Six Month Check-In

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Punkie is going to be six months old this week.  I can’t believe I managed to keep that charmingly tiny person alive for six whole months.

Of course, my husband deserves a lot of the credit – he does all the things people complain about their husbands not doing.  He changes diapers, feeds, cleans the house, cleans up after blowouts, wakes up at night.  He does everything but breast feed.

And with all of that team work and assistance, I’m finding myself in a funk.  I am exhausted.  This past week, I’ve felt mostly numb because I’m so tired.  Is this how motherhood is supposed to feel?

On paper, my schedule is entirely doable.  It doesn’t leave time for things I used to do for fun before the baby was born.  And Punkie seems to be waking us up at regular intervals most nights now, and my days seem to be starting earlier and earlier.

I’ve declined to go out after work a few times and, each time, people have told me to get a good babysitter.  Honestly?  I don’t appreciate it when people make assumptions about me or my commitments.  And it’s not any of their business.

  • First, I’m breast feeding, so there is a limit to how and when I leave Punkie with a baby sitter, or anyone else.  I pump all day at work to have milk for the next day, but we nurse in the morning and the evening.  I’m just not able to pump enough to cover the evening too.  And, if I skip nursing in the evening, my milk supply will decrease and I’ve already been having trouble with a gradually decreasing supply.
  • Second, I’m tired.  Given the night off, I would/should choose a nap over dining out or going for drinks.  How am I going to enjoy a night out while I’m sleepwalking through it?  If I get a babysitter, maybe it should be so I can sleep.
  • Third, I miss Punkie while I’m at work.  Even though I’m exhausted and in a funk of numbness, I want to see the little guy after work.  Of course I see him in the morning, but then he goes to day care and I go to work and I don’t see him for 9 or so hours.  If I go out, I won’t really get to see him until the next morning (or at midnight when he invariably wakes up because he’s sick all the time lately).

It’s not like I couldn’t ask my husband to watch Punkie while I go out.  And I could always ask my mother to watch Punkie if the two of us want to go out.

That’s not the point.  The point is that I’m in a funk and I am exhausted.  If I need to make a change, it’s not to “get a babysitter.”  I need some sleep.

I tried to schedule a nap this weekend, but I think my husband thought I was just being dramatic.  I wasn’t being dramatic – I think it was more about me being kind of desperate.

How do single, working-outside-the-home parents do it?*  I’m barely hanging in and I have a partner who does so much.

*I won’t even try to compare myself to a working-in-the-home parent because I’m sure I shouldn’t compare myself to people who are doing something I haven’t done.

 

Retraction

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A while back, I wrote about Wegmans, which I called “the greatest store on Earth”: 

The Greatest Store on Earth

.

And I’m pretty sure some folks at Wegmans checked out that blog because I saw some unusual activity on that post via WordPress Stats.  So I’m talking to you, Wegmans folks.

I raved about how much I love the special parking spots for people with small children.

AND THEN YOU MOVED THEM.

Hey – what the hell, Wegmans?

On Sunday, I drove to my usual parking area and – WHAT? The spots are gone.

At the suggestion of my husband (who was responding to my strongly voiced opinions), we drove around the most congested parts of the parking lot just to see what was going on and it looks like you moved the spots without warning or notice.  To spots that are farther away from the doors.  Also, the new spots are scattered around so, every time I want to park in one, I will have to cruise up and down multiple aisles in the most congested parts of the parking lot just to see if a spot is open.

That’s not convenient at all.

I don’t desire to (i) fight with parking lot warriors in the busiest part of the parking lot and (ii) play an extended game of Frogger with the baby on the way to the front doors.

So, this blog post is a partial retraction – I still love you, Wegmans, but, as of the date of this post, I’m forced to say you are a very good store on Earth.

 

 

Live for the Weekend

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I spent a lot of time with Punkie this weekend.  I enjoyed it so much.  He really is an incredibly loveable guy.

I am shocked by how fast he is changing.  It seems like he figures out how to do something new almost every day.  He is bright-eyed, and he jabbers at all in a constant stream of baby talk.  Every time he “talks” to me, I just love him more.

