The Happiest

Happy Mother's Day. I've been missing writing a lot lately, which is to say that I've been incredibly busy living and not writing about it. And really, I think I must be experiencing what every working mother does... that we need a new language. Life is wonderfulhard. Beautifulsad. Busytired. Frustratinghilarious.

This weekend we took our first every family road trip. I have to travel fairly frequently for work, and of course in the past John could never come with me, but now life is flexible enough that he can and it even works out better this way. So we piled everything into a rental car and drove first to Waltham, and then to Salem, and then to Providence. John walked and walked Beck in the stroller while I went to meetings and then we checked into hotels and slept in terrible beds. We saw old friends. We got up early and went to bed early. It was unlike any other business trip I've ever taken, usually filled with late night phone calls and mindless television and boring lonely dinners.

We're so lucky.

This is so hard.

Tomorrow I will miss Beckett's six month checkup. I simply can't miss work, and we've already rescheduled once (because I couldn't make it. Because of work). And this past six months has been the best, most wonderful experience of my life, but there are moments that are so beautiful and perfect that I find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe work is my shoe? And it is so firmly dropped, already, and I don't need to worry anymore?

Stop worrying.

Everything is wonderful.

Today Beck and I took a long walk. We made lemon curd  and whipped cream from scratch and hosted the family for lunch. We cut flowers from the yard. We got amazing plants for the backyard. We hugged and kissed and napped and ate and laughed and snuggled. Today was perfect.

Happy Mother's Day, Beck. The day may be for mother's, but it's because of you that I am one. You are the best baby, the best boy, the best son a girl could ask for.

Five

Happy five months in the world, Beck. Please know that in these five months we've laughed, cried, and fallen in love with you more and more each day. We've become better people because of you. Loved each other more deeply. Looked forward to each day in a new way. We've counted your smiles, now your laughs. You should know that at this moment, nothing makes me happier than you.

More than there are words in any language. More than there are stars in the sky.

Happy five months of awesome.

Just for him

I'm thinking about a year ago today.

Last Saint Patrick's Day, we were telling Johns mom that we were pregnant, with bagpipes in the background. We would tell my folks the next day.

Last year this wasn't even something I could picture. I couldn't conceive the love, the overwhelming gratitude that I would bring to each and every day. Thanks to the universe for giving me the gift of time with this child, this man, this dog. This family.

And yet, things haven't been easy, the past couple months. Before we had Beck, someone told us that the first three months were the hardest. That if we could survive them, we'd be through the worst of it. Unfortunately, sweet friends, I think you were wrong. For us, it has been the second three months that have brought the challenges, the tears, the struggle.

The first three months, I was home. And yes, we had more than your average challenges. An extended hospital stay, surgery, lots and lots of doctor stuff. But I was home, and so sleeping and late nights and time management, not so bad.

The second three months, I've gone back to work. For the first month of it, John and I worked opposite schedules, so Beck wouldn't have to go into daycare. We met in parking lots, switched cars and with a quick kiss, said goodbye. We existed. We co-parented. I know this works for some people, and they must be incredibly strong. It didn't work for us. We have always needed each other, and never more so than now.

So we made the difficult, heart-wrenching decision for John to leave his job. We stayed up late and worked through one hundred math problems. We built spreadsheets and lists and wracked our brains for financial compromises we could make. Whatever we could do so that this boy could stay out of daycare, just for now.

And we are making it work. Just barely. Through generous family members who help us buy diapers and bringing lunch to work and eating in.

When I come home to this house full of males, men and babies and dogs and cats, men who are taking care of each other and the house, and me, my heart is full to bursting. I am so proud of all of them. Mostly of John, for rocking this shit out. For being the kind of dad every child deserves, the kind of husband most women never get to know.

And that is not to say that there aren't days when I wish, with every bone in my body, that it was me who was home with him. That I didn't have to lug the pump around, sit in meetings and talk to clients, all while my heart is someplace else.

But we are making this work.

Today we will go to the Saint Patrick's Day parade, and think about how amazing life is. Like woah. I never ever could have imagined it would be this way, but thank you God and whoever else is listening for giving us this gift. I told Beckett last night, his last name is Scottish, but his first name is all Irish. So todays parade is basically just for him. We must have a bit of the luck of the Irish, to have gotten all of this.

Always Alright

John: I'm like obsessed with this.

Me: how do you get a voice like that at 23? 

John: (shakes head)

Me: do you even remember being 23?

John: kind of. I wasn't writing songs like this.

Me: I wasn't even this present. This sure of who I was, what I was here for. I wasn't fully formed. I still might not be.

