His crooked head

My baby has a crooked head. His temple flattens slightly on one side, making it look like the middle spongy baby part is sticking out. Babies delivered by cesarian usually have perfectly round faces, unless, such is our case, baby's big head was too large inside momma's tiny pelvis and it got shaped funny.

I never really noticed it, until his doctor held his head, facing forward, with a concerned look on his face, while baby blabbed away. For some reason baby likes his doctor, even though he gets his little manhood squeezed and his belly fluffed by him.

Doctor sends us immediately to the x-ray room to check and see if his skull is already closing, which is a no-no in baby world because it could lead to all sorts of problems, one of them being blindness and which will lead me to cry myself to sleep that night. The solution for this problem is brain surgery.

The x-ray technician tells me to hold baby's little arms down and lay on his legs to keep him from moving. She steadies his head with big, scary black boxes on each side of his ears.At this point baby is no longer happily talking. He is screaming panicked, wondering why I, "the one who feeds him," is being mean to him.

(I imagine that baby sees me as "the one who feeds me," and not so much as"mom" yet. I think he views my husband as "the goofy one with the big hands that makes me laugh.")

Anyway, as I try my best to hold little flailing legs, I see the roof of his mouth, wide open now as he screams. It occurs to me that I've never seen the roof of anyone's mouth and I wonder how many more angles I will get to see of this little person in this motherhood journey. It also occurs to me, right when the x ray machine turns on, that the poster right above his screaming face warns that if I could be pregnant, that I shouldn't be in this room.

Could I?

I'm no longer afraid of bugs

I had a moth as a roommate for a few months back when I was single and lived on my own. I was so grossed out with the idea of smooshing it with a shoe that I preferred living with it.

My husband, who was my boyfriend then, offered to kill it, but I had gotten used to the idea of looking for it in the morning and finding it in different places in the living room, until I found its sad little body dead on the floor.

When it comes to spiders and cockroach and other nasty beings I pretend they don't exist and hope they don't crawl inside my mouth or my ears at night. I also hope they don't kill me, if they are poisonous.

When I first moved to that apartment during my single hood, I found the largest cockroach on the bathroom sink. I did what any other normal adult would do. I screamed and ran out of the bathroom, closing the door behind me, as if that would deter the cockroach and as if the cockroach was out to get me. I didn't sleep that night, and no, I am embarrassed to admit, I never went back to kill it. I just kept hoping it would vanish into another dimension or crawl back to where it came from. In the morning my wishes had been granted and it was gone.

So now I am feeding the baby, who has his eyes wide open, staring at something beyond my shoulders and smiling every once in a while (which freaks me out because behind me there's a creepy closet) when I see an evil spider coming our way. I yell for my sleeping mom in the other room to bring me a shoe (husband is asleep on the couch because he is sick, which is a whole other story). She appears disoriented carrying her sleepers with a confused look that says, "what he heck does she need a shoe for at 2 am". I hand her the baby and smack on the floor and walls with the shoe as the creepy crawler hops away from my insults, "you mothafucker, mothafucker, mothafucker!"

My mom is aware that this is a cuss word in English and warns me that baby will start repeating what I say soon.

The spider good and dead, I grab the baby back, who is now staring at me, frowning. I tell baby that as long as his mom is around no bugs will ever get to him.

Btw, I wonder why he frowns at me so much?

The weight of weight loss

To all my former clients from my personal training and weight loss consultant days, I have a confession to make about something I thought I'd never have to go through:

Losing weight is TOUGH!

Now I understand why women usually say it is hard to lose weight after baby. It's not that there is a mysterious force keeping us fat and unmotivated. New moms simply don't have time to lose weight.

Think about it. Weight loss is an emotional process. It takes planning, self awareness, discipline, routine, consistency and will. Now take a look at all those adjectives I just listed and try to fit them into the life of someone with a baby.

I invision the arrogant pre-pregnancy me, telling my clients who had babies that the secret to weight loss (insert smug face here) is to move more and eat less. I want to tell that former self of mine to go fly a kite. I would have said, "no shit, Sherlock! Try doing that when your body needs to produce forty ounces of milk a day (which will leave you feeling like you could eat a cow) and a baby that cannot be put down for a nap."

