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| At dinner for my very first Mother's Day! |
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| Sleepytime! |
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| More sleepytime! |
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| She can smile. She just chooses not to. |
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| Little smiles! |
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| At Longhorn with Grampa |
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Two month pics -- Growing too fast!
Monday, May 17, 2010
Daddy's girl
I have to admit that I wasn't sure how Matt would respond to the whole fatherhood gig. I knew he'd be a great father; I just wasn't sure whether he would feel comfortable in the role.
Apparently, he does.
Poor guy has been completely inundated since she was born. But he has always made time in the evenings to hold her and to play with his "Baby Girl."
He also has a curious method of "calming" BC.
He insisted when BC first came home that if he just matched pitch with her wailing she would simmer down. I'm surprised he didn't go hoarse, because she wasn't slowing down at all. When his method didn't work, his response was generally to laugh heartily.
(Placing her bum on his head did not improve her mood. He's just lucky I'd put the diaper on properly!)
I must admit that it annoyed me to no end that he found it all so darned amusing. After being around the shrieking all day, I was not nearly as amused.
But then he discovered another method:
It involves Matt's singing a particularly cowboyish theme (Bonanza, Lone Ranger, The Gambler) and bouncing BC along on his knee. Not an uncommon method, I'm sure. But he's honed it quite well, and it now requires a uniform:
It is now known as the "Giddyap" method of child soothing. I'm sure it will soon take the place of Happiest Baby on the Block and Dr. Spock.
Apparently, he does.
Poor guy has been completely inundated since she was born. But he has always made time in the evenings to hold her and to play with his "Baby Girl."
He also has a curious method of "calming" BC.
He insisted when BC first came home that if he just matched pitch with her wailing she would simmer down. I'm surprised he didn't go hoarse, because she wasn't slowing down at all. When his method didn't work, his response was generally to laugh heartily.
(Placing her bum on his head did not improve her mood. He's just lucky I'd put the diaper on properly!)
I must admit that it annoyed me to no end that he found it all so darned amusing. After being around the shrieking all day, I was not nearly as amused.
But then he discovered another method:
It involves Matt's singing a particularly cowboyish theme (Bonanza, Lone Ranger, The Gambler) and bouncing BC along on his knee. Not an uncommon method, I'm sure. But he's honed it quite well, and it now requires a uniform:
It is now known as the "Giddyap" method of child soothing. I'm sure it will soon take the place of Happiest Baby on the Block and Dr. Spock.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
BC's first week
I have to say that BC's first week in this world (outside of me) was a blur. I remember something about "It's a . . . girl?" There was subsequent disbelief and joy. I recall the nurse at Medina Hospital coming in on BC's first night and looking at a very tired, bedraggled and guilt-ridden me saying "Please take her to the nursery." And yes, I'll admit to some weepiness at that moment. I was silly enough to think that if I couldn't care for her then, how would I care for her at home? Of course, when I took her home, I was getting out of bed a bit more easily and was a bit more rested because, well, I let them take her to the nursery in the hospital! I let them do it the second night too, only then I didn't call Matt in tears at one in the morning and confess that I'd let them take away my baby and I felt hideously guilty and and and . . .
The man is a candidate for sainthood.
Lots of folks got a joyfully tearful and hoarse phone call from and exhausted me on Tuesday morning to announce our news. Sue and Mom and others insist I was not screaming during labor. If that's the case, I wonder why I went hoarse.
Lots of wonderful people visited us at the hospital -- parents and assistant moms and dear friends and my brother and his family and my father-in-law. It was great to see all of them and to show them our little miracle. I still can't believe she's ours, and I certainly was having trouble wrapping my head around it then! But this is what they saw:
The day we took her home, I was terrified. I had confessed to my father before giving birth that I was not worried about the labor, but I was scared to death to take her home. He laughed. I was serious.
But this immeasurable cuteness came home with us on March 4, whether we were ready or not!
Her first weeks were filled with lots of screaming. I thought there was an inordinate amount of screaming. Turns out, according to my mother, that the screaming was neither inordinate nor undeserved. I was the child whom they boxed in with the big boxes of Tide detergent in the laundry room while I screamed my head off and the rest of the family sat in peace in the living room. Sooooo, apparently this is what I get.
