six weeks old

Six weeks gone, and Jake is getting used to life on the outside. Jake celebrated quietly from his swing, the federal government celebrated by sending us the Social Security card, and I celebrated by going to a bachelorette party with some old friends. Dave, he celebrated by being Jake's sole care giver for seven hours, and it reportedly went very well despite the dirty diapers and projectile vomiting.

It was nice to get out and be myself again. We all met at an Italian restaurant on Passyunk Avenue, had a great dinner, and then landed ourselves at an all male revue. This was my first time at anything like this, and I was totally blown away by the whole thing. It was like an In Sync concert for grown ups- the pretty boys, matching outfits, gimmicky props, flashy lights, and choreographed dance routines were fascinating. It is hard not to imagine all the prep work that goes into all this. Getting the guys together to come up with dance moves that everyone agrees on, remixing songs about Tangueray and booty, going to the gym and the tanning salon each day, drawing up your next tattoo, buying hair gel, getting waxed, inventing an identity for yourself like the Italian Stallion or Hot Chocolate (both of whom were there last night), making a postal workers uniform with Velcro seams that can be torn off at the right moment, and I can't imagine that body glitter puts itself in those hard to reach places... And these boys were once six weeks old. What on earth do their mothers think?

It seems that Jake hasn't changed much in the past six weeks, but he has. He's managed to get even longer and he can almost be called chubby. Almost. He has grown out of his tiniest newborn clothes and will be wearing the 0 to 3 month outfits any day now. His back, shoulder, and leg hair has fallen out, and the long baby hair on his head is thinning while his big boy hair is growing in. Jake has learned that there is more to life than screaming, and so he coos, squeaks, gurgles, and makes a shakey little giggly noise. I am hoping that his laugh sounds like that when he finds that in a few weeks. His eyes are still grey, and are trying to decide whether to be brown or hazel. I swear I can see a little dimple in his chin when the light hits it right. Jake's belly button is healed, but we still don't know whether it will be an innie or an outie. He plays with his crib toys, loves to look at himself in the mirror, and reaches for the cats now and then. When he is feeling especially giddy or you find his tickle spots Jake will smile at you. I won't tell you where those spots are, you'll have fun finding them on your own. Jake is continually discovering his arms, and loves to stretch them and shake his fists. He has his mother's penchant for making funny faces when he is trying to express himself and is guilty of talking in his sleep. He likes all types of music, television, and eating, and wakes up with the birds at daybreak. Pictures from a few weeks ago show how much he is changing, and I regret the days that pass when I don't take a picture. All subsequent children will feel slighted when they see how many pictures of Jake there are. I'll have to make it a point to take their picture too. Or hide Jake's. Sometimes I feel like you can only have so many pictures in the swing or bath time shots, and as interesting as it is to me when he is sleeping, the pictures aren't that thrilling. I'll do better, for those of you who check the picture blog.

Six weeks past delivery means a trip to the obstetrician for a check up. All is well, and I can lift heavy things, run amok, and do pretty much whatever else I wish. No more excuses for not being able to do anything for myself. And my maternity leave is half up. Boo.

tears of boy

Jake's tears came in yesterday, just a few days after he figured out how to keep his new saliva in his mouth.

I am convinced that crocodile tears are nature's way of saying that all the noise isn't simply an annoyance to others, it is actual human emotion. Three days ago I was at wit's end with the wailing, now the screaming has become sobbing and I feel bad for my little baby. Sometimes I even give into the commotion, bringing tons of toys, songs, and smiles to soothe the beast until he is grinning and bubbling at the mouth.

I am being manipulated with bodily fluid. Gross. Our entire day revolves around it- Jake eats it, weeps it, and expels it at both ends, and I create it, soothe it, and clean it up. And this is my life. Anyone up to babysitting?

it's official...

jake was born. and i have the documents to prove it.

For the first time in 29 years (30 for Dave) our names appear on a birth certificate, compliments of the State of Pennsylvania. There is something mildly freakish about seeing the words Lora, Neely, and Arrowsmith printed on a piece of paper beside the words Mother's, Maiden, and Name.

