Sleep Woes and Other Things

I think I feel middle aged because I catch a shower at best every other day, live in pajama pants from target and milk-soaked t-shirts, and haven't had my hair done in six months. Or, for that matter , anything related to personal grooming -- which is to say my legs look suspiciously like the days when I wore birkenstocks.(Actually, I could never commit to the not shaving thing -- as hippie-ish as I was I was also a believer of smooth legs.)

As if I've moved up the fashion ladder with my dankso clogs? Nope, just the middle aged version of the college girl's birkenstocks.

I was looking at Z and thinking about when I was a child and how entranced I was by my mother's beauty -- her tiny pots of silver eye shadow, the gossamer nylons she'd pull on, the gloss of her leather high heels, the beautiful silk dresses. (My mother has always spent what she never had on clothes).

I've always dressed in jeans and t-shirts -- things from mountaineering stores -- but lately I've been eyeing young women downtown in their three inch heels and smart wrap dresses. I now understand those segments on Oprah where they show up at the mother of three's house and she's in her husband's college t-shirt and old sweatpants with her hair up -- yesterday I walked around all day with my hair up in a barrette not realizing that the tail end of my pony tail was pointed straight up and cocked to the side.

I just don't feel vibrant -- maybe that's what I mean about middle age -- that and the fact that the series on television that I find myself howling with laughter at (Modern Family, The Middle, Men of a Certain Age -- and looking forward to Parenthood) are well, about people my age, raising kids or trying to find their place in the middle part of their life. I've said it before that this is largely a function of demographics -- in the midwest people still marry and have children relatively early -- to be a mother in your late thirties, while not unheard of in the metro area of course, is still a cultural anomaly -- G is seven years my senior and when he posted a picture of Z on facebook friends from high school wrote in surprise 'is she yours??' -- many of them are looking at being empty nesters soon -- and some are grandparents already.

I mean I would never look at Jennifer Aniston and think of her as middle aged ... nor my dear readers, would I think of any of YOU as middle aged either.

I had the strangest desire the other day. I wished we lived in southern California. I haven't ever had that inclination -- if I ever thought about the west coast it was SF or maybe as far south as Santa Cruz -- but I thought of bougainvillea growing on fences, the lushness, fruit trees, and oh, the ocean. The completely different cultural experience -- being cooped up in the house has had me reflecting on Minnesotans and their Prairie Home Companion-ishness. Notice how I say that as if I am not a Minnesotan? As if I've never worn nordic sweaters with silver buttons or walked out in thirty degree weather without a coat because 'jeez, it's warm out.' I go to hockey tournaments for ten year olds -- I've begun to think that we should buy a pop-up camper -- like a scamp. The highlight of leaving the north country is when G and I buy smoked laketrout and pickled herring and eat it in the truck on the way home.

This is a rambling post while Z is in the sling -- comfort nursing and dozing. I was feeling positive about her sleeping - and in fact when I read the No-Cry Sleep Solution -- I thought to myself that she sleeps quite a bit during the day -- and had been consistently having a long stretch - from 7-12 - at night -- and THEN lately she's back to feeding every three hours.

I've started swaddling her after reading the Happiest Baby on the Block -- realizing that when I'd resorted to swaddling her only at the height of fussiness that of course she wouldn't like it -- and in the book it says that the swaddling itself doesn't calm them but allows them to be more receptive to the other techniques -- and it has been wonderful for the colicky periods -- BUT on the other hand-- just as I've felt like I've got tools to deal with THAT -- her sleeping is all over the place.

Nurse to sleep at 7

Nurse at 11:30

Nurse at 2:00

I woke every hour watching her snort and turn her head back and forth restlessly -- I rewrapped her swaddling twice --tried to bicycle her legs in case she had gas...she wasn't awake but not asleep (and she's had a cold.) I offered nursing thinking it was a growth spurt -- she may have taken it briefly, but not long.

By 5:30 I was nursing her -- and she was a voracious snorting little hedgehog -- which we did until the alarm went off an hour later.

