The "Lost" cure

I'm desperately trying to catch up on "Lost."

But when can a person watch TV with all of these people never sleeping around here? I can't very well plunk Chebbles down in front of abc.com and treat her to a bunch of violent hollering and gunplay.

But I'm terrified that someone will tell me what happened in Thursday's season finale.

I've missed the last five episodes because I was, well, busy. But that can no longer be an excuse. I must make time to fit "Lost" into my life or someone's going to blow that finale for me. (Yeah, I'm talking to YOU, Contra Costa Times.)

Luckily, Baby V seems to find "Lost" soothing. I won't let her look at the screen, but perhaps because I watched the first three seasons on DVD while I was pregnant with her, it's as though the theme song touches some deep fetal relaxation reflex for her.

Maybe there is something about Sayid's pretend Iraqi accent, or Kate's wheedling fakery that makes her go to sleep. I don't care WHAT it is, we're going to keep plowing through these shows in hopes that I catch up and she keeps up the sleep.

Using the "Lost" technique, I cradled her through a whole episode-and-a-half last night. Then she went down with nary a whimper at 9pm. People were getting killed with knives and she was just nodding off throughout the action.

Maybe I can find some sort of "Lost" white noise machine, that combines bits of dialogue, the theme song, and the mysterious jungle whispers, and play that all night long in her nursery.

Because yeah, she woke up again at 1:30am, 4am, 6am then 7am then 8am. But that is an improvement over last week. So hit it, Dr. Shepherd and Hurley, put my baby to sleep.

Salvation Army

Today, Chebbles and I went to the Salvation Army's 50% off sale and we went nuts!

It was easy to say "yes" to all of the things she coveted. The big throw pillow with a hundred beads dangling off of it? Yes! The pink shirt covered in rhinestones? Sure! The beat-up old jewelry box, the glass ring holder and a pile of books? Absolutely.

It all cost exactly $6.75, total. Most of that was the pillow, which is silk and quite glamorous.

I think this is the beginning of a thrifting career for us. No sales tax for some reason and the place was the Land of Yes. It was such a great Chebbles-n-Mama adventure -- and it dovetailed nicely with my anti-consumerism bent right now.

Tomorrow, there is a used kids stuff sale going on close to our house. Why not? We've still got $3.25 in our Fun Money budget for the week.

Seriously. If I unswaddle your arms, will you sleep? How about if I put you on your belly? If I nurse you yet again? Formula? If I take you to bed with me? If I sing you "Edelweiss?" If your room is warm? Cold?

No? OK, forget it.

Gashole

We all know I'm not getting any sleep, and as a result, my "no swearing around kids" filter is completely shattered. I've been swearing like a sailor. I'm not proud of it, and it reminds me of the movie "Witchboard," where the first sign that the heroine had been possessed by a demon was her sudden propensity to swear.

Anyway, this morning I almost had Baby V down for a nap (oh blessed be), when Chebbles' computer program, situated just outside of Baby V's nursery, started yelling, "HELLO! ARE YOU DONE?" Yes, we'd finished playing with it about twenty minutes prior, and suddenly it wanted attention. "HELLO! ARE YOU THERE?" it continued as I tried to soothe my cranky infant into bed. "HELLO! DO YOU WANT TO KEEP PLAYING???"

Finally, I burst from Baby V's room and shouted, "Go away, you total asshole!" as I fiddled with the computer and shut down the program.

Once I re-settled Baby V back into her nap, Chebbles had some questions for me...

"Did the gashole go away?"
"Where did the gashole go?"
"What is a gashole, Mama?"

"It's something at gas stations," I said, popping a bunch of aspirin and laughing for the first time in the last few days.

Three more things

(1) I ought to have acknowledged Gruppie Mama's mighty influence on my new environmentally friendly lifestyle. I wouldn't have had the tools without her. If you have a moment, check out her thoughful list.

(2) Baby V will NOT SLEEP. I put her down to sleep at 7pm and she didn't fall asleep until 9:30, screaming bloody murder every time I swaddled her, but unable to sleep without the swaddle. And then she woke up at 1am and 4am and HAD to be fed, then finally woke up completely at 6:20am, at which point she pushed against her swaddles with the power of The Hulk, pulling blankets over her head and screaming for help.

(3) Our thrush is out of control. My breasts ache terribly, she smells like feet and we practically have mushrooms growing from all our orifices. And I lack the mental capacity to problem-solve this.

For Pete's sake

When Hub-D and I were at our cousins' house in Washington State, we came down with a horrible stomach flu which marooned us in our cousins' bathrooms for hours at a time.

You might not imagine how this would benefit the environment (all the water usage, paper usage, electricity and harsh cleaning products that were needed), but it has.

See, I was trapped in that bathroom with just one publication. It was called "yes!" and it was their global warming issue. It was my only lifeline to a world that didn't include explosive diarrhea, so I read and re-read every page of that magazine. In particular, there was an article with Pete Seeger that really got my mind off of "things."

Pete Seeger is so CUTE and old and soothing but alarming in his sentiments about the environment, and he got me at a vulnerable time, to say the least. I'm a convert to his the-Hudson's-clean-now-what-about-the-polar-bears attitude.

So this month, I've tracked down a bunch of ways I can reduce our family's carbon footprint. In fact, if things come together like we expect, we may even install solar paneling! How do you like that, Pete!?

