Happy Birthday Baby! A First Year Retrospective

It's been a year. I've been a mom for a year. It seems crazy. I mean, I feel like yesterday I gave birth (Okay, well maybe not yesterday. You know, I can sit down comfortably and I'm not using a sitz bath...thank GOD!) and now Kiddo is threatening to walk!

My smooshy newborn love

It's pretty wild that a year go, Kiddo was a red, smoosh-faced sleepy, poopy, floppy newborn. This is especially wild considering that now he has some words, plays jokes, chases, laughs, sings, and dances (with help). It's crazy that he can climb up and down stairs, pets Java the Cat when he's sleepy, and cuddles his stuffed animals that he makes babble. It's crazy that he poses for pictures.

It's been a crazy year. Our family has suffered a lot during Kiddo's first year of life. We've experienced tremendous financial hardship (and we're still working to remove that burden). We sacrificed independence and pride and moved in with my parents. I underwent a lot of personal exploration and development, which also forced a lot of issues within my marriage which had been quietly festering. These things forced Christian to confront his choice of profession (and the resulting difficulties), as well as his role as husband and father.

My active charming 1 year wonder

Meanwhile, Kiddo was largely unaware of these things. He, despite everything, grew and even thrived. Everywhere we go, people comment on his charming nature. They adore his sweet smiles, waves, singing, and even his more spectacular antics (more about those in subsequent posts).

While this year has been difficult, it was also full of joy, wonder, and laughter. Kiddo is an amazing and unusual kid who prefers vegetables to fruit, syncopated rhythms, and entertaining anyone who is wiling to watch him for longer than 2 seconds. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Happy Birthday Baby! We love you so much.

The Great Alien Dog Disaster

This is Honeybee, the Frenchie

Yesterday brought one of the scarier moments of my experience as a mother. It involved my mother-in-law's French bulldog, Honeybee. Most people would think such a small dog, with such a small mouth would be incapable of doing any damage to a baby. In fact most of the time, people would think such a dog would be so sweet, hurting a baby would be the last thing such an animal would do.

 

 

 

Of course, the thing about dogs is they get jealous. Honeybee has been jealous the every time kiddo has visited. In fact, she's been weird. She's followed people carrying kiddo. She's whined, squeaked, squawked, growled, yapped, and barked at him. She's sniffed at his crotch (I'm sure a very interesting smelling area for a dog!) and his head. She's licked at him. She's snorted at him. She's tried to get onto his changing pad while we were changing his diaper. She's stood on her hind legs for minutes in order to get attention. The whole thing has been weird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

kiddo, throwing some duck lips

Once she even nipped his sock off. Of course, my father-in-law loves his dog and wants her to get along with the baby. He rushes to the dog's defense whenever someone freaks out about Honeybee getting too close to kiddo. And normally I would be alright with Honeybee doing her weird freakout, except what happened yesterday was not okay.

Kiddo, as you may imagine, has gotten bigger. My mother-in-law is not a very tall woman. She was holding kiddo and his legs dangled down, as one might expect. The dog was jumping and running under foot. My mother-in-law was asking my father-in-law to get the dog out of the way. Honeybee decided she couldn't handle my mother-in-law holding kiddo. She jumped up and nipped his foot. For a second kiddo was quiet. I looked at my mother-in-law and then said, "She just bit him!"

Sure enough, a second later kiddo began wailing. My mother-in-law went ballistic on the dog, even as she handed me the baby. It broke my heart to see kiddo so upset. I couldn't easily check his foot and soothe him, so instead, I just focused on soothing him while the dog was removed from the house. Then my mother-in-law came and helped me check his foot. As you might expect, even a small Frenchie has teeth and teeth scrape. His pinky toe was bleeding, but it was still moving and quite attached to his foot (thank GOD!). We cleaned him up and put a tiny bandage on it while he screamed and whimpered intermittently.

Honeybee is no longer allowed to be in the house when we visit, at least not until kiddo is able to defend himself (or she gets a muzzle!). We were lucky this time, but we don't want to push it.

kiddo and Java napping together

I wanted kiddo to get along with the animals in his life. But dogs and babies don't really mix, not unless their trained specifically to be. Cats, thankfully are another matter altogether. Kiddo actually pets Java - starting a week ago he loves to pet Java our cat, and Java purrs happily enjoying his attentions. They even curl up together. It's a completely different relationship than the one he has with Honeybee, and I couldn't be happier about that. It would be so awful to have to get rid of an animal because they couldn't handle being around a child.

What are your stories of babies/children and pets? Have you had success or has it been a disaster? Share below!

Cats and Aliens

This is Java. She's a rescue. She's 8 yrs old and been in our family for 5 years. She is super talkative. She greets us whenever we come home and likes to remind us of our routines.

She eats when we eat. She let's us know when something isn't right (a phone ringing, dish empty, litter needing changed etc). She let's us know it's time to go to bed and gets upset when we're sitting in different areas. She watches the most interesting thing in the room - whatever that might be (a person, the TV etc). Her favorite thing is to sit between us so we can both pet her.

She also likes to nap when I nap (curled up beside or on top of me). In the middle of the night she will lay down in my arms like a live version of a stuffed animal, except she's much softer, warmer, and purrs soothingly.

Reading all this it almost sounds like Java is a dog, but of course, she's not. Like other cats, she likes to sleep for extended periods of time. As such, she REALLY likes to sleep in soft cuddly places, especially those that let her hide.

I love our cat. She's been like a child substitute these past 5 years. Of course now kiddo is coming into the picture, our little alien baby, and I can't help but wonder how this will work. Java is gentle, but she likes attention. While she has lived with other cats and can do it reasonably well, kiddo is not a cat (though newborn noises and cat noises sound eerily similar).

I know from my limited experience cleaning and unwrapping baby toys that Java will like to play with kiddo's toys as much as kiddo (if not more so) though she has been told not to. She also likes to rub up against my belly and purrs like crazy even when kiddo decides to punch or kick her. It doesn't phase her at all. And while she would love to explore the cosleeper we just acquired, both Christian and I have made it clear to her, in no uncertain and very scary terms, that area is off limits. She has, without anything more than us freaking her out, stayed off the cosleeper. This bodes well.

The only thing I'm a little concerned with is at night. She likes to walk all over us, and her intact claws can be sharp (though I try to keep up with trimming them). I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it goes. As much preparation as I can do, nothing will really compare to having a live, squirming, messy alien.