Pikes Peak Parent Mommy Blog

We've moved!

2007-10-18T08:51:00.000-06:00

The Pikes Peak Parent Mommy blog has moved to a new location. Please check it out here. It has a lovely picture of Kaylee terrorizing the rocky mountains.

Vampire baby

2007-10-16T09:09:00.000-06:00

I’m not sure why, but I find it very easy to be creeped out by small children. I think I’ve seen way too many movies and TV shows in which children talk to ghosts, are possessed by the devil or do otherwise scary things. I really don’t know how I’ll handle it the first time I hear Kaylee talking to an imaginary friend.

That said, I’ve never actually been scared of a real child. Even though my niece Hope once told her mom about a woman in her bedroom mirror with red eyes, I don’t consider Hope especially scary. But I wouldn’t go into her room at night.

I think it’s so easy for Hollywood to get to me because kids are supposed to be the height of innocence. So the idea of one of them suddenly turning evil is not only terrifying, but completely unexpected. It doesn’t help that they usually reserve the worst torment for their mothers.

The other night, Rob and I watched an episode of a TV show called Supernatural, in which a town’s children were kidnapped by changlings. The kids were kept in cages while the changlings took their forms and their places in the household. They’d follow their moms around and say things like “Come play with me, Mommy” in this monotone that made me shiver. Then, when the moms were sleeping at night, they’d feed on her by sucking on this wound on her neck.

All right, I know my summary made the show sound stupid and unbelievable, but it was really creepy. Really. Stop laughing at me.

Anyway, later that night, I was feeding Kaylee and thinking about how nice it is that she hasn’t been possessed by an evil spirit or kidnapped by a supernatural creature, and that she didn’t seem terribly interested in devouring my soul. And I put her head on my shoulder to pat her back, while she snoozed away.

And then, very slowly, she turned her head toward me and licked my neck.

I think she’s checking for weak spots. You know, for when she gets teeth.

Dear Kaylee, at 5 months

2007-10-12T09:26:00.000-06:00

Dear Kaylee,

It suddenly occurred to me the other day that I have still not sent off for official proof that you were born. We somehow left your keepsake birth certificate behind at the hospital in our rush to get home and start our life with you, and I keep forgetting to send out the form and the check for $17 to get an official one from the county. For all I know, the government doesn’t even acknowledge that you exist. But don’t worry, we do have some photographic evidence that you’re here, plus you keep scratching my face with your inhumanly strong fingernails, so I have some scars I can show people if they question your existence. (As a side note, you’ve completely stopped scratching yourself. That’s great, I just wish you hadn’t turned your wrath on me and your dad.)

Last month you suddenly noticed we have dogs. This month, you’ve decided they’re side-splittingly funny. And that you’d like to pull out handfuls of their hair and eat it. So while they’re still fascinated with you and like to lick your hands and feet, they’ve also learned to keep a careful distance.

And you’ve been so happy lately. Almost every day at daycare, someone tells me how happy you are all the time, and you’re always willing to share a smile with everyone you see. I hope you brighten other people’s days the way you do mine.

A couple of months ago, you learned how to growl. It was cute back then, but now it’s just crazy cute, because you’ve started doing it all the time. You growl all the way to daycare, you growl when we’re playing, when you’re frustrated, and when you’ve scooted off the daycare floor mat and you need to send out a distress signal so your teacher can figure out where you went.

Halloween is coming up soon and we’ve bought you a dragon costume to go with your growl. I don’t even know if dragons growl, but I do know that when we put you in that costume and you unleash your vicious “grrr errr errrrrrrr,” that all the adults just might collapse from the waves of cute emanating from your little body. But that’s ok, because then you’ll get all the candy to yourself. Good luck operating the blender to puree those candy bars.

And the grabbing. Oh, the grabbing. You’ve been reaching for every little thing that catches your attention, and some stuff that you don’t care about but that happens to be near your hand. The other night you grabbed a placemat and almost pulled my dinner into my lap before I stopped you. But it was my fault, really. I shouldn’t have taken all that time to blink.

This month, we’ve started feeding you solids, and you’ve taken to the new food with enthusiasm. So much enthusiasm, in fact, that I’ve now had the experience of cleaning squash out of your right nostril and carrots out of your eyelashes. Feeding you is one of the best parts of my day, because it’s almost always hilarious.

You’ve become so much fun that you’re addictive. I know of a few people outside our household who suffer from Kaylee withdrawal when they don’t get to see you for a couple of days. And your dad and I? We suffer after a couple of hours. Sometimes I head home from work, angry and near tears about something that happened that day, only to have all my frustration melt away the moment I see your bright smile. That’s what you do for us, sweetheart -- you make everything better, like magic.

Love,

Mommy

Crystal ball

2007-10-08T15:31:00.000-06:00

I had a premonition today.

I dropped Kaylee off at daycare this morning and suddenly had this vision of her in a dozen years or so, telling me about cheerleader tryouts and the trials of juggling her busy social calendar, while I stand there staring at her perfect hairdo and watching her touch up her lipstick, wondering, “Whose child ARE you?”

My vision was brought on by the realization that my baby is quite popular -- more popular, in fact, than I’ve ever been in my life.

Whenever I take her to school, I get comments from strangers about how they “just love that little one” and what a cute smile she has. At her school’s open house night, Rob discovered that Kaylee has a little three-year-old friend who visits her regularly to play. Today, one of the daycare employees who floats from room to room, helping where needed, admitted to spending her lunch hours in the infant room, playing with my daughter.

It’s so weird knowing that my four-month-old baby has a social life that I’m not a part of, with friends I may never meet.

At least she’s not asking to borrow the car yet.

Clueless

2007-10-05T09:24:00.000-06:00

The other night, I had a profound realization: I have no idea what I’m doing.

I was staring with grossed-out, worried-mom fascination at Kaylee’s left eye, which had decided to puff up and seal itself shut with ooze, and that’s when it hit me. I’m in charge of this little person, and she had a problem, and I didn’t know how to fix it.

Do you rinse the eye out with water? Call the doctor in the middle of the night, crying and screaming that your baby’s eye is about to fall out? Let the dog lick the ooze off? (He totally would do that.) Wait until morning, call in sick to work and take her to see the doctor?

Usually Kaylee keeps her problems simple – she needs a bottle, a diaper change or someone to hold her back from diving off the couch in her attempts to catch a dog. But every once in a while, she throws a little curveball, and I’m reminded that I’m really and truly clueless.

And it fills me with a little bit of terror, wondering about all the things she’ll have to talk about with her therapist when she’s older. (“Your mother did WHAT? She got poop on your head?!?!?!”) But more than that, I feel lucky to be entrusted with her life, and with her little hands, her cute little feet, her crusty eye and her snotty nose. And so far, she seems to think I’m doing ok.

But what does she know? She’s only four months old.

My baby eats! Actual food!

2007-10-04T10:42:00.000-06:00

Kaylee did the most amazing thing a couple of days ago – she opened her mouth for a spoonful of baby food (squash). Not only is this amazing because squash is gross and what was she thinking letting me put it in her mouth, but it’s also wonderful because it’s like a light bulb turned on in her head and she realized, “OH! I get it! You’re not putting this stuff in my mouth to watch me gag and make faces. You want me to EAT it.”

So FINALLY, I get to take some pictures of Kaylee with food smeared all over her face. I’m so excited, since this is the main reason I became a parent.

Poo-poo head

2007-09-26T15:45:00.000-06:00

On Saturday, I dressed Kaylee in one of my favorite outfits for her: a onesie that says “little monkey” and has a picture of a monkey eating a banana. When I saw it in the store, I just had to buy it -- even though I was in a Gymboree, where the clothes are much too expensive when you consider that the baby will grow out of them in 10 minutes. That’s how much I love this onesie.

So imagine my horror when I realized that, 15 minutes after I dressed her, Kaylee had a diaper explosion. And not just any diaper explosion –- a sick baby diaper explosion. That’s the worst kind, I’ve recently learned.

I had to call Rob in for reinforcements while I cleaned poo off her calves, thighs and back. I didn’t actually need him to do anything other than cheer me on, but his laughter was a nice counterpoint to my frantic chanting of “ew, ew, ew, ew.”

After I’d properly mourned the staining of the monkey onesie and sent Rob off to throw it in the washing machine, I dressed Kaylee in something else and started trying to forgive her for the incident.

Later, I carried her into our bedroom to talk to Rob, while I nuzzled her and pretended to eat her neck, face and head. Then I held her out to Rob and said, “Here, kiss your daughter.”

He gave her a peck on the side of the head, and then as I pulled her away, he said, “What is that on her head? ... Is that poo? Does she have POO on her HEAD?”

I turned her around and there it was. Poop. Right there in her hair, most likely deposited there when I took her onesie off.

And Rob, sweet husband that he is, had one more thing to say.

“You really are going to turn her into the stinky kid, aren’t you?”

Survivor

2007-09-25T11:39:00.000-06:00

If my family were characters in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi/horror novel a la The Stand, Kaylee would be a survivor and the rest of us would be dead.

Because she was able to giggle and play immediately after episodes of Exorcist-style vomiting, Rob and I attributed Kaylee’s trouble last week to “air in the tummy” or difficulty digesting her new solid foods. We were wrong. Very, very wrong.

Kaylee apparently brought the superflu home from daycare, and she managed to pass it on to all of her Colorado Springs-based family within 24 hours. I never thought a 12-pound, 10-ounce little person could wreak that kind of havoc.

On Friday night, we had dinner with Grandma and Uncle Tim, and Kaylee exploded all over a previously clean eating establishment. On Saturday, we had a picnic with Gram, Papa, Uncle Jamie, Aunt Laura and cousins Hope and Evie, and there were no major bodily-fluid incidents.

By Sunday night, Grandma, Uncle Tim, Gram, Aunt Laura, Rob and I were all in the grip of a nasty stomach bug, and Papa was feeling kind of queasy.

That’s right. My baby took out four households.

And while we were all incapacitated with misery, she was bouncing in her Jumperoo, laughing her little head off.

Again with the puking / I’m so happy I have Rob

2007-09-21T14:36:00.000-06:00

I think I may have to saran-wrap everything in Kaylee’s room.

