| good lord. |
[29 Nov 2009|12:03am] |
how did i not read this sooner? like... yesterday when i was flipping out?
"Why the incompetence in our society? From childhood on, we are taught not to believe in our instinctive knowledge. We are told that parents and teachers know best and that when our feelings do not concur with their ideas, we must be wrong. Conditioned to mistrust or utterly disbelieve our feelings, we are easily convinced not to believe the baby whose cries say "You should hold me!" "I should be next to your body!" "Don't leave me!" Instead, we overrule our natural response and follow the going fashion dictated by babycare "experts." The loss of faith in our innate expertise leaves us turning from one book to another as each successive fad fails.
It is important to understand who the real experts are. The second greatest babycare expert is within us, just as surely as it resides in every surviving species that, by definition, must know how to care for its young. The greatest expert of all is, of course, the baby — programmed by millions of years of evolution to signal his or her own kind by sound and action when care is incorrect. Evolution is a refining process that has honed our innate behavior with magnificent precision. The signal from the baby, the understanding of the signal by his or her people, the impulse to obey it — all are part of our species' character."
and
to act against our nature as a species is inevitably to lose well-being
taken from The Importance of the In-Arms Phase by Jean Liedloff
deep breath. maybe i can do this after all? but for the record i will now always feel guilty about not carrying ivy around for her first months of life... she was always so content to sit... but it would have been nice to have her near me! oh sigh. i love you, little one.
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| :/ |
[28 Nov 2009|12:58am] |
loooong week. too long. or maybe just too long of a day? at any rate i was in need of a good break tonight but didn't get it. now josh thinks it's time to cuddle... but maybe that is too much info, haha. regardless, i feel like running away a little... or staying up a few hours to get the million things done that i never seem to accomplish.
lately i've been worried about ivy's sleeping... that she doesn't have the skills to fall asleep independently (though sometimes she does?) and maybe we're not helping because we cosleep (due to laziness? or is that convenience? and due to just plain tiredness eventually...). so i try to put her down to fall asleep, occasionally this works but at other times she just yells until i realize she is hungry, and then she falls asleep after eating and spoils my whole plan. then i put her down and she sleeps just fine. or wakes up after 20 or 30 minutes. whatever. i think at night we have yet to have that work... she just whines until someone (josh? maybe...) picks her up. sometimes she eats, other times she falls asleep on our bed, not necessarily being held.
ok this is way too rambly, my back is too sore from this typing. i had a lot i want to say but josh keeps kicking me in his supposed sleep (oh my, i think i made him mad that i am still up? well screw you, i was sleeping just fine until last night when you made me stay up watching heroes and talking to me when i was fully pretty much asleep, jerk).
basically, i feel miserable. because my favourite thing is holding a sleeping baby. but everyone is telling me that is the wrong way to do things. well, everyone except the websites i was looking at tonight. but also, i did feel terrible tonight, that seeing her sleep is my favourite thing... because i don't take enough joy in any of her daily activities. there is no time where i just sit and stare at her in the day, i'm too busy trying to get things done in spite of her being there. and this can't possibly get better... there is so much house to be put away, and soon she will be eating food, and i have no idea how to incorporate that into our life. i hardly ever bathe her for god's sake (yes, i admitted it! hah.).
AAAGH.
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| oh and also |
[10 Nov 2009|11:30pm] |
i picked out some couches... and have been told that if you imagine a couch and draw it and THEN you find it, it probably means you should buy it, even though it seems expensive. cause guess what, everything seems expensive if you have never bought one in your life before!
just imagine it in a lighter grey (like a medium grey, not super light) and the long part will be by the window with the stained glass hanging and it will be awesome. and then while i am at it, i might also need this next one to sit across the room...
with perhaps an extra, plain-coloured cover for when i just am tired of all that colour. and i MIGHT just have enough in the account that we used to put the down payment on our house... wouldn't that be just too perfect??
(OH GOOD GOSH I JUST REALIZED THE COUCH CAN COME WITH A WOOL COVER...)
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| i live in a house |
[10 Nov 2009|11:18pm] |
and it is yellow with red shutters and a grey sort of roof that doesn't match but sure will look nice when we have blue wooden siding. and maybe no shutters cause josh doesn't like them? or maybe white shutters cause i think they are cute. and right now i can hear tinkering through the floor as josh is soldering pipes together to connect the new boiler to the hot water tank and hopefully some day this week a man will come and hook up the oil part and then maybe, just maybe we will have an actual source of heat (besides 2 back rooms with electric baseboards and a plug-in heater in the kitchen) for winter.
anyway if i had any tech skillz and any kind of organization i would show you pictures but i cannot because anything involving our fancy dancy camera seems too complicated for my brain and time constraints. seriously, film photos are beautiful if only i could get them developed anywhere that was less than 3 hours from my house. AT ANY RATE all this to say that i swear that someday in the next 5 years (maybe?) i will consolidate all my online accounts and maybe just have the one for photos and the one for blogging and somehow they will all connect and make it really easy for me to show you photos of anything. organization may have already begun actually... since i am using our NEW MACBOOK PRO right now and we also got a TIMECAPSULE that will do WIRELESS BACKUPS and things and so i imagine that eventually all the pictures and things will be on there and somehow easily accessible. and i sort of doubt that i will want to post everything again onto facebook but how is it that the guilt always makes me because i know that EVERYONE will see them that way? sigh.
