Stresses, Personal Discovery, and Journals

The last couple weeks have been extremely hectic for a number of reasons. For one, kiddo continues to grow like a weed - both physically and mentally. He's begun to scoot backwards by pushing himself with his arms. Sometimes he gets up on his hands and knees and he rolls several times in a row to get to where he wants to be. The exertion makes him eat constantly and sleep almost as much. Also, his frustration level has grown because he wants to do so much and doesn't have the control he needs in order to do everything he wants. Big changes and mom is trying desperately to keep up.

Secondly, I'm in the midst of building up my classes. This has been a real growing experience for me on a number of levels. While I have a lot of different skills and knowledge sets, this endeavor is forcing me to learn more and develop others that I didn't have. It is definitely a process, especially when I'm putting out a concept that is pretty new to a lot of people (A group class that uses a mix of writing and conversation to help people work through aspects of motherhood is a surprisingly new frontier - who knew?).

Thirdly, my marriage is still in a pretty difficult place. The continued stresses of not having a regular income, living with my parents, and being new parents, combined with poor responses to those stresses have strained my marriage in a way that makes everything else harder. While  I don't really want to get into details here at this time, I will only say that the whole situation has been incredibly trying and my frustration level with everything is through the roof. Luckily I have some supportive parents and kiddo's gurgling smiles chase even the darkest clouds away.

Ironically, this combination of things has opened my eyes to some things that I couldn't have seen otherwise. I realized ultimately that one of my biggest passions is empowering women. My life in the past few months continues to drive this point home over and over again. While things about women seemed to regularly surface for me, I thought they were isolated incidences. I didn't realize this was such an overwhelming theme for me.

In the process of this revelation, I recognized my own need to journal. Starting to do some of my class exercises opened the door for me to use journaling every night to process some of my own thoughts and feelings and it has subsequently become a very healing thing for me. While blogging and writing books uses some of my creative energy (and I love it) it doesn't help me address personal concerns that I need to understand or develop.

Surviving The Worst of Babies

I've heard different views on the idea of when a baby is most difficult to parent. I'm only about halfway through babydom, but I've already been through two of the major contenders: the fussy fourth trimester, and the four month sleep regression.

The fourth trimester got a lot of press through Happiest Baby on the Block. The idea is the baby is too young - too immature when they're born. They suddenly realize the discomfort they're feeling sometime around two weeks old and their fussiness tends to peak around six weeks old and doesn't completely disappear until they're around three to four months.

The problem with this fussiness is the fact that you can't do anything to soothe your baby. There is a certain time, around 4 in the afternoon through about 11 at night, where your baby is literally inconsolable. You use as many tactics as you can, but in the end, sometimes the only thing that will stop the cry-fest is sleep.

The second difficult moment of babydom I've experienced is the four month sleep regression. What happens in the sleep regression is your little cherub had established a routine. You knew when they took their naps. You knew when they were ready for bed. You knew when they would nurse etc. Suddenly this routine is thrown out the window. This is because your darling child is transitioning from baby sleeping patterns to adult patterns. This means they have more light sleep therefore they can't stay asleep as long. Instead, they startle themselves awake, to the point that sometimes they want to play for thirty minutes in the middle of the night.

If you thought newborn life involved transitioning into a zombie, you will yearn for brains at the sleep regression.

I'm not sure which I think is worse, or which I prefer. What I do know is I've come up with a few tactics to stay sane during these more difficult periods of life.

