Tag Archives: Family

Do the Right Thing

Posted on March 4, 2013 | 36 comments

I had one of those moments today where I was forced to make a choice in a split second. I had one of those moments when neither option is really what I want but the confines of time and the number of arms I have forces me to choose. I did the “right thing.” But it didn’t feel good. It did not feel good at all. And my heart still hurts.

fisher&grover

I have told the story here before of how I fell in love with Fisher. I have admitted that he sleeps in my bed with me. But I have never spoken of the way he tears my heart out of my chest every so often, mostly because I like to try and forget.

He will hop down from the bed and then be unable to move. Or he will be in the midde of jumping up on to the couch and he will collapse. A seizure, says the vet. They do not happen often enough to establish any kind of pattern. Blood work comes back fine. No known cause.

His legs crumble beneath him. He begins to pant and drool. His eyes look deep in to mine as if he is frightened. He doesn’t move. It lasts for a minute, maybe two. If I am alone with him I hold him in my arms and tell him that I love him and that he is okay, that he is safe. If I am with MQD or my ex-husband I bawl and sob and say “Is he okay? Do you think he is okay?” repeatedly until I am kicked out of the room. (I will wait here while you make a mental note – Kelly in a crisis, bad idea unless she is the only adult present.)

This afternoon marked the first time that Fish had an episode while I was alone with him. Alone with him and Lucy.

Fish and Lucy like to look out the window in the afternoon and wait for the school bus. When it is warm they stand at the door. When it is cold they stand and look over the back of the couch. Today we were all snuggled on the couch, Fish with his feet over the back of the couch, Lucy Goose right next to him. They were watching, waiting for the school bus. They might have stayed just like that for the thirty minutes it would take for Emily to get home. I considered reaching back behind me to grab my phone and take a picture of these two but I feared my movement would disrupt this quiet calm. So, I just watched them.

And then his legs folded under him and he curled in to himself. Lucy was quick to take advantage of this chance to climb on to his back. And this was my moment. My split-second “what the hell should I do now?” moment. I wanted to take my sweet ten-year-old boy in my arms and hold him, shh-shh him and tell it was going to be okay. He was scared, he is just an animal.

In that moment, though, we were all animals. All three of us. And I chose Lucy. I don’t think I should get a medal for having the presence of mind to grab Lucy and hold her away from my ailing dog. Anyone with a pet knows that a good dog, even a great dog can be squirrelly when they are frightened. I could pet his head. I could shh-shh him but I could not hold him in my lap. I could not hold him because I had this wild thing of a 13 month-old in my lap instead. And my heart broke in to a million pieces.

Those big brown eyes. The same eyes I fell so hard and fast for long before I became a mother they tore a hole straight through me. “It’s okay, big boy. I am right here. I am just keeping Lucy Goosey safe, baby boy, keeping her from bugging you, okay? But I am right here, I promise, I am right here.”

I must have told him in a thousand different ways that I wasn’t going anywhere and that I was just holding on to Lucy to keep her from bothering him. But I knew even as the words were falling from my mouth that it was not completely true. My big boy was hurting. And I was protecting my baby.

It was the “right thing.” But it did not feel good. It did not feel good at all.

Minutes went by and his breathing steadied. I sobbed the ugly tears on the phone and Fish calmed down. So, eventually, did I. The school bus came at 2:37 and Fisher jumped off the couch like nothing was wrong. Cautiously, I opened the door. He’d either take a few steps and slow down and I would know that this time, this time was different, or he’d leap off the porch to cover his big girl with kisses.

He leapt off the porch. I leaned against the door frame and watched those two run up the front hill, all zig-zag across the flower beds. Lucy pressed her face against the storm door waiting for them to come up the front steps. And just like that today was exactly the same as every other afternoon.

So help me, if these kids are not the death of me, this dog will be.

36 Comments

Posted in Parenting

Tagged dog, Dogs, Family, Fisher, Life, Lucy, mental-health, motherhood, Parenting, Pets, s, SAHM

Remember that New Year’s Eve we all puked?