Kaylee almost always wakes up at around 3 a.m. and has a bottle before drifting quietly back to sleep. This is usually a rather uneventful experience: feed the baby, put her back in bed, the end.

Not so much the last two nights, though.

Rather than going right back to sleep, Kaylee’s bottle-drinking has been followed by a hiccup and then a shower of vomit. She hasn't seemed to mind, really. She's been in just as good a mood after channeling Linda Blair as beforehand, so I don’t think she’s actually been sick.

Kaylee may not have minded, but it was a bit traumatic for Rob. In two out of three spit-up incidents, he actually had to go take a shower because of the volume of vomit that had been dumped on him. The carpet in front of the rocking chair in her room was squishy, Kaylee’s pajamas were soaked, and the dog was in heaven.

You may remember that this is the week that Rob was scheduled to go out of town for work, but something came up and his company decided not to send him. This was disappointing in an aww-now-he-can’t-have-adventures-in-Virginia kind of way, but a relief in a now-Mommy-is-less-likely-to-go-crazy kind of way.

And thankgodthankgodthankgod he was here. Because a hysterical 3 a.m. phone call from his wife screaming, “I’M COVERED IN PUKE. GET ON A PLANE AND COME HOME RIGHT NOW SO I CAN TAKE A SHOWER!” probably wouldn’t have helped him achieve maximum productivity.

Jumpin’ monkey

2007-09-19T14:18:00.000-06:00

Kaylee has recently taken up jumping. Of course, to a four-month-old baby, jumping involves the following steps:

1. Complain until Mommy helps you stand up.
2. Suddenly pick your legs up off the floor.
3. Hope Mommy realizes what you’re doing before you collapse into a heap.
4. If Mommy plays her part, she will bounce you up and down, letting you launch yourself off the floor with every bounce.
5. Repeat every few minutes, all day long, or until Mommy’s arms give out.

We didn’t know where she’d learned this particular stunt until Rob went to pick her up from daycare late last week. He was gathering her stuff into her diaper bag when he heard something going “boing! boing! boing!” and the joyous laughter of a highly entertained baby. Kaylee was sitting in a Jumperoo, bouncing enthusiastically and enjoying every moment.

We were still in search of something that’ll keep Kaylee busy while we eat dinner, so over the weekend we bought her a Rainforest Jumperoo that takes up about a third of the living room.

She loves it. More than she loves us, I think.

If there were a way to give her bottles via IV so she didn’t have to stop bouncing, I think she’d go for it. As it is, whenever she gets hungry, tired or otherwise upset while in her Jumperoo, she makes sure she lets us know, and loudly –- but she doesn’t stop jumping. And it’s entertaining to us, too, because it’s very weird to see a baby jump spastically while alternating between crying and laughing. (“I’m hungry! This is fun, wheee! Give me a bottle! I like jumping!”)

Here’s hoping it’ll keep her entertained long enough for Rob and me to eat a meal at the same time. That would be nothing short of miraculous.

Six things I’ve said to Kaylee in the past seven days

2007-09-17T10:36:00.000-06:00

"How’d you get a booger in your ear?”

“Don’t pee don’t pee don’t pee don’t pee don’t pee don’t pee…”

“That’s one thing you’ll learn when you’re older: Boys don’t listen.”

“Is that chocolate on the back of your head?”

“Don’t believe anything your daddy tells you. Ever.”

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I have poo under my fingernail. Now I have to go boil my hand.”

Dear Kaylee, at 4 months

2007-09-13T10:39:00.001-06:00

Dear Kaylee,

You have changed so much this month that it’s hard to believe you’re the same baby. Suddenly, you’ve noticed the world around you, and you seem extremely eager to get yourself out into it. You’d like nothing more than to crawl over to the dog food bowl and take a sample.

Speaking of the dogs, your disinterested attitude toward them has changed to one of fascination. You can’t get enough of watching their epic wrestling matches on the living room floor. And now that you get a lot of floor time, they’re finding you more interesting, too. Kody, in particular, likes to place himself right at your feet when you’re trying to crawl so that your frantic kicks will pet him on the head.

You’re also always looking for new and exciting things to put in your mouth, from blankets to rattles to monkeys. If our dogs would let you, I’m pretty sure you’d be happy to chew on their ears.

And you’ve apparently decided that Mommy would look better bald. You’re lightning fast at grabbing a handful of hair and yanking as much out as possible. I really should start putting my hair in a ponytail for preservation purposes.

Sitting still no longer appeals to you, and if you’re not being held in a standing position, you’re complaining because you want someone to help you stand. Grandma bought you a Bumbo chair, which we thought would hold you in place long enough for Mommy and Daddy to shovel dinner into our mouths, but you’re so adept at squirming that you’ve almost figured out how to escape. I’m looking forward to seeing your shocked expression when you do manage to roll yourself out of the chair and onto the floor, because I’m pretty sure you haven’t thought far enough ahead to know what you’ll do next.

You’re getting more interesting every day, little monkey, and flashes of your personality are starting to peek through your babyness – you’re already starting to seem like a little kid. Seeing you smile at me is the highlight of every single day, and it more than makes up for the dirty diapers and the late-night feedings. I think we’ve got a good thing going here, kid.

Love,
Mommy

Bring on the mashed carrots

2007-09-12T09:24:00.000-06:00

Lately I’ve been reading up on when I get to start giving Kaylee solid foods. From what I understand, 4 to 6 months is a good age to try out cereal, and she’ll be four months old tomorrow.

I can’t explain why, but I am so excited about feeding her with a spoon and watching her smear pureed green beans into her hair. (Is there a type of fruit or vegetable that stimulates hair growth when it’s rubbed onto a head? Maybe I could start her on that.) And my dogs should be excited, too. Ever since we brought her home and they took their first wary sniffs of her little feet, I’ve been telling them, “Just you wait. One day she’ll figure out that you guys get excited when she throws her food on the floor, and then? Then you’ll be in heaven.”

She exhibits most of the signs of being ready to eat solids; she’s definitely taking an interest in our food when we eat, often trying to grab drinks out of our hands or watching longingly while we eat forkfuls of mashed potatoes.

Plus, our house has just delivered a secret weapon, I think, to stimulate her desire to eat the kinds of things we eat. Since we turned on the heat the other night, we’ve discovered that through the magic of physics, all of the smells of the kitchen are somehow channeled directly into Kaylee’s room –- and NOWHERE else. Thus, two nights ago Rob woke me up in the middle of the night, after giving the baby a bottle, to ask me why Kaylee’s room smelled like hamburgers. And this morning, I went to get her out of bed and was greeted with the strong aroma of chicken fried rice.

With these kinds of forces at work, surely she’ll be flinging food at the dogs in no time.

Budding artist

2007-09-10T09:04:00.000-06:00

Kaylee created her first work of art at daycare on Friday. Do I detect a budding Picasso? ... Or a kid who likes to eat paint?

My baby Einstein

2007-09-06T10:07:00.000-06:00

When I picked Kaylee up from daycare yesterday, one of her teachers told me that a classmate’s brother had asked about her. The 9-year-old boy has a little sister, and wanted to know whether Kaylee is younger than her. She is, by a week or two.

At this, the boy said, “Well, she is really smart. She stands up really well and is always smiling. She’s just really, really smart.”

I know that a 9-year-old’s stamp of approval isn’t that big of a deal, but it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. A stranger’s son thinks my daughter is smart. Yay!

Daycare 1, Mommy 0

2007-09-05T09:44:00.000-06:00

When I picked Kaylee up from daycare last Friday, she was asleep in a bouncy seat with a blanket wrapped around her. She looked peaceful and serene, but when I went to pick her up I realized the blanket was essentially acting as a straightjacket.

Her arms were pinned to her sides so securely that she couldn’t move them at all. As I was unwrapping her, I thought, “Jeez, she’s not a cannibal. It’s not like she’ll lunge for your throat if you let her use her arms.”

My annoyance quietly smoldered for the rest of the afternoon, until I decided to try to get Kaylee to go to sleep. She’s reached a point where she fights sleep with every fiber of her being, and she’s mastered the art of squirming off of laps when she thinks an evil adult is trying to put her under. (Unfortunately, she can’t sit up or crawl, so she just squirms off to the side and then whines because she’s landed herself face-down on the couch.)

Anyway, as I cuddled Kaylee and rocked her, she was in her full-throttle I’m-never-going-to-sleep-again mode, even though she could hardly keep her eyes open. Her legs were kicking, her arms were flailing, and she kept yanking out her pacifier or smacking herself in the face.

So I decided to try the daycare’s methods and wrap her up in a blanket. (I used to swaddle her when she was a newborn, but she quickly figured out how to break out, so I stopped.) I couldn’t get the blanket straightjacket-tight, but I was able to keep her arms under control.

It was like magic. Within seconds her eyes started to close, and she was sound asleep within five minutes.

All right, daycare people. You win this round.

So, um, could someone restart my heart please? Thanks.

2007-09-04T15:27:00.000-06:00

I checked the mail over the weekend and found that the hospital had sent me bills for almost $2,000 for Kaylee’s birth, when I thought we didn’t owe anything because of the extra insurance coverage we’d bought.

Now, ok. Kaylee is, of course, priceless. If someone told me that we’d have to pay a million dollars in order to keep her, I’d find a way to set up a payment plan or sell off my soul.

But still, when you think your bills are paid, a statement saying “send payment within 30 days” -- where said payment is several digits long -- is kind of shocking.

I spent all weekend in a bit of a panic, trying to figure out how we’d manage to come up with that much money so quickly. (They don’t repossess babies, do they?)

I called the hospital this morning, having practiced my angry speech all day yesterday and all the way to work today. It involved creative swear words, a couple of insults and perhaps some crying. It was really quite beautiful.

But I didn’t get to use it after all. The lady on the phone almost immediately recognized a clerical error and told me that I didn’t owe anything.

So, there’s one weekend needlessly lost to panic (and a three-day weekend, at that), but at least I get to keep my baby. Whew.

whine, whine, whine

2007-08-30T14:25:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, Rob told me that he has to go on an out-of-state business trip for a week in mid-September. This is good news in that it means his employer likes him and thinks he’s worth sending across the country to participate in important meetings. And hey, the potential for overtime pay doesn’t hurt, either.

