let there be light (pt 2)

It’s filthy but it’s mine all mine. Oh i have big dreams for her after my trip to Hobby Lobby today…thanks for modeling, Vanna Dad!

let there be light

Do you remember the crazy lady’s ugly chandelier I refinished for Summer’s room? It went from this….

to this…

Knowing now that Scott and I can install a ceiling light complete with shiny new dimmer switch without electrocuting ourselves or burning the house down, I’ve been on the hunt for an ugly used chandelier that I could makeover for our bedroom because right now we have a flying saucer…

So we need something not too big for fear of a concussion hazard when sitting up in bed in the dark. We need something less of a spotlight, more of a soft romantic glow. I found a few on Craigslist but none of them were really worth the drive out to wherever they were, especially the one from the weird guy that emailed me back 5 times in 3 hours asking if I was still interested. I planned on scouring thrift stores in the hopes of finding something truly hideous that I could make pretty but haven’t made it out yet. I swear, it’s like this itch in the back of my head just craving the turning of someone’s junk into my pretty little treasure that no one else can say they have. For some reason it’s so much more fun than just going to a store and picking out a light that hundreds of other people have, too. So with a plan but no rush, I figured I’d eventually stumble upon the light that was meant to be mine. And lo and freaking behold, I was at dinner at my parents house last night and they decided it was time to redo their dining room and the first thing they did was replace the chandelier.

Fate, I tells ya.

So now I’m on the hunt for some inspiration. I want to go black. I want lots and lots of sparkly beads. The old chandelier is pretty basic, just 5 arms with the bulbs pointing up, so I may have to somehow add some structure to it. These inspirational pics have my brain all dizzy with what could be….

I’m heading back to my parents’ to pick up the fixture today and a run to Michael’s for some beads, and I’m hopeful it isn’t too tall for the room. We shall see! So excited.

booty scootin’

Summer turned 8 months on Valentine’s Day and decided it was time to get a move on. Problem is she hates being on her tummy so much it seems she’ll do what she can to stay off of it! So we now have a baby on the move, she’s just going in the wrong direction….Nanna says she’s stuck in reverse and needs to put that car in drive, baby…

Or click here to watch my crappily edited video.

it takes different strokes to move the world

(psssst there may be giveaway at the end, haha, though you may not be interested after reading this…)

I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll say it again… I hate unsolicited advice. Hate it. Loathe it. Despise it. I don’t want it, I don’t give it, and if someone gives me advice that I didn’t ask for, I assume it’s because they think my way is the wrong way and their way is the right way and I will completely tune them out and start humming 80′s sitcom theme songs under my breath because la la la I can’t hear you and it’s much more fun than listening to someone else tell me I’m wrong.

Mature, I know.

I do believe that I’ve become such an advocate against advice not asked for for good reason. #1) I really don’t like to be told I’m wrong. #2) if I need help I’ll ask for it and if I’m not asking, I’m not needing.

I also think in a lot of situations, there are different ways of doing things that will all eventually lead to the same outcome, making your way and my way both right even if they’re different. Take, for example, my mom and I driving to the same destination. My mom won’t make a left turn unless there’s a stoplight there. I will, however, turn left without a stoplight. So while she’s turning right then right then right again to get around the block to go past her destination so she can double back to it, I’ll sit twiddling my thumbs for 10 minutes at an intersection waiting for my window of opportunity to turn, waiting for somebody, anybody? to let me cut across lanes of oncoming traffic. And in the end, my mom and I will end up at the same spot getting there 2 different ways. It doesn’t make my way right because it was a more straight approach or her way wrong because she took the scenic route ’cause you know what? Her way is the right way for her and my way is the right way for me.

This tangent of mine is leading somewhere, I promise.

I have a bunch of parenting books, none of which I bought – they were all given to me by well-meaning mommy friends but I haven’t read any of them, haven’t even cracked the spines. And if parenting books are your thing and you’ve found them to be great resources and totally helpful, then I’m happy because parenting books are quite clearly the right way for you. For me though, these books that have been staring me down from the corner of my bookshelf have kinda felt like one person’s advice that I never asked for, all written down for me in a pretty little bound package by some author who thinks he/she can raise my child better than I can and I don’t like that. I don’t care how many MDs and PhDs and whatnots they have after their names. In general, when it has come to baby behavior and breastfeeding and how to cut baby nails and what lotion to use and when to stop swaddling and when to start solids and how much should she be eating and specific baby milestones at specific baby ages, I’ve either relied on my instincts or her signals, asked our pediatrician, or watched her grow and roll over and sit up at her own pace without worrying about keeping up with the baby Joneses.

