Kimommy

Perchance to Sleep (Chapter 2)

It's been well over 9 months since I have slept in the way that only non-parents sleep. Come to think of it, it's been longer. The last few months Knight was on the inside, I'm pretty sure he was doing push-ups on my bladder, so I was up every few hours to pee. A sneak-peek of sorts. So, for over 9 months, I have not had more than 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep, and that was once, many many months ago. And when I awoke from that alarmingly sound slumber, I was sure my baby was dead. The monitor battery had died in the night and I never heard the beeping. When I found that the baby was still alive, I wondered if he cried for hours in vain (remember, I didn't even hear the monitor's death beeps). Would he be forever scarred, suffering serious abandonment issues from the night he cried and cried and his mommy never came? We will never know how he suffered that night, or if he just slept like a baby. But for the past couple of months, my son sleeps for maybe 2 1/2 hours before he wakes, cries, sits up in his crib and cries some more until I come in and nurse him back to sleep. A matter of moments— maybe long enough for me to pee.  Clearly, I'm an enabler, right?

While I glide back and forth in the dark nursery, baby at my boob, I review just how we got here— here being awake every couple of hours. So, let's do that, review . . . 

I went into active labor at around 3:00 pm on November 19. For obvious painful reasons, I did not sleep until about 20 or so hours later when they drugged me (for the first time, by the way) specifically so I would sleep, at least momentarily between contractions. But he wasn't coming out theta way. I think I dozed off for a few minutes on the operating table while they dug through my insides to fish out my giant baby. When the adrenaline of giving birth (finally!) had eased, and my perfect new baby was sound asleep in the bassinet beside my hospital bed, I ate about 10 red Jell-O cups and snuggled down to sleep. By then, it was about 4 am on November 21. Never had I been more deserving of sleep (or Jell-O!). It was deep and oh so yummy. Then, 2 hours into my blissful dreamless slumber, I was abruptly awakened by Wombat, a fierce little Filipino nurse, shoving my blissfully sleeping baby to my breast, telling me I must feed him every 3 hours. Her name wasn't actually Wombat, but it was something very much like Wombat, which I can't recall right now because I'm sleep deprived. Anyway, this baby that she insisted was so hungry, weighed nearly 10 pounds. Also, he had eaten for 45 minutes almost immediately upon arriving on the outside.

For the first few weeks after we arrived home, I would try to put the baby down in his co-sleeper after nursing him to sleep. But as the night progressed, he would stir and I would sleepily bring him to my breast for some late-night snacking. He and I would both fall asleep, and he would spend the remainder of the night snoozing on my chest. You see, our bed is small, a full- size mattress, not even a queen. John, a very sound sleeper, was nervous about smothering him, making it impossible for him to sleep when the baby was positioned between us. When the giant baby outgrew the co-sleeper, John relocated to the couch to make room for my new man, my main squeeze. Then, one night about 4 months in, Knight fell asleep before I was ready to settle down for the night, so I put him in his crib. As it grew later, I grew increasingly guilty and sad that my baby was asleep alone, apart from me. But he slept soundly for a long time, and so each night from then on I would lay him in his crib after nursing him to sleep. And John moved back in. Then when Knight awoke after John would leave for work in the morning, I would bring him back to our bed for an additional hour or so of snoozing (for both of us). It's a little confusing, all this musical beds nonsense, but try to keep up. People come up with some crazy sleep arrangements when they have babes, believe-you-me! Eventually, that transition into our bed made it nearly impossible for baby bear to fall back to sleep, so I would nurse him in the glider in the nursery and lay him back in his crib. By the way, I realize not all my numbers are lining up. I'm f*ing sleep deprived! Did I mention I'm tired?

