January 25, 2016,

Dear Baby,

I finally installed (put batteries in) that huge fish tank machine that a friend got you. Amazon Prime FTW (battery delivery in one day). 

It’s basically this machine that has a fake aquarium scene and plays classical music while the fish and seaweed float around in fake water that bubbles.

On one hand, it’s relaxing because I find anything water talked to be pretty relaxing. On the other hand, there’s lights and colours and quite a bit of action for a regular aquarium. Like most baby things it is an elevated and super animated version of itself. Like if an aquarium took crack. 

But Baby, I have never seen you love something as much. On more than one occasion now you have gone ahead and just FALLEN THE FUCK ASLEEP watching this toy. Just put yourself right to sleep with the sounds and sights of this aquarium. 

Dear Aquarium, I love you so much. 

Yes, of course this is a testament to you learning more about self soothing. The whole sucking your hand non stop has dual functions of being soothing to your gums and apparently your mind/ nervous system. I have watched you call yourself down via your thumb and it is an excellent skill that you have developed. 

Self soothing is this thing we do as adult that we don’t even know we do. We have a bunch of mechanisms in place that we employ to help us settle down and relax. Some are positive (deep breathing) and some are not as positive (biting your nails) but they are mechanisms that we have created and established to help us not FREAK OUT every time we are distressed. 

So to watch you pop that thumb in your mouth when I know you are a bit upset and calm down is just great. I’m super happy about it and totally down with the dental work we may have to do as a result in your future. 

Baby, my only hope for you is that you continue to be able to self regulate. Sure, ideally the thumb gets lost in you growing up and replaced with a more appropriate function but the point is that I want you to be able to always help yourself.

You will, no doubt, be surrounded by love all your life. We will be here to help you with anything and everything. I will have a hard time not being there for you in any given situation but nothing would make me happier than to know that you can do it on your own. 

One day when I am not around to help or guide you, I want to know that you can do anything your want to do. I want to know that you have those tools. Make sure you always work on them. They are invaluable. 

In the meantime, keep staring at those fish and sucking at that thumb. One small step for baby and one giant step for everything to come. 

xo

Mom

January 18, 2016

Dear Baby,

What the what!! How are you 4 months old? Where is time going? How has it happened so fast and so slow???

I wanted to tell you a little bit about your 4 months here. They’ve been pretty amazing/ insane. 

Here’s a truth. I’m pretty sure that I’m just now beginning to “get” everything. I’m no longer mystified by your cry and totally dumbfounded by sleep. I know you. I know the noises you make and I know what you need at any given time. 

The fact of the matter is that there is no comparing month one to month four. I went from a bewildered insomniac to someone who can look at the slightest shift in your gaze and know that I have about 5 seconds to initiate nap sequence. 

In addition to knowing you better, I know myself better. I can see that if I haven’t slept, I need to pass you to a loving helper and GET SOME SLEEP. It’s non negotiable. I’m a terrible mom when I am sleepless. Fact. 

I also know that I’ve got this. I can do it. It’s not as overwhelming as I thought it would be and like any new job, the initial initiation phase is over. You know those first weeks of a new position when you basically have no clue what is going on and feel like you are just never going to get it and then one day you are dropping job- specific jargon like it is, well, your job. 

That’s me. One day I am sitting there feeling like “what the fuck am I doing here” and the next I’m throwing around “sleep regression” and “baby led weaning” like I know my shit- which I do. 

But enough about me. This is about you and your month. 

This month I watched in amazement as my little baby became a not-so-little baby. I don’t mean in size because you are still the littlest peanut but in skills and independence. 

You are a super mobile baby (as mobile as you can be for someone who is constantly lying down and not yet crawling). You love to move and bounce and squirm across the floor. You roll you grab you pull (my hair says thank you, by the way) and you laugh. A lot. 

That’s perharps my favourite thing about you. You laugh all the time. You laugh when you move and when I say random stuff to you. You seem like a happy person. Plus you make me feel like a world class comedian so, there’s that. 

You are obsessed with the bath (and oddly enough, the bathroom in general). You still love your hairdryer and your pretty into anything that is plastic and able to be gnawed on. 

