8/29/22

it’s starting to feel less like work, and more like fun. He’s so engaged and responsive, and just unpredictably, unexpectedly funny now. he’s always locking eyes with me, and kissed me multiple times today.

A side effect of always being with baby that makes me a little sad right now, is I can’t have a plant anymore in my room.  he takes so many naps/breastfeeds a day, at which times I have to pull the shades down and make the room dark, that no plant can survive with the little amount of sunlight the nursery room gets. I tried keeping a plant just outside the room and just bring it in at night, but it was too much hassle remembering to bring it in and out every morning and night, so this is one of the first times in my life I don’t have plants really close to me.

8/31/22

skin is breaking out and I keep having this thought that… like…with baby Hunter, he’s so amazing and precious that i wonder like… maybe I would go overboard with pride or something if my body didn’t have all these “dings” in it to humble me. idk.

Can’t really explain how amazing he’s getting. If you show him how to do something once, he remembers (like how to make his Minnie doll talk by pressing a button on her shoe), he repeats all kinds of words, if you hide something somewhere really fast, he sees it and goes straight for it to retrieve it, and all sorts of other smart and hilarious things.

have also been thinking lately, that physically, this is one of the lowest points in my life. It is like over 90% because of the broken sleep I get every night from him still nursing through the night. It affects everything: my appetite, my brain fog, my energy, even maybe my skin? Maybe, when this is all over and I gain back my full nights sleep and my health, I can look back on this time and… I don’t know. Be grateful. I never realized how much I took for granted just sleeping at night. And feeling normal and like I had enough energy to do the things i wanted every day. I see that my parents, in the morning, don’t seem to feel like walking corpses (because they sleep the night) and think to myself that they don’t even realize what a recurring treasure they have, because they have it all the time.

9/1/22

he’s started biting at the end of his feedings at night when he’s fallen asleep. i can’t really do anything about it cause i’ve tried sticking my pinky in there to “break the latch” but there is not any suction latch to break- it’s just his teeth clamped together, and it makes it hurt even more with my added pinky trying to pull myself free and even wakes him up sometimes so that we have to start over again. The only thing I can do is wait and bear the pain for a bit, maybe a few seconds or more, when his jaw finally relaxes and lets go.

9/3/22

first time tonight he fell asleep and started snoring with my boob still in his mouth. was so funny and felt funny too

8/24/22

Baby’s first words besides Mama and Dada, or nene, were: pizza, bug, and duck (seems like he says “duck” for both ducks and clocks).

just started keto diet like 1-2 days ago.

8/27/22

today was in the bath and thinking about how in addition to the TruGreen chemicals my parents already spray on the lawn, if they use a chemical bee killer for the bees that are building a nest right under the steps to the front door, which we just noticed, how those chemicals will get tracked in as well, and baby is walking around downstairs and everywhere in his bare feet- how to best resolve this situation while keeping everyone happy, and didn’t know what to do, so concluded in my head, “oh well, if it gives him neurological difficulties, maybe there would be a bad thing that happened if he was too smart or something” and then laughed at the absurdity of that thought, and immediately after, started crying, because of the overwhelm from how much I realize, I’m just realizing, that I need to protect him from, how many things the world is full of, how many places I cannot be at once, and I started sobbing in the warm bath and got on my knees, and said to myself “God, please protect my baby, please always protect him and go with him, and be there when I can’t be there. Please be everywhere I can’t be.”  I cried and prayed longer than I laughed.

He’s walking a lot now. We put him down and he just goes, like a little tornado of destruction.

Trying to adhere to the keto diet as much as possible, but not beating myself up at all if I stray and have a bite of some crusty fried chicken and a few fries, which I did last night. Didn’t realize until i started this, how much bread/cereal/bagels, etc. I actually ate. Kind of didn’t know what to eat when i got a carb snack craving the last few days – have just been increasing meat and yogurt and veggie intake.

8/13/22

me: “All you ate today were donuts and coffee?”

R, thinks a moment, then: “No, I ate the banana split.”

-Rodrigo, 6:40 PM, August 13, 2022, taking pizza out of the oven

8/15/22

i wonder if my body will ever get over how much I’ve worried about this baby for like every day of the past year, and return to a normal state again. like if i’ll ever move past this daily stressed state into a relaxed state as my default, or if this is just something that comes with being a mother?

