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July 30, 2008

Poop Watch 2008

For those of you who hated me talking about vomit while I was pregnant, you might want to skip this post. It's about poop.

My baby, exclusively breast fed (which I say with great pride, although I feel guilty when I say it. I know plenty of women who tried desperately to breast feed and did everything right and it just didn't work out. There before the grace of the mammary gods go I.), used to poop at least once, sometimes twice at every feeding. Once her digestive system began to mature she moved to a once a day kind of poopy girl. Then, every other day. Every other day caused me some stress because I never knew when that poop was coming and it wasn't really a poop it was more like a LAKE of poop. I didn't want to dress her in one of her super cute outfits if I knew the poop was coming. You know what I mean? Although I've been VERY successful in getting poop out of clothes. (My secret: rinse out RIGHT away and then spray with Zout. Wash whenever.)

So now it's been like THREE days. NO POOP. Plenty of pee and absolutely disgusting farts (what am I eating?!?! I don't fart like that!) and I'm on edge every time I hear some rumblings down there. Just poop already baby girl! Mommy can't take the stress! (I know that it's perfectly normal for breast fed babies to go awhile without poop. She's peeing fine and is in her usual great mood, so I'm not worried about her health. Just that I'm going to drown in all the poop when it finally comes.)

I know the poop's coming though because today I have to take her into the dr for some shots and you just know that she'll poop all over the doctor's office. For sure.

I bought a new pump too and I've been trying to pump because Meli's daddy and I have a VERY special date Thursday night.

There's so much to talk about - I started yet another new project, but this one's going to stick. There was too much prep involved for it not to work. And I worked my first job since Meli's been born and everything was good, sort of, but it's done and I'm glad to have that under my belt. And we were gone for eight nights and I've never been so happy to sleep in my own bed. No matter how many people are sleeping in it.

Missed you all. Be back soon. Pray for poop.

Posted by Cara at 10:09 AM | Comments (73)

July 18, 2008

Crazed and Confused

Hey all! I didn't mean to go a week without posting, but that's life. This week has been a doozy. Monday I blew out a tire just as I was entering the Lincoln Tunnel (on the NJ side.) I guess you could say I was lucky because I was one of five cars to lose at least one tire (thank god I didn't lose TWO like the people in front of me who had to wait for a tow truck) and GREG, Port Authority Worker Extraordinaire was on a roll changing tires. He changed mine lickety split, wouldn't take a tip, and MAN was he easy on the eyes!!! (Looked a bit like G actually - just my type!) So skilled was Greg that the baby didn't even wake up.

Tuesday I did a last minute photo shoot for a 2 week old baby girl. I can't even remember Meli that new anymore. Isn't that so sad? Then I went and had my hair cut and colored. It was desperately needed as I hadn't had it colored since about two weeks before Meli was born. Whew! G was on and he did GREAT! Sent me a picture of the baby sleeping away while I was halfway through my appointment.

First thing Wednesday we had Meli's four month check up. For those keeping score, she was 13.8 lbs and 24.75 inches. I thought it was pretty funny that she was 10.8 at 2 months, 12 at 3 months and 13.8 at 4 months. Guess she's a 1.5 lb a month kind of girl! The doctor said she's perfect. Like we didn't know that. ;-) Then we went and sat at the car place. Needed a new tire after Monday.

Thursday we had lunch with some out of town friends in the city and I also made up the appointment I missed on Monday because of the tire.

MAN am I tired! I've been doing badly with the sleep thing too. Meli is generally out for the night by around 10PM and then she sleeps for about six hours. If I was smart, I'd be going to sleep then too, but lately I've been reading a book I read about on Terry's blog: The Devil in the White City. I'm really liking the book which is weird for me because I never read non-fiction. I'm really a fiction kind of girl, but this book has really pulled me in. It's about the World's Fair in Chicago and what went into building it, the city at the time, and the parallel lives of the architects of the Fair and a serial killer on the loose in Chi-town. Anyway, it's keeping me up at night. I nurse Meli to sleep and then I read. It's great fun but I'm exhausted.

And in between all of these things I knit what felt like eighty million swatches for (yet another!) new project. FINALLY I've settled on a yarn and now I just have to wait for the colorway I want to arrive. I'm SO super excited about this project - it has everything I've grown to love about knitting in it, and I just want to start NOW. I'm proud that I've been diligent, though, in making sure everything is just right. I hope to talk about it soon.