As you can see, Matt thought the screaming was all quite humorous and found that the best way to combat it was to match it.
I remember calling Mom in a panic on the second day BC was home and begging her to come and help. She came, and we went to see a lactation consultant, which was hugely helpful. Ever since, BC has seemed not to have a particular problem eating. In fact, she rather likes it, to the tune of a 2 oz/week weight gain at one point. But this was what she enjoyed doing when she wasn't eating:
I must admit that, contrary to her doctor's wise recommendation, we did take her out the first Sunday she was home. We thought it was important that she go to church as soon as possible. She was born on a Tuesday. The preceding Friday, our beloved priest passed away. Though he had given BC a blessing in utero, he never had a chance to meet her and that made us incredibly sad. The loss was also a blow to the church, and we believed that our fellow parishioners might benefit from seeing her as soon as possible. So we loaded her into the Moby wrap and she slept through the entire service. But my adorable and very energetic niece was there to pick up the slack:
Is that not an adorable child???
So that about sums up BC's first week. Eating, screaming and sleeping, mostly. But, as my husband would so helpfully point out, "That's what babies *do*."
The man is a candidate for sainthood.
Lots of folks got a joyfully tearful and hoarse phone call from and exhausted me on Tuesday morning to announce our news. Sue and Mom and others insist I was not screaming during labor. If that's the case, I wonder why I went hoarse.
Lots of wonderful people visited us at the hospital -- parents and assistant moms and dear friends and my brother and his family and my father-in-law. It was great to see all of them and to show them our little miracle. I still can't believe she's ours, and I certainly was having trouble wrapping my head around it then! But this is what they saw:
The day we took her home, I was terrified. I had confessed to my father before giving birth that I was not worried about the labor, but I was scared to death to take her home. He laughed. I was serious.
But this immeasurable cuteness came home with us on March 4, whether we were ready or not!
Her first weeks were filled with lots of screaming. I thought there was an inordinate amount of screaming. Turns out, according to my mother, that the screaming was neither inordinate nor undeserved. I was the child whom they boxed in with the big boxes of Tide detergent in the laundry room while I screamed my head off and the rest of the family sat in peace in the living room. Sooooo, apparently this is what I get.
As you can see, Matt thought the screaming was all quite humorous and found that the best way to combat it was to match it.
I remember calling Mom in a panic on the second day BC was home and begging her to come and help. She came, and we went to see a lactation consultant, which was hugely helpful. Ever since, BC has seemed not to have a particular problem eating. In fact, she rather likes it, to the tune of a 2 oz/week weight gain at one point. But this was what she enjoyed doing when she wasn't eating:
I must admit that, contrary to her doctor's wise recommendation, we did take her out the first Sunday she was home. We thought it was important that she go to church as soon as possible. She was born on a Tuesday. The preceding Friday, our beloved priest passed away. Though he had given BC a blessing in utero, he never had a chance to meet her and that made us incredibly sad. The loss was also a blow to the church, and we believed that our fellow parishioners might benefit from seeing her as soon as possible. So we loaded her into the Moby wrap and she slept through the entire service. But my adorable and very energetic niece was there to pick up the slack:
Is that not an adorable child???
So that about sums up BC's first week. Eating, screaming and sleeping, mostly. But, as my husband would so helpfully point out, "That's what babies *do*."
Monday, May 10, 2010
Mental case . . . or manipulator?
I promised more on the moron in a later post. Here it is.
Matt would be very upset that I referred to our dog as a moron. Chances are, Cesar Millan would be too. I suppose it's my fault that my dog still cannot handle having visitors to the house. He becomes positively apoplectic whenever someone breaches our threshhold.
I suppose it's my fault that my dog cannot handle seeing, hearing or smelling other dogs. He becomes positively apoplectic when we pass another dog on a walk -- whining, jumping, barking, pulling on the leash. At all other times he's very well leash-trained and heels well. No dog owner whose dog has ever been within Charlie's line of sight on a walk would believe that.
