The same but somehow better

We had a couple of decent nights this Sunday and Monday and then another awful one last night. Baby Peanut slept from 8:40 to 1:40 like a champ, but I was up until almost midnight watching a movie with the hubby. Staying up late, bad idea! After 1:40 he was up every hour or so. Nghhhh.

Yet I don't feel quite so bad this morning. I guess our only-three-feeding-sessions nights got me some air back.

I'm fighting a cold, though, which was to be expected. My immune system is doing what it can, but I can't ask for miracles! Sleep deprivation and depression are not conductive to great health.

We finally discovered why the baby will take water but not expressed milk from a bottle or his sippy cup. It got to the point where he would cry as soon as he saw the bottle, so we gave up on bottles entirely. I still had some bags of frozen milk in the fridge, since I thought they would be needed when I returned to school, and yesterday I was meeting a new client and it got late ans I couldn't come to feed baby Peanut before class, so I told mom to take a bag from the freezer.

When I came back, baby Peanut had not taken anything but a sip from the milk on the sippy cup, though he had taken some water. We were going to throw the thawed milk out and then it occurred to me to taste it. Yukk!!!! So gross! Mom tasted it too and she was disgusted, it tasted a bit like fridge and plastic but a lot like soap. Grosssssss! No wonder the baby will not take any frozen milk! I've been reading about it and it's apparently an excess of lipase, an enzyme that breast milk has to break down fats so they are easier to digest. It seems to be uncommon to have an excess, but then the forums are full of women asking whyyy foes my frozen stash taste like asssss???

So that's one mystery solved! Deactivating lipase implies scalding the freshly pumped milk before freezing it and zzzzZzzzZzz forget it. Baby Peanut waits for me to eat, whatever. It's good to know that's the issue, though, so next time we leave the baby with our parents for sitting I'll know to leave a fresh bottle of milk instead of pumping the day before. It only takes a few hours in the fridge or at room temperature for lipase to change the taste, so I guess the few bags I have left in the freezer are going to the trash.

Baby Peanut totally pooped on his dad yesterday. First time for everything! We went out to a cafe to get panini and he decided that was a good moment to finally poop after 4 days of no luck. I cracked up, Cookie was mortified/grossed/freaking out, it leaked through the diaper, the onesie and through Cookie's pants. We had to change the baby on one of the tables. We used our travel changer but still. Sorry, cafe owners! We are gross people! The baby was so much happier after that, though! And everybody knows this happy baby makes this momma happy :)

Rope's end

On Friday morning the dogs would not stay inside while I tried to go out to open the fence so we could take out our cars and Cookie could leave for work. The neighbors' dog was outside and our dogs wanted ouuuttt they wanted to bark and run and ouuuuttt and I had had a terrible night and the baby was crying inside and so I headed for the garden hose to scare the dogs into the house with some water. He stopped me, told me he knew I was angry but there was no reason to be mean to them. The dogs ran inside anyway the moment they saw me head for the hose, anyway. I said goodbye to him, with tears in my eyes, and I said it. "You don't understand."

----

I went out to work on Saturday and he stayed home wih the baby. My friend P picked me up, and when we arrived to K's house we found out her old lab Sophie was agonizing. We sat with them for a while, chatted with K's mom, petted the poor old thing -we've been working there for 6 months, I loved that dog- and P suggested we return later to do what were going to do, to give them some privacy.

We went to the other site, dealt with things there and headed back to my place. We ended up talking about our kids and our husbands for about an hour, just parked outside. When I went in, Cookie was pissed. "You could have come inside," he said. "This is not easy. I could have used a break."

He had the baby from 10 to 12:45. I just stared at him in disbelief. I'm sorry, I said. I don't know what else to tell you. He said it felt like I just didn't want to come in.

Can you blame me? I asked him. I said I wished I could have a break from the baby that wasn't me going to class or to work. "You were outside for an hour. You could have come in for tea or something. Given me a 15 minute break."

I didn't know what to say. I wondered if he could listed to himself.

He took a shower. I fed the baby.

I got angry. Angrier. I realized I never showered that morning, so I did. Took my time. So angry. Then it all turned to ashes. Sad. So tired. So ready to flee, to be done with everything.

