Man of the Cloth

Today was our first full day of cloth diapering, and after a lot of experimenting with various folding and rolling methods...

...we survived!

Actually we did more than just "survive"- we were "totally fine".   And if you'd asked me last night if that would be my feelings at the end of the day (or even if you'd asked me this morning, while I was wallowing in my irrational "I'm not a good mother" funk) that's probably not the answer you'd have gotten.  I had some Capital A Anxiety over the whole thing, which is so weird because it's not like we haven't sprung leaks/had blowouts with disposable diapers- why did it seem So Horrible that it might happen with a cloth diaper?  Irrational Brain is Irrational.  And anyway we didn't actually have any leaks (or blowouts!), so there's still that to look forward to.  Yay?

So far the main thing that's getting to me is just how wet the cloth gets.  Like, totally soaked, edge to edge.  Apparently my son pees, like, a lot, because I'm changing him at least every two hours, and each time there's not a bit of dry material left.  Mind boggling.  And I can't imagine it's comfortable, but he doesn't seem to mind.  At any rate, his half-gallon bladder makes me glad I decided to stick with disposables for overnight.

But on to the solids!  I spent all day On Edge, waiting for his first Cloth Diaper Bowel Movement.  I was expecting it to come in the morning (which it normally does) but of course it didn't, and the anticipation just continued to build, leading to probably way too many instances of me holding Neeps above my head so I could sniff his butt.  When it finally happened in the late afternoon it... wasn't that bad.  In fact I liked being able to use any and every part of the diaper to wipe him with.  And it was so soft, too- I felt like it was probably much nicer on the skin than his normal wipes.

(Look at me.  I'm reduced to blogging about the little pleasures to be found in wiping poop off another human's derriere.  ::sigh::  Oh well!  Experience!  Adventure!)

Anyway, I signed a three-month contract with the diaper service people, so here's hoping that most of the awkwardness wears off well before then- and that I can figure out a way to make the whole process as easy as possible for whatever daycare provider we go with!

Prelude to a Neeps

I'm going to share with you what I wrote in my journal less than 24 hours before giving birth to my son.  The context is that I was still just over a week from my official due date, had experienced false labor the day before, and was feeling... well, pretty crotchety.  So that's what I was processing as I sat in bed that night.

***

According to the doctor I'm now 1.5 centimeters dilated, which just seems like bullshit after yesterday's adventures.

Oh well.  The truth is, I need to work on letting go of my impatience and frustration, and finding my way to a state of calm acceptance/readiness.  I made some progress during acupuncture today, but for real I need to bring meditation back into my life on a regular basis.

See, the thing is, Neeps will come, and moreover he will come when it's time.  When waiting has filled, as Valentine Michael Smith would say.  Right now he's getting bigger and fatter, and his brain is getting more wrinkly and his lungs able to function easier.  All very good things.  So I just need to chill out and let him take the time he needs.  I can consider it my first exercise in treating him as his own person rather than just an extension of my Self.

It's still so hard to accept that he's really real.  Even as he jabs his little heels into my rib cage.

***

I'm sharing this today because I plan on writing up The Birthing Story very soon (perhaps even tomorrow) and I thought this would be a lovely little lead-in to it.  I know it makes me laugh when I look back at how hard I was struggling to Be Serene, Damn It!  But I do like to believe that Neeps feeling me make that attempt to let him be his own separate being kick-started his desire to fulfill that destiny.

FFWD

So basically it's insane how quickly my son is growing.  I know it's cliched to be all, "Oh it goes by so fast!" but holy shit, talk about a cliche with some serious grounding in reality.  It's like the movie of my life hit the fast-forward button the second he slid from my body, and hasn't slowed down since.  I have the sneaking suspicion it's not going to slow down, either.  This may very well be my new normal time-sense.  Crazy pants.

In some ways, it's good- we've already moved past some of the less-pleasant aspects of his infancy (waking every two hours; pooping after every feeding; having to burp him, like, all the damn time) but on the other... it makes me feel quite panicky about going back to work and just... missing everything.

But I'll think about that "tomorrow", as it were.  No need to dwell now, since not-now is coming down the pipe so damn swiftly.

In less traumatic musings, here's a list of the consonants my genius child has now mastered:

muh (the first one, which I cannot help but take personally)
duh (showed up while Nathan was traveling, actually)
geh (switching up the vowel sounds like a boss)
nuh (brand new this week- does not bode well for the future)

Behold them and tremble at my budding word-smith's prowess.

This verbal versatility totally inspired me to recite the alphabet to him phonetically this morning, which he apparently found amusing as hell.  (I threw in some Spanish sounds for good measure, because of course I did.)

Jack Be...

