Snow!

Vacation with the Dolly

I’ve spent more time with Holland in the past three days than I have probably total in the past three months. Which says something really awesome about my life.

Fingers are overrated anyway, right?

Holland had her first injury today. Inflicted upon her by Yours Truly. Accidentally, of course. This morning I had the bright idea to clip her nails. Yes! Brilliant, Alexia.  Something I have done many times before quickly turned into Nightmare on Baby Street when she started to scream and I realized I had nicked her finger. A little red spot appeared on the tip of her pointer finger, followed by blood. BLOOD! The crying lasted about a minute and a little bitty band-aid on her finger stopped the bleeding, and I thought we were done. Flashforward to daycare, 30 minutes later: “Oh, really? She needs a band-aid? Those are a choking hazard. Isn’t there anyone who can watch her for you?” Um…no. That’s what I pay you for, Daycare. So, after facing my choices of NOT going to work (not really an option right now) and bringing her in with me, I made my choice and Holland and I drove out to Pop Art, making it in only a half hour late. We camped out downstairs in the Annex, and after dealing with a few distractions, some crying (hers) and a few computer problems, actually managed to be pretty productive.

She was really quite helpful.

Four Month Update

Dear Holland,

Yesterday you turned four months old. I know! I can’t believe it either. You are getting so big. This month we had a lot of holiday festivities on our plate. We started things out with a visit to Santa at Pioneer Place. I didn’t even bother scanning your photo with santa like I was planning. Because I hated it. It didn’t even look like you!  But I guess that is about all I can expect from a mall santa and the 14 year old employees taking the pictures. I have taken better pictures of you with my phone. Like this one, for example:

That dress you have on? I bought that back in February, well before my 18 week ultrasound confirming that you were in fact a girl. I broke down and walked over to Gymboree one day at lunch, and found that dress on sale. I snatched it up, hoping I wasn’t jinxing myself. I envisioned you wearing it later in the year for Christmas, and like always, it still amazes me to see all my daydreams about you coming true.

That bow I put on your head for the picture lasted just about as long as I expected it to:

So…it got really cold this month. December 2008: Brought to you by…HATS!

And of course, who could forget ARCTIC BLAST 2008! Two weeks of the coldest, deepest, most annoying snow I have ever experienced in my life. We braved it a few times to get downtown to do some christmas shopping, but mostly stayed in where it was warm. Mostly.

One of the most exciting moments of the month was the day I discovered the Moby Wrap. After reading my update last month, full of complaints about how much you and I hate the Bjorn, my coworker Scott’s wife Annie pleaded with me to not give up on babywearing, and even let me borrow their Moby Wrap. I was a little nervous to try it at first, given our rocky history with babywearing, but when the snow kept falling and you and I needed a way to get around downtown without a stroller, I thought I would try it out. I figured it out after reading some simple instructions online, and carried you around happily for hours. We trudged through the snow, shopped, stood in line at Chipotle, and hung out with your uncle and your dad at Rockbottom. You happily looked around at the lights and activity, slept peacefully and even had a bottle, all snug in the Moby. It was amazing. As soon as I have a chance, I am getting us down to Bella Stella and buying us one of our very own.

Other milestones of the month…you have have been REALLY into your hands for a while, but have only very recently discovered your feet. I have a feeling it’s only going to be a matter of time before you manage to get them into your mouth (as your other main interest of SUCKING ON ANYTHING remains unchanged). You started drinking exclusively formula this month, as my attempts at keeping you on breastmilk have failed miserably since returning to work. I felt like a bit of a failure, but I did try my hardest. You have been much happier since I started you on formula, and jumped from 3 ounces per feeding to 8 ounces in less than two weeks. You attack each bottle like it’s the last you might ever see, and I think we have that to blame for the CHEEKS. Oh the cheeks.

We did try out solid food this month. My mom told me that she started me on solids when I was much younger than you are (I think you get your ravenous appetite from me…it doesn’t go away…sorry about that) so I figured it was worth a shot with you. You had about three bites and then lost interest. But we will keep trying. Because I hate the way formula smells. And really, sometimes you watch me while I eat and I just KNOW that you want a french fry.

And of course, who can forget about Christmas. You slept through most of it and got more presents than anyone.

