Quiet mornings

I love the mornings when Eliza sleeps in and I can catch up on my intertubes with a cup of coffee, enjoying the silence. I hope she doesn't sleep much longer, because then she won't take an afternoon nap (and I love the afternoons when Eliza takes long naps and I can catch up on my intertubes without coffee, enjoying the silence), but morning peacefulness is a true gift.

I am learning how to use a DSLR camera, which is basically just me messing around with it and praying, since I'm too impatient to learn technique. I have a good eye but poor technical skills. But here are some recent pics with the big camera:

From 2011.3.30 Winter big camera

From 2011.3.30 Winter big camera

From 2011.3.30 Winter big camera

From 2011.3.30 Winter big camera

From 2011.3.30 Winter big camera

A definite answer

Which was no. No baby for us this month, no baby for us in 2011. When Ben and I were talking about it last night he said, "You know, this is my baby. It's probably not good to put arbitrary timelines on someone sharing half my genes." As nothing slows Ben down faster than me telling him to hurry up, he has a very good point.

So onwards and upwards to a 2012 little Nelson. In the mean time, it is Ben's spring break. Yesterday we took Eliza to a local little zoo. She had a good time even though it is so goddamn cold here for the end of March, and she's a little sick. (In fact, she's still asleep right now and it's 8:30.) And I started painting our upstairs hallway, which likely has not been painted in this century. It is going to be a challenge once I get to the high walls with the stairs, so I can see why this task had not previously been accomplished.

Recent early spring pics:

Choo-choo excitement!

From 2011.03.27 Eliza fun

Early spring Eliza (since this picture was taken, the winter coat had to come out again...grrr):

From 2011.03.27 Eliza fun

Multitasking with reading and exercise:

From 2011.03.27 Eliza fun

A long, hard week

Maybe it's because Eliza seems to have a cold (hopefully it's just a cold, anyway), and maybe it's because I've been crabby, and maybe it's because the once-promised spring has returned to February-like temperatures, but last week was hard. Last week was screaming and vomiting and runny noses and fatigue and winter coats pulled back out of the closet. But we got through it, maybe a bit worse for wear and further away from carefreedom (I don't care; that's a good made-up word), thanks to a good friend's visit and a bottle of wine and enforced early bedtimes. And, it must be mentioned, a wonderful husband who, when I balk at the possibility of being up in the middle of the night with Eliza, volunteers to sleep in the guest bedroom with the baby monitor. That is a good man, folks.

This blog was started to document our journey to our next baby, but I haven't actually talked about that yet, mostly because there hasn't been a need. I took my first pregnancy test of this cycle today when I woke up to pee at quarter to six this morning, and my result was totally ambiguous. To the untrained eye, it is negative, but to my eye, which has stared at hundreds of pee sticks over my years on my trying to conceive/pregnancy chat board, I see possibility. I know that my particular brand of pee stick has developed a reputation for mind games (First Response Early Response, I have peed on the last of YOU), so I tested again later in the morning with another of the same test. This time, I saw a second line, but no color in it within the time limit, but when I took it upstairs to show Ben, the line had disappeared. So I am in the same place as I was this time yesterday, except that I had not yet peed on $10 worth of merchandise.

I'm going to test again tomorrow, and I hope I'll have a definite answer on a different brand. The waiting is so frustrating. The getting one's hopes up is so frustrating. This is the last time we'll be going down this road, trying to make another baby, and when you have roller coaster days like this you worry that the road will be long.

Ice cream

From 2011.02.19 Much Eliza

From 2011.02.19 Much Eliza

In response to a question

Which is harder, your child as an infant or a toddler, posted on a parenting forum I frequent:

In some ways toddlerhood is easier for me. Eliza wasn't super happy as a baby -- I always felt like she was kind of pissed that she couldn't make her body do all the stuff she wanted it to. She's SUCH a happy kid now that she can run around and explore, and of course she's a lot more fun, too. I felt like 13-16 months was a much harder phase of toddlerhood for us, because that was when I was much more afraid of her killing herself. She was unsteady, into EVERYTHING, and didn't understand what "NO" meant. Now, I can let her do a few activities unsupervised and I don't worry about her.

That said, those unsupervised activities last all of 5 minutes before she wonders where I am and starts following me. She likes to play with [Ben], but again, that only lasts for a few minutes until she wonders where I am again. So it's hard for me to get a break at home. And she's SO much more manipulative and that's really taxing. She kicks me during diaper changes and thinks it's hilarious. Today I tried ignoring it and that seemed to help (but hurt a bit). There is a lot that she does for attention that is really tiresome to me, like deliberately eating paper in front of me to watch for my reaction, then I chase her around trying to fish the paper out of her mouth so it becomes a game.