The day got grayer and grayer, my mind slowing down to a halt.

K messaged me. Sophie had finally died. Where had I buried Max last February?

I took a nap while the baby ate. Woke up. He was playing on the computer, never said anything about lunch or supper. Eventually I gave up and cooked. I knew he was worried about me, perhaps maybe even a bit sorry for being angry at noon, but I didn't care. I couldn't muster energy to do anything. I wanted to sleep more than anything but I couldn't fall asleep for another nap.

I downloaded Ferber's book, How to solve your child's sleep problems, read the first four chapters. I don't like CIO methods, even controlled crying and gradual extintion sounds like too much for me, but I was ready to try anything. I needed sleep, and Cookie had previously been on my case about sleep training.

Baby Peanut cried for 45 minutes before falling asleep on his own, gradual extintion not feeling gentle at all. I wanted to die. I told Cookie as much. "Is there any rule in the book about quitting after an hour and just holding your baby and telling him you love him?" he asked. No. No such rule. The crying was killing us. He slept for only 40 minutes, and then we were back to wanting to eat to fall asleep.

My back hurts so much from picking him up and putting him down every hour or two. I gave up in the middle of the night, screw Ferber, I can't do it like this. Not while I'm this sleep deprived and tired.

We had an awful night, worst than the one before, I think.

But somehow I feel better, the weight of his words is finally slipping off me. He was right. In his own way, maybe he does understand. A 15 minute break would be nice.

Old beloved faces

We had an awful night last night. Baby Peanut woke up every two hours all night long, with a couple of stretches of 20 minutes between awakenings. I felt like I was losing it. Picking him up from the pack and play or from the bed can be kind of awkward -holy 17 pounds, baby!- and my back felt like it was going to give up.

After three students messaged me saying they were not making it to class today and a whole group telling me they were out on a visit and were going to come in late, I decided to skip school today. Screw it. I needed a break. So I went to order the day's construction materials after breakfast and then headed to my mom's. We went shopping for a baby chair, and I got an awesomeeee oneeee, and it was on sale, and we looked at clothes and mom bought a sweater and everything was really nice!

Then K sent me a message about how she thought the installation of the lighting fixtures was included on the budget, and it sent me into a tizzy of anxiety and thebudgetsayslightingfixturesarenotincluededaughnooaughaugh and that kind of destroyed my ability to decide if I should buy a baby bathtub or not. The one we have is my brother's, and his baby will be born in December and Peanut will be 8 months then so maybe I won't need a tub but then I don't want to shower twice every day also I always said bath time should be daddy time so *fizzles crackles explodes*

So I didn't buy the tub though I think I will be back to get it. We really won't have a changing station otherwise, and I don't want to rely on my brother not needing it to keep our routine.

Anyway! Wow, those were a lot of words about nothing. When I was going through my anxiety attack at the store, I also got a call from my best friend. He moved away a few years ago, then hooked up with one of the few real friends I've made after school and she moved away as well. They are in town! For a wedding! Surprise, did I want to have lunch? *fizzles crackles explodes with happines* I can't even begin to explain how good it is to see them, how much I miss my friends. I've been super lucky and I have seen all but one of them this year. It always hits me hard, realizing how lonely I feel when I say goodbye. These people, I chose them, and they chose me, and we work to keep our friendships going. It's not about the convenience of seeing each other at work, not the forced friendships of routine. These are my *friends*. I miss the hell out of them, and I'm incredibly lucky to have had a day with them, amidst so many difficult days.

Adventures in Gross Gardening

Thursdays are the only day I don't have classes at either school, so even though I still have to go to the construction sites and run errands and the like, they feel like my day off. They are actually even better than the weekends, somehow.

Today I was gearing up to Go Clean!! At K's house, and while I was loading the car I saw my tomato bush. It looked decidedly smaller. What...?

Upon closer inspection, a lot of the branches looked broken, but I couldn't find the missing twigs on the ground.

