Introducing Elessar

At six weeks, she/he/it looks more like one of my earrings than anything else, but that should, I trust, improve with time.

Snapshots in time

I'm sitting playing a computer game while dinner cooks, and listening to L read to herself. She's sitting on her bed, paging through books we've read to her, narrating the stories, identifying animals when she knows them, and even making the right noise from time to time. We can always tell when she's reading her Thomas book, from the exclamations of "Thoma'" and "Moo! Moo!" (there's a cow on the tracks at one point that Thomas must wait for).

I dearly hope that she retains her sweet, intelligent charm as she grows older.

Notes from the Trenches: End of March Updates

How did it get to the end of the month already?! Oh, I know: chasing a busy toddler around.

For the year's goals:

1. How do I forget about this one? The Infanta has become a smidge less frustrating, though, so it's a little easier to appreciate her. More on that in a bit.

2. With A's help I made myself a nightie a couple of weeks ago! It's super comfy, and we're plotting a day to work on jammies for the girls - with, I hope, someone to watch the girls so we can concentrate on sewing.

3. Not much relaxation on the pregnancy issue here, but I'm at about three weeks on no soda. It's still not easy, and I don't really like that I've taken to coffee in the mornings, but I do feel better. I think. On the other hand, my cycle has been doing weird things for a few months, and I'm still trying to figure out what and why.

4. Not doing so great on the housework, but I have at least gotten to a place where I'll be in the kitchen waiting for something to cook, and will realize that I have a few minutes in which to, say, load the dishwasher. It's not consistent, but it does happen. Also, it's fairly easy to get frustrated and pick up the Infanta's bedroom (more on that below).

5. Again, not doing to great on this... but I at least think about it. Last week we had some truly gorgeous weather, and all three of us got out to enjoy it. I even got out to the garden, which I weeded, and then planted sugar peas and onions. I think I might still be sore from that... This week is promising to be stormy; March going out like a lion this year, so getting out will be problematic. Still, I'm thinking about it, and that's a start!

The Infanta is finally coming out of 18-21 month hell. She's sweet, cheerful, social, mischievous, and turning into a proper little geek. Around the beginning of this month I got tired of watching Thomas the Tank Engine all the time, and instead started watching the new Doctor Who series. As a result, the Infanta will ask to see "Thoma'?" as well as "Doctie?". But the we watched The Goblet of Fire the other night... and during the scene in which Barty Crouch Jr is unmasked, she was pointing at David Tennant on the screen and saying "Doctie? Doctie? Doctie!" One of my worst trials with her right now is that when she's playing with the Quiet One, she's more likely than not to pull hair and shove. So to deal with that and teach the Infanta that that's not acceptable while simultaneously not feeding the Quiet One's incipient dramatic tendencies is... a challenge.

Weaning is actually going surprisingly well, and thank you all for your supportive comments on the subject. It does help to know that you all are out there and caring! At the beginning of Josh's Spring Break we turned my office into the Infanta's bedroom. To all appearances so far, she loves having her own room, and will ask to go play in it (we have it gated off still). With the time change she began sleeping almost all night, and with her own room she's started sleeping all night! So I haven't had to worry about night weaning, the Infanta has done that herself. I had tried to drop our morning nursing session at first, and that wasn't going so well, but after a day on which she napped easily without nursing I decided to drop that session instead. So we're down to only bedtime and morning, which suits me fine. The Infanta does seem to have finally picked up that I deliberately stopped, as she's been asking to "nuss" more in the last couple of days, and is very eager when it is time, but she accepts more or less gracefully when I say no.

That's the highlights from the trenches right now.

Hard Choices

It's funny how writing things out makes them easier to cope with. Since I wrote my last post, I've been doing ok again.

But... I've come to a hard realization about nursing. I'd been saying that if I couldn't get a pregnancy to stick by the time the Infanta turns two, I would wean her... and it seems my subconscious has decided that I should wean her by then, anyway.

I'm pretty sure it's the right decision for myself, but I'm still feeling pretty ambivalent about it. I didn't ever have a time I wanted to wean by, but always said at least two years, because of the WHO's recommendations (which say at least two years, and then as long as mother and child wish to continue). I figured I'd probably go longer than that... but it's looking like I won't now.

You see, I think the reason I'm having trouble staying pregnant is that for me, nursing is disrupting my hormonal balance just enough. Many, even most, women don't have that issue, but I think I do; I think I have low progesterone anyway, and nursing is disrupting that even more. And while I want to breastfeed the Infanta as long as I can, I also need to balance that with my desire for more children. She is certainly old enough that she doesn't *need* breast milk for nutrition, and she is well able to ask for (and receive) other kinds of nurturing.