Yes, we're cloth diapering (I'm trying it, plus cloth wipes as well), and we are turning off the lights and keeping the thermostat off. I've all but stopped using paper towels, I'm walking more instead of driving (even thinking about getting a bike for farmer's market runs), washing out and reusing plastic bags, changing my driving habits (no more gas-burning jackrabbit starts), and only running the dishwasher when it's full and turning off the "heated dry" feature. Oh, and I went around and unplugged any appliance (electric keyboard, etc.) that we aren't using daily. AND we're installing a drip irrigation system in the garden. Oh ho ho, eco-locavores, don't be jealous!

Plus, I've started a new mantra, which is "enough." We have enough. We have enough clothes. We have enough shoes. We have enough food. We have enough toys and electronics. We can use second-hand everything (except food) and stop China from cranking out all of the useless products we don't really need.

But here is the annoying thing, Pete. I feel like I'm putting forth all of this effort and my neighbors are wrecking the whole thing.

They are really nice people, but since my bathroom conversion to Al Gore's Army, their living habits make me feel like all is for NAUGHT. Who freaking CARES that I'm reducing my time in the shower when they use paper plates for every meal? When every one of their kids' leisure time devices leaves a carbon footprint the size of a T. Rex?

Their son goes to school a quarter mile from our house, a bucolic walk away, and every single day his mom ferries him back and forth in her minivan. I don't even want to think about that minivan idling in front of the school because that will send me into apoplectic shock.

They have five cars for three adults and everything they eat is packaged.

I guess it's not that family specifically that bothers me, it's that I suspect that 90% of Americans are just like them. It's what they symbolize to me -- the normal people in this country who didn't have a potty-bound come-to-Jesus with Pete Seeger.

And if I want to drive myself up a wall, I'll think about my other neighbors who idle cars for hours on end, and who spray ladybugs "just because they annoy me." Al! Pete! Jesus! It's enough to make a woman run for the Pampers.

Don't worry, I don't plan to backslide on my new, better habits. I've heard the starfish story and I know it matters in some little way.

Right?

No really

Now that I'm not as insane from sleep deprivation, I'm noticing all of the things that have been crumbling around me, namely my face.


Last night I was taking off my make-up, and I discovered that that little smidgen of mascara and the shiny pink lipstick, plus the mineral powder, was holding my face together. And when I took it off, I made the mistake of looking up into the mirror and seeing the full horror of who I'd become.

My cheeks are sunken, my eyes are dark and crazy looking, and I look like a wrinkly old mess. I KNOW I'm beautiful ordinarily, but I sure am not right now. My first thought was, YES, I look like Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons.

It's just that bad.

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

Yes, I got to sleep last night. Sure, it was a fitful sleep at some points (perhaps I should have asked Judy, the sleep consultant, to swaddle ME too), but I was in my own bed all night long. ALONE.

(How many nights of my singlehood was that a lamentable point? And now? Heaven!)

Her basic diagnosis is that Baby V is still in the every-two-hour wake-up period that infants experience. So we have a whole series of things we're going to work on in order to engender a full night of sleep for everyone involved.

One thing we're getting is a white noise machine. And in my search for it, I found the above pictured CD, which I find to be somewhat hilarious. Only a sleepless mom who is searching for SOMETHING to quiet her child would find this funny, but look at it! It's a CD of possible noises that will make your kid shut up. Dishwasher! Hair dryer! So you just play this CD for your squalling child and watch to see what works.

Anyway, as we've all suspected, Baby V is a stomach sleeper. But her neck isn't strong enough yet for her to sleep well on her stomach, which is why she gets so pissed off when she's on her stomach. So the goal for the next month is to strengthen her neck -- basically by avoiding laying her on her back when she's not sleeping.

And Judy earnestly promised me that once we get her sleeping on her stomach, preferably on a cozy lambskin, we will ALL SLEEP. And I felt like I could breathe for the first time in months, just hearing that assurance.

See, Baby V is not hungry when she wakes up in the night. She wasn't hungry from 7pm, when I put her down, until 6am this morning. She's just restless (even in my bed, hippies) and looking for authoritative comfort. So for now, she's napping with a lot more blankets (carefully) arranged around her, and I'm going to track down a white noise machine to help drown out, well... you saw the video.

AND the best part is that Judy offered to come back and help out again FOR FREE. Because it's a fascinating case of restlessness, and Baby V is "so cute" and a "smart little bunny."

Awesome. Awesome.

The sleep consultant is late

She did "Yahoo Maps" to get directions to our house, which always sends people in the wrong direction, down to an abandoned industrial area straight out of GTA IV.

If ever a psycho killer/ex-boyfriend who found me on Facebook is demanding directions to our house, I plan to give him our exact address and urge him to use Yahoo Maps in order to travel here, because that will give me a few weeks to get out of town.

So she's going to be about twenty minutes late. And Baby V is sleeping. And I know this is bad, but I'm hoping that Baby V doesn't SLEEP A WINK tonight, and puts on a big show of all of her sleep disturbances and head rocking and twitching and refusal to take the pacifier followed by extreme desire for the pacifier then maybe a huge poo in the middle of it.

Just so I can miss a real night of fireworks as I snooze in my bed, and the sleep consultant takes notes and mops up.

I know I shouldn't bank all my hopes on her visit to our home, but I'm just so grateful to have someone else in charge for a night. I'm tempted to leave the nursery monitor on so I can hear her cries and know that they aren't my responsibility.

