Pages

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

unexplained crying

Today I found myself inexplicably sitting on the floor in the living room crying. The sitting on the floor was explicable- I was playing with Jonathan on his play mat. The crying was the weird part. Jonathan was happily giggling and cooing and being wonderful and adorable- sucking on his feet and rolling around. I was alternately making faces and singing to him and looking up a question in one of our baby books. Only instead of grabbing the baby book off of the shelf, I had grabbed one of the pregnancy books. As I was paging through and got to the section on "What to bring to the hospital", I burst into tears. A lot of tears and a sob or two. Why? I don't know. I just found myself sitting there crying. And then I was done and everything seemed back to normal. Maybe it is the lack of sleep. Maybe it is that I am done with the pregnancy thing (for now at least) and feeling nostalgic. Maybe it is hormones. Who knows.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

food = energy

In my exhausted delirium, I think my body is confusing hunger and tiredness. I find myself consistently thinking things like "Gee I'm tired, I wonder what I have handy to snack on?" As if finding just the right food would take the place of a good night's sleep. I guess when options like taking a nap, sleeping in, or getting a restful night aren't on the table, you resort to other forms of energy. But this is certainly not helping me loose those remaining pregnancy pounds!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

first "real" food!

So tonight Jonathan had his first go round with "solid" food!! We mixed up some watery rice cereal and got out the baby spoon. He was eager to put the spoon in his mouth (as with any object lately) but didn't know what to do once it was there. (apparently a pre-goo covered object threw him for a loop). Some of the cereal went into the mouth but a whole lot more on the bib. We got 5 bites or so before Jonathan grabbed the bowl and threw it onto the floor- much to the delight of the dog (the good times are just beginning buddy!). I can see already that meal times are going to be messy affairs for a while...

(warning: this video is not funny or interesting- just cute baby goodness)

Monday, September 21, 2009

dizzy

I have never before felt dizzy from exhaustion. I've felt dizzy after standing up too fast or when I haven't eaten enough. But today, all day, I felt off balance and dizzy. If I turned around (at any speed) I had that sensation where you can't quite say which way is up or down and you aren't sure whether or not you might be off balance. And I can only attribute this to the vast accumulation of missed sleep I have accrued since Jonathan was born. After my alarm goes off at 5:30, not even coffee does it for me any more...

my latest worry

Yesterday evening Jonathan and I spent quite a while playing on the floor. It was fantastically fun because he has started laughing a lot-almost whenever you talk to or sing to him. And yesterday he was focused on rolling over. He has done it before here and there, but last night he was practicing. 5 or 6 times in a row he would roll from his back to his tummy, gurgle happily for a while and then start to fuss. I would roll him back to his back and he would rock back and forth, thinking and then roll right back over to his tummy. (Such a smart little boy!) I'm very proud of him. The problem, however, is that now when he is in bed and starts to make any little moving around sorts of noises or grunts or cries or whimpers or really makes any of his totally normal nighttime noises, I lay there in bed wondering if he has rolled over to his tummy in his sleep and is stuck. Not a problem, except that it has been drilled into my head (like it is now drilled into the heads of all new mommies and mommies to be) that babies who sleep on their tummies will die instantly of SIDS. Needless to say I am doing a lot of running up and down the stairs in the middle of the night...

Saturday, September 19, 2009

social pressure so soon?

Last night Jim, Jonathan and I were at a rehearsal dinner that started at 7pm- Jonathan's bedtime. I was nervous about how he would do with so many new people, loud noises, bright lights, etc so late. But he was wonderful. Smiling, flirting, and generally showing off. Around 9pm we packed up to leave and within moments of being in the car Jonathan was screaming. Not crying or fussing, but screaming in rage and frustration and exhaustion. And this continued almost the entire way back to our hotel. But when we got out of the car and ran into people we knew in the parking lot, he turned on the charm again- cooing, giggling, and being the cutest baby of all time. So either he has decided that he dislikes us and wants to scream at us (but likes everyone else just fine) or somehow he already feels a social obligation to hide his feelings and be on his best behavior for other people. I'm not sure which idea I like less...

Saturday, September 12, 2009

caterpillars


I found a bunch of these little guys on my parsley today. And while I love the idea of diverse and healthy ecosystems, I don't actually like bugs. Plus they were eating and killing my parsley plant. So I picked them off of the plant, and put a few of them in a make-shift terrarium (a large vase covered with wax-paper) with some leaves and sticks on our kitchen counter. I'm hoping for butterflies!

Friday, September 11, 2009

I will not think about work

I have made pretty good on my resolution to leave the school building by 3:00 during this first week of school. And I have been great at not bringing any work home with me. But the problem is that I don't know what to do if I am not obsessing about my job. I feel guilty and listless. Out of place. For example, what should I do this evening now that Jonathan has gone to bed? I have no papers to grade, no lessons to write, no labs to try... Perhaps I should meditate using the mantra "I will not think about work".

