Dickie + Aki Bear = Wonder

Dickie is our cat's name, just so you know.
Aki Bear doesn't quite know about Dickie but Dickie sure does know about the Bear.

Here is Dickie attacking his fist:

Chores With A Baby

You do things differently when you have a baby. This is what the bed looked like in the midst of a sheet change:

Bouncy Chair

Here is my very first Craig's List purchase:

A bouncy chair! It's so helpful in many ways. I can set him there safely without fear of him falling off the bed or couch. He doesn't always love it but when he does it's a lifesaver. I can set it anywhere...in the kitchen while I cook. In the bathroom while I shower. He fell asleep in it one time - let's hope that happens again.

Here he is while I'm in the shower:

In action:

Walks

I showed you a similar picture to this the other day:

This is the full Aki Bear body shot...bear slippers and all. It's been colder here in the mornings so he dons his slippers and his hat on our morning walks. He gets tons of smiles from dog walkers and morning commuters. How can you not smile at this guy?!

I walk with him at least once a day, if not twice...once in the morning and once in the evening. He absolutely loves being outside. Here's another birdseye view pic:

In Action:

Breastfeeding in Public

My friend Kristen, of 4 beautiful children, sent me this hilarious video. I am the first time mother - hair and all - she is the mother with 2 - attitude and all. Have a look and a laugh:

A New Mobile For the Lad

I was surfing the net for mobile ideas and came upon this mobile called a Gobbi Mobile. It's a mobile that is popular for the Montessori folks. It's basically a mobile made up of 5 balls of the same color but in different shades. Babies can see color from birth but have difficult in differentiating similar tones, say like, orange and red. As they get older they begin to see the difference. The Gobbi Mobile is perfect for this. So I hit up the craft store and bought 5 different shades of green embroidery thread, 5 styrofoam balls and a dowel. Easy as 1, 2, 3. He loves it.

Here he is looking at his balls:

Lip Callous

Aki Bear is a serious eater. He gets these callouses on his lips bottom and top. Here is the one he gets on the top lip:

Two of You Made Three

We were told that having a baby will really test your relationship with your partner. They were right. Thankfully Mike and I talked about it before Aki Bear arrived on the scene so that the conversation had already begun (sometimes bringing up a discussion topic for the first time is scary - scary enough that you don't talk about it and instead it just festers creating a big wound.) We talked about it over pizza (of course!) We spoke about schedules (less freedom, coordination), money (spending, saving), and communication (gotta have it.) So far we've run up against all of these things.

Schedules - Mike has been going to yoga (we used to go together) but now someone's got to stay home with the Bear so it makes sense that it's me because one, I've got the milk bar and two, the midwife had told me to lay low due to the lochia that I wrote about earlier this week. When I'm well enough to exercise I think we will start trading off until he is old enough to take advantage of the daycare at the YMCA (I think he has to be 6 months old.) We also have one car which took coordinating before baby but we still have to be really conscientious about it. I'm sure that once I go back to work (in October!) it will be even more challenging.

Money - We've set up a merged budget (now we have to start using it!) We don't have a shared checking account but have thought that it might be easier if we did someday - even though that would come with some new challenges for us. We need to figure out how to afford daycare ($1200 per month, at least) and having a merged budget will be extremely helpful with this. We are looking into the option of an in-home day care which would be cheaper.

Communication - This is important in all relationships. This, for me, has come with the most surprises since having a baby. I'm one for keeping the slate clean - if something bothers me I get it off my chest. I'm also fairly low maintenance but now I feel like I've been letting the slate get a little chalky and I feel very high maintenance. I think I need to pay more attention to the Four Agreements from the same named book by don Miguel Ruiz:

1. Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

I have been annoyed with Mike more in the last 2 months than I have been in our entire 7 years together. It's like a wrench has been thrown in between us and we're learning, in the moment, how to use the wrench to our benefit.  I'm sure I'm no peach to live with either. My focus is definitely on Aki Bear now, so in turn Mike is second string. I've read and heard about how in the first part of the baby's life the Mama and baby are creating a super bond and Papa might feel a bit left out in the beginning. I know this is happening with us now. I even relate to those mockingbird mamas who nest near our house and dive bomb the sweet but predatory orange cat who spies the nestlings up in their tree. I am that mockingbird mom. I know that Mike is not Mango, the predatory orange cat, but I'm still very snippy and protective of the Bear - even of his sweet, well-intentioned Papa. I've shooshed Mike so many times. I've avoided his eye contact because I was so mad at him for something as small as him not offering me a glass of water while trapped on the couch by a nursing baby. I've been so frustrated with him that I couldn't sing the Bear a lullaby without my voice cracking and tears falling down my face. The thing is, we've talked about my frustrations and expectations (which make me feel so high maintenance) and it feels so nice to talk about them but they seem to resurface again and again.

