Category Archives: Cate

change of plans

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My in-laws won’t be coming for a visit after all, for reasons that are best left off the blog. It’s nothing life or death, just some run-of-the-mill internal family drama. If I’m being vague, it’s because I feel like it’s one thing for me to write about my own family here, but I believe Dave is entitled to a bit of privacy, so we’ll just leave it at that. It will all be fine, I promise. These types of things always sort themselves out.

Another bit of news this week is that Dave is apparently going to have to go to San Francisco for a work-related conference during the first week in March. Which would normally not be a big deal – he often has to travel for work, and I’m not a huge fan of it, but I do ok by myself. This time, the idea of being alone with a newborn for a week, combined with my current state of sleep-deprivation and post-partum hormones, made me freak out a bit. Taking care of the baby by myself didn’t seem like a big deal before she was here; now, however, it seems absolutely terrifying. How will I ever be able to take a shower? And who will hold her when she’s screaming her head off and I need two hands to make a bottle?

Of course, the baby and I could go with him to San Francisco and just hang out in the hotel all week, but that didn’t sound like much fun either. Airplanes are so full of germs, and Cate hasn’t had most of her vaccines yet. Not to mention all the gear you need to travel with an infant. Ugh. No need.

So my mom, god love her, scrounged up some frequent flyer miles and booked herself a flight to come back to Seattle and help me with the baby while Dave is gone. Totally unselfish of her – not like she isn’t dying for more Grandbaby Time or anything. Ha.

The timing is pretty perfect too, since my mom’s visit will overlap with my cousin’s. And since her mom (my aunt) and baby will be here too, we’ll have our own little “Three Generation Estrogen Fest.” It should be a lot of fun. I normally hate it when Dave goes out of town, but I’m actually pretty excited about it this time.

Um, not that I want him to leave, of course. I’m just looking forward to the family time. I will miss him while he’s gone, though. I always do.

And hey, look! More baby home movies!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9eD-uw5G3s 
I know, it’s pretty dull because she doesn’t actually do anything. I filmed it mostly for the grandparents’ benefit, since my folks claim to be going through Cate-withdrawal right now.

Btw, that song in the background is the Mozart tune that plays on her little baby gym. They say that it’s good for her mental and emotional development. I don’t know if that’s true, but that song has got to be the most annoying piece of classical music ever created. It’s been stuck in my head for days and it’s about to drive me up the damn wall. So much for my mental and emotional development.

hearts and teddy bears and all that goo

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Scene: last night, our living room. Dave was sitting on the couch with Cate, giving her a bottle. I was sitting on our over-stuffed chair with my laptop, trying to catch up on blogs, because I have fallen hopelessly behind. There was some old sitcom rerun (Friends, maybe? Or Will & Grace? I forget) on the TV. During a commercial break, an ad came on for a local jewelry company.

Dave: Sh*t. When is Valentine’s Day? Tomorrow?

Me: Yep.

Him: Um, happy Valentine’s Day! I sort of forgot to get you a card or a present.

Me: It’s ok, hon, I didn’t get you anything either.

And that pretty much sums it up. Aren’t we just the most romantic couple ever?

Actually, I think we’ve already got our little valentine, and it’s way more precious to me than any bouquet of flowers. Although, to be fair, flowers wouldn’t wake me up at four in the morning demanding food. Which, seriously kid, could you please just eat more during the day so your mommy can sleep for longer than two hours at a time? I’d really appreciate it if you could work on that.

Oh, and happy Valentine’s Day. Now I’m going to take a nap.

lights, camera, action

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I filmed this movie of Cate when she was five days old, and I thought it was so cute, I wanted to get it online immediately. Sadly, our video camera films everything in super high-resolution – which will be fantastic when we want to create home movie DVD’s for all of the grandparents. But for uploading on YouTube? Hmm, not so much.

We ordered some video editing software, so I could save the movie files in lower resolution, therefore making it easier to upload. I thought I would be able to download and install the software, but alas, I was foiled again: it had to be shipped to us. And it took over a week to arrive. But it came in the mail today, so I installed it, and now (finally!!) I give you Cate’s first-ever home movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlGMofBVEWc

In other news: my folks flew out this morning, so we’re back to being a household of three for the next few days. Dave’s family gets to town this Sunday, and they’ll be here for two weeks. And then as soon as they leave, my cousin Cat, her mom, and e-baby will be here for a few days. What can I say, our little kiddo is popular. People are flying in from all over to get the chance to meet her.