There was a time when I actually looked forward to a couple of days on my own. I’d get to eat macaroni and cheese for dinner every night if I wanted to, and the quiet time would allow me to do some reading or watch a couple of chick flicks whenever I want.

But now, I just have one thought that keeps circling in my head: I have to watch the baby for a week ALL BY MYSELF.

I shouldn’t be whining, because I know there are single moms out there who never get a break, and they are heroes. But I can’t help it. That means it’ll be my night to get up with her for seven days in a row. I have to figure out how to take showers every morning for a whole week without Rob around to watch Kaylee, AND I have to get to work on time. Plus, Kaylee has to get her second round of immunizations during that week, so I’m practically guaranteed one sleepless night dealing with an extremely unhappy baby.

It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine.

At the very least, I won’t run out of things to say on this blog while he's gone.

Determined

2007-08-29T15:44:00.000-06:00

One weekend when I was in early elementary school, I announced to my parents that I wanted to start riding my bike to school like my older brother. They said I was welcome to do so –- as soon as I learned to ride without training wheels.

No problem, I decided, and asked my dad to remove the extra wheels. I assured my parents I’d be ready to ride to school by Monday, and they nodded their encouragement while privately chuckling at my naivete.

I remember spending all day Sunday practicing in the front yard, riding in circles over and over, and trying again every time I lost my balance. At the end of the afternoon, I called my parents to the yard, declaring that I was ready and reveling in their surprise when I showed them my new ability. They had no choice but to let me ride to school the next morning.

That’s always been my approach to learning new skills –- isolating myself and working with single-minded determination until I had mastered whatever I wanted to learn, be it shuffling a deck of cards or driving a stick shift.

I bring this up only because I recently noticed that it’s one way in which my daughter seems to be just like me.

I’ve already mentioned the sudden, overwhelming desire to roll over, which she accomplished and mastered seemingly overnight. Now she’s decided it’s time to crawl, sit up and stand. I’ve sat her down and tried to tell her that there’s no need to rush these things, that she’s only three months old and her little legs can only take so much.

She doesn’t listen.

If I lie her down on her back, she rolls over and tries to crawl. (She doesn’t realize yet that she needs to use her arms, so mostly she just kicks her legs and slides around the floor on her face.) The whining starts almost immediately when she can’t get very far, but she tries again anyway. And again, and again, and again.

Or she’ll wait for me to take her hands so she can pull into a sitting position, and then a standing position. And once she’s standing, she’ll stay that way until her legs give out, if you let her.

If I sit her down and lean her back against something, she struggles and strains to get into an upright sitting position. She can’t do it yet, but she tries and tries and tries, focusing harder on her goal than I do on half my projects for work.

I wonder how much she practices when she’s alone, and whether one of these days I’ll go to get her from her crib and find her crawling laps around the edges with a big, toothless grin on her face.

You’ll get there, baby. Just keep trying.

Baby in the woods

2007-08-27T11:56:00.001-06:00

We took Kaylee camping for the first time over the weekend. We were invited by my parents, who have been hoarding camping equipment for the past few months in anticipation of a large family camping trip.

While we were kind of excited about going camping –- Rob and I had never camped together –- we were nervous about taking our three-month-old baby along. What if she got cold? What if she were attacked by West Nile-infected mosquitoes? What if she were kidnapped by wolves and raised by them, only to be discovered years later and brought back to civilization by a well-meaning zoologist, with hilarious results?

My parents and friends assured us that, really, this is a good age for taking kids camping, because they’re too young to wander off and fall in a river. And as long as you keep them fed and slathered with sunscreen, not much can happen. So we packed up our car, took the dogs to Rob’s mom’s house for the weekend, picked up Uncle Tim, and drove off into the wilderness.

Shortly after we got there, my mom recommended that we keep Kaylee’s formula in the car so it wouldn’t attract bears. Bears?!? Nobody mentioned bears before. And wouldn’t a bear kind of ignore the formula and go after the tasty human that’s too tiny to run away?

Of course, the only bear we saw was Kaylee, who was dressed in a bear hoodie and wasn’t scary at all. (Although her newly-learned growl can be kind of intimidating.)

For the most part, camping was a fun change of pace from spending the weekend watching TV on the couch. We played cards, roasted marshmallows and grilled hamburgers while Kaylee stared at the campfire and occasionally napped.

The trouble started when we decided to call it a night and go to sleep. Kaylee had already been asleep in her portable crib for a while, snug in sweats and a couple of blankets. After the rest of us had been asleep for a couple of hours, I started waking up every few minutes because I’d gotten very, very cold. That made me worry about Kaylee, so when my mom noticed that the baby’s hands were cold, I brought her to bed with me and Rob. I’m sure this was nice for Kaylee, but it meant that I spent the night with a stiff shoulder, constantly concerned about keeping the comforter pulled up to just the right spot –- to her shoulders but not over her face –- and having dreams about frozen babies in the rare moments when I was actually able to sleep.

Lately, Kaylee’s been sleeping a solid 10 hours or so without waking up at night –- and yes, I know, we’re very lucky to have a baby who sleeps so well. And when she wakes up, it’s in stages: a few squeaks, followed by some grunts, a little bit of babbling, and then crying if we haven’t responded yet. But on Saturday night, she woke up about every three hours and skipped immediately to full-on screaming every time.

And of course, the formula was in the car. So feeding her required putting on shoes, carrying her across the campsite to the car, and allowing her to project her voice across the entire campground to the annoyance of other campers and the intrigue of all the bears. But at least we got to sit in the car with the heater on for a while.

By morning, Kaylee was happy and rested, and most of the adults were exhausted and much, much worse for the wear.

Ultimately, though, I guess I’d say it was a successful, fun camping trip, as we all cheered up after the sun came up and warmed the chill out of our bones.

But we won’t be going again this year. We’ll wait until Kaylee’s old enough to run from the bears, when I won’t have to worry about her crying for a bottle in the middle of the night. Then I’ll only have to worry about her sticking her hands in the fire, getting lost in the woods, drowning in a river, falling off a cliff, walking into a tree, getting bitten by a snake . . .

Aw, my baby likes me

2007-08-23T11:04:00.000-06:00

I've been off work for the past few days, so this is kind of old news, but I feel it’s important enough to share anyway: Last week, Kaylee gave me two wonderful birthday presents. On Thursday, she laughed at me for the first time – a real, happy, Mommy-you’re-hilarious laugh. This made my day, even after she threw up on her "I love Mommy" shirt.

The second one was almost as good, even if it was a couple of days late. On Saturday, Rob dressed her in her new “Apple of Daddy’s eye” onesie, and she pooped on it the first chance she got.

What a good girl.

What a good, good girl.

The stinky kid

2007-08-16T12:15:00.000-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was feeding Kaylee a bottle first thing in the morning, and she was craning backward to see something interesting on the blank ceiling, flattening out all the little folds in her neck.

I looked down to find that my precious baby had a ring of grime around her neck, crusted into one of her many creases. My only theory is that some formula leaked down her chin and onto her neck and dried there … and then started accumulating dirt and fuzz.

Now, I knew she had a couple of chins and all that, but I didn’t realize her creases were deep enough to store snacks.

I’ve only been giving her baths about twice a week, because I figure she’s not especially mobile and just isn’t capable of getting all that dirty. And on that particular morning, I’d put off bathing her for a couple of days because I’d just been too busy in the evenings to get around to it.

So that morning I resolved to start giving her a bath every other day, regardless of my schedule – especially after I told my coworkers this story and one of them said, “Ew, she’s going to be the stinky kid in class.” (Because every elementary school class has that one kid who smells.)

I’m two weeks into my August Baby Bathing Resolution, and how am I doing? Well, I’ve stuck to the every-other-day plan exactly zero times.

Sigh.

Well, she may end up being the stinky kid, but at least she’s a cute stinky kid.

A note to Rob: She does NOT look like a Jedi in this picture. She also is not a hobbit or a member of The Horde.

I should know better

2007-08-16T09:21:00.000-06:00

I took a big risk this morning.

In honor of my 29th birthday, I decided to dress Kaylee in a new “I love Mommy” onesie. As soon as she was dressed, I sat her down and we had a little talk about how important it was that she not throw up all over her nice shirt.

I’m pretty sure she was listening intently, even though she was staring at a ceiling fan. Here’s hoping her shirt makes it through the day.

UPDATE: She managed to make it through her entire school day without spitting up on her clothes ... and then she threw up on them at home.

Dear Kaylee, at 3 months

2007-08-13T16:11:00.000-06:00

Dear Kaylee,

I’ve decided to steal an idea from another parenting blog and write you a letter for your three-month birthday. And if I’m disciplined enough, I’ll do this every month.

First of all, I feel like I should impart a motherly lesson, so here’s that: Stealing is wrong. Don’t do it. Unless you need an idea for your blog.

You’ve had a pretty adventurous month: Your Grandma and Uncle Tim have moved to town, so you’ll never remember a time when close family wasn’t right here watching you grow up – and spoiling you rotten, probably.

You’ve also discovered that you have hands, and you seem to find them very flavorful and useful for grabbing handfuls of other people’s hair. You haven’t yet learned to harness their power, though, and I’m interested to see how you react when you finally grab something on purpose, rather than as a happy accident.

You’ve figured out how to roll over, too. And once you figured it out, you became an addict. You like to practice at all times – rolling into other babies at daycare and making sudden escape attempts on the changing table. This is great, because you’re finally becoming a little more mobile, and terrifying because we haven’t done an ounce of babyproofing.

And you’ve learned how to smile big. You’ve always smiled a little, but now you smile with your whole body. When you see Mommy or Daddy first thing in the morning, your arms shoot out from your sides, your mouth opens wide and you radiate pure joy. You make it awfully hard to go to work in the mornings.

I can’t wait to see how you change and what you learn over the next month. At this rate, you’ll probably be climbing on furniture and riding the dogs around the yard by September.

Don’t you worry, I’ll be right there to catch you if you fall off the couch, and I’ll probably be taking lots of pictures.

