First Year Mommy Lessons

It's amazing how quickly a year will fly by when you're not paying a truckload of attention. A little over a year ago, I had started to need to take sick time leading up to Will's birth due to various end-of-pregnancy ailments - not the least of which was a good case of double carpal tunnel and a sudden spike in blood pressure before my due date (5/4/12). A year ago tomorrow I spent the better part of 24 hours collecting my urine in a jug (weird things people need to keep in their fridge sometimes...) so that the lab could determine if the high blood pressure was affecting various things. Not that the collection mattered since they induced on my due date anyways and our awesome son Will was born 2 days later.

Sure I'm biased... but ain't he cute?

May 6, 2012? Best. Day. Ever.

At any rate, my first year as a mom has been quite the emotional learning experience. I was reflecting on some of these things this morning while Will was napping and I thought I would share them with you here. These are in no particular order and certainly not the only things I've learned... just some I thought worth sharing.

You'll Find Creative Ways to Say "No"

As Will started to become more mobile and get into more and more things, I found myself saying the words "No, Will, please" more... and more... and more often. Right around the time this was starting to become my default statement it seemed like, I read something that while you're trying to help your child shape his world that you should come up with various new ways to redirect them to other things. So sure, I still say "No", but I've also found ways to get my point across in other ways. Words like "Please don't grab at your penis" (during diaper changes) and "Down, baby, poop is yucky" (when he's pulling up on the diaper pail) and "Move! Hot! Ouchies!" (obvious here) in firm tones have started to enter into my daily routine as well. I'm also starting to get great at saying "yes" instead of "no"; when Will's heading for something that's a "no", I'll find a "yes" then pick him up, move him over to it, and start getting excited about how great it is. ("Down, baby, poop is yucky... but look! It's a pan lid! It makes NOISE! AWESOME!")

Moving on...

Shopping Takes Longer

Going to the grocery store, for me, used to be a stress reliever. Seriously. I LOVE going to the grocery store. With Will, I still love going out to the stores to get errands done but I have found that it does take longer - and he's not even walking yet. I get stopped by old ladies and store clerks who want to goo-goo over my kid (I'm past the "don't touch him" phase, but I still wash his hands... still weird... I don't touch them randomly...). Random people who have kids and grandkids will ask what milestone he's at and then convey some story about their now adult children and when they did things. Sometimes a diaper change will need to take place in order to keep the Peanut happy. The reasons vary, but the truth of the matter is that I need to plan to add at least a 15-20 minute buffer any time I go out shopping now. I don't mind it, I still enjoy shopping, but it's just different now.

Dinner is an Olympic Sport

I love cooking. I love to get in the kitchen, take my time, create a meal with the ingredients in my fridge & pantry, and present the end results for consumption. These days, however, dinner needs to be planned out, paced out, and rarely has the time or space for creativity. I have a 60-90 minute window from the time that Steve gets home and we start Will's bedtime routine to get dinner on the table, feed Will (which can sometimes be an event in and of itself), get dinner off the table, and clean the kitchen. Oh, and sometimes I even get to hang out with the boys for a few minutes. I am blessed in that I have a husband who has recognized that dinner time has now become an Olympic event and has jumped into the process to help it run a bit smoother (he'll often clean up most of the kitchen while I finish feeding Will), but man oh man... Monday-Friday dinner is C-R-A-Z-Y most days.

That Kids' Song? You Have a Favorite Version...

I never realized that there was more than one version of some of the old kids' songs I sang in elementary school. Songs like "The Wheels on the Bus", "Down By the Bay", and even "The Alphabet Song". I have a Pandora account, and when I found out I was pregnant I set up a kids' station and started to shape it with various songs like the ones I just mentioned. Working full-time, I didn't pay a truckload of attention to it because really... when you're selling airplane parts it doesn't matter that when Mother Duck quacked that no little ducks came waddling back. However, now that I'm home I pay a lot more attention to the songs that come on while I sing along to them with - or I guess for at this point - Will. So yes, I am here to say that I have a favorite version of most kids' songs right now. I especially have a favorite version of "Five Little Monkeys" called "No More Monkeys" by Asheba. It's great. Seriously.

Now you can have it in your head for days! I love this version. Seriously. 

