Middle Spoon

If you have never heard the phrase "Middle Spoon," please let me explain.  Spooning is when two people lay down next to each other on their sides and one person's body forms a spoon shape around the person in front of them.

You can only have a middle spoon, however, if there are three people laying next to one another.  The middle spoon is being spooned by the person on one side of them and spooning the person on the other side of them.

You can call middle spoon much like you would call shotgun.

In our household, I regularly hold the spot of middle spoon.  Gwen, at 8 months, is sleeping in our bed. Keith is on my left, and, except for rare occasions, Gwen is on my right.  Gwen sometimes wins the coveted position of middle spoon if my back starts hurting from nursing her on one side too much, but usually she is on my right so I can lay her in her co-sleeper inspired crib when I feel the need to only have two people and a poodle in the bed rather than three people and a poodle.

While I am in the middle spoon position in the bed, we don't lay like spoons.  More often than not, if I lay on my side, Gwen faces me for easy food access.  Plus, I am a stomach and back sleeper - not a side sleeper - so if I were any kitchen utensil I would likely be a knife.

Last night, I was filled with giggles after I made some observations about our sleeping arrangement.  I was laying on my back with Gwen nuzzled up next to me.  I had my arm stretched out across the top of her head and bent back towards the headboard.  My other arm was bent and draped across my belly.  Then I noticed that Keith's arm was in contact with my head in the same way that my arm was in contact with Gwen's head.  His arm, like mine, was folded back towards the headboard.  His other arm, like mine, was bent and draped across his belly.  At this point I thought, "We couldn't be more perfect for each other."  Then I looked over to admire Gwen, and I noticed that her right arm was stretched out above her lamb stuffed animal in the same way that Keith and I had our arms stretched out and her other arm was bent and draped across her belly.  Please see diagram below:

I don't know what type of utensil we were, but whatever it was we were all the same utensil.

Making friends

I am facing an interesting problem for the first time in my life.  I have absolutely no bloomin' idea how to make friends.  I am 27 years old (I'll be 28 in just a couple of weeks), and all of my friends have kind of been handed to me on a silver platter.  Let me explain.

When you are a little kid, as I once was, you are automatically friends with anyone who lives on your street or any of your parents' friends' children.  It is a given.  Let's call it friendship by proximity.  There isn't much to friendship at that point.  Do you like to play outside?  Do you like barbies?  Do you like cartoons?  Cool.  Let's be friends.  Early friendships in life are easy to come by.  Or at least I assume so.  I guess I don't really remember that part of my life clearly, so I could be romanticizing what it is to be 3 years old.  And, if you don't have real life friends, I'm pretty sure those of the imaginary variety are even easier to make.

When you start school, you become friends with the kids in your class.  If you go to the same school from 1st grade through high school graduation, like I did, you often know the same circle of people from beginning to end.  You spend quite a bit of time with them, you live near them, you have something in common - you go to the same school, you are both children/teenagers, etc - so you are friends.

Then you go to college.  Once again, you often become friends with the "kids" in your class.  There are a few awkward days before class starts where you make your temporary friends.  You all know what I am talking about.  These are the people who would not be your first choice for friends, but you don't have any friends yet, so you make do with the temporary friends until you connect with the people you like better.  Then you don't have to pretend to like the original, temporary college friends anymore because you get to hang out with people who you actually like a lot better.  It's okay though.  Your temporary friends felt the same way and have moved on to their new friends, so no feelings are hurt.  While I did have some first week friends at college who I never really made an effort to hang out with ever again, I would see them on campus and they became friends of friends, so I would talk to them from time to time.  I guess we always had the first week of college in common.  While I did make temporary friends, I also had the benefit of a couple of friends from high school going to my college, so I knew people right from the start.

After college, I went to graduate school.  I didn't even have an awkward time where I made temporary friends before classes started for 2 reasons.  1.) My best friend just happened to apply to the same graduate school program as me, so we both moved to Columbus to go to OSU, and 2.) I went to Europe between college and graduate school, and had about 12 hours between when my flight landed back in the US and my grad school orientation.  So I may not have had any friends for those 12 hours, other than the friend I brought with me, but that quickly changed.

