Back in Action

I am officially back to the blogosphere!

My long absence was due to a much-anticipated trip up north to visit Grandma and Grandpa. We were up in wine country for a week and then in San Francisco for two days while my husband attended a conference. It was a fantastic trip, full of fall colors, a chill in the air, and lots of old friends. Fortunately, my best friend's awesome sister has a toddler and lent us all the stuff we would need for the week - bassinet, playgym, swing, etc. My husband went to Target to buy a bouncy ball for Grandma and Grandpa's house (Carter loves himself some bouncing), and we were set.

To my great joy, we discovered that Carter is a fantastic traveler. On each plane ride he barely made a peep, preferring instead to (flight up) conk out and sleep or (flight down) stare wide-eyed around the cabin, charming the hell out of nearby travelers. Hauling all of the baby stuff through security wasn't nearly as hellish as I'd anticipated, happily - we had him in his carseat and Snap-n-Go, and simply had to shove it all through the x-ray conveyor belt and then gate check them both before boarding. Easy-peasy. Hopefully longer flights will prove as painless as the short LA-SF hop, but we most likely won't find out til next summer when we fly to the east coast to visit friends and family.

Carter is becoming more verbal every day, particularly in the mornings. As soon as he wakes up, he greets me with a series of "gaaaaahs" and "eeeeeeegkks," grinning all the while. In the past couple of days he has even started laughing - it's only happened a few times, but it was fantastic. I weighed him at the Pumpstation yesterday, and he's 12 pounds 2 ounces - officially double his birth weight! My baby is becoming a little boy!

Here are some shots from our vacation:

With mommy on the plane

Family portrait prior to lift-off

At Powell's Sweets (the best candy store in the world) in my hometown

With Grandma, exploring the Russian River

Posing next to an ancient barber shop on a trip to coastal Point Reyes

Laughing at silly mommy

Getting cozy in front of a crackling fire in the fireplace

Drooling over huge vats of molten chocolate at Ghiradelli's in San Francisco

My little pumpkin

Perspective

I knew I would love being a mother. But I just had no idea that I would !!!!LOVE!!!! being a mother. I thought I would be ready to go back to work when the time came, that I would yearn for the challenge of the workplace after many long, tedious days of mommyhood. I had no idea that I would tear up at the very thought of being away from him for a full day, of someone else getting his smiles and seeing the way his little eyes scrunch up when he grins his tiny baby grins.

Although I do not return to the office until next month, the thought of leaving my son already inevitably sends me into a melancholy haze. Discussing it with my mother the other day, I found myself choking up, and wondered What the hell is this? Who is this person? Who I am?

While I am not looking forward to returning to the daily grind, I can't say that I want to be a stay at home mom either - I dream of a part-time scenario, a job share, something that would enable me to spread my wings both as a mother and a worker. I have a mommy friend who is going back to work soon and is ready for the separation, yet feels guilty that she doesn't want to stay home. Why do we mothers torture ourselves so? Perhaps by this time next month, I will feel the same way. Who knows? One thing I do know - when I return to work, it will be with a new perspective - how can the petty office dramas bother me when all that matters is my healthy family?

As trite as it sounds, motherhood changes you. Mommy me is simply a different person than pre-baby me, and the new me is pretty damn fabulous.

Gratifying Mommy Moment

The other day, Carter was in a mellow mood so I propped him up in his glider chair and began clipping his tiny nails. They grow like weeds, and before I know it he has these ghetto-fabulous talons like some kind of homeless crackhead and he's accidentally scratching his face and whatnot (those are definitely "Oh shit - negligent mommy!" moments).

When I began clipping he was just gazing around the room pleasantly, staring at the bright pictures on the walls, or the way the light came through the window, or the shadows on the floor. Suddenly, in the midst of my clipping, I realized that he had become strangely still.

I looked up to find him staring at me with a big smile on his face. It was as if he was saying "Thank you mommy. I don't want to look like a crackhead."

Delicious, priceless moments like these make me want to stop time and preserve his sweet baby perfection forever. Yet so many glorious adventures lie ahead - so I simply smile, kiss his tiny face, and soak it all in, loving every exhausting, challenging, overwhelming second.

Last week in pictures...

Bathtime Fun:




At the Santa Monica Farmer's Market:


Entranced by (or slightly afraid of?) the moving monkey on his bouncer:




Cheering as he squeezes into his last "newborn" outfit (Daddy's favorite) for a photo op:


"Wow, look at all of my friends..."