So, the high maintenance feeling comes from the pre-baby Erin. I was so independent and rarely needed Mike's assistance. I wasn't really ever one to ask for something. Now I feel like I am asking him to do things all of the time. I'm also bossy. I was with the sleeping baby the other night and Mike was standing behind us about to rip off his back brace which has this loud velcro hinge and I gently pushed him in the belly and said, "Go away if you're going to take that off." I didn't want it to wake or startle the baby. I apologized after I got the baby down and Mike said, "I'm used to you being bossy now and it kind of made sense." So he gets it but I hate having to tell him things over and over again. I think that they are common sense things but he doesn't have the same mindset as I do. I need to not make assumptions but also be impeccable with my word. 

My inspirational friend Em told me about how she and her partner hit some angry and rough patches right after they had gotten married. She somehow found the courage and clarity to make a change in what she brought home to the relationship. As soon as she made that change their relationship became harmonious as ever. Just like Gandhi said,

"Be the change you want to see in the world." 

It's really true. I'm going to try it while still being a fierce mockingbird mom. I just need to simultaneously let Papa bird feel welcome in our cluttered nest and create a bond with our little Squawky bird Bear. I think that getting the boy on the bottle will help them bond too.

So, babies aren't easy peasy. Those sex ed. classes in high school where you have to take care of an egg without breaking it for a week is bullsh*t. You can sleep 8 hours straight while caring for an egg. You don't have to feed an egg. An egg doesn't change your relationship with your partner (and you're probably not in a serious or mature relationship in high school anyways.) You don't have to spend money on an egg (no clothes or car seats or diapers.) Eggs don't cry they just break and when they break just remember: eggs are replaceable, babies are not. Babies take your world and flip it upside down. You have to relearn everything. How to make a meal. How to leave the house. How to talk to your partner. When to shower. Most importantly you have to remember to think about yourself...it's easy to forget about that. The upside of having your world flipped by a baby is the baby itself. So simple but true. That baby will tug at your heartstrings on the most tired and hard days. In your marriage you will always be able to share, rejoice, and even argue about the baby, it will bond you for life...this little human wields so much power. You just have to remember yourself and your partner. It's easy to just be like, baby baby baby baby baby baby. You and your partner are just as important in this family formula...after all it's the two of you that made three.

P.S. computer still down. no weekend posts. see you monday!

Hiking

The Grandparents were in town last week and we hiked at the Eno. This is where I hiked with Christina all the time when I was pregnant with the burrito. He fell asleep on his Dad's chest. We picnicked afterwards. It was a time!

Bubbles

He has been drooling alot lately and he gets these little bubbles on his lips:

Post Partum Bod: Lochia

At around 4-5 weeks post partum we new moms should have ceased with the bleeding, a.k.a. lochia which I wrote about in this post. At my six week appointment I was still lightly bleeding but the blood was still bright red which was puzzling to the nurse. So she scheduled me for a pelvic ultrasound and told me to lay low (no exercise!) until the bleeding ceased. The radiologist  reported back saying that my uterus still appeared to have some bits of placenta which to me and the nurse seemed a little odd because for one thing the blood was bright red and secondly if your placenta or parts of it are still up there you wouldn't usually be producing breast milk but I was producing lots! When I spoke with the nurse about the ultrasound results she said I could either do a D&C (which I had never heard of before but apparently I should have heard of this before) What it stands for is Dilation and Curretage which means that they dilate or open up your cervix and stick a tool called a currette and scrape the inside of your uterus. No thanks. The other option was to take a medication  that contracts the uterus to let the excess stuff come out...they gave me this medication after I gave birth and I got violent chills which is one of the side effects. No thanks. So I somehow managed to talk the nurse into letting it go away by itself. It finally did at 8 weeks - the bleeding stopped. YAY! Now we can commence the walking!

Big Boy

Here we are on our morning walk! He is huge. At his 2 month appointment he weighed in at 15 pounds 3.5 oz. he was 24.5 inches tall and his head jumped to the 70th percentile at 41 inches.
He LOVES being outside.

P.S. computer is still down. working from mike's work computer. hard to do with crying baby.