I changed graduate programs after a couple of years.  During graduate program 1 I had made friends, joined a church where I also made friends, and had gotten married.  When I started graduate program 2, I not only got to keep my old friends, but I also made new friends.  That is pretty much awesomesauce when it comes to making friends.

But now my dilemma: I have been living in Pittsburgh for 2 months now and I don't really have any friends here of which to speak and I don't know how to make friends.  I'm not really sad about this - I keep pretty busy with Gwen and Keith, and I talk to my family every few days on the phone.  I also talk to friends from other parts of the country from time to time.  I'm just stating a fact that I am at a loss for how a grown-up stay-at-home mom makes friends.

I know I will make friends when we pick a church, but we haven't liked the churches that we have tried.  Keith and his colleagues are way too busy to hang out outside of work, so I have only met them a couple of times and I couldn't tell you the name of any of their significant others.  We joined the CMDA (Christian Medical and Dental Association), but have only been to one event, and are unsure of the next time we will see any of those people.  I put Gwen in Gymboree so I could at least see other grown-ups a few times a week.  I have made some progress in meeting some other mommies, but it is one of those things that takes time to get to know people, especially when people attend classes on a hit-or-miss basis.  I don't want to be the creepy person who meets someone once, asks them for their phone number, and then calls them 30 minutes later to see if they want to get coffee (that is a good way to get your phone number blocked).

Really, what I need is some sort of mommy dating service.  You make an online account and can make dates with other mommies in your area.  You can match in 29 areas of compatibility: child's age, nap time, coffee drinker vs. non coffee drinker, etc.  I read about something like this in Baby Talk magazine, and now I could kick myself for not writing down the web address.  (Note: if anyone knows what I am talking about and did write down the web address, I would appreciate it if you could share it with me - I think it was in the January issue).

I've just got to say that I am thankful that I met and married Keith while in school.  Now I know why so many love stories start with "We met in a bar" or "We met online."  Because once you become a real, grown-up person, especially a grown-up person without a job, the playing field becomes a whole lot smaller for dating and friendship.

Babylemia

My friend Jess and I joke that her baby has babyrexia and my baby has babylemia.  You see, Payton was almost 10 pounds when she was born.  She is now almost a year and she weighs in somewhere between 15 and 16 pounds.  Gwen, on the other hand, was 6 pounds when she was born.  She is now 8 months and about 20.5 pounds.  Oh, and she eats until she spits up.

I knew when she started taking Zantac that it wouldn't prevent spitting up.  It decreased the stomach acid, but the doctor informed me that we would still have the laundry issues.  Thankfully, however, once she started the medicine, she stopped eating so much.  She had been eating to quell the pain from the stomach acid, so without the pain she didn't feel the need to eat as often.  That lasted all of a month or so, until she realized that, 1.) She really likes to eat, and 2.) She was disgruntled because we were packing, selling our house, and moving, and she needed a coping mechanism for all of the change.

When Gwen was born she was tiny.  She was only 6 pounds, approximately the 5th percentile for weight.  When she was 1 month old she was only 7 pounds.  Then the reflux started and by the time she was 2 months she was 10 pounds.  When she was 4 months she was 15.5 pounds (from 2 months of constant eating).  This may not sound very big for a 4 month old, but she was super short, so she looked like a little sumo wrestler.  Shortly after that, we started the Zantac, and over the next 2 months she only gained 1.5 pounds, was not eating as often, and gained some height.  She was starting to slim out, and was becoming more active.

Over the last 6-7 weeks, since we have moved from Columbus, Gwen has turned back into a cream puff.  She gained over 3 pounds, and I don't think she gained any inches.  I'm not really surprised that she gained weight so quickly.  She is eating every 1-2 hours day and night (yes, night too).  I try to not feed her during the night, but I have gotten so tired that I don't have the energy to fight her.  The first few times she wakes up I am still awake (she usually wakes up about 3 times during the 2 hours between when I put her to bed and when I go to bed) and I try to soothe her back to sleep without the aid of milk.  After that, however, I give up and do anything it takes to get her to go back to sleep quickly so I can go back to sleep quickly.

