Bliss of Life

Tonight I slipped out of the house and went to movie with a friend.  The company was great, but the movie was just so, so–the new Bond flick.  It was loud and violent.  (Do I really sound this old?)  I wouldn’t have seen it in the theater except that the movie I really wanted to see (Changling) was only showing way down south.  And the point was for me to get out of the house without the baby for a couple hours.

It took some preparation for me to have a night out.  For the past three days, I’ve pumped milk two times a day just to make sure that the Bean had enough to eat tonight.  When I left the house there was 5.5 ounces of milk in the fridge.  When I came back there was 5.5 ounces of milk, minus the amount that just slipped into her mouth because the bottle was held upside down.  In other words, she wanted nothing to do it.

My memory must be short.  When she was two months old I stopped pumping because she wouldn’t take a bottle.  Now she would rather play with it than suck on it.  Each time Ben put the bottle in her mouth, there were tears.  Tears!  After I got home we tried putting the milk in the sippy cup, but that elicited the same reaction.  You’d think we were sticking her with straight pins.  It’s disheartening.

I have plans to go out with another mom friend of mine in a couple weeks.  I’m hoping that we can get this bottle thing worked out before then.  Otherwise, Lily might need to meet us out so she can tank up and go to bed.

The Yogurt Cup

Our child has a small fortune in non-toxic wood toys.  Know what her favorite toy is?  A yogurt cup.  Really.  Her eyes open wider almost every time she sees it.  She likes to hold it close to her mouth and sing into it so she can listen to the way it changes her voice.  It has words and different colors that hold her interest.  Sometimes I put a block in it and rattle it around, and that’s all well and good, but she prefers it by itself.

Electronics

This baby loves electronics.  Whether it’s the phone, remote control, laptop or the camera she wants it.  She does a spastic version of an army crawl across the room (often with a yogurt cup in one hand) to check out whatever it is that she isn’t going to get to put in her mouth.  Side note:   she started the army crawling two weeks ago.  It was so uncoordinated looking, we weren’t really sure if you could really call it an army crawl.

The Squish

This toy rocks!  She was mesmerized by it when we first bought it for her two months ago.  She lost interest in it for awhile, but I realized that when we were in the car, I could rattled rhythmically and it would sooth her to sleep.  She just recently started playing with the Squish again when she realized that it has moving and bending parts.

The Lamaze Mirror

We should have purchased this months ago.  It would have been enhanced tummy time for her when she just started to roll and actually wanted to be on her belly.  She spends most of her time on her tummy now, but she isn’t stationary.  The best part about this product is that the mirror can come out.  It’s double sided and lined.

Klean Kanteen

Ben just pulled this out this weekend, but it is quickly replacing the yogurt cup.  She mouths and sings into it.  She also likes to put the sippy part of the lid in her mouth and sucks.  She’s just growing up so darn fast.

Twilight Sea Turtle

This sea turtle has constellations and pictures of other endangered ocean dwelling animals on his shell that light up.   It’s meant to be used as a night light that turns off after a half hour or so.  We keep it in the car because she sometimes cries when it gets dark.

Hug Me Bear

This is little bear gets so much affection from Lily.  It’s just the right size for hugging, and the ears are perfect for nomming.  We keep on the night stand and I give it to her to play with if she can’t go back to sleep after a nighttime feeding.  I like that it the eyes and nose are sewn on, so I don’t have to worry about any parts popping off and becoming a choking hazard.

Godiva!

This picture was taken two and a half months ago, when the fascination began.  Now that the Bean has some locomotion, Godiva’s peaceful, sleepy days are coming to an end.

We sang happy half birthday today, twice, and took pictures to mark the occasion.  Lily was tickled when we burst into song.  It was deliciously adorable.  I could just eat her up.  The pictures are so sweet.  You’ll have to trust me on this because I just can’t get myself to upload them.  Ben will probably post them tomorrow, or the next day.  Right now, I just want to sit in this spot, uninterrupted, for as long as possible.

Why so tired?