I suppose it's my fault that my dog cannot process the word "no." Actually, I take that back. He can process it, and if it comes from me, his favorite thing to do is keep doing whatever he's doing. Case in point: our new gardens. The lady who lived here before had lovely gardens and kept them up well. At our old house, I had some lillies that I kept behind one of those little sectioned metal fences so that Charlie would leave them alone. They were interspersed among the rose of sharon, so he couldn't jump the little fences without braining himself on a tree trunk. (Come to think of it, I'm not sure we'd have notice a difference in his behavior had such a misfortune befallen him.) When we moved here, the previous owners' scottie dogs were apparently well-behaved enough not to bother her garden beds (or she was laid back enough not to care). [NB: The scottie dog reference will *definitely* require another post. My dear friend Missey will no doubt be most unhappy with me for saying it, but scotties have earned a special place in my heart -- the coldest, darkest, dankest place where black widow spiders lurk and guillotines are sharpened.]
I DIGRESS. The garden beds. These lovely beds were completely unprotected by any fencing. I knew immediately that this would not be uncomplicated. Sure enough, the first morning I let Charlie out, I couldn't find him after a little while when I looked out the kitchen window. And then a yellow flash caught my eye. It looked like just another branch of a large bush in our back yard, which had yellowish leaves on long stems. But it wasn't. It was Charlie's tail poking out from behind said bush, where he was doing heaven knows what. That soon became his favorite spot. I would frequently look out and see him lurking behind that bush. It is, of course, the spot farthest from the edge of the garden beds, giving him ample opportunity to trample completely the largest number of plants between him and his objective.
So I bought fencing. Cute little rounded sectioned white garden fencing. And I painstakingly put it up all around the biggest bed in the back yard. And I sneered triumphantly at him as I put it up. And as I rounded the last corner of the bed with the fencing, I looked over my shoulder at my finished product, over which -- at that very moment -- Charlie was daintily stepping on his way to his favorite yellow bush.
I didn't realize how much shorter than my original fencing this new fencing was. Too short for our wildebeest, apparently.
But when I look at him and tell him "no," no matter how emphatically, he takes it as encouragement to continue doing what he is doing. And once he has cleared the fencing, he looks over his shoulder at me as if to say, "HA! *Now* whatcha gonna do about it?" So I order him out, post haste. And he comes to the inside edge of the fencing, looks down at it, looks up at me, and visibly struggles to "find a way out."
Never mind the fact that he found a way in without batting an eyelash.
So I suppose it's possible he's not a moron, and he's playing me. But we're not going to discuss that possibility.
Instead, I'm going to post this picture:
Remember that part about becoming apoplectic when strangers came over, and how he doesn't even *hear* the word "no"? The estimator came from the moving company (while BC was sleeping peacefully and not causing any trouble) and I put Charlie out in the entryway while she was there. We walked the entire upstairs while Charlie barked in the entryway. I thought that was the worst of his bad behavior. But then we started to go to the basement, for which you have to pass through the entryway. To my horror, I realized that Charlie had split his tail open as a result of his frenetic, nervous tail-wagging, and had painted our entryway in blood. I'm afraid the estimator thought this was some sort of house of horrors because I loudly exclaimed, "Oh no! Not again!" Indeed, this was not the first time Charlie had accomplished such a feat (though not in the entryway, or I would clearly be the moron for putting him in there). And it will doubtless not be the last.
In fact, he has repeatedly re-opened the old wound. Suffice it to say that he is not fit for company, and seldom sees any!
Matt would be very upset that I referred to our dog as a moron. Chances are, Cesar Millan would be too. I suppose it's my fault that my dog still cannot handle having visitors to the house. He becomes positively apoplectic whenever someone breaches our threshhold.
I suppose it's my fault that my dog cannot handle seeing, hearing or smelling other dogs. He becomes positively apoplectic when we pass another dog on a walk -- whining, jumping, barking, pulling on the leash. At all other times he's very well leash-trained and heels well. No dog owner whose dog has ever been within Charlie's line of sight on a walk would believe that.