But this past week, our little angel sleeper who has been sleeping through the night since about 2 months (don’t hurt me), started waking up – first once, then twice, then 3 times a night. First night it was fussiness. The next night it was crying. And the next night turned into 3 full-on scream sessions of bloody murder. And it’s teething, I know this – my instincts and her signals are telling me so – I can tell her mouth is hurting, she’s hitting herself in the chin and spitting out her pacifier that she’d normally find a way to keep sucking on while eating if I’d let her, and drooling like a faucet like when her first 2 teeth came in 2 months ago.

But then something happened. My interrupted sleep brain had me second guessing myself and wondering if dear God, maybe my baby is suddenly just a horrible sleeper and it will never get better. So I did it, I cracked my first parenting book, Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth, a book that 7 months ago a mommy friend gave me and said I had to read because it will blow my mind to smithereens and seriously change my mother-effing life.

And holy crap, this book is so not for me, it royally pissed me off. It told story after story of awful mommas doing unthinkable things like holding their babies and hugging them and feeding them when they wake up hungry and rocking them to sleep and soothing them when they cried! Oh dear Lord, the humanity. It said I am doing it wrong wrong wrong by doing those things. But here’s the thing – I don’t think I’m wrong.well the world don’t move to the beat of just one drum… Without going into detail, this book went against everything my gut has told me to do since pushing this baby out of my body. what might be right for you might not be right for sooooooooome… And according to the author, I’m in big big trouble because I am a horrible enabler and my child will grow up to be a terrible train wreck if I stay on the course that I’ve been on:

“WARNING: If your child does not learn to sleep well, he may become an incurable adult insomniac, chronically disabled from sleepiness and dependent on sleeping pills.”

Well crap, she’s doomed. And that was only in the introduction. I think what pissed me off the most about this was that for such a bold statement, there was absolutely no proof, no credibility, no studies referenced, no sites or scientific data sourced. So after losing 2 hours of my life I’ll never get back, I decided to put the book down, accept the fact that I am not a cry-it-out momma (which again, if it works for you, fantastic! It’s just not for me), hug my child, and let her know I’m here to nurture and soothe and hold and rock back to sleep when she’s crying in the middle of the night, teething or not, despite the fact that she’s going to end up a pill-popping disabled insomniac.

So while I know I just painted this book into such a pretty picture, as I was about to throw it in the donate to Goodwill pile last night, I realized something – someone else may be able to get something out of this thing that I couldn’t because you know what? Parenting books are not the right way for me, but they may be for someone else considering this book is mentioned in almost every online forum thread that has anything to do with a baby waking in the middle of the night. Millions of mommas have found this book helpful, I’m just not one of them. So while I absolutely do not endorse this book, does anyone want it? If so, leave me a comment and I’ll pick someone by next Wed., otherwise it’s going to the thrift store.

I know, I know, I should have been a salesman.

calling 911, or how my worst fear came true

This little being

is so tiny and so sweet

yet so incredibly powerful,

and she has no idea

just how powerful she is.

This past Friday night, I found out that this little teeny human being has the brute power to rock me to my core and her power over me is scary and it is strong. I discovered that she has the ability to take everything I’ve built up over the last 7 months – all of my mama confidence, all of my aha! moments, all of my high fives and low fives and behind the back fives I’ve given myself, all of my silent pats on the back, all of my I don’t know how I knew how to do that, I just knew moments – and in one quick moment she placed all of my big blocks of courage and confidence and chunks of I-can-do-this one by one into a glass ball, and gently gave it a little shake. She shook that little glass ball back and forth, back and forth in her tiny little hands, until all of my mama strengths that started out as big ol bricks broke into a million pieces and started floating and swirling around like a breeze through the ball, eventually settling to the bottom, leaving each little jagged piece like an unpredictable little flake of snow in a snowglobe.

This Friday we had our first very real emergency. There was nothing I could have done to prevent it, and I did everything in my power to stop it. I know that. I’m proud of the fact that my baby is still alive and healthy and that I stayed calm in the scariest moment I’ve ever faced. But now that the snow storm has settled in my glass bubble, the emergency long forgotten in her mind, I feel like my pieces of courage will never quite fit together the same, they’ll never again be that solid brick of mama invincibility again without little holes of fear of another emergency looming just under the surface. This Friday shook me back to reality and smacked me in the forehead with the reminder that even if you do everything right, life is fragile and anything can happen in an instant.