He isn’t quite crawling yet, but he covers a lot of ground by rolling.  He rolls everywhere, but just in the one direction because it hasn’t occurred to him yet that he can roll the other way too.

It’s just a matter of time, really, until he’s crawling.  This weekend, we were playing on his play mat and he was working very hard to crawl – he yelled with frustration after a while, but he did bust out some forward-motion progress.  He wants to crawl in the biggest way.

Which brings me to this – OH MY GOD, WE HAVE TO BABY PROOF THIS HOUSE!  Can you see the outlet in this photo?  It’s a death trap.  Punkie is aiming his body right at it!

rolling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m thinking about taking a day off from work to baby-proof.  I don’t know when I’ll be able to do this otherwise, and it seems like Punkie is progressing far faster than I am in this area.

We have to secure the television, lest it fall on his head. And install baby locks.  And baby gates.  And door knob covers.  And outlet covers.

It’s time to lock this place down.

He Hates Monday

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Poor Punkie – he really hates Mondays.  And teething.  And being tired.

He’s Garfield.

garfield

Last night, Punkie didn’t sleep very much.  It’s hard to say what was bothering him.  He woke up 3 or 4 times earlier in the night and allowed himself to fall back asleep pretty quickly.  If it were teething pain, I think it would have kept him up longer and we probably would have felt the need to give him some Tylenol.  I wonder what was bothering him.

Then, he woke up for a long stretch at 3:00AM.  I think THAT was his teeth.  We gave him some Tylenol, but he was hopelessly wide awake by that point.

Punkie and I finished the night snuggling and trying to catch a little more sleep on the couch together, Punkie in the cushion* and me using the side of the cushion for a pillow.  Essentially, Punkie whacked me in the head and pulled my hair for 2 hours while I tried to sleep a little.

When my husband came downstairs to join us after the whacking-and-hair-pulling-nap, Punkie didn’t give him the usual big, toothless grin.  He really doesn’t like Mondays and he was off his game from the rough night we all had.

When my husband dropped him off at day care today, Punkie cried big tears.  Poor guy – I wish I was there to comfort him. It’s days like these that I feel especially bad for not being there with him.

I called his day care room to check in on him – they said it was rough going at first, but he took a long nap and drank a bottle and is now doing great.  I hope that’s true.  I didn’t hear him yelling or crying in the background.

*I reviewed the cushion in a previous blog (

Podster – product review

).

 

A New One

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I dragged myself home from work after a hectic and difficult day.  My husband and Punkie were already home and I could hear them playing in the living room as I walked in.

On my way through the kitchen, I noticed (1) the washing machine was running (highly unusual), and (2) there was a note on the kitchen table from day care.

Pausing to look at the note, it took a few minutes for the words to de-fuzz in my failing, tired eyesight.  The note said that Punkie had a diaper blowout of such epic proportions that they had no choice but to give him a bath and they recommend that we just throw away his clothing.  They explained to my husband when he picked Punkie up that, at one point, the poop radiated out from his diaper to cover 90% of his body.  It reached all the way up the back of his neck.

That’s a new one on me.  Um…sweet?  (That’s probably not the appropriate reaction.)

I blame the peas.  I know Punkie loves those now (horrifying), but they’re disgusting and they obviously have an agenda of their own.

 

Playdate Shmaydate

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Punkie is 5 1/2 months old and I haven’t figured out yet how to meet other new parents.

It seems like it should be easy, but I am apparently not hip to the mommyhood secret club.  I imagine Punkie with little friends and play dates, but it just hasn’t happened.  I suppose it isn’t urgent – he is at day care Monday through Friday and is meeting and playing with other babies there.

I live in a very nice, family filled suburb.  There are kids all over the place.  How do I not run into other new parents on a daily basis?  We enrolled in a baby sign language class for two reasons – to help Punkie develop his communication skills even before he can talk, and to meet other parents.  I guess I don’t click with the few other parents in the class.

I think maybe my work schedule is a factor – a lot of new moms are physically at work outside the home as well, or they’re out and about during the daytime hours.  I’m lately only out and about during a very narrow band of time in the evening.