It is so clear during the day when she needs to sleep -- she gets fussy and cries and yawns -- and she sleeps ALOT -- and now I wonder if sleeping in the sling isn't giving her the good quality sleep that would help her night sleep -- but she fusses and cries if left alone and I haven't had the stomach to let her cry, if even for five minutes. Maybe I should just try to sleep through her figeting, knowing that a true hunger cue would be clear to me?

*sigh*

And I keep going back to different types of pacifiers in order to try to save my nipples -- she rarely takes them -- she will smile and furrow her brow and make noises that indicate she really WANTS to use it -- but she can't seem to figure out how to.

I don't know why I even bother to wear a shirt around the house.

Holy Shit I'm Middle Aged - How did THAT happen?

I had a strange moment in the large corporate book store chain -- I asked W if he wanted to follow me "remember how I went to school to write novels?" I said.

"Uh huh" he trailed behind me, navigating our way to the fiction section.

"Well, just like playing hockey -- lots of people want to publish novels -- but only the few who work very very hard do -- a combination of perseverance, unbelievably hard work, and a tiny bit of luck...a friend I went to school with publishes books. There..." I pointed out the trade paperbacks sitting there."Those are hers" "Now, I'm hoping that by seeing that it will make me work harder"

"Will it work?" W asks "if you, you know, work really hard on that book, will you publish it?"

"That's something I don't have the answer to" I smile and put my hand on his back as he does the cool-guy shuffle back to his dad who is leafing through Courtney Love's journals on the remainder table.

"Is it good?" I ask.

"The pictures of Kurt Cobain are heartbreaking" he pages through it.

"Eight bucks man, buy it."

"Naw. I don't need that kind of crazy in my life anymore."

I've been thinking about life lately and it occurred to me that as much as 40 might be the new 30 -- and yes, I know it's two years away but I am, well, middle aged. I lived through the grunge years. That was college for me.

Ouch. I'm not sure how that escaped my attention before -- perhaps because years of my life were so focused on conceiving that so much else slipped away.

My days are consumed with Z -- and wonderfully so -- whole days disappear in smiles and coos and diaper changes and crying jags. We have developed a routine -- cooing in bed after waking and seeing the boys off -- dropping back to sleep in the sling -- waking up for a diaper change and playing with her monkey dangling from the play gym -- some tummy time -- walking around and looking at the paintings around the house -- dropping off to sleep again -- back into the sling -- and I walk on the treadmill...(I've taken to watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations -- which has the side effect of making me both hungry and filled with wanderlust...will G and I ever eat our way through a seafood tower in Brittany? Hear the call to prayer in Turkey?) at three or so Z still erupts in colic-y crying -- not every day but at least three times a week -- one night she cried in bouts until I finally got her down to nurse at 6 or so -- and she nursed and snuffled until 7 and finally went to sleep -- some nights its much less -- and if I can figure out how to schedule naps through that period of time we can bypass it completely.

I'm taking your advice and searching out places where I might find like-minded women. (AND I found the Happiest Baby on the Block & The No-Cry Sleep Solution book) I am, after two months nearly housebound, in dire need of many things -- friends, a touch-up on my hair (not to mention a haircut). G has been wonderful -- making sure I get out of the house on the weekends -- but Z's only occasional use of a pacifier and total refusal the bottle the one time we tried it--makes solitary excursions impossible. We need to work a bit harder on that. X. said that W decided to wean after they introduced a bottle -- and so maybe that's part of the reason why I'm not pushing so hard to try. I figure that if she can sleep for nearly five hours without feeding (at night) that if took a few hours away she would be just fine -- granted she might cry the whole time, but still.

My brother called to check in. He commiserated with me about how hard it was in the early months -- (though I recall his loping off to his Bikram class) -- I kept it to myself that if THEY felt it was hard with THREE parents and a full-time nanny -- well, then -- hard it is.

