Category Archives: Cate

recipe for a great workout

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  • Take one (1) twenty-pound baby.
  • Place said baby in backpack carrier.
  • Attach backpack carrier to self.
  • Wear baby while doing various household chores, such as: cleaning the kitchen, vacuuming your entire house (including the stairs) and folding laundry.

    • I would not normally have done this, since… well, I’m not insane, but Cate is unfortunately at the peak of separation anxiety where she screams every time I walk out of a room. Since I needed to clean and was going to be back and forth all over the house, I thought it would be easier to just strap her on my back and get on with it.

    And honestly, it was easier. She was happy as a clam to come along for the ride while I did everything. But man, thank God for ibuprofen, because my back isn’t sure when it will forgive me for that little stunt.

    Aside: Cate is trying really hard these days to figure out how to crawl, but so far all she can do is get her knees sort of halfway underneath herself, and then she proceeds to scoot backwards across the floor. Is that normal? Dave and I both find it hysterically funny to watch her try to figure it out. It’s weird, though – on the one hand, I dread crawling because it means we have to start childproofing the house, and I haven’t done the first thing in that regard. On the other, when she’s mobile and can follow me rather than scream when I walk out of a room? That sounds pretty awesome.

    how long has it been since I wrote a post about my hair?

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    Sorry the blog posts are so few and far between these days. It’s frustrating that every time I have a few baby-free minutes to write something, my web site is down. The tech support people at my sucky web hosts say that this isn’t related to comment spam, which is what they claimed it was last time. Now they’re saying it’s a server problem on their end, and they’re trying to fix it. Hmph. Apparently changing web hosts involves something to do with the exporting and importing of databases, so I’m waiting until Dave can help me with it because I know I will screw it up. Hopefully the fact that I mentioned it here will shame him into doing it sooner rather than later. (Thanks, sweetie!)

    So, new topic…

    At some point when my folks were here, my mom looked at me kind of hard and asked me how long it had been since my last haircut. I remembered that it had been about 6 months because I had gotten it cut right after Cate was born. My mom asked me if I would get it cut if she gave me the money for it, and I told her not to bother because I’d do it after I start working again and have a slightly more flexible cash flow.

    Sure enough, the next day, I found my wallet on top of the diaper bag and some extra cash jammed in it. My mom is not very subtle, but I thought it was sweet of her. She knows how important it can be to feel cute when you’re a new mom and everything else on you looks like crap on a stick. Might as well have sassy hair, right?

    So, I decided that it was time for a change, and I went ahead and had my stylist whack several inches off. I told her that I wanted it to be low-maintenance, and long enough that I can still get in a ponytail. This is why I adore her, because she can take a totally vague description of what I want and turn it into something I love.

    Behold, the before picture:


    And the after:


    I’m quite happy with it. And I can still get it in a ponytail, so hooray for that.

    In other news, today we met up with my friend Janet and her baby at the park, and gave Cate another try on the swings. She didn’t like it all the first time, but today she seemed to enjoy herself for a few minutes, so I guess that was an improvement. It was a fun afternoon.


    P.S. Happy birthday to my sister, who’s turning 29 tomorrow. For like the 8th time.

    one of a million ways to offend a new mommy

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    Ok, Internet, y’all can tell me if I’m totally crazy here.

    I got an email (via Flickr) a few days ago from a journalist who’s writing a story promoting breastfeeding, and she wanted my permission to use this picture of Cate getting a bottle “to provide context.”

    Blink. Blink.

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t she basically imply that she was going to use the picture of my baby getting a bottle as an example of “here’s how you shouldn’t feed your child”? I know that this is a particularly sensitive issue for me, so maybe I’m overreacting, but that is what she’s more or less saying, right?

    This is what I wrote back to her:

    Hi [insert journalist’s name],

    I appreciate where you’re coming from, but I am one of the thousands (millions?) of mothers who really wanted to breastfeed my baby and was unable to, due to poor milk supply. Perhaps I’m being oversensitive, but every time I read some type of news story that promotes breastfeeding over formula, it still stings a bit and makes me feel like I am somehow failing my child. I know that’s not true, but it gets tiresome because it seems like there is some new “breastfeeding good! bottle-feeding baaaaad!” story being published practically every other day.