Posted on January 2, 2013 | 16 comments

I used to wear leather pants on New Year’s Eve. I curled my hair. I wore excessive amounts of black eyeliner and a WonderBra.

I have always liked New Year’s Eve. Even as a bartender I didn’t mind it. New Year’s Eve brings out the amateurs and typically working cut in to my party time but I never minded.

I liked the Get Fancy and Kiss a Boy aspect of the celebration.

A lot has changed in the past few years. But much has stayed the same.

This year I was not wearing leather pants. But I was wearing my fancy lounge pants, the linen ones. I was not wearing a WonderBra. But I did sport a clean “sleeping bra” (the most excellent option for keeping boobs up out of your waistband but nowhere near your neck.) I did not curl my hair or put on loads of makeup but I showered and I was wearing lipgloss. I was going to kiss my favorite boy.

We had considered having dinner across the street but Lucy had been under the weather. We opted to have dinner at home. Em would join our neighbors for dinner and a sleepover and MQD and I would have a quiet evening at home. I ran out to Trader Joe’s for wine and MQD grabbed sushi from our favorite place. It was all systems go for a good time.

We had dinner. I finished preparations for our New Year’s Day Brunch. I made three dozen ham biscuits and enough mac and cheese to sink a ship. A lemon pound cake waited on the counter. The heartburn inducing Chicken and Bleu Cheese Frank’s Red Hot dip was in the crock pot. When our neighbors invited us across the street for a drink it seemed like a great idea. Lucy was chipper and not particularly nose-runny.

Sinking in to their couch I was laughing that it was only nine o’clock and I was fading. I would give Emily one more kiss goodnight and MQD and I would head back across the street with Lucy and hopefully make it until midnight. I bent down to kiss her forehead and I thought she was hiding, goofing off the way kids do. I pulled back her blanket and she was hot. There are five words I did not expect in a million years to hear. “I want to go home.”

Across the street we went, Mom with her baby and half a bottle of wine, Dad with the big girl wrapped in her blanket. Em is not a party animal. My girl likes her sleep. When we got home I was not convinced that she wasn’t just desperate to sleep in her own bed. Ten minutes later when she filled half of a small trash can with puke I knew she wasn’t messing around.

Moms have skills. They can change gears rapidly. I was in Possibly Sexy Time Date Night mode only twenty minutes earlier and now I was spreading towels over every surface of my house. Operation Don’t Get Puke on the Carpet or the Couch was in full effect.

By 11 o’clock my New Year’s celebration was looking much different than I had imagined it. Emily had gone to bed (a bed covered in towels) and my boys were asleep on the couch.

Lucy was out cold on the floor.

I snapped these two pictures and sent them to a friend with comments about what a wild night we were having at out house.

And I sat back down in my chair. I was preparing to watch the ball drop all by my lonesome. It was 11:35. I heard Emily upstairs. She was awake. She was getting sick again. I needed to run upstairs and check on her but I couldn’t move. “Miiiike, wake up, Em is sick and…. SOOOOO AM I!!!”

Not since my days of frequenting fraternity parties have I seen someone go from having a great time to puking their guts out in a split second. It was crazy. One minute I was hanging out with my bad self, flipping channels and trying to figure out why I still love Jenny McCarthy. (It has been 18 years since MTV’s fantastic dating show Singled Out and I still love her.) The next minute I was sweating and shivering and puking my guts out.

At 11:54 I was in my bed in my bathrobe yelling to the living room “Is Emily ok?” I was going to just close my eyes for a minute and then I would hop out of bed and wish my sweet family a Happy New Year.

That’s not exactly how it went.

I passed Emily in the kitchen at around 3:30. She was dumping out her own barf bucket. I was weirdly proud of her. We sat on the couch together like you did in college after an ugly bender. We sipped water and told horror stories. “Oh man, were you awake when I barfed in the shower. That was crazy” and “do I smell like puke or do I just have puke in my nose so everything stinks?”

By morning we were certain we would live. MQD went out for Gatorade. We cancelled our brunch.

