End of summer

Tomorrow Baby Peanut will be 17 months old, or one month shy of a year and a half.  How quickly time flies! He's currently sleeping next to me after a very cranky evening/day.  Poor dude,  I guess he's tired.  He can probably pick up that Mom and Dad are all wired up after  the burglary.

I realized I haven't written much about his sleep in a while.  It's weird,  I feel like not much has changed but when I read my last sleep entry it just takes me back to a much worse place.  So I guess he has been improving!  I don't think I mentioned before,  but he finally managed to overcome his lactose intolerance and silent reflux a few weeks after he turned 13 months old.  He can now eat cheese!  And yogurt!  And eat cereal with milk,  and pizza,  and cream,  and cake and chocolate and just anything  he sees!  Which means that so do I!!! That was a big,  nice change.  He loves  ice cream and chocolate and cookies and yogurt.  I still try to keep him from eating crap food,  but I don't like forbidding foods,  I feel like it just makes them more attractive.  He is observing excellent portion control even with things like cookies and cake,  so I want to encourage a healthy relationship with food.

Sleep is still fractured.  He cut a canine last week and another two are on the way,  so it was hard for a couple of weeks.  But before that,  I had been somewhat successful cutting down the milk takes at night from 4 or 5 to 2 or 3. I am back to just letting him be for the time being,  cutting teeth is no fun for him and he wasn't eating much at all,  so obviously he was making up with night calories.

I'm feeling pretty zen about his sleep.  I am sleeping two or three hours between takes,  so that's a great improvement over an hour and a half or less from a few months ago.  I can function much better! He is not really sleeping on his bed,  unless I spend the night with him on it.  It's a comfy matress so I do it a couple of times a week,  but whenever I climb into my bed he wakes up in less than an hour and asks for mommy.  So I either climb back down with him or pull him into  our bed again.  Other nights he starts in our bed and just sleeps there, screw it.  It's not worth the trouble.

Another great development is that sometimes Cookie can put him down to sleep.  Or,  I guess it's more accurate to say,  Cookie can sit down with him while he falls asleep when I am already passed out.  Which also means he doesn't always falls asleep at the breast! That too is kind of new - he always kind of could fall asleep without the breast but he still prefers it.  I don't even mind,  to be honest,  I don't know what the big deal is.

Do I wish he had weaned by now?  Maybe,  yeah.  It would be nice to wear all of my clothes,  regardless of the ease of access to my boobs.  I would be nice to sleep all night or to have personal time after he goes to sleep.  But I also love cradling him like a baby,  and I love his smiles and the twinkle of his eyes when he's nursing and I'm tickling him and singing silly songs.  I love his heavy,  sweaty little body.  I am in awe of how fast he's growing,  how big he is,  how smart and human he is.  It's such a short stage,  even if it doesn't quite feel like it because it's HARD,  like,  capital HARD  and strenuous and exhausting and stressful and you know,  an entire human being  is being formed in your care and you can barely take care of yourself on the daily basis,  what the he'll are you doing and who thought putting you in charge was a good idea.  But it's so short.

Almost a year and a half is gone.  When he was a little tiny baby all I could think was is he eating enough?  Am I producing enough milk?  Did he pee and poop enough today?  Is he breathing?  It was so exhausting.  I was worried about his survival all the time.  Nowadays he sits on his chair and I serve rice and meat and veggies,  pour water in a mug and he eats with his hands and his fork and his spoon and when he gets bored he throws food to the dogs and I worry about him not breaking the cup or doing a mess.  It's certainly a less dramatic kind of stress.  I do my best to let him be.  He's turning out to be a joy of a little person.  This journey of discovering who he is and helping him become a man?  I never thought I was capable of so much love,  never knew I was this strong.

Cookie and I are doing much better too.  There's been some bad days but nothing like it was back in May.  We do what we can, we take care of each other,  we make it through another day.  I'm grateful we can do this together. Parenthood has been a lesson about Love in every aspect. How it can be overwhelming,  inexplicable,  but also a conscious,  faithful decision.  We made a promise to each other and we're working together because it's worth keeping.

Back from our vacation, time for some perspective

I haven't posted in a while so I'll try to do a quick recap:

We had Baby Peanut's baptism on April 23rd. After all the in law drama due our choice of godparents,  it all well pretty well. No one said anything,  just a few not super happy faces.  Baby Peanut cried for the whole ceremony.  He was the only baby cc crying,  nonstop,  for 45 minutes.  THAT SURE WENT WELL.

After the ceremony we had a family party at my parents' place, half baptism celebration,  half birthday party.  We had tacos and a Totoro cake made by one of my sisters in law.  All went well and was very tasty!

The next weekend we took a family photo session and had a smash the cake session for Eli.  He was scared of his cake and cried every time he touched it. I guess the texture creeped him out?

