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This is another golden tip from some book that I read about baby sleep.  Seems pretty common sense but you come to find that to a sleep deprived parent, few things are common sense.  The Squeaker has been such a bad sleeper that when I figured out I could nurse her to sleep lying in bed, I thought I had hit the jackpot.  Problem is now I can only put her to sleep like this.  So when we’re all in bed and she starts to squirm and I know she is going to wake up, yes I feed her, and yes, sometimes she is asleep.  So I do in fact feed a sleeping baby sometimes but I don’t do it as often as before.  Now I wait and see if she can put her self to sleep.  Anywho…

There are a few things that I am getting tired of:
1) People talking to me as if I’m stupid for co-sleeping with O.
2) Co-sleeping with O.

So, #1, I guess I run in some pretty hippy mom circles where co-sleeping is valued and seen as good parenting.  But recently I have had a lot of encounters with people who don’t have kids and who talked to me as if I didn’t know the first thing about being a good mom.  There is really no topic quite as controversial as how you get your baby to sleep.  Every single mom feels guilty about the way they get to their kid to sleep.  Including me.  Every time I tell someone that O sleeps in bed with us I feel like I need to explain why.  I feel like they are judging me and think that I am doing the wrong thing.

You know what?  That’s it.  I’m not going to feel bad anymore and other moms shouldn’t either.  I have talked at length to moms about how they get their kids to sleep and every single one of them does something that they feel uncomfortable telling you about and feel like they have to justify it.  Moms that have their kid sleep in their own crib in their own room and had to let their kid cry until putting themselves to sleep will say that there was no other way that worked and this was their last resort.  Moms that sleep with their baby in bed with them will say the same thing.  Moms that put their baby to sleep on their stomach will say the same thing.   We don’t need to explain why we do this to anyone.  The name of the game is survival.  You do what puts your baby to sleep so that you can get just enough sleep not to go crazy.

I do believe that there are a lot of things that moms can do that make them bad moms.  Here are some examples: put soda in your kid’s bottle, not giving your kid a chance to like veggies and always feeding them chicken nuggets and quesadillas, letting them play Halo and Grand Theft Auto, etc.  But sleeping with your baby, putting your baby in a crib, or letting them sleep on their stomach  is not one of them.

So next time I am talking to you and the topic of co-sleeping with O comes up don’t tell me that you think babies should sleep in cribs and don’t tell me that you know someone whose aunt’s hairdresser’s tax attorney’s dog groomer rolled over and smothered their baby after coming home drunk one night.  Don’t want to hear it.

#2 I have been thinking for a while that it is time to transition O into a crib.  Not because I want her out of our bed, but because she sleeps pretty well when she is asleep in our bed by herself but when I get in bed she wakes up about every hour.  I think she would sleep better in her crib.  And now that she is starting to be more mobile, I am worried about her being able to crawl off the bed.  (It is a commonly known precaution that if your baby sleeps in bed with you you should put your mattress on the floor to prevent this from happening.)  Thing is, I just have not built up the resolve that I need to fight this battle.  I am very sleep deprived at the moment and the thought of rocking O to sleep for hours and then her waking up 5 minutes after I put her in her crib makes me want to cry.  So I’m working on it.  Not to mention, we have a queen size bed which was fine until she started getting so big and likes to sleep with her arms outstretched as if she was Jesus.

Just like all families, we are a work in progress.

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I don’t know why I thought parenthood would be much different from my past jobs in terms of progress.  I know I’ve had a short run as far as the job world is concerned but all my jobs have been working with people that don’t change/improve quickly.  Being a Catholic Worker, a case manager for Meals on Wheels, a high school teacher, and now a mother, I’ve learned to revel in small victories.

It’s such a weird thing that you have to teach babies how to sleep.  As essential as water, sleep is such a biological necessity that you would think that babies would instinctively do it.  Nope.  Especially not the Squeaker.  She has been a bad sleeper from day one. 

