8 months old!

Edson's eighth month has been momentous.  I guess all the months are, but the party gets real when the babies start moving.  He is one busy boy, and if you take your eye off him for a minute he will find a dangerous activity (standing holding on to the rocking chair or swing, rocking the vacuum back and forth, standing holding on to one chair while pushing another chair, various unsanitary activities with the diaper trashcan, pulling out drawers... I could keep going for a long time). And now that he can hold out his arms to ask for me... melt.

These photos courtesy of Stephanie Hendricks

laughing!

rough housing with dad

I like...

• exploring the house!  I am especially fascinated by wires, plastic bags, the garbage can, and the wicker trunk.
• people.  I don't give out smiles indiscriminately anymore, but I still like people a lot.  Especially men with beards and children.
• moving.  All the time.  I can crawl, pull myself to standing, and cruise a little. I love to jump on people's laps until their biceps can't take it anymore.
• pulling out books from shelves. 
• ripping paper and trying to rip cloth
• bath time.  I've learned how to sit and splash, play with my duckie, and kick in the water while mom holds my head.  I cry when she takes me out, even if I'm cold.

I don't like...

• shoes, socks, and hats
• being alone
• not being allowed to play with mugs of hot coffee
• the bulb aspirator or saline drops

I can

• almost clap
• say dada, dayday, ahbah, gee, boy, and ma
• indicate in new and exciting ways that I am hungry (pulling mom's shirt down)
• stand holding on to moving objects (rocking chairs, swings, etc)
• Give slobbery kisses (my technique is improving)

Reading his book after extricating his leg from the constricting jammies

The first time I found him standing on his own

 

Constantly in motion

We survived his first cold

Edson at 6 months

Things I Love

• Daddy.
• My new exersaucer.  It lights up and sings!  There is even a dragonfly for me to chew on.
• Napkins.
• Hair.  It's soft AND pullable!  It's the best toy ever!
• Music.  I (Mary) have been singing him to sleep for many of his naps.  It started out as a last resort - a kind of I've-tried-everything-and-I'm-about-to-go-insane trick, but I've grown to like it as much as he does.  He also loves it when we play music (all kinds - I don't think he favors one genre over another yet).  His exersaucer plays a really catchy song about the primary colors that makes him light up when he hears it.
• Licking the floor. Hardwood, carpet, or grass.  Forget this nice soft blanket, I want to lick the thing that makes mom wince a little.

Scooting off the playmat (probably to lick the carpet)

Gazing at daddy

Things I don't like

• Taking naps
• My hat
• When anyone takes away a napkin I'm trying to eat
• Being by myself in the backseat of the car

New Talents

• I can grab my toes
• I can roll over both ways!
• I can scoot to any corner of the room (usually to lick the floor or eat a napkin)
• I can play peek-a-boo holding my own blanket over my eyes and pulling it away
• I can remove my hat

Kissing daddy

His first time in the exersaucer!  He can't pick which toy to play with first.

The first time I caught him scooting across the room to eat paper.  He did this in the time it took me to fill up a mug of coffee and come immediately back.

Insanity! Beating the Jelly into Submission

7 things I would like to see in my Insanity DVDs:

1. Women who have to stop exercising periodically because they have to yawn so big they can't breathe.
2. Women who have to pause because their baby is crying.
3. Women who have to wear 2 sports bras or else their boobs hurt so bad from bouncing that they have to hold them to their chests with one arm.  I used to think these women just didn't have bras that fit.  I was wrong.
4. Anyone yell obscenities at Shaun T.  I can't be the only one.
5. Women who have jelly-bellies, stretch marks, or a linea negra.
6. Milk marks.
7. Anyone gasp witty comebacks at Shaun T.  For example:  Shaun, "You have to focus here!" Me, "I'll focus on (gasp for breath) punching your face (gasp)!"

That said, I do think Shaun T is the least annoying of the exercise-video-coaches I've tried.  And while it's taken me about double the time to do the 60-day series, I'm pretty happy with it overall.  I feel strong.  I have muscles again.  And, I still have a dozen workouts left before my last fit-test and I'm kind of excited to see how I do. 