I suppose it's my fault that my dog cannot process the word "no." Actually, I take that back. He can process it, and if it comes from me, his favorite thing to do is keep doing whatever he's doing. Case in point: our new gardens. The lady who lived here before had lovely gardens and kept them up well. At our old house, I had some lillies that I kept behind one of those little sectioned metal fences so that Charlie would leave them alone. They were interspersed among the rose of sharon, so he couldn't jump the little fences without braining himself on a tree trunk. (Come to think of it, I'm not sure we'd have notice a difference in his behavior had such a misfortune befallen him.) When we moved here, the previous owners' scottie dogs were apparently well-behaved enough not to bother her garden beds (or she was laid back enough not to care). [NB: The scottie dog reference will *definitely* require another post. My dear friend Missey will no doubt be most unhappy with me for saying it, but scotties have earned a special place in my heart -- the coldest, darkest, dankest place where black widow spiders lurk and guillotines are sharpened.]
I DIGRESS. The garden beds. These lovely beds were completely unprotected by any fencing. I knew immediately that this would not be uncomplicated. Sure enough, the first morning I let Charlie out, I couldn't find him after a little while when I looked out the kitchen window. And then a yellow flash caught my eye. It looked like just another branch of a large bush in our back yard, which had yellowish leaves on long stems. But it wasn't. It was Charlie's tail poking out from behind said bush, where he was doing heaven knows what. That soon became his favorite spot. I would frequently look out and see him lurking behind that bush. It is, of course, the spot farthest from the edge of the garden beds, giving him ample opportunity to trample completely the largest number of plants between him and his objective.
So I bought fencing. Cute little rounded sectioned white garden fencing. And I painstakingly put it up all around the biggest bed in the back yard. And I sneered triumphantly at him as I put it up. And as I rounded the last corner of the bed with the fencing, I looked over my shoulder at my finished product, over which -- at that very moment -- Charlie was daintily stepping on his way to his favorite yellow bush.
I didn't realize how much shorter than my original fencing this new fencing was. Too short for our wildebeest, apparently.
But when I look at him and tell him "no," no matter how emphatically, he takes it as encouragement to continue doing what he is doing. And once he has cleared the fencing, he looks over his shoulder at me as if to say, "HA! *Now* whatcha gonna do about it?" So I order him out, post haste. And he comes to the inside edge of the fencing, looks down at it, looks up at me, and visibly struggles to "find a way out."
Never mind the fact that he found a way in without batting an eyelash.
So I suppose it's possible he's not a moron, and he's playing me. But we're not going to discuss that possibility.
Instead, I'm going to post this picture:
Remember that part about becoming apoplectic when strangers came over, and how he doesn't even *hear* the word "no"? The estimator came from the moving company (while BC was sleeping peacefully and not causing any trouble) and I put Charlie out in the entryway while she was there. We walked the entire upstairs while Charlie barked in the entryway. I thought that was the worst of his bad behavior. But then we started to go to the basement, for which you have to pass through the entryway. To my horror, I realized that Charlie had split his tail open as a result of his frenetic, nervous tail-wagging, and had painted our entryway in blood. I'm afraid the estimator thought this was some sort of house of horrors because I loudly exclaimed, "Oh no! Not again!" Indeed, this was not the first time Charlie had accomplished such a feat (though not in the entryway, or I would clearly be the moron for putting him in there). And it will doubtless not be the last.
In fact, he has repeatedly re-opened the old wound. Suffice it to say that he is not fit for company, and seldom sees any!
Friday, May 7, 2010
New . . . everything!
I must say that this is an inauspicious commencement of my blogging activities. I had composed a really stellar post -- witty, clever, insightful and filled with fabulous information about our doings -- and blogger ate it.
So allow me to try again.
I thought I would start a blog about our "new life." Our little girl is now two months old, and we've been in our new house for one month. That means, for those of you who are Batchelders and can't quite manage the math, that we moved with a one-month-old child, which means we're crazy. Fortunately, the move was all of several miles. We've really moved up in the world, too. From Kenmorons to Barbertuckians. I look forward to discovering to which rung on the societal ladder the Fates will guide us next.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We found out we were pregnant in June of '09. I quickly discovered that my pregnancy had left me with a serious aversion to the smell of barbecue, just after we had bought Matt the grill of his dreams at the Rural King of Ohio. He took it well.
Then we went to a conference in Illinois, which was very fun and informative -- all about the American West. I know. It doesn't sound riveting. But I have to say that, to my surprise, I enjoyed it a great deal. The farewell dinner was the kicker, though. They had a pig roast. That might have been fine because I couldn't smell roasting, but they took the carcass and slapped it on a platter and put it on the buffet table. So there he was, head and all, stuffed and progressively more gutted as the evening wore on.
