eight months

Dear Leila,

today you are eight months old. It's your first thanksgiving this weekend and you've become such a little charmer crawling around smiling at your family.

I feel like we're finally starting to string days together into weeks, months even. Before, when you were brand new, everything was just a series of randomly occurring events. Each day we would wake up and tackle every problem like it was the first time. We could never put together time in a way that made sense. We couldn't learn to repeat days into patterns, into weeks, into time. In those early months I felt like we were floating through a void and all we had to keep us afloat was our love. You clinging to me and me to you, bouncing on the blue exercise ball in a poor attempt to emulate the rhythm of waves.

Now that you can laugh, and play and eat bites of my french toast everything is different. You still reach for me when you need me, but now, that's not all the time.

I love you small human,

Mom

Happy babies know that puppy toys are better than human toys.

the sound of silence

I have never met anyone of any age who fights sleep like Leila. Tom once pointed out that its like she thinks she's dying every time she tries to fall asleep. As I write this she is screaming in the background, in foreground Simon and Garfunkle are doing a shitty job drowning her out.

She's exhausted, but she won't fall. Not in my arms, not eating. There's seemingly nothing I can do to make her happy right now. You know those fleeting "what if" thoughts you have that you know you would never act on? I've more than once thought of leaving a note on a the door that just says, "She wouldn't stop crying, I'm sorry." And then I would take off and run away somewhere where I could sleep for eight hours straight.

On our honeymoon she fought sleep so much we gave up eventually and decided we'd just have to let her cry it out. We'd get her to sleep, no joke, ten times but every time we put her down or stopped touching her or stopped "shhhhing" her she would wake right back up. Anyway, the hotel was really well sound-proofed. When she was in the bedroom I could barely hear her in the other room. Our house is pretty much the opposite. I feel like I'm right next to her screaming, purple face. I go in every ten or so minutes and tell her I love her and that she's breaking my heart, for all the good it does.

In case you were wondering, this sucks.

days like this one

You know that friend you have you who is ridiculously organized and does everything perfectly? She always has her pictures in nice frames (not in a file on her desktop called "to develop"), her bathroom smells nice, she's impeccably dressed, and everything she cooks looks like it just fell out of Gourmet magazine? Well, when that friend throws you a party, let me tell you, it rules. A lot. I'm lucky enough to have two such women in my life, one of them threw me a baby shower (mad props Spankie) and Kate took over in the wedding department.

Gorgeous hand-painted sign courtesy of the lovely Elise Quarmby, artistic genius.

My dear friend Katie threw me an "unbridal shower" today and it was just lovely. We all got together and had tea and played games, and open presents (even though I told them not to bring any), and then they all kicked my ass at croquet. In my defense, I was winning before I put a very sleepy, grumpy Leila is the front carrier and obstructed my view of the ground. The funny thing was, I noticed a number of my favourite songs playing in the background and thought, "hmm that's funny, how the hell would Kate have got a hold of The Weakerthans, Flogging Molly and Blondie?" Just as I sitting congratulating her in my head she told me that my lovely friend Jeff Wint had made a play list as his contribution to the afternoon. Awesome.

But I digress. It was so nice to spend an afternoon with my favourite girls. It was also lovely to have a whole bunch of other willing hands to hold Lise while I went to the bathroom or opened my presents. I feel very lucky to have such wonderful friends. I know this post isn't really about my baby, but sometimes I get so wrapped up with her I forget the rest of my life and today was such a lovely reminder of the great people I have in it. So thanks everyone, you guys are great.

Kate & Me, oh and that baby too.

(Photos taken by Cindy Bouchard, thanks!!)

three steps back

If my grammar, spelling or general sense sucks today, I'm sorry, I got three hours of sleep last night. Tom likes to point out that I'm prone to exaggerations like, "I was up a million times with the baby last night." This time, however, no hyperbole is needed.

I went to bed around 11 last night and Leila woke up when she heard me come in the room so I nursed her. I had just put her back in her own bed when Tom came in at 12 and woke her up again. It's not his fault, she's a light sleeper when she's first asleep, anyway I tried to nurse her again, but she wasn't having any of it, so I tired to rock her and again she wasn't having any of it. She was wide awake and thrashing around. So I turned on the light and hung out with her for a while, she was pretty quiet and docile and pooped twice. Her diaper basically looked like a very large person had blown their nose in it, poor bean. Her insides are obviously still not happy. Anyway, the last time I looked at the clock it was 2:10am. Then she was up again at 3:30am. And then again for real at 5:30am. Between 5:30 and 7 she sort of thrashed around while I lay their half-awake but too tired to do anything about it. At 7 I got up and gave her to Tom (who had wisely chosen the living-room as a place of more uninterrupted rest), and then I slept for another hour until he left for work.

Basically, I want to die. I am so tired I think my brain is going to fall out of my head. You know that weird dissociated feeling you get when you drink too much cough syrup? That's me, all the time. Also, my landlord is renovating the suite downstairs so while I attempt to nap all I'll hear are hammers...

captain cuddles

Finally, some answers. I feel like I've been beating my head against a door with most of  the medical professionals in my life for the past couple of months. I'm sure doctors and public health nurses hear a lot of first time moms freaking out, but on the odd chance that a mother is actually in touch with her child and is clamouring, "something's wrong, something's wrong" over and over again it would be nice if they listened.

