I’ve recently been writing some entries about when the baby was first born to fill in some history there – from when I was FAR TOO tired to even think about putting it down on paper. I filled in a lot of gaps, but was remembering some other things from those first days yesterday – things that made me want to laugh (or cry at how tired I was then!) and I just wanted to get them down now.
First I was thinking about swaddling. We had gotten some of the “miracle” blankets and “swaddle me” blankets from friends – but darned if we knew how to use them or why to use them… We were so confused. We’d been told that the baby’s crib needed to be completely bare / devoid of anything that could be a suffocation hazard. And then they’d wrapped her in this blanket in the hospital! Wasn’t that a hazard? But wouldn’t she be cold without it...? What were we supposed to do? We tried swaddling her in the blanket, but were always paranoid about it.
One night in those first long weeks we’d gotten up with her and my husband had gone out of the bedroom. Forty five minutes or an hour had passed while I fed her and burped her and tried to get her to go back to sleep, but he was nowhere to be found. I was half convinced he’d gone to sleep on the couch! I finally went out to the family room to find him on the computer. I thought he was emailing or “goofing off” and was not too happy about it (I don’t know what I was thinking as any sane person would use any “goofing off” time to sleep in those days.). When I looked he was watching Youtube videos on swaddling. He’d been reading every post and watching every video he could find on it (at it must have been 2 in the morning) to be ABSOLUTELY sure he was doing it right and it was safe for the baby. Who needs a push present when you’ve got that?
It was around that same time that we tried to start reading her books on occasion (I still haven’t quite gotten this down at night. She either wants to be eating and is ticked I’m reading rather than feeding her or she wants to grab and rip the book – while eating.). I’d read her Guess how much I love you and left it on the table next to the chair. Later that night, I heard my husband starting to read it to her over the monitor. He read how little “newborn” hare had asked big “newborn” hare to guess how much he loved him. This went on for a few minutes till I finally had to get up and walk into the baby’s room to tell him – you know it’s actually little “nut brown” hare and big “nut brown” hare. The mistake had been obvious to me – as I’d read it to her the same wrong way for the first few pages earlier that night. Between the two of us, we will be SO lucky if this kid ever gets past a 2nd grade reading level.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Sisyphus
Corporate America. I think anyone who has worked in Corporate America for more than a few years has stopped to wonder at some point – how on earth do companies ever make money? When I think about the excesses I’ve sometimes seen, the wasted time and efforts, the unending tasks that sometimes seem to be done for no one, it sometimes amazes me that products don’t all cost A LOT more than they do on a pure cost basis… OK, to be fair, this isn’t true of all jobs I’ve had in all companies at all times. But it still seems to happen a lot. And it can be a bit disheartening.
I have been known to compare my jobs to Sisyphus (after I looked up the right name - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus). I’m not going to include the whole story (the wiki link covers it), but basically Greek myth says that he was condemned to push a huge boulder up a hill. Every time he’d almost get to the top, it would roll back down and he’d have to start over. How many times does a job feel like that? Why am I doing this? I’m not getting anywhere. This is pointless.
Some days my job still feels like this, but I have to admit that going to part time and refocusing on my life outside work (reinstating a balance for myself!), it’s not nearly so disheartening. Work is work and I’m really able to leave it there / focus on the rest of my life. Yes some tasks may seem pointless, but as long as they want to pay me to do them – fine. It makes me wonder if I could have done this before / without going to part time. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have done it post-baby if I were full time (as all the time spent working was keeping me away from my baby for no good reason / for pointless tasks). I’m not sure if going part time has just made me enough less career focused to finally “let it go.” Whatever the case – it’s really freeing. If I ever figure out the right secret of it, I’ll be sure to let you know!
I have been known to compare my jobs to Sisyphus (after I looked up the right name - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus). I’m not going to include the whole story (the wiki link covers it), but basically Greek myth says that he was condemned to push a huge boulder up a hill. Every time he’d almost get to the top, it would roll back down and he’d have to start over. How many times does a job feel like that? Why am I doing this? I’m not getting anywhere. This is pointless.
Some days my job still feels like this, but I have to admit that going to part time and refocusing on my life outside work (reinstating a balance for myself!), it’s not nearly so disheartening. Work is work and I’m really able to leave it there / focus on the rest of my life. Yes some tasks may seem pointless, but as long as they want to pay me to do them – fine. It makes me wonder if I could have done this before / without going to part time. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have done it post-baby if I were full time (as all the time spent working was keeping me away from my baby for no good reason / for pointless tasks). I’m not sure if going part time has just made me enough less career focused to finally “let it go.” Whatever the case – it’s really freeing. If I ever figure out the right secret of it, I’ll be sure to let you know!