Her babylemia is so bad that she would be perfectly content being latched on to my chest 24 hours a day, alternating eating and spitting up.  You think I'm exaggerating.  I'm not.  I have had a few instances where I have used breast milk as kryptonite in order to get some peace.  One such time, I was making a phone call to an old friend.  Gwen did need to eat, but she is usually able to finish eating in about 5 minutes.  She stayed latched on for 45 minutes.  I didn't think this was a problem (you know, whatever makes her happy!) until she spit up while she was still latched on.  I had warm, curdled milk running down my abdomen.  She spent the rest of the day spitting up since her belly was so full.  Even though she was full, if I would have offered to let her nurse again I can tell you without a doubt that she would have accepted.

One of the funniest things to witness when it comes to Gwen is her post-bath bedtime routine (it makes me laugh so hard that if I were not exposed during this process to feed her I would video tape her).  She is generally happy in the bath.  But the bath is a wonderful place in which rubber duckies float and the edge of the tub is the perfect height for standing.  When we take her out of the bath she is upset about 2 things: she is no longer in the bath and she is not eating.  Less than 3 minutes elapse between exiting the tub and her bedtime meal, but those three minutes are filled with angry yelling and crying from Gwen.  In order to expedite the process, Keith will dry her off and put her diaper on while I get ready in the glider.  I'll put a pillow on my lap to bring her up to the correct height and will pull my shirt up so she can begin eating immediately.  Gwen also wants to be sure that she begins eating immediately, so much so that Keith will turn her horizontal when she is still halfway across the room and she will open her mouth when she is still 3-4 feet away - Gwen doesn't want to waste valuable time having to open her mouth to eat after she is on my lap.  She is always prepared.  She is like a milk seeking missile, locked, loaded, and coming in for landing on my breast.

I was worried that Gwen might already have overridden her full signal, but that appears to be intact.  She will drink breastmilk all the livelong day, but if you try to give her one too many bites of solid food you end up with a screaming baby on your hands.  

naptime (aka screamfest)

Gwen has had several highs and lows when it comes to napping.  I would have to say the lowest low came after our first move (for those of you who don't know, it took us 3 moves to get from Columbus to Pittsburgh).  We would rock her to sleep and she would usually cry for about 30 minutes before each nap.  Cry is actually an understatement; she would scream.  No wonder she has had laryngitis three times already.  30 minutes of crying once a day wouldn't have been so bad, but she was taking 4-5 naps a day and would also cry like that before bedtime.  Sometimes, after a half hour of trying, we would give up and let her be awake and cranky for a little while before trying again.  At least cranky was better than screaming.  This meant that daily she was crying (i.e. screaming) at least 3 hours.

After we moved the second time, into a short term apartment in Pittsburgh, I was able to reign in her crying to only about 10 minutes at each nap by letting her nap in our bed instead of in her pack and play (we didn't have a crib with us after we left my in-laws' house until we moved into our house).  She was, however, still super grumpy during her awake time as she refused to sleep more than 30 minutes at a time.

The day we moved into our house, something magical happened.  Gwen only took 3 naps.  And one of them was more than an hour!  As the weeks have passed in Pittsburgh (we have been here about 7 weeks now), Gwen has gone from taking five 30 minute naps to taking two 80 minute naps.  I very much prefer the latter.  She is generally happier during the day, she is able to stay awake for more than 90 minutes without melting into a puddle of tears,  and (the best part) I only have to fight her to go to sleep 3 times a day now (2 naps and bedtime).

For the past month or so, naptime had actually become a peaceful, enjoyable experience.  Gwen might fuss or cry for a few minutes, but she would eventually cuddle up next to me (yes, she was still in our bed or being rocked to sleep in a chair) and quietly drift into dreamland.  But in the past week she has decided that laying down is for the birds.  She knows how to crawl.  She knows how to stand.  And she is going to use her new skills, so help her.

