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October 28, 2009
Pirate Shea
Gimme your treasure or I’ll sick my doggy on you!
Some funny Shea-isms. The other day in the car he kept pointing and saying, “fuck, fuck, fuck.” I knew that wasn’t what he was really saying, but it took me a while to realize he meant, “flag, flag.” Yesterday morning and this morning he woke up and called me from his bed (I was sound asleep down the hall, so he was calling for a few minutes): “Mama! Mama! Mama!” (pause) “Mom! Mom! Mom!” (pause) “Meghan! Meghan! Meghan!” Lately he says, “Okay” instead of “Yes” to everything, with a long, drawn-out “kay”: “okayyyyy.” Eg:
Shea: “Fuck, fuck!”
Me: “Flag?”
Shea:”Okayyyyyyy.”
This morning after being up for 10 minutes, he looked into the empty bouncy seat and said, “Where Baby Oona go? Where Baby Oona go?” He loves his little sister!
October 27, 2009
Best Baby Products
For a while I’ve wanted to write a post about my favorite pregnancy and baby products. A quick list that I’ll continue to update as I think of more:
1. The Snack Trap – an essential for toddlers. They can hold it themselves without spilling snacks everywhere.
2. A DustBuster – an essential for parents cleaning up Os off the floor.
3. Snacks – organic Os, raisins, Cheddar Bunnies, cheese sticks (cheaper if you chop them yourself), grapes, blueberries, strawberries, flax seed crackers …
4. The auto swaddle – comes with legs or without. I’m a big swaddler.
5. The light switch dimmer
6. iPod with dock to move lullabies from room to room
7. small table and chairs for toddlers – they love seats their size
8. Bibs that tie or snap instead of Velcro because they quickly learn to tear them off
9. Born Free bottles and sippy cups
10. The Papasan swing – don’t know how we’d live without it
11. The Baby Einstein play mat
12. The BOB – the best stroller for jogging
13. My Breast Friend – so much better than the Boppy
14. Pumping bras – why didn’t I use the the first time around! Hands free!
15. Socks that stay on – they kick most off so fast!
16. Side snap T-shirts – so many babies hate having things pulled over their heads
17. The O-ball in every size – a toy little babies can get a grip on!
18. The Winkel – great for the same reason as the O-ball
19. That wooden Manhattan Toy rattle thing
20. The Haba caterpillar rattle
21. Pacifier webbing things to hook it to the carseat strap
22. A mirror for behind the carseat so you can see what your baby is up to
23. The Manhattan Toy mobile – doesn’t make noise, but they love to look at it
24. Fuzzi Bunz – the best cloth diapers!
25. Oxobrite – the best for “bleaching” cloth diapers and baby cloths covered in spit up
26. Robeez for the baby just beginning to walk
27. See Kai Run (for looks, not durability), Livie and Luca, Pediped (Flex) and Keen shoes for toddlers
28. Carter’s baby clothes (especially the PJs)
29. Safety gate with cat door – keeps the baby out of the cat food!
30. All Melissa & Doug, Haba and Plan wooden toys
31. Spill-proof bubbles, so they blow bubbles them themselves
32. Kleen Kanteen sippy water bottles
33. Every ball they make
34. Nesting and stacking blocks
35. Walkers for babies just starting to walk
36. A baby and stroller for the toddler if you’re expecting a second
37. Small nail clippers without the plastic safety thing make it easier to cut nails
38. The NoseFrida for boogers. I haven’t used mine yet, but have heard it’s great
39. All the Putamayo children’s CDs: French Playground, African Playground, etc.
40. Music Together music classes
41. Petite Baleen swim classes (in the SF Bay Area)
42. glider rockers
43. The vibrating bouncy chair – I love the Kick n Play
44. The bathtub with the hammock – Fisher Price
45. “Loveys” – stuffed animals with flat bodies to sleep with
46. Healthly Sleep Habits, Happy Child
47. The Happiest Baby on the Block
48. Books: Goodnight Gorilla, all the Eric Carle books, Goodnight Moon …
I’ll add more as I think of them!