Daddy Daycare
Given my part time work schedule, we have several people as primary care givers depending on the given day’s schedule. In theory, my husband has her 2 days while I’m at work. I have her 2 days while he’s at work. We’re both home 2 days and his Mom takes the other “rotating” day that we both work. In reality, his Mom often gets her 3 days, I get 2 and we’re both home for 2 – but that’s because of overtime and work commitments (or mowing his parents’ lawn and family stuff), so it all works out overall. What’s funny about that though is even a few months into this schedule I’ll still get phone calls from my husband (who is, in theory her primary caregiver as often as I am) asking odd questions. Odd in that I can’t figure out how he’s made it this far without figuring it out. My personal favorite as of late has been how to do the baby’s laundry – this was about 2 weeks ago. So she was 5 ½ months old, but he hadn’t figured out laundry yet… To be fair, I know he’d done laundry at least once before, but well … well, he did it wrong! (hence the phone call)
My husband and I have very different approaches to how we do our own laundry. His view is throw everything in on cold, pour some detergent in – whatever looks right and go. Now I’m not the best laundry sorter – I do tend to wash more stuff on cold to avoid ruining it – but I do separate at least darks from lights and towels and I measure soap. In the case of the baby laundry, most stuff isn’t too delicate and can go into a single load, but I am pretty strict about measuring soap. I mean we bought the free and clear soap because anything more can irritate the baby’s skin, but I still think you have to follow the instructions well enough to not over soap and potentially leave irritants. (Maybe you don’t REALLY have to measure. I’m sure he doesn’t throw in THAT much. But still!) So the phone call on laundry was literally –
Him - can I throw on all the stuff in this basket?
Me – Yes.
Him – and I have to measure the soap, right?
Me – Yes.
Him – and I can’t use a dryer sheet, but it can all go in the dryer?
Me – yes.
Laundry 101.
But overall, I can’t complain. He does very well. And he often does it on little or no sleep. The problem with our planned split of duties is – it totally works that we can both work, have time with the baby, have ‘me’ time and relax as long as we NEVER need to sleep and she sleeps very regularly. My husband came home yesterday morning after a 24 hour shift in which there was NO time to sleep (normally you are allowed to sleep on shift after 9 if there are no calls). I was about 20 minutes from walking out the door to go to work when he got home. And the baby had decided she was AWAKE. She did go back down for 30 minutes – but that was it. Long day.
On days like these he’s told me that sometimes he’s just decided to lie down next to her on the floor for extended tummy time. He lies half asleep while she squirms – stopping to hit him (usually in the face) at regular intervals. He decided that she’d learned that when she hit him, he made a noise, and that was providing entertainment. I worry that maybe we’re teaching her the wrong lesson there…
My husband and I have very different approaches to how we do our own laundry. His view is throw everything in on cold, pour some detergent in – whatever looks right and go. Now I’m not the best laundry sorter – I do tend to wash more stuff on cold to avoid ruining it – but I do separate at least darks from lights and towels and I measure soap. In the case of the baby laundry, most stuff isn’t too delicate and can go into a single load, but I am pretty strict about measuring soap. I mean we bought the free and clear soap because anything more can irritate the baby’s skin, but I still think you have to follow the instructions well enough to not over soap and potentially leave irritants. (Maybe you don’t REALLY have to measure. I’m sure he doesn’t throw in THAT much. But still!) So the phone call on laundry was literally –
Him - can I throw on all the stuff in this basket?
Me – Yes.
Him – and I have to measure the soap, right?
Me – Yes.
Him – and I can’t use a dryer sheet, but it can all go in the dryer?
Me – yes.
Laundry 101.
But overall, I can’t complain. He does very well. And he often does it on little or no sleep. The problem with our planned split of duties is – it totally works that we can both work, have time with the baby, have ‘me’ time and relax as long as we NEVER need to sleep and she sleeps very regularly. My husband came home yesterday morning after a 24 hour shift in which there was NO time to sleep (normally you are allowed to sleep on shift after 9 if there are no calls). I was about 20 minutes from walking out the door to go to work when he got home. And the baby had decided she was AWAKE. She did go back down for 30 minutes – but that was it. Long day.