Being a Parent is Seriously Like Nothing Else Ever

If you're pregnant with your first child and you're reading this, you need to know that everyone who finds out you're pregnant is going to tell you that it is the best thing that will ever happen to you. They'll stress "No, seriously, it's awesome" like you don't believe them. I can assure you that it's not that they think that you don't believe them. The reason, I've discovered, for this additional emphasis on the awesomeness of being a parent is because it's virtually impossible to put into words how awesome it really is. Sure, there are days that can be incredibly frustrating and moments when you just want to crawl and hide. What I've learned, however, is that watching as this person - who did NOT EXIST before and that YOU NURTURED INSIDE YOUR BODY - grows and becomes more and more independent, more and more autonomous, and more and more a person unto themselves is the most rewarding, unspeakably amazing experience I've ever had. Being Will's Mommy has single-handedly clouded over most other experiences I've had. Being a parent alongside Steve while we raise this little person into - eventually, and faster than I'd prefer - into a little man is the single biggest blessing we've ever received.

There really is nothing else like it in the world.

I am wrapping this up as I hear his babbles come over the monitor as he wakes up from his second nap on the day. I'm going to go get him and spend some time with him like I do every afternoon when he wakes up. These are moments to cherish... I don't want to miss any.

It's Not That Easy Being...

How many of us have ever heard an adult say the following (or something similar) to a baby in response to said baby either whining, crying, protesting, etc.:

"Oh, I know... life is so hard to be a baby!"

Heck, I know that I have said it myself. Will starts whining and for a while my response was "I know! Life is so hard! People hug you and hold you and change you and take you everyplace! I know!"

Then one day it hit me - life probably IS hard when you're a baby.

Let's think about this briefly. Pretend you're a baby. You've just spent the last nine months in the best, most comfortable hot tub ever. Then you are forcefully evicted from your home - either by being violently shoved or dramatically pulled out of your mother - and immediately exposed to a much colder, less comfortable environment than you were just in. You now need to figure out how to eat when previously you just magically got your nutrition, and you need to depend on someone else to make sure you are constantly warm and cozy. Nevermind the fact that in order to get rid of any waste you take in, you have to deposit it into this pseudo-cotton pad that you hope someone notices is full at any given moment.

And that's just what you encounter in your first 30 minutes of life...

As you continue on, you soon come across many other things that impede your progress in this big, bright new world. Let's start with the fact that it's big and bright; your eyes are not yet ready to take in everything that's out there so you spend most of your time squinting, with your eyes shut, or glazed over. The people who are your primary caregivers do not yet understand what you mean when you say "WAAAAH!" versus "waaaah...", and you have not yet deciphered what their incredibly complex language is either. You have zero body strength and control so you can't: move, sit, stand, turn your head, grab at things... you name it, you can't do it yet.

Talk about frustrating.

You grow and as months go by you learn new skills that get you closer and closer to where you want to be. However, as you realize that there is more - because you're watching these people who call themselves "Mommy" and "Daddy" doing all SORTS of cool things you can't do - you get increasingly frustrated. You don't have the trunk strength to sit up like they do, you don't have the upper body strength or the lower body co-ordination to crawl and get your toys, and because your digestive system can't handle it yet - never mind the fact that you have no teeth - you can't eat the awesome looking things that everyone else gets to eat.

Seriously, guys. I can't reach my elephant. Can you... ok... nevermind.

No worries though. You shall express your jealousy by grabbing everything humanly possible and covering it in slobber. If that's not enough, when that "Daddy" fellow decides it's a good time to play that "airplane" game, you'll let a huge drop of drool release from your lips and land somewhere on his face. Preferably up his nose or right in that gaping, laughing mouth.

That'll teach him to lift you in the air.

Anyways... you finally are able to start speaking and no one knows what you're talking about. How do these morons NOT know that "Bah-bah-a-bay-a-wah" means "Please hand me that block that makes the cool jingle noise"? Or that "A-gay-wah-wah-boooo" means "I'm about to take a huge crap, don't act surprised"? Never mind that when they FINALLY start to give you some of that yummy-looking food they're eating, they start you off with some bland cereal and PEAS. Seriously??? Why not Indian food and cheesecake like you got in utero?

Let's not even get into the fact that they put your cape on backwards when they feed you this "food".

I think you get my point. When you really think about it, being a baby is probably more difficult than we give it credit for. This dawned on me when Will was about 3 months old; I don't remember what it was that prompted me to realize this, but since that moment I have stopped saying "I know, buddy. It's so HARD to be a baby"... at least without acknowledging that you know what - it probably is.