I don't know how women writers -- I'm thinking particularly of Louise Erdrich here -- kept writing when they had infants -- I just don't have it in me -- I could be using this time to work and yet that space feels blank. The silence is terrifying.

In reflecting on self -- well I used to be an academic -- but I left the profession -- and then -- well I used to be a Westerner -- a mountain girl -- but I left the mountains -- I was a runner, but stopped running -- I was always a writer, but now that piece too is dormant. For now I am marshaling every bit of me to mother Z -- and in the end that may be who I am first and foremost, who I've always been -- even when I was that running mountain girl -- I was running away from my life, not believing or knowing how good it could be.

But part of me knew that in coming home I was claiming my own life.

What adventures await in the second part of this life do you suppose?

Updates & Pictures

cuddling/kissing -- or really just eating mama's face....

At some point I'll stop apologizing for being so behind on commenting and reading -- and I'll actually get back to it -- right now I am actually in bed, on my side with the little one latched on (and the computer at an angle supported by blankets) - trying to nurse her into her morning nap -- she is gently snoring -- but the lingering questions about whether or not she should be sleeping alone still bother me -- it doesn't 'feel' right to just leave her in a crib where she inevitably wakes minutes later crying for me. I have to believe that as she gets older and less fussy things will develop more of a routine. Right now her routine is simply crying inconsolably until she's exhausted and then I walk her and coo and soothe and finally get her to lay down and nurse to sleep.

I'd like to write more about what Anna brings up in her blog about reflections on motherhood-- I have been thinking a lot about identity and self in these weeks with Z. It is difficult not to feel erased somehow -- and an erasure that you have pined after for so long you don't feel as if you have the right to question it or even utter it aloud. There are unbearable moments of joy embedded in these days -- in her smile and daily changes -- but I haven't processed fully yet what motherhood means for me -- or how it differs from what I imagined -- or perhaps exceeds what I imagined - the most difficult part right now is the difference in roles that G and I play -- perhaps in part because of the total dependency on breastfeeding (she's stubbornly refusing the bottle right now). She is so nursing dependent -- for soothing as well, that it leaves him out of the loop. We've had weekends filled with hockey related things so even when G & I have some time alone it is often interrupted by hockey -- on weeks with W, this week for instance, there was hockey practice every night -- by the time they get home and we have dinner -- I've barely seen them and then I'm asleep, usually at about 8-- for example, one night G brought me a plate in the nursery as I was soothing her to sleep -- last night I asked him to just set some of the food aside -- it had been easy enough to make dinner -- she'd been relatively sedate last night -- but some nights its impossible for her crying.

This is just one of those moments in parenting in a blended family. I look at our friends who just had a son in late August -- it is the first child for both of them and I wonder how the experience differs. It is the three of them immersed in figuring it all out. Early in the weeks with Z I said something sharply to G like "well this is perfect for W because the baby keeps me occupied and he gets you all to himself."

My mother has been a godsend -- coming nearly every day just to be here -- so I can take a shower or be able to make W a snack when he comes home and then someone is fully present for him - either my mom or I can ask questions and listen -- when it is me alone I am completely preoccupied with the baby. Yesterday she even played Wii with him. He's been all about his father -- as if he sees the opening and has filled it 'Dad, let's play halo, Dad let's go skating, Dad Dad Dad".

It brought me to tears then when I opened my email and saw that W had sent me an email "I love you."

Z's periods of sustained activity have lengthened the tiniest bit - five minutes say beneath the dangling animals of her play gym -- a bit longer than that making faces and cuddling (that picture above shows us doing just that) -- but she can barely stay awake an hour before its clear she needs to sleep again -- and so begins the long process of soothing her to sleep before she becomes overtired and screamy.

She's reaching out for me now -- or resting her hand on my breast. She's calming down enough to almost rest her head on my chest when I walk her around -- though usually it results in her rooting around back and forth bobbing her face against me. She's very vocal-- making all sorts of sounds and imitating faces. Days run into one another.