On the other hand, nursing the one thing I can do for her that no one else can, and I find that that is a very big part of my identity as a mother. I have no doubts that I can shift its place - "I nursed her for two years" instead of "we're still nursing" - but it's not going to be painless. Nursing is a very special relationship, and once it's over, it's over. I don't want to nurse forever, but am I really ready to be done?

If I turn up pregnant, though, we're done, cold turkey.

Checking in about checking out

February was a difficult month for me. March looks like it's going to be harder.

There has been a lot going on; visits with friends and the Olympics to name a couple. A brought Baby J home, and we've spent a good deal of time hanging out, and I've gotten to enjoy her teeny sweetness a lot. A swears that Baby J needs me to hold her in order to poop, and so far we haven't seen anything to disprove that. (oh, darn, I have to snuggle the tiny one?) I also decided that for the sake of my own sanity, I needed to cut down how much the Infanta was nursing; she's down to about three times a day (plus whatever during the night, which has become usually not all that much), and has taken it pretty well. She still asks, but accepts when I say no, because it's not time.

The Infanta also dove straight into a huge developmental and physical growth leap in the last couple of weeks. Her clothes are getting short, and her language sophistication increases by the day. As the natural flip side, she's also become prone to ginormous tantrums, as incidents insignificant to us trigger huge emotions that she doesn't know how to cope with yet... not to mention the further development of her contrary side. (I wonder where she got that?) It's very difficult and frustrating for us to cope with, but nothing anyone who's parented a toddler hasn't dealt with. Still, it's new to us, and J and I are struggling to figure out our compromises in parenting style at the same time the Infanta's changing so rapidly.

Trouble is, I'm beginning to not do so well all on my lonesome. I was able to almost forget about the baby (babies) I should have been carrying for a little while, but I have become aware again, and the grief is triggering my depression. I've found myself dissociating a lot in the last few days, and beginning to lose interest in pursuits I'd been enjoying. It's like that last pregnancy was more real to me, because I was so aware of it and had it confirmed so clearly, and had allowed myself to hope... and then those hopes were dashed as I knew the moment I passed what baby there was. And now I know exactly how far along I'd be, because the due date would have been the same as the Infanta's... It's not that I'm dwelling on it. It's that I'm trying to go about my life, but it's reaching up and dragging me away from that life - I had gotten so far behind on dishes, for example, that I ran two loads today and still couldn't get them all. and I won't talk about how long some of this laundry's been waiting to be folded. But... I don't cry easily, not for myself, and had forgotten until a week and a half ago that I hadn't cried about this last miscarriage. At that time, I was able to squeeze out a little moisture, because I was at a memorial... and a couple of nights ago someone said something that made me tear up a little... but I still haven't *really* cried, and I can feel something like a tidal wave building up, and I don't know how to let it out.

Cuteness of the day

A, the Quiet One, and the new one are here for a few hours. Since they arrived at lunchtime, we all sat at the table and ate. The Infanta was in her high chair, but since we only have one, the Quiet One was bouncing around, doing things on a regular chair fit to give me a heart attack.

At almost the end of the meal, the Infanta (who been listening to a chorus of this the whole time) said, "Quiet One* sit down!" When the Quiet One sat(!), the Infanta followed with "Thank you!"

*Herself actually used the real name here.

Out and about

In pursuit of my resolution to get out of the house more, and in celebration of the recent occasionally nice weather, we've gotten to some fun places recently.

Here we are with the Quiet One* and her aunt and uncle at Gilbert House:

Gilbert House

Friday and today (Sunday) were gorgeous sunny days, and we ended up at the park with some of my knitting friends and their kids. For a change, I remembered my camera - again! That's three times in a week!

At the Park

* I've decided to call the Infanta's friend K by this pseudonym. She very quiet in comparison to the Infanta and the Hurricane, and it's also something of an homage to my younger brother, who maintained a cartoon involving a bunny with a sledgehammer and the caption "No one suspects the quiet ones!" on our refrigerator growing up. If you'd grown up with him, you'd keep an eye on the quiet ones, too!

Birth link

I haven't posted anything birthy in a while, but I saw this post today and thought, yes!!!