8/16/22

5:59 am – wondering if the origin of the phrase “that sucks” comes from a baby cluster feeding in the early morning hours when all you want is to sleep, which is what just happened to me

felt great(?!) 2nd half of day today for some reason. not sure why exactly (baby still woke me up all night). here is a list of all possible things i think:

1. took multivitamin with my vit D, i usually separate these two but just didn’t today

2. put cortisone on my feet rash in the morning after not using anything on it for a few days, and i always get near-immediate improvement w steroids

3. had time to do personal things i really wanted to do (play guitar & read, and i got to take a shower when I wanted to last night- mom watched hunter)

4. with everything i do, even work, trying to get into a “flow” state after reading about its importance to postpartum health

5. have been taking ashwagandha gummies for adaptogen support for about a week now, maybe it’s just starting to kick in?

6. have just had my mind thinking more on ways to improve my health during this stressful time postpartum, because the books I’m reading are on this topic, and maybe that’s making a difference- just thinking about it?

7. maybe the grounding mattress and pad I’ve been using are working?

8. The long heat wave has broken, and the weather’s gotten really nice, with window-opening weather at night, that could also be contributing

9. R came over early to my parents, we got to spend time together and went for a nice walk

10. been exercising a little more: yesterday in the morning, took baby to the park in stroller and even jogged a little for just like a minute, on the way home (when we were going past a backyard where I was scared this dog was going to bark). then tonight our walk actually got my heart racing at the end because R was pretending he and baby were chasing me so I had to run a little lol. my milk-filled boobs felt pretty uncomfortable each time I ran, but the overall effect on my mood was good i think.

11. also, first half of day, didn’t feel too good. skipped my usual sleeping from 8 AM to 11 AM, because I had urgent work that came in. Then I was tired around 11, but worked through it, and just took a quick nap from about 1 to 1:30. Maybe this change in naptime, and not sleeping in the morning, helped?

8/17/22

today surprised that I didn’t even take a nap (and woke up around 7-8) and still felt pretty normal. Tried to do all the same things as yesterday.

8/18/22

today he woke up around 6, then around 7 I could go back to sleep cause mom took him, and I slept til 10 and felt good when I woke up, having had a lot of dreams. Also today is our wedding anniversary 🙂

the one dream I had that made me feel really good I think happened early morning before 7. It was weird: the guy in the dream looked like Matt Damon, but it was actuually Jason (ex). Like we had a relationship in the dream, like we had before, and it was just a laid back, kind of crowded, at night, maybe at a house party? I was just hanging out with nothing urgent to do and had a choice to go with someone else or Jason, and Jason asked if I wanted to spend some time w him, and I chose him, cause he offered an activity I liked, but I forget what the activity was now. It was like …idk. a game? but a game for two definitely, maybe it was a silly game. But I looked forward to it, and he led me, and I felt good and sexy cause I didn’t have to do anything but follow him where he led, and he had power and money & like superstar status, in the dream, and that made me a little bashful, like it was a bit too much, but at the same time, I liked it. I don’t remember anything sexual, but there were maybe just subtle sexual undertones about the dream. And I didn’t feel married at all in the dream or like a mother; I felt single, like I was before.

feeling extra energetic today, and haven’t changed anything really since my last list of things I listed. Maybe it’s because it’s our wedding anniversary today, I’m excited to spend time with R tonight, he’s picking me up at my parents for us to go out to dinner, and I got him a gift I’m excited about because I know he’ll use (wall mounted beer bottle opener)

8/19/22

broke the streak of feel good days today. was just so tired all day, even though i took a morning nap and afternoon nap. i think maybe bc me and R had a late night last night – our dinner reservation at Lamberti’s was at 6:45, the dinner was really nice, we had appetizer and entrée and dessert and didn’t get out of there until maybe close to 9, then checked into a hotel (Feathernest inn) and stayed there until almost 11, then got home and baby wanted to nurse to sleep, so I didn’t go to sleep until almost 1 AM. felt just drained and lethargic from morning till afternoon, until maybe after I took a bath around 5-6 pm, then felt better.

8/6/22

this is the baby i’ve wanted my whole life. he’s…electric and unpredictable – he’s nothing like I thought he’d be.