I ate fruit salad for dinner.
But that is a minor matter. Our big focus during the pregnancy was on my not being a whiner. But after that, our focus was on having a natural birth. We enrolled in Bradley classes in my fifth month. Matt was fantastic. He never missed a class, even though we had to drive 45 minutes each way on school nights after he'd had a full teaching day. We learned all about being consumers of our health care, and having the right to say that we didn't want what was being offered to us or to question what we were told. After lots of preparation, we were as ready as we were going to be.
Meanwhile we were house hunting, recognizing that we were a bit touched for doing all of this at once. Our realtor was phenomenal. We ended up with a lovely ranch with 3 bedrooms, a completely finished basement with an extra kitchen (who knew I'd be able to say, nonchalantly, "Oh, you can put that in the *extra kitchen*"???), a huge backyard (huge for us; it's on nearly .7 acres) and a lovely back deck. Charlie loves it. More on him later. (More on . . . moron . . .)
AAAAAAnyhoo, we had one heck of a realtor arguing for us. She got us a fair price and we were set to have a home inspection on March 1, my due date. Noooobody goes into labor with their first child *on* their due date, right?
Apparently, a home inspection that includes a healthy tromp around the grounds through snow drifts, followed by a biscuit bowl at Bob Evans does in fact bring on a rapid labor. Or something. I've suggested to the home inspector that he could use this as a marketing point, but I want a cut of the ensuing profits. He's dragging his feet.
After a successful inspection and a lovely biscuit bowl dinner, we went home. 45 minutes later or so, I was in labor. It wasn't one of those, "Hmm, is this labor?" things. Nope. It was BAM, that was a contraction. Within 15 minutes or so, another BAM. And after that, it was off to the races with no two contractions more than 10 minutes apart. By the time we got the hospital just before 10:00 p.m., I was 7 cm.
My midwife was beyond description -- but "phenomenal" will have to suffice.
(Sue, saying hi to BC 7 weeks later.)
I also had a fantastic doula.
(My hands were not relaxed. I was trying to keep the rest of me relaxed!)
But the real props go to Matt, who kept me mostly calm and was a rock himself.
(During labor, between contractions!)
I am proud to say that I didn't ask for any drugs at any time. I was absurdly obstinate and refused to change positions to help the labor along, but I'm not pregnant any more, so it must have worked out okay. On 3/2/10 at 3:21 a.m., our little Bear Cub entered the world. Actually, it would be more apt to say she burst onto the scene. (I got a little sick of pushing and not feeling like I was getting anywhere.) She was screaming before she could even be suctioned (and not much changed for about a month) and was pink and healthy. Her daddy caught her on her way out, but just barely. It's okay. Sue's hands were there if his missed.
I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that she was a girl. We were so prepared to have a boy. (No official word that it would be; just a remarkably misled hunch.) She was amazing.
And I was hooked!
So now here we are, a family of three.
Plus Charlie,
who does *not* understand why we've brought home a cat.
We have already had many adventures. Today, for instance, our adventure started at 6:30 a.m. and didn't end until 12:45, when we finally decided to take a for-crying-out-loud nap. Apparently the nap was brought on by the massive blowout in the disposable diaper that then came undone and leaked all over our playmat, prompting Mummy to whisk us into the bathroom sink for a bath, during and after which we were required by the Code of Baby to scream like a banshee having her nails pulled out one by one. It was utterly exhausting. Mummy uses cloth diapers, and this episode is why. That'll learn her to run out of diaper covers before washing them all at once.
But, as our dear friends have reminded us, G.K. Chesterton once said, "An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." Perhaps G.K. Chesterton would've liked to babysit.
So allow me to try again.
I thought I would start a blog about our "new life." Our little girl is now two months old, and we've been in our new house for one month. That means, for those of you who are Batchelders and can't quite manage the math, that we moved with a one-month-old child, which means we're crazy. Fortunately, the move was all of several miles. We've really moved up in the world, too. From Kenmorons to Barbertuckians. I look forward to discovering to which rung on the societal ladder the Fates will guide us next.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We found out we were pregnant in June of '09. I quickly discovered that my pregnancy had left me with a serious aversion to the smell of barbecue, just after we had bought Matt the grill of his dreams at the Rural King of Ohio. He took it well.
