Rookie Moms

I have a Rookie Moms guide to Pittsburgh up on the Rookie Moms website right now!!! Check it out!

Weekend In Review

Friday:
Pro--Mom came to visit
Con--potentially rabid, wild Rottweiler camped out on porch
Pro--ate good Thai food for dinner
Con--submitted sub-par story draft to editor, who noticed and commented that draft was, indeed, sub-par
Pro--got hair cut
Con--Miles didn't nap and was unhappy about it
Pro--made candy corn using the recipe from this month's Bust
Con--the candy corn looks like, as my former rugby coach said, extracted teeth
Pro--the candy corn tastes like candy corn. mmmmm

Saturday:
Pro--Miles took a big nap during the day
Con--Miles did not sleep well Friday night and everyone was, thus, tired all day
Pro--did a Crossfit workout in the morning
Pro--pumped a big bottle
Pro--got a visit from friend Steffy with her baby Sam

Sunday:
Con--Miles had his shittiest night's sleep since September 23
Con--couldn't pump very much milk this morning
Con--in tired haze, included cell phone in heavy soil load of laundry, thus destroying phone
Pro--switched to Corey's old cell phone, which is superior anyway
Pro--used Backup Assistant to get all old pictures and phone numbers into old/new phone
Pro--Miles took 2 hour nap
Pro--after Miles eats, whole family (including mom) can go to JG's meat/Steeler's party
Con--too tired to operate a vehicle safely, particularly through Fort Pitt Tunnel
Pro--Corey got way more sleep than me and can drive

Overall assessment: Mostly a good weekend. The addition of dark chocolate to our pantry and a daily beer courtesy of Snacky D helping us out with a beer run pushes the scale toward pro every time!

Um, Hello?

There is currently an un-neutered Rottweiler curled up on my porch. That's right.

Here is what happened. Miles was being fussy today. Super fussy. So he hasn't napped really. In the midst of his screamiest moment, I decided that he should eat again even though he had just eaten an hour ago. So there I sat on the sofa, all boobed up with Miles.

Then Juan knocked on the door. Juan is helping to clean our house (he is here because someone offered us a gift of housekeeping for a few months and I wasn't saying no to things anymore, so now we have Juan. Juan is amazing, btw). Anyway, Juan says, "I didn't know you got a dog!"

I'm all, "Juan, what are you talking about?" I look over my shoulder to see him sort of jiggling the ears of a mangy dog camped out on sidewalk. I told Juan I most certainly did not get a dog, that he should get away before it bites and he dies of rabies.

So then my mom shows up. I had sent her to the store for me because I don't have time to go grocery shopping. All that's in my fridge is soymilk, beer that Snacky D brought, and some pickles I pickled (they are delicious!). Mom calls me from her cell phone from the car. Miles is really starting to become unhappy at my breast and wiggling around and I'm freaked out about the dog and nobody is relaxed and the phone rings.

"Katy, why is there a Rottweiler on your porch?" It had climbed onto my porch! I told my mom to call 911.

They didn't answer so she hung up.

Mom hid in the car, Juan went outside to investigate, and I started looking up numbers for Animal Control. I mean, I don't have a dog. I don't know who to call or where to look in the phone book. Juan found a phone number on the tag, but they told me information was missing and they could do nothing for me. Nothing.

I left some messages on some phone numbers I found and then got a real human being. "We been chasing that damn dog all day! Where you say you live???"

By this time, the dog had moved from my porch to my neighbors' porch. They have German Shepherds and other dogs. Not good. I guess he didn't like it there? Because he walked his big ball sack back to my porch. Where he is currently camped out next to the stroller.

The stroller is on the porch because the other day, for the first time, Miles tolerated the stroller! We went for a walk like normal people do. But now we can't repeat this because he is screaming and, oh wait, there is a ROTTWEILER on my porch.

Did I mention that there is an enormous, dirty, smelly ROTTWEILER on my porch? One that does not belong to me? Yep. Life is interesting.

The Bjorn Ultimatum

I might have mentioned a few times that Miles is not the world's best sleeper. Of all possible inherited traits, this is the one I most wish he got from Corey. I mean, Corey is famous for falling asleep on couches at parties. It was his MO in college. That man will sleep for 14 hours every day if you let him. Miles? Not so much.

I think that, like mine, Miles' mind must race and prevent him from sleeping. I can just see his little inner monologue. If I sleep now, I might not get the breast milk for awhile. Oh. Look at the ceiling fan. That's cool. Ow. My nail hurt my eyeball when I jabbed it in there. Did I poop today? Do I have two of these arm things? Will they give me the breastmilk if I stop crying I wonder? No? Ok. Hey. My whole hand fits in my mouth. Don't I have another one? I do! I think it might fit in there, too. Nope. I should cry again...

But there is one thing that will ALWAYS eventually put him to sleep: walking around in the Bjorn. No matter how long he has been awake, no matter how wound up he is, if you march him up and down the stairs or stomp around the neighborhood long enough, he WILL go to sleep.