Yeah, just a temptation. I'm going to sleep. And I hope to wake up to an ingenious sleep plan. Oh please.

Armpits and showtunes

The only place Baby V will sleep is in my armpit now. From 4am until 6am last night, she just snuffled around and kicked -- eyes closed -- restless but sleeping. In my armpit.

If I leave her in her crib during these periods of restlessness, it tends to escalate into full-bore screams and wakefulness, so lying in my bed is our current best bet -- day and night. Woo-hooo-o-o... ugh. (Sleep consultant arrives at our house in 25 hours, but who's counting?)

Baby V does nap in her crib pretty well during the day, but does much better if she's in my armpit, so I'm letting her start her naps in her crib, and then buying an extra hour with the armpit trick.

Chebbles likes to help her sister go to bed. She's even let Baby V borrow one of her precious Mimi's -- not *the* Mimi, but one of the Baby Mimis who accompanied her to Italy when she was a baby. The Baby Mimi is in Baby V's crib now, awaiting love. It brings back such sweet memories to see a little stuffed panda watching over another infant in this house.

One less helpful thing Chebbles insists on is singing Baby V her lullaby and closing her door. About 60% of the time, she sings the lullaby and shuts ME inside the door with Baby V. And about 90% of the time, she closes the door and then spends the next several minutes loudly jangling the doorknob.

She does kick ass at the lullaby itself, singing "Edelweiss" sometimes, and "Stay Awake" from Mary Poppins other times. I've got to admire her pitch perfect renditions of these tunes, even when they're delivered after I'm trapped inside the baby's room, listening to the nerve-rattling, baby-wakin' jangles of the doorknob.

When Chebbles Attacks

Background info: Chebbles had asked for water, specifically in a pink cup. So I brought her water in a pink cup.

She then told me I had filled it too full (it was about 3/4 full) and asked me to pour some out. I told her that it was incumbent upon her to take her cup to the bathroom sink and pour out the excess water.

She expressed a certain measure of disappointment with my request, and pouted for about fifteen minutes, not touching the water. I offered that she could pour the excess water in another cup, to save her the trip to the sink, and I demonstrated by pouring a few drops from the pink cup into a nearby purple cup.

At this, Chebbles dashed the purple cup to the floor, splashing her dress and filling her with ANIMAL RAGE.

Ha ha ha, Mother Nature, that's a good one

I ovulated!? Today, I think. It might have been a big fake, but it was a bunch of Mittelschmertz accompanied by the presence (but not surge) of FSH as indicated by a pee-stick, and egg-white galore.

I had read that a cycle may return once one of the night feedings was eliminated, but I didn't think that meant I could ovulate after one night of seven hours with no feeding, particularly when that magical night is followed by a week of hellish all-night feedings.

It's kind of exciting, because a return to fertility means that we can try for a third baby when we're ready, instead of waiting a long time for my "moon cycle" to return. And we'll go ahead and define "when we're ready" as "sometime after Mama's all-night cafe returns to banker's hours."

I've been wondering whether I'd want a third baby this badly if we hadn't lost the two between Chebbles and Baby V. No, I think my desire would be nowhere near this strong. It's just this feeling, when I envision our family, that someone is missing.

Perhaps I'll always have that feeling, even if I were to have more children. Maybe there will always be a couple miniature ghosts lurking behind our shoulders in family photos.

For now, in the few years left in my reproductive heyday, I'm just going to go for broke. I've already hit the lottery with Chebbles and Big V, so anyone else who shows up is gravy.

Dementia

Hey guys, thank you for your comments and support. GM called yesterday to give me a new mantra (other than the "torture" mantra), and that was "This is temporary." Thank goodness because...

Last night was (oh wow, I think I'm going to cry as I write this) worse. Yeah, it was worse. I took her to bed with me and it was still worse. I took off the swaddling and replaced it with a SleepSack for the night, and it was still worse. She woke up every twenty minutes to an hour all night long.

Chebbles also woke up three times. I was camped out in the guest room (next to Chebbles' room) so it was impossible to ignore her hollers, as she lost Mimi twice and then just generally wanted me to hang out with her.

SCREW OFF, KID!!!

Tonight, I'm just going to take Baby V to bed with me in the master bedroom, and Hub-D will have the guest room. It doesn't help entirely, because Chebbles screams for ME, even if he gets out of bed to help her, which he (and I don't blame him) doesn't always do.

So I'm going to just take her to bed with me, where she can kick me in the gut and pull on my boobs and hit me with her flying fists, and I can continue being paranoid all night long that she's going to die of SIDS. But perhaps I'll be able to stitch together one or two hours of sleep in a row.

The sleep consultant comes on Sunday.

Really, no sleep

Stretching out her feedings during the day has helped, but her problem is from midnight until 5am. Baby V is so restless -- she'll almost fall asleep, then be restless and go nuts, wriggling around and grunting and spitting out her pacifier (or refusing it altogether).

I've been resting on her bedroom floor in the night -- last night I was in there from 11:30pm, when she woke up and I think I might have fed her. I have no idea what went on in there, I was just throwing my boob around and swaddling anything that moved.

Finally I dissolved into desperate tears at 5am. She had woken up every twenty minutes all night long to that point. I had finally "given in" and taken her to bed with me, but she just kicked at me and pulled on my boobs aimlessly, seeming to fall asleep and then waking up over and over again.