Oh, and in case you didn’t notice, there are many more new pics on Flickr, mostly courtesy of my sister. She’s so in love with her little niece that she went all Annie Liebovitz on us and snapped about a million photos of Cate. She even considered taking pictures of a diaper change, but… um, no. No need for the Internet to see that, thank you very much. But she did manage to take my favorite picture yet, probably because my sister is the one of the few people on the planet who insists that I put on powder and lipstick before she’ll take a photo of me.

 

Thank god for make-up, because y’all have no idea just how dark the circles under my eyes are right now. Sleep deprivation really doesn’t agree with me, I just happen to have some kick-ass concealer.

meet the grandparents

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Having my parents here this week has been really fun. They are both totally smitten with their first grandbaby, and it’s been hilarious to watch them interact with her. At first, my dad was afraid to hold her because she’s so small, but he got over it quickly. I swear, I don’t think the child’s butt is going to see any type of flat surface until they leave on Monday. My dad acts like we’re abusing her if I put her in the swing for two minutes while I run to the bathroom.

Thanks to my mom, the freezer in our garage is quickly getting filled with all kinds of yummy homemade meals, which I imagine will be a life-saver over the next few months. And she’s been getting up with me and the baby in the middle of the night, doing late-night diaper changes and helping settle Cate back down, so I can squeeze in a few more minutes of sleep, which has been an enormous help.

The only downside is that my dad is acting a bit like a little old lady with his worrywart tendencies. The baby sneezes once, so he freaks out that she must be cold – nevermind that the house is 70 degrees, and she’s wearing long-sleeved footed pajamas and is wrapped up in a thermal receiving blanket. Either that or he worries about the cats coming within ten feet of the baby, that kind of thing. It’s sort of endearing and irritating at the same time.

My brother and sister arrive tomorrow night, and they leave on Sunday. It’s kind of insane that they’re both flying cross-country (my sister from NYC, my brother from North Carolina) for essentially one day, but they both really want to meet their new little niece, and they couldn’t afford to take much time off from work, so they’re just making a weekend trip of it. Whatever works, I guess. I’m really looking forward to seeing them, and I know Cate is going to win them over immediately.

Oh, one random Mommy Fear that has already come true: I fell while carrying the baby. My parents and I were heading out to Target yesterday, I was carrying Cate in the car seat, and I tripped on the stoop in front of the house. I didn’t so much drop Cate, I more just set the car seat down really fast as I fell. The seat flipped over backwards, and Cate seemed a little freaked out when the receiving blanket fell forward and landed on her face, but otherwise she seemed totally fine.

I, on the other hand, didn’t fare so well. I skinned the hell out of my shin and tore a hole in my jeans. And I was all proud of myself for being back in my pre-pregnancy jeans by the time I was one week post-partum. Oh well, I suppose I now have an excuse for my next trip to Old Navy.

9 days old

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Today Cate had her follow-up appointment with the pediatrician. To recap:

Jaundice? Gone. Hooray! I actually predicted that one already, since she isn’t at all yellow anymore.

Weight? Five pounds, 11 and a half ounces. Miss Cate is almost back up to her birth weight now. And it means that she’s been gaining about an ounce a day, which is perfect.

We seem to have been blessed with an extraordinarily easy baby. She only fusses when something is wrong – namely, if she’s hungry, or during diaper-changing time. Oh, and during baths. Girlfriend really doesn’t like to be naked. Which I suppose is logical for someone who has almost no fat on them, she must get cold quickly. But other than that, she’s pretty mellow, she sleeps a lot, eats like a champ, and is just generally awesome.

I think they call these types of first-born babies “gotcha” babies. The parents think, oh hey, this is easy, we can have more of these. And then the second one comes along, and… gotcha! (I can say this with some authority since I am myself a second baby, and I know that I was not at all easy on my parents.)

