Learning to step back

E has entered into her "mommy only" phase.  I know it frustrates and makes Ken sad. She cries when she wants mommy, which is a lot at night.  So she cries a lot at night. It kills me. I hate hearing her cry.  Usually I will go in and take over after a few minutes. A few nights ago was the first time she flat out screamed at bed time with Ken. I went in and took her and she stopped crying as soon as I took her. This made Ken feel pretty bad. So I researched on my billion and one baby web sites. All of them said this is a normal stage. Some offered advice, wear Daddy's shirt while nursing have daddy cuddle close when nursing, let Daddy give baby a bottle more often, and the killer: mom needs to back off and let daddy figure things out. Let him find the soothing techniques that work, let baby know daddy is there to comfort and sooth her.

So after the initial night mommy had been putting daddy's shirt on the nursing pillow. Daddy couldn't cuddle  Or give bottles because daddy had the stomach flu. Note daddy is better and it is time for mommy to try backing off.

Tonight daddy did bedtime routine with E. She has been crying nearly the whole time. She cried when he gave her a bottle. So mommy left the room. She still cried, but not as much. She cried all the way into the bath, though she was happy as a clam in the bath. She cried the moment the bath was over. She cried while getting into pj's. She cried through lullabies, and is still crying, though starting to ebb off and make sleepy noises.

I didn't go in. I didn't help. I sat and ate a cupcake and wanted to cry. And now I am blogging about it. Anything to make myself feel better. This is hard. I know it's hard on Ken too.

It's not just that I want her to stop crying, it is also that I want to spend time with her. I get a sleepy half hour to an hour with her in the mornings. When either I get home late or Ken brings the baby home late we only have an hour with her in the evenings. And I want her for so much more time than that. Since Ken did it all tonight I only got about 3 minutes of baby time. Not nearly enough after being away from her for 12 hours.  I feel bad that Ken had been in this position for a long time.

In one week I will step back in a different fashion. I will no longer be a full time teacher. Part of me is overjoyed because it means I will have so much more than an hour to two hours with E. The other part is mourning the lots of my class. I will still teach, 5 hours a day, 4 days a week, but it won't be the same. It is letting go.

One of my school's quotes is, "you must be willing to sacrifice who you are today for who you want to become."

 So my sacrifice starts with being able to step back, being willing to let others do what I do, all this so that I can spend more time with my husband and daughter (who is finally sleeping) When I think about it that way it doesn't seem like add much of a sacrifice.

Month 5 - better late than never

E is now 5 months (and a bit more)!  She never fails to amaze and bring me joy each day.  Her fifth month passed in such a blurr.  We had several friends in to visit and see her.  We loved our visits from Pastor Annie and Sarah D.  It was so nice to introduce E to two of the people who have been very influential in my life both as a teacher and a human being.  Especially wonderful because both them have had babies in the past year half so we had so much to talk about!
She also had visits from Grandma and grandaddy and lots of mom and dad's friends.  She had her first trip to the highland games to see daddy throw heavy stuff.  She's had a few nibbles of solid food.  One time she put her mouth on Daddy's broccoli and promptly made a face and pulled away. And once she took a tiny piece of mommy's black bean burger and spit most of it out. 

She is communicating a lot more.  I am already anticipating getting teachers notes home about E's excessive talking.  She LOVES to talk, well shout and scream and squeal.  And she is definitely trying to communicate.  Can't wait for her to start amassing words both signed and spoken.

She is starting to teeth we think.  She loves chewing on her teething rings and frozen washcloths.

At 5 months we can tell things she likes better.  When she is happy or excited she flaps her arms like a penguin and hits herself in the belly (sometimes audibly)  Things that get the penguin flap of approval these days are:
-mommy
-daddy
-Ms. Bush (her day care teacher)
-Skype with Oma, grandma, grandaddy, and auntie Krista
-her toy hedgehog
-her sensory balls

standing like a big girl!

E has also gained some more skills this month.  She can now:
- sit upright in what I call "gorilla pose" where she's resting on her arms
- lift up and flail arms and legs in attempts to crawl while on her tummy
-stand unassisted for a few seconds if she is leaning on an object
-roll from front to back
-roll from back to front (for the longest time she wouldn't roll this way in my eyesight.  I would put her on her back and do something, go into the kitchen, talk to someone, etc and when I looked back she would be on her tummy but whenever I watched her she wouldn't do it.  She finally did last week, so technically past her 5 month birthday)
-drink from a cup, if mom and dad hold it.  It's totally cute anytime mom or dad are drinking water she wants some, she'll reach for the cup and she sticks her tongue into the cup like a puppy.  On her 5 month birthday we were out at a resturant and she was in a friend's arms.  The friend had a glass of wine and when she was drinking it  E kept trying to grab it and making drinking motions.  Everyone laughed and said we were training her early.