I haven't wanted to write about how I think Leila has something 'wrong' with her for a whole bunch of reasons, but mostly because she is, in so many ways, such a wonderful perfect being that it feels wrong to complain about her. That being said, she hasn't been very happy lately and it came to a head last week when she would arch her back and scream like she was being tortured on and of all day. On Friday, after talking to about four different public health nurses on the phone, I made an appointment to see my doctor, however, she was unavailable so I saw another doctor at the practice who was awesome. I want her adopt me and Leila as her patients. I hope she will. At any rate, she listened to my tale of woe about how Leila wakes up every hour during the night, seems to be in pain, and has green poop. She asked a bunch of questions and then told me it sounds like Leila has a protein intolerance. This means I have to cut out my beloved dairy (I love cheese), nuts, shell-fish, and eggs. You know, just most of my diet. I'd already cut dairy out about a week before on the off chance it was the cause of her unhappiness, but I was still eating the rest of it. The good news is by the time most babies are six months to a year old their stomachs have developed to the point where they, and their breast-feeding mothers, can eat these proteins again,

Anyway, this protein intolerance basically leads to inflamed guts which are obviously no fun for a little person, so it's no wonder she was waking up miserable in the middle of the night and never wanted me to put her down during the day. When I'm sick I still want my mom to take care of me, so it seems only reasonable that she would want to be in my arms at all times. It's supposed to take about a month to see results from this new diet, but Leila already seems much happier. This new found peace seems to fragile I am almost scared to say anything about it in fear that giving it a name will make it slip away. For now though, all three of us are happy.

only in dreams

I had this terrible dream last night that I let something bad happen to Leila. As dreams go, the details today are somewhat unclear, but somehow I let her get burned before I understood what was going on. Once I understood it was too late and I knew she was going to die. The people in my dream were trying to convince me it would be alright, I could have another one, one who would be less work, who wouldn't cry as much, but I was trying to pick her up out of the fire and hold her to me and she bravely was trying to smile.  All that was left of her was the dimple of her right cheek as she smiled at me.

I've been haunted by the memory of this dream all day. I've held her solid, warm little body to my chest and inhaled the smell of her skin, her hair. Yet somehow the specter of her pain has hung over me making me feel guilty for something I haven't done. Maybe it is the weight of the unconscious, my fears and doubts I haven't let pass through my lips taking shape in a dream.  As though part of me wished her out of existence. I love her more than anything in the universe. I love her so hard I feel like my chest is going to crack from the internal pressure. But it's not easy going and sometimes, at five in the morning, I've wished I could have it all back the way it used to be.

When I was very small my grandmother used to tell me that she wouldn't trade me for all the rice in China. And upon reflection, I realize that I wouldn't trade Leila for all the late nights out, for all the travels and adventures, for all the glasses of wine, for all the late mornings in the world.

the good, the bad and the sleepy

When I was in high school my dad used to wake me up every morning by saying, "there's good news and there's bad news, which do you want first?" I would croak something about "the good" and he would answer, "well the good news is that it's morning, the bad news is that you have to get up."

Right now I feel like that. The good news is, I've reintroduced coffee to my life. Yes, the caffeinated kind.  The bad news is I need it desperately. I didn't drink coffee throughout my pregnancy, and except from a stolen sip from Tom here and there, I haven't had any since she was born. This morning I sat down and drank a whole cup, and it was magnificent. I feel like I could conquer the world. I was actually going to go for a walk but Tom went out with my keys by accident. I feel like it can't  be worse for Leila than having her mother who is so sleep deprived she can't function normally without bursting into tears.

The bad news is that Leila has decided she does not need sleep. The past couple of nights she has refused to go to sleep before 10pm and then has slept for a couple of hours and has woken up thrashing around like a mad baby. Rinse and repeat every half an hour. Last night Tom drove her to Squamish and back so I could get some sleep. She was hysterical because she'd only taken one short nap and had refused all my attempts to get her to sleep. Around 8pm I was holding her on the bed rocking her back and forth sobbing, "I just want you to be happy baby, I love you so much, please just be happy." Fortunately, Tom stepped in told me to go to bed, picked her up and took her down to the car.

She did wake up in the middle of the night again, somewhere around 1am. She was kicking and thrashing and trying to nurse, but then pulling her head away. I tried swaddling her and she just wriggled out of it like an pissed-off caterpillar. I've never been angry with her before. I always manage to divert my frustration onto poor, long-suffering Norton or Tom or a pillow.When she is freaking out I will snap at one of them, but last night in the middle of the night I was furious with her. I picked her up and I was taking her out of our room and I was going to put her in the cradle in the living room and leave her there even if she cried. I didn't care. As soon as I put her down in the cradle (and woke up a bit more) I realized what was going on, she was drawing her legs up to her chest and then kicking them out like she does when she's gassy. My anger evaporated and I scooped her up and took her over to the couch where I held her on her stomach and patted her back until she was gas free. Then I made some "stomach calming tea" (fennel, cammomile, and peppermint) that is suppose to pass through my milk into her stomach and help her relax. After an hour or so she'd pooped, eaten and was feeling much more pleased with life. I swaddled her up and again and brought her back to bed, where she fell asleep instantly.

It's hard somehow not feel angry when I don't know why she's upset. I would do anything for her, but I can't  do anything if I don't know what to do. Yesterday I missed Tom's mom so much. My mom is stuck in Iceland waiting for a flight home and there was seemingly no one I could call for advice on what to do. My friends with babies are all in the same boat as me, figuring out what works and what doesn't, and I really needed some sage grandmotherly advice. Even if it was just to tell me that, "this too shall pass."

The even better news is Tom's mom is coming for a visit in less than a month. When I am awake at night and can't fall back to sleep I count down the days until her next visit. Twenty-two, in case you were wondering.

A rare moment these days.