It has been two days. MQD eventually fell prey to the Nuclear Crud. He is camped out in our bedroom. I washed and folded the 800 towels we puked on. Lucy has been enjoying her new found freedom gained by the fact that no one is really paying attention to watch she is doing. She is playing in a pile of torn up magazines. Em is behind the couch watching a movie on the iPad. There is some superior parenting going on in this house.

So, yeah. As soon as we feel better I guess we will start eating ham biscuits and spicy bleu cheese chicken dip. Shit. I might have just puked in my mouth a little.

16 Comments

Posted in Parenting

Tagged Family, holiday, Life, new year's eve, sick, The Crud, vomit

Dear Universe, You can suck it. Love, Kelly

Posted on December 30, 2012 | 15 comments

I don’t remember getting an email notification that the Universe started following my blog. But that is the only possible explanation. Because it happens without fail. I say it out loud, that everything is peachy, and then Blamm-o I get knocked on my ass. I wrote last night that all was well. The girls were sick but on the mend. I had felt crummy briefly but I was on the up and up. And then I went to bed.

I was in tears about fifteen minutes after I woke up. Nothing and everything was bothering me. The long and short of it – I have been slacking on the exercise this month and it makes me mental. I need it. On top of that Lucy is nearly a year old and I might be ready for a night out. And by ready I mean I will likely cry and come home early and worry and obsess and call home a hundred times but if I don’t go soon it could get even uglier. Oh, and I am so tired, so very tired. Now you are all caught up.

The Universe saw me send up the “Life is Super, thanks for asking!” flare and so it kicked me in the stomach as soon as I woke up. In my bed with swollen eyes I said “No, I don’t want coffee, I just need ten minutes to myself.” I flopped back in my bed for a bit and then I hopped in the shower to shake it off.

Shower. Clean clothes. Polka dot knee socks and boots. Eyeliner and lipgloss that tastes like peppermint bark. I was calm and cool. I was approaching collected. But only approaching. We would take two cars to church. I wasn’t ready to go exactly and the pressure of everyone waiting on me was too much. “Just go, I will meet you there.” I might have yelled. I don’t remember. I know I was angsty by the time I got in the car.

And, well, by the time I was calling AAA to get my car out of the ditch (the ditch I have not backed my car in to since January 4th, 2012, thankyouverymuch) I was beyond angsty and full blown crying again.

Fuck it, Universe. You win.

I gave up. I took a pillow from the bed and made a spot on the couch. Lucy and I were going down for the count. I needed a nap. Not an in the chair cat nap and not a full blown fake sick and stay in the bedroom nap, but a bed pillow on the couch nap.

I am afraid to say that my nap fixed everything. But things have started to turn around.

MQD made a pile of things for the thrift store. It was in the corner of our bedroom. (Since this girl’s husband was very tolerant of her big, fat whiney freakout this morning I will not make any comment about how long it might have stayed there had I not put it in a bag.) When the chips are down I clean. I put the duvet cover in the washing machine and stripped the sheets. When you sleep with a dog and a baby a totally clean bed deserves a totally clean bedroom so you can slip between your cold sheets and feel like you are in a hotel once a week. So, the sheets were nearly done, I had to get rid of the pile of stuff.

In the pile was a pair of Levi’s. I don’t know why I dropped my pajama pants to the floor. But I did. And on they went. “Good butt or bad butt,” I asked. MQD deferred to Emily. Em said she liked them. So did MQD. “They are yours,” I said.

“Mine? They are too small. We used to be the same size,” he said.

Well, not really. I used to pour myself in to his pants. It was a squeeze. My 25-year-old boyfriend was a lot smaller than me but I tried not to let it bother me. How could it? I was 33 and I had a 25-year-old boyfriend.

Just when I though that the Universe hated me it threw me a bone. A bone in the form of a pair of Levi’s.

Universe, you tried to fuck with me today but it seems like you changed your mind. The good news is that my ass might have been bigger than my 25-year-old boyfriend’s but it is smaller than my 29-year-old husband’s. So, take that, Universe.