20 weeks

20 weeks

20 weeks

Summertime!

As usual, I've been remiss in my blogging duties.  I've been pretty determined to savor this time with Edson, so that's my excuse!  It will be nice to do more reflecting and documenting.  We've been having a blast so far.  We've introduced Edson to our kiddie pool (full disclosure: purchased last summer for us) and laughed at him pretty thoroughly.  When he's initially dunked, he does this awesome expression (watch his mouth) and arm-flapping:

After the first shock wears off, he has a grand old time:

We did this again in a warmish stream (with a life jacket), a big swimming pool, and the splash pad at a park.  I really want him to like swimming.  This is partly because I really love swimming and I spent hours and hours swimming at the lake, and partly because I'll feel a little better water-safety wise if he's a strong swimming.  I recognize both those things as first-time-mom folly. 

A few weeks ago, the three of us joined some of our favorite people at Birch Bay to celebrate an anniversary in the best possible way: renewing vows with the community that publicly said we'd help support them.  On the beach.  With s'mores and little crabs.

This weekend really reinforced how much I love my friends - and how much I've missed them in this time transitioning to a different church.  They are some of the best people in the world, and I am so thankful for them.

David and I have also spent some time up at the river.  So far, we've mostly just cleaned the cabin to make it habitable (mouse feces... yuck).  Last weekend, though, David took Edson for an hour or so and let me play with my fun camera lens.

Body: I don't think you're ready for this jelly

My body is amazing.  Sometimes I look at Crusher's little hands with his itty bitty fingerprints or his beautiful eyes looking around in wonder at the world and think, "Wow.  God used my body to make this child.  He was an egg and now he's a boy." My organs moved for him.  My uterus grew enormous and then shrank back to the way it was.  My boobs make him food.  It's crazy and miraculous and wonderful.

However...

Right after having Crusher I felt completely disgusting.  I hurt.  My hormones were going nuts.  There were icky fluids coming out of everywhere - blood, milk leaking out all over my clothes, night sweats. My hips and thighs were bigger than before (and they were plenty big to begin with) and I had this jelly belly.  Seriously, it looked as though there were a thick layer of jelly between my skin and my abs.  Complete with a linea negra that doesn't seem to want to fade.  The belly has gone down substantially since, but at seven weeks postpartum I still don't fit into real pants.  I wear yoga pants, leggings, sweats, and maternity jeans if I must.  I don't actually like real pants, but that's beside the point.  I have a closet full of clothes that I can't wear. I avoid looking in the mirror.  I dress as quickly as possible.  I cringe inside if my husband's in the room when the belly is showing.

How do I reconcile my wonder with my miracle-body with my horror at my still-healing-flubby body?

In my rational brain, I know it just takes time (if it took 9 months to gain the weight, it's not just going to disappear) and exercise and healthy eating.  In my panicked emotional brain, I fear and make excuses.  It's hard to make time to exercise when one has a needy baby who doesn't like to nap in his crib.  It's also hard to exercise with gigantic, leaky boobies.  It's hard to find time to prepare healthy food when my window of having two free hands is unpredictable.  I start cooking projects and have to abandon them because Crusher's crying. It's hard to be patient with some of my other postpartum friends and relations already fit in their gosh durned pants.

That's my whining party.  Hopefully, by ranting about it I can put it aside and be done for a while.  I have a gorgeous, healthy baby.  My husband watches him so I can exercise sometimes (like today!  Wahoo!).  I didn't buy the chips I wanted very much all week.  (I did buy the cinnamon rolls, but nobody's perfect.)

As an aside, I had David take before pictures for an exercise regimen I may or may not be able to complete (it requires 45 minutes 6 days a week).  I haven't been brave enough to look at them myself, and rest assured, dear readers, you will probably never have to see them.  Here's hoping there are decent after pictures eventually.  Even if there aren't, he's worth it.