Love,
Mommy

New Zealand is unfair

2007-08-10T15:06:00.000-06:00

I read this article the other day about a couple who is angry with the New Zealand government because they weren’t allowed to name their son 4Real. (The government – for some reason – refuses to acknowledge names that have numbers in them.)

Since they can’t use their name of choice, they’ve gone with their runner-up name, which is Superman.

I … I … I really don’t know what to say about that. So I’ll use my friend Kate’s words instead: “This kid will need no other grounds for divorcing his parents.”

And to think I almost lost sleep over the Kaylee/Emily conundrum.

Little Olympian

2007-08-09T09:19:00.000-06:00

Up until last night, my baby has been more or less a potato in cute clothes. She can’t sit up, crawl or walk yet, so mostly she’s just lying around watching ceiling fans spin or grinning so broadly that you just want to melt onto the floor into a puddle of happiness because she’s just the cutest little potato baby you’ve ever seen in your life.

But somebody flipped a switch in her sometime in the last few days, and she’s suddenly realized that she’s tired of being a potato and she can actually do stuff. So she decided to make it her mission in life to roll over from her back to her stomach.

We were over at Rob’s mom’s house last night, and Kaylee was in a crib in the living room, straining and struggling to achieve her little milestone. All the adults gathered around and watched, cheering her on and giving her tips:

“Come on, you can do it, Kaylee!”
“You’re almost there … almost there … awwww, so close.”
“Just pull that left arm out from under you and you’ll have it.”

After a while, she gave up and fell asleep, and we gave up and ate dinner. But after some refreshing shut-eye, she was up and at it again. After a few tries, she finally got it and found herself face-down, possibly trying to figure out why her parents, grandmother and uncle were suddenly jumping around and cheering like she’d just won an Olympic gold medal.

Of course, as soon as Kaylee managed to roll onto her stomach, she remembered that she doesn’t like being on her stomach and whined until I picked her up.

It would have taken some sort of catastrophic natural disaster to get the smiles off of Rob’s and my faces for the rest of the night. Because has anything so amazing ever happened before in the history of the world? Has any other baby ever been such a wonderful genius?

Surely not.

Hairballs averted

2007-08-06T11:50:00.001-06:00

I’ve been feeling like a bad mom lately because Kaylee hasn’t been getting any tummy time, which I’ve read is HIGHLY IMPORTANT. So, either I needed to stop reading these things or I needed to start putting her on her tummy to play.

The problems:
1. I can’t stop reading these things. I’m a writer, and therefore a reader, and I will always read scary articles about how I’m ruining my child’s life. (For example, I recently found out that since I’ve chosen not to breastfeed, Kaylee is doomed to a life of illness and obesity. Poor kid.)
2. We have two shedding dogs and a broken vacuum cleaner. My carpet has not exactly been a place I’ve wanted Kaylee to put her face.

On Friday, Rob and I finally decided to suck it up and get a really nice vacuum cleaner, one designed especially for animal hair. I’ve never had so much fun vacuuming the floor, and I’d had no idea just how much grossness there was in our carpet.

So Kaylee finally got to play on the floor this weekend.

Of course, she kind of hates tummy time and rolls over onto her back almost immediately.

But you have to give me points for trying.

Huh.

2007-08-02T13:23:00.001-06:00

While we were visiting Rob’s mom the other night, someone had the great idea to lay Kaylee in the portable crib in the living room and stick a pacifier in her mouth. Her cynical mother saw this and thought, “Yeah, that’s not going to last long,” but I sat down for dinner anyway, expecting to be interrupted at any moment by a whining baby who wanted to be held.

Then about midway through dinner, something strange happened to my baby.

She fell asleep.

What’s this? No rocking? No smothering her with attention? No holding a bottle in her mouth for half an hour?

She just fell asleep? That’s it?

I had no idea she could do that. We must find a way to use this new, powerful information to our advantage.

Daddy’s little girl, part 3

2007-07-31T14:10:00.001-06:00

Immediately after Kaylee was born, I felt a need to buy clothes for her that glorified her parents. I’m not sure why, but it may have been because I was so tired. I probably thought, “Well, I’m exhausted and cranky, but I’ll feel better about parenthood if I put her in an ‘I love Mommy’ onesie.” And then to be fair, I had to buy a “Daddy” one, too.

Here’s an inventory of the parent-praising clothes Kaylee owns:
• “I love Mommy” onesie
• “I love Daddy” onesie
• “Perfect, just like Mommy” onesie
• “Daddy’s little princess” onesie
• Two pairs of “I love Mommy” socks
• Two pairs of “I love Daddy” socks

The first time I put Kaylee in her “Perfect, just like Mommy” shirt, she pooped on it about 30 minutes later.

All right, I can take that. It’s nothing personal. I mean, she’s just a baby. Plus, I got the stain out easily enough.

Then, a couple of Fridays ago, she spit up on the “I love Mommy” onesie at daycare. When a baby erupts there, protocol is to put soiled clothing in a red bag labeled with a biohazard symbol (!!) and send it home with the parents. But Rob, having never been made aware of spit-up protocol, didn’t realize he was supposed to take the red bag out of her bin, and the clothes were left over a weekend to ferment, sealed tightly in plastic.

I can’t be bothered to do laundry more than once a week, so it wasn’t until Sunday that I took a good look at that Mommy-worshiping onesie and realized that it had decided to grow some hair. Tiny little dark-green spots had sprouted on the shoulders, in the middle of all the crusty grossness.

Disgusted as I was, I decided to make a go of cleaning it, discovering only that baby laundry detergent doesn’t stand a chance against that kind of ick. Mentally humming a funeral dirge, I dropped it in the trash can.

“It’s ok, though,” I thought as I headed back to her room. “She still has the ‘Perfect, just like Mommy’ onesie, so that one can boost my ego.”

I took it out of the closet to gaze upon its cuteness – and there, right on the shoulder, was a dark formula stain. Not enough to keep me from putting her in it, but enough to make the “Perfect” statement on the front kind of ironic. Darn.

Plus, I think one of her “I love Mommy” socks is missing, kicked off in the middle of Target somewhere.

But her Daddy clothes?

Don’t you worry. They’re all pristine.

Grrrr.

Almost Emily

2007-07-31T13:36:00.001-06:00

For the longest time, Rob and I planned to name our first daughter Emily. While I was pregnant, though, I started having second thoughts because of Emily’s popularity on baby-name lists. I didn’t want to send her to school where she’d be surrounded by a swarm of other Emilys day in and day out.

So we settled on Kaylee instead, which seemed like a great solution to my concerns right up until I visited the daycare I would eventually choose for her. In a room of 10 infants, two were named Kaylee and one was named Kylee. (She’s the only Kaylee in her class now, but a recent addition is named Zaylee.)

But I suppose there’s nothing wrong with my daughter growing up around other Kaylees. After all, my two best childhood friends were named Heather.

I spoke to one of those Heathers last night for the first time in several years – we lost touch around the time Rob and I got married – and somehow we managed to fall right back into the easy conversation we’d known since we were 10 years old. (Well, once we were past that awkward first play date when our parents made us play Barbies together, assuming two 10-year-old Heathers were bound to get along.)

Even though we had to update each other on the major changes in our lives – new kids, (much) more interesting careers, etc. – that old Heather bond was still there, and we promised not to go another four years without calling.

So, I guess Kaylee’s name isn’t as important as the friends she makes growing up. If she finds herself surrounded by other little Kaylees, maybe she’ll find one or two that she can still relate to decades later.

Oh, and by the way, I learned yesterday that my old friend Heather now has a daughter – named Emily.

Daddy's little girl, part 2

2007-07-27T16:10:00.000-06:00

Rob and I have been alternating nights getting up with Kaylee, and for the most part it’s a pretty good system. Kaylee’s usually kind to us, only waking up for one feeding or so, and we both know whose job it is to go take care of her each night.

Here’s the problem: Lately, Kaylee's decided to torture me. For some reason, every other night, Kaylee either wakes up more often or picks an ungodly hour of the night to decide it’s time to stay awake and play. And since it happens every other night and Rob and I alternate nights, only one of us ever gets the privilege of staying awake with her. The other gets to sleep peacefully every. single. night.

I like to think that Kaylee has learned our system, and she just wants to see me a lot because I’m her favorite parent. It makes me feel better than the alternative, which is that she and Rob are collaborating in some sort of anti-Mommy plot.

Here’s a perfect example: The other night, she woke up at about 2 a.m. for a feeding, and then again at 5 a.m. to play. I was exhausted and desperate for her to fall back asleep, and she did – right at 6:30, when I was going to wake Rob so he could watch her while I took a shower. So again, I got to be tired while Rob got to sleep.

But I think I’ve finally outsmarted her. In the last couple of days – as a result of Harry-Potter-reading-marathon-induced fatigue – Rob and I traded nights. Finally, FINALLY, Rob had a night in which Kaylee woke more than normal and decided 3:30 a.m. was a good time to start the day. With any luck, that means she’ll sleep like a little angel tonight and every other night after that.

I hope so, because I’m not sure my body can take much more caffeine.

Daddy's little girl

2007-07-25T14:49:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, as I tried to rouse Kaylee from sleep to get her ready for daycare, she gave me the dirtiest look I’ve ever seen on a baby’s face. If she could talk, I imagine she would have said something like, “WHAT are you doing?” and her voice would have been dripping with venom.

This is much like what happens when I try to wake Rob up from a deep sleep. Both father and daughter tend to wake suddenly and in terrible confusion. They’ve both mastered an expression that’s halfway between terror and fury, like they’re afraid that the house is burning down, because that’s the ONLY THING THAT WOULD JUSTIFY WAKING THEM UP. EVER.

Fortunately, though, the similarity stops there. Where Rob will usually grumble, roll over and go back to sleep even as I repeatedly jab his shoulder to try to keep him conscious, Kaylee quickly breaks into a smile that lights up her whole face when she realizes that Mommy is leaning over her.

I’m sure that’ll change when she’s a teenager.