"This is how they torture people," I repeated to myself. "This is how they torture people," and I cried and felt really sorry for both of us.

I went in to the guest room where Hub-D was sleeping and woke him up and told him I was going crazy. By the time I got back to my bed, I found Baby V asleep on her stomach.

OK.

And I know this will irritate Stella to no end (she gets annoyed when we hire people to do things that we could potentially do ourselves), but I've tracked down some "sleep consultants" in the Bay Area who will help walk us through this time of torture and insanity.

It has now been twelve weeks of not sleeping for me. Not sleeping, and instead of it getting easier, it's getting worse and worse. As she becomes more mobile and alert, falling asleep pisses her off even more.

I've tried miniature sessions of crying it out. I've tried swaddling. I've tried not swaddling. I've tried the pacifier. I've tried no pacifier.

Everything I've tried works. For twenty minutes.

See you at the asylum!

Pass the Vitex

Just so you don't think I'm going to pull a "Thelma and Louise," things have finally quieted down here.

My rear end is sore because I kicked myself all day long about messing up Baby V's schedule yesterday. She was so close to the "ideal" schedule, then I dragged her to Hub-D's softball game, again reasoning that she would "sleep in the carseat."

Someone needs to impress upon me that 12-week-old babies don't just pass out in their carseats. They need nice mothers who stick to routines and make them feel secure and happy. They don't need ones like me, dicking around the breezy softball field, chatting with my pals and whooping it up. My days of whooping it up past 7pm are over.

My rear end is also sore because Chebbles bit me there. Not in any figurative manner, no, she really bit me on the ass. It was a love bite -- I was standing at the sink and she was hugging my legs and she was overcome with the desire to just take a chunk out of my rear. It was one of those many moments of parenting where you are severely disciplining your child while having a big laugh behind their back.

And don't think that today's trials have dampened my desire to add to our family. I am completely obsessed with it now, hearing my OB's voice echoing in my skull, when I asked him about birth defects and age, and he said:

"Every day counts.".... counts.... counts....

I've even gone so far in my fantasy world as to envision getting IVF so that we could potentially store up any extra embryos -- they would be my eggs, suspended in time, and we could use them even after I turn 40.

Mind you, this fantasy world is being constructed as Baby V hollers and struggles against sleep because I am a wiener of a mother.

See, I think there should be a larger support group for people who were raised by ME. They're going to need it.

Going nuts

No post today or yesterday. Baby V will not sleep for love or money. I've tried offering her stacks and stacks of hundred dollar bills, but the meaning of cash is just lost on her.

I haven't slept, am not functioning, systems breaking down. English language not at my disposal currently.

Teeth 'n Bumbos

Today I was playing with Chebbles when we heard Baby V start piping up from her crib.

Chebbles went running to her sister's door hollering, "Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" and burst in.

Now where did she learn that?

In other news, Baby V now sits in the Bumbo chair. She's that much of a champ about holding her head up. She looks mightily pleased with herself, and I'm pleased with her too. She's down to five feedings during the day, and 1-2 at night. And she consistently sleeps in her crib for 2-4 hour stretches. This is a gal who was snacking about 10 times every 24 hours, with extended nurse-to-sleep episodes every night.

I don't think I'm going to be a stickler for her to sleep through the night just yet. For cripes sake, she's 11 weeks old. But we'll just keep slightly trending in that direction, and in the meantime, it's surprisingly peaceful to sleep on her floor.

And I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but Chebbles has veneers on all four of her back bottom molars now. So if any other moms think that you're such a GENIUS for letting your kid fall asleep every night with a sippy cup of milk, think again! The one filling, plus the veneers, ran us $380 and I almost croaked from the anxiety of watching a drill enter my dear child's mouth.

When Chebbles crawled into bed tonight, she said, "Where's my water, Mama? The dentist said I need to have water every night."

"Damn straight, Chebbles," I replied.

Milkshake excursion

It was a scorcher here today -- plants wilting, baby sweating through her swaddles, and me hiding the family inside from the midday sun. ("No! You can't go outside! And shut that door!")

So when our Chebbles asked me if we could go to get a milkshake tonight, sweetly and repeatedly, I had to find a way to do it. Hub-D had our car, so at 7:30 tonight, I snapped my children into the double stroller and skedaddled off in search frozen dairy products.

Baby V was already ready for bed, but I reasoned that she could snooze in the stroller.

Of course this theory was shot to hell by the bumps in the road between here and the milkshake joint. Every big bump seemed to be on her side of the stroller, and it would snap the baby out of sleep, and her arms would fling wide in the newborn "Noro reflex" and her eyes would fly open. This happened about 75 times between home and our destination.

I felt like kind of an assy mom, putting her through that. But she didn't cry in exasperation. No, because she's Baby V, she just gave up on the notion of sleep and instead watched the trees and listened to her sister sing "Row Row Row Your Boat" at the top of her lungs along the way.

I thought about exercise. I love running, and before I began bearing children, I could survive 10K races quite nicely. But as I huffed and puffed 44 pounds of child and 20 pounds of stroller between here and the milkshake, I made the decision to hold off running until after we're done trying to produce Baby #3. (I guess technically Baby #5 or 6 or whatever, ask the Supreme Court how many babies we're on, I'm not sure how to categorize everyone.)

