Photos from the Weekend

We went up north with a few of our neighbors for the weekend. It was a great time with friends and we had a blast being on the water and hanging out - it finally felt like summer.

Z looked hilarious in her life jacket - looked like she was wearing a neck brace.

Zora slept great - whew! One time she was having trouble taking a nap, so David got out his guitar. I came around the corner and saw this:

Then she heard me and I saw this:

That's all for now. I'll leave you with a baby in a swimsuit - you can't go wrong with that!

It's Official

Well, it's not official, and I hate to speak too soon, but we are down to 4 feedings, people!

Z woke up again last night after being asleep only 45 minutes. I let her cry it out for about an hour (while we watched this fascinating PBS special on the Parthenon - did anyone else catch that?!). But after that, I decided to see what I could do.

I changed her diaper, swaddled her (yes, we are still using the swaddler almost every time she goes to sleep - she LOVES it. When I lie her down on the changing table to put it on her, she puts her arms down and nestles right in), then I just held and rocked her. As soon as I started singing to her, she got quiet. We cuddled and sang for a while, then she fell asleep. I don't mind if she needs the extra cuddling right now.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I think I just needed to be reassured that she didn't need that other feeding - which she clearly doesn't. Last night she had a snack at 4:30 and ate again at 6:30 - and the two solid-feedings combined, I think she ate her weight in rice, beans, and sweet potatoes (all bite-size so she can serve herself). So I knew when I put her to bed after her last feeding that she wasn't hungry.

It is a relief to be able to drop that one feeding - clearly, we were BOTH ready for it.

Thanks again for all the comments, thoughts, and suggestions. She still needs to work out her evening routine now, but she's getting there - we're getting there.

Weaning HELP!

This, friends, is what the blogging community is all about. I need some help, moms out there - whether or not you nursed.

The stats:
- Z is 8.5 months
- She is currently nursing 5 times/day (about every three hours)
- She eats a lot of solids throughout the day

So, given all this information, I figured it was time to "have a go" at dropping a feeding. I tried stretching out her feedings during the day to 4 hours (how can an extra hour feel so GLORIOUS!). This worked GREAT during the day - Z had no problem with it. And if I sensed she was a little more hungry between feedings, we went for a snack of solids. No problem. It worked great.

Then bedtime rolls around. The first two nights she was asleep for an hour, then wanted to eat. So I fed her. Then last night, she went down GREAT, slept for about 1.5 hours...and that's when the you-know-what hit the fan.

I made several mistakes last night - so the long night was basically my fault. First, I pumped. Second, I took a sudafed right before she woke up.

So we tried everything besides nursing first - changing diaper, rocking, singing, putting on more clothes (I thought she might be cold) - nothing worked. I knew she was hungry.

I had taken a sudafed about an hour before, and even though I felt semi-uncomfortable nursing her right then, I gave it a shot - I figured she wouldn't get much milk anyway because I had just pumped.

I was correct. I don't think she got anything.

So David gets up - mind you, we are both drugged up because we are SICK. He heats up the milk I just pumped, puts it in a sippy (I have accepted the fact that Z is a no-bottle baby) and takes over from there.

It must have worked because she finally fell asleep.

::

What do I do? She is great during the day going to every 4 hours, but I am dumbfounded about the night-time. Do I just let her work it out and feed her a night-cap for a few nights until she weans off that night-time feeding? (This is essentially what happened with the other feedings - she just started sleeping through them.)

Or, do I go back to every 3 hours of feeding during the day, knowing full well that some of those are not full feedings?

I am trying not to be too hard on myself about this because I realize this is the first feeding I am trying to wean that takes place during the day. She weaned herself off the other feedings because she just learned to sleep through them.

What did you do that worked? What is a normal way to wean? I haven't read anything about it yet, just kind of went with what I thought made sense...

Heeeeelp. Mama needs sleepy.

Zora's Boyfriend

I'm not sure how I feel about Z's taste in men.

[Side note: we got this in the mail this weekend, and Z spotted it on the table and immediately started laughing.]

Do-it-yourself Tendencies

Zora is my daughter through and through. She has developed this strong do-it-yourself tendency in almost everything she tries.

I saw this coming on at about 5 months. She was gearing up to crawling, and I would often help her get into correct crawling position. Well, this just ticked her right off. She would give a verbal "do not touch me" sign, go back to the way she was, only to try to figure out how to do it on her own.

Spunk.

Now that she's mastered the art of picking up her food, she wants to pick up ALL of her food. She hates having me feed her baby food, and would rather pick up whatever I can give her and do it herself. We've resorted to eating lots of Barbara's O's (the healthier alternative to Chee.rios) along with cooked peas and brown rice - things I just happened to have on hand. In between her shoving one lonely rice kernel into her mouth, I will sneak in a bite of baby food. But it's been a tricky balance.

She's also turned very dramatic in her high chair. She is VERY CLEAR about the way she feels about something - whether she's expressing it verbally or through her extremely expressive face. She's recently started lying her head down on her arm when she is just so fed up with us trying to feed her.

And, to top it off, she has taken to singing herself to sleep. She sings a lot throughout the day, but it is especially before bed that she prefers to sing herself to sleep. David and I still sing something to her, but she often sings along and tries to tune us out. She will finally settle down when we stop singing and she can take over herself.

