sleep

Kiwi is five months

catherinemryan

DSC_1046The other morning Kiwi woke up from a nap and I startled when I looked at her.

“You got bigger!” I exclaimed.

I swear she grew in the 45 minutes she was asleep. She has changed so much in the five months since she was born.

Yet some things have stayed the same. Kiwi entered the world talking—not crying—and she is even more of a chatterbox these days. She squeaks, coos, gurgles and squeals all day (and, ahem, night) long. She clearly has a lot to say!

DSC_1210Kiwi is rolling over both ways, trying to sit up on her own and laughing up a storm. She has become remarkably intentional in her explorations of the world. She reaches out her hand to bat at a toy or the Christmas tree, and she turns over or contorts her body to get a better look at what Big Sister Peeper is doing.

IMG_4276The two girls are interacting more. One day while Peeper was sitting on the potty, she yelled “ha!” for some reason. Kiwi giggled, so Peeper did it again—and again—and again, eliciting bigger belly laughs each time. And the other morning, Peeper saw me tickling Kiwi by nibbling her cheeks, tummy and armpits, so she copied me. “Nom nom nom!” she said as she gummed her little sister’s side.

IMG_4325At the same time, I haven’t wished for time to stop or even slow down. The last five months have been among the most challenging of my life. Kiwi is napping much better and starting to sleep more at night, but the ongoing lack of rest has been brutal on me. And my transition to mom of two has been less than graceful. So I smile when I look back on newborn pictures of Kiwi, but I don’t want to transport myself back to those days.

Plus, why stop time when every day brings something new? Kiwi is changing by the minute, or at least by the nap.

IMG_4444

Two months: Kiwi

catherinemryan

If the first month of Kiwi’s life was figuring out what the heck we were doing with our newly expanded family, the second month has been about getting to know this beautiful, engaging, curious tiny person.

I can’t get enough of her.

Baby two months old

Getting lost in my baby

I memorize the locations of the freckles on her head. Before too long, her hair will grow longer and I’ll never see them again.

I admire the delicate curves of her ears. They remind me of the swirl of a seashell or the whorl of a knot on a tree.

I feel her gentle breath on my skin as she breathes in and out.

I know the telltale fussiness that tells me she needs to burp (which is different from her tired, hungry or overwhelmed fussiness). And I can feel the burp inside her before it bubbles up. (“Good burp!” Peeper congratulates her every time.)

Baby Sharknado Read more →

I am the coziest place in the world

catherinemryan

Baby Kiwi sleeps on MamaKiwi spends a lot of time sleeping on me lately.

Whether it’s in the carrier on a walk, on my chest as I watch a football game or leaning on me for the now-requisite 30 minutes after each feeding, she rests with her face on that magical spot of skin beneath my collarbone and her ear pressed against my heart.

Can I blame her? No. After 40 weeks inside me, it’s no wonder she craves that closeness.

But I am tired. So, so tired.

Last night, for example, as she nursed or slept on me (I’m too far gone to remember which), I stared at a spot on the sheet. I couldn’t tell if it was a bug or just a smidge of something. If you had offered me a million dollars to tell if it was moving, I would have had to guess.

People, sleep deprivation would have reduced me to 50/50 at a chance for a million dollars. Read more →

Some days

catherinemryan

Some days I wake up and take in Kiwi’s wide-open eyes and marvel at how lucky I am to be her mama. Some days I get Peeper out of bed and ask her, “Is it going to be a good day?” And when she says, “Yes!” I am all-in.

Today is not one of those days.

I feel wrung out. I spent part of last night crying and all of it worrying about Kiwi. It’s probably regular newborn stuff, but I’m anxious that her inability to stay asleep, her grunting noises, even the spit bubbles that collect on her lips, reveal something deeper that is wrong.

Is Baby #2 easier?

I skated by in my second pregnancy without the worries of my first. “I got this,” I figured, and I did. I found the answers to the things I’d forgotten about without spiraling into a bout of anxiety.

I thought I’d ease into new motherhood again in the same way. Imagine my surprise, then, when breastfeeding was still hard. Really, really hard. And when I asked things like “Does her belly look distended to you?” And when I found myself paralyzed over whether to unwrap Kiwi’s swaddle or not.