Idiocy in public

2007-07-23T11:33:00.000-06:00

I remember a time in my life when I’d roll my eyes at the sight of some parent acting like an idiot for the sake of entertaining their small children. But now that I have Kaylee, I find myself going out of my way to get that cute little smile to appear – public humiliation be damned.

I’ve recently taken to making up songs for her, using whatever lyrics pop into my head at the time. Most of the time, I sing to the tune of “I Want Candy,” which makes me feel like a bad mom because I know at least one of the “artists” to sing this song is Aaron Carter. Not that he’s a bad person necessarily, but I just never thought I’d be singing Aaron Carter songs to my daughter. I justify it by reminding myself that my version of the song is pretty much unrecognizable compared to the original. Here’s the part I sing most often:

I know a girl who’s very cute
She lets me dress her in dumb pink suits
I like to take her everywhere
I hope someday she’ll grow hair

I love Kaylee
I love Kaylee
I love Kaylee
I love Kaylee

Ok, so, look. I know you’re all thinking, “Wow, she’s like a songwriting genius,” and you’re thinking it sarcastically. But hey, it makes Kaylee smile, especially when I do the accompanying dance, which makes my hair fly all over the place.

I’m just glad she doesn’t know what I’m saying yet, because after 20 solid minutes of coming up with new lyrics, my creativity does occasionally start to wane. This morning, for example, this crept into the song:

Hey look there, I see some flowers
I’m glad we’re not driving down Powers

Well, they can’t all be winners.

So proud

2007-07-19T16:39:00.001-06:00

When I picked Kaylee up at daycare the other day, one of her teachers told me, “She’s the youngest one we have, but she’s the loudest. She’s like the ringleader of the little ones -- she leads the charge.”

Aww, my baby is the loudest yeller in the class. I’m so proud.

And here's number five

2007-07-17T10:01:00.000-06:00

I have one last product to add to my list of things I’m glad I own. I only bought it last night, but it’s already brought me peace of mind.

I’ll start with some back story. When I picked Kaylee up from day care yesterday, her daily sheet said she’d had a temperature of 99.1 during the afternoon. Her head felt warm to me, so I decided to take her temperature when I got home. I’d never done it before, because she’s never seemed hot before, so it never crossed my mind that the digital thermometer I’d received as part of a baby-care kit would be so, so frustrating.

I held the thermometer in her armpit and pinned her arm to her side for a good ten minutes before I realized the thermometer had turned itself off without ever beeping to indicate it was finished. The last time I’d looked at it, it read 99.1.

Because the internet knows everything, I decided to consult it regarding baby temperatures, and of course learned that underarm temperatures are the least accurate way of checking for a fever – and that it could give a reading that’s one to three degrees too low. That led to a new-mom panic, where I worried that her temperature could be as high as 102.1, which would mean she was officially sick. Or it could be 99.1, like the thermometer said, and there was no real reason to worry. So then I spent a good 20 minutes worrying about whether or not I should be worried.

The internet also taught me that taking a baby’s temperature rectally is the most accurate method. In the same paragraph, I read that you have to be super careful, because otherwise you could accidentally perforate the baby’s rectum. Um… That pretty much ensures that I will NEVER take her temperature that way. (And this paragraph pretty much ensures that Kaylee will hate me when she’s a teenager. “MOM! I can’t believe you talked about my rectum on your blog!”)

When Rob got home, he talked me down from my little panic and suggested we look into a good ear thermometer. I’d heard those could be pretty hit and miss, so I checked into product ratings and settled on this one – the only digital ear thermometer I found with consistently high ratings from people who own it. We promptly went to the store and bought it, and discovered the joy of taking a temperature in less than five seconds. Yeah, it’s an expensive thermometer, but if it’ll keep me from freaking out every time Kaylee’s head gets warm, it’s worth $50 to me. That I can answer the “to worry or not to worry” question within a few seconds is an added bonus.

Oh, and by the time we’d assembled the SUV stroller, made our way to the store, bought the thermometer and returned home, Kaylee was perfectly fine. No fever, and therefore no more mommy panic.

Four things I'm glad I own

2007-07-16T13:55:00.000-06:00

Leading up to Kaylee’s birth, I did my best to anticipate the things I’d need around the house to keep her alive and entertained. I figured out the obvious things on my own – bottles, diapers, etc. – but there were a few must-haves that I didn’t know about at first. And if I had known how helpful they’d be, I’d have bought them the day I found out I was pregnant.

One: Boppy pillow

I inherited this magical pillow from my sister-in-law, who taught us its charms about a week after Kaylee was born. It saved our lives – or at least our sanity.

Fresh out of the womb, Kaylee couldn’t stand to be set down anywhere. If she wasn’t tightly swaddled, her arms and legs would shoot straight out and she’d cry like she thought she was flying apart. I wasn’t a talented baby-swaddler, so even when I did wrap her up in a blanket, she’d kick it off within a few minutes.

Until the Boppy pillow came along. Placing Kaylee in the pillow seemed to make her feel secure and cradled – and unable to kick away the blanket she was wrapped in. The pillow allowed us, finally, to set her down for a while.

Two: Bottle warmer

Rob and I tried to save a little money at first by buying a cheap bottle warmer that used hot, running water to get formula to the right temperature. We figured out our mistake the first time we used it, when Kaylee was belting out her “Feed me!!!!” cry while we struggled to find the correct water temperature – even luke warm registered as too hot – and maintain our composure at the same time. We bought a different one the next day.

Our new bottle warmer, which uses a small amount of water heated into steam, allows us to keep prepared bottles in the fridge at all times, heating them up in about three minutes when Kaylee gets hungry. No messing with mixing formula in the middle of the night, which is helpful when you’re holding a crying baby.

This is the one we bought, but I’m sure there are other good ones out there. The one down side: We now know exactly how funky our tap water is, because it leaves behind a gross brown residue in the bottom of the warmer.

Three: Infant swing

Rob’s mom bought Kaylee a swing/glider when Kaylee was two weeks old. It continues to be a wonderful fixture in our living room. It comes in most handy when Kaylee has reached her whiny, I’m-not-going-to-sleep-no-matter-what-even-though- I-can-hardly-keep-my-eyes-open stage of the day. Because no matter how hard she fights sleep, the gentle rocking of her swing can usually knock her out inside of five minutes.

Tip: Buy one that runs on batteries and plugs into the wall. That narrows your options by a lot, but at least you’ll never run out of power mid-swing.

Four: 3-in-1 travel system

We just broke down and bought one of these yesterday. It’s a car seat/carrier/stroller combo that allows you to carry the baby around in her car seat, and snap the seat into a stroller when you want to wander around Best Buy for a few minutes – or several hours, if you’re married to Rob.

I didn’t originally want a “travel system,” because I figured I could just carry the seat or put Kaylee in a smaller stroller when necessary. I also have several friends who derisively refer to these big contraptions as “SUV strollers” and complain about parents blocking store aisles with them.

But about the third time I tried to transfer a sleeping baby from a car seat into a stroller without waking her up, I realized that my friends (who don’t have children) don’t know what they’re talking about. I found myself staring with not-at-all-concealed envy at parents who were pushing their sleeping babies around the store, still snug in their car seats, while mine whined because I’d nudged her out of a nap to get her onto wheels.

But no more. As of yesterday, I can get Kaylee from the car to the video-game aisle with her dad without waking her up. And I’m more than willing to endure the sneers of the cynical to do it. They’re much easier to take than the wail of an unhappy baby.

Maybe next week, Harry

2007-07-13T16:24:00.000-06:00

Rob and I were planning to go see the new Harry Potter movie tomorrow (we’re kind of obsessed with that series), but it’s looking like our plans are going to fall through. This is pretty disappointing, because – as all new parents know – opportunities to go out together without the baby are rare.

The last time we went anywhere without her was also to see a movie, and it was the first time in about five weeks that I’d done something FUN with an ADULT. I’d been excited about the outing for about a week before we went, but by the time we made it to the snack line, I was downright giddy. (You mean I won’t have to change a diaper, burp a baby or warm a bottle ANY TIME in the next two hours? You’re kidding. Wait, I get popcorn too? Score!)

So I get more disappointed than I used to when my grown-up plans fall through – even if those plans do involve sitting in an overcrowded theater surrounded by other people’s children, who might be wearing wizarding robes and yelling things like “wingardium leviosa!”

Maybe we can try again next week. It’s ok, though. I needed more time to work on my “accio popcorn” spell, anyway.

Wimbledon, here we come

2007-07-12T08:57:00.000-06:00

Kaylee turns two months old tomorrow, on Friday the 13th. Now that she’s getting so old, I figure it’s about time to start training her for her future career as a professional tennis player.

The main step I’ve taken so far is to dress her in a tennis skirt one time. We’ve also watched some French Open and Wimbledon matches together, and occasionally she even looked at the TV screen like she was interested. She may only have been entranced by the bright lights, but I prefer to think she was developing a strategic game plan.

I think this is a good start. She’ll be serving aces in no time. You know, after she can walk and stuff.

Do babies dream of vengeance?

2007-07-09T15:03:00.000-06:00

It’s been a week now, and it’s getting ever so slightly easier to drop Kaylee off at daycare in the mornings. The people there genuinely seem to like her, and she doesn’t come home hungry, filthy or otherwise in need of repair. For the most part, I can now leave her there with only slight twinges of guilt.

But not today. Today was rough.

I went to work for a while first thing this morning, but then had to pick Kaylee up from daycare to take her to her two-month well-child doctor’s visit.

The first part of the appointment went fine, with the doctor telling me that she looks just perfect and healthy. Then he sent in his henchman to do the dirty work.

I knew Kaylee was due for some vaccinations today, but I wasn’t prepared for how hard it would be to watch her get shots.

She was happy enough when the nurse came in, and she seemed mildly curious when he pinned her legs down. Then he gave her the first shot. The look on her little face went from surprise to confusion to pure, inconsolable anguish.

Never before have I wanted so badly to attack a health care professional. I wanted desperately to punch him in the face and tell him to STOP HURTING MY BABY. Instead, I waited impatiently while he administered three shots, cleaned the wounds and put bandages on her legs, and then I snatched her off the table and hugged her while she screamed in my ear and gave me a look that clearly said, “Why, Mommy? Why did you let that mean man hurt me????”