On days like these he’s told me that sometimes he’s just decided to lie down next to her on the floor for extended tummy time. He lies half asleep while she squirms – stopping to hit him (usually in the face) at regular intervals. He decided that she’d learned that when she hit him, he made a noise, and that was providing entertainment. I worry that maybe we’re teaching her the wrong lesson there…
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Do you want fries with that?
My husband has taken to referring to the baby monitor as the drive through window. I’m not sure if this is because of the scratchy quality of sound, the unintelligible noises she makes (sounds about equivalent to when my order is repeated back) or because her take out order is so quickly fulfilled (and at 3am my customer service level about matches your average minimum wage fast food employee). It reminded me of a story my friend told about his Mom watching his cousin. She had their “drive through” on and heard the little boy asking for water after he went to bed – so she brought him some water. Apparently he thought this was just great and started placing his next order! “… ice cream sandwich.” Sadly I guess the level of service dropped there and no ice cream sandwich appeared – though wouldn’t it be great to have that sort of magic monitor in your house?! How nice would that have made pregnancy? I’d like a glass of water, the pickle flavored potato chips and someone to help me out of bed to make it to the bathroom.
Thankfully the drive through is getting less use as she gets older, though we are not QUITE done with it. I mentioned this to a friend of mine with three kids who “yelled” (via IM) back – what are you doing getting up? Ferber method! Oh goodness, parenting methods… If you lined up 5 doctors, you’d get at least 6 different theories on parenting, but it does amaze me how truculently some people abide by them – and expect you to as well. We’ve been pretty lucky that our munchkin generally sleeps pretty well, but as I’ve mentioned here, she does regress on occasion and start waking up again. Because it’s not her norm, I generally do get up to check on her / feed her (until the pattern repeats enough times that it’s becoming her norm and then I try to hold out). As she’s currently teething, I’ve been a bit more of a sucker for the cries (unfortunate that this coincides with about the age that “they” say she can begin to be spoiled – and start playing me!). The problem with going to check on her, though, is that you can’t just “look in” and make sure she’s alright and then leave without feeding her. As soon as she sees you – it’s all over. If I don’t feed her, the cries will become tormented. Between the sobs you can almost hear – “I saw you come in, so I know you can hear me. I need you. And yet you ignored me. I used to think you loved me, but now I don’t and will therefore grow up to be a sociopath.” I mean, it’s definitely quiet – but it’s there. I tried to explain this to my husband, but she’d been making noise and crying for awhile, so he went in. He came back 30 seconds later, the anguished sobs coming over the monitor, and said, “OK, so you were right. Could you go feed her?” Because the thing is – rocking won’t do it. Now I’d like full service, please.
Thankfully the drive through is getting less use as she gets older, though we are not QUITE done with it. I mentioned this to a friend of mine with three kids who “yelled” (via IM) back – what are you doing getting up? Ferber method! Oh goodness, parenting methods… If you lined up 5 doctors, you’d get at least 6 different theories on parenting, but it does amaze me how truculently some people abide by them – and expect you to as well. We’ve been pretty lucky that our munchkin generally sleeps pretty well, but as I’ve mentioned here, she does regress on occasion and start waking up again. Because it’s not her norm, I generally do get up to check on her / feed her (until the pattern repeats enough times that it’s becoming her norm and then I try to hold out). As she’s currently teething, I’ve been a bit more of a sucker for the cries (unfortunate that this coincides with about the age that “they” say she can begin to be spoiled – and start playing me!). The problem with going to check on her, though, is that you can’t just “look in” and make sure she’s alright and then leave without feeding her. As soon as she sees you – it’s all over. If I don’t feed her, the cries will become tormented. Between the sobs you can almost hear – “I saw you come in, so I know you can hear me. I need you. And yet you ignored me. I used to think you loved me, but now I don’t and will therefore grow up to be a sociopath.” I mean, it’s definitely quiet – but it’s there. I tried to explain this to my husband, but she’d been making noise and crying for awhile, so he went in. He came back 30 seconds later, the anguished sobs coming over the monitor, and said, “OK, so you were right. Could you go feed her?” Because the thing is – rocking won’t do it. Now I’d like full service, please.
