Stop what you’re doing!

…JOLENE CAN PUT HER FEET IN HER MOUTH.

Holy. Crap.

edit… link here 

Ready or not

..this little babe is growing.

This weekend was the perfect mix of the anxiety and beauty of this growth. Mostly my anxiety and her beauty. Although I must remember that growing and changing is hard and scary for her too.

She has been the most amazing delightful shiny girl and then suddenly a cranky old fussmuffin. For example- on Saturday night we went to a CD release party for my friend Christa Joy and she sat and listened and chewed on my hand for an hour and then fell asleep (Jolene, not Christa). We went to another friend’s for wine and cheese before the show and she screamed most of the time.

Then today I had a big ol freak out because all this growing means that she has been eating all the time and I am having a hard time keeping up with it. She latches on to eat and then gets upset that the milk isn’t coming fast enough and pounds my breasts with her little fists. Also someone at mumma group last week shared her experience of her milk drying up when her baby was Jolene’s age and it has been haunting me. I didn’t even know that could happen. Shit.

I am just feeling anxious about change. We were in such a groove and now we are in that bumpy dis-equilibrium period before the next groove and man it is bumpy. When I get overwhelmed with this feeling I mostly want to ignore Jolene and read Young Adult Dystopian Novels and play those dumb online games where you have to serve everyone food really fast. Also everyone is graduating this weekend and I really thought I was at peace with the fact that I have a baby instead of a BA, but apparently I’m not. Someone I went to High School’s dad mentioned today that his son is currently hiking “El camino de Santiago” and I started thinking how will I ever get to do that with a little kid?! And all of a sudden in my brain I am 40 with a huge stack of YA Dystopian Novels and Jolene is traveling the world and doesn’t really write and I am  stuck paying everyone’s college loans and taking out additional loans to buy fancy ice cream bars.

Someone wise told someone else wise who told someone else wise who told me “anxiety is just excitement without the breath.” So suppose I will just sit here and breathe, even though the floor is covered in Dr. Seuss books, even though something smells like pee but I’m not really sure what, even though life  does not go the way we plan.

Sleep Sack Girl!

Jolene chillin in her sleep sack back when she had hair… mid February? Well before the big switch

Jobean has made a successful transition from swaddle to sleep sack! She always loved being wrapped up and I was a meticulous scholar of the art of swaddle in the hospital (each nurse had their own method, the “baby burrito,” “angel wings” and so on) so we did it pretty much every night of her life up until a few days ago. For a couple of weeks she had been grumpy about being “stick baby” (our name for her when she’s all wrapped up and she looks like this hilarious stick with a baby head) and was punching her way out of her blankets by morning. For some reason I was super anxious abut transitioning away from swaddling. Maybe it was a resistance to her growing up and no longer craving my womb (it still feels very strange to write about my womb… I have a womb?! THERE WAS A BABY IN THERE??) or maybe I just figured because she has slept SO WELL with the swaddle (like an amount of hours that I won’t even admit to because other moms will shun me and future moms will have high sleep expectations)  (also sorry bout the excessive use of parenthesis in my writing, its called Attention Deficit Disorder) that no swaddle would equal no sleep.

Anyway, its really not much of a story. I just put her in a sleep sack one night, nursed her to sleep like most nights (a bad habit perhaps but honestly it is what works for us so I am going to just kick that can down the road) and made the slow motion air lift from my lap to the moses basket in my bed. We are using a baby dede sleep nest ( no they do not come in adult sizes)- easy to use, lovely and cozy. They make a light version for summer which I will be looking into when it is not 30 degrees at night here?!?! Seriously what is going on???

But oh bless you swaddle and all the sweet sweet sleep you have given me. You will be missed.

Sweet dreams.

I know its crap but…

Oh man the Bachelorette is a single mom!

I’m rooting for the mushroom farmer.

If I make it any further. For the most part, shows like this make me feel awful. As Jezebel puts it… “Part of the role of The Bachelor/ette in American culture is reminding viewers that everyone is terrible” (their article on the first episode, The Bachelorette is Racist Against Interesting People is pretty funny).  I don’t think that I am going to be able to write sociological blah blah on something as obviously wedding industrial complexy as the this show, so let’s see how long I can enjoy it for real.

First Mothers Day

I am sitting on my rats nest of a bed in my hurricane aftermath of a room with a glass of white wine and the spring peepers outside the window and oh life could not be sweeter.

I went to a friends graduation BBQ today which was fabulous. This whole watching everyone graduate the year I was “supposed to” thing is not nearly as painful or sad as I thought it might be. I am mostly happy I am doing things my own way and perhaps could graduate into a better economy.

Anyway, someone asked me if I saw things at all differently now that I am a mom, if I have any new life wisdom or whatnot. I really had to think about it. Motherhood is so all consuming that it can be difficult to step back and see the poignancy in a coherent, advice at  a BBQ kind of way. I think becoming a mom has instilled a great deal of “radical trust in the benevolent mysteries,” as my crazy wise sister would say. In the deepest darkest scariest parts of labor, all I could do was be with each moment and know that it too would pass.