all this to say, ivy looked amazing on halloween, i carved a michael jackson pumpkin, and we moved. ALL IN ONE DAY. though that was almost 2 weeks ago now. and right now i am a bit deliriously tired (maybe a bit obvious?) and should probably go... but i hate to disturb the sleeping baby in my lap who just stretched and yawned like she owned the whole world (like a cat sort of... cause cats do think that don't they? though it has been a while since i lived with one) and that alone is making me feel a large flutter of love. honestly i don't get them all that often, i have to really sit still or sit quiet in the rocking chair and forget how tired i am or how my head hurts (like now) but it IS THERE and it's kind of nice. and really, if baby thinks she owns the world, she must be happy, and i must be doing at least a couple of things right. please don't grow up too fast, baby bean. mama really, really loves you.
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| one of those days |
[29 Oct 2009|12:33pm] |
yep, it is one of those days. one of those days where every little task feels huge and heavy, and when things like calling to move our internet service feels like a HUGE accomplishment. yes, i did that. woo! but here's what else:
well of course it all started with a terrible night, where ivy was just not quite happy or sleeping or i don't know. i mean, i guess she wasn't TERRIBLE... but i'm pretty sure none of us slept well. which makes me feel like we have nothing figured out when it comes to ivy, that we just get lucky most of the time. but i don't know how to figure her out more, either. so that is pretty depressing.
anyway so i decided we should take a bath, one last bath in the old apartment before we move. ivy and i always bathe together because we never got a baby bathtub (where would we put it? even in the new house i'm not sure there would be room) or even one of those wire/towelly things that prop their heads up. i sort of wish we had one of those now, so i could just bathe her without having to be in the tub... this might explain why she doesn't get a daily bath, just every few days. cause josh has never bathed her... i don't know why. but i digress. so i run the tub, in fact we are in the tub as it is running (let me just explain that it is a mite more complicated to bathe ivy when josh isn't home, because i have to have her chair beside the tub to put her in because no one can just take her from me...) and i go to turn it off. and it turns off, mostly. but there is still a pretty good flow of hot water coming out of the tap. we have had problems with this tap before, in fact i think we even replaced it? which hardly makes sense because we live in an apartment... but that is the kind of tenants we are. we fix things (if they are small) rather than bother our landlord about them. because it is usually just easier. so anyway, the tap doesn' t turn off. so i put ivy back in her chair and run to the kitchen where the hot water tank is located, and figure out which knob to turn off so there is no hot water going to the bathroom. so that is done. thing is, there is still a pretty good drip from the tap. but i ignore it and we have our bath. in fact ivy is quite interested by this new noise, the noise of water dripping constantly. anyway. so that is awesome right, because of COURSE the tap would break or whatever TWO DAYS before we move out. it just figures, that our hydro bill for the next 2 days is going to be ridiculous because we are heating water that is literally going down the drain....
which reminds me, i was going to go talk to my landlord about that. i also really wanted to go out to a lunch thing but ivy just fought me for half an hour before she finally went to sleep... and though they offered to feed me and watch ivy so i could get some stuff done, i sort of feel like letting her just sleep a few hours will help. plus i can hopefully get some stuff organized while she sleeps. why does leaving the house have to feel like such a chore sometimes? and whenever i do i am happy about it... so hopefully i won't regret staying in for now. sigh.
anyway i'm pretty sure i had a few more examples of how ridiculous this day has been but they are eluding me. probably because i am so tired. but. here's to thursdays.. grey and rainy ones and my last thursday with a view of the lake. double sigh!
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| life is a series of small victories. |
[14 Oct 2009|03:02pm] |
there must be so much to write about since it has been a MONTH. hmm. can't really think of where to begin... the house is coming along rather slowly, but still progressing. i have given up on the idea of moving into something even remotely nice and/or finished, but i'm ok with that. trying to take a load a day over just so we don't have to do one big move at the end of the month... though we will have to anyway to get all the furniture over. but it's helping (barely) to clear some apartment space so that we can live. so that's kind of nice. we went to kenora for thanksgiving, saw family, ate turkey. that was nice too. i seem to be getting a bit more sleep at night (or, we sleep in more?) and feeding seems to be going better (from my end at least - plus ivy is getting chubby so it must be good for her too!). thumbs up all around. but of course i still have my days... where the world seems a bit too big and complicated. yesterday was one. today was pretty good but i could really use a nap right now... if only ivy would cooperate. fingers crossed.