October 25, 2009
The month in review
I can’t believe it’s been a month and a half since I’ve blogged about my life! Oona is already seven weeks! There is just so little time for anything. I’d be asleep right now if I could fall asleep, but I fell asleep and was awakened by a screaming baby enough times in the past hour that now that everyone is asleep (Martin included), and it’s only 8 p.m., I can’t fall asleep at all. A chance to catch up on some blogging, among other things on my list (TOO many other things on my list.) Thank you to my friend Elaine for bringing dinner tonight so at least I don’t have to worry about that!
Oona is fussier than she was those first blissful three weeks, and life is harder. She no longer sleeps all day, and when she’s awake she’s either nursing or crying. Only if I’m talking to her with her on my lap is she content, or sometimes for a few minutes in the bouncy seat or on the play mat, but she doesn’t just sit in a seat and look around without crying. These are the weeks that make you wonder how you’re going to make it to three months, when babies tend to get easier.
My sister was here this past week. She came out to help with Oona and although she was a tremendous help and I got a ton of things done that I wouldn’t have otherwise, I still feel very very tired – mostly because I used my free time to work instead of sleep while she was here. But we had fun. We went to the river for the weekend and saw paragliders at the beach. (I did that back in India, and it was terrifying stepping off a cliff for the first time, but so much fun once I was flying.) We walked in the redwoods and skipped rocks in the creek and ate good food and lounged in the hot tub – all the best things to be had at the river (I love it so much up there, and it’s such a refreshing change from Berkeley.) When we returned, one night we went out to dinner for Martin’s mom’s birthday, and another Martin and I went out on a much-needed date to the renovated Hotsy Totsy (I love the Hotsy Totsy!) and saw The Informant. Another day, my sister and I trekked to the European Bookstore in the city to buy Shea more French books, and then had lunch at a playground by the harbor in the Embarcadero. The weather was perfect. What a great day. Wednesday, my sister and Martin’s mom spent the day pulling weeds in our garden while the nanny watched the kids, and I edited and paid bills – how wonderful to have all that help! I got some editing done, balanced accounts, put decals up on Oona’s wall, started a photo album for Shea (finally!), learned to cook a pork roast, and even went to the gym! I got more exercise this past week than I have in months.
Now that she’s gone, there are dishes to do and laundry to be put away, and I don’t have the energy to get up off the couch. I wish I could extend this little moment of peace long enough to get the house cleaned up, work on the photo album, upload photos, blog, Twitter, run, work on my book, do some more editing and prepare for tutoring an SAT test tomorrow … but all I want to do is sleep.
I haven’t had time to process how I “feel” about having two kids. I love both of them to death and have a great time with both of them. Shea is at the cutest age and is talking like crazy (He repeats everything we say and remembers a good deal of it.) Oona is tiny and cute, and I appreciate that small baby stage more now that I’ve seen how fast they grow up. I thought I’d be ready to return to the Grotto after two months this time (I took three months off after Shea was born), but that’s just a week away and I’m not at all ready to go back. I feel like I just got out of the hospital, it’s gone so fast!
I think the biggest thing that’s suffered is the time I spend with Martin. We so rarely are both free and awake at the same time. One of us is always catching up on sleep, trying to calm Oona or feeding and changing Shea. And the laundry. Don’t get me started on the laundry! It’s neverending with two kids in diapers. NEVERENDING. But I’m enjoying my time with the kids, and we’ve done a lot of fun things, like:
French playgroup every week
Fairyland (fun!)
Ardenwood pumpkin patch and farm (fun!)
Aratas Pumpkin farm (really fun!) – haunted house, hayride, petting zoo, mini train, AWESOME haystack labyrinthe, pumpkin patch, etc. My only complaint: a little pricey.
Tomorrow we go to a costume birthday party, and next weekend we have the Piedmont Avenue Halloween Parade and pumpkin patch, trick-or-treating on our street, a Halloween party at our friends’ house, and a BBQ on Sunday. BUSY!