I agree with [a previous poster], things have gotten easier as the weather has improved (and a lot more fun, too). We can run around outside and burn off that energy. My house is never going to look the way I want it and I've mostly gotten over that. I was thinking today how there is a toy/Eliza paraphernalia in every single room of our house, and that made me a little batty.

All in all, I'm enjoying this stage more, probably because I'm not so sleep-deprived, but IT WAS SO NICE to be able to leave a baby in the bouncy chair and know they would stay there while you took a shower.

Naptime

Eliza's new mattress was just delivered, and she is upstairs soundly asleep... in her crib. She had a freakout the day after I wrote the last post, complete with vomiting, so we moved her back to the crib and she's done okay in there again. This is, of course, after I ordered the $450 mattress. Oh well.

The weather has been amazing here the past few days, and it feels glorious to be able to run and play outside again. I think we are both acclimating our energy levels to this newfound freedom -- Eliza slept in this morning and went down for a nap with little fuss. I am succeeding in wearing her out by taking her outside, but it also wears me out, too. Still, it's fun to be in the fresh air moving around, and I hope to be able to fit in my jeans again. I tried on a pair this morning that I haven't worn all winter, and I'm like, how the hell did my jeans shrink from sitting in my dresser all winter? You know what I'm talking about.

I have a job interview on Sunday. The job is a position that I am extremely qualified for, a step up from a similar previous position and a big leap for me professionally. It's been a very soul-searching journey for me to consider going back to work. I have basically been hemming and hawing over it since I quit my previous position when Eliza was 3 months old. Financially, we are doing okay. Not great, but we get by and don't have any real money worries. So it's always been my choice if I want to return to work or not. I've had the luxury of waiting for the "perfect" job, and in many ways, this job is perfect for me... and I'm now 95% sure I don't want it.

I like staying at home. I always wanted to stay home when I had children, and I'm grateful that I am in a place where I am able to "live the dream," even on the shittiest of days. It has taken me a long time to get over the idea that I need to be going somewhere professionally, that my value is in a paycheck. I am extremely valuable to my family, to my daughter -- though of course on those shitty days it is hard to realize that, and on those days I am perusing the ads on CareerBuilder and assuming that my problems will be solved when I go back to work. But I am much more me, authentically, when I am home. Now, this may just be my propensity towards underemployment, but work has never challenged me in the way that staying home and raising a child has. That's not a knock on working moms at all; for me, there is a tremendous challenge in staying in the moment that being a mother has provided, and that is something that has always proven a struggle. I don't miss office banter or adult interaction (see previous post regarding introverted tendencies). I like being able to be there for all of my daughter's moments. Maybe that's me being a control freak. I don't really care. I'm so happy with my life.

Anyway, don't expect this to turn into a rant on working mothers, because I can completely understand why mothers work, both out of necessity and choice. At this time in my life, and in Eliza's life, it is just not the thing for me. I am grateful I have a choice. I am grateful for asking God for some illumination around my career situation and God gives me this great gift of a "perfect" job. Here is this beautiful cake, Meghan, would you like a bite? Umm, no... think I'll just go back to my salad. But I am going to the interview anyway. I feel I owe it to myself to really explore this and feel completely certain this is not something I want right now. There are a lot of cards stacked against me taking this particular position (loooooong commute, for one), but I am also open to hearing more about the positive potentials of returning to work.

Who knows, I may not be offered the job in the end, anyway. I am one of three finalists for the position, which is a nice wanking for me professionally (and as someone who doesn't get wanked professionally very often, I take my jollies where I can get them), and I just don't feel ready to throw in the towel quite yet. Just saying that I probably will.

Random lulz:

And speaking of sleep...

Today Eliza napped in a big-girl bed for the first time!

She is a giant kid and has outgrown the confines of her Pack n' Play, so we decided to order her an inflatable air mattress for travel. I realized that we'd have to get her used to the mattress before we could ever expect her to sleep on it in a new place, and figured with her schedule being all off-kilter because of the time change anyway, why not give it a go today? If she didn't nap, no worries save for a few hours of cranky baby.