My friend is still gathering information from the doctors -- what we do know is that it isn't stage 1 in terms of progression -- there's lymph involvement and they are investigating some suspicious lesions on her lungs...her husband was confident that the spots were nothing - she's having a PET scan today. She sent me an email saying she hoped I wouldn't be offended if she didn't call me right away -- but she's trying to find her footing in this new world...I just hope she doesn't hole herself away and not allow her loved ones to support her...but as so many or you suggested she just knows that I am here no matter what at the other end of the phone line -- and for now, that is enough for her.

My mind is still grappling with it.

Perspective

Something has swept in on the thawing wind here -- I catch myself thinking about things that happened ten years ago and think how impossible it is that the farmer's market at the depot, the braided strands of garlic, the giant bags of huckleberries stacked in front of the tiny old hmong women selling them --the hikes to heart lake or holland falls -- the Montana landscape that goes on achingly, barns tumbled in on themselves -- impossible -- ten years. I was thinking how long it had been since I'd known the mountains -- different from visiting them or driving through them as a tourist -- but claiming them because they are part of who you are. It made me nostalgic for the cobbler that resoled my old boots and put them on the counter -- all dark wood and various leather boots and shoes on every surface -- like something out of a western -- and he told me 'there ya go, all ready for dancin'

Partly it was me wondering what had become of the woman who drove her old subaru nearly an hour each way on 93 with logging trucks and blind curves and ice through the mission valley because they paid me as much in mileage as they paid for the credits I'd teach -- and how I'd leave town with a bag of beef jerky, fritos and Dr.Pepper I'd bought at the gas station and eat all the way back to Missoula. Jeans and boots and fleece and wearing my hair long they way a woman wears it in college. Partly it was looking at my life now. A mother in the city I'd swore was behind me forever -- with its staid little expectations and the farm fields outside the city giving way to shoddily built giant homes on treeless lots repeated into eternity.

I came home and I fell in love. And falling in love changed everything.

I was thinking these things and getting thrown back into time somehow by songs -- thinking 'I went to that U2 concert 23 years ago' -- the concert where my mother managed to get front row center and I came home saying 'it was so cool Bono's sweat flew onto me'. I've felt as if I were in a strangely collapsed time warp -- as if my twelve year old self were just around the next corner...

My oldest friend and I met when we were twelve. It was with her that I stole my mother's pack of cigarettes and stuffed them in the cavity of an old stuffed monkey I had -- we started smoking. She kept smoking, I didn't. Boyfriends. Drunken nights. Skinny dipping. Laughing. Lots of tears. Road trips. She's a beauty -- the kind of beauty where if you went to a bar men dropped napkins with their number on it without noticing the friend -- on the street men walked into parking meters.I forgave her when the first boy I loved, my neighbor, loved her instead -- how couldn't he? I loved her myself.

I've written about it here before -- and so if you've been reading you've maybe read the story of how it fell apart -- a night of drinking before I left for graduate school where I told her I'd never speak to her again -- and how, years later, I was invited to her wedding, just another visitor at one of the many beautifully appointed tables -- and I watched her dance with her new husband to a song she'd put on many a mixed tape for me. 10,000 Maniacs. That night, returning home, my mother and I stripped off our dresses in the car and ran nearly naked in the rain holding our party shoes.

Years later we sat at a wine bar in this city and I made my amends to her. Everything that happened happened out of love I told her, which was true but didn't change anything. We held hands and told one another we loved each other.

In years to come we'd meet for lunch, our families gathered a few times -- W much older than her two boys who are now 4 and 6. A lifeline over chowder and coffee -- her smiling face -- this person who has known you since you were a child -- who knows the core of you. At one of those first lunches -- about three years ago now -- I looked at her and said 'if ever I were' -- and I paused, embarrassed, unable to finish it 'if ever I were really sick...would you, would you -- be there with me. I mean, until, the end.' I assured her I wasn't sick it was just one of those places my mind went to -- and we cried over it.