I worry that my social failings will have a lasting effect on Punkie.  I want him to have life-long friends.  And to learn that you shouldn’t grab other babies’ noses with a kungfu grip (I neither confirm nor deny any such event).

For now, though, he seems happy.

Little Things

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Punkie is 5 1/2 months old now and I’m struck by how, since he was born, it’s the little things about him that make me smile.  Although my routine has become a monotony, Punkie has a lot of quirks that really entertain me.

He’s babbling and yelling gibberish at us continuously.  He’ll jump in his Jumparoo toy for 15 minutes straight while yelling and smiling.  I just love it – I can tell that he has a lot to say.  My husband thinks I’ll regret saying this, but I can’t wait until he starts talking.  I am going to love hearing the rolling commentary of everything in his head.

Also, he has a new habit of snatching things out of my hands.  He’s fast! His favorite thing to try to snatch away is my phone- here he is trying to grab my phone for the 100th time:

snatching

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m sure this should annoy me, but he’s so darn cute and he’s always smiling when he does it.  The only real issue is that this new habit is cutting down on my coffee intake in the morning – I can’t risk burning him with a hot coffee mug.

We’ve started him on some solid food and he has favorite foods already.  For some reason, Punkie just loves carrots and peas.  Personally, I cannot stand peas and I find the smell of the pea baby food to be disgusting –  I can’t understand how those win out against apples and bananas.  I told him that I love him even if he likes peas instead of apples.  This enthusiasm for peas and carrots is as endearing as it is puzzling.  And I have time to work on the apple thing – apple season is coming up quickly.

It’s the little things.

Vivamus Currentis

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If Punkie has a motto, it’s “Live to Bounce,” or “Vivamus Currentis” (because all good mottoes are in Latin).

The bouncer is by far his favorite toy.  He is so fun to watch while he’s bouncing it out in his bouncer.

And I’m happy to have a use for my old, expensive textbooks from law school.  I graduated 15 years ago and, since then, these books have been gathering dust.

Now, they have a new life.  A life dedicated to bouncing.

Vivamus Currentis

Conference Week at Day Care

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The kind folks at day care sent home a note letting us know that they were doing teacher conferences this week for all the kids.  We were invited to schedule a conference with Punkie’s teacher.

Punkie is 5 months old, so I’m not entirely sure what we will talk about.  I mean, I don’t want to NOT go to the conference – I want to know everything about how Punkie is doing.  But, what are we going to talk about?

Why yes, Mrs. Punkie’s Mom, Punkie appears to like the color orange and the butterfly toy that goes “HONK” when it hits the floor.  He also poops a lot and dislikes napping.

Any suggestions for questions I should ask?

Also, as I discussed in a previous post, we’ve been ejected for illness.  So . . . I will need to find a baby sitter to watch Punkie while my husband and I go to day care.  Just take that in for a moment.

Day Care is a Cesspool of Germs and Viruses

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About a week and a half ago, I wrote that day care is snotty.  HA! It’s worse than snotty.

Punkie is sick again.  Actually, that’s not entirely accurate because he never recovered 100% from the cold he developed on day 4 of day care.  Now, he has a fever.

Day care called me yesterday to let me know that Punkie had a fever over the maximum permitted threshold of 100 degrees and that I needed to come and get him right away.

I dropped everything and cancelled a couple of meetings and went to get him.  When I left day care with Punkie, I found a piece of paper in his bag that said (and I’m paraphrasing) that he was sent home for a fever and would not be welcome back until 24 hours after the fever went away without the help of medication.  So, if he magically recovered the same day, the earliest I could bring him back is Thursday.  More likely is that he would not go back until Friday or next week.

Okay… what do I do now?  I can’t bring a sick baby to work, so I need some kind of child care or I have to take time off from work.  I can see why it takes a village – someone has to be around when day care ejects the baby.

I brought Punkie to the pediatrician and she thinks that he got a virus on top of his cold.  The poor little guy was really miserable and I felt bad for him.  At its highest, his fever went to 101.8 and I’m not 100% sure why, which bothers me a lot.

He had never been sick before he started day care two and a half weeks ago.  He’s going to have the strongest immune system in history if he keeps this up.

He looks better this morning.  And, luckily, my husband was able to stay home with him today.