motherhood Archives - Page 11 of 14 - The Ten Thousand Hour Mama

Motherhood this week

October 15, 2014catherinemryan

“I should remember this.”

The thought strikes me every day as Peeper does something funny or sweet or ridiculous, yet I don’t keep a baby book and I haven’t updated my Peeper journal for months. I’m afraid all the tiny moments will slip into oblivion while I mark only the big ones.

Here, then, are a few glimpses into our everyday lives. These won’t make the front page headlines, but I think they’re worth recording.

Friends with Freddy. Our downstairs neighbors decorated for Halloween, draping the bear statues with fake spiderwebs and hanging spooky critters. They also put up a lifesize paper cutout of a Freddy Krueger lookalike, which bares its sharp teeth at us as we walk toward our door.

Whenever we walk past, Peeper says “Hi!” to Freddy in her cheeriest voice.

“You’ll know to worry if she starts saying ‘hi’ to her closet,” my brother said.

Pumped up at the park. Yesterday Peeper was a beast on the playground. She was struggling to get up the first big step on the play structure but didn’t ask for help (“hep!”), so I didn’t intervene. She kicked her leg up to shoulder height and somehow pulled herself onto the step.

She was too busy moving on to the next one to celebrate or even recognize her accomplishment.

She climbed up and down the rest of our time there but by the end, she was clearly getting tired. Instead of giving up, though, she’d grunt and yell with the effort of dragging her little body onto the first step. She reminded me of a bodybuilder or Maria Sharipova. Peeper’s a beast!

Toddler irony. Peeper recently discovered my underwear drawer. She opens my nightstand, drapes my bras around her neck and tosses my undies over her shoulder.

I figured that since she was happy and occupied, I’d change her diaper while she played there. When I came back with a clean dipes, I realized she had pooped—on my lingerie.

Well, I guess that’s kind of what it’s for.

The kicker: She’s done this twice in the last week. That’ll teach me.

Family plans. Verizon and AT&T got nothin’ on Annie’s. Peeper has been using anything and everything—a box of mac n’ cheese, a cup of crayons, the remote control, a package of oatmeal—to call her grandma.

“Nana, Nana,” she says while cradling the object near her ear.

We’ll see if messaging and data rates apply.

How did you record your kids’ everyday antics?

15 months

October 13, 2014catherinemryan

The world is a wacky place, and at 15 months old, Peeper is really starting to grapple with it.

First off, it’s confusing. I’m always feeding Peeper mushrooms and berries at home, but when she tries to eat them when we’re on walks outside, I freak out. What gives? And she throws dirty diapers in the pail, but I take out the toys, magazines and my hairbrush that she oh so helpfully tosses in, too. All these arbitrary rules are hard to follow.

Secondly, it’s scary. Nana got Peeper a book that makes animal noises when you open the flaps, and my bug started crying at the first electronic “moo.” She ran away—and came right back. She seemed to be torn between fear of and fascination with it. I had to cut her off when she started whimpering when we looked at animals in other books.

She’s also pretty intimidated by other kids. When we recently got together with the One Weekers—a group of baby friends born within a seven days of each other—Peeper was a bit out of sorts. The other toddlers just had to look at her sideways to set her off. She required a lot of cuddling when the other kids ran around and fought over blocks.

Yet Peeper is also overcoming her fears—at least, in one case, with the help of noise-muffling headphones. We went to a Timbers game knowing we might have to bail early, considering Peeper is terrified of loud noises. But once she got used to the cushy headphones covering her ears, she didn’t mind the soccer match. I spent most of it chasing her around the restaurant, but I counted it as a huge win.

International Babywearing Week

October 10, 2014catherinemryan

It’s International Babywearing Week—and coincidentally, I switched from carrying Peeper on my front to my back, too.

At 15 months, she’s not exactly newborn-weight anymore, and schlepping her around on my front was doing a serious number on my back. I’m still not super confident about getting her on my back, but I *hope* it’ll get easier with practice.

As you may be able to tell, she doesn’t like the backseat as much as riding shotgun, but she still points to things (ivy! gutters! cars!) from her place on my back.

Being able to wear Peeper has been key to my ability to care for her and Finn. Our walks rarely stick to the sidewalks, so most times a stroller is out of the question. And having to carry her in my arms—along with a leash, poop bag and umbrella—would be an exercise in insanity. I’m so grateful for my carrier (a lillebaby, which I’ve been very happy with).

Besides walks around the neighborhood, I have also worn Peeper at the store, when hiking Portland’s incredible trails and when interviewing sources for stories I write. Babywearing allows me to be flexible—and to use my hands when I need them and need to keep my little close.

How do you get your little from A to B? Any advice for me as a newbie back carrier?

Bachelorette party reflections

September 26, 2014catherinemryan

The other night I went out like I haven’t gone out in years.

I joined a bunch of girlfriends for a bachelorette party. We went to the kind of place that gives you a paper bracelet for getting a table and stamps the inside of your wrist, that has a swing above the bar, that men try to hit on you until they realize they’re roughly a decade younger than you.

In all its trashy ridiculousness, we had fun.

The next morning I felt pretty miserable—not from a hangover (I had a cocktail at dinner but sipped water at the bar, thank goodness) but because I went to bed late, woke up in the middle of the night to get Peeper back to sleep and got up before dawn with a certain toddler who thought it’d be great timing to start her crib calisthenics routine.