Living life in two hour blocks has become more manageable. Hopefully the pediatrician will be happy with Jake's weight when we go back to the office next Wednesday, and I can feed him every three hours again. Or even two and a half, I'd be okay with that. Because I am the most anal retentive person on my street, I have come up with a well-written, detailed schedule outlining our day, taking into account all upcoming appointments, social outings, bottle feedings, baths (although because I'm a grown up, I will be taking a shower. Maybe.), housework, and errands. Jake seems to hardly care about what we do, as long as he eats.

And finally, to creep you out, it seems that there is some sort of beastie living in the area between the bedroom ceiling and our roof. I'm hoping it hasn't nested and is just there visiting. I'm assuming it is either a single mouse or perhaps a bird, but that may just be wishful thinking. With my luck, my hair is not the only rat's nest in the joint. Dave has a job to do.

smilestones!

Just in time for his five week birthday, Jake figured out how to smile without having to pass gas at the same time! We just had a thirty minute smile fest, as he smiled at everything I put in front of him- his toys, the camera, my fingers, his pacifier, but mostly he just turned his head to the crib mirror in his bassinet and took great joy in his own reflection.
Then the smile faded and he began French kissing all his crib toys right in the mouth. Two monkeys, a frog, and a duck rattle are now in counseling to help them deal with the violation. Those kisses were once reserved only for me (and Dave's nose). Tiny infidel!

And as reluctant as I was to give him a pacifier, I was so proud of him last night when he put it in his own mouth at 4am. I was going to let him cry it out, but got kind of worried when he stopped so soon, so I checked on him, and he was happily sucking away. I think that was a total fluke, but it was a definite step in the right direction.

In feeding news, the every two hour thing is going pretty well, especially with the help of the bottles. He mainly breastfeeds, but sometimes he gets formula, and sometimes I pump a bottle of breastmilk for him if I am feeling especially heavy between feedings. I do let him sleep at night between 11 and 7am, so he only eats every three or four hours then. I put in my time for the first three weeks of his life waking myself up every two hours to feed him.
The nice thing about breastfeeding is your body (uncomfortably) tells you when it is time to feed him, so whether he is sleeping or not, the kid is getting fed, and he gladly does so. He is a little harder to wake up after a bottle of formula since it is so much harder to digest and it knocks him out. But, if you take his clothes off he takes to eating like a champ. Typical man. Hanging out in his underwear, eating after a nice nap.

I feel much better, and not so drained. Pun may or may not be intended, depending on how funny you think that was. The headache is subsiding, and my neck and back ache are getting better too. I am actually able to use some of what I eat for myself, and I don't drop five pounds a day that has to be regained at night and the next morning. My cereal, peanut butter, and cheese supply have been sabotaged every couple hours for over a month, and I think they appreciate the break. I should probably check to make sure that my cupboard doors don't need a shot of WD-40 from frequent use. God forbid they stick and I can't get to the food! Dave would find Jake and I in a corner, dried up like two sponges at the end of the day. That would be pretty traumatic.

I went two places today, and I'm bragging because that's not easy to do with a new baby.

Place one, pediatrician's office. Jake needed his monthly check up and to get the second installment of his Hepatitis B vaccination. He cried at the needle, even though I explained to him that the pain he feels from the inoculation is minor compared to the pain of the disease. He didn't seem to care what I said. Maybe I should schedule him an appointment with Pamela Anderson, who knows everything there is to know about the shame, stigma, and anguish of Hepatitis. And she is really well endowed, so Jake will pay attention.

He is now 21.5 inches long and 6 pounds 13 ounces. He has gained a pound and an ounce in two weeks (more appropriately for my St. Paddy's baby, that translates to a well poured Guinness and a shot of Jameson), but the doctor isn't happy that he isn't over seven pounds by now. So, I have been ordered to feed him every two hours for two weeks. After going through two growth spurts, I know I can't handle breastfeeding that often for so long. Not mentally, and certainly not physically. I think I am the only girl who needed to gain some weight after giving birth, dropping to minus five pounds pre-pregnancy weight four days after having Jake.