We had a week and a half trip in early May.  We stayed with my college friends and I had a wonderful time with them,  even if work did not relent even while I was away,  and despite how exhausting it was to take care of baby Peanut outside our routine and environment.  We also got to see Cookie's cousins and family and spend some days with them,  so it was nice.  And I got to see my brother too.  Flying with a one year old was...  Stressful.  And packed.  Not the easiest of endeavors.  But we managed and came back in one piece,  even if we had to forgo the trip to the beach -  I realized once we were planning it that Eli wouldn't do the four and a half hour drive well.  During our trip,  baby Peanut cut his first molar.  Poor guy didn't want to eat any solids for a week.

I turned 31 the day we returned from our vacation.  It was uneventful.  Cookie forgot,  though after some drama he got me flowers the next day.  They were pretty :)

I also had my period that day,  the first one since I got pregnant.  Which was annoying as hell. I also felt crappy and kind of disappointed because I thought I was pregnant.  Meh.  But at least I guess it's back on the realm of possibilities!

Turning 31 kind of freaked me up.  I can't believe I'm over thirty.  I feel like the last time I noticed I was still 27.

Work is pretty packed though I managed to finally get some stuff off my plate and I'm dealing with things as they come for now.  I landed a big job, finishing the construction of the house of one of my first clients.  The original architect left them mid construction and there's a lot to fix and finish,  so it's a bit of a daunting project.  But things are moving forward this week.

I finished two classes of the MBA in April and I started another two this last week.  I hope I can get better organized this trimester so I don't end up working every Sunday against the clock.  I did pretty well in the last trimester,  so at least all those Sundays paid up.

I am feeling better after our trip.  I was..  Angry and disappointed while we were on it,  because I couldn't leave work behind,  because I couldn't go to the beach,  because taking care of the baby is exhausting and we are nowhere near sleeping the whole night (he is still waking up every two hours or so,  still not over his casein intolerance,  still not night weaned,  etc). But I think even if I wasn't in the best of moods,  I managed to recharge.  I'm grateful l we got to go.

As I was finishing drafting the as-built plans for the big project today,  I realized I've been working for almost 12 years now.  Of those,  7 years I've been a free agent.  I need to realize that no matter what the short term looks like,  I have pretty much made it on my own,  and I gotta be proud of all that work and grateful for all the opportunities I have had.  It hasn't always been easy but I'm still standing,  and that's something to b  proud of.

Last day of school

First, good news: my friend from school who had an aneurysm is improving. She's awake and talking and even sent a few texts to the school group. Which I think is amazing! I am so, so happy! At school we have gotten some activities done on her behalf, to help pay for the bills, and my 7th semester students rallied together after I asked them to help me organize an activity, and they really, really touched my heart. They are a group a wonderfully caring kids, I m really glad I got to see them work together like this before the school year ends.

On that note, this is the last day of classes! I am soooo grateful this is almost over. Next week we have exams, and at the other school I have two weeks left. But this is it. I made it. Anxiety, stress, sleeplessness, depression, I made it through one trying semester. Not as the best teacher I can be, not with the results I would usually wish for, not proud of all my decisions, but I Made It. I am taking a bow and retiring from teaching for a while, and it's bitter sweet, because I love so much about it. The look of interest, that bright eyed look when something clicks, their pride in their work when it's well done, the rush of adrenaline when I'm loving what I'm doing and I feel like I'm making a difference. But the other parts, the ones I don't care for, those have become too difficult right now to deal with.

I have an impossible time trying to not take it personally when they don't pay attention. When the work they deliver it's shit. When they ignore me, lie to me, whine and complain every step of the way. Dealing with The Powers That Be, trying to justify my poor results when I'm trying my best and the students just don't care. Having one group working great and one doing crap, unsure of what I'm doing wrong. Wasting time and energy, when they are just too tired/overwhelmed to listed to me, work with me, engage with me. Perhaps I was putting too much emphasis on Me, and not enough on what they can do by themselves. I felt like I tried everything I knew, and failed them. At this point of my life, when my own balance is so, so brittle, I can't afford to fail others because I don't have energy to spare trying to snatch victory from defeat.

The game is over, for now. I feel very relieved.

Elias is teething, again. Sort of? Last time the third tooth never came in, so it looks like we're dealing with it again. It's been a couple of rough days, where all he wants is to nurse and be held and cry. Poor baby Peanut. I really want to be there for him more. He's now mobile, not crawling but rolling from back to tummy to back to tummy as means of transportation. He is a delight, always laughing, giving hugs, shakily waving hello.

He wakes up in our bed, with sleepy eyes and damp hair. He turns to me and smiles. He lifts one chubby hand, and slowly waves hello.

Hello, baby. School is over. We can stay in bed a little while.