Some days I have every resolve to eat fruits and exercise. Well, most fruits need cutting and for that you need two hands. A bowl of Cheerios is so much easier to prepare. And exercise... I usually have my work out clothes on in the morning, planning to get some exercise in when baby is asleep. Then eight pm rolls around and I am still in my gym clothes, waiting for that moment to arrive, and now that baby is finally asleep, maybe I will get some real food in and some rest!

So as I step on my scale and I am still 10+ pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight (wich was 5+ pounds over due to a cruise - you do the math) and don't want to leave the house because none of my clothes fit, I want to apologize to my weight loss clients for being a smart (skinny) ass in the past.

Weight loss is no joke. It's painful.

Letting go

Control freaks like to think they hold the reins to their lives by making lists and sticking to the plan. Control freaks are rarely late for a meeting. They wake up before the alarm clock, if they sleep at all. Control freaks have a specific way of eating and exercising (think Meg Ryan in "When Harry met Sally").

Control freaks have trouble in relationships because they seldom change their minds and their ways. Objects have to be in their right places and people need to meet the right expectations. With a hint of OCD, this control freak here walks around the house playing a mental game called, "this doesn't belong here."

Now imagine such control freak arriving in her living room and the place is flooded with every battery operated baby fisher price product ever made along with diapers and bibs and pacifiers and burping towels taking over the couch. Now imagine that the power is out.

Someone once told me that having a child is an opportunity for a spiritual awakening. I thought they referred to the birthing process, which sort of upset me because that got screwed up royally by a very non-spiritual csection.

As I sit in the dark, my microwave, my tv, my pump, my iPad (that I forgot to charge) and the lights of the house off, I hold my baby upright so he won't spit up the milk I just gave him. And here are the thoughts that go through my head:

I gotta clean this place. When am I going to eat? How am I going to pump milk without power? Do I even have enough batteries to use the pump batery charger? Will baby let me pump? Will baby let me look for batteries? I will NOT give him formula! I can't give him formula. I need to do laundry. I need to work out. How many grams of fiber did I eat yesterday? I need to respond this email and that email. My windows look nasty. I smell like puke. I need to take a shower. When will I be able to take a shower? I need to buy candles. Did I lock the front door? I feel unsafe here in the dark. I should get a dog. How would I take care of it, though? I need to lose weight. I can feel my celullitis forming by just sitting here. Where is my cell phone? The food in the fridge is going to go bad. My expressed milk will go bad. I will not give him formula! Why is the power out? Some dush bag didn't do his job at the power company. What will I eat for lunch? I think baby just pooped. I hope it didn't get to his clothes again. I need to clean his clothes. How will I clean his clothes without power? Maybe his diapers are too small. Maybe I am feeding him too much.

Baby suddenly turns his face towards mine and I meet his gaze. With the faint light of the sunrise coming in, I can make his marble eyes staring at mine and I notice he is smiling, like a slap on my face. I smile back because I understand then that everything else is insignificant and that this moment is this moment, and it will never come back, even if I smell of puke and have to give him formula.

(PAUSE)

What am I doing wrooooooooooong?????? Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!!!!

Baby will sleep through the night, but during the day he will only chill out if,

A) I hold him with both hands

B) I hold him with one hand and hold a pacifier on the other IN his mouth

C) I hold him with both hands while he lies sideways on my belly

D) I hold him with both hands while he is upright and facing forward

E) I hold him with both hands

Did I say I have to hold him with both hands? Because God forbid I have to let go of a hand so I can do something silly like feed and nourish myself.

Oh, wait, there is an instance I can not hold him: when I am pushing the stroller, and only if I do it really fast. I am not one of those idilic women with their perfect little, well behaved babies, and perfect little lives strolling by the sunset. No, I am the woman with the unmade hair and tired eyes, walking faster than this standard stroller recommends, because a lower speed could result in fussiness.

I swear I am about to give him some Zoloft.

Pause over. Someone hit the play button on him again.

Hang on little tomato

I saw Pink Martini a couple of times live at the Wolf Trap back when sitting on the grass with a bottle of wine and some cheese to watch a trendy band was something I could do, and they sound as fantastic as the recording version.

Here is a song from them that always comes to mind when baby is crying in the middle of the night. I sang it (and danced) with him in my arms in the kitchen this dawn when I could not do anything else and the house was falling apart while my hair was in disarray and my pijamas were covered in baby vomit.