I tried just letting her walk around the perimeter of her crib, hoping that she would tire herself out, lay down, and go to sleep (note: her crib is attached to our bed as a co-sleeper right now - it only has three sides, so it's not even like she is having to nap by herself - I am right there!).  No such luck.  She would eventually either hold onto the edge of the crib and scream because she was tired and couldn't fall asleep while standing, but was unwilling to lie down, or she would get so sleepy she would start tripping and falling over (onto a soft mattress) where she would start screaming because a.) she was no longer standing, and b.) apparently falling onto a soft mattress from standing is the end of the world.

So I started resorting to pinning her down.  This is a miserable process.  We'll use this nap as an example (she is napping next to me in our bed, and Simba has decided the crib is his bed for this nap).  We just made a big shopping trip and she fell asleep in the car as we were pulling into our neighborhood.  Often, when she has been asleep in the car for 10 minutes or more, I will just drive around and let her take her nap in the car since I don't want to have to fight her.  But by the time we pulled into the driveway, she had been asleep for just 30 seconds, so I couldn't see the point of wasting gas.  She woke up as soon as I turned off the car.  We went inside and straight to bed.  I turned out the light.  I turned on the sound machine.  I nursed her.  She was happy, and since she had just fallen asleep in the car, I knew she was sleepy (she had been awake for almost 4 hours).  I was hopeful that she would roll over after eating and fall right asleep.  I was even halfway tempted to nurse her to sleep in order to keep the peace, but that is a habit that I have had to break more than once after having nights where I get woken about 20 times.  Instead of falling right to sleep, she rolled over onto her side, but then kept rolling onto her belly.  She hates being on her belly, so as soon as her belly hits any surface, she pulls her knees up underneath her and starts to crawl.  When she starts to crawl she usually sets her sights on something that she can pull herself up with so she can stand and walk (since apparently, less than 2 weeks after learning to crawl, crawling is already for the birds...why crawl when you can cruise along furniture?).  So she headed for the crib rails, and I knew that any hope that I had for a peaceful transition into dreamland was gone.  After several minutes of her crawling, pulling herself up, standing, cruising, crying, me pulling her down to laying, and it all starting over again, I finally laid her down next to me, put pressure on her hip so she couldn't roll, and just hugged her while she cried herself to sleep.

Unfortunately, I think we are currently at a napping low.  Thankfully, however, it only happens twice a day, and at least she is getting pretty good at locomotion.

Bathing with Baby

I heard friends talk about how difficult it was to shower daily after a baby came.  For the first two weeks after Gwen was born, however, I would shower a couple of times a day.  Keith was home on paternity leave, and because my pregnancy hormones were trying to normalize to non-pregnancy hormones, I was cold all the time and could only get warm by standing under near scalding water.  Plus, they warn you to take warm (not hot) showers during pregnancy - I guess it can harm the baby? - and I am partial to super hot showers, so I had to make up for 9 months of luke warm showers.

That quickly changed when Keith went back to work.  Gwen did not like to be set down.  She would cry each time she was set down.  The doctor said it was normal and to just hold her several hours a day (they go from being carried around in your womb 24 hours a day to living in a cold, independent world - can you blame them?), but I now think that it may have been foreshadowing things to come.  I would generally hold her about 21 hours a day, Keith for 2 hours a day, and I would be able to set her down for about an hour a day, in 10 minute chunks.  At that age, it can be damaging psychologically to let them cry as they are learning trust at that point (and I was never fond of the idea of crying it out), so it was more stressful to me to shower than to stay dirty until Keith got home.  But often by the time he got home, I would be so tired all I would want to do was veg on the couch.

Gwen and I got into a routine over the next several months.  When she was around 5 or 6 weeks old, she became more tolerant of being set down.  She didn't like being left alone, but if I put her in a bouncy seat in the bathroom, she would sit quietly while I showered.  I wasn't able to shower every day, but it was becoming a more frequent event.