Meet the Grossness:

Whyyyyy! These things were like 3-4 inches long, so, so gross! Further inspection (and the fact that these were on my tomato plant) got me the culprits' name. Tabacco hornwood caterpillars, from the Catalina Sphinx moth. Nnnghhh. These things ate half the plant overnight, they seriously creeped me out with their tiny yellow eyes camouflage. I picked about 10, but the tomato plant is so unruly (and, I admit, ugly and chaotic, turns out a newborn made gardening a bit more difficult!) that I don't know how many are left.

But! Aren't these cute? Tomatoes! Next spring baby Peanut and I will be ALL ABOUT THE GARDEN.

The 4th month sleep regression

Poor baby Peanut has been sleeping pretty badly for the past... ...7 weeks? Almost two months now. Given that there is not much that I can do about it, I read about it. The hows and whys and how longs, and it helps me, it keeps me on the rational level instead of the gurgleeeimdyingggahhhhhggggg sleep deprived madness. First it was a growth spurt, then he had his fourth month vaccines and a low fever and general unhappiness for a few days, then we had a couple of better nights, then another growth spurt, and now.. The 4th month sleep regression. It's been two weeks of bad nights, every night, but it seems it's a development leap. In a matter of a week he learned to drink from a sippy cup (since he haaaates anything that is not Teh Boob),

he reaches up and makes grabby motions when he wants something, he can hand off objects from one hand to the other, swat at things, bring things to his mouth, all of these things he wasn't doing well or consistently or at all two weeks ago.

Also he's trying to roll. He can manage when he's not wearing diapers (making our changing station a danger zone), but not the rest of the time yet, so he tries and tries and tries, all the time. And then he goes to sleep (eventually!) and his brain can't shut down and he keeps trying in his sleep, the poor thing, and wakes himself up, and he cries, so frustrated. All he wants is some sleep! Stop that, brain! 

I found it both awesome and heartbreaking that he is working so hard all the time. Baby brains are unbelievable. But I wish he could rest better, too, not just for my sake. Poor baby, so angry at his own gross motor milestone.

One day closer to still not being done

The pergola at K's house got delayed again, but I'm crossing my fingers and hoping tomorrow will be the day. Today they were running late and I had to leave the keys to my partner, who couldn't meet them when they were finally ready and they didn't want to wait for her for an hour, so they rescheduled the installation for tomorrow.

The electrician fiiiinally made it to L's backyard, the other unfinished renovation, but after taking a look at the light s
witch a drizzle started to fall, so he rescheduled for tomorrow as well.

No one showed up at H&C's entryway construction today. It happens some mondays.

I did manage to prepare class and make it to my classes, so at least that's something! 9 more weeks! I am dreading informing both schools that I won't be returning next semester. I know the Design school will be short of teachers next January, so I think they expected me to take on more classes, not to step down, but I don't think my mind is in the right place right now for teaching.

I don't feel patient or inspiring, I don't feel particularly passionate about my classes or my job. I don't have much time to prepare classes or grade. And the running around trying to make it to the campuses at a set time regardless of the baby or whatever disaster of the week crops at the construction is driving me crazy.  I will miss some things, some of my students and the joy of talking about the subjects I really like. I love learning new things and passing them on. I love helping students when they are feeling low or conflicted. I will miss the academic feel, the contrast of the mental and emotional challenge of teaching with the physicial and practical challenge of construction. And I will miss the steady pay, the call of the siren for the freelancer in this unsteady economy.

I was very sad last December when I figured out I would not be hired in January because of my upcoming due date. I mourned the loss of that aspect of me, unsure if they would rehire me this Summer. It never crossed my mind that coming back was a mistake. The set is over and I'm half heartedly singing an encore. I hope I'll have a chance to teach again in the future, but for now I'm ready for the semester to be over.

Sunday morning

I get the impression that despite the multiple wakings and the bad early morning juju, baby Peanut really likes our late Sunday mornings. We're usually up and about at 7:30 am during the week, and though he gets his first nap around 9, Sundays he can just sort of do this dance between my bedside/his pack and play  where he gets to nap while I hope for another half an hour of extra sleep.