I just parked my ass in my chair with a big, fat glass of pinot noir. I snapped a quick picture but it didn’t really show my feeling of ahhh. So, I took another one. Universe, I am going to drink a glass of wine and go to bed. And when I wake up in my clean sheets there will still be vacuum marks on my rug. And as long as I can still button my husband’s jeans I will not be in tears before breakfast. Nope. I sure won’t.

Tomorrow is the last day of 2012. I was awake more this calendar year than any other. 2012, I put my car in the ditch four days in. And I put my car in the ditch again just two days before you were over. But all in all, when I wasn’t in the ditch, it was unfuckingbelievable.

15 Comments

Posted in Bad Mood, Family, Nonsense, Parenting

Tagged Bad Mood, Family, jeans, Life, mental-health, nonsense, transportation

Holidaze

Posted on December 29, 2012 | 18 comments

It started last Sunday at church. We had a cookie and a glass of wine as part of the Winter Solstice ceremony. The cookie was a gingerbread person. But when you held it upside down it looked like an alien. I snapped a picture. But I didn’t come home and write up a post. Or put it up on my Facebook page. Or tweet it. I just took the picture and ate the cookie.

Christmas Eve I took a picture before we went to bed. I didn’t want to get busted by my big girl. I was careful. So, I didn’t do anything with it. I uploaded it to my picasa account quickly and deleted it from everything.

Christmas day was a blur of food and laughter and champagne and naps and turkey and stuffing and wine and coffee and cookies and family. My little family. We had a toast at breakfast. Only twelve months earlier we didn’t even know that Lucy would be a Lucy and now here we are, our family of four. We cheers’ed. We cried. Emily asked me if you could only have one toast. I said “Of course not” and we all chimed in with our thoughts. Our hearts were full.

It has been only four days since Christmas. The tree is down. I have put it all away. Christmas clutter on the 26th feels like the walk of shame, dark eyeliner in the morning or beer cans all over the kitchen at 10 am. It has to go. This moment seems like a lifetime ago already.

Sometimes I write everything down so I won’t forget. But Christmas is too fast. How can you capture all of those moments? Emily’s face when she saw the bell that Santa left her from his sleigh. She believes, with her whole heart she believes. Lucy has started making a crazy face, a kid face. She ripped up paper and ate the tags on every new toy. When the toy frenzy was over and every gift had been opened the only one that Mom remembered that she never wrapped (and still can not find) was a pair of gloves. There is always one “Wait! There’s a something!” or at least there was in my house,

This morning I decided I wasn’t getting dressed. Both kids woke up warm, low grade fevers and nasty coughs. We napped. We ate leftovers. We napped some more. We watched Mrs Doubtfire and I cried when Robin Williams and Sally Field decided to separate and again when he walks back in the door at the end to pick up his kids. I spent four hours on the floor in my living room while my kids crawled all over me.

Late this afternoon I showered. We went in to town for dinner. Mexican food. It feels like Christmas was ages ago. It is January cold outside already.

What started last week with a picture I never posted has led to a week of radio silence for me. I might be quiet here for a bit. I have been more unplugged in the last week than I have been in the last year. I have been present. In my home, my little family has made me laugh and cry and giggle. We have eaten cookies and made big meals and loaded and unloaded our dishwasher. We have been together. Just the four of us.

Santa Claus gave me everything I have ever dreamed of for Christmas this year. I hope he gave you the same. 2012 has forever changed me. I have two more days to soak it up. Catch y’all on the flip side.

18 Comments

Posted in Parenting

Tagged Christmas, Family, Parenting

Do you believe in Magic?

Posted on December 21, 2012 | 13 comments

We had tickets for the 7 o’clock train at the museum. Through the woods we would ride, woods filled with magical twinkling lights. We would drink hot cocoa and use candy canes as swizzle sticks. We would make a Christmas ornament while we waited. We were going to see Santa.

Emily was rolling her eyes and giving me attitude. Lucy was screaming bloody murder because she was going to be forced to wear a hat. Dad was grumbling and trying to get us out the door. I was stifling the desire to shout out “Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas” every few minutes. It was pouring down rain.

But at least we would get a picture with Santa. Right? Through the lens of the camera we woud forget all about the rolled eyes and the tears. Baby’s First Christmas would be perfect.