From the day she was born, she would not sleep by herself or put herself to sleep.  Those few nights in the hospital consisted of me and Kraft sleeping off and on an hour to hold her because every time we’d put her in the little bassinet, she would start wailing. 

When we brought her home.  Same thing.  She would not stay asleep unless she was in someone’s arms.  For the first three weeks of her life, we alternated between having her sleep on her diaper pad in our bed between me and Kraft and in our arms.  I would take the 1-4am shift and Kraft would take the 4-7am shift.  We realized quickly that we needed more sleep than this. 

Then I figured out how to sleep on the couch sitting up propped up by pillows while holding her so that she wouldn’t roll off of me during the night.  This lasted a couple more weeks. 

Then I found that if I rocked her for a couple hours until she was soundly asleep I could lay her down on our couch and lay down next to her and she’d stay asleep for 30mins or so until I’d have to rock her to sleep again.  This lasted about another month. (She was 3 months old at the end of this stage.) 

Then I could rock her for a couple hours and lay her down (extremely carefully) in our bed and she would stay asleep maybe an hour at a time.  Of course she would wake up at the slightest noise.  A car alarm going off, people walking by the apartment and talking too loudly, a cat meowing, anything would wake her up.  So there I would go again to the rocking chair for a few more hours until she was sound asleep.  I got so sick of this rocking chair.  Cracker Barrel sure can sell a sturdy, cheap rocking chair but man is it uncomfortable and hard on the back.  There were some nights that I totally thought I was going to go crazy from rocking for hours then putting her down only to wake up 5 minutes later. 

One night out of sheer desperation I swaddled her.  She had fought this like a fiend before this point.  She would scream as if we were killing her when we had tried the swaddle previously.  But magically this time, she was fine.  In fact, she slept like 4 hours straight.  Hallelujah.  Praise the Lord.  Between 3.5 and 4.5 months she started sleeping super well. She was sleeping about 5 hours stretches at night in a swaddle. 

Then she started learning how to break out of the swaddle and by 5 months we couldn’t do it anymore.  Damn.  After coming to hate rocking O to sleep, I figured out how to nurse her to sleep lying down in our bed and then sneaking away when she was asleep.  This still took forever but at least I could lay down during it and rest while trying to get her asleep.  Now, of course, she cannot fall asleep unless she is nursing.  She won’t even fall asleep rocking anymore, which while I hated rocking before, now means that Kraft cannot help with putting her to sleep.  Damn, again. 

For the last month we’ve been following Elizabeth Pantley’s No-Cry Sleep Solution techniques to wean O from having to nurse to sleep.  Pantley said it would be a gradual weaning and, man, it sure is.  Here we are one month later and we have made very little progress in that department. 

However, yesterday was a glorious day.  It took two hours to get O to finally fall asleep around 9pm.  She did not wake up until 3:30am, at all.  I kept going in to make sure she was still breathing because it was so unbelievable.  Of course tonight she woke up 5 times in 4 hours but that is neither here nor there.  She slept six and a half hours yesterday without waking up. 

I will take this one small victory and pray for more in the near future.

I’m pretty sure it’s going to take a long time for the Squeaker to learn her name because we hardly ever call her by her name.  This is a list of the names that we call her on a regular basis:

Image by Kai photo via Flickr

O
Oli
Livy
Libby
Bear
Baby Bear
Little Bear
Hungry Bear
Milky Bear
Poopy Bear
Binky Bear
Bink
Binksy
Binkerton
Chubbs
Chubbers
Chubberton
Chubbington
Grumpy Mumkins
Grump
Pill
Poopy
Poophead
Punkface
Belly Muffin
Squeaker
Squeaksy
Squeaks
Squeakies
Squirt
Squirt-alert

Man, poor kid.  She’s never going to learn her name.

Image by lantzilla via Flickr

The Squeaker finally got her first tooth! 