I had a pretty anxiety filled night, with to-do lists composing in my head about all the things left to do at K's house, along with mild panic about the rain washing away the construction material at H&C's new entryway that we are purposely renovating to help with the flooding that happens whenever there's flash storms. So... Uhm. Hopefully that didn't happen. I kept trying a mental exercise where I put all my worries in a plate, and then cast them away. Which led to an odd dream where I couldn't pictures my worries as anything other than water and the plate became a kiddy pool and I tried to throw the water into a garden but it spilled on the way and only a trickle reached the grass. 

I feel like there's got to be a way to put these things in perspective and get a grip. Every time I manage some eye-of-the-storm peace I become super productive and get a lot of stuff done and find assertiveness to deal with people, but it only lasts a day or so and then it's back to my tremulous grip on my rampant worries and fears. Lately I picture scenarios of someone breaking into the house (a fear that's plagued me since we married) but with a twist of someone taking the baby hostage or trying to steal him and what would I do, what would I do?

It's a good thing I have these guys and our Sunday mornings to shup up the crazy voices in my head. 

The guilt of the (not instant) bond

I had a few very neurotic weeks before baby Peanut was born. I should probably post his birth story at some point, but in short, we had what looked like a big baby with a huge head ("but it doesn't look like hydrocephalus!" said my doctor, cheerfully, scaring the crap out of me), not a lot of fluid left and a baby that would not engage my pelvis. So at 39w1d I was induced (though labor had started the night before on its own, really slowly) and my water broke at 1:20 pm, stained with meconium. A c-section followed and at 2:22 baby Peanut was born.

I remember many things about the operating table. Cookie was not feeling very well looking at the gory show. I was staaaarving. The cap kept falling over my eyes and Cookie and a nurse kept pulling it back. Being tied like Christ at the cross (that was super unnerving!). Chatting with the doctors. Then the pressure on my chest, the pulling and the weird feeling of a crowbar trying to dislodge the baby. Then the cries, the chaos of Cookie taking (notttt alloweeeddd) pics, missing the APGAR score, then the ped quickly showing the baby to me and shoving him close to my face. I was pretty confused as to what he wanted me to do then, so I kissed the baby's face hoping that's what he expected.

And that's the thing. I did it because I thought that's what *he* expected, not out of a huge rush of emotions and love and relief or any of the things I expected to feel. In fact, I felt... Hungry. That was it. They took the baby away, Cookie left with the ped, and the doctors kept chatting while they closed me up, and I felt impatient. It took them about an hour to finish, then another hour in recovery listening to my anesthesiologist chat with the nurses and eat lunch and take a nap, while I lay there willing the epi to wearoffwearoffWEAROFFFF I'm starvingggg. I wanted to see the baby, of course, but mostly I wanted to see Cookie and talk with him and not be in recovery. 

We stayed at the hospital for two nights, and I think the endless influx of visitors certainly didn't help me to bond with the baby. I kept waiting for that feeling I had read about to wash over me, that sudden engulfing wave of love to take me over and I felt... Determined. To give this baby my best. To recover quickly. To keep my sanity. 

The first 8 weeks after the birth or so, I knew there was something wrong with how I felt. I read that not all moms bond with their baby instantly, and I held on to that, giving myself time. But I felt a profound disconnections between my pregnancy and my baby. I don't know if it was the c-section, or if it was my brain's way of protecting me from my fear at the time: I had wanted a natural birth and I cried as they wheeled me to the operating room, not from the loss of the natural experience -or at least not just because of that- but out of fear of the procedure itself. I was afraid of dying on the table or that something had already happened to the baby. So maybe my brain decided that nope, this was unrelated! To anything! And the birth was just not-related-to-the-baby. I'm not sure this makes sense. But Cookie kept telling me, with his eyes full of love and tenderness, that the baby loved me, couldn't I see how he looked at me, how he calmed as soon as I held him? And I was almost robotic. "The baby knows he needs me to survive, babe. That's all. I wouldn't call that love." Or, "I don't think he's conscious enough to *feel* things, you know." 

I cringe just thinking about it. I wish I had fallen head over heels for him, instead of that robotic-duty thing I had going on. I took care of the baby, I was patient as I had never been in my life, but it was so so hard. I was tired, but I also felt disconnected. Someone had cheated me of the motherly love I was promised. I hadn't had the most, ahem, excited attitude towards the miracleee of lifeeee during pregnancy, what with all the pregnancy weird stuff, so I guess I had somewhat brought this on myself. But it was sad. 

