Life and Stuff

Can’t fight city hall, can’t fight genetics (much.) So quit trying, and celebrate what you got. Having a kid has made the obvious…uh…more obvious.

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Life with Lucy Bella bounces along nicely. Lug and I are getting to know her, and learning that she has definite opinions and preferences. I learned the “lite” version of this lesson when I started teaching, but I really see it as I become further acquainted with my girl. That lesson being, so much of who we are is wired into us. When it comes to the most basic components of our personalities, we are who we are. It took me a long time to realize and appreciate this about myself. As it turns out, I really am a lot like my Dad…and that’s a good thing. Patient. Gentle. Optimistic and slow to anger. Eager to learn new things.

I can see that my daughter has come by herself honestly. I want her to enjoy every part of who she is, the Mama and the Daddy pieces of her, and never to deride any part of herself. It’s one reason I’m keeping a handful of scrapbooks that document our family, so she knows who she is, how she got that way, and that we’re pretty happy with how things are turning out.

Lucy Bella is wired to be…well, a little bit wired. She is alert, and I do not mean awake. I mean, you’d better be paying attention, because she is. Everywhere we take her, people stop us to comment on her big eyes and the fact that she’s quite aware of what’s going on. She makes, and sustains eye contact. She’s friendly, and will talk to friendly people. If you can decipher, “Blergh ga SQUEEE!” and respond appropriately, then you’ve just made a pal for life.

From the outset, I’ve been wearing Lucy Bella because I didn’t want her to be a container baby. I want her to be part of my life, and to see the world while being as upright as possible. Turns out, that works for her. She’s not a particular fan of being strapped into the car seat and lazily watching the world go by, even in a comfortable stroller. No, siree. Upright. Naptime? Upright!

Luckily, Mama’s got a strong back.

She’s also very affectionate. Most activities take place within one foot of Mama or Daddy. While she enjoys exploring her world, she also seems to like the warmth and play-by-play narration that we are happy to provide. There is certainly no lack of affection coming right back at her. She’s growing close to Mammaw and her aunts, uncles, and cousins; and we want her to really know her family in all of their diversity. We want her to have the different conversations and experiences that Lug and I can’t have with her.

Her parents are doing pretty well at making life interesting so far, though. Today, we visited the North Carolina Ukulele Academy and got her first instrument, a beautiful pink wooden ukulele. I’ve gotten a couple of songs down on it, and soon I’ll be able to hold the chords while she strums. She’s up for just about anything. Seems that she comes by it honestly.

Or, perhaps we don’t have the book where it’s mentioned that vaccinations are way more difficult for the parent than for the child. She was fine after her initial howl. Me…not so much.

Happy Baby

Today, I visited what is going to be our new pediatric practice. I’d originally selected one that is fine, but this one–wow. Head and shoulders above what I’d expected, AND I teach with the pediatrician’s husband. The nursing and reception staff is terrific, they have a reputation of meeting appointments on time, and the doctor took an appropriate amount of time with Lucy Bella. I was very much at ease, and Lucy Bella was a big fan. She laughed and talked the whole time with her caretakers, which told me that we’ve found a place for her to grow up.

So…vaccination time. All the books, all the hype, all the fear has not deterred me from one simple reality: I don’t want my child contracting 19th-century diseases. We happen to live in a pretty liberal corner of North Carolina, where some people liken vaccinating your child to giving them rat poison. Because of my significant history of allergies, the doctor is happy to follow a delayed schedule and limit the number of injections during each visit. Instead of bimonthly injections this first year, we’ll be visiting monthly to make sure we closely monitor any reactions. She’ll only get one jab at a time, which seems fair enough. And, we’re delaying a few of them until right before she goes to school.

I mean, really–Hepatitis B? We’ll do our best to keep her off the hard drugs until at least kindergarten.

Here’s something else that no one tells you, unless you’ve got them tied up under harsh interrogation: breastfeeding during the first month-and-a-half is like having one of your arms chopped off. I can understand why something like 70% of Americans give it up before three months have passed. Here’s what the nursing book needs to tell you:

• Don’t bother wearing a shirt for the first four weeks of baby’s life. She’s hungry.
• Don’t plan on lifting anything with two hands. She’s hungry, then she’d just rather sleep on the midnight snack.
• Install a water fountain next to where you feed the baby. You’ll be very thirsty as long as you remain the food source.