1. Invest in a highlighter. No, not the neon kind you used in college - the kind that brightens your face. Seriously. These things are magical. It doesn't matter how little sleep you got last night, this thing is a miracle. If you have the money to spend, go for Benefit's. If you're going cheap, go for Physicians Formula's. Wearing this I've fooled people into thinking I was five years younger than I was while functioning on four hours sleep. No joke!
2. Get comfortable with the Boob Tube. Find like four or five television series you semi-like, and memorize the movie channels that show something reasonable (i.e. something PG). This will be helpful because you won't feel completely isolated on those couch nursing days and when baby is old enough, you have a slight distraction that will allow you to go to the bathroom or brush your teeth.
3. A variety of toys is ALWAYS a good idea, especially for the sleep regression. Kiddo currently loves his plastic keys, small stuffed animals, and anything by Sassy or Taggies. The more complicated the toy, the better. The entertainment value goes up exponentially! Of course, novelty is good (sometimes all you need is a piece of crinkly paper!).
4. Nap! If kiddo looks remotely sleepy, I just put him down. And then I lay down. Seriously. If either one of us misses our naptime, the apocalypse is around the corner.
5. Ibuprofen. For him. For me. For everyone! While this isn't something I'd give kiddo daily, it is something I give him when his gums are bothering him (or if he's sick, of course!). For me, any day when my sleep has been disrupted I don't stint. This is something necessary for life.
6. A no-fuss haircut that fits your face does wonders. I love my haircut because all I have to do is run a little curl defining product through it and it looks fabulous. This goes a long way to banishing any stress that might come from primping while caring for a baby as well as the apparent aging that comes from being sleep deprived. The result? You feel a thousand times better despite missing naptime!
7. Family, friends, and paid help are necessary. Sometimes you need a break. Sometimes you need a helping hand. Whatever the case may be, people in your life give you that extra support that can carry you through the wailing and sleep deprivation.
8. Coffee. I know they say don't rely on coffee to keep you awake when breastfeeding but let's be honest - when there's a question of whether or not you can handle 12 hours of baby care, coffee is a necessary evil.
9. Pacifiers kept my sanity during the most difficult part of the fourth trimester, and they continue to lull kiddo to sleep (as well as function as a teether during a pinch). Unless your kid doesn't like pacis, I really feel they are a useful tool. As a side note, I recommend a tether to go with your pacifier. These things get lost all the time, and a tether minimizes this.
10. This might seem strange, but a chair has made a huge difference for kiddo. He's a social baby, and so being able to sit at the table during meals makes our meal time a lot more relaxed. There are some chair options for younger babies, but generally this is going to be a solution for someone with a baby going through the sleep regression.
11. Never underestimate the power of an eye mask. You might have punctuated sleep at night, but the sleep you do get will be so much better when you strap one of these over your eyes. My favorite is one from REI because it has a little pocket to hold earplugs and has a lip at the bottom inside that prevents any errant light from reaching your bloodshot eyeballs. I'm now on the third one of this model because I like it so much (though I don't usually use the earplugs that come with it).
12. Some people will say you shouldn't wear earplugs to sleep when you need to be able to hear your baby, but I don't have a problem. If I didn't wear earplugs, I'd never sleep (thanks to my snore-tastic husband). So earplugs are another really important weapon in my sanity arsenal, which is why I'm recommending them here (assuming you have pretty good hearing normally and a low level of wax).
13. A cotton (or other washable fabric) scarf makes a really nice necklace substitute (necklaces are a no-go once you reach the grasping stage) that can also sub as a nursing cover or even cover up the puke stains your little alien gave you just after you left the house. My personal favorites are Indian dupattas - they're long, versatile, and often have a bagillion colors that allow them to be worn with a ton of outfits. You can also buy similar items in person at World Market.
14. Establishing processes is crucial. You might not know what your daily routine is, but if you have go to processes to use for everything, changes in your baby's habits are easier to manage. For example, having a sleep routine is really helpful, even if baby decides he doesn't want to go to sleep at the same time every night. Having processes and plans you can use to allow you to do the laundry, use the bathroom, take a shower, or eat lunch are crucial. This is as much as training yourself to expect certain things as it is your baby. Kiddo knows what's going on when I tell him I'm making coffee (oh yes...coffee!) and enjoys watching me go through the steps of different chores.
15. Knowing what your baby likes and giving him or her that thing is something that a lot of people don't talk about. Babies have preferences. Paying attention to those preferences and honoring them makes a huge difference. You can tell when a baby gets excited by their expressions. It's clear if babies want something because they reach for it. When you honor these preferences I think it contributes to your baby's trust in you as well as decreasing his or her general fussiness.

I'm sure there are other things I use to get through the tougher parts of babydom, but these are the things that stick out in my foggy mommy mind. I hope they help you as much as they help me!

Have some other tricks and tips for surviving the worst of babydom? Share them below!

Six Months: From Basic to Playing

Kiddo has now moved from wanting the basics into a new era. He doesn't just want his diaper changed. He isn't just hungry. He isn't just tired.

He is all these things AND he wants to play.

Everything and anything can be a toy for him, from daddy's drinking straw to the maple dining table. He gets so distracted by his "toys" that he forgets his other needs until he's aching with hunger or falling down tired.