7 Weeks

Things I love:

• Snuggles
• Baths (any bath is great, but full immersion makes me giggle and splash)
• Daddy (he makes me smile more than anyone else)
• Eating
• Tummy rubs
• My Pooh and Eeyore dangling chimes
• Staring at the screen/windows/ceiling fan/walls
• Being held by someone bouncing on the yoga ball

Things I don't like:

• Clothes
• My crib
• The carseat
• Really, anything restrictive

New talents

• Smiling for reals (not for gas)
• Swatting at things
• Saving up all my poop for 2 weeks for when I'm at dinner with friends
• Grabbing handfuls of hair or flesh and squeezing

Looking serious (before pooping)

So happy! (after pooping)

Heart-melting smile (at the ceiling fan... not mom)

It's natural! Like a kidney stone. Or Ebola.

Last night I dreamt I was signed up for a four mile race.  There were three interesting points:  1) I had to carry Crusher while running, 2) The first mile was slogging through waist-deep ocean water, and 3) I was wearing rubber rain boots (a-la Landon).  I ran my heart out and thought I had a good chance of winning, but I came in last.  I lost so miserably that all the other contestants had already finished their post-race barbecue parties in the stadium.

That is how I feel about breastfeeding.

Boobs are magical, in case you hadn't noticed. They regulate the temperature of newborns and provide nutrient- and antibody-rich food for free. And they just kinda look cool.

Breastfeeding, however, is one of those things that seems like it should come totally naturally and be this blissful, easy experience. If its not, something's wrong with me.

Well, by golly, it's just hard. And nothing's wrong with me.

After a mere three days of feeding via magicboob, I was cracked and bleeding. And crying every mealtime. Which was approximately every 2-4 hours. Around the clock. Crusher seemed to only enjoy eating milk flavored with the salt of my tears or the tang of my blood.  There were moments when I was sure that the boob pain was worse than labor. So I called up the lactation consultant.

After sobbing in her office for a while, she told me there was hope and gave me a nipple shield. I had mixed feelings. I had heard horror stories about nipple confusion and throwing the small piece of clear, easily-lost plastic across the room.  It did clear up the bleeding problem, and things evened out for a while.  In a follow-up, they determined his latch is great and my technique is adequate.  Hooray!  I felt like I passed a really important mom-test.  In my rational brain, I knew that breastfeeding is just hard sometimes for a variety of reasons and I can't take complete responsibility when I am only one person in a two-person act (especially considering the other person is pre-verbal and definitely not rational).  In my emotional brain, I felt like I deserved a prize.

Until a few days ago.  I noticed some redness and pain.  Increasing pain.  Lots of pain.  When he ate it felt like knives attacking my nipples and shards of glass being sucked out from my shoulder blades forward.  Then burning, burning, burning all day long with no break.

Awesome, right? So I called the lactation consultant again. And she decided I have thrush (a yeast infection that causes the above symptoms).  I drove all over town trying to find the OTC treatment, crying in Walgreens when they didn't have the right kind, and crying the whole way home at the thought of delaying treatment and thus suffering from aforementioned excruciating pain.  A trillion phone calls, a probably inappropriate frantic text to my doctor, and loads of self-doubt later, and we finally found some meds which David kindly picked up.

If it works, I should feel better tomorrow.  We'll see. In the meantime, I'm still stuck with the feeling that it's my fault somehow.  That I fail because I struggle to feed my son, even though he 's eating, pooping, and gaining weight just as he should.  That my body is betraying me because this is hard for me.

I would never have these thoughts about someone else.  I know I'm a little addled from fatigue and pain, but c'mon!  I wouldn't blame someone else for getting chewed up by another person, or for getting an infection.  This isn't a race and it's not a test.  It's a path, and I just need to keep on the course.  At the end of the day, I win if my child is fed and loved.  Check. 

25 days

Edson is 25 days old today.  His presence still seems pretty surreal, and I'm trying to soak up every cuddly moment of him.