The number of times Knight wakes up over the course of a night has varied. Historically, if one can call 9 1/2 months of life a history, he has gone through phases. He has slept for a 7 hour stretch each night for maybe a week or two. That is not to say I have. If he goes down at 8 pm and I don't go to sleep til 11 pm, then that allows me 5 hours, interrupted periodically by moments of panic when I wonder if he's still living. There's a lot of math happening here, huh? Then there are the stretches of time when he wakes up every hour and a half. The first time we experienced one of these horrific stretches is when he was 4 months old or so. Just when I thought I couldn't take any more and drastic measures  would have to be taken, ie. "sleep training," he slept for 5 hours. That is, until this last, I mean current time. Knight wakes up every couple of hours. We're talking about 5 times a night! If I nurse him, there is a 95% chance he will quickly fall back to sleep. About 50% of the time, he will only remain asleep, as in not scrying (that's screaming + crying, by the way) if my boob is in his mouth. 50% of the time, I can pop him off the nip without incident. Then, if I lay him back down in his crib, he might roll onto his side, sigh and sleep. That happens, let's say, again, 50% of time. So, if my math is correct, and it seldom is, he easily goes back to sleep after being nursed for 10-15 minutes 25% of the time. 48% of the time, when I place him back down in his crib, he rolls onto his stomach, immediately gets up on his knees and starts crying. And we begin the whole process again. 2% of the time, his eyes pop open and he smiles. That is the worst case scenario. Then he wants to chat, coo, cuddle, like for an hour!

The whole lack of sleep/broken sleep is really taking a toll on my mental and emotional well being. While I have a hard time letting my baby "cry it out," it's impossible to be the kind of mother I want to be on such little sleep. Such broken sleep over such a long period of time can't be good for Knight, either. I have talked to so many people, questioned everyone I know with a child.  I have consulted books and the internet looking for a solution that feels right. But nothing feels right. When I respond immediately to his cries, offering my breast for comfort, I think all sorts of things like This is never going to end. How will he/why would he ever sleep through the night? Comfort eating is probably not a good idea. This boy needs to sleep! I need to sleep! I decided that at 8 months we would "sleep train." But he was teething like mad, and that would just be cruel, right? Then a couple of weeks ago, an opportunity presented itself. Knight had had a big dinner and nursed plenty. When I put him down in his crib, he woke up. It was fairly early, so his scrying would probably not wake the neighbors. I did not want him to feel abandoned, so I stayed with him, kept my hand on him and whispered "shhhhh. shhhhh." He cried. He got up on his knees. He pulled himself up. I laid him back down and gently said, "Lay down. Go to sleep." He rolled and cried and screamed some more. He must have pulled himself up 50 times. I laid him down 50 times. I rubbed his stomach and said "shhh" until my throat was sore. His throat must have been on fire. Poor baby. After an hour, I scooped him up, cuddled him, and nursed him back to sleep. A few nights later, after nursing him to sleep, he woke up as soon as  placed him in his crib. So we tried it again. And he cried, but then he calmed down. He got up. I laid him down. He got up again. I laid him down again. I sat on the floor beside his crib and we held hands, and eventually he fell asleep. But he was still up about 5 times during the night. The following night, I was too exhausted to let him "cry it out," so I just nursed on demand. But then a funny thing happened. At one point, he had woken up and would not go back to sleep, but I was simply too tired to pick him up and I couldn't take the crying anymore, so I went into our room to decompress for a few minutes and vent to John. As I expressed my frustration and conflicting feeling about letting him cry himself to sleep, letting him self soothe etc., the crying faded and (Hallelujah!) the kid fell asleep.

So that's what we've been doing. And it seems to be getting better, slightly and gradually. Of course, he is teething again, so, afraid he's in pain, I don't want to leave him in his crib to work it out on his own. But for the past 3 nights he has slept for a 4-5 hour stretch. It's progress. I will take it.

Uh-oh! Baby's awake. Gotta go. I will keep you posted.

Hip Hip Hipstamatic!

Okay, I know I recently expressed confusion over why the iPhone app. Hipstamatic is all the rage. But now I see the the awesome retro light!

 

 I know,I know. But so does he.

 

 

Just a little holy inspiration.