That’s right Baby, you have teeth coming in. It means that you have something in your mouth ALL the time. Toys, my hand, your hand. And if all else fails you chew your own lip. I’ve seen it. 

You look awesome in green (lucky you, I have been trying to pull off line for my whole life unsuccessfully), the few times you have napped hugging your lovey were the best, you keep trying to sneak- watch tv and I love you more than anything ever. 

Keep growing (but not too fast). 

xo

Mom

January 17, 2016

Dear Baby,

Why is it that we are so quick to focus on the negative things in our life? 

When I was pregnant with you I read this amazing article about how new moms are often unwilling to say that they love motherhood or are having an easy time because it is so unrelatable. Instead they spend their time lamenting sleep or complaining about how life used to be pre-baby. 

And this goes way outside babies. It is jobs (complaining about your boss, co workers or tasks), or about your partner (sex, habits, money) or about your parents (annoying, overbearing, opinionated-  but not your mom, right Baby??)

It is so rare that we indulge in sharing positive things with one another. It is way easier to commiserate about crap and way less “look at me” to undermine your own successes and pleasures. 

I swore to myself I would not be that mom and that I would share the good stuff too but I feel like, in reviewing what I am writing to you, it would seem like I basically am an exhausted and high strung new mom just eking by on minimal sleep. 

I must preface what I am about to say with a poo poo poo. 

Being your mom is wonderful. I don’t talk enough about how magical it is to wake up with you beside me- because I often have you in my bed- and get a smile from you. It is the smile I would have given to a giant cup of coffee before I met you. It is the smile that says “there is nothing in the world I would rather see than what I am seeing right now.” 

I don’t tell you how much I love eating breakfast on the floor with you while I watch you explore your mat and toys and learn how to do new things. 

I don’t tell anyone how hard it is to put you down for naps because I hate not holding you. I also don’t tell anyone how often I don’t put you down and just sit quietly with you for hours in my arms. 

I haven’t said enough that I love our life together. I love our new friends and our mom groups and I even love running errands with you. Everything I do is better when you are there. 

Yes, by the time your dad gets home I am ready to pass you off and take some time to myself but you should know that the second I pass you off, I just want you back. I spend 90% of my free time doing stuff for you or reading about you or watching your dad play with you. 

Bedtime has been a hot topic of this blog but you should know that even though I HATE waking up in the middle of the night always and forever, I would do it for you (begrudgingly). That I love spending time alone with your dad or my friends but saying goodnight to you is always bittersweet because I know our day together is over and that I have to wait until the morning to see that smile again. 

All of this love and time is peppered with the frustrations of being a new mom. The word of sleeplessness and the growing pains that come with any new and big change but in case you are reading this blog and thinking that I am always complaining about you, I’m not. 

I hope that you can take some time in your own life to celebrate your happiness. Sure, bitching about your boss may get more laughs at the lunch table and complaining about baby sleep is more topical than bragging about your baby who sleeps through the night but we should be able to own our life- good and bad.

So please take some time to share the great things about your life with the people who love you- I’ll be waiting to hear all about it. 

xo

Mom

January 16, 2016

Dear Baby,

As we sit here today about to finish our super long winter vacation I can’t help but think how a small part of me is sad that our solo time together is over. 

Your dad left us 10 days ago here to go home and since then it had been you and me. Yes, my mom is here with us but it is very different than the type of help your dad gives. Plus, I sleep alone with you in our room. 

To say it was all easy would be a lie (see my post on sleep regression) but it has been the most wonderful experience. 

I have been in love with you since the day we met but Baby, I am madly in love with you now. Insanely in love with you. 

I feel like this trip, this month, this time has been so different. Like I finally feel used to you, to us and to our life together in a way I could have never put into words before it happened. 

From the moment we (you) wake up i am excited and delighted to be spending the day attached to you (or rather, with you attached to me). Every small thing you do, the cuddles, the way you laugh, watching you learn new things makes my heart full. 

There is no lesson here today, Baby. This is just one of many love notes all for you to tell you how incredible you are and how much you make my life a million times better than I ever could have imagined. 