My favorite things:

• Dimples, especially when accompanied by a smile (which may be gas, but it's still cute).
• When he sneezes, sometimes he makes this little noise after. Achoo, achoo, earrm! Like what just happened??
• His soft hair.
• His eyes are so alert and pretty.
• His little shoulders
• Snuggles. He is one seriously cuddly baby.
• He stares at this black and white screen David set up to let in natural light and still cover me when I'm feeding the little guy in the living room.  He stares at it every day like it's the most fascinating thing he's every seen. Sometimes when he's crying it calms him right down to be near it.
• The way his hands are always moving around on his face and head, on my hand, even when he's punching, scratching, pushing, and pinching my boob.
• When he half frowns when I'm talking to him. 
• When he stares at me.
• I'm still at a point at which I think his poop is funny.  It gets everywhere. Seriously, everywhere. 
• Giving him a bath - even though it's tricky, he seems to like it and his hair is so fluffy after.

Things that are difficult:

• Feeding him every 2-5 hrs around the clock. And being the only one who can. 
• Breastfeeding in general. Two words: cracked nipples.
• When he cries, there's a visceral reaction. My stomach clenches and I start crying if I can't help.
• He started making this new noise.  It's a cross between a hunting pterodactyl's I'm-moving-in-for-the-kill cry and a tortured cat.  It's awful.  Thankfully, he did it for a day straight, but it's fairly uncommon anymore.
• That hormone slump that happens the same day your milk comes in. Engorged, painful boobs and feelings of inadequacy and despair! At the same time!
• That super-cuddly business?  Not so cute at 4:30 a.m. when he WILL NOT sleep in his bed.  Or swing.  And hasn't slept there all night no matter how hard we try.

But look at him! Totally worth it.

Photo by Vanessa Hadford

Photo by Vanessa Hadford

Birth Story

Little Edson is two weeks old today.  To celebrate, I'm finally blogging his birth story.  

The Monday before, I had a bout of nesting that led to a more serious cleaning than had happened in weeks (months?). I deep cleaned the kitchen and washed/disinfected a slew of baby toys.  That night I felt restless, more physically uncomfortable than usual.  David went to bed early hoping to get rid of his head cold.  I stayed awake, kneeling on the floor, draped over the coffee table and decidedly not sleepy.  Eventually, I went to bed and woke up to contractions at 12:30. 

They were already intense - I was anticipating hours and hours of early labor. I don't know if I slept through it, but these contractions were already five minutes apart. I was determined to not get sent home from the hospital and I wanted David to sleep as much as possible because he was so sick. I held it together for a few hours, but I had to get out of bed to cope. By 3:30, I had accidentally awakened David with the squeaky floor boards and yoga ball. I started timing the contractions shortly thereafter, and they were already 2-2:15 minutes apart and 45-60 seconds long.  So we called our super-doula, Ruth, and got to the hospital around 4:30. 

My mom and I have an inside joke that we can't go anywhere without running into one of David's acquaintances.  This trip, it was the ER attendant who opened the door and tried to put me in a wheelchair (I was having a contraction and didn't want to sit down).  Thankfully, they kept the chitchat to a minimum, and I was wheeled up quickly. I was at 4-5cm and 70% effaced at that point ( I think - this is all kind of fuzzy).  The nurses asked question after question. I remember thinking,"Why can't everyone just stop talking to me? Can't they see I'm busy?" After a while, I just stopped answering.

Future mothers, when it's your turn, I highly recommend finding a hospital with a big tub.  The warm water is fantastic.  It all went downhill after I got out.  At some point, the good Dr. broke my water.  My coping measures weren't working, and I was checked again at 7-8 cm, but with a lopsided cervix (Has anyone heard of that?  I sure hadn't), so I had to labor on my side on the bed.  I hated that bed more than I've hated anything else. Ever. In the world. Lying down made everything feel exponentially worse, and it took a great deal of self-control to stay down instead of getting up and leaving.  My brain was all doped up on hormones, so I don't remember the details except for the fact of pain and wondering if it was too late for drugs. Labor in media is mostly loud screaming and angry invectives against the men in the room.  I was quieter than I anticipated - it was way too much effort to say the rude things that popped into my head.  The meanest I got was responding to David's well-meaning, "Relax your shoulders," with a "YOU relax your shoulders."