Sure, at some point in time the same baby who we patronizingly tell that it's so "HARD" to be a baby will probably say the same thing to their own kids. We don't realize it as adults, I think, because the idea of people waiting on our every need while we lounge around playing with toys is incredibly appealing when placed against the backdrop of our 8-5 jobs and 1-hour commutes.

But I challenge you to take a moment and think of all the things you can do that you take for granted - like having the ability to lean over and grab something without smacking your face on the floor or eating food without needing to think about chewing. These are things that babies are in process of learning so that they one day can join the ranks of the autonomous. After you've thought of these things, take a moment the next time you look at a baby - especially yours - and appreciate where they're at.

I can almost guarantee that you will look at them in wonder when they finally figure out how to lean over to pick something up from a sitting position - and manage to sit back up again.

Things to Do...

Will is going to be 5 months old next Saturday. There are so many things that he has already outgrown and so many things that he is starting to do and discover that I can't help but start thinking of the things that I want to teach him as he grows...

I want him to appreciate the feelings of grass beneath barefeet and sand between his toes.

I want to show him the competition with the ocean when you build a sand castle too close to the tide... and how to use the tide to his advantage to fill a moat in a properly built sand castle.

I want to lay on a picnic blanket and show him the shapes in the clouds as they float by.

I want to watch him try to pop bubbles and then laugh with him as he blows bubbles while I try to pop them.

I want to show him how to sound out words with his finger when he reads a book. 

I want to help him discover the pride that can come from simple crayon drawings hung on a fridge or mailed to grandparents. 

I want aid him in understanding gratitude and help him to write his first thank-you note.

I want to help him to get to know who Jesus is and what He did for us.

I want to build popsicle boxes with him and help him to see how much people appreciate homemade presents. 

I want to serve alongside him in his first community service project and help him to understand why it's important to help and serve others. 

I want to tell him fun stories about and lessons learned from the people in our family who have left us to go to Heaven and why it's important to understand our past. 

I want to carry on the tradition of making Christmas cookies and giving them out to friends, family, and neighbors. And the fun of eating cookie dough off of your fingers (and then washing your hands). 

I want him to know the simple comfort that can be had in a good hug.

These are just some of the things that I want to teach our little man as he grows.

Each time I put him down for a nap it seems that he's just a little bit bigger in my arms. I know the time will come soon enough for me to teach him these things and experience them with him, and I don't want to rush that time at all. In the meantime, I am enjoying every minute of his baby-ness and placing little "photos" in my memory file.

Just spending each day loving on my adorable little blessing...

Lessons From My Father...

Below are a list of lessons and things that I learned from my father over the years... most of which he probably never meant to teach me...

Dance whenever the opportunity arises - even if you look like a fool - because it's fun. Especially when "Love Shack" is playing.

There's nothing wrong with making up ridiculous songs using ridiculous noises.

Cheese will bind you up.

You are never too old to own & wear a pair of one-piece fleece pajamas.

Find & marry someone who is strong, loving, and will take good care of you when you're at your weakest.

Always be nice to the police officer who is proctoring your driver's test.

In fact... be nice and joke with any person who is serving you. It could make their day.

Confucious say: Man who go to bed with itchy bum wake up with smelly finger. (This actually has a serious connotation... think about it...)

Don't do drugs (under threat of butt-kicking...).

There's no place like Nana's house.

Be candid with your doctor about your family medical history and ask if there are tests to find out if you are at risk for anything in said history.

Everyone needs a nickname - usually a one-syllable male name like "Fred" or "Ralph".

Burger King is superior to McDonald's, and you'll never find a better steak & cheese than at Steffy's.

Bacon and peanut butter are two of the best food products ever to exist.

Always keep a positive attitude, no matter how crappy things get. It makes a difference to the people around you.

People will remember the ridiculous things you did in the name of humor and recount them with a chuckle later, no matter how out of left field it seemed at the time. Like driving through a cemetery while honking the horn to "wake the dead".

Never lie about how you're doing when someone asks.

Make sure to brag and praise about the people who you are most proud of.

Always - ALWAYS - be yourself.

And probably most importantly... never EVER part ways or hang up the phone with someone without stressing that you love them. No matter how fantastically good or badly strained the relationship with that person is, it's important that they hear it.

In memory of Daniel K. Cochrane

Jan. 29, 1957 - June 30, 2012 

Magical Motherhood Moment #576...

It has always been a fact that lay somewhere in my brain that when I had children, I would breastfeed. My mother nursed all 4 of her children, so I knew that I too would bring my babes to bosom for their daily doses of nutritious milk when I had mine.