I've been thinking about the Infant's birth lately. I remember labor as not painless, but intense and overwhelming; there was pain, but it was the good feeling of muscles working hard. The one time I remember thinking "the e word"*, it wasn't because I hurt so badly, it was because the sensations were so overwhelming I was having trouble coping with them anymore. Because of my training, the small portion of my analytical brain that still worked at that point told me that that meant I was almost done. Also, my doula helped me let go, to surrender to the waves. I might have done it without her, but it wold have been tremendously more difficult!

Some women report feeling amazing empowerment after giving birth; I can't say that I did. I think perhaps that's because I don't generally feel disempowered. Birth was amazing, and wonderful, and I want to do it again, but I didn't have that "if I can do this, I can do anything" feeling so many women express.

Mothering a toddler - now that's giving me that feeling!

*epidural

Goal check-in

It's the end of the month, and I feel like checking in on the goals I made for myself for this year.

1. I'd like to think I'm doing a little better at actively appreciating the lovely people I live with. The Infanta is working very hard on some more of those developmental leaps (she's figuring out counting! at least, the beginning of it... and more words... and just today she's started actively playing with a baby doll...), so her sleep is very irregular, but I'm finding that if I slow down and just *be* with her, I don't get so frustrated. J has been his usual wonderful supportive self through the stresses of the last couple weeks, and I'm trying to show my appreciation; for example, I took Herself with me to knitting Saturday so that he could have an afternoon all by his lonesome for a change.

2. Well, I got a good start on this... I had promised a friend that I would make her a baby carrier, and I got it cut out and half-sewn... and then the friend that was helping me with toddler distraction went and had her baby 6 weeks early. So my momentum on that has yet again been derailed. But it's derailed in such a way that given a couple of hours, I can have the carrier pretty well done.

I've been thinking about further sewing projects, as well. I promised J that I would make him a kimono some time back... and while that's not going yet, it's definitely on my mind. I also decided that I want to make nightgowns for me and the Infanta, and went so far as to buy patterns for the purpose Saturday. Go me!

3. My last couple of cycles have been weirdly short, so I decided to start actively charting again. You could make a case that this isn't doing anything to relax about the pregnancy thing, but for me it is; it's something I can *do*, something that will let me see more of what's actually going on than just enduring the same symptoms every month which are so very much the same as very early pregnancy symptoms and which drive me and the people around me crazy with hope.

4. I'm not running dishes *every* night... but I'm not letting them pile up over my head, either. It feels good. It also feels good that the dining room table is clear enough to eat at whenever we feel like it, which we have been fairly often! Clear it and they will come, I guess. Alongside this refocusing on my domestic space, I've resolved to get back to cloth diapering.

5. There's been a fair amount of sunshine this last week, so the Infanta and I and sometimes other friends have been getting out and walking to nearby parks, playing for a while, and then walking home. I think it's good for both (all) of us.

Drinking game!

Because I can't do anything for my friend and client A, who's in the hospital right now dealing with preterm labor, I'm going to rough out a drinking game based on Thomas the Tank Engine.

Essentially, take a drink every time one of the following occurs: any of the characters exclaims (cinders and ashes, flatten my funnel, etc.); any time the words "useful" or "reliable" are mentioned; any time Sir Toppham Hatt is pompous. Following these guidelines, you should be nicely tipsy by the end of a single episode!

On a completely different note, all you Jane Austen nuts should go read this. Now. Swallow first, and if you don't, don't say I didn't warn you.

New Year, Old Frustrations

I don't like how long it's been since I last posted. For the five of you still paying attention, I apologize. It's not at all that I've had nothing to post; rather the issue is that I've had entirely too much I want to write about, and it gets overwhelming. Then there's the part where I don't have time, and on top of all that, I've been incredibly inarticulate of late.

Goals for this year:

1. Love my family, no matter how much hair they make me want to tear out. More than that, enjoy them! J is a really great guy, and I don't pay enough attention to him. The Infanta is in a frustrating stage, but she's a sweet-natured, bright, beautiful little girl, and it's easy to lose sight of that in the day-to-day (or the all-nighters).

2. Sew more.

3. Relax about getting pregnant again. (Much easier said than done!)

4. Get better at household maintenance - by which I mean trying to keep the floor more or less picked up, the table clear (for dining or for sewing, which will help with #2), the dishes done more or less daily, etc. It's so easy to slack a day, and then it's overwhelming. Speaking of which, I should go run dishes once this is posted.

5. Get outside! I spend entirely too much time sitting here, dinking on the lappy. The Infanta needs to get out and run more, and I would do better with more outside air as well.