Motherhood, like anything, is riding the ups and downs that come like a tide—if a tide changed every three minutes. It just so happens that I’m in an ebb, and that means not wanting to get out of bed. It means I don’t want to do today.

Probably in five minutes I’ll see Kiwi smile—a new development that lights up the entire house. I’ll eat some breakfast. Peeper will tell me all about the zoo train she is building and the animals she remembers seeing the last time we visited. Maybe I’ll even drink a cup of tea to counteract the zombie brain of waking I-can’t-remember-how-many-times last night.

Will it be a good day? I’m pretty sure it will be. But for the few moments I steal in bed, typing this on my phone, I’d rather go back to sleep and let the day enjoy itself.

Ups, downs and change: Our weekend recap

catherinemryan

Swimming in the Clackamas RiverWhen I worked at College Possible Portland, a nonprofit that helped low-income high schoolers get into and graduate from college, we often ended the week reviewing the ups, downs and what we’d change. Allow me to steal the format for today’s blog!

Ups

Swimming in the Clackamas River
Peeper isn’t hitting me; she’s getting the baby wet!

Swimming It’s still blazing-hot hereabouts, so we went swimming in the Clackamas River at Milo McIver State Park (yes, still one of our favorite places to be!). Peeper is her happiest in water, and I’m carrying a 38-week-old furnace, so splashing in the river was pretty much the best.

Peeper’s birthday party We didn’t throw a party for Peeper’s first birthday and I knew I wanted to do a little something this year. I considered canceling it (see the downs below) but am so glad I didn’t. Peeper and her friends had a wonderful time painting and playing in the water, and we got to properly break in our newly fenced front yard! More about the party in a later post.

Seeing family Much of my side of the family came in for Peeper’s birthday party, and I’m always grateful when the Ryans are around! After the party we watched the U.S. women’s soccer team beat Japan (in style!), eat pizza and play video games. As we drove away from my brother’s house, I was overwhelmed with the wish that we’d all live near each other permanently. My brother recently moved to Portland, so that leaves only two more siblings to get down here!

This up was a little bittersweet, though, because Eric’s parents were meant to have arrived this weekend, too. They had to delay their trip out to deal with some health stuff (good thoughts/prayers/internet love to my mother-in-law much appreciated!), which is important and necessary, but we still missed them. In fact we re-sang Happy Birthday to Peeper so we could record it and send it to them! Peeper didn’t mind. 😉

Downs

Cornhole
Uncle Sean asks for Peeper’s help to win Cornhole at a 4th of July BBQ.

Fireworks Ah, the holiday my noise-phobic toddler and high-anxiety dog love the most! Happy 4th of July! Call me a grump, but I hoped every single boom was the last. We will not be spending Independence Day in town next year. You can find us running away to the mountains somewhere fireworks are illegal.

No sleep Ironically, Peeper slept a few hours through the fireworks and woke up shortly they were finished—and wouldn’t go back to sleep. It was horrible. She hasn’t had a night like that in… oh, a year and a half? We finally left her to cry herself to sleep and she passed out around 5:30, a half-hour before I’d set my alarm to prepare for her party.

Eating struggles I should apologize to all my friends who have to hear the latest tale about how Peeper just doesn’t eat. Not that she’s picky in a I’ll-only-eat-chicken-nuggets kind of way, but in the sense she’s completely uninterested in food. It was worse than usual on Saturday, which led to my redefinition of a meal on Sunday because hey, at least Ritz peanut butter sandwiches and ice cream are calories!

Change

Here’s where I mess up the format. I wouldn’t change anything (except maybe the fact I got 2 hours of sleep on Saturday). Every experience, both good and bad, shapes me as a person and a mother. I learn from some of it (leaving town on the 4th!) and revel in the rest (treasuring the memory of Peeper “getting the baby wet” in the river).

How about you? How was your holiday weekend?

10 Ways I’m an Awesome Mom

catherinemryan

Take a sample of parenting blogs out there and you’ll read a lot of bloopers. But I’m going to own it: I’m an awesome mom.

