A Message for Mommy

So he's only 8 months, and can't talk yet, but I think he has communicated quite clearly that I have been spending too much time blogging. I came to sit down yesterday and found this.....A lovely pile of spit-up on my office chair. Baby genius or mommy with a ridiculous guilt complex?

You decide.

Bye Bye Binky, Hello Screamy

You know that bright red panic button that flashes in your brain when your infant cries? You know, the one that screams, "Warning, your baby is in danger, please respond immediately or your child will be emotionally crippled and IT WILL BE YOUR FAULT!"

Mine's been going off all week long. My DH and I decided to wean Noah from his pacifier.

I didn't think it would be quite so traumatic for all of us. He usually just takes it to fall asleep. I would rock him gently, place the Binky in, and the little guy would drift peacefully to sleep within 5 minutes. I figured, hey, it will be almost the same....I will rock, I will sing...he will love it. Mommy is just so soothing....blah blah blah. Boy, was I stupid. It wasn't my awesome soothing skills that did it. It was that damn Binky. He really NEEDS it to fall asleep.

NO BINKY = MUCHO SCREAMY.

If you are a mother, or have read pretty much any Parent Magazine, I am sure you are familiar with the 2 major "sleep" theories:

1. Let cry it out

2. Don't let them cry it out (or do the combo Ferber thing)

The completely ridiculous thing is that you can find evidence in each book stating that doing the other will cause major emotional trauma to to your child. I figure I turned out mostly ok, so in desperation I asked my mom what she did with me. She said "scream it out." (I guess I didn't just cry, I was a screamer.)

LIKE MOTHER, LIKE SON!

When we started this god-forsaken endeavor last week he was doing 45-60 minutes of the "rage" cry before sleeping. You know the one that builds into a scream so violent you think they will projectile vomit? Yeah, we went through three days of that.

Fortunately, I am over the whole "this will damage your child" mentally. I can't remember two seconds of my infancy and according to my mother, I cried a WHOLE lot. But I have to admit that listening to his crying kicks my nervous system into high gear. My heart beats faster, I can't sit still. FREAKIN BIOLOGICAL RESPONSES. Umm. I mean "ahhh. the joys of being a woman/mother."

So once again I called my mother (who by now is glowing with the fact she is "teaching" me something...and seems suspisciously smug that my crying karma has come around and bit me on the ass). I ask her, "What did you do to drown out the mommy alarm?" In her infinite wisdom she related, "I watched taped episodes of Dallas and Falcon Crest." I guess their drama out-weighed mine.

I figure The Hills, Project Runway, and the rest of reality tv all have enough drama to beat out my little guy's screams. This morning it only took 10 minutes of listening to Spencer berate his sister for (gasp) inviting Lauren to her birthday party and HURRAY! - Noah stopped crying and went to sleep.

My alarm still goes off. Now I just think, hmmm. What's on Tivo?

Hasta la Vista, Boobies

Good morning stretch marks! I was putting a tshirt on this morning and had to do a double take at the ladies that once gloriously sat upon my chest.

For the last 7 months I have been a breastfeeding mama. While they were frequently hard, leaky, and sore, at least they were there and noticeable. Before this, I had been an "A" team member since age 12, and to actually go out and by a "C" bra was cause for some definite celebration. Ok, so most of them were nursing bras, but hey, I will take it.

Last month, Noah decided he just wasn't that into breastfeeding anymore. I checked to make sure it wasn't "a strike." Nope, for 3 solid weeks he wanted a bottle and a bottle with formula. I would attempt latch, he would shove his two chubby arms against my chest and throw his head back. Considering that formula smells like sour toes, I was a little hurt by this. I was also sad that we were missing out on our "lovey, cuddle" time.

I have had a few weeks to get over it. But now, here is the reality that it's really over, staring me in the face yet again. With my milk dried up, I am pitching for the A team was again...and appearantly my team likes stripes....

Noah Debunks Baby Myths

This is for all the mommies-to-be. You hear so much advice when you are pregnant, I just thought I would share some things that didn't turn out to be true with Noah. However, like all the books say "every baby is different..yada yada yada.."

Baby Myths:

1. The swing will save your life. False
It appears Noah thinks the swing will end his life. He screams after about 10 minutes in it.

2. Your pacifier brand matters. False
When he gets pissed, any brand (even a questionably clean finger) will do. He just wants to suck. Even not so mad, he doesn't seem to notice the difference, but the Avent pacifiers stay in better than Soothies, meaning less scurrying back to him to stick it back in.

3. Swaddling makes them sleep longer. True
Watch our little guy when he is sleepy and you will be surprised with the accuracy of his karate kid impersonation. For some reason, when he is tired, he is so active it freaks him out. This has calmed down a lot now that he is older, but very very true in the first 3 months.

4. Play only soothing music to your baby. False
I got this one from the Baby Whisperer. Unlike British kids, our unborn child was subjected to background Britney exposure. You just can't escape her. Noah loves pop music and loves to watch momma dance. The more upbeat, the better.

5. Baby sleeps better with you. True
If he could, he would sleep with us 24/7. This might become a problem during his high school years, so we are trying to keep him in his crib for now.

6. The first 6 weeks suck. True and False
There are things that suck for sure. Like not sleeping. This is a major problem as you are not supposed to consume caffeine. What kind of dirty trick is that? Also, you aren't always sure why they are crying. This is a hard one, watching them be so upset for a reason you just can't figure out.Then there are things that are the opposite of sucking. Like everything else. Holding him, talking to him, just being in the same house, makes you feel like the luckiest person in the world.

Its an amazing feeling. Good luck to all the new mommies out there!

iPhone-tastic!

