Month: February 2011

Letter to Mimi: Month One

Dear Mimi,

It’s only been a month since we met you but it feels like you’ve always been part of our family. You are such a sweet baby–basically you only fuss if you’re hungry or gassy (both things make me cranky too). Other than that you spend your time either sleeping or staring raptly at light sources.


Speaking of sleeping, you sleep like a champ for which I am profoundly grateful. After a week or two you settled into a routine of going to bed after I feed you around 11 pm, waking up to have a bottle with your dad around 1 am, and then going back to sleep until around 6 am. Lately you’ve been waking up closer to 7 which means that I’m able to get more sleep that any mother of a newborn has a right to expect. It makes a HUGE difference in my day. I know that there will be rough patches as you grow, but if you keep this up I will totally buy you a pony.

It might be because of your size (you’re almost ready to bust out of your three-month size clothes) or it might be because we’re not brand new parents this time around but you already seem older than a month–you already don’t seem like a fragile tiny newborn you seem like a full-on baby.


This time around I know how quickly these first few months pass and so I’m really trying to appreciate them. Sometimes after I feed you at night or early in the morning I hold you against my shoulder and lean my cheek against your fuzzy head and rock with you long after you’ve already burped. Part of me just wants to crawl back into bed but a bigger part of me just wants to hold you close and marvel that you’re here and that you’re mine.

Love,

Mama

It’s better now

Today Mimi is 4 weeks old! The first two weeks dragged by in a haze of sleeplessness and soreness but the last few weeks have gone by in a blink. I actually thought Mimi was only 3 weeks old until I checked the calendar. The first week or so after my c-section was pretty rough in terms of pain but except for a little tenderness at my incision I’m feeling pretty good now.

Even though I breastfed E and thought nursing would go more smoothly this time around it the first couple of weeks were a struggle. Along with Mimi’s prodigious size comes a prodigious appetite and for a while she had trouble getting enough milk when nursing. I had enough milk she just couldn’t get it out. So I would pump some milk or give her formula in a bottle after each feeding to top her off.

When she was a week old I took Mimi to the lactation clinic and they couldn’t figure out what wasn’t working so they suggested putting away the bottles and using a little neonatal feeding tube connected to a syringe of breastmilk. Basically I would tape the end of the tube to my (clean) finger and then stick my finger in her mouth and slowly press the syringe plunger down as Mimi sucked. The theory behind it is that feeding her this way is closer to breastfeeding than using a bottle and that it would help her learn to suck more effectively.

I fed her like that after every feeding for about three days like the consultant suggested. It was kind of a production: the syringe only held 10 cc and Mimi would need three or four of them after she nursed to feel full. And then two hours later I would have to start the 45 minute process again. After four days of using the syringe I went back to giving her a bottle if she was still hungry. And then after a few more days Mimi seemed to get the hang of it and was able to nurse until she was full at every feeding.

Before I had E I didn’t realize that breastfeeding could be so difficult. And before I had Mimi I didn’t realize that the first few weeks of nursing could be difficult even if you’ve done it before. In the middle of our struggles I would get discouraged and feel like it was NEVER going to to get better.

But then it did.

(Phew.)

A Town Called Panic

We had a pretty quiet three-day weekend: E and N were both sick so we mostly just hung around the house and ran a few errands. We did however watch a fun movie that a friend had recommended: A Town Called Panic.

This stop-motion animated Belgian movie is delightfully surreal. The humor and the somewhat crude animation style might not be for everyone but it kept me giggling. The voice work was a big part of the charm for me; I’ve heard that there’s an English dub somewhere but it’s hard to imagine it could be as good as the original French version with English subtitles.

The movie stars three toys: Horse, Cowboy, and Indian. When Cowboy and Indian realize it’s Horse’s birthday they order some bricks to build him a barbecue as a present. But they accidentally order 50 million bricks which then show up on their doorstep. As you might guess, hijinks ensue. What you might not expect is how those hijinks include a journey to the center of the earth, a giant robot penguin, sneaky aqua-people, and a romance with a piano lesson-teaching lady horse.

If you like sort of silly surreal things, I’d recommend giving A Town Called Panic a shot. It’s available on Netflix streaming which is where we watched it.

My new toy camera


I took my Holga camera to Korea with us but sadly the trip was too hard on it and it broke. I was pretty bummed but that’s how it goes sometimes with all-plastic toy cameras.