Hm it hasn’t been a very reflective mothers day, just a wonderful one. Went out to breakfast with the fam and then tea with the (nuclear) fam plus my sisters and the cousins met! A beautiful day. Loving it up now, reflecting later I suppose.

Its time for not blogging. Have a good night.

Oh, and make sure that you thank that lady who used to wash the cheesy stuff from out of your neck rolls as a baby. I bet you didn’t even know about that.

love this blog: Milk Junkies

A friend recommend this blog Milk Junkies and sadly I am going to stay up way too late reading it. It is only sad because Jo has no concept of sleeping in on the weekends, so I will be getting up at the regular 6am. It is about this lovely trans guy and his experiences breastfeeding his son (who he also gave birth to). Its smart. Its poignant and it will blast away all those assumptions you may have about who does what when it comes to baby caring.  Highly recommended.

Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away with the Other Spoon

I got this coloring book for my niece (I realize shes a little young for it) from my friendly neighborhood not-for-profit (socialist) workers’ collective bookstore. It includes such adorable/badass/teachable coloring experiences as…

…for the gender rebel(s) in all of us.

Why I am not exercising or criticizing (or editing?)

At last the dreary (and desperately needed) rain has ended. Except for the freakish frost warning tonight (??!???!) it finally feels like May. My entire body aches from the constant Ergo walks and bike path stroller times where I now run two minutes, then walk 5 (more like 7) minutes. I am starting to understand why people don’t exercise after they have babies. I got it at first, the soreness/stitches, the exhaustion, the excessive lactating but now I understand why people don’t exercise 4 months after baby.

It goes like this:

a. Have you ever tried to run in a nursing bra?

b. Have you ever tried to breastfeed while wearing two sports bras that were too small even before you were pregnant?

I got out of the house for vague adult times TWICE this week. Last night I went to The Blow which was rad. Except when it started late and then my parents called as I was driving at home at 1:45am because Jo woke up and I wasn’t home to feed her. And suddenly my fantasy of touring my electro pop performance art around the country with head bobbing queers in plaid burst and I was brought to the delightfully scary reality of being a parent.

I went to the single parents group  on Tuesday, which is officially my third parenting group. I wish I was kidding. Also…

Only in the United States would this picture send shock waves around the country. Seriously, who really cares how long someone else breastfeeds their child for….why people are so worried and shocked about other peoples parenting choices (particularly when children are breastfed into toddlerhood alllllll around the globe). I am tired of people criticizing mothers, and I am especially tired of misdirected, uninformed feminist critiques of motherhood. PhD in Parenting brought up some really great points  about the recent NY times Motherhood vs. Feminist debate, but the best was Maria Blos’s piece Lets Not Pass Judgement 

Attachment parenting does not do anything to us, it does not “destroy feminism,” it is not “bad for working moms.” It is simply an ideology we can use within the context of our own life and priorities. Like any tool, it can be misused and wielded as a weapon of judgement.

Parenthood is humbling beyond measure. Let us be kind to one another.

Perhaps that was what I was trying to say? Anyway, I really didn’t even wasn’t to get into all this.

Much more importantly, Jolene is a mover and a shaker. Her whole attitude lately has been “fuck fine motor skills, I have perfectly suckable fists so why should I direct my energy into putting toys into my mouth?” And the gross motor skills are where its AT lately. I try to get her on her front for Tummy Time (must be capitalized) every day and lately, she has been trying trying to get her knees under her and TODAY SHE DID. Just for a little tiny second but oh my goodness I am freaking out because we are that much closer to crawling/walking/driving/motor cycle crashing. That is all projection and fantasy and I do try to rid myself of the automatic growing up montage in my head.  The experience of watching her was nothing like that. It was so amazing to see her exploring, testing her strength, feeling the ways in which her body can move. It was with such genuine curiosity and such… uncomplicated necessity. She must get her knees under herself, and yet doesn’t even quite realize it yet.

I guess I have a lot of feelings. I apologize for not editing more. I think that maybe real people with blogs write posts and then look at them later and edit them and think about them before posting, but that is not what I am going to do today.

This weekend… baby’s first pride parade, mamas first mothers day and maybe I will finally buy some socks because I seriously have no socks.

milk in the batter

“Live your life. Live your life. Life your life.”-Maurice Sendak

Feeling sad about the loss of such a tremendous artist and human being. I can’t wait to read his books to Jolene.

Special Ops Bear Baby

 

I support the US Military in no way shape or form but I have always had an unnatural obsession with mixing dark green industrial war looking clothes with pink. Today Jolene is SPECIAL OPS BEAR BABY! All the clothes are lovely hand me downs with awesome booties from my friend Lizzie. 

 

I just realized that makes no sense because you can’t see the ears on the hat….

 

Hell yeah.