    So, the way I read your email, you’re asking if you can publish a picture of my daughter as one of those poor, deprived bottle-fed babies with a horrible selfish mother who doesn’t care enough to breastfeed her? Sorry, but no. I don’t want any of my personal photos used for that purpose. I understand that you’re trying to do a good thing – raise social consciousness, whatever – but I’d rather not be involved.

    Thanks,
    Cindy

    Ok, maybe I was a little rude, but believe me, it took a great deal of self-restraint to make it as polite as it was. I held back a lot.

    Also, as for the photo itself, it’s not even that great a picture of Cate – her hair looks greasy, her eyes are half-closed, her diaper is showing – I have hundreds of photos that are a million times more adorable. And I’m not the one feeding her in the picture, it was my mom. Not that you can tell from the way the picture is cropped, but whatever. It just bugs me. If you want to publish a picture of my daughter in the media, it had better be a really cute one. Like this. Or this. Or this. Or… ok, I could go on for days with that.

    I’m also irritated because I am so. damn. tired. of getting the stink-eye from other women every time I have to give Cate a bottle in public. I know it goes both ways – I was with a friend of mine when she nursed her baby in a Starbucks, and there were teenage boys pointing and giggling, and hoo boy was I grateful that it was her boobs on display and not mine. It just feels like, man, I have to deal with this issue often enough in real life, and now I have to feel like I’m being judged via email too?

    It isn’t really the journalist’s fault. I checked out her Flickr profile – she’s young, pretty and single, and I’m sure that she probably never gave a half-second’s thought to this issue before she had to write about it. But, I do wonder if the other people she contacted about posting pictures of their kids being fed by bottles were as offended as I was.

    half-birthday

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    My baby is half a year old today. I cannot begin to tell you how weird that feels to me. Cate had her 6-month pediatrician appointment yesterday, where we found out that she’s now up to 19 pounds, 11 ounces (ouch), she’s 26.5 inches long, and her head circumference is officially off the charts. That’s my big-brained baby.

    As far as milestones from last month, we have:

    * Teething. About three weeks ago, she started chewing on her hands constantly, and always trying to bite Dave and me as well. She’s always tried to shove our hands into her mouth, but the biting thing was new. I managed to check out her gums, and I can see her front bottom teeth just barely under the surface. I have no idea how long it’ll take them to come in, but still, that’s pretty exciting.

    * Sitting. She’s trying to figure out how to sit independently. She can do it for a couple of seconds before she tips over. I have a feeling that she’s going to have that one nailed pretty soon.

    * Trying to feed herself. If you hold a bottle in front of her, she grabs it with both hands and shoves it into her mouth. She’s starting to do the same thing with sippy cups (we have the kind with handles on both sides – easy to grip), but since she only gets water in the cup, she gets bored with that pretty quickly. And wet. I don’t know who first came up with the concept of spill-proof cups, but they need to improve that one.

    And in honor of her half-birthday, Cate got her first taste of vegetables. She had carrots. They were a huge hit, and an even bigger mess.

    We’ve been having a great time with my folks this week. My mom kept Cate occupied so my dad and I could finish painting my kitchen. My new hinges finally showed up today, so after I get my cabinet doors re-hung, I’ll have to take pictures of my pretty new kitchen to show off. I guess it would’ve been smart to take “before” pictures for comparison’s sake, but I sort of forgot about that until just now.

    Oh, and my dad has been trying to mow our lawn. Our riding mower is broken, so he’s trying to use the regular old push mower. On two acres. And most of our yard is as tall as my hips. Thank God we’ve been having mild weather, I was worried he was going to give himself a heart attack out there.

