discovered her vocal chords, but can't figure out how to make them stop, as Brian put it at first. She'd been cooing a little bit from time to time, but now whenever we set her down by herself she starts with her noises. A lot of the "words" start with an "ng" sound, making us wonder if we somehow ended up with a Vietnamese baby. She also laughs. I don't remember the first time I heard a laugh, but I remember the first time she laughed for Brian. He was bending into the car to take her out of her carseat, and I don't know what he did that amused her, but she giggled and he stuck his head back out of the car to ask me "Did you hear that?" The next night she laughed at him again. It's a wonderful sound, as are her occasional squeals of happiness when I pour water over her head in the bath.

Recently she's stopped sleeping quite so well: instead of getting up once with her every night, it's usually twice. But she goes right back to sleep, and then so do I. And she's become better at nursing without much help from me, so I don't have to sit up and pull the boppy onto my lap in order for us to get comfortable. For a while I was blaming some of the lack of sleep on teething--she is drooling, her cheeks are red, she is constantly chewing on her hands, and our normally happy baby is incredibly fussy some evenings. I called Brian's mom one night to ask when her kids at gotten teeth. When she told me she thought it had been around three months, I decided that must be what was happening and, after thanking her and Brian for those genes, adjusted to the idea of waking up every hour or two at night. Of course, that night, Adriana only awoke once.

Several people have asked me if I miss my old job. And in some ways I do miss it. I enjoyed the work I was doing and the people I was working with. I know that the next couple of years will be an interesting time in health policy. Last week, Adriana turned 12 weeks old and I realized that under FMLA my maternity leave, if I'd taken it, would be up and I would be heading back to work. I knew that I would miss Adriana a lot more than I miss my job, and that given the way we do things in this country, it will always be an interesting time in health policy. I'll go back at some point--paid employment is a good thing--but for now I am content to make taking care of Adriana my job.

Blossoming

Two years ago I walked around Tidal Basin, admiring the cherry blossoms and thinking that in another year I'd be one of the new parents taking pictures of a baby underneath the flowering trees.

Last year I walked around Tidal Basin, admiring the cherry blossoms and thinking that I was supposed to be preparing for the birth of my baby in April, while trying not to stare too much at the couples pushing babies in strollers.

I don't think the cherry blossoms are as spectacular this year as they have been the past couple. Maybe I got there too much beyond their peak. Or maybe I am just happily distracted.

Damn Yankees

As I was picking out cheese at Whole Foods on the other day, an African-American man in his late thirties turned to me.

"Do you know the difference between the New York cheddar and the Wisconsin cheddar?" he asked me.

"I think the New York one tastes better. And the Wisconsin one melts kind of funny. It gets rubbery," I told him, putting a block of the New York cheddar in my cart.

"I want to put it on my grits."

I looked at him blankly. "Grits? I don't think I've ever had grits."*

He gave me a good-humored look of disbelief and asked a passing Whole Foods employee, who, like me, was a white woman in her twenties, about the difference. She told him that the New York cheddar was sharper, and didn't have a good answer for him when he asked about his grits. She was midsentence when another employee passed us.

"Excuse me," he said to this second employee, a young, African-American woman. "Which cheddar should I put on my grits?"

"The New York one," she said immediately without even stopping completely to look at what he was talking about.


*Brian pointed out to me later that I have had grits. But I top it with parmesan and call it polenta.

I heart DC (most of the time)

We've made up our minds to leave the DC area...and we mean it this time. After a few years of talking about it, we've decided that now is really the time to get back to California. We always knew this move was temporary for us, figuring that we'd stay only four years--two for me to go to graduate school, and two for me to work in my field in Washington. Now it's been five, and it's time to go. We're eager to get back to the West Coast, but there are certain things I'll certainly miss.

Even though it was supposed to rain yesterday, I desperately wanted to get out of the house. I wasn't sure about going down to Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms, as that would be a bit of a walk from the Metro and I didn't want to get caught in the rain with the baby for too long. We decided that we'd head down to the Mall anyhow, and check out Natural History or Air & Space. On our way toward Natural History from L'Enfant Plaza via the Sculpture Garden, though, a poster outside the Hirshhorn Gallery caught my eye. An exhibit in which light is the main feature in all the works appealed to me, so we headed inside.

The exhibit was fun--definitely worth checking out if you're in the neighborhood, and maybe even worth a trip down to the Hirshhorn, especially if you've never been before (I hadn't)--and afterward we checked out some of the sculpture on the same floor. Two pieces by German sculptor Ernst Barlach were my favorites:

I love that we can wander into a museum to see a single exhibit without worrying that we should spend a whole day in order to get our money's worth; it's hard to feel cheated out of your money when you haven't spent any. And I'll miss having so many free museums so nearby to choose from.

I think proximity to family and the beach will make up for that, though.

I totally have a life outside of my child

To prove it, here is a picture of my cat.



A couple of weeks ago The Sister and Her Fiance came to visit. Her Fiance, Brian, and I were all setting up the Scrabble board, and didn't even notice that Cecilia was hoping to join in until The Sister came down the stairs and started laughing.

Note: We didn't let the Cecilia play. She just likes to try to steal the tiles.