Behind

I hate when I haven't been blogging enough because nothing is explained . . . I can't figure out where to start with how much he has changed, what our life has been, what has been going on. Maybe it's the new normal for the weeks to fly by like a flip-book. Can't believe my boy is nearly 10 months old--time to start planning a first birthday party?! Crahazy!

The Last Two Months

It's been a long ass time since I did a substantive update. I honestly think the last two--well, one month really, have been the most challenging for me as a parent so far . . .

Started crawling at 7.5 months, a week later was pulling up, a week later was cruising. Since then it's been a lot of all of those things: lots of balance and strength training. For the first couple weeks he was just CONSTANTLY falling with bumps and bruises all over his head. Thankfully he's better at it all now and, also, I think, more used to falling.

And so baby proofing began. Add this to the mental list of things I said I wouldn't do and am now doing. The main problem here is not that my house wasn't baby proofed, but that it wasn't CLEAN. And, I've learned by now that some people apologize for the state of their house and really it is immaculate? I'm not like that. If my house was semi-clean, I would admit it . . .

I'm a "throw things to the side when I am done with them willy-nilly" sort of person. And a "out of sight is out of mind" sort of person. And a "I won't look down" sort of person, LOL! Add all these together with having a husband that is the same and four cats? And an ant's view of my house would be like "cloudy with a chance of meatballs (and cat hair)."

The first few weeks/days of crawling were like . . . I would look away for a second (to try to clean and/or baby proof something, usually) look back, and james would be bringing a (clump of cat hair/bit of stale food/leaf/etc) to his mouth and I would run over and excavate. Or I would look away for a second, and then hear a thump and he'd be crying with another red lump on his head . . . or pulling on wires, or pulling the vacuum on top of him, or climbing the stairs, or eating cat food or . . .

If it was JUST baby proofing--JUST figuring out what he was able to reach and making sure it was safe for him--well, that I think I could have handled? Or not even done!

But it was more like, all of my life I've been trying to:
-Have a daily routine
-Get exercise
-Keep my house clean

And in the last two months, finally I've achieved it. (Almost). But it was a hard transition for me. It's a lot of work to keep your house clean. I see now why I avoided it for so long.

But we are pretty much done, now. Well, what I am learning is that you are never done. BUT, our entire downstairs is now pretty much safe and accessible to james. And honestly I like it. I love it. It's nice that I can turn my back on james for awhile now, without worrying about what infinitesimal speck of poison he was able to eat.

And honestly it's sort of awesome to have a clean house. AND to have a routine. Another thing that happened over the past two months. Here's pretty much what we do now:

james wakes up between 5-6, nurses awhile, crawls all over us until we get up.
Dad changes the baby's diaper
I get up between 7-7:30, dress me and james
Then I take james on a walk--I'm up to about 1.5 miles a day!
He falls asleep on this first walk, sleeps 8-9 outside in his stroller
While he sleeps, I start laundry, straighten the living room, eat breakfast if I'm lucky, etc.
james wakes up, play a bit
Nurse and Pump around 9:30
After nursing, eat breakfast
While he eats, I load/unload the dishwasher, deal with the breast milk, other kitchen cleaning
Clean up baby, possible sink bath, possible outfit change, change diaper at least
Read books
james takes 2nd nap, 11-12
While he sleeps, I eat again or for the first time, do laundry and other cleaning.
Wake up, nurse, play, read books
Back to sleep at 2--if I'm lucky this is a long nap. I need a real break by now but if I was really smart I would use this time to prepare dinner?
Wake up, nurse, eat food again around 4:30
Clean up baby, possible sink bath, possible outfit change, change diaper at least
And then I'm not sure because I think he's dropping his evening nap, and lengthening the afternoon nap? (I hope!) Anyway, we eat dinner in there somewhere, sans le bebe.
Dad changes into nighttime diaper and PJ's, reads books, Momma nurses
Baby sleeps 7:15-8:30 in swing
After wakeup, LONG NURSING in bed with Momma to sleep.
And then ideally he would sleep until we went to bed at 11-12 and then nurse again.