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| am i doing it all wrong? |
[14 Sep 2009|12:28pm] |
so... i kind of hate that this blog (MY blog!) has become only about motherhood... i guess that's just very representative of my life, and trust me, i have not yet come to terms with it! i'm still surprised that it took this long for me to want to rail against being a mom and having trouble accepting that THIS IS MY LIFE FOREVERMORE... but i think for the first long while i was just kind of reveling in newness and keeping busy with the daily grind. after 2 months i finally decided i needed to do more than take care of ivy because i was disgusted with the state of my house... i subsequently stopped napping every day in an attempt to get some things done. then i think i went a bit crazy... so i'm back to napping. but.
this weekend was particularly trying with regards to sleep. i have always liked sleep, probably too much... it was something josh and i really enjoyed to do together! haha. but it's true. we were good sleepers. on saturday i came down with a cold (don't you hate when that happens, i swear in the space of 10 minutes i went from fine to sore throat and runny nose. argh.) and that night ivy was up almost every 2 hours without fail. i'm not even exaggerating. last night was slightly better but likely only because we gave her a bottle AND i fed her from both sides so she slept till 4:30am. but didn't really go to sleep until like... 1:30?! which is odd even for her, midnight is usually the latest (but lately it's been about 10:30). but last night she was napping REALLY soudly and i woke her up at 8pm (which i have never done, since we had to wake her to feed in those first few weeks) so that she would be ready for bed later. i'm guessing now that that was a mistake, i should have just let her sleep. but i was scared she would be up too early (a la 4am) and ready for the day.
so. i'm a little tired. she is sleeping now, she was up kind of early (6/7 ish) and then we slept some more until about 10am... then i took her for a walk which kept her up later than normal but now she's sleeping. but i wonder how much i should let her sleep. and i am also stressed that i generally feed her to put her to sleep... i'm envious of those moms who can just plunk baby down in bed and have them fall asleep. i might call a friend who has a kid like that... to see if i can get some tips.
also, ivy has had gross slimy green poo since i took antibiotics... i wasn't too worried until now, because now it is a better colour (much more yellow) but watery. which to me means it could more easily lead to dehydration or something. which might also explain all this feeding??
agh. i'm going to grab a bite and then curl up beside her... sigh.
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| i guess this means i'm in? |
[30 Aug 2009|11:17pm] |
the other day i was talking on the phone with a (childless) friend of mine, and somehow managed to knock something and spill a cup of coffee all over the stove. coffee i had just made. she asked if it was fancy coffee or something, and i replied that it was actually just instant decaf. "well, you can just make another one easily" she said. which kind of spells out exactly how people who do not have babies view the world. and if you have a baby, you know that nothing is ever very simple and that if i had not been in a perfectly good mood at that moment, spilling my coffee might have amounted to a great tragedy which could have resulted in many tears. happily, i was happy! so there were no tears at all. whew.
i think for a long while i tried to deny that there is any sort of 'club' of mothers.. but i had definitely heard about it. and while i think it doesn't have to be a totally exclusive club (i still enjoy the company of people who have not yet spawned) it really does seem to exist. there is some kind of shift that happens that you can't fully understand until you live it. maybe it's the lack of sleep... who knows. at any rate i think i liked to deny the existence of said club (or maybe just my membership - or back then, my impending membership in it) so that i could pretend that my life could go on being mostly what it was before having a kid... and in some respects it has... but there is still some kind of transformation that has/is occurred/ing....
yeah. kind of hard to explain. but it's there.
i think i'm finally excited about this whole house thing... we keep taking people over to show it to them, and i find i get a bit excited when we just drive by it, or even the street it's on, because it really does belong to us. fun! josh made a water level to find out just how uneven the floors are... so our first task is going to be to try to fix them. then the roof (my dad has volunteered for that), the installing our new (ok used) oil-fired high efficiency boiler, then likely having a few friends over with a dumpster to pick up the junk pile that formerly served as the garage. which lasted until the ice storm we got last year... then it collapsed. i might keep dreaming about redoing the bathroom before we move in, as well... just because it would be really nice to have that out of the way and because it's kind of gungy right now. but we'll see what finances allow. we got an improvement mortgage on top of our mortgage (an extra 10%) so hopefully that will help out. i'm going to try to post photos soon... but who knows when it will actually happen. sorry interweb. life is busy.
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| did you know nursing bras come in leopard print? |
[28 Aug 2009|03:01pm] |
i didn't, until i saw one on ebay. and then i had to have it. free shipping! my size! so now i do have it, and it is awesome i think. i already have 2 pricey nursing bras but i figured since they will be all i will wear for what, the next year? that i needed a fun one. i've always been a fan of fun underwear.. so yeah. good times.
as of yesterday, we officially own a house! with bedrooms, and a kitchen that is kind of big... but i went there yesterday and got bummed out because it really does need a lot of work. and i was probably already having a bad day. today i am a bit more hopeful... but i'm still not sure how much will be fixed before we move in. we're not even sure when we'll do that... we haven't given notice here yet, and usually you have to give 2 months... which is fine with me so that hopefully some things can get spruced up. but i suspect that our landlord will have no trouble filling this place earlier than that... and that would save us money. so we'll see. i guess we at least need our new furnace up and running...