I love you with all my heart. 

xo

Mom

January 12, 2016

Dear Baby,

It seems like an eternity ago (even though it was only a week ago) that you slept through the night, napped without a fuss and were a pretty normal and happy baby. Wonder Weeks warned me with lightening bolts galore that you were about to take a new “leap” and become more challenging (to put it lightly) but I dismissed them. 

Welcome to the “Events” leap aka. sleep regression aka. The 4 Month growth spurt aka. WHY WONT YOU SLEEP?????

This milestone fills me with a mixed bag of emotions. On the one hand, I am a bit frustrated that your sleep time has become a war between us of me on the “go the fuck to sleep” side and you on the “not without a fight” side. It was nicer when we both agreed that sleep was paramount to a great day. Now you seem to need a lot of convincing. 

I also feel really sad that you seem to be more upset than usual. The more we get to know each other, the more bothered I am by your cry. I am currently on level “stab me in the heart twice and twist the blade” when it comes to hearing you wail. 

Most noticeably I feel like a recharged milk machine. I guess you eating every minute is good for milk production because I woke up the other morning swimming in my own milky boobs. I don’t even know what to feel about that. Soggy? 

On the flip aid I feel proud and excited that you seem to be hitting another developmental stage. It’s really cool to watch you grow and learn. Sure, to outsiders that fact that you can roll from front to back on BOTH sides is pretty unexciting but to me it is the single most important thing that has happened to my week. 

Finally, I feel really confident. This shit storm would have made me crazy in the past. I would have been crying in bed and imagining ways to escape but 4 months in I feel a renewed sense of calmness. If you have taught me anything it is that this too shall pass. 

So Baby, with that I leave you with the following lesson:

You are bound to hit a million milestones. While you at age 4 months are hitting a new one, I am hitting a new one too at age 33. You are learning “events” and I am learning about remaining calm when you are not. This is to say that you never stop learning and hitting new personal milestones. 

Yes, they can be frustrating and scary- what is new often is but if you keep your head up and know that there is always a rainbow at the end of a storm, then you will get through life just fine. 

xo

Mom

January 11, 2016

Dear Baby,

When I got pregnant with you one thing I looked forward to was the promise of hormonal triggered beautiful hair. I have always had ok hair- it’s super curly but VERY thin hair so it’s like, there’s a lot of it but not a lot of it. 

Pregnancy gave me the full head of hair that I had dreamed of (and once tried extensions for). Not only was my hair awesome but I lost none of it. None. Not a strand fell out of my head for 9 months. Bliss. 

But none of the expensive shampoos in the world could prevent the 4 month follicle rebellion. Just like that when you turned 16 weeks I began to shed my hair. It came out in literal waves. 

I had splurged on this more-expensive- than-normal-even-for-Aveda shampoo and conditioner (ok fine, also the spray and lotion and misting balm) from there Invati line “guaranteed” to help with losing hair. I Invati them to come come and see my sink after I brush or style or even look the wrong way at my hair.

So I have resorted to some “all natural” methods of keeping the curls I have where they belong. Here are my 5 tips on how to keep your hair. 

Tip 1- don’t brush it: Ok, so you obviously have to brush your hair unless you dream of post partum dreads but I would ease up on the Marsha Brady 100 strokes kind of brushing. I don’t know if this actually helps but you certainly don’t have a tarantula sized clump of hair if you don’t brush it. That or you just don’t see it the same way. Ignorance is bliss, Baby. 

Tip 2- don’t style it: Says the woman who is currently in Florida heat with a head full of frizz. Do I want to put a straightener to this mane? Sure do. Will I inevitably go ahead and damage my already damaged goods? Sure will. Did I do it once? Sure did. Was the bathroom floor covered in hair? I think you are clever enough to answer that one. 

Tip 3- don’t buy stupid shampoos: Instead, buy ones you always wanted. If you are going to have the worst hair of your life, you may as well treat yo’ self to an indulgent shower. Hair loss is way more bearable when it smells good. In that was, the Aveda Invati is ok because I strive to smell as much like Aveda as possible without drinking their hair spray. That shit is delicious. 