So this Friday…

We have all wood floors throughout most of the house and have a nice big fluffy comforter folded on the floor in the living room, a comfy place for Summer to sit and play and topple over on her head safely if she reaches just a little too far for a toy. It’s where 90% of the pictures I take with my phone are actually taken. It’s the place where every night she rubs her little red-rimmed eyes and she lays down on her side, spooning me the wrong way so we’re face to face and even though it’s the wrong way, we still fit perfectly like the big spoon and little spoon were meant to fit. She tries to grab my eyeballs before I close them up tight, she giggles when I try to eat her fingers if they get too close to my mouth, she closes her eyes and takes a handful of my hair and rubs it on her cheek like she does with her soft blankies, then she drifts off into sleep until I scoop her up and put her to bed. It’s her little safe place, her cozy spot, a spot made especially for her.

So Friday night around 9:30pm, she was on her blanket, laying on her back, pacifier in her mouth, she was awake and playing and I was sitting at her feet. And in an instant, she threw up, breathed it into her lungs, and started gasping for air. I will never ever forget the look on her face. I’ve seen her face when the dogs startle her with their barking. I’ve felt her shudder when I open the shades and the loud noise makes her cry. But this look was different. It was an almost frozen look of fear and panic, of confusion, of mama, I can’t breathe and I don’t know what to do…

My absolute worst fear in this entire world.

My baby couldn’t breathe. She had aspirated and was choking and couldn’t breathe enough air into her lungs to cough it out. Mama rescue overdrive kicked in and I picked her up, flipped her over and, holding her chin in my hand, I hit her back over and over to try to get it out. She wasn’t really doing anything and the drool was pouring out of her mouth and the tears out of her eyes and I wasn’t sure if I was clearing her airway at all – I know I wasn’t hitting it as hard as they taught in our CPR class but I was hitting, slapping. Scott kept asking if we should call 911 and at first I said yes! Then just like that, she seemed to be breathing again. So I told him to wait. And before I knew it, she coughed a tiny little cough, some of the vomit came out her nose, and she was gasping again. Until that moment I thought she was clear, and at that moment I realized she was not and I had no idea how much was left in there so I held her still face down with drool and spit up and tears landing on the blanket below us as I smacked her over and over. Then Scott grabbed her from me and took over with her chin in his hand, hitting her between the shoulder blades, trying to get her airway clear. And it was the same thing all over again. 911? She’s ok! Gasps, 911! No, wait, breathing! No, choking again! And finally I called the audible. I grabbed the baby and threw the phone to Scott and barked for him to call 911 because THIS WAS NOT NORMAL.

And in less than a minute, 3 EMTs were coming through our front door. I have never been so grateful to have a nursing home on the other side of the fence because they were over there, literally feet away when they got the call. And I shit you not, within seconds she stopped gasping, caught her breath, coughed out the last of it, and flashed the big brave firemen in big bright uniforms a big gummy grin.

After they took her info, offered a ride to the hospital which we all agreed probably wasn’t necessary anymore, and left, I grabbed the bulb syringe and squeegeed the last of it out of her nose and she, although exhausted, seemed fine. So I laid her back on her blanket, let her grab at my eyeballs before I shut them up tight, I nibbled on her fingers as they got too close to my mouth, I let her grab a handful of my hair and rub it on her cheek and I watched her drift off into sleep while I stayed wide-eyed for hours and hours just listening to the most beautiful sound in the world, the sound of my precious baby breathing.

I have never been so scared in my entire life and I will forever be haunted by the look I saw in her eyes that night.

Life is precious, go hug your loved ones a little tighter tonight.

life lessons from a gerbil

I got my first pet when I was around 10. My parents had finally caved in to the incessant whining of the 4 of us girls begging for our own pets, animals we swore on our lives we’d feed and love and clean up after and whatever else it is you do with small rodents kept in a cage in the corner of your room. And while my sisters all picked out hamsters, I instead took a dare to be different approach and went with a gerbil that I creatively named Gerby. Then one day I was playing with Gerby and the ungrateful little fucker bit me with his little yellow rodent teeth and it pissed me off and I never picked him up again. And you know what happened to Gerby? Gerby kicked the bucket.

Shocker.