So yeah, I think we are doing pretty good!

But it has been a challenging few months. I was prepared to take care of a newborn, for some reason (well, I had an easy one, too!)--I don't mind nursing a lot, or holding a little baby, or changing lots of diapers. But I don't think I was prepared for the adorable baby to become mobile. I was in denial and totally held out . . . I saw he was starting to learn to crawl--I should have started baby proofing then! But I didn't realize how fast it would be.

I'm slow. I do house projects on several year time lines (hence the fact that our "nursery" is still full of random crap). But babies don't grow slow. They grow fast. So I'm continually getting kicked in the pants but HONESTLY? It's good for me, and I appreciate it! But change is hard.

And learning how to take care of my house, my self, FINALLY, after 28 years? Is hard, too. . . it took a baby to motivate me, but it feels good . . .

BUT it's not the only thing I need to take care of my self.

I'm realizing that I need this blog. I need to write, I need to take pictures. While I've been baby proofing and cleaning and organizing my entire life and house, something else inside me has been neglected. Things stir which have not been released.

So, in the words of Yoda: Balance Find I Must.

I am Getting Sucked into a Teething Vortex (and other Problems)

So, I REALLY wanted to post an update at least for james 8 month birthday and also post his 7 month one which I never did. But I haven't had time/energy. Why?

Crawling and pulling up and teething AND hand foot n mouth disease. Not to mention a bunch of other things. Which maybe would be fine, but . . .

My house is a baby death trap! Not really but we have four cats and there is fur and hair floating everywhere (not to mention animal bits that go unfound, ehhh), I have always sucked at cleaning (esp vacuuming/sweeping/mopping--th​ough I'm getting better fast) . . . not to mention that James is ripping up the floor in the kitchen, so there are bits of linoleum and god knows what else scattered everywhere . . . basically, I can't let james in hardly any spaces by himself because he is CRAWLING FAST and pulling up on EVERYTHING.

I finally MOSTLY baby-proofed my porch, so we are good out there and I can watch him there from the kitchen or laundry room, but I really want to make more of the house accessible to him so that I don't have to watch him every second. The living room is sort of okay, and our bedroom is nearly baby-proofed, but the rest of the house needs to be done.

Another problem is that he's been super fussy from teething, and he gets up SO early, awake by 5:30/6, I put him down for his first nap now (by going on a walk) before 8 am, and then he hasn't been falling asleep until like . . . 9 some nights? I feel like I have no time to myself, he's nursing so much in the middle of the night lately, I'm just exhausted.

So, even when he's napping, I'm too tired to babyproof or clean half the time. Siiigh. And when he's awake, well, I just have to watch him 24/7 because my house is a deathtrap, as I mentioned. And I won't even go into the fact that he's CONSTANTLY falling and hitting his head (with all the pulling up). I feel like an awful mother. Gah!!!

AND I also haven't had time to do any of the things that make me feel like me--blogging, going on IV, taking pictures, I just feel overwhelmed. :(

Summer Hours

So I was feeling really bad that I've been so MIA, can't even pull a Wordless Wednesday out of my computerbutt after taking 500 pics on vacation . . .

But then I realized that last year, 2010, while I had really awesome months like May (24 posts), October (36 posts), and November (39 posts), that during the summer I made noticebly less posts--19 in June, 16 in July, and a mere SIX in August . . . and if I recall, I was on vacation a lot, and doing lots of stuff outside and with friends and just didn't have as much time for it.

So really I shouldn't be disappointed to see that this is happening once again this summer. As someone that is often a daily blogger I can't help but feel like I am missing something--and I am missing something, to be honest--I love writing, and I like the "cataloging life" sort of aspect of it . . .

But I am gaining other things, and having a great first summer with my boy . . .

So oh well, I decided I'm just having summer hours right now. And that's that. I'll update when I can. :-)

Whoops

So, that was a big fail in attempting to post an update about our Montauk vacation. We are so busy, so much seems in flux . . . but I promise to do a more substantive update soon. Hope all are well.