i bought ivy a potty the other day, since i keep hearing about elimination communication and i want to try it. also because she frequently poops in the morning when i bring her into the bathroom with me. so why not?? anyway i tried this morning but no luck, she seemed to stop pooping as soon as i put her on it. but she might just have been out of poop, cause she didn't fill her diaper after that. so who knows. hah. i ended up getting a potty that has a foamy seat... hah. it also happens to match all of our bathroom stuff (shower curtain, towels, etc.) but that was totally an accident, i swear! anyway it was only $30, josh thought i was crazy but for $15 there was a boring potty that was stackable (who needs a stackable potty? cause who has more than one??) and i figured this one was much nicer. also it can fit on the toilet AND it functions as a stool for toothbrushing, etc... so it will last quite a while i think!
anyway i'm thinking of trying to make some brownies... AJ has invited us over for a nice healthy salad dinner so i want to bring really bad-for-you dessert. no, i've been wanting to make them for a while actually... they have cheesecake on top or something. so i'm sure they are really terrible! yet delicious. i likely won't get them done though. today i have been inspired to do a whole bunch of things... like knit my own soakers/longies. but i should know this will likely never happen. oh sigh. i also have a big swath of fleece that josh's mom gave me that i don't love... but i was thinking i should make fleece diaper covers out of it. even some pants for ivy for this winter. mostly because my bro's fiancee is allergic to wool but wants to cloth diaper... so they would be perfect. but my stepmom wants her serger back... no surprise, i've had it for 4 months! aaaannnd never used it. sigh again.
ivy can pretty much sit up now, i think it is time for a bumbo! also we got some amazing pictures back from our pre-ivy's-emergence photoshoot... you can see them here or on carmin's blog.
 
i think this one is my favourite.
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| finally, a good night's sleep |
[23 Aug 2009|10:55pm] |
i think it has been about 2 weeks... we took ivy to the troutforest music festival, where it rained pretty much the whole time and josh and i had wet/muddy feet the entire time. anyway she slept just fine in the tent, we managed to keep dry, all in all it was a pretty great weekend. but the night we came home and until last night, she has been waking up 3 or 4 times a night to feed (as opposed to just once). silly me never really clued in that she might be hungry (DUH)... last night was michelle's birthday so i went for dinner and then hanging out without ivy for like... 6 hours. left a few bottles and she did just fine. and when she woke up in the night (no idea what time because we had no clock) i fed her both sides and she proceeded to sleep the rest of the night. i woke up before her i think, actually, and i was almost ecstatic. like i just woke up happy (and i think that lately i've been kind of the opposite of happy). it was really nice! so i'm hoping for another night of the same, but probably i just jinxed it. oh well! at least i had today, which was spent shopping. hah!
anyhow. like i said, been feeling pretty bummed lately... though i kind of chalk it up to exhaustion. after 2+ months of napping regularly with ivy i have become so frustrated with how little i get done in a day... or with the state of my house... that i instead have just been running around trying to accomplish some things. which is kind of working, but then there is the lack of sleep... so i need to find a happy medium. haven't yet. still working on that one.
what else to report... we officially take possession of our house this thursday, i think, provided everything comes together. tomorrow i have to go pick up the mortgage instructions and hopefully i can pay the lawyer's fees and all that... otherwise we are just waiting on the insurance i think. or they might have sent it to the lawyer's already... not quite sure. anyway i'm kind of... well i'll be more excited when the key is in my hand i think. then it will be real. this weekend we purchased a furnace... actually it's a high efficiency oil-fired boiler. which we are going to run through the forced air of the current system of the house. boring, but still fun! haha.
oh last weekend we went to thunder bay to meet up with josh's parents and sisters. ivy did great in the car (as usual!) and it was a nice visit, though it was pretty short. we went to the conservatory and sat among plants... it was pretty cool. they had a whole room of cacti!
alright, i should have been in bed a while ago... so i will run now. sorry for the boring news that is my life. ahhh.
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| growing bones in my throat |
[04 Aug 2009|05:41pm] |
it's true... apparently i have calcification on one of my tonsils. ick! anyway... it started quite a while ago (months?) when i felt like i had something stuck in my throat... as i fished around with a finger (trying not to gag myself...) i noticed that one side of my throat seemed to have a big lump on it. anyway lately i felt the same thing and when i checked again the lump seemed bigger. so while at my 2 month post-partum checkup today i asked about it... and the doctor apparently just had the same thing! so she said it was calcification (i guess there are hard bits) and it would just fall off... or it might be there for a while. but you sometimes swallow it in your sleep or something. fun.