Remember those ornaments I was making?  Well, they were in preparation for a baby shower I was hosting, which went down today.  The theme was "Jack of Hearts" (hence the cards), a theme I highly recommend if you happen to be throwing a baby shower less than a month before Valentine's Day.  Talk about convenient!

Anyway, one of the bits of the shower that I was especially proud of was the Guest Book I cobbled together:

(Three guesses what the baby's name is, and the first two don't count)

On the first page I wrote this rather lengthy introduction- 

Everyone knows the old rhyme:

Jack be nimble

Jack be quick

Jack jump over

The candlestick

But a boy should be more than just nimble and quick!  Perhaps the rest of the rhyme goes something like this:

Jack be joyful

Jack be brave

Jack sail every

Ocean wave

Or this:

Jack be clever

Jack be kind

Jack know when

To just unwind

Or even this:

Jack be honest

Jack be sly

Jack just balance

Truth with lie

Please add to the book your name and what YOU wish for Jack (and don't worry, it doesn't have to be in rhyme!) 

Once people started jotting down their advice, it turned out even better than I could have imagined!  So many thoughtful, clever, funny, touching sentiments.  It made me wish I'd thought to do something like that for Neeps (although there's no nursery-rhyme precedent for his name).  I suppose it's not too late to go around making sad eyes at my friends whilst clutching an empty notebook...

Beyond Babysitting Pt II

Yep, we're revisiting this...

Dawn Schafer:  Like Claudia, Dawn didn't bother with college after high school.  Instead she transitioned from part-time to full-time as a waitress in a vegetarian restaurant on the beach, where she met her first really serious boyfriend.  He got her involved with his group of friends' environmental activism, which included a lot of protesting, drum circles, and weed.  When she was about 22 or so, Dawn got into an argument with a young man at a rally who pointed out that there was never any actual lasting change created through their protests.  Although she scorned him at the time, the confrontation made her re-evaluate her life, and as a result she decided to go to college after all, and pursue a degree in environmental law.  The boyfriend was not supportive of this, and it resulted in an extremely traumatic breakup.  Within the first year of undergrad, she discovered that environmental lawyers tend to work for the "bad guys", and that probably the best way to make a real difference was to study engineering.  Thus began a long, hard road for Dawn, who did not take to science and math naturally.  She was determined, however, and by the time she was thirty she had her master's degree and a job working on developing a wave farm off the coast of California.  In a case of Small World Syndrome, she re-encountered the boy from the rally during her third year at school, and after a tumultuous courtship they married and now have a three-year-old.

Mallory Pike: Mallory got her degree in English Literature from a university in New York, and used the contacts she made there to land an internship at a major children's publishing house.  She soon moved up to assistant, and eventually landed herself a position as a young-adult editor.  She had a nose for what would sell, and was the one who discovered (and contracted) a single-mother author who penned a first novel that would go on to become a huge franchise.  Mallory made enough money from this particular author to set her and her family up for life, and to finally buy herself the horse (and the land to put it on) she'd always dreamed of.  She still writes in her spare time (more for her many nieces and nephews than out of any real desire to publish) and recently made the decision to pursue single-motherhood via artificial insemination.

Jessi Ramsey: Jessi moved to New York her freshman year of high school, to study ballet full-time.  When she was sixteen she was invited to become an apprentice for the company, and at the end of her year was invited to join the company proper.  She accepted, on the condition that she would be allowed to continue her education via private tutor.  After two years in the corps de ballet she rose to soloist, and three years after that became a principal dancer.  She danced until age 28, when an injury forced her retirement.  Never one to wallow, she immediately secured a loan and opened a ballet school in Stonybrook, where she does very well for herself.  She lives there with her partner of six years, and they have a newborn son.

Good Things in the Morning IV

Krumps feeling companionable during First Breakfast.

Valuable Parenting Advice

You get a lot of advice when you have a kid, much of it the sort that you just sort of grit your teeth through, but some of which is truly valuable.  And lot of the more valuable advice you actually hear from more than one source, to the point where you probably already knew it before you end up spawning, anyway.

But there is one tidbit that I'd never, ever heard, but has proven to be so damn valuable that I'm going to share it here with you, in the hopes that it will become every bit a part of Modern Culture as swaddling (which, by the way, Neeps is Not Down With):

"You're going to want to grow a coke nail."

That is (more or less) the exact phrase my mother said to me sometime in that delirious first week, when I came face-to-nostril with the reality of stubbornly-sticky baby boogers.

Now, I'm not 100% positive she wasn't just messing with me (it means love in our family), but holy shit, you guys- that is some legit advice.  Ever since then I've tried to keep my pinkie nails a bit longer, and it's useful as hell.  The one time I got a little over-enthusiastic in trimming them back (I generally keep my nails pretty damn short for climbing) I immediately regretted it.

So there you go, impending mothers, my hidden gem advice to you:

Grow yourself a coke nail.