See, between my first and second miscarriage, Hub-D and I were having trouble conceiving. My ovulation was difficult to predict and things just weren't coming together. I went to see my OB, who told me that as long as I am a skinny running power-yogini, I'm not going to get pregnant. And as soon as I stopped the long runs, I was knocked up.

So for me, the chubbier I am, the easier I get pregnant. It's kind of a nice side benefit for TTC for me, although I'll miss the marvelous endorphins of a good run.

With that decision made, I pushed the stroller with gusto -- hoping to get the milkshake errand wrapped up and Baby V home before she completely unraveled. We did make it in good time, and Chebbles and Baby V were adored by everyone along the way...

"How old is your baby?"
"Eleven weeks."
"NO!! She's REALLY BIG. And look at that HAIR!"

...

"Ma'am you have a beautiful family."

Yeah, I know, and you didn't even see Hub-D in his scrubs!

We split the strawberry milkshake into two cups, and headed for home. Chebbles finished her cup in the stroller, then handed it to me, "I'm done!"

"OK, Chebs, did you like your milkshake?"
"Yes."
(two minutes pass)
"Mama, when will we get a milkshake?"
"We just had milkshakes."
"Mama, when will I get one?"
"You just ate a strawberry milkshake."
"Where is it?"
"You just gave me your empty cup after you finished the whole milkshake."
"But where is the milkshake?"
"In your belly."
"Where is MY milkshake?"
"In your belly."
"Can I have a milkshake?"

She relaxed at some point, confident that she would get a milkshake sometime soon.

It was great to be outside after breathing processed air all day, and we saw a cat that looked like Otto stretched out for us to admire on the way home.

Baby V was a puddle of fussy sleepiness by the time I lay her in her crib at 9pm, but the whole excursion was worth it, me and my beautiful family.

Baby V sleep update

Last night I slept on the nursery floor.

That sounds really uncomfortable, but it was a TRIUMPHANT NIGHT, and I have the rug marks on my face to prove it.

She slept in her crib all night long! I flounced into breakfast with Chebbles and Hub-D, screeching, "Hooooooray! I'm alone! The baby is NOT with me!"

Baby V's new feeding routine seems to be normalizing her sleep routine. And the "stretch 'em out" philosophy (detailed, kind of, in the post below) really seems to be working for her in other ways. She has completely stopped spitting up at all. She sleeps much more readily and soundly. She doesn't seem to be plagued by gas, and it could be my imagination, but she just seems more content.

Of course she's not content when I'm working on stretching those feedings. Today we got just two hours between midday feedings (four is the goal), but whatever. I'm not going to withhold food when she's truly hungry.

Anyway, I slept on her floor so that I could replace her pacifier in the middle of the night and comfort her before she got too upset when she woke up in the night. Also, I'd accidentally unplugged the baby monitor, and I thought it was broken, and I had no other option.

So while I curled up on the daisy rug next to her crib, cursing the store in Wyoming where I'd purchased the baby monitor and wondering if there is a troubleshooting guide online for this brand of monitor and who the hell makes such shoddy electronics, Baby V peacefully waited until 5:22am to be fed, just waking up partway a couple of times, going back to sleep without the boob.

So that is a stretch from 10pm until 5:22am, my friends. NOT IN MY BED. And once we get her daytime feeding schedule working a little better, I wonder (somewhat mystically) if longer sleep blocks might someday be possible.

I'm so convinced that the feeding schedule is responsible for this revelation in sleepytime, I want to strap a loudspeaker to the top of my car and drive around the neighborhood espousing this philosophy to all the sleepless moms in the East Bay.

Sleep just might be possible

Holy crap! Baby V is sleeping! WITHOUT ME.

In the past few months, when I've kibbutzed with other new moms, I hear them say things like, "When I went in to get her from the crib..." and I've thought, "What planet does that happen on? Where is it that babies sleep in their own receptacles?"

I know that some of you hippies think this is wrong, my desire to get my baby out of my bed, but I miss my husband terribly. He is too light a sleeper to share a bed with a nursing baby (whine suck burp snore... repeat), and he's been camped out in the guest room, waiting for an invitation back into our bed.

And it is wonderfully cozy, sleeping with my baby. OCCASIONALLY. But usually, it's just a pain in the ass, my friends. I've been contorting myself around her prone body, waking up filled with paranoia several times a night, checking to see if she's breathing and inadvertantly waking her up.

So until she stops waking up every 90 minutes, that is where all the action is: in my big old king sized bed. Me, Baby V, and a cat -- always a cat -- stationed at our feet. There, we can log a few hours of sleep at a time sometimes, or lie together reading "Brain, Child."

Well, today we've shaken up the whole system, due to my reading a book called "Teaching Babies to Sleep 12 Hours by 12 Weeks."

It's hard to get my eyes to focus now, due to the last three months of no sleep. (This kind of sleep deprivation permanently damages your brain, FYI.) But I curled around my honking nurseling and read the first few chapters last night.

If you haven't lived the bleary world of sleep deprivation, you probably don't understand why this book was such a revelation to me, but after reading and re-reading it with my wacky eyes, I understood the premise:

STOP FEEDING YOUR KID ALL OF THE TIME

That's not saying, "Don't feed your kid when she's hungry," but it's saying, "Stop sticking your boob in your kid's mouth to solve every issue." And with Baby V at 14 pounds, she is big enough now to last a few hours between feedings.