We’ve (almost) made it through 2008, Holland, and I know 2009 is going to be a good year for us. You are a very busy girl and I can’t wait to see what else you have in store for me.

Love,

Mom

Birth Art

I signed up for the class because I thought it would help. I was pretty miserable. And alone. I googled “single moms,” “single pregnancy” and “single xyz baby very sad please help etc” on that day in April. I managed to find a “birthing class” for single moms, and promptly signed up for it. It was scheduled for July. And I was pumped. I was going to find new friends! New, pregnant, SINGLE friends! To replace the friends that had forgotten me! It was going to be amazing.

I should have known I was going to be in trouble when I read that this class was a “Birthing From Within” class. I had tried to read the book and knew it didn’t really “vibe” with me. I knew I wanted to try and have a natural birth, but wasn’t going to bet the farm on it.  (it’s a good thing you didn’t! Love, your epidural)

Flash forward July: We met at our teacher’s house in North Portland. It was very, very hot. I knew almost immediately that I wasn’t going to fit in. I was the ONLY girl there with a male doctor. Oh, and yeah, I was the only girl there WITH A DOCTOR. It was a lot of, “oh, you are letting a MALE into your birth? wow…” and “I am birthing in the water because the hospital is so evil” etc, etc, etc. Basically, a very open and welcoming place! They were all super judgey and I felt like I was in high school. Pregnant high school, with mean hippies. Oh, yeah, guess what?  I was the only girl there with health insurance. Or a full-time job!  Take that, bitches.

Our first class, the teacher told us to get on the floor (THE FLOOR!) with some paper and chalk and pastels to draw our “birth art.” I felt like I was in a bad dream, or at least fifth grade art class. I kneeled my eight months pregnant 200 pound ass onto the floor and “closed my eyes” and “thought about the thought that most represented how I wanted my birth to be.” BARF. When it was time to open our eyes and “draw the image we saw,” I did my best. As the other girls went around the room and shared theirs, I really knew I was in the wrong place. It was a lot of “this flower represents my vagina” and “this bird is flying over me in the field of my birth” and la la la, hippie hippie la la. When they got to me, I showed them my drawing:

 ”This is me. I am happy, because I have my baby, and I am not pregnant anymore. Everyone else is happy too. And the sun is shining.”

And that is exactly how it was!

The end!

Well, not really the end. I didn’t make any friends through that class, and later went on to have a VERY hospitalized birth, complete with induction, my water being broken, epidural and all…and I am totally okay with that. What I am not okay with is how much “natural birthing” was shoved down my throat when I was pregnant, and how rude the girls in my “birthing from within” class were to me. I hope they all had really painful, drug-free births. And mostly, I wish there was a genre for nice, hospital-birthing, single moms who want to make friends. Because I would love to meet them.

Change

December 17th, 2007

I woke up feeling like total crap. I had felt like shit for about a week. Really tired, no appetite and almost too tired to function. The week prior I had accidentally fallen asleep during a staff meeting at work, and was getting to a point where I could barely make it through the day. I was frequently forgetting to do things and getting really upset really easily. Friday night I had passed on going out, choosing instead to sit by myself on Emily’s couch, while she was on a date, eating an entire block of Parmesan cheese and falling asleep while watching TV. Things were a little bizarre. I thought my workload and the season were just getting to me. 

I stayed in bed for a while that Monday morning and debated calling in sick. I remembered the big projects I was trying to complete at work and knew I needed to go in, like it or not. I spent the day frantically trying to complete the holiday related projects being thrown at me left and right, taking a break only to take Emily to the airport midday. I made it through the day and ended up staying until about 8pm. For the last half-hour I was there, I sat at my computer, reading my new obsession: parenting blogs. My co-worker had sent me an email with some links of blogs to check out after I professed my love of everything in the “parenting humor” niche to him at our holiday party a week and a half earlier. How convenient and hilarious of me.

Sometimes, you know something deep down, but it is so deeply buried that you can go about your life pretending like it’s not there. I had known I was pregnant, I think, since the week it happened, truly, probably even the night it happened. But I still went about my life, acting like everything was okay, and not taking care of myself at all. I was sick, I was tired, I was miserable. And things were about to get a lot worse.