I think it took about 3 months for me to finally feel like hey, I have bonded with the baby! I love him! And I think he loves me back! Not a sudden rush, not the breaking of a wave over me. More like the slow, steady rise of the tide. At some point, almost without noticing, I was submerged. I wish I could have felt this way from the start, since the moment the doctor put his face near mine to kiss and cherish right after he was born. But he just woke up while I was writing this post, squawking and fussing because ughh being awake is the worstttt, and I picked him up and he's sleeping on my chest. And I'm smiling. 

I love you baby Peanut. I'm sorry I was too scared to figure it out from the start. 

The endless drag of the last details

For the last two months I've been "almost" done with the construction in K's house. Just the laaaast details. Just a bit of paint. Juuuust finishing with the garden. Just cleaning. Just some more cleaning. Clearing left over materials from the garage. Trying to find our pergola guy. Trying to find a new one that charges around the same as the now-dissappeared pergola guy. Failing. Then the victorious return of the pergola guy. Gahhh.

It seems like maybe, hopefully, with the blessing of the gods, we'll be done by the end of next week. We just need to install the fountain's fixtures and pergola. Retouch the paint. Clean the stained tile that is refusing to shed it's layer of cement and debris. And retouch the paint inside. Almost done. Almost almost done.

Perhaps what has me so on edge -besides, you know, sleep deprivation and baby blues/post partum depression- is that clients tend to get very critical by the end of renovations. Everyyyy little detail gets them frowning and worrying and complaining, every bit of dust is such a disaaaasterrr in the renovation but pee in every room of the existing house is fine.

Maybe it can seem like lazy work, to expect some understanding of how there's always going to be *something*, that perfect is really not humanly possible. They forget the run down, unusable, cracked, old patio/house/room/bathroom, so now all they can see is the chipped corner or the dusty tile or the slight color difference between the new paint and the old paint. And it drives me crazy, because the renovation looks gorgeous! And everyone else can see it, but the clients aren't quite happy, and it makes me sad, and anxious, and a tad neurotic.

At some point of the relationship of client-architect, there comes a shift: It can no longer be measured as a comercial transaction. Everyone is tangled in the psychological aspect of renovating a *home*, the physical representation of hopes and dreams of a family. I become fretful, neurotic, eager to please, eager to escape. I can't seem to detach myself from that aspect of construction, and what's worse, I know that's what makes me good at my job, because clients often need a lot of handholding. I wish they could see their renovation with fresh eyes and enjoy the new space, allow themselves the excitement after the long exhausting process.

But most of all, I just really, really wish we could be done already.

4m20d

Today Baby Peanut is 4 months and 20 days old. It's been quite a ride. I never thought being a mom would be so... different. It sounds stupid; in retrospective, I have no idea what I was thinking while I was pregnant, all these worries about how would I return to my "normal" life, to work, to being myself. I get that no one can really know what it feels like to have your life change completely until it does, that's pretty much what change is, but still. Normal life! What did that even mean? Prepregnancy? Newlywed? Premarriage? PreCookie? PreFreelancing?

Baby Peanut is an awesome baby, he really is. Easy. I sleep little and fitfully, and he has been waking up crying, inconsolable, every day, starting at 5 am, every 20-30 minutes all the way to 8 am, past the time we're up and getting ready to work. That's the physically tough part. I don't know if it's the reflux, or night terrors, or melatonine/seratonine circadian rhythms bad juju or what (painful baby erections??? MAYBE?) So there isn't much I can do. Pick him up, soothe him, shush him, rock him, feed him. Put him next to me in bed and pat him while he cries and I groggily pretend that's helping because SLEEP DEPRIVATION ughh. 

I forgot what my point was. 

Anyway! He is an easy baby. Those three hours a day are usually the only bad ones. When he doesn't wake up crying, he opens his eyes and looks at me and smiles as he rubs his eyes and stretches and sighs. He's brilliant. It took me a while to bond with him, and the guilt over my semi robotic reactions was not helpful, but I'm there. I get it now. I love him so much.