After the appointment, we sat in the car while she drank from a bottle and fell asleep in my arms. I very seriously considered calling it a day, taking her home and cuddling with her on the couch all afternoon.

Instead, I took her back to daycare and put her in her crib, exhausted from the traumatic morning and sticky from the Tylenol she refused to swallow. I hope she falls asleep again and spends the afternoon having dreams in which Mommy rescues her from the sadistic nurse, breaking his needles in half and chasing him, whimpering, from the room.

UPDATE: Just moments after I posted this, a woman from the daycare called to let me know that Kaylee's screaming and refusing her bottle, and they can't calm her down. It looks like I won't be getting over my daycare guilt today. Tomorrow's not looking good either.

Baby talk

2007-07-06T14:53:00.000-06:00

A conversation between Rob and his beverage, today at lunch:

ROB: (speaking to his soda, just after sipping it through a straw) Are you going to squeak like that every time I take a drink?
SODA: ...
ROB: I just realized I’m talking to my Coke.
SODA: ...
ROB: I’ve spent so much time talking to the dogs and Kaylee lately that I’ve gotten used to talking to things that can’t talk back.
SODA: ...
ROB: This may be the first sign I'm going crazy.
SODA: ... ... ...

A big ol' mess

2007-07-02T11:34:00.000-06:00

I’ve never had much patience with putting on makeup. I’ve never felt like I do it very well, and given the choice between spending 15 minutes putting on makeup in the morning and spending an extra 15 minutes sleeping, I’ll choose sleeping every time. It’s a good thing, too, because if I were wearing makeup today, it would be a mess.

Rob and I dropped Kaylee off at daycare for the first time this morning, and I’ve had a hard time keeping my composure ever since.

When I woke up this morning, I thought I just might get through the day without crying. I could feel myself slipping right back into the getting-ready-for-work routine, and I was excited to see my coworkers again, even if I wasn’t so excited to return to doing the actual work. I was still ok when we arrived at the daycare, and even when we laid Kaylee down in her assigned crib.

But when it was time to leave, well, that was a different story. I could barely talk enough to say goodbye to the daycare staff, and I cried most of the way to work. And when my boss asked me how it went this morning, the tears started up again.

The daycare staff encouraged me to call and check on her during the day to make myself feel better, but I’m not sure I will. I’m pretty sure I’ll get as far as “Hi, I’m Kaylee’s mom and ...” before I become sobby and incoherent.

I’m now worried that daycare really will cause lasting psychological scars – but not for the baby.

I know this will get easier, we’ll develop a routine, and in a few weeks I’ll be perfectly fine again. But today, I just want my baby.

sniffle, sniffle

2007-06-29T13:07:00.000-06:00

Today is my last day of maternity leave; I reluctantly return to work on Monday. I really don’t know how I’m going to manage this.

It’s funny, I spent the first two weeks of leave trying not to cry because I felt overwhelmed and I wanted to get back to work and my normal life. I’ve spent the last two weeks of leave trying not to cry because I’m not ready to go back – I kind of want this to be my normal life now. Who knew seven weeks could go by so fast?

I know I’m being melodramatic, but I feel like Monday will be the beginning of me missing Kaylee’s childhood. Instead, I’ll be handing her off to strangers, who may be the first people to see her crawl, hear her first word and watch her take her first step. Despite my recent rant about people who criticize daycare, I can’t help hoping that some heretofore unknown wealthy relative will suddenly hand me enough money to pay off a few bills so I can afford to stay home.

Come on great great uncle Whoever, I could really use your help here.

"Um, the baby exploded"

2007-06-20T20:46:00.000-06:00

Some of my friends never want to have kids. When asked why, they usually cite the gross aspects of parenthood. They don’t want to deal with the poop, the pee and all the other fluid-filled adventures. When people decide to become parents, they decide to accept these unpleasantries with the knowledge that their adorable progeny’s love and cuteness will more than make up for all the messes.

What new parents might not realize, though, is just how far a baby can fire his or her bodily fluids. For example, I didn’t know that a peeing baby girl could clear a changing table with her urine stream, earning the honor of becoming the first family member (including the dogs) to pee on our new carpet.

A few days ago, our happy family was gathered together on the couch, watching TV. I was holding the baby, trying to teach her how to stand up, in the hopes that she can make it into the Guinness Book of World Records as the strongest baby ever. It was a happy moment. It ended quickly.

Suddenly, Kaylee exploded, spitting up all over my chest. This was the very first time in my life that I’ve experienced the feeling of vomit running slowly down the inside of my shirt. And let me tell you, there is nothing quite like the feeling of warm vomit pooling in your belly button.

Naturally, I immediately handed her off to Rob so I could clean myself up. We both assumed our volcano baby was finished erupting.

I was in our bedroom changing clothes when I heard Rob saying, “Oh God, oh God. What do I do?”

I looked up to see Rob coming down the hall, holding the baby out in front of him while she sprayed the carpet, the wall and generally everything else within a three-foot radius. It was amazing. I didn’t think she could have that much formula in her.

And behind Rob, our dog Kody followed with glee, cleaning the carpet with his tongue.

Which leads me, finally, to my point: All parents should own dogs, for cleaning purposes.

Teen preview

2007-06-20T19:09:00.000-06:00

Kaylee’s generally pretty predictable: Sleep from about 10 p.m. to about 7 a.m., waking a couple of times for a meal. Hang around the house all day, playing a few games with Mommy and taking a couple of lengthy naps. Go to sleep again at about 10 p.m.

Every once in a while, though, she likes to mix things up a bit, experimenting with staying awake all day, just to see what the rest of us do when she’s usually napping.

This results in her being crabby and whiny all day long. I imagine this is what it’ll be like when she’s a teenager. Suddenly Mom can’t do anything right and she’d rather be out with her friends.

If Kaylee were able to talk, here’s how today’s conversations would have gone:

ME: Hey kiddo, do you want to play Superbaby?
KAYLEE: God, Mom, Superbaby is so two days ago.
ME: All right, how about Flying Baby?
KAYLEE: Flying Baby is just another name for Superbaby. I’m not stupid, you know.
ME: Well, are you hungry? Here’s a bottle.
KAYLEE: Hmm, I guess so. (Drinks for a minute.) No, I changed my mind. I think I’ll spit this on you instead.
ME: How about playing in your swing or your bouncy seat?
KAYLEE: All right. (Sits in the bouncy seat.) Hehe, that cow is funny. … MOM! GIVE ME BOTTLE! RIGHT NOW!
ME: Now, don’t get upset, but I think maybe it’s time for you to take a nap.
KAYLEE: (Screams hysterically for 10 minutes.)
ME: Hey, look, Dad’s home.
KAYLEE: Hi Daddy! (Promptly turns into a cheerful little angel.)

Author’s note: This was actually written yesterday, but I didn’t get around to posting it because I had to spend the rest of my evening trying to calm a fussy baby. I found it all very frustrating until this morning, when I leaned over my baby for the first time today and her whole face lit up with joy at seeing her Mommy. That solved everything, right away.

My little delinquent

2007-06-15T11:52:00.000-06:00

I had an eye appointment today, and the subject of Kaylee came up during the eye exam. I mentioned that my mom was watching the baby, and apparently, the doctor misunderstood what I meant. I meant that she was watching the baby today. He thought I was saying that my mom would be watching the baby every day when I go back to work. He then launched into a bit of a rant about how terrible daycare centers are, and how he can’t believe there are parents out there who subject their children to such places. I quietly listened, and neglected to mention that Kaylee will be subjected to just such a place beginning in July.

People have strong opinions when it comes to daycare, I’ve found, and it’s surprising how often they’re willing to provide those opinions, even when they run the risk of offending you.

Before Kaylee was born, several women asked about my childcare plans and then got teary-eyed when I said she’d be in daycare. If there’s one way to make a mom feel awful about a decision she’s made, it’s openly mourning the fate of her unborn baby. Here’s a typical conversation:

WOMAN: So, do you plan to quit your job when the baby’s born?
ME: No, I’m going back to work after a few weeks.
WOMAN: Oh. Do you have family in town who can watch the baby?
ME: I have family in town, but they work, too. We’re putting her in daycare.
WOMAN (tears forming in her eyes): Oh no. Oh no. How sad… Don’t you just feel terrible? Wouldn’t you rather stay home with her?
ME: ... ... ... I have to go now.

It’s not that I don’t want to stay home with my baby – it’s just not an option financially. And although I understand that I run the risk of raising a little miscreant who bites people and says the F-word all the time because she learned bad habits at daycare, I also think that maybe, just maybe, it’s possible to raise a decent human being while both parents work.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, though. If, in 20 years, I find myself bailing Kaylee out of jail for the tenth time, I will gladly go back to my eye doctor so he can say, “I told you so.”

Feed me feed me feed me FEED ME!

2007-06-14T22:29:00.000-06:00

I’ve read that after a while, parents learn to discern their baby’s different types of crying. Depending on the sound she makes, a mom can tell if the baby’s hungry, sleepy, etc.

Apparently, there’s now a machine that can figure that stuff out for you. This device claims to identify exactly why a baby is crying in 20 seconds, using handy little smiley faces and frowny faces, all for $65. To me, this seems kind of silly. Ask me again in a few months, though.

So far, I’ve been able to identify approximately two of my baby’s noises. There’s “I’m bored.” And there’s “Oh my God, I’m starving to death. Please FEED ME. Are Mommy and Daddy EVER going to feed me???? I’M DYING HERE!!!! Help! Someone please help me!”

We’re still working on interpreting the rest.

The other children

2007-06-14T22:13:00.000-06:00

In 2002, Rob and I fell under the spell of an adorable puppy gaze and came home from the mall with a 2-month-old Pembroke Welsh Corgi that we named Bella. A year later, we found ourselves with a second one, named Kody. We’ve spoiled them rotten ever since, and they’ve been like kids to us – kids that we could leave at home in kennels while we were at work, and who had an annoying habit of nibbling on the edges of the carpet.

Up until about May 14, the dogs really could do no wrong (other than the time they tore up the kitchen floor in our apartment). Sure, they barked a lot and occasionally had accidents on the floor, but they were our babies and we didn’t mind.