Sitting at my computer that night, the idea suddenly popped in my head that perhaps I should take a pregnancy test. My almost week late period suddenly seemed like a big, glaring, obvious sign, and a sudden sense of urgency took over. I left work and instead of going home, I drove to Vancouver to my mom’s house, stopping at Walgreen’s to pick up a pregnancy test. (Why did I go to Vancouver? Good question.) The girl behind the counter said to me, “If you don’t mind me asking, do you want to be pregnant?” I didn’t mind. I answered, “No. Very much no.”

I arrived at my mom’s house and took the test. Positive. Two pink lines. Just like that. Everything was over for me. I stuck the positive test into my purse, and walked to my mom’s bedroom. I wanted to tell her, but I didn’t know what to say. “Are you bringing the champagne for Christmas Eve?” she asked me. I just smiled and said yes, and then wandered back to the great room to get on the computer and stare blankly at the screen. I got a text on my phone from Emily. “I arrived safely!” it said. I wrote back, “Awesome. I am pregnant.” She was the first one to get the news.

I couldn’t talk to Emily in any form besides text, since she wasn’t getting very good cell reception in Iowa, so I called Chantelle, Eva and Eryn, and ended up staying up too late over at Eva’s apartment, talking with her about WHAT THE FUCK AM I GOING TO DO. I woke up in the morning and scheduled an abortion, and went over to the father’s house that night. I proceeded to tell him, some boy I had known for one month and two days, that I was pregnant, that I wasn’t planning on keeping it and that I didn’t expect to ever see or hear from him again. I went to sleep that night and dreamt about Holland, and I dreamt about her the next night too. Thursday night I came home from work and picked up the magazine my Catholic university sends out to alumni every month, opening it right to an article written about what happens to babies who die before they are born. Things I did the next day include, but are not limited to: buying a book on pregnancy, telling my mom, buying pre-natal vitamins, stopping drinking and smoking, and, of course, calling the Lovejoy Clinic to inform them that I wouldn’t be needing that appointment after all.

Two/Three Month Updates

Dear Holland,

I slacked off a bit these past few months with the blogging. I hope someday you can forgive me for combining your two and three month update into one blog. Something I have learned about myself since you were born is how bad I am with unstructured time. Seriously. The month of October is kind of a blur in my memory. Through reviewing my Flickr account I see that we hung out with Emily and Keely, celebrated Halloween and went to your dad’s a lot. You also met your Great Grandma when she made the trek up from Grant’s Pass.

Funny story about your Great Grandma: Last year we went down there for Thanksgiving, like we almost always do, and she made some joking comment about how “next year, I want to see a high chair at this table.” Haha…like an obedient granddaughter, I went home and got pregnant. Ask and ye shall receive. Anyway. We went to Eva’s Halloween party the weekend before Halloween and dressed up as Cruella DeVille and a dalmatian. I made your costume and borrowed mine, because my dear, we are BROKE.

Later in the month of October, we traveled to Colorado to meet your dad’s side of the family, and had a great time. You traveled like a champ…no crying at all on the way there. We flew into Denver and were met by your grandma and uncle, who drove us to Fort Collins. We met up with some of your dad’s friends and toured three different breweries…your grandma played with you while your dad and I sampled lots and LOTS of free beer.

Much later that night we traveled down south to Trinidad, where your grandparents live. Over the next few days you met tons of family members, celebrated Halloween, were given many gifts, traveled to New Mexico, watched some football (go Broncos!) and learned the art of crying for no reason. After five days in Colorado we returned to Portland, the trip home not quite as smooth as the trip there. However, overall it went okay, and I was very impressed by your ability to go with the flow.

November I remember a bit better. We supported Barack Obama, and spent election night with your dad watching the results on CNN. I was supposed to go out that night, but it ended up not working out. I was annoyed at first, but ended up being glad that I could be with you on such a historical moment. We took a picture of you right after Obama was called as the winner, and even though you had no idea what was going on at the time, I know that someday you will appreciate it. I am so relieved that you will grow up under an Obama administration, and that all the frustration we have been feeling the past eight years will be foreign to you.