It probably won't be another week until I post again. We're going on a bit of a vacation tomorrow until mid-week and then I'm at my sister's through the weekend. God I wish I had that yarn! Have a wonderful weekend!

Posted by Cara at 04:45 PM | Comments (19)

July 10, 2008

The Greatest Sound EVER!

Tonight I heard the greatest sound I may have possibly ever heard. Take the most fantastic '78 Darkness Tour Bruce and mix it together with Georgie's voice on the telephone telling me he loves me and you have the sound of my daughter laughing.

The Greatest Sound In the Whole Wide World from January One on Vimeo.

We were at Fatburger in Jersey City, NJ. G was using the rest room and I was mimicking this new sound Meli's been making. It's kind of a roar type thing - like she's trying to be a fierce dinosaur or a lion or something. She does this funny thing with her tongue when she's doing it. So I was doing it back to her and all of a sudden she started to laugh! I was totally startled at first. Did I really hear it? I've been waiting and waiting for a real and true laugh - ever since she started making sounds. I roared at her again and she just erupted in giggles. It was for real for real.

Georgie came back to our table and I was able to get Meli to laugh again and again. Then Lovely Day came on the jukebox and I literally burst into tears. I could barely contain myself. I didn't know it at the time, but Georgie ordered it up for us before he went to the bathroom. Lovely Day indeed.

Posted by Cara at 11:47 PM | Comments (49)

July 08, 2008

Up in arms!

Maybe Mommy's right about this tummy time gig!

Maybe it's not so bad after all!

Look at my girl go! She's been rolling over as well. From her belly to her back although the other day I thought she might go from her back to her front. Of course, tummy time still ends in tears, but it takes a lot longer to get there.

She's learning every day - it's just so wonderful to watch! I've been trying to do some tummy time every morning. I take off her diaper and let her go free for a spell - you know - air out and stuff. She's definitely slowed down the poops - way down - which makes me a bit nervous always waiting for the next big poop, but so far we've been okay. I'd just hate to put her in one of her super cute little outfits and have her blow out in it. She's sleeping great at night still, even if she's stopped napping the last couple of days. She falls asleep but wakes up so easy. Although today she's going long. She still gets up once or twice a night, but now that I've mastered nursing on my side, I just pop in the boob and we go right back to sleep. I don't turn the light on or sit up or watch the clock so it's almost like I never wake up. And yes. Meli is currently sleeping with us. In our bed. (This little revelation is NOT UP FOR DISCUSSION. We're doing what's right for us as I'm sure all of you wonderful parents out there are doing what's right for your family. I appreciate your opinions, but don't really want them on this particular topic. The opinions of the grandparents are enough, thank you very much! ;-) )

Her visit with her cousins was chock full of excitement! My sister and I were quite ambitious and managed to hit the beach one day, the State Fair one night, lots of pool time, fireworks and even breakfast out and a shopping trip. Craziness! Their time with us just flew by and we miss them lots. Although we'll be seeing them soon enough.

Thank you all so much for your great comments the last few posts. I'm so glad to hear from each and every one of you and I'm thrilled about the knitblog discussion. I've been visiting new to me blogs and am heartened by the community once again. Knitting should make an appearance here soon - I've been knitting - although my sister's visit put my current project on pause. It's a great pattern though and one I can't wait to show off! Super cute!

I'll end this post with another picture of Meli - this is what she has to say to me when I tell her listen to your mother! Tummy time RULES!

Posted by Cara at 03:28 PM | Comments (86)

July 06, 2008

One Year

One year ago today I asked you all for some good wishes. I didn't tell you why - I couldn't. I wasn't ready. I had to do this on my own. Well, not entirely on my own, but mostly on my own.

Last year, on this day, two embryos were thawed and transfered into my uterus.

To say it was difficult getting to that day - getting successfully THROUGH that day - is a tremendous understatement. It's only now, in hindsight, that I realize how depressed and sometimes desperate I was in my struggle to get pregnant. And most of it was mental and emotional. The physical issues preventing us from getting pregnant on our own were relatively easily fixed by IVF. I think I always knew that once we did the procedure, we'd get pregnant so maybe that's why I panicked so badly 3.5 years ago. We panicked. It's true, we panicked together. Neither one of us was ready at that moment, but I've always felt responsible.

Afterward, I kept myself busy. Told myself it was the right thing to do. I started this blog. Tried to escape how badly I felt.

I once had a dream about those frozen embryos. A letter came to me in the mail. With a picture of an embryo attached to it. "When are you going to come claim your children?" The letter seemed to scream at me. It gave an update on the "kids" like you'd get from one of those orphan children organizations. "Here is your frozen embryo. It's doing well, but it needs you." This particular embryo was named Ida. The doctor from the clinic had sent it.

