Presumably with the purpose of keeping us from getting too comfortable, Miles balanced Tuesday night’s sleep-fest with a hellish night last night. It wasn’t his worst—he didn’t scream a whole lot—but I was up from 3:40 to 6 a.m. walking, bouncing, feeding, patting, and sshhh-ing him (but not singing to him. The books say not to make night time a fun time, so there will be no renditions of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” after midnight. Truthfully this is due more to being so exhausted I can’t remember the lyrics than to any attempt at structure or discipline, which is surely futile with a kid this young).

The only thing that kept me borderline sane (though Denny may disagree with my self-assessment) was the prospect of coffee in the morning. I gave up caffeine when I was trying to get pregnant, and I haven’t had much since. However, my dad left some nice coffee grounds in my cupboard when he was here last weekend, and I’ve brewed up a couple of pots since then.

It seriously works.

It makes me wonder if this is how addicts in the early stages of their habits think. “If I can just get through the day at work, when I get home I can do a line of coke and everything will be okay.”  Should I be relying on a drug just to exist with some semblance of normalcy?  Is this unhealthy?

Do I give a crap?

Here’s a still montage of my pregnancy, weeks 7-36.

Mark: I got a Vimeo account, but there’s a 520 minute queue for processing. Who has the time?

Happy birthday to my brother Tyler.  He is 25, which sounds dangerously close to adulthood.  He is a good dude.

Who knows why, but I’ve gotten a few complaints that I’ve been absent from my photos lately.  I can’t help it.  Miles is easily the cutest person in the house (no offense, Denny; yours is more of a rugged beauty), so I take pictures of him all day.

However, I got a good night’s sleep last night (by my new standards anyway), so I had the energy to encuten* myself a bit, and I took a couple of pictures of Miles and me.

* It’s a perfectly cromulent word.

Last night was just awful. It’s pretty common for Miles to have a stretch in the night/early morning where he doesn’t want to sleep and has to be walked around, but last night that time was spent with him SCREAMING. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. None of the usual suspect causes were an issue. He just screamed. For a really long time. I told Denny he should call in sick today, but he was anxious to go to work. Something tells me he needed the break.

Anyway…this morning, Miles slept for about two hours in my arms, then when he woke up he gave me about six huge smiles in a row.

Evolution knew what it was doing, people. Those smiles are what keep us from sending him off to college very early.

From Mark:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find sentences 5,6, and 7, and post them.
4. Tag five people.

From Second to None:  Superstars on the Rise by Nancy Krulik (this was a gag gift I put in Denny’s Christmas stocking one year, and for whatever reason it’s never left the living room).

The two actors say the film was made as a favor, and was never intended to be a full-length feature release.)  Interviewer after interviewer asked Tobey [Maguire] what it’s like to travel in Leo [DiCaprio]’s posse, especially since Tobey, unlike most of Leo’s buds, doesn’t smoke or drink.  But Tobey is a loyal friend.

I shall tag Collette, Holly, Lisa, Morgan, and Sabine.

We had a baby shower at work today. It was really good to get back there and see my coworkers. I missed those guys. We ate cake and opened presents (books, by our request). We got some really great ones—classics I remember from my childhood, as well as many I’d never heard of before. Apparently some of them are real tearjerkers; one of our coworkers started choking up just thinking about Love You Forever.

Thanks to all the generous people who celebrated with us.

Cake

Sam holds Miles

I was all set to have my first solo adventure today: I had a postpartum check-up, after which I was going to stop by the office, and Denny and I were going to go out for lunch.

I had the timing all perfect: I had showered, gotten dressed, gotten Miles changed (all with a minimum of screaming on either of our parts), and I had him all set in his carseat. I got the carseat clicked into place in my car, got into the driver’s seat, turned the key, and…

PLEH. PLEH PLEH. CLICK CLICK CLICK.

All frantic, I called Denny and demanded that he come home from work and pick us up. He was very nice about it. See, I absolutely hate being late for things. I called the clinic and told them I’d be late, but I was still fretting about it, and then I started fretting that my blood pressure would be artificially elevated due to my fretting and I’d flunk my checkup.

Actually it turned out fine. Denny got us there not too late, my blood pressure was normal, and Miles slept through the entire thing. He got a little grumpy during lunch, but we had prepared for that by choosing a table in the very back corner, and I did a very discreet BIP*. After that he was fine.

So yeah, my solo outing was a bit of a wash, but overall the day turned out okay. Of course, it’s not even 1 p.m. yet, and it’s the late afternoon/evening when things tend to really get out of control, so we shall see.

