Update from Three Weeks

Modeling her new Big Girl three month size clothing as well as the first
smile caught on camera (both the smile & the capture were accidental)

Calliope has been asleep in her swing for two and a half hours, allowing me to get lots done.

Including buying us a plane ticket to go home in eight days!

God bless Jet Blue and their $49 fares.

(It's also kind of exciting to get to be a person that gets to pre-board.)

I'm nervous about going home, but also excited.

Two nights ago Callie had a very hard time getting to sleep. We were up 11 pm -- 1 am working on it. Finally, I gave up (admittedly, with disgust), and brought her downstairs to heat up a bottle of breastmilk. I figured my breasts were just too full and forceful in their let down for her (because she would take a few sucks, then pull off and cry.)

I put her down in her swing and got the bottle out and warming in a mug of hot water.

Then I turned around to find her... asleep in the swing.

I am slowly learning that this rooting-then-crying-with-the-nipple-in-the-mouth means "fatigue" and not "hunger."

So I put the bottle back in the refrigerator and got out the breast pump (because she hadn't had a solid meal in several hours, and I was overflowing.) After pumping and then reading a bit on the couch -- I was desperate for some "me" time -- I tried to go to sleep on the couch next to her. But I couldn't relax there. And I was scared to carry her and her swing upstairs -- afraid the movement would wake her.

So finally I decided to leave her swinging downstairs while I slept upstairs.

But of course I slept fitfully, afraid I wouldn't hear her. I leapt out of bed and bolted down the stairs twice... only the second time was she actually awake. After that we slept together, from about 4:30 am on.

Needless to say, I was awfully tired yesterday. So my mom generously agreed to take the baby after dinner and let me go to sleep. This would also allow her to give the baby a bottle, something that is more complicated to schedule than I would've imagined.

I went to bed at 8 pm, and she brought Calliope up at 9:50 pm, post-bottle but still fussing. See above for lessons on crying after eating.

I popped her into the swing (which my mom brought upstairs for us) and turned the fan on its loudest setting, and we both fell back to sleep for several hours.

Despite the fact that I only had a two hour head start... I woke up at 7 am feeling well rested and great and ever so grateful. (Rest assured, there were multiple wake up calls between Calliope's bedtime and when we got up... but I still felt great!)

All this to say... what will I do when I don't have this option anymore, someone to hand her over to? What would I do if, heaven forbid (not really), I had another child to tend to??? How do SMCs with two kids do this???

Also, I'm nervous about returning to Brooklyn because I'm afraid that I will find out that really, I have an empty life without much going for me.

I have a feeling that this might not be true, but still, I worry about it. Facing my loneliness demons and all that.

However, I'm thrilled to be feeling more and more like myself. Yesterday I had a terrifying "head rush" after squatting to dress the baby on the floor... my worst one ever, and I'm prone to them... culminating in a long moment of total darkness, where I feared I would fall and drop the baby... thankfully, it passed. Other than that, I'm definitely getting stronger.

Saturday we went to the mall to buy me some shirts. Turns out that nursing shirts are just as weird as I feared (it's also possible that I didn't actually try any on, and was already dismayed by the concept, and just reinforced this feeling by examining them while still on hangars), so we ended up at the Gap, where I bought a bunch of white and black T shirts (solid color, either white or black) on sale. By the end I was exhausted, for sure, but still, this is so far past where I was a week ago Thursday, where I couldn't even contemplate getting to the bathroom in a rest stop. Sunday we went to Target and Costco and I didn't even need to lie down afterwards! True, I was shuffling slowly behind my mom, but still, this is major progress.

I'm noticing a little bit of anxiety lately, which I am attributing to a lack of exercise. The anxiety is all about ordinary anxiety-producing stuff, like finding out that I am only getting paid for three weeks of disability instead of six, since she was born during the summer when I don't work. And the fact that Liberty Mutual is telling me that my FMLA leave started in July, not September (since my salary is pro-rated over the summer, when I don't work, this would mean I didn't get paid for hours I had previously worked... plus not being eligible for the full twelve weeks off after the summer that I am entitled to). Also what I will do when she grows up and hates my guts and rolls her eyes at me and, god forbid, goes off to college, presumably without me. But it's mostly the first two that I roll around in my brain in the middle of the night.

The cute monkey tushie view of her new duds

"Was it buy low, sell high, or vice versa?"

Co-resting. See, she's still tiny? Those newborn PJ's
won't fit much longer, though.
My rack, not so tiny. 

She's got a firm grip on new Wubbanub and also her cheek,
so she's okay