She called in the early weeks with Z and said we'd make a date -- she'd schedule a whole day off of her corporate job and be with us. Weeks passed.

Yesterday I was sitting in the kitchen thinking of her in the moments before the phone rang and her name came up on the caller ID.

We made small talk about Z -- colic or crying -- her boys at that age -- how I have to know it will just pass...I told her I was just thinking of her and she cleared her throat and said the reason she was calling was that she had news. She didn't know what kind it was.

"I have breast cancer."

She found a lump under her arm after a fall on the ice -- the initial doctor dismissed it as a sebaceous cyst. Later that week a nurse looked at it again and called in a doctor. X-rays and biopsies later -- she definitely has breast cancer -- and another lump in her arm area -- there's some question of lymph involvement. She'll know more on Monday.

They are recommending chemo for six months in an attempt to shrink the tumor until surgery -- though if she tests positive for the breast cancer gene they are recommending a bilateral mastectomy.

She has two boys -- 4 & 6. She works full-time and is going to, she said 'try to keep life as normal as possible'.

We kept saying "I love you" on the phone to one another.

When I got off the phone I kept asking myself how this could be happening. It was like the reel of a movie -- flashing through all those moments of our lives -- and then I realized -- we're 37 -- turning 38 -- this happens.

And any small worries or concerns of my own seemed inconsequential. Petty.

If anyone has any resources or suggestions for supporting someone going through this -- I'd love to learn more.

So Cute and Yet so Screamy

Things were going well and then a few days ago we had a cry-fest that lasted two hours -- screaming.

For nearly a week she was sleeping well, no real colic-like episodes...

And then I think it was G who said "did you know that Z was short for beelzebub?"

I had to laugh through my own tears.

There was some evidence that her tummy was hurting her -- loose stools, rigid posture etc. I have given up dairy and went to soy lattes -- and now I'm wondering if it was the soy -- or perhaps the yummy veggie soup I'd made in an attempt to be healthy -- all onions, garlic, tomato and sweet potatoes... there's much controversy about whether the food you eat affects your milk -- thoughts?

Soon there may be nothing left for me to eat except for turkey, rice and yellow and green squash per the Sears book.

The sling has become a lifesaver -- it really does soothe her and put her instantly to sleep -- in part because she's in this little pea-pod position and I think it's womb-like.

Our day seems to be something like this: from her late-night feeding I don't get much sleep because from 3 on or so she's squirmy and she's sleeping in the bed with us -- and I hover. I cat-nap off and on until her next feeding -- usually five -- and then she doesn't really go back to sleep -- she nurses and dozes a bit -- but by the time G wakes up for work at 7 she's only good for about a half an hour to 45 minutes of making faces and cooing adorably before she's screamy and ready to go into the sling.

She fights sleep as she yawns and I comfort nurse her and pace the floors back and forth. It took at least two hours this morning to settle her to a gently snoring sleep.

Today we're going to the lactation consultant at midday again -- usually she wakes for feedings -- say at 11 and 3 and that last nap after the 3 o'clock feeding can stretch into nighttime.

She doesn't seem to be able to stay awake long without dissolving into hysteria, but she's very smiley and adorable in ten minutes intervals.

I'm very tired.