*Breastfeeding In Public

Miles always has the best farts while he’s breastfeeding,  I had assumed it was because lying on his side was a good gas-escape position, or possibly because he just wanted to give me the pleasure of experiencing his farts while his butt is nearest my face, but last night I read that the sucking action stimulates intestinal contractions that push the gas through.

Babies are interesting.  Farts are interesting.  What’s not to love?

A while ago, and it seems like a thousand years ago because it was pre-Miles, but it was probably more like last spring or summer, Denny bought a potted Meyer lemon tree. It produced three beautiful lemons, which I used today to make a cake. It turned out downright delicious, if I do say so myself.

Now the plant is blossoming again. We’ve decided that I’ll make the cake every winter when the plant bears fruit.

Meyer Lemon Pudding Cake (slightly adapted from one I found on epicurious.com)

Note: this cake is spongy on the top and pudding-y on the bottom. You can substitute regular lemons, but Meyer lemons are what make it particularly exciting.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 cup sugar, divided
4 large egg yolks
1/3 cup fresh Meyer lemon juice
Zest from 2 Meyer lemons
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 large egg whites

Whipped cream and fresh berries, for garnish (I used strawberries and blueberries, which I refer to as “bloobs” because it’s funny)

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 8x8x2-inch glass baking dish. Blend buttermilk, 1/2 cup sugar, egg yolks, lemon juice, zest, flour, butter, and salt in blender until smooth. Transfer buttermilk mixture to medium bowl. Using electric mixer (I used my stand mixer and it worked fine), beat egg whites in large bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining 1/2 cup sugar and beat until stiff but not dry. Gently fold buttermilk mixture into whites in 3 additions (batter will be runny).

Pour batter into prepared dish. Place dish in roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into roasting pan to come halfway up sides of dish. Bake until entire top is evenly browned and cake moves very slightly in center but feels slightly springy to touch, about 45 minutes. Remove dish from roasting pan.

Cool cake completely in baking dish on rack. Refrigerate until cold, at least 3 hours and up to 6 hours. Spoon pudding cake out into shallow bowls. Top with whipped cream and berries.

After a very difficult previous day and night, Miles was being very sweet this morning.  Denny left for work, and Miles was content to snooze on my shoulder for a long time.  I knew he was probably overdue for a diaper change, but he was so cute and peaceful, I didn’t want to wake him up.

…

The laundry is in now.  I don’t know if those stains will come out or not.

Holy crap. We got the bill for Miles’s birth and surrounding activities, and little dude cost almost $15k, and he had a pretty uncomplicated birth. I don’t even think that includes the additional days he was in for the bilirubins treatment. Fortunately, insurance pays for most of it, though we do owe a small percentage that doesn’t seem so small when it all maths out. Dang, yo. I guess it’s a drop in the bucket compared to, say, college.

Still, as Denny pointed out, a homebirth would certainly be appealing if you didn’t have insurance.

Toe-licking bandit?  A mugshot that makes him look like Coolio after he got off the Tilt-A-Whirl?

Comedy gold.

Check it out.

(Thanks to Aimee)

Note: This idea is blatantly ripped off from a celebrity blogger I read, who writes monthly letters to her daughter. I always look forward to reading them, and I thought it might be a nice way to reflect on what happened each month of Miles’s life. Maybe when he’s older he’d even like to read them, although he might find them embarrassing.

I wasn’t expecting my entire world to change on January 7, 2008, but it had to happen sooner or later. The details of your birth and the events leading up to it are already documented here and elsewhere, so I won’t get gruesome here, except to say that everyone who told me that you quickly forget the pain of childbirth was LYING. It HURT. A LOT.

But now, as you’re sitting on my lap, kicking and cooing (which is why it’s going to take forever to get this written, because you are irresistible, and I can’t help but dive into your little neck and kiss you every five seconds), it’s okay that it hurt so much. You’re worth it.

(That said, next time around I hope to do things in a more traditional manner that doesn’t involve laboring for hours and hours on Pitocin with little progress. That wears a person out.)

You’ve grown a lot already. At your doctor’s appointment yesterday, you were up to 8 pounds, 4 ounces. At your lowest, you went under six pounds, which worried the medical types, but you’ve come back with great enthusiasm. I’m also pleased to report that your love of eating has worn my nipples into a state of leathery roughness, which I never thought I would welcome, but here we are. You have huge feet. Right now you’re wearing an adorable green sleeper with dinosaurs on it that says “Little Stomper,” and in fact your little stompers are about to outgrow the outfit.