Thursday, September 10, 2009

first days at 'preschool'

Jonathan checking himself out in the mirror at preschool:

Jonathan had his first days at preschool this week. When I picked him up the first day the ladies there went on and on about how social and smart and cheerful and cute and generally wonderful Jonathan was. They didn't say it (probably because some of the other mommies were there), but you got the impression they knew that Jonathan was the best baby there. (which he obviously is). But they forgot to give me my check-out sheet and couldn't find Jonathan's dirty bottles.

The second day I picked him up, a different two ladies were there. They were very nice and gave me all of the important information about when and how much he ate/pooped/cried/slept/etc. His bottles were organized and my check-out sheet was completely filled out and neat. But they didn't tell me that he was hands down the best baby they had ever met.

As I left with my little bundle of soft warm wonderfulness on that second day, I found myself thinking that I liked the first set of ladies a whole lot more than the second set and that the second set just didn't seem quite as sharp or on top of things! When I caught myself, I was amazed at how easily I had been bought! And I have a whole new perspective on conducting parent-teacher conferences as a teacher!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

conflicting passions

Lately I find myself quite often experiencing two conflicting and incredibly passionate feelings: the desire for time to stop the current moment to last forever and the desire for to move on to something better. For example tonight I was holding Jonathan as I was putting him to bed. It was peaceful and still and wonderful and the beauty of the moment brought tears to my eyes. But, simultaneously, my back was killing me, I desperately needed a shower, and I was about as exhausted as I have ever been and I wanted nothing so strongly as for Jonathan to be in bed so I could take some ibuprofen, a shower and go to bed. I guess the trick, as always, is to live in the now. To relish each moment for its good because you know that it will never come again.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Sunday, September 6, 2009

just guessing


Sometimes I think Jonathan and I are co-conspirators in this whole thing. For example, today he was sitting on my lap fussing and we were both trying to figure out why. For lack of any other ideas, I gave him a pacifier and he sucked on it in this questioning way- like he was trying to ascertain whether or not it was fixing the situation. It took him a few minutes to realize that it was not what he was looking for and we moved on to trying something else. Lately life is mostly trial and error. Neither of us really knows much about this whole baby thing- we're both newbies and making it up as we go. Which is really good. It'd be a shame for him to have already figured out that I'm just guessing most of the time!

today I didn't...

...get up at 5am
...drive to the beach
...pin a race number to my chest
...line up in my starting coral along with hundreds of other runners
...run a mile
...run another one
...run another one
...run another one
...run another one
...run another one
...run another one
...run another one
...run another one
...run another one
...run another one
...run another one
...run another one
...cross a finish line
...get a medal
...stand on the beach with a plastic cup full of beer and revel in a feeling of accomplishment

Unlike the past four years, I didn't run in the Rock'n'Roll Half Marathon. And I miss it. Four years ago a friend convinced me to run it with her (at the time I couldn't run more than 2 miles). The rush of working towards and completing such a major accomplishment spurred me to challenge myself to run it again, even though I would be doing it alone. Two years ago I ran it as a training race for the Twin Cities Marathon (which I ran in October). And last year I slogged through the race when I was pregnant but didn't know it yet (though my sickness during the race should have been a sign that something was going on).

Saturday, September 5, 2009

last of the tomatoes


This afternoon while Jonathan was napping, I finally got out to the garden. I mixed our compost into one of our garden beds so it is ready for the beets I am planning to plant, picked the last of the tomatoes, and then pulled up the tomato plants. They had a good run this summer and probably could have given me a few more tomatoes over the next month, but they were getting leggy and falling over and I was tired of them. It feels good to have the bed empty!!

Now I am left with the question of what to do with green tomatoes. I have never picked them green before and I don't know if they will ripen if I give them a week or so, or if I should go ahead and do something with them now...

Friday, September 4, 2009

week 1

Well I made it through the first week back to work with surprisingly few tears- really almost none. It helps that I love my job and the people I work with (and that there were no students yet). And it helped that Jonathan was just at home with Jim this week. I think I was thinking of it more like stepping out to run some errands than being gone all day at work. I stayed true to my goal of leaving work (or packing up) by 3:00- even today when it meant leaving without lesson plans for one of my classes on Tuesday. And despite the fact that I could (and know some teachers who are), I am not going in tomorrow or on Sunday to finish up. I will not let my job take over my life this year. (someone else has already done that!)

I think it will be harder next week. I will have the normal stress of all new students- learning names, new schedules, discipline, no free time, etc. Plus Jonathan will be at day-care and not just at home.

But so far so good.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

day 2

Second day back to work today.
Yesterday was fine. It felt great to get out of the house and do something besides be a mommy. Pumping went fine. I got home from work and Jonathan was happy and smiley and we had a good evening. All in all a good day.

Today work was fine (getting up at 5:30 was a bit harder though). But about an hour after getting home I looked at the clock and couldn't believe how close it was to bedtime! And putting Jonathan to bed just now I really didn't want to lay him down in the crib. I really wanted to keep holding him for hours and hours staring at his wonderful little face!
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...