Beautiful Boy

John Lennon - Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)
(a few edits made for my beautiful boy)

Close your eyes
Have no fear
The monster's gone
He's on the run and your Mommy's here

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful boy
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful boy

Before you go to sleep
Say a little prayer
Every day in every way
It's getting better and better

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful boy
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful boy

Out on the ocean sailing away
I can hardly wait
To see you come of age
But I guess we'll both just have to be patient
'Cause it's a long way to go
A hard row to hoe
Yes it's a long way to go
But in the meantime

Before you cross the street
Take my hand
Life is what happens to you
While you're busy making other plans

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful boy
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful boy

Before you go to sleep
Say a little prayer
Every day in every way
It's getting better and better

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful boy

Darling, darling, darling
Darling Emmett

If he's anything like me

Here's Emmett standing and walking.  That onesie with the Mom tatoo on the sleeve is one of my favorites.  Chris ordered that for him before he was born.

Less than a week until his first birthday.  Rather than try to put any of my feelings about that into words, I am just going to borrow someone else's.  If you listen to country music regularly you probably already know this song.  If the twang isn't your cup of tea, at least read the words.

Brad Paisley - Anything like me

I remember saying I don't care either way
Just as long as he or she is healthy I'm ok
Then the doctor pointed to the corner of the screen
And said "You see that thing right there do you know what that means?"

And I started wondering who he was going to be
And I thought heaven help us if he's anything like me
He'll probably climb a tree too tall and ride his bike too fast
End up every summer wearing something in a cast
He's gonna throw a ball and break some glass in a window down the street
He's gonna get in trouble oh he's gonna get in fights
I'm gonna lose my temper and some sleep
It's safe to say that I'm gonna get my payback if he's anything like me

I can see him right now knees all skinned up
With a magnifying glass trying to melt a Tonka truck
Won't he be a sight with his football helmet on
That'll be his first love til his first love comes along
He'll get his heart broke by the time he's in his teens
And heaven help him if he's anything like me

He'll probably stay out too late and drive his car too fast
Get a speeding ticket he'll pay for mowing grass
He's gonna get caught skipping class and be grounded for a week
He's gonna get in trouble, we're gonna get in fights
I'm gonna lose my temper and some sleep
It's safe to say that I'm gonna get my payback if he's anything like me

He's gonna love me and hate me along the way
The years are gonna fly by and I already dread the day
He's gonna hug his momma, he's gonna shake my hand
He's gonna act like he can't wait to leave
But as he drives out he'll cry his eyes out
If he's anything like me
There's worse folks to be like
Aw he'll be alright if he's anything like me

Turn the channel to a medical show, STAT!

For a major part of my life I have been a fan of medical TV shows.  It probably started with ER, although I did not see that one through to the end.  Once all the original cast members starting leaving the show my interest went with them.  And its not just dramas.  One of my favorite shows of all time is Scrubs which is a comedy.  Although it was argued that Scrubs more acurately portrayed a real hospital than some of the other shows out there.  Right now I'm watching Grey's Anatomy reruns on Lifetime in order to get caught up to the current season.  I'm not sure what it is that draws me to these shows.  I do really like scrubs and wish I was in a career field where I could wear them every day.  Except that I hate doctors offices and hospitals and needles and blood and all the icky stuff that goes along with said careers.  What I would really like to do is teach medical classes.  Like childbirth classes and breastfeeding classes and basic baby care classes.  I would really like to be a lactation consultant.  However, you have to get your RN in order to do any of that.  And to get your RN you have to deal with the aforementioned icky stuff.  I'm not nearly as afraid of needles as I used to be before I gave birth.  After going through that, a small needle stick just doesn't seem like a big deal.  I'm still not getting a flu shot, but I have other reasons for that and I'll spare you my rant about it.  Anyway, in the meantime I will just live vicariously through the characters on the shows I watch and wish that I could do what they do. 