Breastfeeding is a lot more physically demanding than pregnancy, and it is hard to find enough time in the day to cram at least 3000 calories in your body. Unless you are eating junk, but then you are just feeding your baby junk. And that is just mean. So, I am alternating breastmilk and formula during the day and giving him only breastmilk at night. This way I can still get out of the house and enjoy the weather and run some errands and meet my scrawny baby's feeding needs- bottle feeding is always more preferred at the grocery store than breast feeding. And more convenient. Juggling a shopping basket and stroller while dodging baby-pokers is hard enough when you have your shirt ON.

I have recently found that there is nothing that depresses and frustrates me more than to sit in my house, unable to do as many chores as I want to, and look outside at a sunny, 70+ degree day and ignore the phone calls from my non-day-working friends who want us to go out and play while my young suckles endlessly. Hopefully Jake will gain an appropriate number of ounces and after the next weight check appointment I can get him on a more manageable schedule. I was a long skinny baby so I'm not too concerned with this whole situation, but I will listen to the doctor, despite my reluctance to use and more importantly, pay for, formula.

And in I-am-still-my-own-person news, Dave scored us some free rich-man seats at the ball park today, and we got to sit 18 rows behind first base and eat Dollar Dogs until we were sick. It was a perfect night for taking in a game, and I only had to relieve engorgement once. Nothing says Sports Fan like bending over a toilet with your shirt pulled up around your neck, squeezing breast milk into the bowl. As much as I enjoy watching the games with Jake while he eats, it was nice to drop the baby off at the in-laws and do something normal for the first time in a month. And it was especially lovely not to have to answer any questions about how I was feeling and how the baby was doing. I was surrounded by exactly 27,912 fans who could not have cared less, and it was beautiful.

getting measurably older

One month old already! It is hard to believe, until I look at the bags under my eyes.

It is crazy how this little guy has completely infiltrated my life. I think I remember what life was like without him, but hardly. I vaguely remember a full night's sleep, daily grooming routines and brushing my teeth three times a day, a house without baby junk all over it, a full time job that only required 8.5 hours a day five days a week, a day without a headache, life before a backache, and conversation with other grown-ups about grown-up stuff.
As tough as some days are, things don't seem quite so bad. By ten o'clock at night I have Jake in a bassinet next to me, and I can hear him cooing himself to sleep. The cats are curled up together in the corner of my bed. And I am thoroughly exhausted, and totally deserving of the next two hours of rest.

Then midnight comes and all hell breaks loose again. Jake needs fed, which makes my back hurt if I don't have the right combination of pillows now that he is getting bigger. I have to find some water, because nursing makes you feel horribly parched and turn on the tv and a light because the same hormones that make you thirsty make you really tired. Then he eats for about an hour or so, and I struggle to stay awake to burp him and change him and watch him go to sleep. And just as I start to get groggy, I have to pee really bad from all the water I just drank. Any time I am frustrated with nursing him, I think of the alternative- taking the time to go downstairs and make bottles in the middle of the night that he may or may not take, cleaning up puke (and the resulting stains) from the formula, dealing with colic, ear infections, and diapers filthier than any human should be allowed to handle without a Hazmat team. I am a self-contained vending machine... no haste, no waste. Feeding a newborn is frustrating no matter how you do it. At least I have convenience on my side. And breastfeeding keeps me from drinking whiskey to cope with the madness.

Jake is starting to be more alert and aware of his surroundings. We all know how much he loves his monkey buddies and swing, but now he likes rattles, getting a bath, his baby gym, and has taken an interest in the cats. He can raise his head up when he is lying on his belly or against our shoulders and take a look around at his little world. I am looking forward to the next month, when we should finally start getting feedback from him. The best he gives us now is crying or not crying, sleeping or not sleeping. Just as I predicted, as soon as he found his voice, he began using it loudly.