You also gave us a scare early on with some high bilirubins. We’d only had you home one day when the doctor called and said your bloodwork had come back with elevated levels of bilirubins and you needed to be readmitted to the hospital. I held it together on the phone, but as soon as I hung up, I burst into tears and remained weepy for about the next four hours. I was sure that you’d be desperately unhappy in the Isolette, and I wouldn’t be allowed to snuggle you to calm you down.

Isolette. What kind of horrible word is that? Why bother putting a cutesy suffix on a word that clearly means something awful? What’s next, anthraxy-pie?

My worries were completely unfounded. You loved the Isolette. You stretched out in there, crossed your legs, and acted like you were at the beach. Your eye protection goggles made you look like a tiny Batman. The only times you got upset were when they had to do blood draws, which was a lot—your tiny heels were raw for days after we brought you home.

One important side effect of our extra time in the hospital was meeting a nurse who was very helpful with breastfeeding tips. No, Miles, you weren’t born the champion nipple nosher you are now. In fact, for the first several days of your life, you weren’t very good at it. Your dad and I spent a lot of time and effort syringe feeding you, which is a method designed to not ruin you for breasts in the long term. Your dad or I would stick a finger in your mouth and tickle the roof of your mouth to stimulate your sucking reflex, then use a syringe to squirt milk into the corner of your mouth, thereby tricking you into thinking your sucking had actually delivered the milk.

It got calories into you, which was important to combat your weight loss and to get the bilirubins out of your system, but it was a giant pain to pump the breastmilk, sterilize the syringes, try to get most of the milk into your mouth, see a good amount of it dribble down your chin, try to catch it with a burp rag, fail to catch it with a burp rag, change your outfit, and start all over an hour later. Breastfeeding is far preferable. I’m very glad you’ve gotten the hang of it.

You haven’t yet gotten the hang of sleeping very long at a stretch. Last night you set a new record: you slept for four consecutive hours. Of course, after that 11:45-3:45 spell, you woke up every two hours again, as is your wont. I have never been more tired. I try to take a nap every day, but I don’t always get a very good one, because every little snort and grunt you make wakes me up. Perhaps this is just a harbinger of the future. I know my mom could hear every step Uncle Tyler and I took in the house as we grew up; maybe being a mother just means never sleeping soundly again.

As exhausting as it is, though, I secretly love those minutes after you’ve eaten, as you lie on my shoulder and I try to coax a burp out of you. As the sun comes up and brightens the snow, as you snuggle in all warm and soft against me, as your daddy snores quietly next to us, I think, “This is what my life was always supposed to be.”

Love,

Mommy

February 6, 2008—the day on or near which I expected to have a baby. It’s a good thing I didn’t actually go into labor today, because the weather is just awful. We got tons of snow, classes at the university were canceled (which is a very rare occurrence), and the streets are a mess. We did brave a trip to the doctor’s office for his one-month check-up, and he’s doing great. Even though it was scary to have him a month early, it looks like everything is turning out just fine.

Right now he’s snoring on my shoulder. Denny took some video, and if I can get this guy to snooze in his swing, I’ll share it.

Okay, I am a miserable failure when it comes to embedding video in WordPress. I can do it in any other html situation, but for some reason everything goes to crap when I try to embed in the blog. So yeah, you’ll have to click the image below to see the video (Quicktime required).

ETA:  Thanks, Scott!

On Saturday, we took a trip to the library, because I really needed some reading material beyond pregnancy/childbirth/childcare books.  This is important, yes, but it’s just about all I’ve read in the last 9 months, and my brain was getting full.

I picked up Rant:  An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk and Tales of the Unexpected by Roald Dahl.  I’ve read one other of Roald Dahl’s short story collections for adults, and I was very impressed.  I guess it’s not surprising that the mind that created such twisted children’s tales as The Witches (my all-time favorite) would be even weirder and funnier when not censoring himself for a juvenile audience.  I haven’t started that one yet, but I’m looking forward to it.  Rant is really good so far.  I really admire the way Chuck P. slowly unfolds a story and doesn’t pander.  His brain must be a very interesting place to live.

—

Things one notices when spending hours and hours breastfeeding a baby:  this Boppy I have sports a Noah’s Ark theme.  On it I see a pair of rabbits, a pair of sheep, a pair of horses, a pair of chickens (lesbians, apparently, since neither is a rooster), a pair of something that might be armadillos, and…a zebra with a monkey on its back.  Shocking!

My dad has kindly lent us his 20D, and I finally got around to playing with it.

Miles has tiny little fingers.  Here they are displayed larger than life-sized.