Time goes so fast when you have a baby. I am pretty sure that just last week I was sent home from the hospital with a new born, and now it’s like we have a little person around here. I mean, sure, she’s a little person who poops her pants and can’t get to sleep without help and whose audible communication skills are fussing, crying, and shrieking, with the occasional raspberry and “ba ba ba” thrown in, but still, she is noticeably moving from baby toward toddler. (more…)

Most of the time Brian can calm Adriana when she’s fussing, but sometimes she just cries and cries, and then when I take her she calms right down. Usually I think it’s because she knows that if I am holding her, she is going to get some milk. One night recently, Brian went to Adriana when she first woke up (an hour after I put her down–it’s the most predictable thing about her sleep), but after awhile I went in because she wasn’t calming down. As soon as she was in my arms, the crying stopped, and I sat down to nurse her. Sitting there in the darkened room, I suddenly remembered one evening when she was about a week old. We were eating dinner in shifts because the baby, in spite of a full tummy and a dry diaper, was a bit fussy, and after I finished my soup, I took Adriana from Brian and the crying stopped. She relaxed against me, and I paced the room with her in my arms until she fell asleep. Eventually I sat in the armchair and just held her while she slept. I think it may have been the first time I felt competent as a mother. (more…)

For a while I thought I wasn’t going to handle Adriana growing older well at all. For most of September, she no longer seemed to be the pleasant baby she had once been. She was always cranky, even when we were both well-rested, and that wasn’t very often, as she was waking every hour or two all night long. I missed the easy baby she’d been a couple of months ago–the one who didn’t fuss all the time and wasn’t always getting into things. (more…)

Why didn’t anyone tell me that having a baby would wear me out? Even though Adriana still doesn’t move very quickly, chasing after her is somehow exhausting. We’re slowly childproofing things around here, so that I don’t have to spend the entire time chasing after the baby as she get into the cat’s food, plays with the stereo, pulls the phone off the hook, or heads for the cords under the desk. I spend what seems like a ridiculous amount of time repeating, “Gentle. Pat the kitty gently.” (more…)

I thought about not writing a seven month post. I looked back at the others and thought they were all sappy, sounding like motherhood was all sunshines and rainbows and unicorns, and I was idealizing and romanticizing the whole thing. And then I realized that I shouldn’t not write it, because I do like having some sort of record marking each month, even if it seems that the record is more about my experiences than about actual changes in the baby. I should just write honestly. So: (more…)

One day recently, I was giving Adriana some “naked time”–letting her play around on a thick towel on the bedroom floor. She was lying there completely naked, smiling at me and trying to fit her feet into her mouth, while I put away laundry. I looked down at her and suddenly realized that someday this baby will yell at me and slam a door. Will get a driver’s license. Will go off to college. I thought for a moment that I might like to stop time right now and stay here forever.
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One day last week I was feeling particularly sleep deprived, so in the afternoon, after nursing Adriana to sleep in the armchair, I stayed where I was and closed my eyes. I couldn’t actually fall asleep, but it was nice to relax there with her sleeping on my chest, her head nestled into my neck. We used to nap that way when she was brand new. But now she’s big enough that when she woke up, she pushed up so that she could look me in the face. I smiled at her, and she smiled right back. I felt sentimental and happy.

Then she spit up down the front of my shirt. (more…)

I am about to leave for the airport for my first trip with Adriana. Last night, Brian asked me which carrier we were taking. I told him the cotton pouch seemed like the best bet, since it was the easiest for on-and-off in the airport. He nodded his agreement, and I confessed that I’d put my mei tai in the suitcase for wearing during the trip, since it’s more comfortable now that the baby is getting so big. He smiled and seemed to think that was reasonable.

“Um, and I also packed my silk ring sling. For church, because it’s pretty and matches my outfit.”

“Wait, you’re taking three carriers for a one week trip?”

“Yes. One for me, one for you, and one for my inner diva. Tonjia says I have an inner diva.”

“Remind me to have a word with Tonjia,” he said. “But at least we don’t have to lug a stroller through airport security.”

This gets more fun every day. Adriana is suddenly much more aware of the world around her. This has some downfalls–she’s easily distracted when I’m trying to feed her when we’re out and about, which makes it harder to be quite so modest–but mostly it’s just incredible to watch her notice things. (more…)

I am not as uncomfortable nursing in public as I thought I would be. I knew I would do it, of course, but I thought I would be self-consious. In fact, I’ve found that I’m not uncomfortable at all at this point. (”I guess I’m just that kind of girl,” I told my husband today as I settled down to feed the baby in the grass at Farragut Square at lunchtime.) (more…)