We were boarding the train when the Conductor said “Santa is on the right, m’aam” and he winked. Oh. Okay. I’ll put Emily on the right side of our bench seat so that she would get a better look.

When we rounded the corner and I saw Santa standing near his sleigh with an oversized elf and an umbrella I realized we weren’t getting off of the train. Santa would stop at each bench and ask each child a thing or two, they would chat. “Is there anything special you’d like this year? How about something for your little sister? I’ll see you next year, dear!”

There would be no picture.

The Mom in me started to panic. Well, I will take the kids to the mall. Tomorrow. I’d get a picture. It will be fine. I frantically tried to snap family pictures with my phone in the dark. With flash. Without flash. It didn’t seem to matter. We were blurry. There would be no picture with Santa.

And then I saw him. He had ornate brocade around his coat. His beard was soft and long. His glasses were bifocals. I don’t think he had his suit stuffed with a pillow. I couldn’t tell if his boots were real or those pleather boot shaped shoe coverings popular with mall Santas. I don’t know. I didn’t get a chance to look him over carefully for an hour as we waited in line. He was there right next to us for a moment. And then he was gone. “Well, hello, there,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”

He talked to the kids for a minute and then he moved to the next row. True to form, I was misty eyed. Ever my mini-me Emily looked to me and said “This might be my first Christmas crying when I see Santa!” I laughed and decided not to tell her right then that it most certainly was not.

As the train pulled away from Santa and headed through the tunnel we were all smiles. The tunnel shone, the christmas lights that adorned the train reflecting on the tunnel’s interior. We looped back around and drove by Santa once more on our way back to the station. The children waved and I reached for my phone. Maybe I could get a picture of just Santa. That would suffice.

I showed the picture to MQD as soon as I snapped it. I was laughing. “It’s the best picture of the night!” he said. And in unison we both shouted “He’s like Bigfoot!”

I love our blurry picture of Santa. I love that we did not get a posed picture at the mall. I love that Em can’t scrutinize the picture later, examining the image, searching for any indication that maybe it wasn’t really Santa after all.

Because for one more year, at least one, my big girl believes in Magic. I hope you all have a groovy holiday.

Do you believe in magic in a young girl’s heart
How the music can free her, whenever it starts
And it’s magic, if the music is groovy
It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie
I’ll tell you about the magic, and it’ll free your soul
But it’s like trying to tell a stranger ’bout rock and roll… ~ The Lovin’ Spoonful

13 Comments

Posted in Parenting

Tagged Christmas, Family, Life, Magic, Parenting, Santa, Santa Claus, The Lovin' Spoonful

We are four.

Posted on December 17, 2012 | 26 comments

“A table for four?” the hostess asks me.

More than a decade in the restaurant business and I can not resist the urge to smile and say “Three and a half!” while gesturing to the baby. It’s not particularly funny. It wasn’t the first time I said it and it won’t be the next hundred times. We get a high chair and we head to our table. A table for four.

There are four stockings hanging.

When I fold laundry I make a square in my mind, sorting things in to the invisible quadrants: Mom, Dad, Emily & Lucy.

I set the table and in the past few weeks I have begun to pull out four plates (even if the fourth remains far away from the smallest dining companion in an effort to keep her from pitching it to the floor.)

There are four spots in a booth. Four spaces in an average vehicle. Three spots on the couch plus the chair in the living room make four spots to sit.

Four means a family to me. I was raised in a family of four. Four means parenting is never zone defense by design. Man-to-man is my preferred style and two adults and two kids lends itself nicely to this.

Friday afternoon Lucy fell asleep in the car. I pulled in the driveway with forty minutes or so to spare before Emily was to get off of the bus. I thought I would read, goof off on my phone and let her sleep. I rolled the windows down in my car and grabbed a blanket and my laptop from inside. With Lucy tucked in to the backseat and a cool breeze on my face I started to write about how we have four people in our family and that fact brings me a great sense of calm, a feeling of being complete.