    My brother and sister are flying in for the weekend tonight. My folks are actually picking my brother up at the airport right now. His flight from Charlotte was supposed to get in about 8 minutes before my sister’s flight from NYC. He was on time, but unfortunately my sister has been delayed over 3 1/2 hours, so she’ll be here sometime after midnight. Poor thing. My sister is the family photographer, so I’m sure I’ll have tons of pics by the time the weekend is over.

    daycare debate

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    I really should’ve known better than to write anything about Cate’s sleeping habits. The past three nights, she’s woken up screaming because she rolled over onto her tummy and then scooted herself into the far corner of the crib, and she couldn’t figure out how to get out. Boo. I miss waking up to happy-baby-talky noises on the monitor.

    New topic: Since my parents are coming, Kris came over yesterday to keep Cate entertained so I could clean. It was fun to have Kris over and catch up for a while, but it confirmed what I already suspected (because it happened when the neighbor girls were here baby-sitting while I painted the kitchen): if Cate can see me, but I’m not holding her, she gets cranky really fast.

    Originally, I had been thinking that we might get a baby-sitter or nanny to take care of Cate when I start working again, but I realized that probably won’t work. If she’s screaming her head off, it’s not like I’m going to be able to concentrate on writing, y’know? So I’m exploring daycares in the area. I think that the exposure to other kids can only be a good thing – and by that I mean both the socialization aspect as well as the immune system boost she’ll eventually gain from being exposed to all those other babies’ germs.

    I’d really like to do daycare just part-time, but I was worried that I’d end up paying for full-time daycare since it seems like most places don’t have a part-time option. (Which makes sense from a payroll standpoint – they still have to pay their staff even if the babies aren’t there all the time.) But I called around and found a couple of places that actually do have part-time care available. They’ll take babies anywhere from 2 to a full 5 days per week.

    I know a lot of mommies feel guilty for putting their kids in daycare, and I totally get that. If I had to go back to work when she was only 6 or 8 weeks old, I know I would’ve been a mess. (I also would’ve been a zombie, since Cate was only sleeping in 3-hour chunks then.) But my goal was to stay home with her for the first 6 months, which I’ve done. And I’m only thinking about putting her in daycare for 3 days a week, so I feel pretty good about it. I’m sure that the first time I have to leave her there when she’s crying, it’ll probably rip my heart out, especially since I’ve pretty much convinced myself that I’m the only one who can soothe her when she’s upset. (Dave can do it too, although his success rate isn’t as high as mine. You know, not to brag or anything.) But I’ll figure out a way to cope with the whole “oh god, I’m abandoning my poor defenseless precious baby” mommy guilt.

    Speaking of which, I’m sure that God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whoever had his reasons for giving us the mommy guilt. You know, it kept the cave mommies of yore from leaving their babies out as a pterodactyl snack or whatever. But I really wish we could’ve evolved past it now. Because the mommy guilt just sucks. So much for Darwin.

    Anyway, tomorrow is going to be quite the big day for us: we’re going to take tours of two different daycare facilities, meet up with my friend Janet and her baby for a while, and then my parents come in late that night. And once my folks are here, the real fun starts, since that’s when I’m going to be painting the rest of the kitchen. Whee!

    yay! And also, ow.

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    I don’t want to jinx this by writing about it, so everyone cross your fingers…

    The past two nights, Cate has slept over 9 hours straight. Without so much as a peep. And I got to sleep the majority of that time too, so I actually feel sort of (dare I say it?) almost sane. Wow.

    The bad part is that I apparently slept weird last night, because I woke up with a wicked crick in my neck. It hurts down the side of my neck all the way into my left shoulder. Picking Cate up out of her crib this morning was a test of my endurance, to say the least. And I can’t really turn my head to the left, which sucks because I have to run a couple of errands today, and I generally think it’s a good idea to have full neck mobility when I drive.

    Oh, and I’m not sure how I’m going to manage using either the Baby Bjorn or the backpack carrier to take Cate for our daily walk, since both of those put weight on my shoulder. I think I might have to drag Dave along with us and make him carry her.

    Please excuse me while I go down a fistful of ibuprofen. Hope everyone has a great weekend.