I try to get out daily, although that never happens before two o'clock due to feedings and crankiness, both mine and his. Jake and I are practicing with the baby carriers. He loves his sling, but the regular baby carriers seem more convenient. As I sit here typing, Jake is strapped to my torso, deciding whether to be happy or miserable. The stroller is nice, but it is really big and heavy and not conducive to everywhere I need to go. On nicer days, we pack everything up in there and go about our business. On crappy days, we fight with the carseat and traffic.

Daily showers are mandatory. It is the only time I get to myself. At first I strapped Jake into his carseat and sat it in the bathroom so I could check on him every few seconds. Now it is every man for himself. As soon as all bellies are full, I strip down and jump in. I let kitties and babies lie where they fall. If he is still quiet when I get out, I attempt to comb my hair and brush my teeth. Sometimes he even lets me find some clean clothes to wear, but mostly I am just picking yesterday's stuff off the floor and throwing that on.

It helps that Jake is decidedly cute, despite the baby acne and his pervasive ricotta cheese smell. I was overwhelmed with emotion yesterday when I opened the cheese container to make lasagna. I actually had to leave the kitchen to give him a kiss. Today I can't even get to the kitchen because all he wants to do is eat and be held. It is one of those days where it isn't really worth wearing a shirt, and going to the bathroom or to get something to eat comes at the price of screaming. I guess that means he is growing, and that is always a good sign.

My 31 day trial period is up, and I guess I'll keep him.

out and about

The weather has been amazing, and Jake and I have been parading ourselves up and down Passyunk Avenue and around the park. Walking with a baby stroller opens you up to a whole new subset of the population- a very chatty clique that includes old ladies and young mothers.

Girls my own age with babies just walk past me. We have nothing to say to each other. We are tired, we are thirty, and we are trying to tighten the saggy glutes. Nothing more, nothing less. We check out each other's strollers and bellies, just to see who is winning. They may have a Peg or even a Bug-a-Boo, but I have a time and temperature gauge. And a flat belly.

The younger girls want to know how old the baby is and seems more importantly, how old I am. They usually have a scaled down version of the stroller, and often brag about the deal they got on the carseat/stroller combo at K-mart, and complain about the cutesy pattern on the fabric. They want to know how often I feed, bathe, and hold my baby, and ask where I get all the information to do it right (the clock, the stench, and the fussing). They talk about how they will be married soon, or how they were married because of the baby. A few accidentally got pregnant on their honeymoon, and now don't know what to do about school. Some talk about how hard it is to be a single mother. I can't imagine, as I can hardly stand being single from nine to five on weekdays.

The old ladies want to know what my husband does for a living, when and why I'm going back to work, where I live, and make sure that I am breastfeeding, since "girls these days are too lazy to figure it out" or we "are too worried about what our breasts look like after we are done to be concerned about our babies". Then they whisper something to the baby in their native tongue, which in my neighborhood is either Italian, Spanish, or some type of Asian, usually Vietnamese or Korean. They like to tell me about non-disposable diapers made of old curtains, doing the laundry in a tub, what it is like to have a child a year for an entire decade, how I should breastfeed exclusively until the baby goes to college and then send it along in a Fed-Ex Freezer-Pak so he can put it in his coffee. I say, when a child is old enough to stand up next to you and be mouth-to-nipple with your breast it is time to wean. Or one year. Or when it becomes a total pain in the rear end. Whatever.

And of course the old ladies aren't that crazy, most of them say breastfeed for about two years and they only had a child a year for eight years.

first time for everything

Sorry for the lack of posting, it has been a crappy couple of weeks and I have had a wicked eleven day migraine that does not allow for looking at a computer screen. It peaked yesterday, so I should be right as rain in about two days.

In the time since the last post, Jake had a lot of firsts. First trip to church; first time meeting a lot of aunts, uncles, and cousins; first trip in a limo (complete with an in-car meal); first time to a banquet hall; he met his first dog; and unfortunately this all came at the cost of his first funeral. His Great-Mom-Mom M passed on the 31st of March.