Tip 4- don’t look at it: Again, Baby. Ignorance is bliss. 

Tip 5- don’t pull it out: Is it coincidence that my hair loss began right around your fussiest and most insane period to date? 4 month growth spurts are a real thing, Baby and they are way aggressive. But before pulling out your precious remaining hair out in total frustration remember that this too shall pass and one day you will sleep through the night again and I will have back my hair. 

So Baby, don’t stress- it makes your hair fall out- and keep trucking (because when you can wear a truckers hat to cover your crap hair… Get it???)

xo

Mom

January 10, 2016

Dear Baby,

All week long I have been wanting to post about moving into 2016 with you and how incredible and special that was for me. I made it my resolution to write more often and to stop getting side tracked and missing the documentation process of your life. 

I always fuck up resolutions which is why I am still not going to the gym 5 days a week, still craving cigarettes (although also still not smoking them) and still not appreciating life the way I promised to last year. 

Quick though, Baby: don’t make resolutions. 

Anyways, since then we have come a long way. Literally. We packed up and we are currently on day 8 of our sunny Florida vacation. So far, it’s been great. It is a real treat to be able to walk outside without 400000 layers of clothing and fear that I am making you cold and unhappy and you will subsequently get sick and make me unhappy and our whole house will be unhappy which is bound to have lasting effect and make you an unhappy adult… did I take that too far??? The rabbit hole is deep with you. 

I was super anxious about travelling with you. In my mind, we forgot to pack the essentials (which we could not possibly find and get in Florida where they sell the exact same shit as at home), you screamed the whole way down and everything went to shit. 
In reality everything was totally fine and you reminded me yet again to trust in your ability to adapt and generally be a good sport about changes. 
The usually kind of bitchy flight attendants were all smiles for you, our nearby seat neighbours were all smiles for you and you returned the kindness with not being a total snake and only crying minimally during our descent- which, to be honest was a terrible one and left me and your dad almost crying ourselves. 
In addition to my fear of leaving stuff behind, I had a opposing fear of packing too much for you. Would you need an outfit per day? The answer is obviously no. It’s been 4 days and you could have very well been wearing the same thing for all of them/ just being in a diaper all day but the photo ops of you dressed in SAILOR TANK TOPS AND MATCHING BLOOMERS was well worth packing 2 giant bags and shlepping them with your stroller and accessories through the airport. 
I also was super scared of the sun. I spent about 5 full hours researching how to best protect your baby skin from sun exposure and the bevy of problems that were sure to plague you if you even so much as glimpsed at the sun. In the end I figured that keeping you fully covered head to toe in a thick cotton would be ideal. I packed your best cotton onesies, 100 cotton blankets, 800 muslin blankets, 4 separate pairs of baby uv protectant sunglasses and 6 million sun hats (ok, I’m exaggerating. A bit).
In the meantime, it’s been cloudy and rainy everyday. A vacation nightmare to most. A fucking dream come true for me.

So in the end, it turned out to be pretty easy to take you on vacation. 

Basically Baby, I feel bad about poo pooing all the times people were all like “travelling with a young baby is easy.” I genuinely thought they were all super stupid and had no fucking clue about how hard traveling with you would be. 
They were right and I was oh- so wrong. I am so happy we have stared early in taking you with us to see the world. 
Moral here is simple. Don’t let anything stop you from getting out there. The world is an amazing place and you should only ever be limited by your imagination. 

Whether it is to Florida or to Thailand, whether by plane, train or automobile or whether it’s a 9 pound baby or a 20 pound backpack, go on and get out there.

xo

Mom

December 25, 2015

Dear Baby,

I’ll be honest, I don’t have a ton of new milestone-y things to tell you about your week. You have been continuing to do all the wonderful things that you have been doing; making me laugh with your laugh, rolling around, being a straight up bad ass baby.

I’ll tell you this- breastfeeding you has been a total pleasure. I NEVER thought I would be able to say those 7 words in a sentence but lo and behold, we have really gotten the hang of it and feeding you is a total breeze.