Now if I could just get a little more sleep …
October 13, 2009
Hello Kind World
A classmate from my MFA program died from cancer last week, and I just found out tonight. I didn’t know her. I heard her name many times and I saw her read once, but I never took any classes with her, and never met her. Still, I am sad that she left a husband and two little boys behind. She was only 47. And I am touched by this excerpt of blog post she wrote last year, titled, “Hello Kind World”:
So please, friend, bless what you have and let go of fear for the future. Today is the only day you have got. You are breathing. Enjoy your breath. You are alive. Enjoy your life. You have a daughter and parents. Love them. Bless everybody who comes across your path. And the work? Whatever. Bless your work, too. Bless your town, your bills, your possessions. You are lucky to be here for all of it. If some of it gets taken away, well fine, something else will take its place. You are an amazing confluence of billions of variables and nobody else is having your life right this minute.
Enjoy! And don’t worry about hope. Just breathe and appreciate your breath. Everything arises from that.
RIP Leila Abu-Saba
September 11, 2009
Birth Story Two
I started having frequent contractions Wednesday evening, August 26. I had them for three nights in a row, then nothing, then another night, and I remembered that with Shea they had started six days before he was born. So I figured she probably wasn’t going to go long past her due date. I was NOT in a good mood that week. I wasn’t sleeping well (from heartburn, insomnia and contractions). I was finding it difficult to concentrate or enjoy anything during the four hours of contractions I had most days, and I was overall just feeling crappy and uncomfortable. I think, psychologically too, I was stressed out about the birth. So unlike with Shea when I was happy to go long past my due date (10 days), this time I wanted to get it overwith ASAP.
Contractions began again at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 3—my due date! Once again, I didn’t know if they were going to last or stop, but I started timing them and they were about seven minutes apart and more regular than before. So at 3 p.m. I texted my doula to let her know that I’d keep her updated. Around five she checked in and I told her they were continuing at about the same rate. By then I was pretty sure I was in labor, but she told me to just wait and see if they increased in intensity and/or grew closer together. Martin’s mom was here watching Shea for a few hours because I was exhausted, and I warned her that she may have to spend the night. During dinner while she and Shea ate, I emptied the dishwasher because moving around distracted me from my contractions. It was different from when I went into labor with Shea because, having drunk castor oil, things progressed much more quickly the last time. This time the hours passed and not a whole lot changed, but the contractions continued and slowly (too slowly for me) grew stronger. By 9 p.m. I could no longer sit through them and would get up and walk around through each one. By ten I called my doula to come over and got into the tub just afters she arrived (Shea and Martin’s mom were in bed by then, which worked out perfectly). Unlike before when things were so intense in the tub that I wouldn’t get out, this time after an hour or so not much had changed, so I got out and walked around. By 2 or 3 a.m. I was very sleepy and would lie down between contractions and jump up each time one hit and bend over the piano. By then they were very consistently five minutes apart. My water didn’t break, but I had the bloody show and passed the mucus plug and asked my doula when we should leave for the hospital. My bags had been mostly packed for a week, and I had put them by the door earlier that afternoon.
After eating a quesadilla, I left for the hospital at 3:30 and checked in at 3:45. My contractions weren’t as strong as they were with Shea when I arrived, but by the time I was up in triage getting examined, I was in a lot of pain. I remember people smiling and saying, “Hi” to me as I arrived and me just staring blankly back, unable to even attempt a smile or a hello.