Bullet Post

• Nearly twelve pounds at just over a month.
• greater than 95th% in every measurable category
• social smiling & cooing
• can hold her head up for quite a long time
• very alert -- has to be soothed for an hour or more to nap
• refuses to take a pacifier (has a very drama queenish way of feigning choking when you attempt various types of pacifiers) -- I am that pacifier - ouch.
• loves the baby einstein light playing Mozart mirror thing for the car...
• has a nasty case of baby acne -- trying to determine if its eczema
• will nap for hours in the morning and afternoon after being soothed --BUT ONLY IN the infantino sling --my back is killing me.
• a vacuum cleaner does indeed soothe the serious crying jags -- found that out last night
• I need my hair done but can't figure out how to finagle a large enough block of time
• though I expressed a little milk earlier to freeze I stopped b/c of the oversupply issues -- we have yet to try for G to bottlefeed her -- I am going to be ready soon though the ped. said we may have waited too long??
• when she is awake we spend time talking back and forth and smiling -- I stick out my tongue and she watches it intently and then sticks her tongue out the tiniest bit...
• she seemed to enjoy the bath in the baby tub (an ingenious invention).
• why is it that it's the season when there's no way for me to go out to a movie that there are a ton I want to see?
• trying to be gentle on myself about my body -- taking the old 'it took nine months to get here..it'll take nine months to return' adage to heart.
• Unless G takes her for a few moments in the morning I rarely have time to shower.
• G told me he would love me if I had zebra stripes -- this in response to my lamenting the serious stretch marks on my sadly deflated tummy.
• I have been able to eke out a half an hour on the treadmill with her in the sling.
• G and I walked IN THE SUNSHINE yesterday -- god bless 32 degrees...
• my mother has been a wonderful, calming influence with Z -- it's been a great surprise.
• I was not prepared for the bodily fluid part of the whole thing -- lots of laundry to keep things from smelling like the dairy barn at the State Fair (ew, sorry -- TMI)
• the stagecoach has turned back into a pumpkin in terms of my beautiful long nails -- ah well, I never could keep long nails.
• I'm reading Barbara Kingsolver's new book and loving it.
• Since I haven't had a brow wax in four months I think I actually have my full brow line back -- are full brows back in now? Now if only full thighs would have their day in the sun...
• Where, in college, I lusted after things in the JCrew catalog I now salivate over everything in the Boden catalog.
• I really miss the gym.
• I miss my husband.
• I miss walking with Lucy.
• I miss socializing with W & G as a family -- I do feel that I am relegated to babyland
• But to look at her peacefully snoring in the sling right now...it's worth it.

Midwesterners Shouldn't Give up Dairy

Why you might ask? Well, because cheese is a basic food group and without it -- or yogurt -- it turns out I don't eat much else other than fruit and I scrounge around hopelessly in the fridge realizing that everything I eat is a vehicle for dairy evidently. Ry-krisp? Boring without cheddar. Breakfast? must be time for greek yogurt. Lunch -- how about some shredded cheese on that Amy's frozen burrito...

It also explains the ever expanding waist line since I left the West -- where movement is actually integrated into one's daily life rather than being the thing that takes you from house to car to Target, but I digress.

Yes, I gave up dairy on the suggestion of both the lactation consultant and Z's pediatrician-- both of whom she saw this week. I'll spare you the comedy of errors in my first official outing with her trying to get the car seat out of its base while balancing my phone on one shoulder talking to G saying "it doesn't seem easy...okay, well now the kid's got whiplash..." I did realize the wonderful narcotic of the movement of cars when she was screaming bloody murder in the seat and as I loaded the car and on the way to the highway -- and then suddenly quiet and I thought to myself "oh my god she died" -- totally irrational I know but I thought to myself "I wonder how many babies have suddenly aspirated on their own saliva from crying...and then I realized that she probably was just asleep but I nearly had an accident on the highway trying to check to see if she was okay...

Anyway -- the LC watched us nurse and took notes -- Z takes 2 oz of milk in the first few minutes -- very very fast -- and the consultant did notice that she deals relatively well with the fast letdown -- the bigger issue is the wet/greenish stools and the gas -- the LC thought it was a reaction to dairy -- but exacerbated by the overfeeding of foremilk -- my pediatrician said something like 'foremilk hindmilk baaah...before they knew all of this we somehow managed to feed our babies just fine...she's probably reacting to dairy, I wouldn't worry about the rest -- and possibly eggs."

I'd been trying to talk to everyone about Z's periods of inconsolability -- but at the doctor's she gurgled and cooed preciously on the blanket -- a friend said 'she's totally the dancing frog' -- remember that cartoon of the frog with the top hat dancing -- da dada da da da....and then the guy goes to show his friends this fabulous frog and all it says is ribbit? It seems her screaming periods happen primarily with us alone -- although I hear her screaming with G right now as I write this -- overtired I think...