Lucy started to wake and I quickly turned my car on, hoping the vibration of the engine would put her back to sleep. In twenty minutes Emily would be getting off of the bus. The radio was on and the news of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary filled my car.

I was waiting for my child to get off the bus. There were twenty families whose children would not come home from school. I had twenty minutes to wait until I could hold my oldest in my arms. School had let out already, I couldn’t go pick her up. So, I waited. With fat tears rolling down my face I waited.

My heart skips a beat when I see her face every day after school. There is nothing so care-free as a child as they toss their backpack to the ground and run up the driveway. I dropped to my knees and buried my face in her neck, breathing in her scent of sweaty kid and cold winter day and cherry chapstick. “Mom, are you ok?”

“Yep. I am. I am ok.”

“You can keep hugging me, but can I just grab a snack?”

We are four. Four is our little family. To the families that woke up a four on Friday and became three, woke up three and became two, whatever your number is now know that Americans will keep setting a place at their table for your children. We will hang a stocking or make a space on our couch. Your children will not be forgotten.

26 Comments

Posted in Bad Mood, Family, Parenting

Tagged Bad Mood, Family, sadness, sandy hook elementary, tragedy

I have two daughters. I just realized that today.

Posted on December 10, 2012 | 33 comments

I have fallen in love quite a few times. I love to fall in love. My heart beats fast and my arms go numb. Falling in love is exhilarating.

Falling in love happens long before loving someone. When you are in love the possibility exists that you will fall out. You will grow and change or feelings will get hurt and hearts broken. But when you love someone you love them forever, day in and day out for the rest of all time. You can count on them and they count on you and you know that no matter what ever happens in your lives you will love one another. Forever.

I fell in love with Lucy when I felt the top of her head. It was early in the morning on January 20, 2012. She was not quite yet born. I felt her head and she slipped back inside me. I wept. I called to her. “Please, baby, please…” I was desperately in love with her in that moment and I needed to hold her to feel my arms around her. I had fallen in love in a moment’s time. And I have been falling for almost a year.

This morning it changed.

She was sitting on the floor, playing with her pile of noisy stuff. She was jabbering to herself. I was sewing Christmas ornaments. She turned and she looked at me. She smiled and looked back at her things. All she did is smile. But in that moment everything changed.

A few times a day I will say to Emily “Hey, you know what?” and she turns to me and smiles or occasionally smirks and says “You love me?” and I nod.

Sometimes MQD will hand me a cup of coffee and instead of “Thank you” I say “I love you” and what I mean is not just thank you for this cup of coffee but “thank you and I love you and I will love you for the rest of all time.”

And this morning when Lucy looked at me it happened. The hair stood up on my arms and I realized I loved her. Forever. Not my baby Lucy Q that is sweet and warm and sleeps in my arms. But this person. This tiny person that will slam her bedroom door some day and break my heart in a thousand ways, I love her.

Little Lucy Quinn, today you are a baby but you won’t be one forever. In a little over a month you will be a year old and you will officially be a toddler, although you have been toddling around for well over a month now. Today it struck me that you are already becoming the little girl that you will be in no time. You looked up at me from your pile of noisy stuff and I said “I love you” and you smiled.

And the hair stood up on my arms and I realized that I will love you until the end of all time. You’re really here. Forever. You are my daughter. Yesterday I had a daughter and a baby and today I realized that I have two daughters. You are this tiny person that I love.

No picture today. I can’t pick one that captures this moment. But I won’t ever forget it. It took me eleven months to realize that my baby is here to stay. I won’t forget it.

33 Comments

Posted in Family, Parenting

Tagged Daughters, Dear Lucy, Family, Love, Lucy, motherhood, Sisters

True Love

Posted on December 8, 2012 | 13 comments

When I first met my husband he gave me a little spring in my step. He was hot. He was 25. I was a mom. I was 32. He liked me. He like liked me. It made me feel a little extra sassy. Mama’s still got it and all that, right?

Years later the discrepancy in our ages sometimes creates the opposite effect. I wonder if I look older when I stand next to him. Does his under 30 skin make the spots on my face more obvious? I am tired. It shows. I aged quite a bit the year after Emily was born. It’s happening again. Staying awake for a year can wreck you. The lines in my forehead are deep, rivaled only by the dark circles under my eyes.