Our relationship between you and my boobs had a rocky start. Was it a bad latch? A milk supply issue? Was it the fact that no one tells you that having someone aggressively suck a super sensitive area of your body 4 million times per day is bound to cause chafing at minimum? Who knows.

I could not believe that not only was breastfeeding something that happened ALL DAY EVERYDAY for months but that people all around the world in all different walks of life for years and years did it. Did no one else feel the stinging pain of burning nipples? Did no mom before me feel like their boobs might just fall off if they had to feed one more time?

I thought about feeding you formula a million times in those first few weeks. I cried in the shower when the hot water burned my poor boobs. I mourned the days of having boobs that I never thought about. I sought out tank tops in fabrics that brushed my boobs in a way that didn’t feel like sandpaper. I Googled (obvi) ways to help make breastfeeding easier. I bought every single cream that was ever made for nipples.

Blood sweat and tears, Baby. Literally.

I even caved at one point and hired a lactation consultant who basically shamed me and told me that you were too alert a baby. She warned me about letting you go more than 2-3 hours without feeding, she warned me about having a baby that didn’t sleep every time they were not eating (you were pretty into being awake), and she warned me to NEVER let you sleep through the night for fear of losing my milk supply. She left my house taking with her $250 dollars and all of my confidence.

But then something amazing happened.

I took what she said and threw it right out the window. I stopped Googling, I stopped crying, I stopped stressing and VERY slowly, things got better.

Maybe I learned how to latch you better or maybe you learned it. Maybe my boobs became impervious to pain. Maybe being relaxed made more milk. Again, who knows but needless to say, the other night when I was feeding you I couldn’t help but think about how long it has been since feeding you was something I dreaded with every fibre of my being.

I can’t pinpoint the moment things changed for us but I can tell you that I’m glad I never threw the towel in and gave up on trying (side note- there is nothing wrong with formula feeding, breastfeeding was the personal decision I made about how I wanted to feed you- I don’t give two fucks about how other people feed their babies).

So on the occasion of your 14th week of life, I wanted to tell you that I am so happy that we worked it out and that our nursing relationship has grown and thrived. I think it is a lesson to try and stick with things and see them through.

Baby, not everything will go your way and sometimes, you will give up and walk away but the more you can try to see things through and the more you can persevere, the better you will be for it (even though your boobs may never be the same…)

xo

Mom

December 24, 2015

Dear Baby,

I am obsessed with Christmas. Probably because I don’t actually celebrate it and therefore live vicariously through those that do and enjoy it without the pressures of family obligations and financial woes.

We were invited to celebrate Christmas dinner with some friends and we decided to bring you with. This, of course, brought a whole set of challenges.

We have this whole routine we do with you for “bedtime.” We started it a few weeks ago and swore up and down that we would not let it have us subscribe to a schedule. You see Baby, your dad and I are so anti-schedule. In theory. In theory, we are free-loving bohemian parents who don’t give a fuck about anything. In practice, our bedtime routine has become the schedule we rejected and deviating from it involves planning- even though it shouldn’t.

So when dinner was called for 8pm (your bedtime), we had to wrap our heads around what to do. We thought about cancelling, we thought about putting you to sleep at your grandparents, the thought about BRINGING YOUR BASSINET AND THE STAND TO SOMEONES HOUSE, and then we took a chill pill and just went.

Like you always do, you totally impressed up with your resiliency and the way you give zero fuck about anything. Sitting in your bucket to sleep instead of your bed- zero fucks given. No “sounds of rainfall” white noise- NO FUCKS. No bathtime/massage routine- No fucks given. Not one. You slept just as you always do- woke up when we left to come home and slept the remainder of the night as you usually do.

All the “what ifs” were for not and you were fine.

I know that you will not always be like this- one day, whether we boho-parent or not, you will need a more structured day. One day you may not be as portable as you are now- you may not sleep on the go and you may need certain comforts but for the here and now, it was a good reminder to us that we can be flexible and we can be open to trying new things with you.

So that’s the Christmas lesson for you, Baby. Be flexible. I have touched on this before- the idea of being open to change and amiable to different things but I will stress it again here. When you open yourself up to trying new things and allow yourself some flexibility, you allow a world of new experiences to come your way.