When we were moving, shortly after Gwen turned 6 months old, I was lucky if I got to shower 2-3 times a week.  She was in some strange places, Keith was super busy with work, and she was clinging to mommy like saran wrap.  While I still refuse to let her cry it out, I am not against letting her struggle and cry for 10 minutes if I am in the middle of doing something.  I will help her if she needs it, and I will meet her psychological needs, but she does need to learn some independence.  However, if she has already spent 4 hours of the day crying, I will forsake cleanliness for quiet, and will cuddle her and play with her instead of letting her go it alone while I take a shower.

Thankfully, she has grown calmer as she has become more familiar with our new home.  She also thinks that it is funny when mommy takes a bath, so I have been able to set her on the bath mat just outside of the tub with some toys scattered around and she has been able to entertain herself for the most part.  Sometimes she starts to get fussy, and we will play a round of shower curtain peek-a-boo.  I will first peek out of the left side of the tub, then the right, then the left, then the right, then the right.  She recognizes the left-right-left-right pattern, and tries to find me on the left side the 5th time, which is why I change it up and do the right side the 5th time.  She thinks this is hilarious.  I am usually able to wash and condition my hair and accomplish one other beauty process (whether it be shaving, exfoliating, a facial scrub, pumicing my feet) before she has decided that mommy has been having mommy time entirely too long and needs to start back with Gwen time.

Showers got both easier and more challenging at the same time about a week ago.  Gwen learned to crawl.  This has been a blessing as she is better able to entertain herself.  She can set a goal (a toy that is farther than arms reach) and achieve that goal (get said toy) without mommy's help.  I have actually been able to accomplish some chores and cook some hot dinners this week.  But in the shower, mommy is behind a curtain and Gwen doesn't like that.  When she first started crawling, she was content to pull the shower curtain to the side so she could see mommy.  This allowed some water to spray out of the shower, but I was usually able to aim the shower head to avoid making too big of a mess.  That didn't last long.  She quickly became obsessed with crawling to things, pulling herself up and trying to climb (thankfully she has not yet figured out the mechanics or developed the strength to climb, but that hasn't diminished her spirit and determination).  This has created a problem both when I bathe and when Gwen bathes.  When I am in the shower, she now tries to pull herself up on the slippery bathtub (slippery because she has pulled the curtain back and the side of the tub has gotten sprayed with water).  She is usually fine, until she tries to a.) let go with one, or both hands, b.) cruise along the side of the tub, or c.) climb in, at which point she usually slips, loses her balance, and falls all the way to the floor where she hits her head on the ceramic tile.  I think this scares her more than it hurts, but I can't imagine that ceramic tile is entirely a pleasant sensation on the back of one's head.  At this point, she melts down into a puddle of tears and shower water and wants mommy to comfort her.  The problem is that mommy is soaking wet and is covered in soap, and usually tries to just say, "You're okay.  I know that was probably a bit scary, but you're not hurt.  Just get up and play with some toys."  This usually doesn't work, and I rush through the rest of my shower.

When Gwen bathes, she has decided that she wants to stand up the entire time.  She is standing in water, grabbing the slippery, wet side of the bathtub, and is covered in slippery soap, so you can imagine that this does not go well.  When Keith gives her a bath, he just makes her sit back down.  Her response?  Screaming because apparently sitting is the end of the world.  When I give her a bath, I usually get two birds with one stone by just taking a bath with her.  She tries to stand, but I don't really mind because I am with her and she isn't going to fall and bang her head or drown.  But recently she has decided that my leg makes a good step for trying to climb out of the tub, so I don't know how much longer this might last.

Bathing has not been the peaceful experience that it was before Gwen was born, but last night my mother-in-law was baby sitting because Keith had a happy hour for work.  She showed up early enough that I was able to take a shower all by myself!  I don't remember the last time when I didn't have little infant eyes glaring at me while I have been in the shower!  I felt so spoiled - you would think that I had been given a day at the spa with how excited I was.  I went all out with my pampering - I got to shave both the tops and the bottoms of my legs in the same shower (lately it has been and either or thing because doing both seems to take enough time to push Gwen over the edge).  When I got out of the shower, I blow dried my hair and straightened it.  Then I put on make-up!  Some mommies out there might think, "What's the big deal?  I do that every day."  To them I say, "You try to deal with Gwen day in and day out while your hubby works 70 hours a week and see how often you end up showered and properly groomed."  She won't even nap by herself for more than 30 minutes for me to sneak off, shower, and get ready!  Those mommies out there who don't have the perfect baby, however, know exactly what it is like to sometimes have a smelly, non-showered day.