At any rate I think her gas issues are a bit better -- and this screaming is largely a result of her being overtired -- it's hard for her to sleep and so without sleep she gets to this point...I read Weissbluth's book and it was very interesting...

Okay now she's ballistic...I think I have to take over...(see this is part of the problem -- I want to be able to just let go and let her cry -- but I can't)

***

Okay, I'm back -- not as distracted with the sounds of her screaming -- G took her for a car ride --okay, so anyway -- the book about sleep patterns -- I just sort of thought initially that babies would just fall asleep -- like little narcoleptics --I mean, that's what most of the little babies I met were like -- so I just supposed that when Z woke up at 6:30am with me (we're sleeping together in the nursery in the recliner from her midnight or 3am feedings on -- which my pediatrician let me know was going to be trouble if I didn't teach her some self-soothing soon) -- anyway I remember saying to a friend -- "well it's 6 pm now and she's been awake non-stop since 6am" -- I didn't realize that it was up to me to soothe her to sleep and recognize her sleep signals and keep her from getting overstimulated and overtired...but once I read that book and began to actively try to get her to sleep after two hours of wakefulness (but truth be told she gets sort of cranky after one hour and I start the soothing process which often takes another hour of nursing and moving -- either nursing while she's in the sling or nursing in the chair while rocking) -- then she's slept like a rock star and her periods of true screaming seem controlled.

I think she may indeed be that extremely fussy/colicky baby but I am learning how to nip the screaming in the bud and end up with mostly just fussing.

I am getting more sleep -- at least a four hour stretch sometime -- usually right about now -- 5 -9 which has been her afternoon nap period -- which then just rolls right into her night sleeping.

I am feeling much better -- my mother came often last week and just held her and I'm learning to be okay with her crying...my best friend came today and took her while I walked lucygirl -- IN THE SUN-- IN THE OUT OF DOORS!!! It was the first time I'd been outside for any length of time for an entire month -- more probably with the last part of pregnancy -- in part because of the brutally cold weather -- but now I'm seeing the possibility of walking with her outside -- her in a sling...and that lifts my spirits -- my friend stayed as I showered and ate lunch -- all things which, frankly, have gone by the wayside the last few weeks --

Another friend stopped by with turkey chili and her five month old boy -- she's attending an early childhood development class with other new moms in our old neighborhood in the city -- she's invited me to join it -- and I think I may -- now that I know I can actually get out into the world with Z -- things are opening up slowly.

I'm now looking ahead to the other questions -- wanting to sleep with my husband again at some point -- I hadn't put her in the co-sleeper even -- rather put her in bed between us -- and I realize that there's great pleasure for me in sleeping so close to her -- especially in the recliner when she sleeps in my arms -- but I know too that I am not helping her in the self-soothing department. The Weissbluth book really states that the fourth month is really the point at which good sleep patterns need to be established -- and so it's on my mind.

What else for this scintillating blog post? I watched Julie & Julia the other day and snorted with derision as the editors called clamoring after her for book deals and movie rights -- sort of the same feeling I had when my friend mentioned she'd just been turned onto a certain uber-famous mommy-blogger's site and I said "oh yeah, I don't really like her. She bugs me."

"What bugs you" she asked "that she makes like a million dollars from blogging...?"

Oh sure, it SEEMS like jealousy.

Truly though the other things in life (ie. writing ambitions) seem to have faded when I look into Z's eyes -- when she coos and gurgles now -- that wonderful smile as she's feeding -- and sometimes when she's not really eating but just hanging out there she looks up at me and smiles like "I know, I know, I'm busted..."

Today, as she cried, I held her and rocked her, her sweaty head against me, tucked under my chin -- and found myself singing the songs from my childhood -- Peter Paul & Mary songs, Bob Dylan -- surprising myself with the flood of emotion that came to me suddenly - thinking of my own mother singing them to me.