Speaking of which, my parents are flying in tonight, and will be here for the next week. They are both dying to meet their first grandchild, so it’s pretty exciting. I’m not sure how much the blog will be updated during their visit, since things tend to get hectic when the family is in town. Although who knows, maybe I’ll have lots of free time since I doubt I’ll be allowed to hold the baby at all for the next week while the grandparents work in as much face time with the baby as possible. Either way, I’ll try to keep adding pictures to the Flickr set as often as I can.

broken boobs

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Today marks two big events: first, it’s officially my due date. Ha! Take that, nature! I beat you to it!

Second, today is the day that I had my first post-partum meltdown. I left Cate and Dave at home (her in the swing, him on the couch) while I went to the grocery store and to grab some take-out for dinner. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I came home and promptly dissolved into a puddle of tears in the kitchen.

I guess it was because the take-out place took forever with our order, and sitting there waiting was the first opportunity that I’ve had to get wrapped up inside my own head. When I’m home, it’s All About The Baby, All The Time. Having that extra 15 minutes of alone time was not necessarily a good thing.

So, the breastfeeding? It isn’t working. My milk just hasn’t come in. If I squint my eyes and turn my head sideways when I look in the mirror, my boobs look a tiny bit bigger, but overall there’s been no engorgement of any kind. I bought a nursing bra, and the woman at the store talked me into getting a C cup so I’d have “room to grow,” and believe me, there is still plenty of room in there. I feel gypped, I really wanted to have big bodacious breastfeeding ta-ta’s.

Yesterday I pumped six times and produced a combined total of two ounces. Is there any wonder why I nurse the baby for thirty minutes at a time, and then she screams in frustration afterward? Yeah, I didn’t think so. I’ve been trying to breastfeed her first, and then offer a bottle afterward, and she sucks down the formula like she’s starving to death. And I guess she probably would starve, if we were relying solely on me.

Also, when I’m nursing her, I’m constantly fussing with her head, moving her to a better angle, re-positioning my breast, trying to find a way to sit that doesn’t hurt my back, whatever. Compared to that? Giving her a bottle is actually pretty fun. I can prop her up on my knees, and lean over close to her face and talk to her and coo at her. And now that she makes eye contact, we can just stare at each other the whole time, which is pretty darn awesome. I feel way more bonded to her during bottle-feeding time than I ever have when trying to nurse her.

So, I kind of just… stopped. Sometime in the last day or so, I decided that I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m still pumping like crazy every couple of hours, because I figure that if I can produce enough to make one of her feedings a bottle of breastmilk, then all the better. Some is better than none, right? To try to help things along, I’m taking fenugreek, and drinking this disgusting organic “Mother’s Milk” tea (actual quote on the package: “To promote healthy lactation.” You know, as opposed to the unhealthy kind). That tea alone is proof of how much I love this child, because it tastes like licorice, which I despise. And yet I dutifully slug down my three to five mugs daily, in the hopes that maybe it will allow me to produce a few more droplets of milk for her.

Anyway, I was sitting at the take-out place and I started thinking about how most women have at least one part of their body that they hate and obsess about constantly? Mine has always been my breasts. They’re too small, they aren’t a pretty shape, my nipples are proportionally too large, whatever. Hating my boobs has pretty much been a constant in my life since puberty. I guess I feel like this is just another way in which they’ve failed me. And in turn, it makes me feel like I’ve failed my daughter, because I didn’t even make it through the first week.

I know I’ve said all along that I was ambivalent about breastfeeding and that if it worked, great, but if not, no big deal. And I guess I realize now that I was full of crap, because I really did want it to work, and I’m upset that it just hasn’t. I do wonder if I gave up too soon, but for the sake of my sanity, I couldn’t stand to keep putting both of us through the stress of it all.

Man, that Mommy Guilt thing sure can sneak up on you and kick your ass, can’t it? I never even saw it coming.

Tonight, Dave came downstairs with the baby after changing her, and found me crying while putting away groceries. (Hey, look, I can multitask!) I tried to explain why I was upset, and he held the baby out to me and said, “Look, she’s healthy, she’s happy, she’s doing great.” And he’s right, really. That should be enough.

But so help me, the first time I get one of those Mommy Drive-By’s where someone makes a disparaging comment about me bottle-feeding my baby, I am probably going to lose my mind and punch that person dead in the nose. Hopefully Dave will always have bail money on hand, just in case.