Life in our house is certainly not boring, and in a lot of ways, I am watching a little mirror of myself (can I get an "amen," mom?). When I was in kindergarten, I remember distinctly telling my mom that I would like to do my own hair from now on. "Fine," she said. And I don't think she ever touched it again.

Like my mom did with me, I am trying to foster ways of allowing Z to do it herself - and figure things out on her own. It takes a lot of patience sitting at the table waiting for her to slowly get one kernel of rice into her mouth. I have a feeling this is only the beginning of patiently waiting...

Fine Motor Skills, Check

Z is mastering the art of picking things up and putting them in her mouth (wonderful when she's in the high chair, not so wonderful when she manages to find every piece of dirt and cat hair on the floor and proceeds to try to put it in her mouth - luckily, she's still not very quick at it).

Vacation Goodness

We had a blast "Up North" (as we say in Michigan). I love Northern Michigan, and am reminded what a beautiful state we live in (in the summer, *ehem*). It's amazing how just being out of my own space for a few nights can do wonders to refresh me.

David and I had a great time reconnecting and taking Zora to the beach and on walks. She did amazing, once we got up there. She doesn't like being confined to the carseat in the back by herself. So the car rides were a bit rough. But we made it, and she's fine.

Zora liked the beach okay. She didn't appreciate having the sand on her hands, but she loved watching the other kids play, and she splashed around a little in the water. Mostly, she just wanted to stand up next to her stroller, hanging onto it, so she could get a good, independent view of the beach and do her own thing (see top photo).

In other news, I am officially the worst packer ever. I feel like I spent all day on Wednesday packing, checking my list, etc. And I forgot EVERYTHING. Well, I take that back - I remembered almost everything for ZORA, but forgot most everything else for me, David, and our food situation. By the time we went to bed the first night, I vowed I would stop saying, "Oh, I was going to bring [fill-in-the-blank] but I forgot." I guess I need to make multiple lists - not just a single one for Z. I was taking for granted that I would just know and remember how to pack for adults - I was mistaken.

A Visit From...

No, not Sweeney Todd, though I know that was your first guess. It's strawberry season and we are getting MESSY over here. I love this picture because she looks totally drunk on her local, organic strawberries...

In other news, we dedicated Zora at a service this weekend at our church. I loved being part of our community in this way. Plus, I got to dress her up in the most adorable dress ever!

A Post Where I Get Real About Being a Mom

Questions have been floating to the surface recently in my journey of motherhood:

Should I accept an offer to teach a class in the fall?
Should I take a grad class in the fall?
If yes to either of those, what in the world do I do with Zora?
In my never-ending quest to get a break, I am considering supplementing formula on occasion: which kind? how much? how often? will she even take a bottle? should I use a sippy cup?

And while I"m trying to decide what to do about all this, I'm following my daughter around the house to see what she'll get into and decide where to set her boundaries, how to baby proof, and what is really disposable at baby-level.

After the hum of infancy where I existed in a haze of healing and getting settled with a newborn, I am now coming back into the world and feeling a clash and a little bit of whip lash.

A friend said last night, "You have been so positive about motherhood so far, I am glad to hear that you are a real person." She has three kids, for the record.

So I guess these growing pains are normal?

That's just what it is - growing pains. In a way, I would say that I feel called to be a mom; that God spoke to me a few years back and gave me the nudge to give this a go. If I didn't feel that deep sense of calling, these days would feel very bleak. But I do, so they're not.

But they're hard.

I knew, for the record, that my life would change drastically when I had a baby. But knowing and living are two different things entirely.

Every other role I've played in life - student, teacher, friend, daughter, writer, even wife - has compartments, and there are times when I would get a break from said role and step into another one for a while. It's not that way as a mom. Even when I get a break from Zora - like taking a shower or sleeping - I am still thinking about her, planning for her, listening for her...the mom role doesn't stop or give a real break.

So I guess what's happening is I am building my momming muscles up in my head right now. All this mental energy is wearing me out because I have always had substantial breaks in the past to let myself catch up. But now there are no breaks, and my head is tired - and I'm staring down years and years of this realizing that it's just going to keep going.

But I know I'll build those muscles. And I'll learn to make decisions about my own life, career, and gifts that fit with my new role of mom. I'll find social interactions that take me away from my life at home if even for a few hours, and I will come back refreshed. It's not the same as taking off to NYC for a week by myself, but I'm starting to realize that I need to re-set my standards a bit...re-set my expectations...and embrace this season.

Certainly that's what all of life is about - learning to embrace whatever season we are in. The Buddists do this well. We evangelicals, not so much (the rapture's great and all, but it does no good to learn to look forward if we don't see where we are in the present and accept and embrace it). Once again, I am learning to BE - just be where I am, in the space that I'm in.

There's a bit of grieving for the loss of my old life. And I need to grieve it a bit - it will help me move on. The great part about this process is that I love Zora - and I love everything about being a mom...the challenges of making decisions, getting on the floor and reading her a book, giggling with her, saying "mama" over and over and over and over in the hopes she'll say it back to me (which she did, yesterday!), celebrating her bitty milestones, and on and on. She's so much fun to hang out with, so that makes this process easier.

All in all, I wouldn't trade what I have right now for all the weekend trips to NYC (though if those came with free-reign of a credit card I didn't have to pay, I might think about it...okay, kidding), but I am doing some adjusting right now.

For now, I'll make silly faces all day long at my daughter in hopes of a laugh, and I will call my life "good."