Since bringing Kaylee home, however, they’ve suddenly become capable of doing wrong. Lots and lots of wrong.

That habit of being constantly underfoot now means that I’m worried about tripping down the stairs while carrying the baby. Their need to alert me every time a car door slams three blocks away now carries with it the danger that they’ll wake Kaylee from her naps. Their desire to lounge on every piece of furniture in the house means I’m constantly picking dog hairs out of the baby’s mouth.

Sigh.

When I was about five months pregnant, my uncle told Rob and me that we’d probably exile the dogs to the backyard after the baby was born. I assured myself that wouldn’t happen, because our dogs held highly important positions in our household.

And now… well, now the dogs keep up their doggie duties, alerting me of visitors and keeping an eye on the household – from their stations in the backyard.

What a relief

2007-06-05T21:37:00.001-06:00

I was flipping through a photo album today and came across the picture to the right, which I’d saved from a trip to Denver that Rob and I took about a week after we got married. We’d been lured by a photo booth that promised to show us what our future child would look like.

Apparently, we could expect an orange girl with a huge forehead and an ‘80s hairdo. Our poor child would never be able to find a hat that fits.

Instead, we got this:

Whew. We really dodged a bullet there.

Five things I learned in my first week as a mom

2007-05-27T23:09:00.000-06:00

One: Spare time is but a distant memory.

Astute readers will notice that I’ve actually been a mother for two weeks. I started trying to write this blog about a week ago, but I kept getting sidetracked. There’s always a diaper to change or a bottle to warm, so I can’t seem to get around to checking e-mail or writing thank-you notes for all the flowers and gifts people have sent. The only reason I managed to vacuum the floor the other day was because my mom was watching the baby.

Two: It’s not about me anymore.

For the past 28 years, I’ve had the luxury of being selfish. If I wanted to go to the store, I went to the store. If I wanted to take a nap, I took a nap. Now I have to consider how everything affects my little Kaylee. This has been a weird transition for me, because I’ve gotten used to being narcissistic and relatively carefree. Now I have this needy (albeit very cute) little person around me 24 hours a day, and she always comes first. Before long I’m sure this will seem perfectly natural, but right now it’s taking some adjustment.

Three: Breastfeeding isn’t a cakewalk.

Nobody warned me that nursing could be messy and kind of painful. Whenever my daughter latches on, I feel like I’ve been captured by the enemy and am being tortured for top secret information. I worked with nurses and a lactation consultant to try to remedy this, but nothing has changed the fact that breastfeeding really, really hurts. (A note to other soon-to-be moms out there: I don’t think this is typical, so don’t panic. You’ll probably be fine.)

In order to keep me sane and my daughter fed, she’s almost entirely on formula now. We started this switch after I found blood around her mouth during a particularly painful nursing session, when we were faced with an important question: Which is worse, raising our daughter on formula, or continuing to breastfeed despite its tendency to make me cry and the possibility of giving our daughter a taste for human blood and turning her into a vampire?

Either choice is an unhappy one. If I go ahead and breastfeed, I feel like a bad mother because feeding my baby makes me cringe and cry. If a don’t, I feel like a failure for giving up on breastfeeding. This has been a big source of stress for me, but I’m almost at the point where I can think about it without crying.

Four: Diaper Genies fill up fast.

Before now, I never would have guessed that I could regularly encounter someone else’s bodily fluids without being grossed out. But now I’ve been peed on, pooped on, sneezed on and spit up on, and none of it has even made me flinch. I guess when the person doing the peeing is really, really cute and cuddly, you don’t mind so much. In fact, earlier today I said this: “Yay, Kaylee pooped!” I never thought a sentence like that would come out of my mouth.

Five: Fathers are much more capable than TV would have you believe.

I’ve seen a lot of TV shows featuring bumbling fathers who don’t know how to change a diaper, so I had minor fears that my husband would be timid around the baby – afraid to pick her up and play with her, and unwilling to help with the late-night feedings. But from the very first moment, he’s been eager to take care of her and be her daddy. It’s like he was born to play that role. With both of us on the job, maybe, just maybe, Kaylee will turn out ok.

P.S.

Oh, and just because I felt like it, here’s a picture of Kaylee wearing a bunny hat.

Happy Mother's Day to me

2007-05-15T18:45:00.000-06:00

Miss Kaylee Jane McDonnell was born Sunday, May 13, at 3:58 a.m., weighing 7 pounds even. She's pretty much the best Mother's Day gift ever.

Ready

2007-05-08T12:04:00.000-06:00

I have seven days left until my due date, so labor is truly looming now. Rob and I were talking last night about the unnerving inability to make solid plans for the next couple of weeks. Can we go out to dinner tomorrow? Can we catch a movie this weekend? It’s hard to say, since I could be in the hospital later today if the baby decides it’s time to come out.

Most of the time, when someone asks me if I’m ready for childbirth, she’ll ask in an excited tone of voice that implies this: “Your life is going to change in the most wonderful way!” But she’ll have a look on her face that implies this: “Labor is scary! Aren’t you terrified?”

For the most part, I’ve gotten over my fear of labor and delivery, but my confidence does occasionally get chipped at when people remind me that childbirth really, really hurts. That’s why it was refreshing to have a conversation with a work-from-home mother yesterday, in which she said, “Don’t worry too much about labor; it’s really not that bad. And when it’s all over, you’ll be amazed with yourself. You’ll be like, ‘Holy $#%@, look what I did!”

That was exactly what I needed to hear.

I’m ready to be amazed. Let’s get this show on the road.

Pregnancy logic

2007-05-07T11:29:00.000-06:00

Upon waking up on Saturday morning and seeing a pile of laundry in my bedroom, a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, and a pile of empty boxes from our recent move in the living room, I decided the best course of action would be to go back to bed and cry for a little while.

My husband, who is not nine months pregnant and emotionally unstable, did not understand how this was a logical approach to my problems. He did, however, clean up the living room and help with the laundry.

Seems logical now, doesn’t it?

Baby bribery

2007-05-01T13:19:00.001-06:00

This morning I tried to reason with my baby, explaining to her why it’s a good idea for her to come out and join us in the next few days.

“You see, I only have one more single-serving orange juice left in the fridge,” I told her, trying to sound as logical as possible. “That means after Wednesday, I will have nothing to drink in the mornings at work. Therefore, I need to go into labor by Thursday morning.”

I think she must have seen that my argument was a bit thin, because she didn’t react. Not a thump to a lung or anything. I don’t think she cares about my orange juice situation.

As of today, I am exactly two weeks from my due date. Every day, I get a little more eager to see my baby for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I’ve finally adopted a pregnancy waddle, which I’d been trying to avoid. (I’ve been told this is “cute,” but I’m not sure I agree.)

I’m looking forward to the day when my husband and I can go to the grocery store together without me having to tell him to walk slower every two minutes. I’m looking forward to a time when I can go to sleep (on my stomach, even!) and wake up without a backache. And, of course, I’m looking forward to holding my little girl (or boy), having a moment of profound awe at the little miracle my husband and I created, and settling in for a lifetime of trying to figure out how to be a good parent.

But first, the baby has to come out here and join the world.

Come on, kiddo, you can do it. We have candy out here . . .

I'm with you, Bessie

2007-04-24T11:47:00.000-06:00

I just found this article about a pregnant cow who terrorized Hanover, Germany, after escaping from her farm.

I have to say, I really sympathize with that poor cow. Being pregnant definitely makes me tired and crabby, and if I were being followed around by emergency workers, camera crews and gawkers, I’d probably get a little destructive, myself.

The poor thing.

Tough

2007-04-23T09:39:00.000-06:00

One of the questions I often hear nowadays is this: Do I plan to have an epidural, or do I want to do this childbirth thing as naturally as possible?

I’ve always thought that maybe, just maybe, I’m tough enough to get through childbirth without pain medication. I mean, women have been having babies for thousands of years. Surely I can do it, too, without the need for pharmaceutical assistance.

Then, sometime over the weekend, I slept in an awkward position, and I’ve had some highly uncomfortable back and hip pain ever since.

If it were allowed, I would have an epidural right now.

I guess I’m not as tough as I thought.

2 million seconds

2007-04-19T11:55:00.000-06:00

I had a doctor’s appointment this morning, and found out that the baby is starting to turn around in her little cocoon. According to the doctor, this means she’s getting ready for delivery.

How scary.

And exciting.

And scary.

I’m about 26 days away from my due date now, so it’s close enough that if I were to go into labor, my doctor wouldn’t stop it from happening.

Obviously, we’ve been preparing for a baby for months now. But somehow having my doctor say “the baby’s turning” and “we won’t stop labor” makes this impending arrival seem so much more real … and close.

Twenty-six days is just 624 hours. Or 37,440 minutes. Or 2,246,400 seconds.

Oh my goodness. I only have about 2 million seconds to finish getting ready for the baby. And that’s only if she waits until her due date.

And I’ve already wasted a good 900 seconds writing this blog!

Excuse me, I have to go buy some diapers.

You will be missed

2007-04-09T11:08:00.000-06:00

I’ve always been told that once you have kids, you never stop being a parent. Whether your children are 2 years old or 42, you’ll always worry about them.

I think it’s also true that kids never stop needing their parents. It’s easy to take for granted that they’ll always be there; after all, they’ve been around since you were born. So when a parent dies unexpectedly, you feel suddenly adrift, left to navigate these choppy waters alone.

My husband’s father died on Thursday, taking away a person Rob could always turn to for advice. Possibly the hardest part for Rob was that his father always had words of wisdom to help him through hard times, and now he’s not here to guide him through his hardest time yet.

When I met my in-laws for the first time, my hair was disheveled, I was wearing a T-shirt that read, “Can’t sleep, clowns will eat me,” and I probably smelled bad after a 15-hour road trip to Texas. Despite these things, Bob and Sherry immediately welcomed me into their home and made me feel like the daughter they never had. They’ve continued to do so ever since, never becoming those legendary evil in-laws that newlyweds always fear.