Sweet little moments

When Emmett wakes up in the morning, he babbles and plays in his crib so nicely.  Its hard for me to convince myself to get out of bed and go get him.  But after a while I can't resist the urge to be with him.  When he hears me open the door his head pops up over the crib rail and he smiles so big.  I pick him up and carry him over to the glider.  I get the boppy in place on my lap and lay him down so he can nurse.  And when he's done I just hold him and rock him for a few minutes with my cheek against his silky hair.  He only sits still like that for a few minutes before he gets impatient and wants to get up and play.  But I treasure those few minutes more than any other part of my day.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about weaning.  A big part of me is ready to be done with it all, the nursing bras, the occassional biting, the pumping, etc.  But I am going to be really sad when its over as well.  In the beginning I said I didn't do it for the emotional bonding, I just wanted him to have the best nutrition.  Well somewhere along the way the emotional attachment grew.  I'm not sure if I will know when its the last time.  It depends on if he gives it up on his own or if I cut him off before that happens.  I think it will be better if I don't know, otherwise I'll bawl my eyes out the whole time and Emmett will wonder what's wrong with me.  But I do think there comes a time when enough is enough.  I don't want to get to the point where he can walk up to me and ask to nurse.  I find the thought of that a little disturbing.  Another reason I'm not quite ready to stop is that right now I don't have to worry about what he eats because he's still nursing.  If he doesn't eat enough lunch or dinner I don't have to worry if he's getting the proper nutrition because he still nurses 5 times a day.  I'm thinking about continuing to pump breastmilk after he officially stops nursing and giving it to him in a bottle or sippy cup.  That way he gets all the nutritional benefits without the weirdness of being too old to nurse.  We got a free sample of toddler formula in the mail that you can mix with milk to make sure they are getting all the nutrients they need.  But that stuff is expensive and breastmilk is free.  And the "hippie breastfeeders" as I call them say that breastmilk should make up the majority of a baby's nutrition until age 2.  So I don't know exactly what I'm going to do yet.  Just like everything else I am going to research it to death, agonize over it, and freak out if anything changes about his sleep habits as a result.  That's how I roll.

On Monday I made major progress toward being a laid back mom.  I made plans with my friend Gillian to meet at the new Tanger outlet mall in Mebane.  It takes a hour to drive there, which meant Emmett would have to take both of his naps in the car, and I would have to either nurse him in public or get some breastmilk out of the freezer to take along.  These are all things that make me incredibly uncomfortable.  I have never been very comfortable with nursing in public.  The few times I did it we were either in the car or I used a fitting room in a store.  I could never sit on park bench and just cover up with a blanket, and Emmett never nursed well in public.  He was always way too distracted by everything around him to eat.  And ever since he settled into a nap schedule of one in the morning and one in the afternoon, I am not very good about interrupting that schedule.  I'm afraid he will be in a bad mood, or that he won't sleep well that night, or that he won't nap well the next day.  As if all that wasn't enough for me to worry about, Gillian's daughter Morwen was sick with a fever.  She wasn't feeling that bad so they were going anyway and just giving her Motrin to keep her fever down.  I am also overly paranoid about Emmett getting sick.  I was so freaked out about it all, plus it was looking like rain in the morning, that I called Gillian and attempted to cancel.  She was very understanding about it, but by the end of our conversation I began to think about staying in the house all day with E and doing nothing, and I just changed my mind.  I told her we were coming after all.  I finished feeding E his breakfast and instead of putting him down for his nap, I got him dressed, packed some lunch, and stuck him in the car.  I was in tears the whole time worrying that I was making a bad decision but I forced myself to get in the car and drive.  Of course I had freaked out for nothing!  Emmett napped most of the way in the car.  When we got there he ate his lunch very well.  He was in a good mood while we shopped and rode in his stroller like a champ with no complaints.  When we were done shopping Gillian headed home with her kids because they had to be home at a certain time.  So we headed to the playground since E was stuck in his stroller all afternoon.  He had a blast crawling around on the playground equipment.  He did a little bit of walking and I held him in my lap and slid down one of the slides.  He had a great time.  I gave him a bottle of breastmilk that I brought along and then we got in the car and went home.  He slept most of the way home in the car.  It really couldn't have gone any better.  It was almost like Emmett was trying to say "See Mom, no problem!"  I know most of you moms out there are probably laughing at me, and rightfully so.  But this is just one of my hangups and I'm proud of myself for overcoming it.   

Halloween and other stuff

As you can see, Emmett was a vampire for Halloween.  It just seemed to suit him because he has so many teeth (he got his first at 3 months and it just kept going from there, he has 12 now).  He bites everything!  And although I don't always like to admit this, he was named after my favorite vampire in the Twilight series.  At least that's where we got the idea for the name.

Here he is showing off his biting skills.  He got that scratch on his head the day before while practicing his walking skills.  This was taken right before we went out trick-or-treating.  We took him around to the houses of people we know in the neighborhood and stopped at any of the ones that had lights or decorations because Emmett really liked looking at that stuff.  He didn't really understand what was going on of course, but he had fun being carried around the neighborhood at night.

