Pardon Me While I Gush

I am madly in love with my six month and 11 day old baby.  I meant to come here and blog about all of his latest accomplishments before he actually turned six months, but alas.  I'm a mommy.  And we all know that mommies have great intentions but spotty follow-through when it comes to anything that doesn't involve taking care of their families.  Right?  Right.

I don't really know what I came here to write today, so I'll just ramble.  And not delete.  I'm in that kind of mood for a change.  Weeeeeeeeeeeeee! 

Ethan's been chowing down on baby food for the past 2 weeks.  So far, he loves it all.  Rice cereal, carrots, green beans, and pears.  We got a funny little face out of him on the green beans, but he didn't stop gobbling.  I've been making home movies of all his first bites of new foods.  I have secret hopes of getting an amazing reaction (good or bad) and winning a bagillion dollars from America's Funniest Videos.  A girl without an income can dream, right?

With the more filling foods, my precious bundle of joy has been sleeping through the night for the past WEEK!  This is a huge break-through for us: we had been getting up TWICE in the middle of the night to feed.   It was terrible.  I was exhausted and had very little patience and very little wits about me. As I suspected, my poor little chunker was just starving. 

Also on the feeding front, we've fully defeated thrush, and now that Ethan's two bottom teeth are in, he's stopped trying to turn his lips in when he eats so the injuries from his bad latching have healed, so feeding is 100 % pain free.  PAIN FREE!!!  Ahh, it's amazing.  Finally, finally breastfeeding doesn't have me in tears.  I'm feeling more and more confident that we'll be able to make it to Ethan's first birthday.

Alright, enough rambling for now.  I'll be back one of these days...

Growing Pains, or Confessions of a Bad Mom

Ethan's growing like a wild man and with his new developments, Josh and I have learned the hard way that we are going to have to pay a *lot* more attention to him.

1 - Last Friday we were getting ready to go to a neighborhood picnic (free Chick-fil-A!), and Josh sat Ethan in his carseat on the sofa but didn't buckle him up.  Josh went down the hallway to get his shoes, and I came out of the kitchen to find Ethan squirming around, arching his back then toppling forward out of the carseat and landing face first on the ground below. Then, to make matters worse, the tipsy carseat fell on top of him and clonked him in the back of the head.  ACK!!!  I wanted to die.  Thankfully he was fine, except for fright and a small red spot on his forehead. 

2- Ethan's been working on being able to sit unassisted.  He's lasted 30 seconds or so before collapsing in a small heap, but I'd say yesterday he truly mastered the skill.  I always sit with him and watch him like a hawk in case he should fall over, but after 10 straight minutes this morning, I must have gotten overconfident.  I looked away for literally 3 seconds to reach over to get my beeping cell phone and within that time Ethan had fallen over and clunked the back of his head on our hard floor.  Poor baby!!!  I've learned my lesson and don't let him sit unless he's surrounded by pillows now.

3- After I told Josh the story of Ethan hitting his head on the floor, he confessed that while I was walking Brownie tonight, Ethan fell off the sofa.  Josh had him propped up all cozy, left the room to pee, then came back and Ethan was laying on his stomach on the floor.  Thankfully, he wasn't crying but it did teach Josh about our son's wily ways.

It's amazing to me that a baby who can't yet roll over from back to belly has already found so many ways to get hurt.  And it'scary as a shedevil that there are probably a million more accidents in our future together.  I think I need to go get a nursing degree pronto!

Ethan on the Road

Ethan has never been a carseat sleeper.  As soon as he's strapped into it, he's wide-eyed and alert and stays that way until we reach our final destination.... even when it's 3 hours away. 

A few weeks ago we went to the Atlanta area to visit family and had the joy of listening to a LOT of backseat screaming on the way.  (Ugh.)  As a part of this trip, we spent a day in Gainesville.  We visited Josh's family, which involved going to his Grandmama's house, out to lunch, then to see his Granddaddy in a hospice type place, then we went to visit my grandparents.  With all that activity, Ethan didn't get a single "real" nap 9am til 7pm.  (In addition to not sleeping in a carseat, he doesn't like to sleep while being held either!)

We'd put him in the car as we'd go from one place to another and he'd wail for about 15 minutes, then *finally* begin to nod off, and we'd be to our next destination.  It was so sad having to get him out of the car again knowing he'd be wide awake within a minute.  Thankfully he was a perfect little angel baby for our relatives, but we got the brunt of his crankiness in the car.