Now to get on some of those chores, while J has the Infanta off at church with him!

For a good laugh

read this.

Passed Out

Or, what happens when it's naptime and you're stuck in the play pen while Mama's working in the kitchen and Daddy's taking a bath.

Babies!

I've been thinking about a lot of things recently, and I may get around to posting about some of them sometime soon. Meanwhile, watch this:



It's the trailer for the forthcoming documentary Babies, which follows the first year of life of four babies in different parts of the world. Just this two-and-a-half minute trailer made me laugh and cry - and within the first few seconds, Josh had whipped around, wondering if it was Lina squealing!

Metablogging Musings

It's been almost two weeks since my last post. Some of that is because I'm travelling for the holiday, and preparations for travel ate a lot of my attention the week previous (and I'm not home until Tuesday - until then I'm still in California, visiting my mom).

But that's not all it is. It's also that there are enough people who read this blog now (or at least check in from time to time) that I don't feel comfortable being quite as candid here as I have at times in the past. I've done and experienced things that I want to write about, that I need to write about to help process them, that aren't things I can tell just anybody. Some of them I can't tell almost anybody, for reasons of confidentiality.

Also, I've just plain had so much going on recently that I haven't had brain space to look at it enough to write about it...

Enough with the excuses. I'm not giving up blogging, by any means. It's an important outlet for me, and an important part of documenting my and the Infanta's lives.

Speaking of the Infanta: about to hit eighteen months, she's just exploding in development. Talking, processing, playing... it's been huge just in the last week. Mom looked up at her on my lap this evening, and said that she (my Mom) thinks she (the Infanta) looks older than she did when we got here. I teased her and said "yeah, a whole week older", but I think it's true; she's changing mentally so rapidly, it's no wonder that she's showing changes on the surface, too.

It's late, and time to go to bed to rest for another day of solo parenting. How do full-time single parents do it?!

Give me my ink!

I've been thinking about getting a tattoo lately. I want a permanent mark on my body to echo the permanent mark on my psyche left by the babies I won't ever hold. I'm now about six weeks from the EDD of the baby I lost in May, and it's really been hitting me hard that I might have had a Christmas baby; I don't expect to have a very happy holiday.

Anyway, The Unnecesarean ran a post yesterday about anesthesiologists being hesitant to place epidurals in women with lower back tattoos (the placement I've been envisioning for mine). Given that I don't ever want an epidural, bring on the ink!

Secret Ingredient Soup

We've been watching Kung Fu Panda a LOT lately, and it always makes us hungry. So, during one of last night's viewings (yes, that plural is deliberate), I decided to make some Chinese noodle soup for dinner. You will probably not be surprised to learn that the only ingredients I needed to buy to make this recipe were chicken, green onions, and napa cabbage.

Oh, and I doubt anyone will be surprised to learn that I omitted the chili sauce and cilantro.

Halloween 2009

The Infanta and I attended a toddler and parent Halloween party (including trick-or-treating). I can't take credit for the photos; the camera was still in the basket when Bethany walked in and asked if she could use it. Since she's a far more active photographer than I, I happily acquiesced.

The Infanta, of course, is in the red dress, as a sort of Renaissance Toddler. The Hurricane is in the fuzzy green as a frog, but she would be quick to tell you that she has the red checked shirt of her HORSE costume on beneath. The little girl in black (she decided she was a Wild Thing) is one of the girls' friends; we were at her house. The rest of the cast is rounded out by assorted fathers, and finally, by yours truly.

Bliss...

...is in short supply around here lately, so I'm leaping on it where I find it. For example, tonight's dinner.

My tummy decided against the salmon (broiled 10 minutes each side, coated with a paste of mayonnaise and lemon juice), but the taters are right on. I found this recipe a couple of weeks ago in my Italian cookbook: it's for chicken and potatoes. Basically you prepare chicken pieces and potatoes for roasting, then pour over them a mix of a couple tablespoons each of olive oil and lemon juice, a good amount (maybe a tablespoon) of rosemary, salt and pepper to taste, then roast at 350 til done (around 40 min). The meat is okay.. I've tried it with salmon, too. The potatoes, on the other hand, turn out divine! They soak up the lemon juice, and... oh, you have to try them to understand. Tonight I did the taters just alone with the ..sauce?, and it's just what the midwife ordered. Mashed up in a big heap on my plate with lots of butter... yum.

More niftiness

I do have meatier posts in mind, but this week I've kind of been letting gravity have its way with me.