As his first birthday rapidly approaches I have been reflecting a lot on Emmett's birth.  Almost a year later I find that I still have some unresolved issues related to how he came into the world.  I'm not sure if I will ever really "get over" the negative feelings that I have.  And I hate that I have more bad memories of his birth than good.  I can't get past the _______ I feel over having a c-section.  And yes, that is a blank, because I cannot come up with the right word to explain the emotion.  I started to say "regret" but technically its not regret because it wasn't really my decision, I didn't have a choice.  Then I thought "guilt" which is only partially right.  I feel guilty that I let myself go 2 weeks past due, thinking I was doing the right thing for my baby by letting him come naturally, which only served to let him get too big to be born vaginally.  But there's no way of knowing if his head was small enough at my due date to have been born vaginally even then.  Now that I've lost so much weight, it is becoming aparent to me that I have no hips.  With the extra fat gone I find that my pelvis is quite small and I wonder if that was part of the problem.  But the c-section is what led to the fluid getting in his lungs causing the pneumonia and his breathing problems.  I hate the fact that I didn't get to hold my baby in my arms for 2 whole days after he was born.  Luckily we were able to bond despite that fact, but I know that is part of why it took us so long to figure out breastfeeding.  I hate the fact that the pain I had after the c-section made it so that I was not able to stay with my baby in the NICU and I had to rely on the nurses to take care of him.  I wanted to be there for every feeding (even though he wasn't nursing yet), every diaper change, every nap.  But I physically couldn't.  I didn't start feeling like a mother until he was released from the NICU and we were in the room in pediatrics.  Then I was finally the one taking care of him, with Chris of course and the help of the nurses if we needed it.  It was still really depressing being stuck in the hospital, especially since it was the first week of December and Christmas just exploded on TV.  Commercials, Christmas movies, the works.  Nothing sadder than watching Rudolph and The Griswalds in a hospital room.  And the frustrating thing was that by then he was totally fine, we were just stuck in the hospital because he had to receive 10 full days of antibiotics intravenously.  He was still hooked up to the monitors, but they just monitored him from the nurses station and we couldn't see or hear any of the beeping and such and he never had a problem.  I guess what I'm getting at with all this ranting is that as I look back and remember it all, I still feel sad about it.  I'm working on getting past it, and you would think that almost an entire year later I would be past it.  Ultimately this is why I am not ready to have another baby yet.  I need to come to terms with these issues before I can even be close to thinking about going through all that again.  I know that next time it may not go like that, it may go just fine.  But it could even go worse.  I have even considered stopping with Emmett and not having another baby.  However, even with all the horror we went through bringing him into this world, I still know that I want to do it again, come hell or high water.  I just think I need a little more time.

Well hello November...

Its finally starting to feel like fall.  Down here it doesn't really get cold until November, and sometimes even then it jumps back and forth between warm days and cold days.  It also means its time for me to come to grips with the fact that Emmett's first birthday is this month.  I'm sure I'll writing on this subject a lot this month.  It definitely touches on some deep emotions that I will need to deal with.

But today I want to discuss something not so deep, something quite shallow actually.  Its something that I bet a lot of first time mothers feel but don't want to talk about because they are afraid of how they will seem to others.  But something you probably already know about me is that I don't keep much to myself.  So here it is.

Most of the feelings I have about Emmett's first birthday involve being sad about him growing up so fast and not being my little baby anymore.  But I am also sad about losing the glamour of being "the lady with the baby" out in public.  When you're out with your baby at the mall or at the grocery store, people smile at you more, they stop and talk to you and tell you how cute your baby is and ask how old he is.  Pretty soon he will be at the age where no one will care anymore.  He will just be another kid at the mall or the grocery store to the general public.  And as he becomes a todler, there will even be moments where he will throw fits out in public and people will NOT be smiling at us anymore.  I have to admit that I am really going to miss the attention.  Since I stayed home with Emmett, there were a lot of days that we didn't leave the house except to take a walk around the neighborhood because I just didn't feel like going out.  Now I wish I had gone out more and basked in the glory of being "the lady with the baby." 

We are planning to have a second child at some point, probably closer to when Emmett is 3, at least that's what I'm thinking today.  I change my mind quite regularly about how many years I want between my children.  And I know that I will get to be "the lady with the baby" again.  I just know it won't be the same when I have a 2 or 3 year old child as well.  I will probably go out even less because of the hastle it will be to take a todler and a baby out in public.  And that's if we can still afford for me to stay home.

So there, I said it.  Its out there, and I know I'm not alone!