And before the grass even had a chance to regrow over the spot in the backyard where my dad buried him in a shoebox, I begged and I pleaded and I cried for another one. Because while my sisters’ hamsters were all thriving and making litter after litter of little hamster babies despite the fact that the pet store guy swore up and down to my dad that they were all male (ha! I vividly remember with the first litter Becky running down the stairs yelling, “There are little pink things coming out of Sugar’s butt!”), I somehow convinced my parents that I absolutely must have gotten a defective gerbil and I needed a new one. So once again, my parents gave in and on a trip to the pet store with my dad who was dropping off half a dozen hamster babies (oh yeah, pet store’s mistake=pet store’s problem), I got another gerbil. And after reaching deep down into the depths of the core of my creative childhood imagination, I named him Gerby II. And one day Gerby II started jumping uncontrollably in his cage, seizures of some sort I’m guessing, and it freaked me the fuck out and I never picked him up again.

R.I.P. Gerby II.

And now here I sit looking back at the whole experience through my new eyes as a mother knowing darn well that despite the 2 dogs that we already have, Summer will eventually ask me if she can have her very own pet to feed and love and clean up after and whatever else it is you do with a small animal when you can barely tie your own shoes. And I find myself asking if having my own pet at 10 years-old taught me love, responsibility, patience, and consequences as a little girl. And you know what? No. No, it did not. I didn’t learn that from a pet until I was 16 and our family dog fell down the basement stairs and broke his leg and hip and I was in charge because my parents were out of town and I ended up driving all over the freaking state with a panting doggie crying out in pain in my front seat who I honestly thought was going to die while I tried to find a 24-hour animal emergency center at 11:30pm on a school night. Now that is a lesson learned in responsibility. All Gerby taught me was that rodents have ugly little yellow teeth and they bite hard and have seizures. That, and if you ignore your problems long enough, they’ll eventually go away – a fact that was later reconfirmed by Gerby II, my dad and a shovel.

And this, my friends, is why I vow right here and right now that if Summer ever asks for a pet of her own, instead of taking her to the pet store and letting some little creature with a long stringy tail and beady eyes teach her the fun lessons in life, I’ll take her to Target with me when i choose to buy an 8 pack of new socks and underwear instead of doing laundry because I just don’t wanna. And I’ll teach her to put Pizza Hut on speed-dial because sometimes you just cant be bothered with grocery shopping even when you have an empty fridge and a hungry husband waiting at home. Then I’ll teach her how to coast in neutral past the gas station all the way home when the car’s gas light comes on because sometimes you just really want your pajamas and the couch and the gas station will still be there tomorrow. And I’ll teach her all of this without having to bury a dead rat in a shoebox in my backyard.

And then maybe I’ll buy her a plant.

bye bye baby

When I reached in the cabinet for baby mug at work this morning, oooo, I was pissed. Baby mug was gone. Taken again. Immediately I started picturing the faceless head of some evil evil person licking my baby’s sweet little eyeballs again and my language over the coffee pots became rather colorful. Cleaned up in summary it went something like [expletive, expletive] someone stole [expletive] baby mug and someone is going to [expletive, expletive] die.

Then I realized it was on the upper shelf in the cabinet because I put it there to keep it safe. Yep, I stole baby mug.

Summer’s latest development for the last few days is mama separation anxiety which I guess is only fair since I’ve had a case of baby separation anxiety everyday since going back to work, hence the need to drink coffee out of my baby’s face. The difference between her anxiety and mine though is that I don’t cry. Much. And the timing on my weekly baby email this morning couldn’t have been more appropriate…

She must have gotten this one in her inbox and read it before I did because for the last 2 days if I walk out of her sight and worse now, if I turn my back to her and just look like I’m heading towards the door, she sticks out her lip and starts crying big fat wet ploppy tears. I’m not gonna lie, I secretly love that she just absolutely wants to be with me at all times. Love. Love. Love. But with Scott’s job sending him out the door at 3:50am, I’m on my own with baby girl every morning until I leave for work and she and I had such a good routine going – a routine that is officially out the window with this new-found anxiety. Before, on the days that I would shower which, let’s face it, are few and far between now (I know I can’t be the only one who regularly sports day old ponytails and touches up yesterday’s makeup most mornings, right? Right?), I put her in her crib, turn on the music thingy that hangs on the side and plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, shower in about 4 minutes, then get back in her room to chime in with ”…der what you aaaaaaaaare” like I never even left.