 

 

Crawling (or slithering accross the floor)

is serious business.

 

 

And now a question for those of you more knowledgeable, creative, techy than I . . .

Is there some sort of software that can help me format/place my photos within my blog so that they look, well, nicer? Ya know, more professional-like? Pleeeease leave a comment if you know something I don't. 

 

InstaGroovy

So, it seems, all the cool kids are using the iphone application, "Hipstamatic," to give their photos that retro hipster flare. When I couldn't recall the name "Hipstamatic," I searched for "Instamatic," and found the "Instagram" app. Let me tell you why I love "Instagram." This is by no means some sort of paid advertisement, just me sharing with my five or fewer readers . . .  

With "Instagram" (which is free, by the way), you can apply several cool retro-feeling filters to photos you already have in your library. 

Here are some photos from a busy summer day. I applied a different "Instagram" filter to each of the pictures.

  Knight's cousins: Jude, Cameron & Clementine  

And some others . . . 
 

Perchance to Sleep (Chapter 1)

  10:00 pm used to be when I would get my second wind. It wasn't until 11 or so when the creativity would bubble, the energy would rise, and things would come into focus. Papers, stories, poems would get written. Closets would get sorted. Projects would get completed. I would even occasionally garden late into the night, my shrubs and vegetables illuminated by spotlights I'd drag out from the garage. When I taught school and had to be up by 6:15,  I would seldom retire from planning and correcting before 1am. There was always time to catch up on sleep on the weekends. I so relished the time to finally sleep, and I would sleep long and hard. In college, my housemates nicknamed me Rip, as in Rip Van Winkle.

I hated sleeping when I was supposed to sleep. It seemed unnatural somehow. As a child, I would lay in bed for what seemed an eternity, waiting for sleep to come, counting shadows and listening longingly to the sounds at the other end of the house. The clang of dishes being loaded into the dishwasher, the TV, and the distant voices of my parents and older brother occasionally tempted me out of bed and to the end of the hall, where hidden, I would feel a little less alone. Sometimes I would try my luck and reveal myself, hoping they would take mercy on me. Although compassionate, my mother was firm, and sent me back to bed.

Things are different now. Last Saturday night, our friend parked in our driveway while she attended a street festival up the block. I knew she was meeting people a couple of towns away after leaving the festival. I sat nursing Knight, staring out the window when she got in her car to leave. It was almost 10:00! PM!

I asked John in my newly developed mother-tone, "Isn't it a little late to be meeting people?"

"It's only 10:00. It's Saturday night. Other people still do things after 10:00 on Saturday night."

He's right! There is life after 10:00 for others. My brain has completely rewired itself. What was once the beginning of the the vast and delightfully dark possibilities of the night ahead, is now the end of a very tiring day. Actually 10:00 is still the beginning of a long night ahead. But now when I am awake at midnight, and 1:30, and 3:30, and 4:55, I am not immersed in conversation with friends or consumed by some personal project, I am having a very sleepy, very angry inner dialogue. The only pillow talk that takes place at those hours now is me sitting on the bed, rocking the crying baby, and shouting near John's ear, "If I threw you out the window, would your father wake up?!" Okay, that only happened once. And I wasn't really going to throw the baby out the window or harm him in any way. More typically, I rock in the glider in the dark thinking about how much my life has changed.   

     

Oh my God! He is totally faking!

 

Swinger

The Baby's Outta the Bag

It was just before Mother's Day last year when John and I told our families we were expecting. I was about three months pregnant. The idea that I was growing a baby in my body was strange. Stranger still was that it was okay, even joyous, for our parents. I struggled with when and how to tell my father. I knew that ultimately he would be so happy to finally be having his first grandchild, but thought he might initially be caught up on John and I not being married. Of course, it was not as though I was about to be a teen mom- I was 35. And I had been married once. So all the ingredients for how to properly create a family were there . . .