Then we went to a conference in Illinois, which was very fun and informative -- all about the American West. I know. It doesn't sound riveting. But I have to say that, to my surprise, I enjoyed it a great deal. The farewell dinner was the kicker, though. They had a pig roast. That might have been fine because I couldn't smell roasting, but they took the carcass and slapped it on a platter and put it on the buffet table. So there he was, head and all, stuffed and progressively more gutted as the evening wore on.
I ate fruit salad for dinner.
But that is a minor matter. Our big focus during the pregnancy was on my not being a whiner. But after that, our focus was on having a natural birth. We enrolled in Bradley classes in my fifth month. Matt was fantastic. He never missed a class, even though we had to drive 45 minutes each way on school nights after he'd had a full teaching day. We learned all about being consumers of our health care, and having the right to say that we didn't want what was being offered to us or to question what we were told. After lots of preparation, we were as ready as we were going to be.
Meanwhile we were house hunting, recognizing that we were a bit touched for doing all of this at once. Our realtor was phenomenal. We ended up with a lovely ranch with 3 bedrooms, a completely finished basement with an extra kitchen (who knew I'd be able to say, nonchalantly, "Oh, you can put that in the *extra kitchen*"???), a huge backyard (huge for us; it's on nearly .7 acres) and a lovely back deck. Charlie loves it. More on him later. (More on . . . moron . . .)
AAAAAAnyhoo, we had one heck of a realtor arguing for us. She got us a fair price and we were set to have a home inspection on March 1, my due date. Noooobody goes into labor with their first child *on* their due date, right?
Apparently, a home inspection that includes a healthy tromp around the grounds through snow drifts, followed by a biscuit bowl at Bob Evans does in fact bring on a rapid labor. Or something. I've suggested to the home inspector that he could use this as a marketing point, but I want a cut of the ensuing profits. He's dragging his feet.
After a successful inspection and a lovely biscuit bowl dinner, we went home. 45 minutes later or so, I was in labor. It wasn't one of those, "Hmm, is this labor?" things. Nope. It was BAM, that was a contraction. Within 15 minutes or so, another BAM. And after that, it was off to the races with no two contractions more than 10 minutes apart. By the time we got the hospital just before 10:00 p.m., I was 7 cm.
My midwife was beyond description -- but "phenomenal" will have to suffice.
(Sue, saying hi to BC 7 weeks later.)I also had a fantastic doula.
(My hands were not relaxed. I was trying to keep the rest of me relaxed!)
But the real props go to Matt, who kept me mostly calm and was a rock himself.
(During labor, between contractions!)I am proud to say that I didn't ask for any drugs at any time. I was absurdly obstinate and refused to change positions to help the labor along, but I'm not pregnant any more, so it must have worked out okay. On 3/2/10 at 3:21 a.m., our little Bear Cub entered the world. Actually, it would be more apt to say she burst onto the scene. (I got a little sick of pushing and not feeling like I was getting anywhere.) She was screaming before she could even be suctioned (and not much changed for about a month) and was pink and healthy. Her daddy caught her on her way out, but just barely. It's okay. Sue's hands were there if his missed.
I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that she was a girl. We were so prepared to have a boy. (No official word that it would be; just a remarkably misled hunch.) She was amazing.
And I was hooked!
So now here we are, a family of three.
Plus Charlie,
who does *not* understand why we've brought home a cat.
We have already had many adventures. Today, for instance, our adventure started at 6:30 a.m. and didn't end until 12:45, when we finally decided to take a for-crying-out-loud nap. Apparently the nap was brought on by the massive blowout in the disposable diaper that then came undone and leaked all over our playmat, prompting Mummy to whisk us into the bathroom sink for a bath, during and after which we were required by the Code of Baby to scream like a banshee having her nails pulled out one by one. It was utterly exhausting. Mummy uses cloth diapers, and this episode is why. That'll learn her to run out of diaper covers before washing them all at once.
But, as our dear friends have reminded us, G.K. Chesterton once said, "An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." Perhaps G.K. Chesterton would've liked to babysit.
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