I spent a lot of November being really nervous about returning to work. It felt like 100 years had passed since I had been working, and I doubted my ability to function like a normal human being anymore. However, November 17th eventually came around, and I went back to work. I wanted to cry when I left you at daycare. I felt so much guilt, and was so worried about what would happen to you if you weren’t with me 24 hours a day. Luck for us both, you LOVE daycare, and they love you. You get nothing but glowing reports everyday, and you come home so chatty and happy and worn out. I am enjoying work as much as you are enjoying daycare. I knew it would be good for me, but I definitely wasn’t expecting to LOVE it like I do now. So things are good for both of us: I get to go to work three days a week and use my brain and interact with grown ups, and you get to go to daycare and interact with lots of other babies and learn new things. At some point I will return to work full-time and then you and I will get to move back to Portland and live on our own. I fantasize about this on a daily basis and am hoping I can make it happen for us by February. Keep your fingers crossed.

Yesterday was your first Thanksgiving. We spent Part One at your grandpa’s and Part Two at your dad’s.  Thanksgiving was the day that I heard you laugh for the very first time. It was probably my most favorite sound I have ever heard. You laughed at your Uncle Joe, who you think is the funniest person in the world. He just started talking to you like he always does (he calls you Dancey Pants) and you started LAUGHING. Not just smiling or making little baby noises. Actual laughter. It was amazing. It is like that with everything you have done in the past few months. The first time I put you on your stomach and you lifted your head up I freaked out (you used to seriously HATE it). Now when I pick you up you can support your head all on your own. There are all these little things that you are learning day by day, and every once in a while I look at you and wonder where this Big Girl came from.

October:

November:

Oh yeah, and you have been sleeping through the night since you were six weeks old. Thanks for that.

 Today was the Christmas Tree Lighting in downtown Portland, and we went to it with your dad. I have actually never been before tonight, so it was a first for me too.

We put you in your Bjorn, which I know you hate, but keep putting you in, thinking that maybe you might somehow start liking it. You tolerated it for a while, but eventually it got to be too much, and the crying started. You are so funny. Ninety percent of the time you are the happiest, most smiley and social baby there ever was. If you start to not like something, there is no warning. You go from happy to pissed in about three seconds, and you don’t hold back. You are a DRAMA QUEEN. You have also gotten really good at fake crying. You make this catlike sound, and act like you are really mad, but once we look at you, we get a huge smile. Your desire for attention is enormous, and it cracks me up on a daily basis. You are going to be very entertaining when you are able to walk around and talk. I am only a little scared. Your dad should be more scared though, because you have him wrapped around your finger already.

Today you turned three months old. November 28th is a significant date in your existence for another reason, but I will let those who are good at math figure that one out (wink wink). You are still the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. You do so many funny things, all the time. You have an incredible amount of personality for an infant. I am really, really excited for your first Christmas, and even more excited for the new year. Soon you and I will be back in Portland on our own, and I can’t wait to spend the next year with you, watching you learn and do everything for the first time. You are still the best baby that anyone could ask for (even if you probably could have gotten a better mom…)

Love you,

Mom

Back to Business

The first day I took Holland to daycare I wanted to cry. I wanted to, but I managed to restrain myself. Something about seeing her laying there in her crib, looking at me, happy and smiling, with not a clue in the world, made me want to cry. I was leaving, and she had no idea. I had been looking forward to going back to work for AGES. It was long overdue and I was bored out of my mind. Regardless, leaving her there was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. Years ago if you would have asked me what my “plan” was, it definitely wouldn’t have been “I live with my mom and have to leave my baby at daycare all day so I can go to work.” It probably would have been more like, “I stay at home with my baby while my husband goes to work and supports us. Also, we have a pool. And a housekeeper. And daily pedicures.” Clearly, I didn’t plan well.

This was my first week back to work and I freaking LOVED IT. My old plan of staying at home with my baby? HA! Three days a week of work? Give me seven days. I wanted to be there on my days OFF. I hadn’t even realized how much I missed working. I don’t do well with unstructured time (in case you haven’t noticed.) I love being back at work and I LOVE my new position there. It’s definitely weird…being gone for three months and then coming back. Everything is different. My job is different, the company is different, the setup is different…even the people are different. But I love being there, and being myself again. I walk around downtown and I am not pregnant and I don’t have a baby with me. I go to lunch, I run some errands, I get a diet coke, and at no time do I have a crying baby or a carseat or diapers or anything. I am just Alexia, walking around, back where I belong. It is so nice to finally have my identity back. And being back downtown, back where I belong, during the fall…tonight I left work and thought that maybe I wouldn’t go home. I wanted to go out for drinks with my friends, out to have fun and stay out late and not have any responsibility besides getting myself home by two or three AM and then back to work by eight again. I didn’t want to get on the bus to Vancouver, I wanted to get on the bus back to one year ago, and do what I was doing then, before I was pregnant, before I had a baby and before I had no money and before I had all the problems in the world. I talked to Emily on the phone when I was on the bus on the way home about all the fun things we did last fall and thought about how much I would like to have fun again someday.