Jake seemed to be very interested in the new things he experienced at the church, he sneezed at the incense, stared at the speakers on the wall, and turned his head around in inhuman ways to see all the stained glass windows. He provided a nice diversion to me, who cannot stand funeral services. Usually I am the one staring at the windows, and wondering exactly how many gallons of gold paint go into a South Philly Catholic church, if there is a hymn 666 in the hymnal, or what everyone would do if all those statues of the saints came to life and began dancing the Lambada. Would it be a miracle they were moving or the destructive work of the devil? The world may never know. Instead of the blasphemy, I got to stare at my son and silently make promises to teach him the lessons that I learned from Mom-Mom.

I promise to keep my hands soft and strong, to provide a gentle touch and keep a oft-needed firm grasp on life.
I promise to give of myself and my possessions freely, without thinking of the cost.
I promise to learn all I can about the world through both personal experience as well as from others, so that I may continue to teach when I am too weak to leave my bed.
I promise to lead by example and by words, rather than having a "do as I say rather than as I do" approach at life and motherhood.
I promise to love without judgment, for those who are judged are those who need love most.
I promise to do the simple things to make others happy and healthy, including always having a freezer full of ice cream and a bowl full of fruit.
I promise to persevere through desperation and heartache to benefit others, but also to make myself stronger and wiser.
I promise to extend a vow I took to my husband to my children. I will be there for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, and for all the better times and especially for the worse.
I promise to nurture all children as I would my own, whether that child is 6 or 60.
I promise to fight with all my strength, intelligence, ability to protect my friends, family, and the people they love.
And finally, I promise to add to this short list as I grow and learn.

today was supposed to be the day!

Jake is due to be born today. He was also due to be born on March 18th and March 28th, and those dates didn't work out to well for him either.

It is kind of nice to be on the it's-all-downhill-from-here side of C-section recovery today, and I am back to my pre-pregnancy weight too. However, I have a little bit of work to do to get back into shape. I can get my old pants on, and most of them button, but there is some smooshiness over the waist that will have to go, mostly because unpaid maternity leave does not lend itself to a new wardrobe. And I guess it probably doesn't help that I have been eating the sweets and pizza that made me a little ill during pregnancy. There is just so much goodness out there that I haven't had since last June, and I had some catching up to do. It is all over at midnight tonight. So I say.

And to appease those of you who are asking how I am looking these days, here is the last underwear shot of the pregnancy, taken this morning in the famous black underpants from pictures past. Any more of these photos would be gratuitous, unscientific, and a little creepy. If you want to see more flesh in the future, invite me to a pool party and I promise you a two piece, no matter what it looks like on. Again, the lack of paycheck most likely doesn't allow for swimsuits either.


As of today I have free reign to do light duty exercise and housework, and I am really looking forward to getting out of the house and seeing what spring is doing to the world. I can see from the one live branch on our dead tree that the blossoms are out, so I am going to fortify my sinuses with a little bit of Benedryl and take Jake out in his sensory deprivation uterine-like sling.


It is hard to get much done these past few days, as Jake has begun a feeding frenzy and demands something in his belly every hour or two, instead of every two to four. I know this is temporary, but it is a bit frustrating and uncomfortable because breastmilk is all about supply and demand, and if he doesn't demand for some rare reason like sleep or fussiness, the supply drips out like a weepy and miraculous Venezuelan statue of the Virgin Mary. That makes for a messy and uncomfortable situation for me. But, I guess it isn't about me anymore. (Single tear).

so that's why boys have boobs...

Obviously to drive their mother crazy. My son is lactating. Real milk. Out of his boobs. Just like me.

Dave and I had tons of fun this week poking at Jake's newly enlarged man-breasts. Yesterday I poked a little too hard, and milk came out. I freaked, then remembered that I had read that breast-fed babies can lactate or get a "period" (only girls get that, I would really flip out if Jake started bleeding) from the hormones passed through the milk. I did some independent internet research, and found this is actually a good sign that the baby's hormonal system is properly developed, so my little guy is doing just fine in that department.

And existentially, it is much better to have a baby milkman than to have the milkman's baby.