anyway. i also apparently do not have thrush on my nipples (yay!!) but i seem to have suction blisters maybe? which are painful and mean that ivy is still not quite feeding properly. from the number of people i have spoken to, that say that they had pain while nursing for at least 2 to 4 months... i am thinking that perhaps a lot of the problem is that the babies are too small to get enough nipple and areola into their mouths. but after a few months they are big enough so it is easy!! i know someone else who said she only had 2 weeks of pain but she had a pretty big baby... so that supports my theory. anyway i guess we'll see. i wasn't given any further instruction for how to nurse... i'm not sure that i know how to get more into her mouth. so perhaps she will just grow out of it... or i'll keep trying i guess. i'm quite relieved to know it's not thrush though... it didn't really make sense to me that ivy's thrush disappeared in a day and did not reappear if i had it for like a month. also i had none of the risk factors that tell you you likely have thrush... never had a yeast infection in my life, i didn't take any antibiotics... so yeah. i'm thinking ivy and i will just get on with our lives now! if only i could avoid these blister things though... cause OUCH. also they cover over the nipple sort of and then cause blocked ducts. argh.
ok enough nipple talk. today i am feeling more energetic somehow... which makes me hopeful that someday soon i can get more than one thing done a day. i ALMOST cleaned the tub today, and had high hopes for the living room... ah well. at least ivy is happy! :)
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| what - thursday already? |
[30 Jul 2009|11:26am] |
i'm thinking of making "done" lists... you know, as opposed to "to do" lists... because i feel it would be much more rewarding to list my accomplishments of the day than only checking off one or two items before losing a list and then finding it again weeks later and still being disappointed because i STILL haven't finished the bloody list! with a done list, well right now it would be small... but whatever i manage to put on there in day is still more than nothing, right? and it will include all the things i don't normally put on a to do list that i do anyway. capiche?!
for instance, today i have:
fed ivy (x3)
burped ivy (x2)
put ivy down for a nap (* this is a major accomplishment, as ivy has not slept for more than like 30 min at a time for the past 2 days which results in her being overtired and a little bit manic)
folded towels
showered, brushed hair
changed 2 (or 3?) diapers
emailed josh the insurance guy's email so we can maybe get a quote
talked to the lawyer regarding house purchase and crappiness of the furnace/oil tank/chimney
ate breakfast
listened to the end of my book on tape
took some pills
unplugged one clogged milk duct (yay!)
i think that is about all. in 1.5 hours we are supposed to go get ivy's hearing tested... she failed last time. but i know she can hear so i am not worried. thing is she is still sleeping (it's been like... 2 hours!) and she is supposed to be sleeping at 1pm... but that is totally not going to happen. i should wake her up anyway cause she'll be a monster if she doesn't eat soon but... i hate to wake a sleeping baby. especially cause i think she needs this nap. so... hearing test be damned! as long as she's not too hungry she should hold still... :S
alright, i had better go putter while she is still down and i can move freely about the house!
oh speaking of houses... we are getting closer to signing papers... the furnace/oil tank failed inspection as we expected, which is fine (we knew they needed replacing) except that we can't get house insurance without doing that. so the lawyer is tweaking the papers somehow so that we can sign the agreement before we start putting money in... that way she can't say no to the deal after we have paid for a new furnace. that's cool, i like that this way we get to choose the furnace and we're not just stuck with whatever she would have put in. we'll likely get something more efficient too... that way we won't have to fix the chimney (did you know high efficiency furnaces need no chimney? very cool.). also we have some photos of it... i will try to post them someday.
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| it didn't rain as much today |
[28 Jul 2009|10:38pm] |
and somehow i am in a much better mood. i didn't nap at all, so i should be out of it and really tired... but somehow i was energized and felt motivated. except that ivy didn't nap much either... i think our baseball weekend might have messed up the bit of schedule she was developing... so i didn't actually accomplish much since there weren't many times when she was sleeping. but anyway. the day started with a nice walk with her in the cozy wrap... so she was half asleep for a while there... but she only really slept another 2 half hours maybe? yikes. i hear that when kids don't nap well they get overtired and don't sleep well that night... and really i think her overtiredness started yesterday cause last night she was quite restless. i expect the same tonight judging from the whimpering i'm already hearing from the bedroom.... oh sigh.
anyway. on our walk we stopped at the police station to report josh's bike that was stolen on the weekend. yayyyy. not really a big deal, i got that bike for free from the kenora dump a year or more ago... but josh's parents just bought him $100 tires for it. and he has barely used it... but he had big plans to start riding to work. and we are supposed to be getting a bike trailer for pulling kidlets and gear around... and now he has no bike. darnit. i think we'll still get it as i can always just pull it on my bike... but i guess i was envisioning family bike rides! so hopefully it turns up and the cops let us know. and then josh actually remembers to lock it. duh.
there was something else i had forgotten to write about yesterday but for the life of me can't remember now. something about all the projects i wish i could finish... i dunno. in happy news though, we went to the laundromat tonight and it wasn't even all that busy and that is amazing. so i got to use the big machines and things went very quickly and it made me happy! very happy. i even put most things away but quickly realized that hardly any of the laundry was mine! that darn josh, wearing a variety of clothes to work! ah well. things are clean and sorted. it makes me smile. maybe some day soon i will have enough diapers and be motivated enough to start ivy on cloth... i can't wait!