Then I got home and saw my baby, and listened to my mom tell me what the daycare told her when she picked her up, and I was jealous that I can’t pick her up, and frustrated that she DOESN’T ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS of them, and I never know exactly what I want to know. She has a mark on her face! Where did that come from? Why is she dressed in a different outfit than the one I dropped her off in??? She is making different noises now than she was yesterday and I have no idea what she did all day. She seems so different tonight than she did this morning. Ugh. I am a total failure.

Nothing is more frustrating than having two sides to your life and not being able to fully live either of them.

Floods and photoshoots

Lots going on around here… plenty of excuses as to why I haven’t been blogging. Sunday morning our house flooded because some hot water pipe or tube or something under the sink in the kitchen broke. Thankfully I wasn’t here, but I arrived home to something out of the Twilight Zone. Everything was wet, moved around, out of order. I couldn’t find my mom or my brother, but both of the dogs were loose and the stove was on. Uh…apparently the water had stretched clear from one side of the house to another, and was ankle deep. It took them all morning to get all the water out of the house, and I am sure they were cursing my absence the entire time. Yesterday we had a guy come look at our most likely ruined hardwood floors, and starting today he is going to be attempting to save them by running some sort of giant fans or something…which means we can’t sleep in our bedrooms, because they come right off the hall with the wet floors. AWESOME. I am going to be a nomad for the next three to five days, sleeping at the homes of various friends. Always a fun adventure to be homeless when you have a baby. Can’t wait! Other fun side effects of the flood are, once the fans are hooked up we can’t use our dryer, so that means no laundry. And up until last night we had no hot water in the sink in the kitchen, which meant boiling water in the hot pot if you wanted to do dishes. Luckily, I never find myself wanting to wash dishes. Joe managed to fix the pipe (tube?) problem under the sink though, and now we have hot water again. Thanks, Joe the Plumber!

In other news, Holland had her pictures taken professionally this last weekend. The photographer’s name is Sarah Costa, and she has posted some of the shots on her flickr account. I anxiously check back every so often to see if she has added any more. If you want to see all the pictures in their glory, this is the link:

http://flickr.com/photos/sarahcosta/sets/72157608223748226/

They are AMAZING!

October Goals, Starting Today

A couple days before the beginning of the month I wrote out a bunch of goals for myself, collectively entitled “Get Your Life Together, Alexia.” There were around 10 total, including things like “lose 30 pounds” and “blog daily,” among several others that I either don’t feel like sharing or can’t remember at this moment. Clearly, I have not dedicated too much of my time or energy to Project Getting Life Together, as I have not yet lost the rest of my baby weight (I have lost 37 lbs, but it was all in September, and thus, does not count towards this month’s goal) and I definitely haven’t been blogging on any sort of regular basis. Don’t worry, I haven’t been doing any of that other stuff either. So with a month left before I go back to work, I have decided it’s time to get serious. I will be blogging on some sort of regular schedule from here on out. I am also going to lose the rest of my baby weight so I can actually fit in my work clothes, and I might even take a look at those other goals and see what else I need to be doing. Updates in blog form will ensue.

What have we been up to instead of being productive, you ask? Holland and I are both feeling pretty under the weather at the moment. I am officially sick, a result of my lack of sleep, and she is TEETHING! I couldn’t figure out yesterday why she was being so fussy…One minute happy, the next minute crying. Also, drooling. Lots of that too. My mom suggested that she might be teething, since I started that at 6 weeks, so I took a look in her mouth, and lo and behold, two little white spots on the roof of her little mouth. Combine this new discomfort with her growing ability to “talk”, and this is what you get:

She really likes to tell me all about it.