Once in my room, the nurse put the monitor on me, which I was NOT happy about. I wanted to go in the shower like last time, and she said first she had to monitor the baby for 20 minutes. After what seemed like hours, I asked how much longer I had to stand in one place, and she said 13 more minutes. SEVEN minutes had passed! At 15 I told her to take it off and when she insisted I wait for the full 20 minutes for the sake of my baby, I said, “NO, TAKE IT OFF.” I couldn’t stand there for one more minute, I was in such a tremendous amount of pain. So I went into the shower and did what I did before, which must have looked absolutely ridiculous to anyone watching. Each time a contraction hit (and of course, I was naked at that point), I would mash my fact into the corner of the shower (because the cold tiles felt good on my skin) and moan. Last time I swayed my hips, but this time I just squeezed the bars on the shower as hard as I could and dug the toes of one of my feet into the other foot. Somehow it all seemed worse than last time. And whereas before I suddenly had a clear urge to push, this time I felt a change but wasn’t sure what it was, so when my doula said the doctor could break my water if I wanted and that would hurry things along, I said, “Yes, I can’t do this anymore.” And during those face-mash contractions, which seemed to last an hour but probably were closer to half an hour, all I could think was “WHY WHY WHY didn’t I get an epidural this time? Why am I putting myself through this? WHY WHY WHY?” Once I got out of the shower, I went to the bed and had a horrible contraction (bent over bed) and my controlled moans (which were intentional, to get through the pain) turned into real ones. The instant I lay down on the bed, I panicked and yelled, “I wanna push I wanna push I wanna push!” It was such a terrifying feeling because it came on so fast and I wasn’t even in the position to push yet. My water broke then, before the doctor could do it, and when I started pushing I screamed. (I never screamed the last time.) After two or three pushes like that, the doctor told me I was going to get a sore throat (and I’m thinking, a sore THROAT?) and that I should hold my breath when I push, and then I remembered, yes, that’s how you push! I’d completely forgotten. So I tried again like that and after about four pushes, out she came, only just her head and the rest was still inside, and I was in so much pain, I screamed, “take her out! take her out!” and then with another push her body came out. Then of course, the fun of getting stitches while they were laying her on my chest. (I had a second-degree tear. Not as bad as last time). It’s hard to enjoy your baby when your private parts are getting stuck with needles (first a local anesthetic and then the needle, which I could still feel). Oona wasn’t crying enough, so they wouldn’t let me breastfeed her and, after giving her a bath, took her to the nursery to give her a couple of shots to get her to cry and clear her throat, which worked. They brought her back a half hour later, and she was fine.
Another detail that I forgot is that when I arrived they asked me if I was Group B Strep positive or negative and I said negative and told them the paper was in my bag. They looked at it and said the paper said I was positive. I know my OB told me I was negative, so they called the lab and eventually found that I was indeed positive, which meant I needed antibiotics. I had already refused both the IV and the hep lock, which pissed the doctor on call off (I did not like her any more than the doctor I had last time), so now, while PUSHING, they had to get me set up with an IV. They did it pretty quickly, but since the pushing went so fast (my doula said it was 8 minutes, although it felt more like 30), I didn’t get much antibiotic. It had to go into me before the baby was born to protect her from getting the bacteria from me as she came out. Of course, she came out so quickly she didn’t have time to catch anything from me!
I was thrilled when Oona came out to see that she had all her fingers and toes (and so thin and dainty compared to Shea’s fast paws!) and that she was healthy. She even had a fair amount of dark brown hair. Shea was so bald for so long, but he also had light hair, so it barely showed. Oona was big when she was born—8 lbs 11 oz—even bigger than Shea—and her eyes barely opened. As big as she is, though, she seems SO tiny. She is just this cute (and funny looking) little ball of jelly. As exhausted as I’m sure we’ll be over the coming weeks and months, it’s so fun to have a newborn again. Toddlers are super awesome because they walk and talk and learn new things every day, but babies are adorable, too, for the very reason that they don’t do much of anything at all other than drink a lot of milk and fall asleep with one cheek mashed against your chest and a little milk drooling out one corner of their mouths. SO CUTE.
September 11, 2009
The Week in Review
Oona will be one week tomorrow, and I haven’t even blogged about the birth yet. I’ll do that next.
I forgot how much time with a newborn is spent sitting on the couch breastfeeding. I remember now that I watched a ton of TV and movies after Shea was born because that was the easiest thing to pass the time. Oona hasn’t quite woken up since her arrival into the world, so she pretty much eats and goes straight back to sleep and that’s all she does all day. Her awake time, unfortunately, is from about 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. During that time I feed her and then Martin watches her for three hours, gives her back to me, I feed her again and she falls asleep in my arms.
I’ve spent most of my time while she’s sleeping during the day running errands to buy baby and toddler things we still needed, like a table and chairs for Shea, a second diaper pail, a shade for the stroller, pump accessories, etc. etc. My recovery has been much easier this time than last, or maybe I just knew what to expect this time, but I don’t remember running errands at all for the first week or two after Shea was born. And my first day back from the hospital I walked to Safeway and back with Oona, and I certainly wasn’t doing THAT last time. I have fewer stitches this time, so it’s easier to walk.