"...I must be really popular."


Daddy is so comfortable...




Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear:


Mommy's little sweet pea:

Some Kind of Wonderful

There are a couple of reasons why today is a wonderful day, even though it began with my son projectile spitting-up all over me (which he rarely does - but truth be told, I'd stuffed the poor boy with about a gallon of breastmilk...oops).

It is a wonderful day because last night was the best period of sleep that I have received since Carter came home from the hospital. For the past several weeks, he has been on an aggravating and exhausting schedule, sleeping for a long stretch in the early evening from about 6-11, then waking briefly to eat, then sleeping again from 11:15-2, and then waking every couple of hours thereafter, only eating for about two minutes each time. Grhagggghghghghgh!!!!! I discussed this with my mommy group at the Pumpstation and the moderator told me that this pattern is fairly standard for his age and will pass.

Last night, however, was magical - I fed him at 10:30 or so - a good long feed, about ten minutes on each side, instead of the paltry four minute feeds that he's been doing recently. He went to sleep at 11 and I conked out immediately thereafter, instead of staying up for another hour watching crappy TV like I usually do.

Ladies and gentlemen, the boy slept until 2:45am - that would be a whopping three hours and forty-five minutes - then awoke to do another nice long feed and have a diaper change, and then (drumroll...) slept until 7:15am! Another four hour stretch! All told, I got almost EIGHT hours of sleep, albeit not consecutively, but hey, beggars can't be choosers, people. I awoke refreshed and rejuvenated, and am fairly certain that I am actually a better mother today since I'm not utterly sleep deprived. Carter, however, has spent most of the day sleeping, which does not necessarily bode well for the evening we have in store for us (sigh).

More importantly, today is also a wonderful day because it is our two-year wedding anniversary. Two YEARS already?!? Where did the time go? Didn't I just walk down the aisle yesterday? Wasn't it just a moment ago that I was taping my nipples down to slip into my wedding dress (if you were there and saw the dress, you understand the need)? Weren't we just in New England celebrating our first anniversary, drinking wine and beginning to think about making babies? Carter was just a twinkle in daddy's eye - now suddenly we're two years in and parents.

And every day I love him more than I could ever have imagined.

Happy Anniversary, LOML. We love you so much.

No Swine Flu for Yours Truly

Well, I finally figured out that there's a "Blog I'm Following" feature on Blogspot, where I can enter my favorite blogs and be notified on my "Blogger Dashboard" when they write something new. Yeah, it only took me a year and a half to figure this out. Good lord.

As I write this, my little boy is fast asleep in his swing - hallelujah! He's had a big day - we left the house bright and early this morning to drive to Venice and stand in line to get our H1N1 vaccines. LA County is having free clinics for 1) people without insurance and 2) people in the high-priority groups. As parents of an under-6-month-old, we qualify for one of these criteria, so GIMME my shot, people!

We arrived promptly at nine, only to discover a line wrapping around the block. We was waiting patiently when an organizer came walking down with a loudspeaker, telling pregnant women to come to the front of the line for the thimerosol-free version of the vaccine. I popped up and asked her if breastfeeding allowed me to quality for the mercury-free shot, as my pediatrician had told me to get it in that formulation.

She looked at me and must have taken pity as I stood there in the chilly ocean morning air, shivering in my short-sleeves (hey, it's hot in West Hollywood) and jiggling my sleeping infant in my arms. "Come with me" she said, and the next thing I knew my husband and I were escorted to the front of the line, where we waited while she asked the resident doctors if breastfeeding entitled me to the preservative-free shot. Turns out that it didn't, as they only had limited quantities specifically for pregnant women, and evidently the CDC has publicly declared that thimerosol does not enter breastmilk, so there is no risk with the regular shot. No matter - we were already at the front of the line, and got in and out in no time. I rationalized that there is no guarantee that I would have been able to find the preservative-free version anywhere else, so I suppose this will have to be one time that I choose to trust my government agencies, solely for my own peace of mind. We are flying up north in two weeks to visit my parents, so we felt it was important that we be vaccinated before the trip.

I will leave you with a few new pictures, all taken within the past couple of weeks. I hereby vow to be more punctual at posting new shots:

Carter looking startlingly like his Grandpa:


Discovering grass in Grandma's backyard...


...and looking unimpressed. Perhaps he's really a city boy at heart, like his father.