I’m not sure when exactly it came in but today I was rubbing some teething medicine on her gums and I felt a tooth.  Upon further investigation and a lot of coaxing for O to get her mouth open wide enough, I saw it.  A little bit of tooth popping up from the gum.  Yay!  She has been fussy and grumpy and drooly for the last 3 months with nothing to show for it.  Now she does. 

Let’s pray for a good set of teeth and not teeth like her mommy and daddy.

Image by hackett via Flickr

I just returned from The Woods today with the Squeaker.  It is Spring Break in El Paso so a lot of my family, including my grandma, caravan-ed out to Houston to stay with my parents for the week.  4 out of my dad’s 7 siblings were at my parents house along with their families.  Now I love El Paso and going to El Paso to see everyone but I love it even more when they come to Houston to stay with the ‘rents.  At one point there were 25 family members in the house.

We went to El Paso over New Year’s.  Sometimes there are good visits with the fam and sometimes there are not so good visits.  It’s just the way the cookie crumbles.  This New Year trip to introduce la familia to Olivia was a not so good one.  I just was not prepared for the onslaught of parenting advice that we got and by the end was totally burnt out.

This visit was not like that at all.  It was great.  I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it.  It was what a family should be and I wished that my family lived closer so that we could have these moments more often.  It was just so nice to have everyone sitting wherever they could find space eating beans and rice and enchiladas.  It reminded me of the times when we still lived in El Paso and at least once a week we would have dinners like this at my grandma’s.  Like Thanksgiving or Christmas but without all the pressure and expectations.

I really want Olivia to experience this all the time.  I know that we will only be able to go to El Paso a couple times a year.  Maybe we could get our friends together for something like this.  I don’t know.  Maybe I just miss my family.  They’re big, they’re loud, they’re pushy, they’re busybodies but, man, do I love ‘em.

Image by Ben Scicluna via Flickr

This is one of a gazillion nicknames I have for the Squeaker.  Since I’m with her just about every second of every day I come up with a new name for her pretty often.  The list of them is for a later post.  But I reserve Grumpy Mumkins for when she’s being a total grouch. 

I have been following the facebook updates of several people that have had babies recently.  They are so joyous and happy.  All their posts talk about how happy they are and how every moment with their baby is a beautiful gift that takes their breath away.  That life is perfect and they could never imagine the happiness they would feel all the time with a child.

Reading this filled me with complete and utter annoyance.  These babies are only in their first months.  These people should be sleep deprived and hormonal.  Our first month with O was really hard.  Ok, let’s be honest, it was kind of miserable.  She wouldn’t let us put her down.  Ever.  She didn’t sleep unless she was in someone’s arms.  Breastfeeding was super difficult.  And because hormones were up and down trying to settle into their pre-pregnancy ways, I was a wreck.  A total wreck.  Those first months, the name of the game was survival.  Every day I was totally in love with my daughter and was so happy to be a mom but that doesn’t mean it was kittens and rainbows all the time.  These people posting these facebook messages, come on, [gag] give me a break.

I shared these sentiments with Kraft at dinner one night.  My very wise husband knows that sometimes I need to say things that are in my head even if they’re dumb.  He knows that he doesn’t particularly have to respond or tell me that I’m being dumb because I’ll figure it out.  I need time to mull it over.  So after I stated my case he just sat their and looked at me while munching on dinner.  I stared at him for a few seconds, “Am I being a jerk?”  “Eh, a little.”  Munching continued.

I know.  I was being a jerkface.  After giving it some more thought, I realized that I was annoyed by these happy and joyous statements because they made me feel like a bad mom.  I felt like I was a bad mom for not enjoying labor.  A bad mom for sometimes getting so frustrated with O that I had to give her to Brandon because I wanted to drop her.  A bad mom for not being happy every second that I held O.  A bad mom because I wanted to scream if O woke up again during the night crying.