A day or two after that, we drove 3 hours south to Warner Robbins for a college friend's wedding reception and planned to visit other friends north of Atlanta afterward.  What was suppsoed to be another 2 hour trek turned into 4 when we got stuck in all the spring breakers returning from Florida.  Ethan screamed a LOT that day... but in the end it was worth it:  he's learned to sleep in his carseat!!!  Now, even on our short drives around town, he'll nod off without crying first.  Praise the Lord!!

With Ethan's new skill handy, we decided to make a 7.5 hour road trip to Virginia to visit Joel, Steph, and Caitlyn.  Overall, Ethan managed better than I expected.  Of course, I had to sit in the backseat with him 80% of the way... and he did grunt, arch his back and try to squirm out of his seat the closer we got, but I can't really blame him.  That's a long time to be strapped into one place!

And just because we couldn't be so close and not visit, on the way home, we made a 2 hour detour to visit other college friends with a new baby in North Carolina.  All totalled, Ethan spent about 10 hours in his carseat that day.  Whew!!

When we brought him into the house, I immediately took him to his room and laid him down in his crib on his belly (his favorite!).  He immediately laid his head down, stroked the sheets with his hands and kicked his legs a few times.  Then, he lifted his head, looked at me and grinned the biggest toothless grin I've ever seen.  I started cracking up and Josh came in the room to see what was up.  Ethan gave him a big smile, too.  Who knew that even babies realize that there's no place like home?  :) 





 

Time For Change

After my last post, my mind whirrled for a few days.  Community.  Where do I find it?  My church is full of new moms just like me (who also happen to be my closest friends here), but they all work.  Where are the stay at home moms I always thought existed?  If they're like me, probably holed up in their house and lonely. 

My sister-in-law belongs to several Mommy & Me type groups up in Virginia, and based on all the Facebook postings, her friends seem amazing.  I'm very, very jealous... in a happy for her but my life sucks kind of way.  From what I understand, she found them on Meet-up.com.   Unfortunately, when I searched locally here months ago, I found one really giant group and it's for moms with kids of all ages.  For some reason, I don't see myself having tons of fun hanging out with moms of 4-year-olds when my babe can't even sit on his own yet.  Maybe there are a few people with tiny ones like mine, but I feel too chicken to even try to infiltrate a group like that.  I'm afraid of showing up and sitting there alone while all the other moms ignore me.

So, with less than optimistic thoughts like that, I've been pouting ever since my internet search came up short.  Why has my social life sucked so much since I graduted college five years ago?  What have I been doing wrong?  Am I really so unlikable? 

My pastor has been dropping lots of hints in his sermon that we need to get ourside of our comfort zones, and Dr Phil always tells his guests that if what you've been doing isn't working, then it's time to change.  Maybe I'm finally disgusted enough with my life to listen. 

I'm thinking about starting my own playgroup.  I'm just not quite sure how to go about it.  I would want it to be geared toward moms with babies around Ethan's age, but it seems kinda stupid to have a play date when our babies aren't really "playing" age yet.  Would anyone out there even be interested?  Do I start trying to drum up interest now or wait until we have kids who are capable of actually *doing* something?  At this point, what could a group of 4-month-olds and moms do?  And who'd want to drive to Fort Gordon to do it? 

I just don't know.

And that hesitation is probably why most days, I want to run away from my life.  The only problem with that is, wherever I'd go, there I'd be. 

Confessions

Apparently I am never satisfied.

Lately, I've been having the thought that I would rather go back to work than be a stay-at-home mom.  Ethan's a great baby, but he requires so much time, attention, and energy amd I'm having a hard time keeping up with him and being happy at the same time.  I thought that I was feeling down because Josh was gone, but it turns out that the overarching bummed out feeling didn't disappear with his return.  I've been depressed.

I was thinking about all this, trying to place my finger on exactly why and how I could feel so down when, while I was a working woman, I always believed I'd be happier as a mommy.   Having yet again not found my "thing," I only felt more disappointed in myself and in my life as a whole.  I have all the Christianese answers to the big question, but in specificity, don't know why I am here or what I'm supposed to be doing.

I took all these issues with me to church this Easter Sunday, wondering, hoping that at the very least, I'd leave with a bit more joy.  (It's an extra terrible feeling to approach Easter without appropriate amounts of joy.)  Like every other Sunday, Ethan and I vacated the sanctuary and headed for the nursing mom's room just before the sermon.  As our congregation has recently had a baby boom, I was joined by four other mommy friends and their wee ones.  As I looked around the room at Hannah doing tummy time, Rachel sleeping, Raechel being rocked, and Abbey flipping through a book while all of their moms smiled at their baby's little accomplishments, my heart skipped a beat. 