I talked to her about the big-girl bed every time we were in her bedroom this morning, letting her know that this is where she would take a nap today, asking her how you go night-night and having her show me on the bed, etc. When it came time for her nap, we first read a few books on the bed, and I closed the door and left her alone as usual. I SO wished we had a video monitor so I could have watched her figure things out outside of her crib. I heard her trying to open the door, jumping off the bed a few times, and kicking at the door, but no real fussing. I took a shower, and by the time I got out, she was quiet! I peeked in and saw her with her blanket covering her face, passed out on her mattress. There were books by the door, so she looked at books for a while before going to sleep. And she slept for about two hours! I actually went in there to try to wake her up, just because I'm concerned about getting her back to her regular sleep schedule. (Mama likes her in bed early at night for some free time.)

I am so proud of my little girl. She's a very active child, so I'm so impressed that she figured out how to calm herself down in a room with lots to keep her busy. We'll see how she does over the next few days, but maybe a big-girl bed will be in her future sooner than we anticipated!

Sleeping the sleep of a mother

I woke up at 5:30 this morning when Ben got up to go to the bathroom. Then I lay in bed until 6:20 when Eliza decided to grace us with an early weekend wake-up. I got up with her and tried to put her back down, but once I returned to bed, it was obvious via the flashing red lights and whines coming from the baby monitor that The Stig was up for good. Ben got up with her while I tried to go back to sleep, but by that point my stomach had woken up and started protesting not having been fed for 12 hours. So that was the end of that.

While never a rockstar sleeper, having a baby has inched me ever closer to Princess and the Pea status. Everything in my bedroom has to be just so before I can fall asleep, and I have to pee about 18 times before I can be confident that I won't wake up in the middle of the night needing to go to the bathroom, because if I wake up there is a very good chance that I won't get back to sleep for two hours. And if Eliza wakes up in the middle of the night I can guarantee you that I will spend 10 minutes with her and another hour and a half tossing and turning in bed. I think being pregnant and giving birth turned my body into a hormonal fiesta, a party which, in the Mexican tradition, seems to be neverending.

Know Thyself

Now that Eliza is older, I've been venturing out with her more and more into our suburban community, taking classes at the park district, attending a program at our library -- basically trying to get her exposed to being around other kids, since she's not in daycare and not yet old enough to attend preschool. As a white, middle-class, suburban, stay-at-home mother, I did what many other white, middle-class, suburban, stay-at-home mothers do and joined a moms' group. In part for the above, but also for my own sanity. We attended a few activities with the group before I realized that being a part of the group wasn't helping my sanity at all.

It was nothing against the friendly people I met. I just realized that even though I fit into a very stereotyped SAHM role, one facet of that lifestyle (the mommy groups) really didn't jibe with who I am. I'm an introverted person. I certainly enjoy hanging out with other people, but I prefer more intimate settings than the stress of trying to talk to a bunch of new people while trying to keep an out-of-control toddler from running into the road. It just wasn't the right situation for me in which to make new friends. Then I realized that, in many ways, I was also attempting to force myself into that stereotyped role. There was no reason to conform because other people claimed it would make me happy.

Eliza and I survived the winter, which initially intimidated me, having to keep my active girl more confined to our house. We had swimming classes and library storytime and many visits to the train table at Barnes & Noble to keep us busy, and with spring beginning to peep through our windows, a much wider world of activity opens up to us. (I should mention that I am always looking for free/super cheap activities for us to do -- there's plenty of indoor opportunities available if you're willing to cough up the dough.) And I'm happy. I know how I make friends and will allow those opportunities to unfold organically, rather than force them. I'm listening to my heart about this, and if there is one thing God wants to keeping beating over my head, it's that there are a million ways to live a life. Listen to your heart and live yours.

Gratitude

I'm giving up blogs for Lent...

... and devoting that extra time to blogging myself. Every time I read one I realize how much I actually want to write one, and really, I have no excuses to not join the Mommyblogger Crusades. I stay at home with my twenty-months-tomorrow daughter, and she both naps and enjoys watching an inordinate amount of freight train enthusiast videos on YouTube.

This blog is going to be private for a while, at least until I can prove to myself that I'll keep it up. It is also intended to document the life before our second baby and our preparations for him/her, but at this moment, I'm not pregnant and don't want to make our trying-to-conceive journey public fodder... at least not yet. This is the first month that we are actually going to try to get pregnant... the last few were let's-see-what-happens and apparently, we need to step it up a notch.

But in the meantime, here we are on a gray March day. The Stig is upstairs fussing toward napdom, I am feeling discombobulated as I recover from a really bad cold, and the house, as usual, is too cluttered to my liking. Here is my fortunate, messy life, and I invite you (eventually) to come along for the ride.