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| i'll try to keep this short |
[09 Jul 2009|12:55pm] |
typing with one hand here... sleeping baby on my lap :)
my in-laws left today... poor josh's mom was crying before they even stopped in to say goodbye (she is always a crier but ivy seems to have an even worse effect on her). they only stayed a few days and i had been really excited for them to come and stay for a while... but of course i ended up less excited after a couple of days. she told me things like "your best earning years are over" and seemed to really be questioning our decision to buy a house. i really shouldn't take it to heart... josh seems to just let things slide with her fairly often. she's really not that bad... but i just don't see them often so it's kind of a lot to take all at once.
ivy is doing really well... gaining pretty steadily and only breastfeeding now. i am having a lot of pain from what i think is a thrush (yeast) infection in my nipples... but otherwise things are good (she had it in her mouth but it seems to be gone from there now). i was going to take ivy to be weighed today but there is a severe thunderstorm watch and it is literally POURING rain (are the windows in the car up?)... and someone from downstairs has blocked me in. so i might just stay in instead! anyway, she is amazing, often very awake and looking at things, active with her arms and legs, and pretty much only cries if she is hungry or fighting sleep. she is definitely NOT sleeping through the night but will often sleep in 2 3 hour shifts with a feed in between, which i think is ok. sometimes she'll be up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night though which is tough. it's definitely harder on me now that we are only nursing because josh can't do any feedings for me... but it feels pretty good to not have to supplement her anymore. she is 5 weeks old tomorrow! and at least 8lb 4oz, which is a pound more than her birthweight. she has grown 3cm in length and 1cm around the head. oh, and she grunts a lot! it's awesome.
we put in an offer (an unofficial, verbal offer) on a house about a week ago and yesterday the lady told someone she has a buyer. so we are hoping she means us! because we know someone else is interested as well. there is an appraisal being done today so i guess that might change her asking price, but we're not sure if we would go higher. we already offered what she was asking ($65,000) in hopes she would just take it amd we woulodn't have a bidding war with the other people. at any rate, we will hopefully know something very soon. it definitely needs a lot of work but my dad has offered some help and i think we are looking forward to changing it (and having a house!!). there are a few other affordable (ok, not AS affordable!) houses for sale right now as well, which is hopeful in case we need a backup. one sold in less than a week though! the house we are trying to get is not online (i have photos and a video but not on my computer) but you can check out the other house i REALLY loved here (click on 'more' to see al the photos). that is the house with the shifty wooden foundation that my dad said we couldn't buy. they did a good job making it look big in the pictures! it has a really great yard too. oh sigh. here are some more... 1, 2, 3. also i bet this is sweet, but not close by. sad.
ok i think that is all, i should get up cause all i've eaten is cookies today (they are the only thing within my reach!). we have had a couple of good trips to kenora and a nice shower there... and travelling is steadily getting easier as feeding gets simpler. it took us 6 hours to get to kenora last time because ivy just was hating her car seat...but on the way back she slept pretty much the whole way (whew). we have been giving her a soother sometimes, which makes me feel terrible but helps so that she will sleep longer instead of nursing for 5 minutes every hour. she doesn't always need it to fall asleep though, which is good i think. ok. food time!
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| i am a crazy person with unbalanced hormones (or, the life of a new mom) |
[16 Jun 2009|03:54pm] |
well i have calmed down considerably since i recited this post in my head a little while ago... in that time i had to feed and soothe a baby who is now (finally) sleeping. but i wish i was sleeping. instead i am waiting for a call from a lactation consultant... a call that i would rather just let the machine get but that may contain some important info that i need to know starting NOW.
i took ivy to be weighed again today (and can i just say, it is really inconvenient that they make me go there every day... maybe i am just spoiled because the nurse came to our house for 3 days in a row? but really... if you're making me stick to a pretty rigid feeding schedule i am obviously tired and a bit out of sorts and leaving the house is more than a bit of a chore! nice to get out though, i guess... sort of... sigh.) and she didn't gain anything since yesterday. that said, she pooped twice... more of her giant, i-am-storing-up-all-my-poo-until-i-can't-possibly-store-anymore poop... which is resolving into the nice yellow colour it is supposed to be. but when i saw the 6lbs, 5oz on the scale for the second day in a row, it was all i could do not to cry right there at the health unit. and in fact i sure did once i left the building, let me tell you. the nurse had been really hopeful that we could start just breastfeeding at night, without all the other paraphenalia that supplementing requires... which would result in more sleep. which would be really nice. cause for the past couple of days i have really been feeling it... i lost it for a bit last night (due to my seeming increase in bleeding that i don't know how to deal with... if i go to emerg i don't know how long i will wait, same with the walk-in clinic, and i can't just be sitting there when i need to be feeding my baby with elaborate tools... so instead i do nothing and just worry about it.) and then today has been equally rough. so finding out that the elaborate feeding is not even WORKING has me thrown for a bit of a loop. i don't even know what to say, i'm mad at the nurse, who makes me feel really guilty or like i am failing a test with every question i answer (or don't know the answer to - such as "when is her awake time?" well, let's see, we wake her every hour or two to feed her, and she is fully awake for about 5 minutes until we start pumping her full of food... then she gets pretty tired again!)... i'm mad at myself, because i can't fix this no matter how hard i seem to try. and i'm losing the energy for trying. last night i said to josh, wouldn't it be nice if babies could just grow on love... and he replied that it would be sad though because there would be some babies that were smaller than the others and everyone would know why. but i think anyone could give them love so then maybe they wouldn't be smaller at all! because surely there is enough love around for growing all babies nice and big!