For starters, Ben was out of town since Monday, which wouldn’t be that bad, except that Lily now treats nighttime like a suggested nap time.  The sleep we get, is sectioned off into little pieces.  Two hours here, now it’s time to nurse.  Oh, someone doesn’t feel like going back to sleep, so it’s to the playroom for an hour or three, and then back to bed for another hour of sleep and then time to nurse and then another hour of sleep and time to nurse.  Get the idea?  When Ben is here, he takes her to the playroom, if she won’t go back to sleep, and he brings her back to me when she is sleepy and hungry and cranky.  This arrangement allows me some continuous sleep for the first half of the night.  Ben sleeps through the second half.  Right now, this is the only way it can work.  It’s just too much for one person.  I tried.

Her sleep patterns changed at four months when she started teething.  Since then, she wakes up several times throughout the night screaming out with pain and needs to be soothed back to sleep.  When she wakes for the first feeding, she often stays awake and wants to play.  I tried leaving her in bed next to me, but she likes to turn herself around and put/kick her feet on me.  If I place a pillow in between us, she cries.  Once she actually fell back to sleep on her own, but a lot of things can happen once.  (Once I actually made a 92 on a physics exam.)  Our everyday solution was to get her out of bed, so that I can get some sleep until she has to nurse, which usually wakes me up.  The second half of the night is laden with feedings, and my sleep is chopped up.  But sometimes If I sleep soundly, I can sleep through some of them, sort of.

Here’s a confession.

With each passing day, I realize more about my love for her.  Time lets it unfold so slowly before me as she grows.  It’s so beautiful.  And yet, some part of me wants to hold on to this moment because she is just so wonderful, so very wonderful.  How can it get better than this?  It’s a senseless paradox.

My husband is the complete opposite.  He looks forward to each new developmental stage she reaches.  He can hardly wait to see her toddling around and talking and going to college, etc.  Whereas, I cried after I packed away her newborn onsies.  They were just so tiny and precious and worn, by her. It’s not that I want to slow her down.  What I want is to slow myself down enough to soak it all in, every bit of it, with one exception.  These teeth are welcome to come as quickly as they can.  They have my blessing. For the love of Pete, please let her teeth cut through soon.

Ben went back to work today with a bottle of Advil to help him make it through the hours.  My fever broke this morning, so I feel a little better.  So far, the Bean hasn’t come down with anything.  She coughs occasionally but not enough to make me think that she is sick. We’ll be well soon!

Oh yeah, we are down with the sickness.  Ben started feeling icky on Wednesday.  He stayed home from work on Friday.  Saturday his dad and sister came in town, and he pushed through the day with a fever.  Today he slept until 1:30pm, partly because he was up with Lily from 2-4am.  (She stopped sleeping through the night when she started teething.)  I needed the sleep because my recent lack of sleep was wearing me down. And now I am sick.  Sick, sick, sick, sick, sick.  So far the Bean is well.  Not wanting to go to sleep, but well all the same.

Like the rest of us, Lily was moved to tears.  I think hers had more to do with the teeth that are trying to cut through.

More tears

Our future

Tonight Ben and I made a toast to the future.

With the Bean sleeping in the next room it meant even more.

I’ve been away from the blog for awhile, and I’ve missed it.  Lately, life comes with an extra helping of challenges.  In the last six months I’ve experienced more grief than I have my entire life.  Some of these losses I shared with you in this blog, but there are others that are still too hard to talk about, especially here. So once again, I find myself questioning and marveling at the timing of it all.  Wondering why it is that this particular time in my life, this time that flows and overflows with love because of our sweet Lily, why this time has to be splattered with so much pain.

I can see a sort of balance to it that reminds me of the yin yang because the yin yang represents how opposite forces are tethered together in this world and how even within in one, the other exists (the small dot in the center of each).  It means that where there is light there is also darkness and where there is abundant joy there is also grief.  Maybe the only way to know joy is to also know grief.

Maybe.

What I know is that I gave birth to a baby who is possibly the most smiley baby to ever grace this planet.  That smile pulls at me and snaps be back into the moment, and so does her cry.

And now, our baby is getting busy with the work of becoming who she came here to be.  It is a blessing beyond words to have her.  Watching her, so recently sent from the lap of the Divine, is like watching magic.  She is discovering the world and herself and as her mother, I get to rediscover the world and myself with her.  So far, I’ve found that I am stronger than I ever imagined, that tears are a gift, and that I am only beginning to learn the heart’s capacity for compassion and forgiveness and love.  There is just so much love.