If you can fight the good fight, though, and enlist the support of a good lactation consultant; it does get easier. It gets a lot easier. The painful part of it goes away, you learn how to breastfeed while walking around if you need to, you grow accustomed to doing it occasionally in public. I’m glad that I stuck it out. Lucy Bella’s chances of having the allergies that I’ve dealt with are greatly minimized. I’m protecting her (and me) from several cancers, the risk of diabetes, and I’m transferring my immunity to her. My immune system’s “memory” of all of the germs that I’ve ever fought in my life are being passed to her. That’s huge, and entirely worth the occasional ouch or inconvenience.

Aside from all that, there is something to be said for the bonding part of it. When she’s fussy, a good feeding can often calm her enough for naptime. She isn’t necessarily hungry; she just wants to curl up in a warm corner of Mama.

So far, all is well. We got her first percentile printout from the new doctor. Lucy Bella is well on her way to the WNBA: 93rd percentile in height, 55th in weight, and83rd for head growth. I’m not sure why they do the head growth one, but I’m glad my kid won’t have THE biggest head in class.

And sleeping! We’re getting consistent three-to-five-hour stretches in there. Pretty good for a young, breastfed baby.

More later. Someone’s hungry.

It’s interesting how much the human body can withstand. In our cases, we’re functioning pretty well in the face of new-parent sleep deprivation. There are days in which I forget what street I live on and what day it is, but we have not yet left Lucy Bella in the pantry or allowed her to play near outlets. Success! As of today, she is about 11 pounds and 22 inches long with a head of what looks like thick, auburn hair.

Everyone continues to be astounded at her level of alertness. Like, all the time. Not much of a napper, this one. We’re going to add this tendency the list of traits she got from Mama.

Sorry about the overbite, kid. Hey, at least you got my nose and some long legs.

I got a really cool Mother’s Day gift from Lucy Bella today. She got herself to sleep for three hours. Then, she slept mostly through the night with just a couple of short feed breaks. Woo!

I know this sounds like something from the files of, “Kim, You’re an Idiot.” But the past couple of days have been…nap-less. I got a shower the other day and was all, “Whee! Cleanliness!” (You really lower your expectations for meeting personal goals with a newborn. Shoot for a shower and lunch, and consider it a great day.)

Lucy Bella, from what we can tell, is an interesting combination of both me and Lug. In particular, she came by one tendency honestly, and that is to enjoy wakefulness just a little too much. When she has slept this first month, we mostly allowed her to fall asleep in our laps or arms. She’s so cute and cuddly, and we just couldn’t put her down. The first two weeks, it was easy enough to transfer her to a sleep container, such as the bassinet.

Week four, that became not so easy. After snoozing comfortably on us for a bit, she would start awake when we’d transfer her to said container. Then, the fussing and hours of, “I am NOT going to sleep” began. We thought she might be sick, as all other needs had been met.

Turns out that we were just dumb. After day three of this, we were dumb and delirious from the lack of sleep.

I fast-forwarded through two of the baby books that I’d not quite finished yet, and figured out the problem. Turns out that if you ever want a child to sleep, you have to catch them when they’re drowsy but awake, instead of psychotic with fatigue. Then, you place them in the baby snooze container and allow said baby to comfort him- or herself to sleep. You know, like a big person does. Otherwise, the kid will never go to sleep without your intervention because they’re scared to find sleep on their own.

We thought we were going to have to fight the good fight on this one for a week, but it turns out we did it in a day. It took me six tries during the first attempted nap, but I finally hit the jackpot. We then got another nap after three tries, and then last night we got some sleep like civilized people. Aah.

Still, I may decide to break the rules occasionally. Lug and I had gotten into the rhythm of him taking 10p.m.-3a.m. duty, then I picked up from there. When Lucy Bella would awaken for her early-morning feeding, we’d gotten into the habit of flipping on Turner Movie Classics and enjoying awesome silent and otherwise forgotten movies that only people up at 4:30 a.m. could like. Within reason, I may just have to sneak her into the living room with me, snuggle into the recliner, and see what Charlie Chaplin is up to once or twice a month.

That, and watching the possum family forage through our recycling on the deck. Mama, babies…a family’s gotta eat. Happy Mother’s Day to her, too.