another rantable topic is that (only because i am tired and crabby) none of my family has visited me. i should be greatful for this, in some sense i am... because it's a lot nicer (probably?) to just be in my own space and trying to figure ivy out without having to entertain guests. but that said, NONE of my family in kenora has EVER visited us, in the 3 years we have been here. like, we are only 3 hours away! and they always talk about coming up, as they are doing now... but it never happens. in fact only one set of my friends has ever come (and they came twice i think!). it's bugging me more now because i figured having a baby would at least draw a few of them up here... but so far, no dice. my mom is flying in from alberta this weekend but even still we have agreed to meet her in kenora... which means we will end up visiting other people and letting them off the hook for visiting us. which is pissing me off to no end. like i don't really mind going to kenora, it's not like i hate it there... but we end up running all over to visit EVERYone in a single weekend when really, they know where we live! it's just not fair, really. rrgh.
anyway i had a lot more to say on both those subjects but i will just bottle it up inside and try not to cry too much more today and hope and pray that josh gets my message and brings me home a cream soda. because the end of pregnancy means that i can once again drink pop without getting crazy painful gas! yay!!! and eat garlic as well! so, small favours i guess. also i should be pumping breast milk right now. also there is a beautful baby asleep in my lap, in case you wanted to know. (seriously, love would be so much easier than milk... and ivy would be huge by now!!)
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| the airplanes are louder than the breastpump! |
[14 Jun 2009|04:45pm] |
so... for those of you readers not on facebook... just wanted to tell you that i have a baby now!! and it is a girl baby, and her name is Ivy Juniper McDougall. she was born on june 5th at 6:21pm, a textbook delivery they said... and she is really quite beautiful. though, for the past week she has lost weight instead of gained... so much so (19% of her birth weight, which is 9% more than is ok!) that we have had to supplement her with formula this weekend. as she got smaller she got more tired when trying to feed, and then couldn't get the more food she needed... so it was just getting worse, poor doll. it didn't seem to be a milk problem (which is nice) but more just her not being able to get it out. likely it is my fault because i didn't feed her every 3 hours right from birth (as most people say to do... but my nurse definitely did NOT say... ) so she just slept a lot and then was jaundiced and was more tired and.... it just got worse. i was pretty emotional about the supplementing, it just makes me sad that we were starving her without knowing... and seeing her drinking from a cup or a syringe is just a bit heartbreaking. but, she is growing, and the goal is to get her strong enough to nurse and not need the formula... which may even happen this week. fingers crossed!!
anyway, there is a picture of us here and you can also see my facebook ones here cause i am too lazy and busy and tired! to upload any to any of my photo accounts. deal! :D
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| wednesday, due date. |
[03 Jun 2009|05:17pm] |
just a bit of an update... was kind of happy to hear that my brother and his gf/fiancee both agreed that my parents are huge dorks (ok, not the actual words they used...) for taking off when i am about to have a baby. i thought of it as mostly just insensitivity, but my brother seems to think my dad is 'weird' about kids... which might actually be true. either way, they are mad on my behalf, so i'm not just being sensitive and dramatic. seriously parents, be there when your kids are having kids! you don't have to be in the room, but 3 hours away and able to visit SOON after is kind of nice... instead of actively leaving on the day baby is due to go as far across the country as possible because it is the cheapest time to take a cruise. sheesh. i'm trying not to stay mad about this but i have the feeling it will bug me for a bit of a while...
also. false alarm #2 yesterday, and #3 today. hah. yesterday woke up with lower back pain that felt quite a lot like cramps... or the back pain i usually get when menstruating. so that was kind of crazy, it almost seemed to be coming around to the front as well (as they say labour pains do)... but then i got out of bed and they stopped. sigh! this morning when i woke up, i sat up in bed and felt a bit of a gush. it was very small, granted... but it was there. and i know it's not uncommon to pee oneself during pregnancy, but it hadn't happened to me yet so... it's not exactly the first thing i thought of. anyway... i'm still not really sure what the deal was. due to a couple of other things i definitely thought it was water breaking and that something was getting ready to happen. i had an appointment for a non-stress test (usually they don't do them till you are overdue - still not sure why the doc got me to do it this early, but whatever...) where they hook you up and record baby's heart rate and any contractions and movements. so that was kind of fun, except josh screwed it up when he made me laugh really hard in the middle and the signals got messed up. haha. cause we were discussing all the anne geddes photos in the birthing room and he said "how do they make you feel" to which i had to reply "angry!" and then couldn't stop giggling. haha. anyway... test was cool. but i mentioned the possible water break thing so a doctor came and checked me out with a speculum and took a swab and looked under a scope and said that it wasn't fluid, must have been urine. ok. then i had a regular appointment this afternoon and though there's really no way this doctor could say, she said she usually believes the woman because you kind of know if you pee yourself... or she said she hasn't heard of 27 year olds peeing themselves very often. she said it is possible that i had some fluid leakage and somehow we are both right (as in, me and the other doc?) which doesn't really make sense... but my um mucous has definitely been different all day, as in different than it has been for the past couple of weeks. so i still kind of think things might be happening but... who the heck knows. i'm not in a huge hurry, maybe baby isn't either. that said, it is AMAZINGLY motivating to think you are in labour... i know you are supposed to rest, it's not like i start running around in a panic... but i certainly do sit down and focus on some things that i really want to do before baby comes. this morning that entailed brushing up on labour and birthing positions and taking some notes in my book that i am bringing to the hospital. so i at least feel a bit more ready!
