Mama Thoughts

Well... this past weekend we celebrated! This little lady turned one year old.  We made it through 365 days and more importantly nights with this little person.  Yan made a video of her first year of life... and it's incredible how this human turned from a little sac of uncoordinated impulses into a real life lady with opinions and a sense of humor and mischief that is a joy to behold. She taught us so much about ourselves as well as each other.  I know now that my husband is a softie of the best kind.  He will do pretty much anything to get a smile out of that little girl.  I know that I have a crazy need to get things right and make sure they're on a schedule... and that my little person will do all that she can to derail that plan.  :)  I'm getting better at letting go, but I definitely have a long way to go. I've learned to relax and take more time for myself as the year has progresses... but still need to do more of that.  Taking time fo...

Chanukah started last night. Thanks to my mother in law picking up baby I was able to get to the grocery store and pick up food and drive home and make latkes and light the menorah.  We had a plate full of latkes for dinner.  I got to see Lilah do her new trick of when she grabs something to eat and blows on it before putting it in her mouth. She's a cautious little lady. She won't go up the stairs if they're too steep, she doesn't try to go down stairs ever, and she is totally petrified of hot food and drinks.  She's pretty funny.  I've become less cautious with age... mostly due to crazy amounts of mistakes regardless of how hard I protected myself against them.  It makes me think about risk taking and how I could actually teach my kid to take a few.  That's an interesting line to walk. For now I'm pretty thrilled about the stairs.  :)

We're getting there.   50 weeks old.  Almost one. Third tooth sprouted.  We're working on our other tooth and we'll be bucktoothed soon enough. She's babbling and repeating words after everyone that says anything. It doesn't sound like anything yet but when I yell "Yanik" she yells ah-ee!  When I say "Mama" she says baba!  We're close. We're cruising hardcore around couches and coffee tables (which all parents hate and darkly warn about constantly).  She'll stand up on a toy, and then grab another toy and hold it and let go of her support... wobble for a few seconds then snap back to reality and sink back down to the ground for safety. We're down to nursing 3 times a day.  She theoretically could be weaned at any moment.  Here I'm the one holding us back.  I'm terrified of bedtime with a bottle.  I don't know if she'll take one from me.  At the same time I'm done pumping and am kind of ready to be ba...

We're approaching month 11.  I'm still breastfeeding this little person the best that I can.  I haven't written about this as I think it's TMI, but it's such a big part of my struggle and stress and I am ready to dish.  I pump twice daily to get her a bottle at daycare.  Who knows why... maybe it's because I didn't actually establish a pumping routine until we were 8 months in, or because that's just the way my mammaries work but for some unknown godforsaken reason I can feed my kid just fine when we're together but the pump doesn't do much.  It takes me about 15 minutes to get 2 ounces if I'm lucky.  I devote some 50 minutes a day to go sit in a closet for almost 4 oz of breast milk.  It's just insanity.  I eat oatmeal, I drink disgusting teas and vitamins, I down almost a gallon of water a day... but that's all I get.  We make it work.  She drinks water and gets this and I feed her when we're face to face about 3 times a day.  ...

This week was tough. I had parent teacher conferences for the first time at GBS and one of the by-products of not having a strong union is that we had a normal start time the morning after.  So... 14 hour workday, get home at 9:30,  and then up at 6 to be at work by 7:30.  ROUGH.  So Friday was a long tough day and I was super ready for this weekend. Enter husband after a conference at 7pm on Friday night and he runs to the bathroom with some horrendous case of food poisoning and collapses in bed.  He continues to be immobile all day Saturday.  So! Little girl and me all day long. I'm exhausted. Dear lord.  Single mothers.  How the HECK do you do this?  I need like 12 hours of sleep, a massage, 1/2 a bottle of wine intravenously and the a mini vacation. She's cute.  But parenting is definitely a two-person job.  

Being a mama doesn't make you always the most rational. I have lots of helpers, but it's amazing how some days you really just want some quiet down time with your kid and you can't because of all of the helpers, and instead of you being rational and thinking "hey self! Wow! You're so lucky to have so much help!" you think "baby! mine! back away! give me baby!" and other such well-thought-out nuggets of rational thought. I become super sensitive to criticism.  I'm not one to be this way.  I was raised by Soviet folk and always had too many relatives around to give me unsolicited advice that wasn't ever nicely phrased or politically correct.  I can react well to comments such as "you look like an overstuffed sausage in that" or "you look like you got dressed by a parrot this morning" with grace and calm.  But some days someone jokes with my child saying "wow! What was mommy thinking?" and regardless of the ton...

It's crazy.  I know kids that I take as the same age as my little lady and they are starting to turn one.  We're not there yet, but this is flying by at a crazy clip.  She's getting bigger and bigger, starting to stand up in her crib, want to stand and reach for new things and I kinda want things to slow down a little.  This is why people have more than one kid... they want to savor these baby moments and bring them back again. So here are some things I hope I don't forget about this magical time in our little lady's life. She does this thing where she sucks on her lower lip when she's tired.  She calms herself down with her pajama, but when it isn't available she'll take any fabric available (she pulled down my head today to get at the bandanna I had in my hair) and tuck it in between her lower lip and her teeth and just pulse her little lip in a sucking motion.  I think it's adorable. She's started giggling when she gets tickled.  She'...