She's home today from daycare fror the first time.  She got sent home early for being sick yesterday.  So far Ken and I have seen no signs of sickness but I'm not complaining about getting to spend all the extra time with her. 

On My Day

My first official Mother's day! This brings up the question, how is mom? Mom is happy. So very happy.  Time with my baby girl is wonderful.  It's amazing that nearly 5 months have gone by and at the same time it feels like just yesterday that she was a newborn.

My favorite moments are when she laughs. It just melts my heart.  Or when she gives her happy wiggle at seeing me.  Or when she lets me know she wants my attention.  The other day I fell asleep while nursing and woke to a growling noise.  Turns out that growling was my daughter.  She was looking up at me and growling a deep chest, abs engaged kind of growl.  I took it to mean "hey mom, wake up and pay attention to me."  So I smiled and growled back at her.  We growled at each other a few times, then she grinned and resumed nursing.  Guess she just wanted some attention while she ate.  She is very much a mommy's girl.

Mom is happy because Dad is amazing.  Ken is an amazing father.  He is so patient and sweet both to her and to me.  He takes such good care of us both.  For mother's day he got me 3 extra hours of sleep, an awesome new camera, and gave me the big T-bone.  And he cooked dinner AND did the dishes (usually we each do one of those)  And it's not just mother's day.  He helps out all the time, steps in when and where he is needed and is loving and supportive.  And he's a great dad.  E loves him so very much.  She gives him a special daddy smile and a happy shimmy.  Her eyes follow him when he leaves a room.  She is very much a daddy's girl too.

this picture has nothing to
do with the text.  it's just
a random picture of E with
an octopus on her head

Mom is also very tired.  Working 10+ hour days at school, being mom in the other 14 hours of the day, getting up at 4:30 (usually after getting up around 2-3 for a feeding) and going to bed at 1030 is hard on the sleep, the body and mind.  I've had a few times while driving where I've semi-zoned out, gotten tunnel vision or realized I was on auto pilot.  It scares me every time.  I'm getting better about pulling over and stretching, getting a drink or doing something to wake me up but it's hard. 

Mom is also tired because of poor eating habits.  I'm constantly hungry, ravenous sometimes.  All the things I've read say it's normal for breastfeeding moms to be super hungry.  But often I grab a sugary
quick high carb snack instead of something better for me, and better for E too.  This often leads to a sugar crash, which makes me even more tired.

No caffeine for this baby!

Mom is also tired because of good eating choices.  Except for a small green tea incident while on vacation in California last year I've been caffeine free (I make an exception for chocolate) since finding out I was pregnant.  Going from 3-4 caffeinated drinks a day to zero has been tough and I really, really miss caffeine some days but for the most part I'm glad to have kicked that addiction.  But not having caffeine does contributed to the tired factor, or at least to the not able to do something about the tired factor.

So, to try to help with the tired I'm going to start eating better.  My friend Sean does a healthy eating challenge.  One of the parts of the challenge is the sugar points.  He's not allowed to eat any processed foods that contain more than 6 grams of sugar.  I'm not entering into the challenge, I don't have the mental capacity to keep track of points and such but I am going to try to do the sugar points during weekdays.

I'm also going to try to exercise at home.  I'd love to get a gym membership but there is no more time in the day for me to go to a gym and work out.  At least at home I can do some push ups or ab work while playing with the baby.  I can do squats with her (she actually thinks it's pretty funny we we do squats together)  and of course I can take her out for walks.  My goal is 30 mins of some form of exercise a day.  I really want to get back to my pre-baby strength.  My shape is the same (actually I lost 2 lbs while pregnant) but my strength is so much less and I pride myself on being strong enough to not need help for most tasks.  I also want to be in better shape for our July vacation where we will be doing some hiking in the high alpine part of Yosemite.  I don't want to be the wuss of the trip, I want to be able to enjoy the hike, some of the hikes will be the same ones I took with Ken and E when she was 4 months in utero, so I want to be able to do just as well, if not better than, as I did the first time.

So here's to my first mommy's day, and here's to getting healthy so I can celebrate many a mommy's day more!