And here is the big problem. Typically, he only stays asleep if you keep him in the Bjorn. Moving. Which is all well and good if you're well rested and down for a 90-minute walk so he gets some sleep. I've sure done that before! Lots of times! Or else I'll just march up and down that bottom step until my legs are on fire and pretend I'm at Crossfit instead of in my living room.

But most of the time, I don't have the energy for this. So I am left with this huge conundrum. Do I put him to sleep in the Bjorn? Because if I do that, he'll sleep, which is good, but I can't put him down or stop moving at all. Which is bad. The alternative is to spend, like, 100 years shushing and nursing and blaring static and rocking in the chair that Corey refuses to oil. So it creaks like one of those old pirate ships you hear in movies. Or maybe a shopping cart with a bum wheel. And Miles spends this entire hundred years wailing and screaming in your damn ear and it's just agony. But at least you're sitting down.

Today, I felt up to sticking him in the Bjorn. We walked. And walked. And just as I was running out of bottles of beer on the wall, I looked down and the turd was asleep! So I walked awhile more to make sure he wasn't just faking (he does that sometimes). But then I was sweaty and hungry and it was beginning to drizzle. So I did a scary thing: I attempted to remove him from the Bjorn and put him down.

Most times, he is awake before you unsnap the top snaps. And that, friends, is the worst moment of your entire life, because you know what you have ahead of you, and it's not fun. I have changed my mind about Hell, in fact, to believe it involves spending hour upon hour with screaming, sad little infants because there really isn't much in the world that's worse.

So today, I risked the wake-by-jostle inherent in Bjorn removal. And by God! It worked in my favor! I couldn't believe it. My child fell asleep not after hours of agony, but on a cute little walk. I even chatted with some neighbors on this walk, got some fresh air, felt, in fact, wonderful. And then I put Miles down and he stayed asleep. Like a real baby!

I was so scared it wouldn't stick that I choked down some lunch, pumped out a bottle, and ran back upstairs to stare at him.

Still out.

I dug out my kettlebell and did a wee little workout. I went on facebook. Still out. It's been two hours now and I totally could have done, like, real writing or work or at least made lesson plans. But I am so scared he will wake up just as I get in the groove that instead, I choose to watch internet television and eat dark chocolate.

For the Love of Sleep

For ten days in a row, I got fewer than 90 minutes of consecutive sleep. For ten weeks before this, I was getting between two and three hours in a row a few times each day. This took a toll on my body such that I did not feel safe operating a car. I was a walking, weeping mess. A disaster. I spent the days sobbing and feeling like there would be no tomorrow, that I would surely die of some unknown cause. Perhaps I would fall into the bags under my eyes and suffocate?

Anyway, it reached a tipping point where I simply had to sleep. Corey and I fabricated a plan. I made pumping breast milk a priority--it is hard to pump when your baby still sometimes eats every hour OR is in constant need of being held or soothed. Not much spare energy for extra milk production...but that day, we made it happen. I pumped and I pumped and I pumped until I had a spare bottle.

Then, I nursed Miles at bedtime. I immediately retreated to a cave we made in the basement. On the cement floor, on a camping pad, in a sleeping bag with ocean waves playing on the ipod, I hid from the rousing sounds of my baby's wails. I went in there at 830pm, scared I might not sleep through the disaster I was sure would happen above my head.

The plan was that Corey would pacify Miles until he got hungry again, give him the bottle, then pacify him until he got hungry AGAIN. We figured this would buy me 5 consecutive hours of rest--the most I would have had since Miles' birth. I couldn't allow myself to believe it was possible. Five hours of sleep? It might as well be 14. I had to use a Benadryl to get to sleep.

So my head hit the concrete at 830 and, apart from a few brief wakings up for no apparent reason, I slept like a lichen until Corey shook me awake...at 5am.

Miles slept from 830 until 1130 (that alone would have made me a new woman) and then drank his bottle and then slept until 5am. Let's take a minute and appreciate the enormity of this. Miles slept for 5 hours. In a row. Without drugs. I swear.

There are not words to describe the difference the cave has made in my life. I have never known such exhaustion as motherhood brings. I know that new parents are supposed to complain of tiredness, but I never could have imagined the weariness of ten weeks without delta sleep, without a second of restorative rest. Wee little catnaps and then full days of constant nurturing...it seemed unbearable. It IS unbearable.

But I have slept down there about four times now and each time, Miles sleeps for most of the night. This morning, he slept until 6am! I had to wake Corey up for work when I crawled out of the cave on my own. You see, we had stopped setting alarm clocks because what's the freaking point? Miles would make sure we were up in a half hour even if we drifted off, right? Not with the cave!

I don't know what it is about the cave situation, whether it's that Miles can't smell/sense me and thus stays asleep or whether the full bottles knock him out better than breast alone or whether the fates are just effing with me. But by God, I am sleeping in my cave until this kid works out how to get himself asleep. I will take a sore back over a slow death by exhaustion any day.