I had been feeding Baby V all of the time, not altering my boobage since the day she was born. I just latched her onto the boob whenever she whimpered, because that was the most brilliant solution I could think of. I didn't think, "Oh, maybe she's bored," or "Perhaps she's tired," or "Could it be that we just stepped on her head?"

I just solved every problem with food. What mother doesn't?

But unfortunately, this became an around-the-clock phenomenon. She got used to "snacking" all of the time, and never ate for more than five minutes, and never ate more than one boob. So for her, it was logical to wake up all the time to nurse.

So this morning, I "stretched" her. I fed her at 7:30am, then at 10:20, then at 1pm (it was an unheard of two-boober). The "ideal" in the book is four-hour stretches, but I'm easing into that idea, and I'm not going to implement it if Baby V seems truly hungry in the meantime.

The point of this WHOLE STORY is that she's still sleeping. In her crib. I put her down immediately after the 1pm feeding, and it's almost 4pm. Apparently she responds well to having a full belly!

Hey, I hear her stirring in there. I can't believe she slept this long!

PS: The image at the top of this post is a special little stuffed animal called a Wubbanub, which helps babies keep the pacifier in their mouth without Mama having to go replace it twelve times. The "Baby Coach" who wrote the book recommended that too, so heck YEAH I ordered it.

Baby V's Haircut

We took these pictures when Baby V was seven weeks old, and getting her first haircut. Enjoy!

For those keeping score, Baby V is now 11 weeks old, she's almost 14 pounds, two feet tall and her hair continues to grow at a good... clip.

Monkey Brain

There was a kind of peace to my illness over the last year. I became pregnant, and I was instantly either on bedrest, vomiting my guts out, anemic, contending with premature labor symptoms or marooned by my massiveness. I always had something to think about.

I would lumber through the house during my pregnancy, focused only on getting to the other side of the kitchen counter for my Zofran pills. That's it. Or I'd lie awake at night just thinking about how thirsty I was.

This may not sound peaceful to most people, but for those of us who live on a hyperactive mental treadmill, it was an unexpected pause from all the thinking I've done my whole life.

Today I went to my second yoga class this week. I'm determined to gain some muscle tone back, and to cure my constant back pain, so I've reported back to my yoga gurus for some physical training. And good yoga classes always include a little philosophy to get you through the poses. It was during this yoga class that I realized my "monkey brain" was back.

I started laughing near the end of the class when I realized how out of control my thinking had become. I was standing in the half-moon pose with my leg in the air and my hand on the ground and my knees quaking in their caps, and simulateously planning my WHOLE SUMMER.

So it not just my body that needs better muscle control, but my brain as well. When I was so sick, I truly thought about nothing but my own gut. I was so inwardly focused, I'd just walk by junk on my kitchen floor or smears of fingerpaint on my bedspread, and I'd think, "Huh," then keep on sailing toward the toilet.

But now I need to rein in my brain, who is so excited to be out of the gate and romping around, planning Chebbles' birthday party while adjusting Baby V's sleep schedule and worrying about my grandmother and swooning over Hub-D's haircut. All of these things I didn't think about for the last year are coming back -- all at once.

Oommmm.

Losing FDR

I just learned that FDR died.

She was the director of our Junior Year in Munich program, Frau Doktor Riegler, who was in charge of our program since around the time of the original FDR.

We arrived in Munich in late summer 1991, several dozen American college students who were committed to stay for a year, hone our German skills, attend the University, and continue our crazy college student ways.

Most of us arrived on the same airplane, and we chatted with each other on the trip from JFK airport, excited about the adventure that lay before us. Once we arrived in the Munich Airport, we were greeted by a very unusual woman.

"Is that the school nurse?" asked my new friend M., who had focused on her big white clogs and white polyester stirrup pants.

"Do you know what she's saying?"

She had light grey hair pulled back from her head in an impressive high, conical shape. She was maybe old, maybe not-so-old, but definitely inscrutible.

Maybe she was speaking in German, or maybe her English was just a little hard to understand, but none of us understood a word she said as she greeted us to the city of Munich.

Soon we were curtly informed by her assistant that she was the DIRECTOR of the program and we were to be quiet while she spoke.

The JYM program was on the brink of a lot of change, as was Munich and all of Germany in the summer of 1991. The wall hadn't been down more than two years and the shape of Europe was shifting in many ways. We paid for everything in Deutschmarks that were wired from our parents. There was no e-mail. There were still American military outposts in Munich left over from World War II.

It also seemed that a lot of our academic program was a holdover from the days following WWII as well. We went through an orientation that had been developed for students taking the boat over from New York, not a plane. I was quickly plopped into the lowest language German group, and we called ourselves the "Gemuese," meaning "vegetables." Our fellow students had arrived actually prepared for a year abroad at a foreign university. We Gemuese were flying by the seat of our pants.

But for some reason, despite my bratty attitude and lack of German skills, FDR took a shine to me. I was scared of her. She was mysterious and I never understood more than 25% of what she communicated to me. She had a dog named Poldi, who predeceased her, and out of respect for the dead, I won't tell you what a numbskull this dog was. I'll just say he died from eating an entire bag of dog food at one go.