This morning I took matters in to my own hands. I took an old, old man to bed. He has a grey beard and his feet smell like corn chips. But he makes me feel beautiful. He kisses like me there is no tomorrow. His brown eyes have seen me happy. They have seen me sad. He loves me unconditionally. His breath leaves a little something to be desired. But I love him. With everything I am.

13 Comments

Posted in Family, Nonsense, Parenting

Tagged black lab, Dogs, Family, Fisher, Humor, Love, Marriage

I can’t describe the feeling when I’m in my bed asleep…

Posted on September 12, 2012 | 19 comments

Co-sleeping with a crawling baby is an adventure. Snuggling up with your tiny newborn is easy to imagine. Even someone that is not an advocate of co-sleeping has likely fallen asleep with a newborn on their chest so they can understand the powers of the sleeping baby.

But the sleep arrangements now that the goose is loose? It’s a whole new game. A bedrail helps to contain her. I am teaching her how to get off the bed, dangling her little legs off the side until they hit the floor instead of diving head first. You get used to waking up with a little person sitting on your arm. Or your face. Or standing on your pillow.

Lots of people that co-sleep with their newborn begin to transition him/her in to a crib around this time. If you’re not wild about having fingers in your nose or getting kicked in the groin it could be the wisest choice. Unless, of course, you ever want to get any sleep. As a newborn Lucy slept like a rock. She woke to nurse once, maybe twice, in a night. Since she has started crawling everywhere, cruising along the furniture and battling with the dog for his new bone she doesn’t have the time to devote to eating during the day. She will nurse a handful of times during the day but it is a quick snack. She does the bulk of her eating at night, when there is nothing better to do. I can’t blame her.

If I want to get any sleep at all and she wants to marathon nurse all night I do not see an end to our current sleeping arrangements anytime soon.

People love to ask “So, how is she sleeping?” and ordinarily I say “Great!” or my all time favorite “Like a baby!” because any answer at all only invites advice. And for the most part unless you are a been there done that co-sleeper/breastfeeder/baby led wean-er (ha! Baby led weaning is the term for skipping pureed food and letting your baby eat solid food when they are ready. Baby led weiners – I have no idea what that entails) than even well-meaning advice falls on deaf ears.

I slept poorly throughout my pregnancy. Lucy is nearly eight months old. So, it is fair to say I have not “slept through the night” in well over a year. I am used to it. And while it is no secret that I am vehemently opposed to sleep-training an infant I am dangerously close to letting myself cry it out. Me. I might cry it out. Face down on the floor while Goose climbs on the dog. Fish can look after her for an hour, right?

Because I am tired, guys. Nursing a baby takes a lot out of you. And not just sleep. Water. I drink at least a gallon of water a day. I am pretty good at getting myself a glass of water. I went in the kitchen to get a glass of water just now.

Yup. A bowl of water. Sigh. I’m tired, y’all.

19 Comments

Posted in Family, Nonsense, Parenting

Tagged attachment parenting, co-sleeping, Family, Lucy, Parenting

Money and Priorities

Posted on September 12, 2012 | 12 comments

The decision for me to stay at home with the kids wasn’t easy for me or forMQD. I had to wrap my mind around being largely dependent on him financially. Since I would be taking on the bulk of the grocery shopping and management of the household it made sense for me to be responsible for our finances. It can’t have been easy for MQD to simultaneously turn over not only the bulk of his paycheck to me but also the spending of said paycheck.

So far we have been doing a pretty good job of communicating. Sharing finances can get messy and I expected there to be more bumps in the road than there has been. A tight budget means that sometimes you have to go without. Priorities are what they are and Mom and Dad tend to fall to the bottom of the list. It’s hard to want to spoil the kids and not have the financial means to do so. But I grew up in a house without deep pockets and I think it made me appreciate the things we did have.

Sometimes I am shopping and something just jumps in the cart.

MQD, I spent $3 on one of the kids today. But he looks so happy. It was worth it.