Self Awareness

Things that I am not good at:

1. Remembering to charge devices
2. Not speaking up when I think something is wrong
3. Coming home to an empty house
4. Taking vitamins
5. Waking up on time
6. Going to bed at a reasonable hour
7. Bringing lunch to work
8. Setting boundaries
9. Recycling
10. Asking for help

I'd like to get better at 85% of that list.

(People who bring lunch to work are boring)

Week 2: Vaccinations, Baby Poops, and a Pooped Mommy and Daddy

Well friends, it's the end of week two of back to work after maternity leave, and I'm exhausted. The good news is we're surviving this, and have a plan to not have to be surviving this bizarre schedule for too much longer.

The bad news is it sucks right now.

What's that saying? When you're in hell, keep going? Yeah. That.

This week leaving in the morning was a little easier, getting home at night was just as sweet. John and I developed a new system to get ourselves through the days that we're having some fun with. Whoever is with the baby will take a picture of that sweet little nugget and text it to the other person, who will text back with a picture of whatever they are looking at. It has resulted in lots of pictures of baby sweetness and pens, post it notes, coffee cups, and confused coworkers.

His view

Mine

Yay!

Owl calendar. Still cool, but it's no baby.

Boring.

Awful.

In other news, Beckett got vaccinated this week. We decided that all things considered, because he is in and out of the hospital and doctors offices so often, and because he already has a health concern, AND because this year there have been an abnormally high number of cases of dangerous pertussis, that we would get him vaccinated on a reduced schedule, and that we would start with the T-DAP and pneumonia vaccines. Our doctor has been amazingly supportive of our request to do the vaccines only a couple at a time, rather than bombarding his little body with all of them at once, and we feel really good about the decision. But because of our schedules, John had to take him to this doctors appointment by himself.

This was actually John's first ever doctors appointment solo, and he did great. Fantastic. Amazing. No surprises here, folks, John is the best dad ever. But there was one funny thing.

Beckett is three months old at this point, and still only taking breast milk. We're pretty committed to not giving him formula, so I've been pumping like it's my job at work and John and Beck have gotten to be bottle pros. Of course, as breast milk changes over time, so too do the frequency of poops.

That's right. This is about poop.

You're welcome.

Beck tends to poop a bunch in the afternoon/evening, and not so much in the overnight hours or in the morning. I've just kind of accepted it as his schedule and moved on. And for any of you who may not remember, or haven't been exposed, babies who are breastfed have poop that is basically the consistency of... well it sort of looks like melted soft serve ice cream. Melted, mustard-flavored soft serve ice cream.

Or, maybe butternut squash soup.

Yum.

See the color of this hat? Yeah...

So John takes Beck in to the doctor, they weigh him and measure him and he is with a physicians assistant who says to John, "So the baby poops ok?"

John: "Yeah, he's great."

PA: "So he has a poop for every time he nurses or eats?"

John: "Uh... well, no. That would be a lot of pooping."

PA: "Hmmm.... Ok. Well, I'm sure it's fine."

John: "Yeah, he seems fine."

PA: "But the poops, they're like, good and hard, right?"

John: (PANIC) "Hard?"

PA: "Yeah, you know. I mean he's not having diarrhea or anything?"

John: "Um. I mean he only eats breast milk, so,  I, uh. Hmm. His poops are not hard."

PA: "Hmmmm"

John called me when the appointment was over, and he and Beck came to my office. I went out and sat in the car and held Beckett and nursed him, to "help him recover from the vaccine shots", which really meant to comfort John and I, because Beckett was fine. John related this conversation to me and we laughed together, each of us a little uneasy. Was the PA incompetent? Was our baby having the wrong kind of poops?

THE WRONG KIND OF POOPS?

This is our life. We have been talking about poops, kinds of poops, frequency of poops, and consistency of poops for a week. And today I called the doctor to follow up. Because even though my intuition, the baby books, and the internet told me that I was right and a three month old breast fed baby should not have solid poop, I wanted to hear it from a professional. And I did.

So now I'm drinking coffee, with my little bean sleeping in the swing next to me, and waiting for a visit from my Mom and Dad. Having Friday's off with this baby, just for the first month of my return to work, is amazing. I can't tell you what a difference it makes, to sleep in with him (SLEEP). To cuddle him and be cozy and drink coffee and coo and get smiles. We're all adjusting, around here, to this new normal. We're doing ok. Not great, yet, but pretty good. We're using the crock pot more, watching tv less, we're staying up later and getting up earlier and trying to pack as much love and fun as we can into the forty minutes that John and I are awake together every day. We're making it work.

We're keeping going.

Happiness