After two hours of transition, I felt like I needed to push.  Something.  From an unknown location in my body.  It was the most important thing my body has ever done and there was no way to prepare for it - push what from where?  How do you do this never having done it before?  Pushing was absolutely the most frustrating part.  I felt like it wasn't working, I wasn't doing it right.  Finally, they had me haul myself up on the squat bar every contraction.  At this point, I finally felt things moving. Ruth encouraged me to feel his head, which helped my emotions and gave me more determination.  Crowning was painful. The name ring of fire is apt, except it maybe implies a smaller object (a ring) than a grapefruit-sized head coming out. I finally pushed his head and body out in one determined push (the sooner to end the burning pain), and there he was. There really was a baby in there, and he looked huge (he wasn't - totally a normal-sized baby). I was amazed that such an enormous thing was in my not-THAT-big belly and pushed out of, er, somewhere that's pretty small too. 

But he wasn't breathing right, so they whisked him to the table and surrounded him with nurses. I felt I should be scared, but wasn't. He cried pretty quick. I held him for a couple minutes before they took him to the NICU to make sure everything was ok.  David went with him.  I was sad they took him away, but I still wasn't afraid (hormone-high? Those hormones are powerful).  Even when David came back with no baby and with a doctor, I still felt unnaturally calm.  The summary: Crusher had gone without oxygen during delivery and they were concerned about organ damage.  The standard procedure had a very long list of risks, including being in the NICU for 72 hours. They weren't sure if it was necessary or not.  We decided to keep him with us. And with us he's stayed. 

Edson Roland Sloan, 7lbs 5 oz and 20"

Proud dad and his happy son.

David is a natural. And in love. It's precious to see my already big-hearted husband's heart grow even more. And one look at Edson's precious face makes my heart melt and eases any irritation at being woken up at all hours for mealtime.

Pregnancy Body... a lot changes in 2 weeks

Christmas break is a True Christmas Miracle for teachers.  A gift, arriving at the perfect time, it prevents us from going a little crazy.  Or a lot of crazy.

It also gave me a chance to sleep (or at least lie down) for a few precious extra hours, and wear comfortable clothes.  One of my goals was to avoid real pants for four days.  I won that game.  I only broke out the jeans for ONE DAY!  It was glorious (not the jeans... those have started to hurt).

But going back to work last Wednesday really drove home how much my body has deteriorated ... grown ... advanced in its pregnancy in the last few weeks.  For example,

• Before break, I was working 9.5-10 hour days trying to get ready for emergency sub plans, etc.  I was tired and cranky.  Wednesday and Thursday, I tried pulling those same hours and went home nearly in tears, my body ached so much.  I tweaked my right knee (due to relaxing joints), spent too much time with my weight on my left foot, thus tweaking my left foot.  Standing, walking, and sitting in one position for too long make them throb.  Also still painful: pelvic bone.  When I stand up, I take the first five or six steps bent over like an old lady until the pain subsides.  
• My belly itches all day long.  I think about it constantly.  David started making fun of the noises I make when I scratch.  I have tried four or five so-called "tried and true" lotions/remedies to no avail.
• Crusher is still pretty high, so my BH contractions literally take my breath away, as my uterus presses against my lungs.  That doesn't hurt, it just makes it hard to explain the placement of reflexive pronouns or walk up stairs.  He also still likes pushing my right rib with his wee foot.  
• I pee every 45-90 minutes or so.  Apparently when he drops, it will be more frequent (???).
• My brain is completely gone.  Last night, I set an oven mitt on fire because I turned on the wrong burner.  David caught it before the kitchen went up in flames.  I also can't remember words like drawer (that openy thing in the hallway where the stuff is?) or keys (the things that you put in the  door to make it open?).

On the plus side, my leg hair stopped growing, so I don't have to do complicated shower-yoga to shave.  The most intricate and perplexing position I have to assume is at the doctor.  Peeing in a little cup when you can't see anything down there... it's an adventure.

Also on the plus side, there's a real person in there.  It's still pretty surreal, but I want to meet him.  I want to see his little face and kiss his little feet that hurt my ribs and kick David when he touches my belly.  But this train of thought is making me cry, so, suffice it to say, my body is making it easy for me to start looking forward to labor.