Walking Finn and Peeper to the park that morning, I glanced down and noticed the stamp and bracelet. They seemed so incongruous to my reality as a mom that I had to laugh. Maybe my early-20s self would laugh that I get buzzed off one drink and can’t handle wearing heels for more than an hour and would rather hang out at the playground than barhop. But that’s where I am in my life, and I don’t mind. The view is pretty good from here.

A motherhood mulligan

September 23, 2014catherinemryan

Eric and I have been disc golfing together since we met. When we first started dating, we’d drive to Dexter State Park and play a round, flirting between throws.

Now that we’ve been married for six years and have a toddler, disc golfing looks a little different: I skip most holes because I’m too busy chasing Peeper and preventing her from eating rocks, sticks and hunks of dirt. But one thing hasn’t changed—I still call “mulligan” when I hit a tree with my drive. I don’t keep score anyway, so what’s the harm in a little do-over?

I was recently interviewed by friend and former colleague Lee Walker Helland about motherhood mulligans—the things we wish we could have done differently. Her story, First-Year Do-Overs, just ran in American Baby. (Take a peek to read my interview and hear what other moms would have changed about getting out of the house, accepting help and sleep training.)

I talked, of course, about breastfeeding. If you want to catch up on our BFing journey, you can read about it here, here and here, or just read a good summary here. Thankfully, our story has a good ending: Peeper is still breastfeeding, and I’m so grateful to have been able to nurse her this long on my terms.

Is there anything you would have done differently in parenthood?

Making peace with my epidural

September 11, 2014catherinemryan

This month marks the first installment of my new column in the Portland-area family magazine Metro Parent. I figured I should start at the beginning, so I wrote a little about Peeper’s birth story.

I had planned on having a medication-free birth but, for many reasons, I opted for an epidural. I sometimes felt like I should have had a “natural” birth (I use those quotation marks with a huge eye roll—having a baby by C-section or without medication is not unnatural!), but I’ve since come to terms with having an epidural.

You can pick up a free copy of Metro Parent all over town or read the full column here.

Were you happy with how your labor and delivery went? Was there anything you’d change? Did it take you a while to reconcile with your birth story?

Begging

September 5, 2014catherinemryan

My daughter and my dog, equally excited by the prospect of my tossing them peas.

Banana boobs

August 25, 2014catherinemryan

Sometimes Peeper wakes from a nap completely sweet: You can hear her babbling to herself or spot her playing with her toes when you peek at the monitor. Other times she gets up on the wrong side of the crib. She fusses and clings like a monkey.

I was carrying her around the apartment on one hip when she was like this a few days ago. She was holding her stuffed bunny and lay her head on my shoulder.

I made her a snack, and we traded bites of toast and banana. She was starting to perk up a bit but still was a sweet bundle of snuggles. The more she runs around, the fewer chances I get for quiet cuddles, so I relished the moment.

Then Peeper dropped her half-chewed banana down my shirt.

Precious cuddles followed by mooshed banana-y boobs—that, in a nutshell, is motherhood.

Walk the line

July 10, 2014catherinemryan

The day before her birthday, Peeper turned a corner—literally. She went from stringing together a few steps to full-blown walking.

Look! Evidence she’s a walker!

[vimeo 100441531 w=500 h=281]

Peeper walks the line from Catherine Ryan Gregory on Vimeo.

I’m still having a really hard time calling her a toddler, so for now I’m settling on one-year-old baby who walks. Really rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

Her newly honed skill delights everyone, most of all herself. Her hands are always full as she motors around the apartment, and I think she’s thrilled that she can carry mum mums or her hairbrush or the dog’s Kong ball or both the remote controls at all times.

When Peeper was doing more stumbling and falling than actual walking, parents of older children would give me this knowing look like, Just you wait. And I’d say something along the lines of, “Yeah, I’m excited and scared at the same time!”

But now that she’s a biped, I haven’t felt the panic that all these parents foretold. Maybe that comes later, like when she decides to sprint into traffic or play chase in the crowds of the Saturday Market, but for now, I’m just enjoying watching her explore on her own two feet.

For now, those two feet carry her toward me more often than not. They run to me to show me the piece of popcorn she found on the floor. They toddle my way when she needs a snuggle. They leave her hands free to carry a book so we can get down to the serious business of reading I Love You Stinky Face for the eighteenth time.

There’s plenty of time for those little legs to carry her away. Today, though, her walking brings her closer to me.

Hurricane Peeper

June 25, 2014catherinemryan

One morning this week I woke up as one half of my head imploded and was sucked into a black hole behind my right eye.

At least that’s what it felt like.

I haven’t had a migraine in years, but this one woke me around 3am. It kept me awake as I tried to alleviate the pain—massaging my scalp, plopping a bag of frozen vegetables over my face—between retching into the garbage can. Yeah, not pretty.

Peeper, luckily, slept in as late as she ever has, and the headache had mellowed quite a bit by that time. Even still, I was nowhere near the top of my game all day.

By the time Eric got home from class around 5pm, the house was a disaster. He laughed as he stepped over the shoes scattered across the hallway, the DVDs spread out over the living room and the cookbooks, bags and utensils in the kitchen.

The chaos made me realize how much I tidy up after Peeper throughout the day.

Imagine a wrecking ball dismantling a 10-story building. During a hurricane. In a town recently hit by an earthquake. Such is the destructive power of my daughter.

Ten Thousand Hour Mama — She loves to “help” with laundry.