But the last few mornings took a little more of my creative bones to get myself ready while deflecting those sad little puppy dog eyes and that little pouty bottom baby lip rearing it’s heartbreaking head and lasso-ing me back into the room. Yesterday I was forced to open up the wooden puzzles I was saving for when she’s a little older. Today I actually wheeled her and a few toys in the little rolly bassinet into the bathroom with me while I washed my face (woohoo, I actually washed my face today! Seriously, it is a reason to pat myself on the back these days…) and brushed my teeth and did my business. Tomorrow, who knows…all I know is that at this rate she’ll have her own iPhone by the time she’s one.

And oh man the part of the email above that kills me is the last paragraph -

Say goodbye to your baby when you leave him. Sneaking out will only increase your baby’s anxiety, because he can never be sure when you might disappear.

That just makes me a sad sad mama. So when I left the house this morning, instead of trying to sneak out without her seeing, I handed her over to my sister, gave her a kiss (the baby, not my sister), and said and waved goodbye as I walked out the door. She cried. It was sweet. And then she smiled. And it was even sweeter. And jeez do I freaking love that darn baby.

 

A few updates:

For the first time in 10 years, I’m a redhead again! I’m still not sure if I’m gonna keep it, I miss the blonde already although no roots makes me happy. Whatcha think?

I also had to share as I’m sitting here sniffing myself, I bought a new perfume that I am madly in love with. I smelled it on a coworker the other day and ended up buying a bottle for myself. It’s Philosophy’s Amazing Grace and it’s so yummy. I was afraid it would smell differently on me than on her because that happens every time I smell my sister and buy what she’s wearing – it never ever smells as good on me. But I discovered if I spray this on my arm, not so good. On my shirt? Heaven.

The fake ring has been sent back to the seller and the plot has thickened to a nice soupy consistency. I had decided to open a case in eBay’s resolution center just to cover our butts if the seller decided to be difficult or not respond at all. Luckily he/she responded saying that we could send the ring back with a note to refund the PayPal account, though the seller still swears the ring is authentic. I wanted so badly to respond to that part but figured we’d wait until my sister actually had her money back before flinging any accusations around. So I wrote the note for a refund, printed out the email exchange, made copies of everything, and, so we’d have a tracking number, delivery confirmation and a signature, I sent it via certified mail last week. As of this morning, according to the tracking number the post office has tried to deliver the ring twice now but no one has been at the address to sign for it, so it keeps going back to the post office. After 15 days, the post office will send it back to us if the seller doesn’t claim the package. And that, my friends, is why I’m SO glad I sent it certified so they can’t come back and claim that we never sent it. I’ll keep you posted!

i wish i were a fish

After finding out from my friend Simona that there’s a place through our park district with 4 indoor pools complete with waterslides, a lap pool, a kiddie pool and a hot tub, Scott and I took Summer swimming for the first time this past weekend. This baby has been in a sink, she’s been in a tub, she’s even been on a boat in the middle of a lake, but she’s never been in a pool. And I still don’t know how I’m just now finding out about this place because it’s practically in my backyard! Wait, no, that’s a nursing home. The pool is practically just past the nursing home in our backyard.

First up, what to wear. My new momma body may be without the baby wieght but I now have curves where there were none before and flat terrain where a once curvy booty and thighs resided. I got to work and pulled every last bathing suit I own out of my drawer, blew off the thick layer of dust that had settled on them, then spent the next hour trying on a bunch of bathing suits that were bought for a different body. People, it was not pretty. I was caught somewhere in the middle of the depths of hell trying to find a balance between looking like slutty mommy and 10-year-old boy. I was stuffing mom boobs, hiking loose bottoms up my deflated bum, contemplating double stick tape and a belt, cringing and then finally tossing aside for the next suit only to end up retrying and restuffing and retossing.

Once I settled on my least offensive suit, I then had to squeezed Summer into hers - again, not easy considering hers is for a newborn and she’s now 7 months. I stuffed that poor baby into her suit like pork in a sausage casing and it’s a good thing those little swimmers diapers don’t expand when they get wet otherwise we might have ended up witnessing a detonation the second her bum touched the water.

Scott picked out his swim shorts. The end. Guys have it so easy, I swear.

So we left the house wearing bathing suits and snow boots, a combo we’ve never rocked before, found the place, paid our $6 for a day pass and we got in the water. We started Summer out in the kiddie pool but after a few minutes I swear she looked as us like, “is that all you’ve got?” So we moved onto the big pool and I’m now officially convinced my baby was a fishy in a past life. I’ve never in my life seen a more content baby… I think the best word for her mood in the water is just zen.

 

 

I think we’ll be back and forking out the money for yearly passes. And if you’re really bored, here’s a choppy video about a minute long of us swimming with our fishy. Enjoy if you so choose!