In Love

You know you're in love when you can't stop thinking about him. You catch yourself looking at the pictures you just took of him on your camera over and over again. While he's sleeping, you look in on him and watch him dream and breathe. You see his bouncy chair or item of clothing and smile. You know it's love when you smile at him and he smiles back and your heart takes flight.

Many of my friends who  have paved the parenting way for me said to take advantage of this time and cuddle with him as much as possible. That this early part goes by so quickly and that you must remember to relish in the cuddles. It's true. He's tiny and only tiny this one time. He's growing so quickly. Each morning when I see him in the sun's light there's always something different about him. Maybe his hair grew 1/16 of an inch. Maybe his movements are smoother - more coordinated. Maybe it's just a look in his eyes - like he knows something new.

As challenging as it is it's also simply amazing. There are days that I am so exhausted and then he'll smile at me and I can't help but smile back and talk to him; he energizes me. I look at him and can't believe I carried him with me for 9 months. Mike and I made him. I have a SON. That's also a funny thing to say, which I'm sure I'll get used to - that and calling myself a mother.

I may not post anything for a couple of days after this because our computer is down plus the Grand P's are in town!

Finding His Thumb

In the last several weeks Aki Burrito has been drooling a lot with little bubbles that form on his little red lips and he has been sucking on his fist. It looks really awkward because his fist is large and he's desperately trying to self soothe, as they say. He will lie there contentedly for a while just sucking away. Mike and I root him on to find his thumb or a couple of fingers but he hasn't quite found them yet. He keeps his thumb tucked tightly away underneath his four fingers. This morning he was so close...his thumb was only under his index finger. He has sucked his index finger before but then goes back to the whole fist again. We will be patient. We figure since he doesn't take the pacifier we would love for him to suck on a finger or thumb, I think it would help him fall asleep anywhere - perhaps less rocking for me (better on my aching back.) We will keep you informed. In the meantime have a gander at his awkward finding-my-thumb-phase:

Hallelujah!

Aki Bear slept from 8:36 PM to 2:05 AM last night. I slept for 3 of those hours. AND THEN he nursed for 11 minutes and slept for three and a half more hours! I slept almost all of these but HAD to pump milk for ten minutes right after I nursed him because I was about to explode from the five and half hours of him being off the wagon...ha.

Almost all last week Aki Bear has slept a lot at night. For about a week he has had at least one 4 hour sleep period per night usually around 8pm - midnite. Each cycle after that it goes less and less, say, like, 3 hours then 2 hours then up for the day (with naps of course). I notice that he sleeps less during the day...for instance his first nap today was 25 minutes. Anyhoo. I'm so happy for us. I wish I could go to sleep at 8:36 PM but I'd be lying in bed awake just staring at the boy for 2.5 hours...which isn't a bad thing to do, he's pretty cute while dozing:

I took this pic during his epic 5.5 hour sleep-a-thon. Look at those arms! It's as if he's riding a rollercoaster or doing the wave or simply sleeping adorably.

Post Partum Bod: Abs

Image from nat tummy tuck

Here is a strange and fascinating and possibly gross (according to Mike) thing that happens while most women are pregnant. Our abs or rectus abdominus muscles which go from the ribcage down to the pubic bone separate down the center to make room for the growing baby. The separation can vary. I think from what I can remember the top part of mine had come back together about 2-3 inches at my 2 week post partum appointment but was still separated the rest of the way down. You can check to see how close together it is by lying on your back and lifting your head as if to do crunches and feel the muscles down around your belly button. My muscles are still separated around my belly button. I wonder if it will ever close completely - I guess I should cut back on eating Oreos.

Kicking

Aki Bear kicks like a black belt while gazing at his ghetto-mobile.
Have a look at him with his raccoon feet:

Or if you prefer to see his chunky legs:

Still Talkin' & Smilin'

Vision

These are some of the things he likes to look at. Top row, L to R: Whenever we skype with folks he looks at this disorganized shelf of stuff. This is what he sees when he's on the changing table. If he faces the wall or if I'm nursing him on the bed he looks at this wall; he especially likes the light cord and its shadow. Middle row, L to R: T.V.,  vertical blinds, ghetto-mobile. Bottom row, L to R: Gaucho Marionette, the window in our front door, my shelf of yarn.

Aki Bear loves looking at things. Especially light and shadow. He love his ghetto mobile, which is all black and white. He also loves looking at this Gaucho marionette that we have hanging in the living room. He also stares at the window in the door. Today he was staring at my yarn which makes me think he might be starting to see color! He loves watching the T.V. too. When we go for walks he looks up at the trees and sky. When we went out to dinner with the birthing class friends he and one of the other little boys were being held by their dads and they were both looking up at the same thing - perhaps it was a tree or maybe a lit sign above a storefront, whatever it was it caught both of their interests!