To all my technically challenged sisters out there, take heart, the iPhone is so easy to use even a 5 year old can use it! (literally, I had to have a neighbor's kid find me directions to his house with it).

The best part about the phone is the easy use of the camera. I often find cuteness througout my day, but I never have the camera around. I almost always have my phone.

Now that Noah is here, no more pics of the cats, I promise. :P

Here are some of the best of the iPhone photos:

6 Months Later

Noah James is getting so big.

If you are an obsessive picture-taking, blogging mom like me, you have documented the good, the bad and definitely the wet and squishy.

Please pardon me as I reminisce. Here is an entry I wrote after Noah's first month back in February:

Hey guys! As Noah's first month comes to an end, I find myself thinking 'Wow! It went so fast!' It has been one of the best (and most challenging) months of my life and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I have cried endless amounts of post-preggo tears. I cry tears of fear for his chokey chokey noises ('choking' in mommy language). I cried sometimes just because he is crying. I have cried when I went away from him (on errands, not off clubbing...who am I, Britney?), but mostly I have cried because when I look at him, I am so overwhelmed with love, I just can't stop them.

My shirt hasn't only been wet from tears, however. In the last few weeks I have become a virtual milk fountain. I have so much milk in fact that the lactation consultant has called it an 'oversupply.' While this doesn't sound like a bad thing, it actually is pretty problematic. It causes Noah to choke and sputter while feeding. It leads to horrible gas and squirty green poos so loud, people probably think they are testing weapons at the Miramar base. Who would have imagined that out of these former 'A' team members would spring forth this super-soaker amount of milk? I don't know. Life is funny like that I guess. We are working on it though. Thank goodness for the Leche League. The nice ladies there have given us some tips to help the poor guy out.

And like you would expect, some funny things have happened too. Brian has learned a new form of speaking. I call it the 'nosleepese.' Some examples of this form of communication involve exchanges where is eyes are completely closed, but he is sitting up. My favorite example came Friday @ around 3am when I asked him to hand me Noah out of his bassinet so I could feed him. Head on the pillow and completely alseep, Bri replied 'Could I just make you a copy?' After giggling for about a minute I replied 'No, I think the original would work best please.' Another favorite of mine occurred when I looked at him in the middle of the night and he was half-way down the bed, curled tightly in the fetal position. I asked, 'Would you like a pillow?' Once again, eyes closed, he stated 'I would like a bourbon.' .....Wouldn't we all?

Other humorous incidents have involved more bodily fluids. I can't help but want to buy the little guy some safety glasses. He manages to squirt himself in the face at a changing at least once a day. I also think I should buy a rain jacket for my poor clothes. Sorry if you come to visit and I smell...don't ask...it could just be milk... :P Speaking of milk, I also received a nice shot of it myself - IN MY MOUTH, PROJECTED OUT OF HIS MOUTH. Never look directly at Noah when you are burping him. Well I guess you can look, just don't have your mouth open in concern, like a complete idiot. Other new adventures continue to occur. We went to the beach for the first time. We went out to eat for the first time, though we made the people next to us move..... We also got to nap together (Bri and I) for the first time in a long time. I am sure the next few months will be filled with many 'firsts.' I will try and keep you guys updated. If these blog entries become TMI, just look at the cute Noah pictures instead! I don't seem to have a good filter for what people can tolerate. I like to 'keep it real' as Tyra would say. Oh god, I just quoted Tyra Banks..Don't think badly of me, please, I've been up since 4 :D

Milky hugs and wet kisses,Rach

The Nose Knows

Check out this article my friend Sarah sent to me. It's called "The Pill Makes Women Pick Bad Mates."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080813/sc_livescience/thepillmakeswomenpickbadmates

I have to say, the intro referring to women "swooning" made me doubt the scientific validity of this author. Have any of you ever actually swooned? Also, this article makes me think of those pheromone perfumes. Are people actually that primal that the smell of someone makes you want to date them? Seems to be too simple of a reason for choosing a guy.

The plus side is, that if you are a cheating gal (which I totally do NOT promote) you can now say "The pill made me do it!" Guys have always had the lame-ass excuse of "that's just the way we were built." Here's to ladies now having an excuse you can actually refer to on Yahoo news. :P

Shelfari

As my sweet DH was taking care of the little guy last night, I shut the office door and immersed myself in blogs. One of the blogs I came across "Just another Mommy Blog" http://tracey-justanothermommyblog.blogspot.com/ was pretty cute. It's nice to read about someone with three kids, especially when your child is making the noise of a whole nursery of crying babies.

On her blog she had something called "Shelfari." Its a widget that looks like an actual bookself and has images of the books you like. You can customize it to be the books you are reading, or have read, but I just wanted to make it easy and put my favorites on it.

In my pre-baby days, I used to be in a book club. In truth, it was more of a girls get together and drink martinis club, but it was nice to at least pretend I was being intellectual. Unfortunately, it seems life gets in the way of book clubs, so I think I will just host my favorites here in hopes that some of you may have enojoyed these books too.

Please leave comments or suggestions. I would love to hear your input about books that interest you!

If you would like to put Shelfari on your own blog, go to:
http://www.shelfari.com/

Happy Reading!

Must Be Friday in France

TGIF

O miraculous weekend!
O glass of Chardonnay!
Wrapped up like a hair around a pinkie toe,
I cling to your salvation.

Keep me afloat as I drown in last weeks laundry.
Refresh

(Hold up, my son is eating a Sharpie....)

Refresh me with your cool calmness
Bathe me in

(Son screaming from play yard)

O Chardonnay!
Every sip a minute closer until Daddy gets home.