I only knew Bob for a little more than five years, so I don’t quite feel entitled to the kind of sympathy that his wife and sons deserve. Yet I’m grieving anyway, for lots of reasons – the biggest one being that he’ll never get to hold his first grandchild, hear her laugh, and listen to her say “Grandpa” for the first time. And our daughter will never know what a kind, generous, loving person her grandfather was.

I guess that’s something Rob and I will have to add to our “to-do” list as parents. We’ll have to be the ones to tell her how much she was loved, even before she got here. And we’ll have to help her know her grandfather through our photos and funny little stories. It’s all we can do, and we’ll do our best.

Ow, my brain.

2007-04-02T11:14:00.000-06:00

Like most women, I started my pregnancy wanting to do my best to ensure that my entire gestational experience would be 100% healthy. I vowed to follow all of the rules so my baby would have the most nurturing environment possible.

What nobody tells you is that the rules keep changing. You can’t follow all of them, because many of the rules contradict each other.

This morning, a friend sent me a link to an article about a study on pregnancy weight gain. According to the article, researches have found that women who gain more weight during pregnancy – even if they stay within recommended guidelines – run the risk of having overweight toddlers later on.

So, does this mean pregnant women should strive to gain less weight? Well, um, no. The article also mentions that women who gain too little weight risk having low-birth-weight babies. And if you live in El Paso County, you may have seen the health department’s recent campaign, called “A Healthy Baby is Worth the Weight,” encouraging local women to gain more weight during pregnancy to combat a low-birth-weight epidemic in our area.

Is this making anyone else’s brain hurt?

There also are contradictory studies about caffeine consumption, eating fish and every other recommendation out there. For women who are just trying to do the best they can for their unborn children, it’s enough to make you crazy.

This leads me to a suggestion for another scientific study: Which is more harmful to your baby, gaining a few too many pounds or spending your pregnancy stressed out about all the ways you could already be failing as a mother?

I suspect I already know the answer, at least within my own not-so-scientific study, in which I am the only participant.

According to the results of that study, I should toss all of those articles in my fireplace, relax on the couch and have another cookie.

Ok, ok, I'll stop complaining

2007-03-29T16:54:00.000-06:00

I just read an article about some uncommon side effects of pregnancy, and it contained the following bit of information:

“…pregnant women may notice a third breast or nipple grow and darken near their arm pits, rib cage or stomach. … Sometimes, the breast produces milk. They typically dry up and disappear after a woman gives birth.”

Whoa. I guess I should stop whining about my swollen ankles, then.

What? You mean television lied to me?

2007-03-26T16:40:00.000-06:00

Rob and I were seriously addicted to the show “Friends” when it was on, and I distinctly remember the episode when Rachel had her baby. She spent a good 30 hours lying around in a hospital bed, complaining because it was taking forever for her to dilate to 10 centimeters. Other women came and went in her shared room while Rachel lay around, bored and whining. For Rachel (and apparently all the other pregnant women who briefly shared her room), the actual pain didn’t start until it was time to push and deliver the baby.

Our last childbirth preparation class was yesterday. Now that the class is over, I have to say that the biggest thing I learned about childbirth was that movies and television have lied to me my whole life.

I’ve been led to believe that all the early labor and dilation stuff was a cakewalk – that labor doesn’t get painful until it’s actually time to deliver the baby. I was all prepared to bring a book, or even “Friends” DVDs, to the hospital to pass the time while I waited to do the real work at the end.

No such luck.

In fact, the teacher said something last night that seemed completely unfathomable to me: “Pushing doesn’t really hurt.”

What? But that’s the part where the female character always screams and crushes her coach’s hand and curses him for getting her into this situation in the first place.

According to our teacher, the really painful part is when you’re having all of those contractions to work your way up to 10 centimeters. Once it’s time to deliver the baby, pushing the kid out just comes naturally.

So, let me get this straight.

First, I go to the hospital when the contractions are three to five minutes apart, and NOT the first time I feel a uterine twinge. (TV misled me on that point, too.)

Then, after I get to the hospital, I won’t be lying around for 20 hours, calmly awaiting the moment of delivery. I’ll be walking around, sitting in a chair, maybe taking a shower, breathing my way through painful contractions every few minutes, and generally not lying around watching TV. And if I’m going to crush my husband’s hand and curse him for doing this to me, THIS is when it’ll happen.

And finally, when it comes time to deliver the baby, it’ll be a relief.

Well, then. I may bring a book with me on the off chance I actually have down time while I’m in the hospital. But I think I’ll leave the “Friends” DVDs at home.

My list

2007-03-19T17:04:00.000-06:00

Before I started taking childbirth classes, I had the impression that they would be some sort of profound experience for me. I kind of expected to be taught how to make childbirth painless, as if that were even possible.

Instead, my to-do list for dealing with labor is two items long:
1. Relax.
2. Breathe.

We learned the physiological reasons for why it’s so important to relax as much as possible, and we’ve talked about different breathing techniques for helping achieve that relaxation. But those are just details, as it all seems to boil down to those two instructions: Relax. Breathe.

I’m supposed to be practicing my breathing techniques on my own at home, but most of the time I find myself watching TV instead. But I’ve found that these breathing methods do come in handy in other situations, so I get a little practice in anyway.

If something minor happens at work to set off my pregnant-lady waterworks, I can stave off the tears by taking those deep, deep breaths. If someone cuts me off in traffic, I hold back the swearing by focusing on patterned breathing. And when I see a coworker getting angry about something trivial, I find myself thinking, “He could really use a Lamaze class.”

If only everyone could learn those two little words. Say them with me:

Relax.

Breathe.

Mommies on ice

2007-03-12T17:05:00.000-06:00

We had our second childbirth class on Sunday evening, and the instructor introduced a new element to our relaxation exercises: extreme discomfort.

She had a point, really. She said that all the breathing exercises in the world don’t teach you much if you’re relaxed and calm. You have to practice them under duress if you want to know their real effect.

So she had our coaches get plastic bags and fill them with ice. Then she’d say, “Ok, a contraction is coming,” which was the mothers’ signal to hold the bag from underneath with one hand, and put the other hand directly into the ice. We’d keep our hands there for the duration of the so-called contraction, and then set the bag down afterward.

It seemed kind of funny at first, eliciting a few giggles from the moms in attendance. I think we were all thinking, “Ice is no big deal, we can handle that.” But after the tenth “contraction,” I was ready to renounce ice forever, sticking to warm drinks for the rest of my life and, of course, moving to a warmer climate.

As my husband calmly rubbed my back and tried to help me relax, all I could think was, “Why don’t YOU sit here with your hand in this bag? Why don’t YOU take deep breaths and stare at a freaking focal point??”

And that was just ice.

I’m sure I’ll be an absolute joy to be around on the day I give birth.

A note to my husband, my doctor, my nurses and whomever else crosses my path that day: I’m very sorry for how mean I will be to you. I’m usually pretty nice, I swear.

The faint of heart

2007-03-06T09:47:00.000-07:00

Since before Rob and I got married, my family has joked about what we can expect in the delivery room the day I give birth to our first child. The family consensus is that I’ll be pushing, swearing and doing the mom-in-labor thing, and Rob will be passed out on the floor.

Quickly after meeting Rob, my family discovered Rob’s deep squeamishness when it comes to all things gross and/or painful – including surgery, horrific injury and needles. Thus, when I announced my pregnancy, my mother very quickly suggested that I have a back-up labor coach. At one point, when I assured her that Rob could handle the job, I could almost swear I saw tears of worry shimmering in her eyes. I know she just wanted to be sure that her daughter has someone, well, conscious to help during the labor and delivery, but I didn’t know how to convince her that she had nothing to worry about.

Yesterday, Rob and I attended our first childbirth class, and Rob confirmed what I already suspected – that he’s more than ready to see me through that long day when our daughter (or son) finally arrives.

Much of the class was taken up with a childbirth video, which I had been awaiting with a certain amount of dread, certain that watching women give birth would make me start bargaining with God, trying to figure out some alternative plan for getting the baby out of me. And I had some fear that the entire class would be disrupted by my husband vomiting on the floor during the worst scenes.

None of that happened.

Instead of revulsion, we experienced nothing short of complete awe. Something clicked inside both of us, and we finally realized that not only is this baby the most important thing we’ve accomplished so far in our lives, but that bringing her into the world is something we CAN do.

Both of us.

Without fainting.

Probably.

A 70% princess

2007-03-05T17:13:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, my husband and I got to see our baby in all the beautiful glory that a tiny, black-and-white ultrasound screen can provide. Naturally, we believe our baby’s yawns, kicks and waves during the procedure were just about the cutest things any baby has ever done in the history of the world.

Besides getting to see our child actually looking like a baby – previous ultrasounds had shown us a dot and a tadpole, respectively – we were thrilled that we’d finally get to know our baby’s gender. I know lots of couples relish the thought of waiting until their child’s birth to find out whether to decorate in pink or blue, but we are not one of those couples. I’ve been known to start pestering my husband to hand over my birthday presents in mid-July. My birthday is in mid-August. Waiting for surprises just isn’t in my blood.

That’s why it was a little deflating to hear the ultrasound technician say, “Hmm … well … umm … I think it’s a girl. … I’m 70 percent sure. But, if you buy any girl clothes, keep the receipt.”

Sigh.

I’d been expecting a “girl” verdict, mostly because of the many dreams I’ve had in which our baby was a girl. (Never mind the one where the baby was a hamster.) My mom also tried an old-wives-tale needle trick to predict the baby’s gender, and came up with a prediction that my first child would be a girl and the second a boy, so there you go.

Because our instincts tell us we’re having a girl and the ultrasound technician told us we might be having a girl, we’ve decided to start calling her by our preferred girl name, which is Kaylee Jane.

We talk to her regularly, and I’ve already gotten some practice speaking in my stern-mom voice: “Kaylee Jane, stop kicking mommy in the bladder!” (And she’s gotten some practice ignoring her mother’s commands.)

I just hope that after months of being called “she” while in the womb, our baby won’t be scarred forever if it happens to be a boy. Really though, I doubt that’ll do much damage. The real emotional trauma will come when he’s a teenager and I show his girlfriends a photo of him dressed in the cute pink tank top and tennis skirt I’ve already bought him. He’ll never live that one down.