We told John's parents first. They were onto us already. John's sister-in-law suspected something was incubating when she told John she was pregnant and John asked how many weeks. She knew only a man in a "family way" would think of pregnancy in terms of weeks. They were calm and pleased. They did ask if we planned on getting married. Our reply was a vague, "Eventually." Somehow the conversation turned to whose toes the baby might have. I caught Ralph, John's dad, checking out my bare feet, confirming for himself that my toes actually were webbed. Yes, webbed. It's not as weird as it sounds. You probably wouldn't even notice if you weren't looking for it.

I decided to tell my brother first, and asked him how I should break the news to my father. It was at the office of our family business. My father was away. I followed my brother, Marc, into his office. He is older than I am and always seems to be more amazed and more personally affected by the choices I make than my parents ever were. So I closed the door behind us and said, "I have some exciting news! You are going to be an uncle!" I thought making it about him was a good idea. In response to his look of confusion, I just rambled on, as I tend to do, about how this was planned and how not getting married right now was my decision not John's and oh, I had a picture! An ultrasound image of a little blob and a squiggle, just to make the whole thing a little less abstract for him. "Wow," was his reply. Then I asked him how I should tell Dad. This question, this task refocused him and snapped him into action.

"Let's call him."

"He on vacation."

"Exactly. He's relaxed. He's probably had a few drinks. And he'll have time to process it before he comes home."

"Okay. That's not a bad idea."

Marc proceeded to pick up the phone and was about to dial.

"Not now! Give me time to recover from telling you. We'll call after you get me something to eat."

After I had been fed, we called. I asked my dad how the resort was. The food. The men in my family are big into food. Food is love. Then I asked him if he was sitting down. To be honest, I don't remember what I said- similar rambling, I'm sure, to what I spewed to my brother. And in response, my father said, "Oh, that's a good thing."

"You don't sound surprised, Dad."

"At this age, not much surprises me." 

And that's how I let the baby outta the bag- ba dump (baby)bump.

He still hasn't asked about a wedding. Maybe that's it . . to my father, marriage = wedding.

Don't worry, Dad, marriage or not, one wedding was enough. Well, maybe.                 

 

When Dogs Become Dogs

He pissed on the new couch when I was 5 months pregnant. That's when our relationship changed. Rather, that's when he made it clear he understood that our relationship was changing. That's when he started sleeping in the basement. He wasn't allowed upstairs when we weren't home. He had, from time to time, popped a squat on a dog bed. Somehow, that made sense to me. When John moved in, he pissed on our bed. Infuriating, yes, but also understandable. A typical male staking his claim. But the couch?! Come on! He didn't want to stay in the basement, of course. He'd meow at the door. But he didn't hold it against me. In fact, he would often perch on my ever-growing belly as if to help incubate the baby inside. It was becoming increasingly apparent that Harley was not well. He'd lost weight. After the baby was born, he would sleep more than usual, had a hard time keeping food down, and could barely get up and down the stairs. He wanted to snuggle up close, but the baby had taken his perch awaiting the chance to grab an ear or pull his tail. Poor kitty. His meow was barely audible, unless, of course, he was within a few feet of the sleeping baby. Then his voice miraculously returned. I'm not kidding.

After several visits to the vet, it was apparent he was not going to get better. Harley had been with me, shared my bed, for 15 years. He had purred in my ear through losses great and small. I felt like I had failed him- abandoned him. But as I held his little paw and pet his little head, watching the life leave him, my sadness was confused by relief. Relief that I wouldn't have to see my sweet kitten suffer anymore, but also relief that I wouldn't have to chase him out of the baby's room or wash another pile of peed-on clothes.

Then there are the dogs. Three of them. Big and furry dogs. We took a class, Dogs & Storks, shortly before Knight was born, where the instructor discussed lessening the trauma for the pups once the baby arrives. Also, how to prevent any jealous outbursts from the canine siblings. Most of the people in the class had rambunctious puppies who sleep in bed with them or little yappers who are toted around in designer bags. John and I spent most of the class writing notes back and forth. The class wasn't a complete waste of time, however. As suggested, John carried one of my old Cabbage Patch Kids around the house while commanding the dogs. Any doll would have worked, I suppose. It was quite a sight. The dogs were equally curious about the baby as they were about the doll. Not very.