Breastfeeding, unfortunately, is just as painful as before. Well, just enough LESS painful that I am suffering through it without the nipple shield this time because it caused so many problems with Shea gaining enough weight. Every time she latches on I squeeze her blanket as hard as I can and say, “fuck fuck fuck” under my breath until her sucking relaxes a little. One day I just burst out crying, I was so exhausted from all the pain (after the birth). But yesterday I stopped taking my Motrin, so things are slowly improving.
I ended up gaining 42 pounds and have lost 15 so far (without trying). It’s hard to watch my diet when I’m starving after I breastfeed, but I’m trying to at least eat healthy snacks (fruit, yoghurt) instead of cake and cookies and ice cream. I do eat Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches, though.
This week has been pretty manageable, and there as only one day that I was extremely sleep deprived, but I don’t know how I’m going to manage once Martin goes back to work. He’s off for three weeks and then somehow I’m going to have to figure out a way to take Shea out to parks with Oona. Should be interesting. I haven’t taken her anywhere in the stroller or car seat yet because I feel like she’s just too little. She’s fine snuggled in the Moby on walks, but she’s so incredibly small and fragile right now that I hate to even put her in the stroller. Maybe next week we’ll give it a try. Right now she’s just this little ball of jelly with her eyes mostly closed and her mouth rooting around like a fish. She is beginning to open her eyes a little more each day, though.
I bought Po Bronson’s NurtureShock today and am really looking forward to reading it. I even forked out the $27.50 to get it from Pegasus in order to support our local Solano Ave. stores before any more go out of business (It’s crazy how many have shut down.) I watched “Entre Les Murs, or “The Class” in English, today and what a GREAT movie. Reminds me of my time substitute teaching for the Oakland School District only the Oakland Schools are much worse. I could relate to the “incident” that happened, too, because something similar happened to me. I just lost it one day and told a student to get the hell out of my classroom, and about 10 students all ran down and reported me to the principal. The principal was NOT nice to me. That was also the day my eye glasses were stolen (by one of the kids in that class) and I had to pay $250 to get a new pair since I didn’t have vision insurance. I think I made $100 that day. Not a fun job.
Trying to get motivated to take another look at my book and decide whether to keep sending it out or to revise it further. Not really in the mental place to think about writing right now. I’m more interested in reading, watching movies and spending time with my munchkins. At least this week. I really want to get my other projects done, too, before I get back to work: updating two baby books and making our wedding photo album and Shea’s first year photo album – both long overdue.
That’s about it for this week. Next post: Birth Story
August 28, 2009
Rejections suck
I got another rejection from agent today. The hardest part (for me) about getting rejections is wondering whether a) That person just wasn’t the right agent and I need to keep querying until I find the right one, even if it takes 50-100 rejections to get there, or b) It still needs more work, and I should revise it again before sending it back out.
I feel like no matter how much I work on it and how many people I show it to, I will always hear that x, y and z need work. And yet there are a gazillion stories about best sellers getting rejected over and over and over before being published, so how do you know when it’s done? How do you know when to stop revising and put your energy into selling it? I read published works all the time that I would have given plenty of critiques if someone had asked me to edit them.
I think waiting another month to hear from two or three more agents, then rereading it myself (after having had some time away from it), may give me a clearer picture of what I need to do. I feel like I can be my own best judge if I have a little distance. And yet … I would feel so much better if an agent or professional editor signed off on it for me, said, “Yes! It’s ready! Send it out!”
August 26, 2009
Oh, shit.
Shea says, “Oh, shit” about every ten minutes now. Before it was “uh oh” and then it was “oops” and now, thanks to hearing me say it one time, he says, “oh, shit” every time he drops something, his ball rolls under the bed, etc. etc. How do I train him out of this? I have a plan to say, “What is this word ’shit’? Do you mean, ‘uh oh’? ‘Oops?’” but I feel self-conscious saying it at all in front of our nanny, so wait until she’s not around.