Already I was a terrible mother.

For months (years?) I walked around ready to burst into tears, but at the time I'm not sure I would've completely connected it to the lack of a baby. Guilt is an awful lot to bear.

When I finally admitted to myself that I wanted a baby more than anything, it was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I set a course of action - which for me meant lots of psychiatric help - whether or not it was truly warranted - and I built myself a support system that wouldn't allow me to fail.

I say I I I, but it was always we. Georgie was and always has been and continues to be my greatest support. While it was always our decision, together, to have a child, it was still me who physically and mentally had to be the most ready.

That day last year was bright and sunny and I was scared to death but I was also very excited. There was no turning back. My own personal independence day. In my heart I know that July 6, 2007 was one of my greatest triumphs ever and I can't believe it's been a year. What a wonderful, awesome, gorgeous, lovely year.

July 6, 2008 from January One on Vimeo.

Posted by Cara at 02:06 PM | Comments (41)

July 04, 2008

Family

Happy 4th! Happy Friday!

Posted by Cara at 01:25 PM | Comments (11)

July 02, 2008

Follow Up

I should so be sleeping - firstly I'm a new mom and I should always be sleeping when my baby is sleeping. Secondly, we spent the day at the beach and we're all exhausted. But I feel like I need to get this post out and late at night might be my only time to do it.

To start, I want to thank everyone that left such thought provoking and generous comments. I promise I wasn't trying to be provocative, I was just elaborating on an off hand comment I wrote the other day. I've read all your comments and have taken them to heart. Here's what I'm thinking:

EVOLUTION: I think you're absolutely right - blogs evolve. They have never and probably will never be any kind of static platform. Just as we evolve as humans (we hope), how we communicate will most likely evolve. I used words like suffer and death and I think they are appropriate in all kinds of evolution. Things change - something gives, something dies. I'm beginning to think that my lamentations on knitblogs, per se, has a lot more to do with me and my life than the actual state of knitblogging. My life has changed so much over the past year - immeasurably so - that it's only natural that I'd want some things to stay the same. My blog changed, and it seems everyone else's changed too and I miss how things were. I guess I'm still grieving for the blogger I once was; I was always very proud to be carry the label knitblogger, then someone called me a mommy blog the other day and honestly I cringed. I'm not ready to change my moniker. I've got almost 300 feeds on my bloglines list and maybe 50 are something other than knitting blogs. I suffered from infertility, yet I have maybe one or two infertility blogs on my list - and that's because they were both knitters. I have a couple mommy-ish blogs - but really they're about products - not people. When I found knitting blogs I found my home. Now I sort of feel adrift at sea. Melodramatic, perhaps, but it's how I feel. And I fully believe you should feel what you feel.

RAVELRY, et al: I'm (one of) the biggest Ravelry hypocrites out there. I have no problem browsing for patterns or checking out what yarns people have used for a particular pattern for WAY too long, but I haven't updated my projects on there after the my first initial posts. So I'm using the database, but not contributing too it. Honestly, the minute I heard about Ravelry I took the position of Chicken Little. And when I heard there would be forums? Ugh. I've spent my share of Internet time on forums and honestly I've seen nothing good come of it. In fact, I've seen a lot of ugliness. But there's no denying that change is good and welcome and inevitable. I've benefited from Ravelry just like the next knitter or crocheter or spinner. I just can't be a contributer - it's not for me. Same goes with Flickr. I never had a Flickr account until I started my Ravelry account and that's not for me either. Photography is a HUGE part of my life, but it's also a job for me and something just doesn't feel right about my pictures on Flickr. I'm sure this is an ignorant bias on my part that someone will surely point out, but again. It's not for me. Same thing with a lot of these other internet tools. The fact is I'm a blogger. It suits me very well. I love to write and I love to take the pictures I need to take and I like having the control to do what I want with my words and photographs. The fact that I have an audience makes it all that much better, but I've realized these last few months that I'd be here regardless.

The bottom line is I've allowed myself tremendous growth in so many areas of my life, that now I'm going to feel free to let my blog grow. From now on I'm going to disavow any and all labels - I'm no longer a knit blogger or a mommy blogger or a photo blog or an infertility blog. This blog is me. All the parts of me. For better or worse.

Thank you all, again, as always, for coming along for the ride.

Posted by Cara at 01:09 AM | Comments (43)