As it's turned out, the dogs have been gradually sequestered to one (rather large) room of the house— what was formerly our dining room. This is especially difficult for the giant pussycat of a husky, who is no longer able to attempt to hide under me when there are fireworks within his super-sonic earshot. During thunderstorms, he will bust through the gate. We have accepted this. Before the baby, we regularly took the dogs on long hikes in the woods. Now, most of the running they do is away from the increasingly interested baby and his increasingly firm grip.

        Bishop, feeling dejected—preferring the quiet and solitude of the snow to the alternative.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The logistics of three big, aged dogs, a baby, and a fairly small living space, is less than ideal. Of course, our priorities have changed. Now, our baby is our baby. And our dogs . . . well, they've become our dogs.

Cruiser

Sweet Pea

The Uglies: Part I (Zitso)

I was so exhausted by the time they finally lifted my son from my C-sectioned abdomen that I could not keep my eyes open. I do remember hearing, however, that he was the best looking baby they'd delivered that day and also the biggest. I'm told baby's delivered by C-section have nicer heads than those whose skulls are squished en route through the birth canal. Small consolation, I think, for entering into the world in such an abrupt manner. And his meatiness gave him a more fully formed look than your average pruney newborn. Really his only flaws were some milia on his nose and a little sucking blister on his rosebud mouth. 

Fast-forward a few weeks . . . Our perfectly gorgeous baby seemed to be going through two of the most awkward phases for a guy (or a girl), a bit --ahem-- prematurely, adolescence and old age. At age 3 weeks he had worse acne than a terribly unfortunate 14-year-old and his male pattern baldness would inspire a less confident man to buy a Hummer.

He handled it like a champ, though. I, on the other hand, felt compelled to mention it, at least to him, while others were oohing and aahing at how cute he was. I imagined those two-faced oohers and aahers thinking, "Does this mother realize her kid has a whitehead the size of a small dog on his cheek?" I would say things, as though he was the only one who could hear me, like, "My sweet little zitso." Terrible, I know. I'm not proud of it. Clearly a projection of my own insecurities. I'm pretty sure he didn't understand either the words or the psychology behind them, so he should be okay for now. I will work on beating down my own insecurities before he does reach dreaded adolescence.

This is not merely a confession, however. In case there are other weak souls like me out there who worry that their baby will be the first whose infant acne continues to fester into the toddler years and beyond, it won't. Or maybe it will. What do I know?! What I do know is that Knight's did clear up. It cleared up rather quickly, actually. I didn't use soap- just a damp facecloth. In the end, a very small wave to ride, I know.

Once in a while a small blemish rears its ugly little head, and in a day or two, it's gone. But there was one. It stood alone and it was fierce. While I fed my precious baby, it taunted me. It grew bigger and whiter and juicier. I would touch it lightly, hoping it might fall off with just a slight wiggle. Dr. Oz discussing the triangle of death played in my mind. It's head grew more prominent. So one night, while he was asleep on my lap, I covered it with a tissue and gently squeezed the life out of it. It popped off perfectly, but in its place was a hole. My remorse was immediate and great. Certainly infection would set in while he slept, spread to his brain and eventually kill him. Why? Because of my vanity. My obsession over a little (okay GIANT!) blemish on my son's cheek lead to his death. I wiped his mom-inflicted wound with a warm paper towel. Had I popped my own zit, I would have dabbed a little Neosporin on it and not given it a second thought. But Neosporin warns against using it on children under 2 years of age. So I just had to wait, in shame, and see what would become of my innocent baby. . .

He survived. No infection. Now, months later, he does still have a little red mark -- a constant reminder of a regrettable mommy moment. No sign of the countless other zits I ignored.