This means I have to anticipate him a bit more than before, which isn't easy considering his routine is changing. We had something down and now everything is different. Nap times have changed, eating habits have changed, even when he has dirty diapers has changed.

I feel like this is probably a trend that will last throughout parenthood; if you think you have a routine, it's already changed.

Sheesh.

Talk about stressors.

The plus about this discovery period is he can entertain himself for short periods of time. He also sits up, which means I don't have to constantly prop him up (although I still do that frequently). These seemingly small steps are huge leaps towards independence in both mind and mobility. It's exciting, scary, and at the same time sad.

My baby's growing up. He's almost 6 months old and rushing towards toddlerhood. Who knew every milestone could make Mommy cry?

Music for My Alien

I mentioned before how much kiddo likes music, and as he's gotten older he continues to express his opinion about different songs and styles. Unfortunately, as expected, he tends to like kid music.

Hmm. Wonder why.

But he also likes the Kingston Trio's "Zombie Jamboree" as well as that profound song about the lime and coconut. Sigh. But along with his very predictable preferences, he has some interesting ones as well. He loves to hear me sing and watch his granddad play guitar.

My dad and I have a small gig this Thursday in Pismo Beach and so we've been practicing a little (hopefully more in the next couple days). Those familiar with my music career will know I last wrote songs at the tender age of 17.

Ahem.

Needless to say it's been a while and most of the old lyrics no longer speak to me. As such we decided we'd try our hand at making some new material. I wrote some new lyrics and my dad wrote some guitar parts. Low and behold we cobbled together a new song today, which made kiddo smile. This was more exciting for me than normal because the song in question was written with kiddo in mind.

As an artist it would be hard to ignore such a life event as the birth of a child, so it was only a matter of time before I created something specifically for our son. This set of lyrics really was inspired. The melody took work, but with the guitar parts and lyrics, it feels like the gift it was meant to be. Hopefully we'll record it and share it with you (I feel very good about it). Then someday kiddo can listen to it - maybe when he's much older, maybe when I'm gone - and know without a doubt how much he was and is loved.

Mommy Pattern Baldness

One of the little known after-effects of childbirth is hair loss. From what I understand, there's a particular way it appears, in fact, a particular pattern. For some women, this might be a scary thing, but for me it wasn't that big of a deal.


I've always had thick hair. In fact, my hair has always been kind of insanely thick. Certain barrettes and hair-ties don't work for me. So when the pregnancy extra-thick hair kicked in, I didn't really notice (though apparently other people did). The only thing that bugged me was how HOT it made me. I was sweating constantly, so the weekend before kiddo was born, I cut my hair.

My new mommy pattern baldness!

It wasn't until kiddo was a couple months old that I started losing hair. Literally every time I ran my hand through my hair, I would pull out a little clump of strands. While this was slightly disconcerting, I read it might happen and so I was prepared. My only worry was having bald spots. Women with bald spots doesn't work very well. But of course, I did get something like a bald spot. I got baby hairs. Ha! And who knew they were called baby hairs for that reason? Certainly not me!

close up of the baby hairs

Still, I had to come up with a plan of action. My hair had grown out from the time I'd last cut it (in the last days of August) and I needed to come up with a way to cover my new bald spots and also deal with kiddo's new favorite activity - hair pulling. What to do? Time for a cut!  I had been going back and forth as to what to do with my bangs. Originally I wanted to let them continue to grow out, but the grim fact staring back at me in the mirror was the fact that letting my bangs grow out was going to be incredibly inconvenient on a daily basis while trying to cover these goofy bald spots. I knew the spots would disappear with time, and I could always grow out any bangs in the long run, so I decided I was back to bangs. Layering my hair was going to make kiddo's grabbing handfuls of my hair a little easier to tolerate (also it would make styling REALLY easy).

There really was only one conclusion for me. So like always, I holed myself up in the bathroom and took the scissors to my dark locks (I'm not crazy, just cheap and very experienced). While cutting your own hair isn't something I'd recommend to everyone, it works for me, and thankfully this time, my new cut covered my baby hairs perfectly and also kept kiddo from yanking out additional chunks!

shameless selfie of my new cut

Yes, there really is such a thing as a mommy haircut. Damn. But at least mine looks good, even if I say so myself. :-D