It worked momentarily. He stopped and stared at me, frowning.

Hang on little tomato song on Youtube

The sun has left and forgotten me
It's dark, I cannot see
Why does this rain pour down
I'm gonna drown
In a sea
Of deep confusion
Somebody told me, I don't know who
Whenever you are sad and blue
And you're feelin' all alone and left behind
Just take a look inside and you will find
You gotta hold on, hold on through the night
Hang on, things will be all right
Even when it's dark
And not a bit of sparkling
Sing-song sunshine from above
Spreading rays of sunny love
Just hang on, hang on to the vine
Stay on, soon you'll be divine
If you start to cry, look up to the sky
Something's coming up ahead
To turn your tears to dew instead
And so I hold on to his advice
When change is hard and not so nice
You listen to your heart the whole night through
Your sunny someday will come one day soon to you

Little baseball glove hands

As soon as I finished eating stale sushi (from last post) I checked on baby once more. We were now at the eight hour mark of straight baby sleep. Hooray. As I moved away from the crib on my tip toes and fingers crossed, the floor wood cracked and on cue he screamed, "OOOMGAAAAARGH"

You see, my baby doesn't cry baby cries. He cries ooongah. Even when we are just talking, he may turn to me and randomly say, with no emotion whatsoever on his voice, "oomgah," as if to warn me that the real cry is coming and I should have some delicious milk ready soon.

So now we are both rested and watching tv while baking muffins, which is a first. No fussy baby, no fussy momma, and something yummy in the oven.

When you've been on the go and "on" for almost two months with no sleep, changing diapers, trying to soothe an unsoothable baby, yelling at your husband (because somebody needs to get yelled at and he is there, breathing), while mastering the art of crying along with baby (and having baby stare at you frowning with eyes that say, "I am the baby! You should be cool and collected"), dealing with your own recovery, just trying to make sense of the whole thing, and suddenly everything comes to a halt with an unexpected rest, you end up feeling lost and asking yourself the unsettling question, "what do I do with myself now?"

Should I clean the house? Nah. Should I work out (because breastfeeding does NOT make a gut go away, by the way)? Nah. Should I plan on going back to work soon? Double nah.

I should just sit here and write about little baseball glove hands.

When baby was first introduced to me, all white skinned and big and blue eyed I wondered whose baby this little impostor was. Because I was the only pregnant woman being cut open in that surgery room, I had to come to terms that this baby was in fact mine.

I come from a long line of short, brown, and angry Italian people, while my husband comes from a pool gene of norwegian Vikings that breed big boned and laid back football players.

God decided to switch on all these recessive genes when making my baby. When I look into his blue eyes, I see my husband. When I shop for lotions, now I have to look for baby sunblock, when the sun never bothered me. When I hold him, I look clumsy because he is now almost as big as I (no joke, see picture).

His little hands are so wide in proportion to his little, big body that they look like little baseball gloves. My father in law has those hands.

It seems like the only gene baby inherited from me are my cheeks. And we are both doughy at this point in our lives.

Except, of course, the word ooongah. That's what my brother used to say when he was hungry as a baby. Whenever my mother told me that story, I thought she was making it up, until I heard my own baby cry ooongah.

The oven beeped announcing that muffins are ready and I am oongah myself. Signing off now.

Hallelujah

Hallelujah, praise the lord. The little guy has been asleep for seven hours.

I even poked the little belly to see if there was response. He squirmed a bit and went right back to sleep.

I guess I will have to admit to my mom tomorrow that she was right (and it's no fun when parents are right): feeding him a little more put him in a milky coma for the night.

Why am I awake and not celebrating with an awesome sleepy sleep and holding my pillow, telling it how much I've missed it?

Here is yet another thing they don't tell you: when baby finally sleeps through the night, guess who will wake you up? The freaking BOOBS!

You may attempt to happily roll on your side while sleeping, just to find out that watermelon-like speed bumps stop your rolling. Plus, they hurt like a mother when they are allowed to get this full.

If you happen to glimpse at them in the mirror right before your beloved pump does the job of releasing the engorgement, you may exclaim "holy cow!" (no pun intended) causing baby to squirm a little more.

So shhhhhhh. Lets let him sleep. I need to explore the kitchen again anyway. There might be some stale sushi still left in there.