Blueberries

I'm attempting to eat 2 lbs of blueberries in two days. I'm up for the challenge, even if I end up turning blue.

The Peanut is supposed to be napping. I think she was actually asleep for like 30 minutes. The past half hour has been her mostly talking to herself in her crib. The experts say I'm supposed to help her fall asleep by herself and not use "props" to help her (like the paci, walking and bouncing, or nursing). I would love for those experts to come here and show me how to do this. I declare it a huge victory that she will sleep without being walked and bounced like she needed her first few weeks. That gets old after awhile. The funny thing is that since we have swaddled her this entire time - how do we unswaddle her? The Happiest Baby on the Block dude doesn't share that wisdom with us in the book. He suggested that after a baby's "fourth trimester" they won't need it anymore. Hmm... We'll see. I guess I have to prepare myself for a few days of bad sleep and see if we can put her down unswaddled. I have this vision of her college roommate needing to help swaddle her to sleep in the dorm. :)

I had this utterly sublime moment on Friday. Bob and I were on the living room floor playing with the Peanut. The windows were open since the weather was absolutely gorgeous and a nice breeze flowed over us. I can't remember ever being so happy and content as that moment. To see her smile, laugh and kick her legs is amazing.

Tuesday Randomness

I ate a Chipwich last night. And it was a gooey good time.

What happened to the nap?

The Peanut only napped this morning for 45 minutes. ??? And that was after a tough spell of super fussiness and being upset. About what I couldn't figure out. As she gets older, it gets more complicated. It's no longer just hungry/tired/poopy. Now she is beginning to have more existential issues. I got her up and put her in her gym... but after 3 minutes, she got upset. So now she's in her swing and she looks at me like I'm doing some half-assed parenting. And that's not me just feeling guilty that I'm working on my blog instead of having some sort of quality interaction with her. No, I mean, she really looks at me like that. Not sad, exactly... Well here I'll take a picture of it and upload it later.

We had a nice weekend, for the most part. Had yet another funeral to attend. I'm so over that. It was a long morning. By the time we got to the after luncheon, I was starved and headachey. And since it took longer than I had anticipated, I had to go pump in the bathroom (which actually went okay since they had an actual toilet seat so I could sit down). When Bob suggested we leave since there wasn't any place for us to sit, I was glad (long story). Sunday was just relaxing and watching the rain.

Man, she's still looking at me like that. It's freaking me out. Why can't she fall asleep in her swing like other infants? I just won't look over at her.

The weather is absolutely gorgeous today. I would love to take the Peanut for a walk, if we can handle it. Perhaps I will attempt to put her in her baby carrier thing. That will give her something new to be upset about.

Wait a minute...

I was going to type out something, but I think the Peanut might be awake from her nap already. Hold on... I better go check.

Yup. And right arm completely free from the swaddle. Either I did a totally half-assed job or there was a struggle (or maybe a little from column A and a little from column B).

Um...

I quickly reread my few posts and I was sort of shocked at some of the stream-of-consciousness writing going on. My mind is clearly not in the game. I do feel out of it a lot of the time. Lack of sleep can't be to blame - six hours straight has become the norm around here. Then I catch 2 hours more after I feed the Peanut. Perhaps I'm not getting enough of the proper REM cycles? I've heard of "Mommy Brain"... but what causes it? Lack of sleep? Or something else? This would be a great research project. Maybe it's more of a functioning on the basic level sort of thing and the higher brain functions are no longer accessed. In order to deal with diapers and spit up, things like being funny and clever (and being able to string multiple coherent sentences together) get turned off. A type of atrophy. I do feel my verbal skills diminish. Most of my daily conversation is of the goo-goo-ga variety. When I find myself around adults, I don't know what to say anymore. The crazy thing is that it's only been 11 weeks. I have been communicating for 30+years. How could I lose it that fast? Have I been "dumbed down" and is it irrevocable? One thing I could try to do is read books instead of watching Law and Order while I breastfeed.

Trying something new

I attempted a first this morning - trying to get the Peanut to take a nap sans swaddle. I thought for a few minutes it would actually work, as her eyes got heavier and heavier. Alas, she ended up just getting upset after 30 minutes or so (including story time of Horton Hears a Who!). She went right to sleep after that. It's funny, she already outsmarted me. At 11 weeks. D'oh! I put her down for a nap and she was all sweet and smiley. Like it was play time instead of nap time. So, I unswaddled her (this was at 10:30) and hung out with her for awhile. I need to stand firm - I cannot fall for her trickster ways. But smiles and laughs are mommy crack. I can't get enough and I can't resist.

Raspberries are so tasty!

Case of the Mondays

Peanut and I seem to share a case of the Mondays. We are both so tired. But, as she is napping, I'm wasting my time on the internet. She already outsmarts me. I'm feeling a headache coming on - too much weekend. I didn't sleep well at all. But the Peanut was fabulous. She really is quite the little trooper. I'm quite proud of her. Lots of people, new environment - and she hardly caused a fuss. I can't stand being away from her, though. Okay, an hour or so is fine... but four or five is just too much. We went shopping and left her with Grams. I think that was too long for everyone involved. I just adore doing stuff as a little family unit. We headed to the beach at 6:45am and had a wonderful time (although Peanut didn't seem to love having her toes dipped into the cold ocean). It was so relaxing to just sit on a blanket in the sand. Not so many people around. Not too much sun. Lovely weather. Really soul satisfying.

Other developments from the weekend - I have become a non-stop eating machine. I must calm down. It's getting ridiculous, really. I mean, I know that I can take a few liberties with my diet, seeing as how I'm burning 500 calories a day breastfeeding (and I do tend to get starving-hungry). But, sheesh, doughnuts, hamburgers and ice cream in one day. This is too indulgent. It's like, I was so restricted for a long time and I've gone off the deep end.