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| not to worry. |
[21 May 2009|04:17pm] |
so josh of course did not go golfing... really i think he had no intention of going. he said taking the clubs was just easier than arguing with his coworker. it was rainy off and on all day too, so it wouldn't have been fun. by the time i spoke to him in the afternoon i was actually ok with him going (if he wanted) but he came home instead. so that was nice.
today at my prenatal appointment i had a pelvic exam to make sure my bones were fit for delivery, and apparently i have an 'excellent' pelvis. yay! haha. ALSO... i am effaced. like, the whole way. which means i am ready to go, pretty much! craziness. the doc was like "when do you want to have this baby?" and i was like "not today!!" cause of course i thought of the mess in my apartment and the baby clothes that are not quite on the new shelf yet... so i just don't quite feel ready. so the doc decided NOT to sweep my membranes to get things going... but he said he is on call on friday and sunday and he wouldn't be surprised if he saw me this weekend. you should have seen the look on josh's face! we went for lunch afterwards and it was a little bit... well, exciting, and overwhelming i guess? and then i am home alone and basically on the edge of my seat feeling every little twinge... haha. i think i am having a few more contractions than usual too but... who knows. cause probably i had them before and wasn't sure what they were (i think i often thought it was just the baby moving or stretching... when it was really contractions). pregnancy is so weird sometimes. no big pains yet though so i guess that is nice! and hopefully i still have a bit of time to get sorted and stuff. oh, and to get a car seat... i have a line on one and we will likely get it tonight if the guy gets back to me, just so that we are ready! at least in that one respect. with all this excitement i really haven't gotten much done today (well this morning, pre-appointment i felt productive but not really on anything baby-related... oops!). i can see how hard it would be to relax when you are in early labour... i can't imagine trying to take a nap when your head is just reeling with excitement! oy.
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| pray for rain, i guess? |
[20 May 2009|08:57am] |
laying in bed this morning, i heard josh leaving and the guy that drives him made him (because josh never would have thought of it himself?) bring his golf clubs. so the whole morning (ok that's maybe only an hour at this point! haha) i have been trying really hard not to be upset at the thought of josh not coming home until 9 or 10pm (because that is what happens at golf). the guy that drives josh is kind of weird... doesn't have many friends and annoys most people at their work, so i should feel more sympathetic. but he's also weird in pushy ways (and josh is not one to say no) and that pisses me off. he totally monopolizes josh at work (every problem he has is an emergency, no joke) and he golfs EVERY day of golfing season and i guess it was a mistake for us to buy clubs at a garage sale because he might be thinking josh is going to golf all the time now? i don't mind that josh might want to do stuff sometimes but seriously, we are like 2 weeks away from having our first child... so this guy needs to think again!! and despite how 'ready' i felt yesterday, the thought of spending only like an hour with josh before bed makes me feel REALLY unsettled. we don't have a boy's name picked out, or a birth plan, and there is still TONS to be done. last night josh put the shelf together which i am really grateful for, but in typical josh style he left all the tools and mess out for me to clean up, as well as some of his dishes. i know our house ALWAYS looks like a bomb went off but i am trying to fix that (ALL my energy is being directed towards that right now!) and i try to keep a few things tidy so it doesn't get constantly worse... but maybe josh just doesn't see things through my eyes (a novel thought!). i know if i mention it to him he will feel really bad (especially because i didn't succeed in not crying this morning) but geez! i don't want him to feel bad, i just want him to DO IT so that i don't have to pick up after him before i can start on the billion other things i need to organize! also did i mention i am PREGNANT with RAGING HORMONES? ya. not a good morning.
hah, so as much as i want him home tonight... at least if he is not home he is not in my way and making messes! wouldn't it be nice if he could be home AND not make messes... like actually help me organize? last night not much besides the shelf got done because we got our new camera (a nikon D90) so he was playing with it for a while. which is cool, at least one of us needs to know how to use it! but of course he didn't put that away either...
but how much i miss him in the day always outweighs how much he bugs me (when he does). like really i just want him home right now... it brings me to tears just thinking about it.
sigh.
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