Feeling like Julie McCoy
I can’t believe this has happened already. My daughter will be 6 months old next week. We have yet to have a “real” play date (I’ve just hung out with friends some of whom have kids, but none are really capable of “play” yet). We have yet to have school commitments or lessons or class trips. And yet already I’m starting to feel like the cruise director – scheduling doctor’s appointments around our travel schedule and my husband’s work schedule. Hmm… work schedule… I just realized! I’m not her cruise director! I’m his!
Note - For those who don't recall, Julie McCoy was the cruise director on The Love Boat
Note - For those who don't recall, Julie McCoy was the cruise director on The Love Boat
Getting propositioned with your baby in your baby bjorn!
My husband called me up with his quote of the day for today: The only thing more awkward than getting propositioned by a prostitute is getting propositioned by a prostitute with your baby strapped to your chest in the baby bjorn.
Apparently my husband didn't want to put the baby into the car seat to go out and get a sub for lunch. So he decided to just walk out to the nearby strip mall with her in the baby bjorn. To get there, you walk past the Econo Lodge - where there was a woman standing in the doorway who saw him and asked - are you here for me?
Not understanding, he asked what she meant. And she again asked if he was there for her or supposed to meet her there or something.
Being who he is, he straight up asked her if she was a prostitute.
She apparently acted flustered, but didn't deny she was. I joked that she should have seen he probably wasn't a cop, as adding the baby in was really a rather elaborate ruse for a sting operation. But he said she was pretty stoned, so might not have noticed.
So my thoughts here -
1. I remember a friend of mine reading a book some years ago where different people told the stories of their jobs. One was an industrial cleaner – someone who cleans up crime scenes and the like. Apparently they are called to cheap motels fairly often and he summed up his chapter by saying – spend the extra 50 bucks on your hotel. I now see his point.
2. I'm kind of glad we're moving soon...
Apparently my husband didn't want to put the baby into the car seat to go out and get a sub for lunch. So he decided to just walk out to the nearby strip mall with her in the baby bjorn. To get there, you walk past the Econo Lodge - where there was a woman standing in the doorway who saw him and asked - are you here for me?
Not understanding, he asked what she meant. And she again asked if he was there for her or supposed to meet her there or something.
Being who he is, he straight up asked her if she was a prostitute.
She apparently acted flustered, but didn't deny she was. I joked that she should have seen he probably wasn't a cop, as adding the baby in was really a rather elaborate ruse for a sting operation. But he said she was pretty stoned, so might not have noticed.
So my thoughts here -
1. I remember a friend of mine reading a book some years ago where different people told the stories of their jobs. One was an industrial cleaner – someone who cleans up crime scenes and the like. Apparently they are called to cheap motels fairly often and he summed up his chapter by saying – spend the extra 50 bucks on your hotel. I now see his point.
2. I'm kind of glad we're moving soon...
Kids these days!
Lest we have a moment to breathe, before the home inspection (now plumber visit) on Thursday, we’ll be showing our condo to half a dozen people to try to find some renters forthwith – my husband is telling people we can start the lease next weekend! After the day with the plumber, we’re driving to NJ for a wedding all weekend. My cousin’s son is getting married! Cousin’s SON – so that’s the next generation! That’s my daughter’s generation!!! If pressed, I would SWEAR to you that this kid wasn’t more than 12 years old. But apparently, he’s actually well into his 20’s and done with college (actually done with a doctorate) and “old enough” to get married. OK, so I know he’s actually not that much younger than me in theory! But I can’t believe it.
We expect sort of a whirlwind weekend. We’ll drive up on Friday and get settled with my Mom. Then drop the baby to some friends of her to baby-sit while we’re at the wedding all day Saturday and then drive back on Sunday. Luckily, my Mom has convinced my brother to stay at the reception site (there are actually some complimentary rooms there). He’d wanted to do this anyway so that he wouldn’t have to drive home after, but my Mom is saying that it’s too hard with 5 adults (and a baby) in her 3 bedroom house with one (semi!) working shower.
We expect sort of a whirlwind weekend. We’ll drive up on Friday and get settled with my Mom. Then drop the baby to some friends of her to baby-sit while we’re at the wedding all day Saturday and then drive back on Sunday. Luckily, my Mom has convinced my brother to stay at the reception site (there are actually some complimentary rooms there). He’d wanted to do this anyway so that he wouldn’t have to drive home after, but my Mom is saying that it’s too hard with 5 adults (and a baby) in her 3 bedroom house with one (semi!) working shower.
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