But FDR seemed to like me, and this surprised my classmates who were just as intimidated by her. When she gave speeches on various topics, she tended to repeat herself over and over, so that I can't remember any of the content of the speeches, but the Leitmotiv is etched into my skull. I think her favorite speech was the "Mauer im Kopf" (Wall in Head) speech. I think it was about how the reunification of Germany was nowhere near complete, but I couldn't tell you. But the expression "Mauer im Kopf" goes through my brain about twice a day. "Mauer im Kopf! MAUER IM KOPF! Maaauuuer immmmm KOPF!"

At Christmastime, she had arranged a party for us with a Munich-based German military group. Why? I don't know, but I recall it being required. She pulled me aside and asked me to be the Christmas angel. I agreed nervously. What was I supposed to do? She was explaining it to me, maybe in German, possibly in English, but I had NO CLUE what she was saying.

She pulled a costume out of a bag in a back room at the party, and plunked it over my head. She put the wings on me (upside-down, but whatever), and a halo on my head. She praised my golden hair as being perfect for the part as she reached into her handbag (white, naturally) and pulled out a tube of lipstick. She uncapped the lipstick and drew massive circles on each of my cheeks and set me loose into the party room.

That's when I was greeted by the Grumpus, who is kind of a Christmas "bad guy" in Germany. As far as I understood it, he was a kind of pervy Grinch with coal marks on his face. And he proceeded to chase me around the room, through all of the tables of the merrymakers -- American students and German soldiers. I was supposed to ring a bell over my head while the Grumpus followed me and tried to molest me.

Maybe that's not a German tradition, now that I think of it, maybe it was just a one-time drunken Grumpus, but it was damn funny anyway. Who knew what cultural tradition we were trying to uphold?

But it made FDR happy, she scolded the Grumpus, but told me she thought I was a PERFECT Christmas angel. So there.

Throughout the year, she chided me for my poor academic performance, but gave me little tasks around the office, such as typing jobs for the old professors who were unaccustomed to life without a secretary. I was allowed to sit in her office, typing away, while she elegantly smoked thin cigarettes and chatted with the teachers.

The JYM program was HARD. It was somewhat arbitrarily so, and FDR kept it that way proudly. Some of the classes would have been effective for me, if I found more time to study, or if I honed my German skills anywhere but the Biergarten. But many of the classes were just... crazy. (If any JYM alumni reads this and doubts me, I refer you to the work of the nutty and flirtatious Herr Doktor Pilz.)

It drove us JYM students BONKERS whenever we met people on any other study abroad program, and we especially reviled the ones who were studying in Spain. Because compared to our academically rigorous program (picture me, eyes crossed with concentration, in a graduate-level Psychology class, trying to take notes and understanding only 10% of what was said, then having to write numerous essays on it, using sources that were only available at the University library, where they had, long ago, destroyed Dewey Decimal and turned him into Sauerbraten), the other students had it incredibly easy. They told us stories of having NO HOMEWORK EVER. And that their classes were "a joke."

Unlike every other study abroad director in Europe, FDR held us to incredibly high or impossible standards. I rarely understood the assignment, let alone the papers I turned in. In order to type out my assignments, I had to rent a laptop and printer from a local computer rental place. Otherwise, it would be handwritten assignments, and I would have had to write and rewrite my 16-page assignments. Hearing the words "Schriftliche Hausarbeit" (homework) now makes me break out in hives.

I hear there have been a lot of changes in the JYM program since the new director took over. I'm going to guess that things are a little more "modernized" and maybe we've finally recovered from our Mauers im Kopf. I hear that their offices are big and airy and do not reek of smoke and dog. I consider this a shame -- students are missing out on all the great character-building traumas we endured and leaving Germany fully unscathed. I hope that someone's still getting chased by the Grumpus.

Upon hearing of her death, I tried to encapsulate who she was, so that I might explain to my husband why I am sad, and why I want to donate yet again to the scholarship fund in her name. She was a... character? No, that's belittling. Well, one thing is certain, she was NOT the school nurse. She was a force to be reckoned with, and I had no idea the day we got off that plane in Germany, and even on the day that I got back on the plane home, how much I'd become attached to the inimitable Frau Doktor Riegler.

Baby V's earrings

Is there anything funnier than a newborn baby wearing giant clip-on earrings perched on the sides of her tiny little ears?

Because I don't think I could take that level of hilarity. When Chebbles did this yesterday it almost killed me.

Carolyn Jessop

I just finished reading Carolyn Jessop's book, "Escape," about her tortured life in the FLDS and subsequent escape.

The amazing part is that it's a true story. The unbelievable part is that it JUST HAPPENED.

The FLDS cults that have thrived in Utah, Arizona, Texas and British Columbia... holy crap, people. It's happening right now. Underage girls are being forced to submit to arranged marriages with old men, and the young men in the community are being abandoned on highways because, well, if you're an old dude with 71 wives, there really is no need for the 70 other guys.

The brainwashing, if it weren't evil, is almost admirable. It's so complete that women feel that they will go to hell if they don't obey their husbands in this lifetime. They are told that they are sealed for all eternity with their husbands, and even if these men beat starve them and their children -- they MUST STAND BY THEM. Or they will burn in hell, and be excommunicated from their peers.

Check out these chicks. Especially the MIDDLE ONE:



They are clearly being forced to say what they do. And the middle one's facial expression makes me want to fly a helicopter directly to her house and rescue her.

"Escape" is an excruciating but fascinating memoir of Ms. Jessop's escape from the community. She is the first woman who ever was able to leave and gain custody of her children. And that happened in 2002.