Breastfeeding food for thought...since I can afford the calories

Last weekend, I went to a baby shower and gave the mommy to be a breastfeeding care package.  I even found a breastfeeding card!  It said, "I know breastfeeding can be exhausting, but think of the extra 500 calories you get a day...I recommend chocolate."  This made me contemplate calories burned while breastfeeding and inspired me to calculate how many calories I have burned.  I have been breastfeeding for almost 8 months.  That is about 240 days.  Breastfeeding burns between 500 and 600 calories a day, so we'll estimate 550.  That's 132,000 calories.  Divide that by 3600 (there are 3600 calories in a pound) and you get about 37.  That means I am 37 pounds lighter than I would have been eating this way without breastfeeding.  Needless to say, I (and my waistline) am very happy with my decision.

You really need to fix that (aka the least helpful advice ever)

I realize that my baby is a grumpy little monster (read as a term of endearment) almost daily.  I also realize that she probably falls in the bottom 1-2% for sleep quality for babies her age.  I talk about this pretty often on my facebook status updates and blog because that is what happens to be going on in my life.  I live in a city where the only person that I know is my husband, and I spend my days with a tiny human who communicates by grunting and crying and a small dog who has decided as of late that the most effective way to get my attention is by trying to lick my face (it is pretty effective - just try to ignore it; it won't work).  My life is currently comprised of trying to make Queen Gwen and the Royal Hound Simba happy all day.

Every once in a while I get a chance to communicate with the outside world, and from those infrequent communications I have discovered the least helpful advice that exists: "You really need to fix that."  To give you an idea of a situation in which I have received this advice (several times), see the conversation that follows:

Advice Guru: How many times did Gwen wake up last night?
Me: I lost count.  Maybe 8 or 9.
AG: Did she have any long stretches of sleep?
Me: One stretch was almost 2 hours.
AG: You really need to fix that.

At this point in the conversation, I generally think of several snarky responses, all of which I am too polite to say. Oh, but I really enjoy waking up hourly!  I hope that she keeps this up until she goes away to college. Or I haven't thought of that!  You mean, all I have to do is fix it and then she will sleep? Or Why don't I just drop her off at your house?  You sound like you are so full of answers that I am pretty sure that you can have it fixed by tomorrow!


The second least helpful thing you can say to me is, "well, at least she is healthy!  You should count your blessings!"  Note: I am thankful that my baby is healthy.  I thank God for that all the time.  But please don't discount that it can be difficult to raise a healthy baby too.  Yesterday, at Gymboree, I was talking to the leader about how Gwen had been crying for the 2 hours leading up to class.  Later, she was talking about how she just got back from a humanitarian trip to Russia and about the attachment issues the babies in the orphanages there have.  Later, when Gwen started crying again and I said something about how I'm just biding my time until she can crawl because right now she cries for my help when she wants a toy that she can't reach (and, yes, I realize that crawling probably won't take away her grumpiness, but a girl can hope, right?), and the leader said, "At least you know she is attached!"  This really rubbed me the wrong way.  It felt like a slap in the face followed by, "You ungrateful fool!"

I never compared Gwen to Russian orphans; I know her grumpiness and my lack of sleep are first world problems.  I also try my best to not compare her to the less grumpy babies around her, as that doesn't do anyone any good.  I just try to focus on my own child.  And sometimes being around her kind of sucks.  I have come to terms with that.  It doesn't mean I love her any less.  In fact, sitting with her and trying to cuddle the monster out of her for several hours a day has maybe makes me love her a little more.


Sometimes I vent, and I really appreciate supportive friends and family who come up beside me and say, "Wow. That stinks.  I hope things get better soon."  That is helpful and very much appreciated.