It was just the way I knew it would be.

On May 6, the opportunity presented itself when our son William was born. After his glorious entrance into the world via c-section, the fine folks at Lowell General wheeled us up to the recovery room in a "skin-on-skin" fashion (read: stripped my kid down to his diaper and placed him on my chest under the sexy johnny gown that made me appear to be 300 pounds) and once we were settled encouraged us to partake in the first official magical moment of our mother-son bonding experience...

"OK, Mom! Are you ready to try to nurse?"

Sure. In my deliriously exhausted state after 32 hours of induction, 14.5 hours of labor, and 45 minutes of surgery... nothing could bring me more joy than being able to spend a few moments with my newborn son giving him as much nutrition as my meager sampling of colostrum could muster.


I'm being serious about this, by the way... it'd been a long few days, I was excited for the moment where I could spend a few minutes with the beautiful baby I'd been carrying around inside of me for 40 weeks and 2 days. I was, however, literally deliriously exhausted and am lucky I remember anything that happened in the recovery room at all.

So with the watchful eyes of a lactation certified charge nurse over my shoulder, I brought the one-hour old Baby William to my right breast and waited for that beautiful moment I'd read about in all the books. That moment where awkwardness meets new experience and he flat out rejects my breast, all the while with the nurse encouraging me not to give up... after all, breastfeeding is new for both of us.

That moment, however, never happened. It never happened because I have an amazing son who after 3 licks of expressed milk latched onto my right breast like a champ and gave me three strong suckles before tiring out. It'd been a long few days for him too; he'd been beating his head against a "wall" thanks to induction and a mom who wouldn't dilate enough for him to make a graceful exit. Yet despite how exhausted we both were... there he was, looking up at me with his quiet, big, blue eyes (well... looking up anyway) and latching like a pro.

Talk about a proud mommy moment.

That moment will forever be cherished in my memory... as will the first time I tried to kill my son via unintentional drowning on that same breast.

You see... breastfeeding is a beautiful, wonderful, natural thing between a mother and baby. It also has the potential to be incredibly horrifying at the right moments.

There we were... me and William... me sitting on our living room couch with my feet up, my arm propped up with a pillow for support and our beautiful baby boy laid across my lap. I heard the steady sound of sucking and swallowing that I had grown accustomed to hearing during these times, a quiet reassurance from Will that he was getting the food that he needed from me. I took a sip of water and as I was placing the cup back on its place on the coaster... it happened.

My one-week old son ripped his head back from my breast, opened his eyes incredibly wide, and let out these tiny little coughs. I looked down to see his face covered in white liquid... and my nipple squirting out milk like my poor kid had just won the grand prize on Stanley Spadowski's Funhouse.

(If you don't get the Stanley Spadowski reference, take the 35 seconds and watch this clip.)

I was completely horrified. No one had given me the heads up that my breast would become a sort of drowning device for my child if pressure built up when milk production was doing its finest work. Waves of guilt came over me... what if he hadn't thrown his head back? What if I had actually drowned my kid trying to do nothing more than provide him this beautiful, natural nourishment? Oh, the headlines on the six-o-clock news would have been ones for the ages!

I quickly grabbed the burp cloth I had nearby and pressed it against my breast until the firehose became a dribble and then stopped. I apologized to my poor son several times, not knowing at the time that what had happened was not only normal but would not be the last time he would get mommy-milk in the eyeball. But that first time... that awful, horrifying moment when I wondered if my breasts were broken and if my son would be able to drink breastmilk without choking to death or drowning again was one I will never, ever forget.

Over the last few weeks, what was once "udderly" horrifying has now become a joke between Will and I. If he sleeps too long between his feedings and I don't get a chance to pump, when the firehose kicks in he just backs off, looks up at me with those steely blue-grey eyes, and patiently waits for the burp cloth to come to the rescue. His expression seems to say to me "Geez, Mommy, control that thing will ya?" and the only response I have is a quick apology in a silly cooing voice so that he doesn't become startled while I hurry to stop him from getting his dinner all over his face. These moments are now ones that will be filed away in my memory bank without horror, but rather with an amusement that I can pass on to Will's wife when they have their first child.

I figure I wish someone had warned me about it... I may as well have the courtesy to pass on what I wished I had known to the next. No need to have a slew of new mommies out there thinking they are going to drown their children in the one thing that should be bringing a beautiful, nutritious, bonding experience to their parent-child relationship.