We mothers, especially, are quick to point out our failings and our foibles. Perhaps it’s easier (or more cathartic) to confess the time you melted a Tupperware lid in the dishwasher, causing poisonous fumes to fill the apartment, than it is to reflect on the millions of other times you scrubbed plates clean without incident. After all, washing the dishes without a hitch—or, for that matter, the millions of unremarkable moments of motherhood—aren’t particularly newsy.

But in anticipation of Mother’s Day (coming up this Sunday for anyone who’s forgotten!), I’m stepping out of the self-deprecating, self-questioning rut I sometimes fall into.

I’m celebrating what a wonderful mother I am. Read more →

Mac n’ cheese is my hero

catherinemryan

Yesterday we got home from a long trip to Eugene for Eric’s birthday. It was a packed long weekend, full of hanging with the family, games of Euchre and Quiddler, meeting up with friends, blackberry picking and twice-nightly dessert.

Super patriotic super sweetie with Grandpa
Super patriotic super sweetie with Grandpa

We were beat, so when it came time to cook dinner last night, I made a box of Annie’s macaroni and cheese, mixed in some spinach for good measure and called it good.

When I set the shells on Peeper’s tray, she couldn’t shovel them into her mouth fast enough. She sucked them off her fingers and had more in the other hand waiting. We marveled at how much she packed in.

“That’s more than a three-year-old eats,” Eric said at one point.

After Peeper ate her fill and we washed off the greens and cheese she mashed into her hair, I put her to bed.

People, she slept through the night.

Even more remarkable: I slept through the night.

I didn’t wake up worrying when she’d want milk. I didn’t get up to pee. I didn’t peek at the monitor. I just slept. That was the first uninterrupted night’s rest I’ve had since Fall 2012.

Seriously.

Mac n’ cheese for dinner every night!

I understand, sleep-deprived mom

catherinemryan

Soon after I gave birth to Peeper last year, my grandma told me a story.

She had just had my mom and uncle, a set of big twins who went to 40 weeks. (My mom weighed about as much as Peeper did—and she was only half the load!) My grandma was doing her best to take care of them and an older daughter essentially by herself—my grandpa was of the generation that thought that he would work during the day at the bank and she would take care of family and home.

My grandma struggled but told me she was overjoyed at having twins, which had always been a dream of hers.

One night, they got a sitter to watch the children at home, which was a rarity. They went to a party. My grandma took their coats to the host’s bedroom. And then—then she lay down and fell asleep.

They hadn’t been at the party five minutes before my weary grandmother was collapsed on a pile of strangers’ coats.

I know that kind of exhaustion too well. Chances are that you do, too. Maybe you zonked out in an inappropriate place. (I fell asleep on the exam table while waiting for the midwife at my six-week postpartum appointment, for example. Awkward!) Maybe you canceled plans because you were too sleep-deprived to drive safely. Maybe you’ve feared dropping your baby while trying to get her to sleep because you could pass out at any moment.

I’m so thankful that Peeper and I have moved past that point, at least for the time being. I was reminded of the bleary reality of many other parents, though, when I read this article about a woman who happened across another mother who had fallen asleep at an indoor play gym.

“I won’t leave ’til you wake up… hopefully rested and ready to face the weekend with the warrior-energy us mamas need to parent with a smile on our faces,” she posted later on Facebook. She had kept an eye on the sleeping mother’s kids while the tired mama caught some apparently much-needed winks.

To the woman who slept slumped against the windy slide, and to any of you who have never felt more like a zombie, I get it. I feel you. I’ve been there, too.

It’s miserable to feel like a shell of yourself. It’s embarrassing to nod off in public. You might even feel a little shame that you can’t “keep it together” enough to parent your baby and manage to sleep—I know I did.

I’ll say it gets better, though you might not want to hear it.

But I’ll also say that you have my full empathy and compassion until it does.

As new parents, and especially as new mothers, we have to stick together. I’ve got your back, tired one. If I can do anything to help, give a shout. If not, I’ll continue to look out for you and hope your baby finally goes to sleep!