I also feel like some of the precepts of their organization are good. You can see the underpinnings of the nice parts of Mormonism peeping through the cracks, but power-hungry perverts have wrecked it for everyone, and now they have all these traumatized women and children in full long underwear under massive dresses in the hot sun living in terror of their one shared "Father."

And these women are lousy with fertility. They usually have something like 12 children, and sometimes 20 or so. But they aren't allowed to kiss and hug their kids, so it's not fair all the way around. Their bodies are wrecked by all that childbirth and hard work of raising kids (while wearing long underwear) and they must submit to sex with old guys (while wearing long underwear).

I'm glad that a spotlight has been shone on the injustices the children in this community are facing, and I am glad that the 16-year-old in Texas was brave enough to call the authorities about what was going on. But now, after reading "Escape," I wonder what the heck happened to that child, particularly now that they creepily deny her existence.

What makes a man sexy?

I know you all* like Obama, but I had to tell you how much I went "SCHWING!" when I saw this in the New York Times today.


*Except you, Mom, you old Ms.-subscribin' Hillary fan.

Little Mermaid Lyric Mystery

Chebbles and I like to sing "Part of Your World" a lot. If you were in our house, you'd say it was more than "a lot" and you'd probably call it highly excessive before you ran from our mermaid-filled house screaming.

But here is the strange thing -- some of the lyrics are mysterious, and no one can give me a straight story about them.

This is refrain in question:

"Bet'cha on land they understand
That they don't reprimand their daughters
(MYSTERY WORDS) women sick of swimmin'
Ready to stand."

Disney says those lyrics are "Strong young women" but it really doesn't sound like that's what Ariel is singing. We listen to that song approximately three times a day in our home, and I'm always vexed when we get to this lyric.

Many lyrics sites claim it's "Bright young women" and another one claims "Proper women."

What the heck? Why would Disney say the lyrics were one thing, when in fact they are another? And I'm sure it's not "Strong young women" so... what IS IT?

Otto's collection

We're all weary of the raccoon problem around here, whereby they continue to enter our house through the cat door. It's been going on for a long time, assisted by my nutty neighbor who continues to nurture their expectation that people feed them all the time.

It's gross.

For a long while I simply locked the cat door, but we've grown weary of manually opening the door for our active cats.

So I installed a magnetic cat flap door which hypothetically works by only unlocking when my cats enter the door wearing special magnetic collars.

Well, of course it doesn't work, but I've kept the magnetic collar on Otto because he is handily collecting all of the dangerous, tetanus-laden items from around the backyard, and delivering them back to me for disposal.

It really is handy. I've gotten numerous rusty nails and staples because Otto has reported home with these objects attached to his collar. He currently has a couple skanky BB's attached to his collar magnet, and I just need to pin him down and throw them away.

In a few months, Baby V will be mobile, and looking for new and interesting things to put in her mouth. Thank goodness for Otto's efforts, clearing the space of rusty metal junk. Now if we could collect the potentially lethal mushrooms from beneath the play structure, we'd be all set.

Thank you's

I have so many backlogged thank you notes to write for Baby V's gifts. This is ordinarily my forte, writing grateful notes for the thoughtful presents people send us. When Hub-D and I were engaged, it was one of my favorite things to do, to crank out thank you notes. So what's wrong here?

Although caring for two children isn't the disaster that people predicted it would be -- I had people telling me it was going to be SO HARD and I would be SO BUSY and the work of being a mom would increase tenfold. And none of those things are true. It's more complicated logistically, but I haven't blown off my friends or turned into a recluse by any means.

I'm just not writing thank you notes with appropriate speed. And Baby V's baby book is gathering dust, as I haven't even cracked the spine. Most other things are being taken care of just fine -- I'm finding time to shower, and to shop, and even to feed my family now that my friends' meals have stopped. But it's these peripheral paperwork projects that have simply fallen to the wayside.

So anyway, if you sent us a present, thank you! You'll get a note from us someday, possibly written in neat cursive by Baby V herself.

Treasures

Chebbles has started a new habit of collecting "treasures" from around the house, and storing them in various receptacles.

Her Easter baskets have all been repurposed as treasure holders, as has any wicker basket, or little purse or backpack she can get her mitts on.

She refuses to leave the house now, or even to go room to room, without fistfuls of "treasure." Her main treasures consist of some beaded bracelets, the sparkly cape from a My Little Pony character, some clip-on earrings and a jeweled ring, a blue Beanie Baby bear, a pacifier clip, a red star-shaped teether that a neighbor baby left here and a blue Lego-like toy she purloined from her friend M.'s house during his Seder.

Treasure that she covets but is not allowed in her rotation includes all of my lip balm and lip gloss, a bottle of "personal lubricant" she found and my wedding rings. Oh she wants those rings soooo bad.

Today we were about to take a walk with Grandpa, and she was going to take her tricycle. But I informed her that, if she took her tricycle, she would not be able to bring ANY TREASURE along with her. So she elected to jump in the stoller, so that she could clutch her treasures without any interruption.

She has commandeered several pieces of furniture as treasure-holders. So at lunch today, she turned to me and said, "Mama, where are my earrings?"

And I went straight to my nightstand, opened the little drawer, and pulled them out. Her mismatched pair of clip-ons, the flowered one from Gogo and the Ariel one we bought at Target, I found them all right, and she expertly snapped them on her earlobes and continued eating her lunch.