I realized at that moment what was missing.  In actuality, I *do* love being a stay-at-home mom. The problem isn't my job, it's my environment.  Even though I know how to be by myself, it doesn't mean I should be.  As I sat in that small room watching my friends being great mothers, I couldn't help but imagine us in the days that Jesus walked the earth, when women didn't raise children in isolation... when it would be normal and expected to eat, sleep, and live in extremely close proximity with extended family and friends.   

As an only child who's also a homebody, it was an interesting discovery:  The problem is our society. I need community. 

Adjusting

Josh has been home just shy of two weeks now and needless to say, Life. Is. Good.  The adjusting wasn't anywhere as harrowing as I'd envisioned, but it also wasn't as easy as our previous reunions.  Oddly enough, it seems that the Army's re-integration training hurt us more than it helped.  I hoped that Josh would jump right in with Ethan, but he didn't.  He just sat back and let me keep doing everything.  I got a little confused and frustrated, and since my husband has spidey senses, I know he picked up on it.  It didn't help my mood that over the course of single parenting for just a few months, I'd begun to view Josh more as a best friend and partner and less as a lover.  I really wanted to get the lovey dovey feelings back, but it seemed as though the Mommy, nurturing portion of my brain had absorbed every ounce of lusty love for Josh.   

Anyway, on the third day that Josh was here, I was dealing with Ethan, trying to cook dinner, and get laundry out of the dryer.  I must have looked at Josh, who was sitting at the computer, with some sort of evilness because he said, "You feel like I'm intruding in your life."  What?  I assured him that wasn't the case and kept going about with my chores.  About 10 minutes later and feeling a bit frazzled, I looked at Josh and said with who knows how much frustration in my voice, "Feel free to jump in here anytime."  He took Ethan, and that was that.

Later that night, I asked him about the intruding comment.  He told me that during the reintegration training, he was told not to jump into our lives.  He was told that his family had a routine and to sit back and introduce himself very slowly into it, to not disrupt the balance.  While that might be good advice for a family with 3 school-age kids who are all involved in sports, music, or other after-school activities, that was terrible advice for our current situation.

Anyhow, after we got all that out of the air and Josh felt allowed to be a Daddy, things have been good. I got the flu, but thankfully Josh had some time away from the office to help me out and take care of Ethan.  Once I felt better, jmy mom came into town and babysat Ethan so we could go on an alone date.  It was so refreshing to put on cute clothes and dangly earrings without the risk of being spit up on or having my earlobes ripped apart by tiny hands.  I forced myself to not talk about Ethan or baby things, and we had a really great time going out to dinner and a movie.  I felt like the old us, and by the end of the night, my stomach was full of butterflies again. 

Bye Bye Deployment #2

Josh is 3 hours away, and my heart is having some serious palpitations.  I don't know if the fluttering and beat-skipping is from the exhaustion of cleaning a house from top to bottom, taking care of a babe, and doing 5 loads of laundry in one day or if it's from excitement.  Probably a nice mix of both.

I've been so blessed to have my mom visiting this past week.  I've had a really busy week and having a live in babysitter has been a lifesaver.  Sometimes it's just nice not to have to tote a 3 month old around with you everywhere you go.  She just left 30 minutes ago, so I have a wee bit of time to just sit down and relax before my world gets turned upside down again.

I always get so nervous before Josh comes home.  I know it's silly, but I can't help but be afraid of the unknown.  When Josh deploys for an entire year, I have to create a new life for myself. Although that life isn't half as fun, happy, fulfilling or exciting as the life I have with my husband, it's still my life.  My boring little routine is what I know, and I've found comfort in it for a year. 

But it's more complicated than that this time.

Ethan makes it a little bit more nerve-wracking somehow.  I've heard so many horror stories about trying to introduce Daddy back into family life, and I want to be better.  I don't want to actively love my son louder than I love my husband, but after having a tiny baby demand everything of me, I have a hard time comprehending how I'll have the time and energy to be an amazing wife, too.  I know deep down that Josh will immediately jump in, be a wonderful father, and free up some of my time to allow me to be the great wife he deserves... but since it's not a reality we've ever lived, I have an extremely hard time picturing it.  My mind immediately conjures up much more depressing images.  Me locked in the bathroom crying.  Or me feeding Ethan, loving him, playing with him, changing him, bathing him, rocking him, putting him to bed without Josh's help.  Or worse yet, Josh trying to help, but me telling him he's doing everything "wrong," so feeling pushed out, turns to video games, golf, or nights out with friends. 

It's just scary.  I *know* we'll be fine, and in a few hours, I'll be happier than I've been in a year... but right now, I'm nervous.