No.  I am not a bad mom.  My experience and the way I cope with things is just different.  Can’t I just let these moms revel in the joy that is a new child without pooping on their parade?  Yes, I can.  I have these wonderful joy-filled moments with O everyday.  Motherhood, along with being fun and great, is a life of sacrifice, of frustration, of pain, of loneliness, of confusion, of second-guessing, of total responsibility and accountability.  But then in the middle of these moments, your little squeaker looks up at you and gives you a huge grin from ear to ear and your soul feels like it is soaring.  And you just have to say, you little punk.

New moms – be cheesy, be ecstatic, be angry, be sleepy, be whatever you need to be.  In the end we know you are completely in love with your baby even if you don’t feel it every moment of every day.

I’ll stop being a grumpy mumkins.  Without the bitter the sweet ain’t as sweet, right?

Image by clarkwoods via Flickr

Brilliant is what the Exersaucer is.  This is the first toy that we have found that the Squeaker will stay occupied in for more than 5 minutes.  It’s awesome.  This is a conversation that Kraft and O just had while she was playing in it:

O: [chewing on a toy fish attached to the Exersaucer]
K: Honey, it’s not Friday.  You don’t have to eat fish today.

I love my family.

PS.  For those wondering, this is not a pic of O.  Just some stock photo.

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I think most people would characterize me as a modest person but motherhood changes all sorts of things.  No, that doesn’t mean I walk around in a micro-mini and a bra but my modesty, as far as breastfeeding goes, went out the window in NYC.  Like I mentioned in a previous post, you just have to nurse wherever you are because you can’t go to your car or anything like that.  It was actually really liberating finally becoming comfortable with breastfeeding in public.  I was always just so nervous that someone was going to think I was being indecent.  Thankfully, S was really supportive and made me feel like it was not a big deal to feed the Squeaker wherever we were no matter how cramped the space was.

So I discreetly threw a blanket over my shoulder and fed O in the following places:

Grey Dog’s Coffee – I enjoyed a delicious apple cider here.  There was a couple here that was super PDAing it but they kept admiring O.  I wonder if she was pregnant.

Suzu Sushi – We walked in and were the only customers in the restaurant for a good 40 minutes.  It was kinda funny, the whole place was empty but they sat us right up against the window.
 
The Met – Right by the Medieval Art section.  It was kinda beautiful to feed O surrounded by paintings of Mary and Jesus.  The American Wing with the Tiffany’s stained glass window was really amazing.

St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic Church – We ducked into this church when it was snowing like crazy and there was lots of slush everywhere because the plows hadn’t come through yet.  What a refuge we found.  And it worked out perfectly because we arrived 30mins before daily Mass so we sat and prayed (O ate) and then we stayed for Mass.  When we left the sidewalks were a lot better.  Store owners had shoveled the areas in front of their stores so it was much more navigable.
 
Otto Pizzeria – Talk about cramped.  I couldn’t feed O at the table because the tables around us were so close together that I would have had one elbow in the table on either side of us.  I had to feed her in the bathroom.  This is actually the first place O ever sat in a highchair.  What a rock star.

Rockefeller Center – After eating at Otto’s, we went and bought some cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery.  We took the cupcakes to the bottom floor of Rockefeller Center and ate them as we watched people ice skating.  Yum.

Who cares, you may ask.  Me.  Just wanting to remember how my modesty was changed for the better on this trip. 

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When I taught last year there was one student who I will forever remember because of a statement he made.  I believe he said it during a discussion about the election between McCain and Obama.  He stood up and proclaimed the following to the class (dead serious):

“Fox News is a beacon of light.”

It took a lot not to die laughing in front of the class.  I think of this all the time.