Topsy Turvy

Happy Birthday Uncle Sean! This video is for you:

A Bridge

I took this pic of the Golden Gate Bridge back in undergrad in my very first photo class.

This article over at Deep Breath of Parenting is great. She much more eloquently writes about those moments after the child is born and at home. She writes,

"The moment a child is born is a crisis moment for a new parent — whether the birth goes exactly as planned or in another way all together.  That moment marks a turning point for the parent.  Life is forever changed.  It is the beginning of great possibility — transformation and deep growth — of both the child and the parent."

I also love what she says about the moments after her first child is born:

"I was taken to the recovery room and left by myself.  For nine months I had carried my baby under my heart.  For nine months he had been my constant companion.  For nine months I had been preparing and dreaming of the day of his birth.  And now I was a mother… and alone."

In this post titled, A Bridge Between the Ideal and Reality of Parenting, she not only talks about her experiences but she mentions this great non-profit called Mother Mentors. It's a program that visits new parents and infants once a week for a few months. How wonderful! I think every hospital and birth center should offer something like this. Thankfully I have the couples from my birthing class that have given me great support as well as friends like Jane who have stopped in many times since the burrito was born. But it's hard to ask for help or support. Mother Mentors sounds amazing. It is based in Whidbey Island, Washington. There must be programs like this in many places but this is the first I'd heard of its kind.

Dry Tears vs. Wet Tears

Did you know that most newborns don't have tears when they cry? Most newborns have underdeveloped tear ducts when they are born and it takes a while for them to form. In the article I read the pediatrician said it could take anywhere between 2 weeks to 2 months for a baby's tear ducts to fully develop. So, if you think a dry teared, crying baby is a heartbreaker then add some wet tears on top of that and you'll have a heartshattering crying baby.

Aki Bear's ducts have started to produce those liquid tears. It's not that I was unsympathetic towards him before but now it tugs a wee bit harder at the ol' heartstrings when he is crying for a clean diaper or sobbing for sleep or bawling for boob. Wet tears win in the match against dry tears, hands down, total knockout.

Sleep!

(Say that with an Irish accent)

Aki Burrito slept for 4 hours the other night! Please let this be the beginning of the end of 2 hour sleep cycles at night. Fingers, toes, legs, arms and eyes are crossed...hair is braided and I'm eating a pretzel.

Baby Monitor

So, you would think I would use a baby monitor to help me with my "I hear crying all the time" problem. Well, we have one, and it's great. It's a Sony BabyCall nursery monitor. We used it a lot when my parents were here and we would sit down for dinner but haven't used it regularly since. I feel like our house is small enough that I can here him make noises from the opposite end of the house. Where I find it extra handy is when Mike is out and I am dying to take a shower. I will bring it in the bathroom with me just in case he starts wailing...which has happened twice now and I have to do a quick rinse and towel up and rock him back to sleep while I still have water dripping from my elbows. Now, when I hop into the shower, I quickly wash my hair because rocking him back to sleep with soapy hair doesn't sound like fun. I prioritize what I wash and I'm fast. So, this is a good water saver: put baby down to sleep and shower quickly. He almost never goes down solid on the first try; it takes a bit more coaxing and rocking and singing.

If you want a basic monitor this one is great. I haven't ventured outside with it but I assume it would work great if I went out and did some gardening as well. I can clip it onto my belt. I can even hear him moving. Someone recommended a video nursery monitor so that I can watch his every move but I feel like that's what I'd do, watch his every move and I'd rather let him rest in peace with out big brother Mama watching over him. Although I will miss out on funny instances like these:

This is from my friend Jenn's baby monitor.

Symptoms of a Mother

It's weird. When the baby is down I feel like I hear crying. I either stop doing the dishes and tilt my ear to the bedroom, hit the mute button on the T.V., turn the music down or pop my head in his room. Nope he's fast asleep. When he is truly crying it's much more obvious. But I swear, I hear little squawks or cries all the time now.

I still check to see if he's breathing too. When he's in a deep sleep his breathing is really shallow and you can barely see his chest heave. The other night he slept for 3.5 hours straight and Mike and I kept going in there to check on him. When Mike went in he came back out and said, "I couldn't see him breathing so I touched his arm and it was cold! It freaked me out but then he stirred from my touch." How frightening. I have put my ear inches from his face to see if I can hear him breath.

Symptoms of a mother I suppose.