So I was super excited on Valentine’s day to open N’s gift to me: another awesome plastic lens camera, the Diana F+. The Diana is kind of a step up from the Holga in that it has different lenses you can switch in and out. N was very sweet and got me the kit that comes with the extra lenses as well as the flash. He also gave me an adapter ring that will let me attach the Diana’s lenses to my digital camera which I’m looking forward to trying out.

I need to go buy some film; I can’t wait to snap some photos with it!

Happy Valentine’s Day, Supreme Computer Overlord!

Happy Valentine’s day! We’re keeping it pretty low key today: E is having a party at preschool so last night I dutifully wrote his name on a bunch of Cars-themed valentines and made him some dairy-free, egg-free treats so he would have something fun to eat.

Having a two week-old baby kind of put a damper on any plans to go out on the town so tonight N and I will probably get some take-out, hang out with the kids, and then settle down and watch Jeopardy!

Even though we’re total geeks we actually don’t habitually Jeopardy! but beginning tonight N’s brother Ken is going to be playing against IBM’s Watson computer. Who will win–my snarky brother-in-law or our future supreme computer overlord (or the other guy Brad Rutter)?

Check your local listings and watch to find out!

Watching Veronica Mars

Since I’ve been stuck at home with the baby I’ve been watching more TV lately. In the first few months after E was born I burned through the complete Jeeves & Wooster (loved it!), Firefly (liked it a lot), and Gilmore Girls (sometimes I liked it but sometimes it made me want to smash my head against a wall).

Picking a show to watch when I’m up early with the baby is a bit tricky because it needs to be 1) something not horrible and 2) something that N isn’t interested in watching with me. Since we have fairly similar tastes it can be a little difficult to find something. Right now I’m working my way through Veronica Mars.

I’ve seen about 12 episodes so far and I’m enjoying it quite a bit. Kristen Bell plays Veronica Mars, a 17 year-old girl trying to solve the murder of her best friend. Her dad’s a private detective and she helps him out on cases and solves other mysteries on her own. The writing is decent and since Netflix has the entire series available via streaming I can watch an episode whenever I want which is convenient.

I also get a kick out of the face that Kristen Bell looks quite a bit like my friend and neighbor Stephanie.
Pretty similar, right? Stephanie is an intrepid Girl Reporter in her own right – she’s a Health Department inspector and gives us the skinny on the local restaurants to avoid. Apparently she’s going to be on the local news (FOX 13) tonight at 9 pm. Here’s a preview of the story.

Big Brother E


After people ask about how the baby and I are doing the next question they usually ask is how E is adjusting. He’s been doing great.

It seems like it only took him a day or so to figure out that Mimi was here to stay. Now if he doesn’t see her around he asks me where she is. And sometimes when Mimi cries he’ll go up to her and tell her that it’s going to be okay or “helpfully” try to cram her pacifier into her mouth.

I think the hardest thing for E has been being stuck at home these last few weeks. He’s been watching entirely too much TV while I mostly sit on the couch trying to recover and keep our giant baby girl fed and happy. Sometimes he DOES gets antsy and I feel guilty about him being stuck at home. Before Mimi was born we usually left the house to do something at least once a day and when E gets bored he can act out a little.

But all in all he’s taken Mimi’s arrival in stride and in his usual easygoing manner. I’m just grateful that he hasn’t decided to resent the baby (yet!) and that he’s adjusting so well.

Her Name

When I started this blog after E was born I decided to use initials to refer to him and N instead of their names. I didn’t have a lot of super well thought-out reasons, just the vague goal of trying to preserve their privacy while allowing me to write about my family. I’m not worried about someone trying to stalk us or kidnap E or anything like that; I just wanted to make it a bit more difficult in ten years for E’s punky friends to find my blog archives and tease him about those sappy letters I wrote him.

With all that said, I still wanted to share the baby’s name with you. So here it is:


Since she has the same initials as N I needed another blog name for her so I’ll call her Mimi here.

Home Again



The baby and I came home from the hospital Sunday afternoon. I know some people don’t like hospital stays but I came home from mine with slightly mixed feelings. I was excited for our little family to be together again but at the same time staying in the hospital was actually pretty pleasant except for the pain from the surgery (which was pretty intense for the first few days).

The nurses were great, the food (which you ordered room service-style) was decent, I had some lovely visitors, and when I wasn’t napping or looking after the baby I used my phone to watch a few movies using Netflix which was fun.

But it’s great to be home and to be finding our new normal as a family.