Like your parents celebrating Christmas- if we weren’t open to another cultural experience and religious holiday we would never know the joys of stockings to open and sweet-ass fruit cake.

Merry Merry

xo

Mom

December 23, 2015

Dear Baby,

Being your mom is the bomb. Seriously. I love being your mom, I love being a mom, I love you and I love our life together.

Being a mom is also really hard. I cry a lot, I get really frustrated a lot (not at you, just at the nuances of parenting) and I feel like an emotional wreck any time I think of something sad or scary.

For whatever reasons, I have been really nervous about the idea of postpartum depression and scared that I might fall into a depressed state and no one will know to catch me. This is a pretty unfounded fear but nonetheless, one that I have been really conscious of.

It is for that reason that I went to see the doctor today to talk about some of the ways I have been feeling. To be reassured that they are normal or to be flagged as being concerning. Just to have peace of mind about my peace of mind.

The thing about all of this is that I have few benchmarks to measure against. NO ONE TALKS ABOUT ANYTHING and it is SO hard to know if what you are going through is what everyone is going through or if it really is, as it feels like it is, just you.

So here are some things that I have been experiencing that did not raise concerns to my doctor but have nonetheless been a bit taxing on my experience. You should know that these feelings seem to be pretty normal and anytime I do reveal them to a fellow mom friend, I am met with a like-story.

1. I feel really fucking annoyed with your dad. A lot. It is totally unfounded most of the time. Sometimes, I get mad at him for looking at me the wrong way. Sometimes it is because he does something actually stupid. I HATE being annoyed with him because he is the best person ever. The contradiction between hating on him and hating myself for hating on him is just the cherry on top of my hate-o-rade sundae.
2. Everything is horrible at 2am. I have never been a good person when it comes to being woken up. I have learned to live with our “routine” overnight wakeup times but when you go and deviate from that and wake me up earlier… lets just say that you are lucky that you are so damn cute.
3. Seriously, sleeplessness sucks. I can’t say it enough. It makes everything harder.
4. Hello identity crisis. I vacillate between wanting to re-establish my career/think about what is next for me as a person and a burning desire to stay at home and just be your mom forever.
5. Dear anxiety, Baby be thy name. Was I ever one to look 2000000000 ways before crossing the street? Not until you came along. Now I look 2000000001 ways and it never feels enough.
6. Everything is touching. Everything is emotional. Everything makes me cry. You don’t sleep, I cry. A commercial for Coke comes on, I cry. I think about you growing up, I fucking bawl.
7. It is basically impossible for me to feel “good enough” at being a mom. If you so much as look at me the wrong way I can’t help but wonder if I have failed you in some prolific way.
8. I HATE my post baby body. I know that I am supposed to teach you how to be a strong and confident girl and to love yourself and love your body but I would lying to you if I said that it doesn’t feel super weird to be living in a body that I don’t really know. Pregnancy changes everything about a body and it is hard to get to know a new you after being the same you for so long plus, WHY IS CELLULITE EVERYWHERE???? (PS. sorry about that, Baby. It’s genetic and never goes away)

I am sure there is more. Life is full of things that seem daunting or hard or overwhelming or sad but the above is a good summary of most of it.

The thing to know, Baby is that YOU HAVE TO TALK ABOUT IT.

All of it. The good, but especially the bad. You are never alone and the more you can express yourself and how you feel, the more you will help people understand you. The more people understand you, the more they can support you and hold you up.

You will find out that it is ok (within reason) to lean on the person you love even if it means snapping at them from time to time (or a lot during especially hairy times), that people are happy to help you get some rest and take over other shit that you don’t need to worry about when you need them to. You will see that even though you may not know exactly who you are, you are so loved and that your fears and anxieties are ok to have but unfounded. You will feel the support when you have shoulders to cry on (even about Coke commercials) and even more support when you get to hear the words you are longing for- “good job.” And you will understand that your ass may not be the same, but you are even more beautiful with flaws.

I hope that whatever struggles you have and whatever strange milestones come your way that you have a voice and a venue to express how you feel with no shame.

xo

Mom