In NYC when the Squeaker and I were on our own wandering around Union Square in the rain by ourselves, I remembered this quote.  Squeaksy had been asleep for a while and I knew she was going to wake up soon and be starving.  In Austin I’m always able to go out to the car if she needs to be fed and we’re out of the house but here, what was I going to do?  No car.  Not anywhere near home.  Ok, I saw a Starbucks.  I guess I’ll go in there, order a chai tea and park myself in a corner with a blanket and feed her.  Awkward but whatever.  Then as I am walking toward Starbucks, I see it.  My beacon of light.  Babies ‘R Us.  Hallelujah.  They have what’s called “A Mothers Room” that has changing tables, comfy couches to use while nursing, and very serene hues of blue and green on the wall.  I’ve never been more relieved. 

Babies ‘R Us – huge national chain but whatever, they know their **it.

Image by lscan via Flickr

Today was Kraft’s last day of work at the UCC.  Kraft has spent just about every day inside those UCC doors since August 2002.  Holy cow.  That is just about 8 years.  On that fateful day that Kraft went to Mass at the UCC as a lowly little freshman he came out of Mass and Hung Doan saw him and said, “Hey you, you look like a guy.  Come join Lambdas.”  And from that moment on, Kraft was hooked.  (Thank God he looks like a guy.)  The UCC has really helped Kraft grow from a cocky know-it-all freshman to a more humble know-it-all husband and father.  What really amazes me is that the UCC encompasses Kraft’s entire adult life.  He was 17 when he walked in and is 25 walking out.  He has worked full-time at the UCC for 5 years.  5 years.  Ca-razy.  I have not held a job for more than a year so 5 blows my mind.

While Kraft has grown and learned a lot from the UCC and the people he has met there, Kraft has poured his heart and soul into the place.  He has really helped shape the place and has been instrumental for most great things the place has done for the last 8 years.  Before Kraft started working full-time, he was being paid for 11 hours part-time but was actually working  probably 50 hour weeks.  Probably to the detriment of his academic career, Kraft always worked way more hours for the UCC than he would like to fess up to.

Kraft has been vital to the Lambdas throughout the years.  Officially he has been the Lambda chaplain and president separate years.  But he has helped them through small and very, very large problems.  He planned the 15th year anniversary celebration.  His door has always been open to the many members that needed to talk out issues with him.  While the guys don’t always make the best of decisions, Kraft has always been there to firmly but pastorally lead them back to a path of being good and upstanding Catholic men.

Kraft put together and executed the first Phonathon that will happen for the 4th year this year and is the biggest fundraiser that the UCC does.

He has helped plan and MCed countless liturgies, Masses, Triduums, etc.  He has helped cultivate the relationship between the UCC and the bishop.

Kraft has helped put out lots of fires (figurative) from money issues to building issues to differences of personalities on staff to student problems.  With so many students coming through the UCC doors along with your usual group of homeless folks that wander off the drag and parents and resident community members, there was always someone that Kraft needed to help or unruffle feathers.

If you could only see the difference between the computer system/server/technology pre-Kraft and post-Kraft, you would be amazed.  If Kraft did nothing other than the tech stuff for the UCC, it alone would be worthy of praise.  I can’t really say what all he has done, mostly because it is more technical than I understand but he has revamped the staff’s email and calendar, built the computer lab from scratch, designed and implemented the facilities calendar and room reservation system, and then it gets into stuff I can’t explain.

Kraft has improved Student Leadership and has re-started the Knights council that has been dormant for many years.

All of this doesn’t mention the countless hours he has spent planning, emailing, counseling, mentoring, chatting, building community, etc, etc.  This is just the stuff I can think of right now and am sure that I am leaving out a lot.  While Kraft has learned a lot from the UCC, Kraft has been invaluable to the UCC.  I know he has made such a huge impact on the community and on many students’ lives.  All his work has not been in vain.

We will always be thankful for the UCC.  If it weren’t for the UCC, we
would never have met.  Kraft’s best friends are from the UCC.

Thank God for the UCC and the opportunities it has given Kraft.  Thank God for leading Kraft to the UCC and making him such a dedicated
servant.

Today is the end of an era.  The Kraft era.    So, thank you UCC.  You have been good to us and will always have a place in our hearts.