8/9/222

had such a vivid, all-encompassing dream that when I woke up, wasn’t sure where I was for a while, and thought everything that happened in it had actually happened. It was when I went back to sleep around 8 am to 11 am. There was more of course, but this is just what I remember: R had just started a new job and I went with him to it on his first day, just to tag along. It was in a big warehouse that didn’t have a very friendly feeling, it was so big you kind of felt your identity lost as you walked through it. There was a supervisor and only a few other workers (all men) working there. After the supervisor gave R some instructions, R said to me, in the spirit of giving me something to do, something like, “why don’t you go clean?” as in like, help clean up around the warehouse so as to look like a good wife/make him look better, I guess? which in the dream enraged me. so much so that I just walked away right after he said this, and weirdly, passed Steven (ex-bf, who just watched me) on my way as I walked away, he was on his way in, and with such thoughts in my head as: getting on a train going cross country and permanently settling far away, taking the philly subway maybe, and how far I could go—all I knew was that I definitely had to leave, permanently, as I strode away. I forgot some essential at home, so had to stop there quick to pick it up and everyone (I guess meaning my parents) saw me and didn’t say anything (although I saw somewhere they had made up some missing person posters for me already) and I got what I needed and left. And then there was this “oh no” moment of the dream when I realized I had a baby and my first thought was, “oh I can’t leave him, he won’t have anyone to breastfeed him.” Then realized I had to take him with me if I was going to be gone for so long, and that that canceled out any possibility of me going super far away by plane, because I didn’t want to subject him to a plane ride while he was still so young. This feeling of limited choices. But the feeling of needing to get far away permanently was by far the prevailing feeling in the dream. I don’t remember a defined ending…but it was just weird because irl, I’m not mad at R or anything; I still feel very much in love with him. I know sometimes when things get hard with the baby, my ego is quick to heap all the blame on him, but in reality I know that it’s not true; that again, we both wanted this (but I still think most of the physical, emotional, and sleep-related hardship does fall on me – maybe that’s the root of the dream, this feeling of unfairness?).

is the incredible warmth of his little hands pressed against me as he finally winds down into the final stages of nursing, drifting off to sleep softly beside me, worth the half hour or hour or more of me having to keep picking him up from crawling off the edge of the bed during his whiny, restless, fighting-sleep stage that directly precedes this? idk. idk. all i know is it’s a different plane i’m living on now – it went from me being the center of the universe, to absolutely not-me. I’m in a strange and disconcerting place where my body is not fully mine, my time is not fully mine, even my sleeping position at night is not mine – it depends on the baby – how and when he wants to nurse.

8/11/22

had another really vivid dream this morning, and at same time as the last vivid dream, when I got my unbroken sleep from 8 am – 11 am (the night was all broken up by baby waking up asking to nurse). It was kind of a pleasurable dream, and when I woke up I just laid in bed remembering it, and it made me want to go somewhere where there was a carousel, bc that was one of the main features in the dream. I think it was me, baby, dad, R, and maybe 1 or 2 other guys/family members? walking through some amusement park, maybe on the boardwalk, and we weren’t going to go on any rides or spend any money (this feeling I have recently of needing to save money irl was carried over into the dream), but the carousel entrance happened to stop right in front of us just as we were passing it, and dad was like, “what the heck, let’s do it” so we presumably paid for tickets and all got on, and it was really pretty, mirrors, pink, glittery, magical, horses, curly manes, pastel colors, etc.  mom and maybe another female family member were sitting back somewhere else off where I couldn’t see. I was excited for baby to try the carousel for the first time. The horses moved up and down. And then we were at this elaborate dinner with the owner of something, she was important somehow, and I poured the drink for her – it was something (lime? magic rock?) mixed with water which I was about to pour into a regular glass but at the last second her attendant, a man, put a shot glass underneath the pitcher I was pouring from – apparently the important lady’s drink was supposed to go in a shot glass, and he took it back when it was full and gave it to her and she tipped her head back, and all was well and everyone was happy and drank as well. there was a lot of sweetness and pink and candy-like things in this dream.  I even remember there was a necklace (mine?) with a rose quartz pendant that I decided to, instead of save to wear, I ate it – took a bite out of it- and it was good, like rock candy.

8/13/22

grounding stuff arrived yesterday and I started using them already (slept on the mattress pad), feel good, nothing life-changing yet, but it’s only been one night!

8/1/22

One of the cutest things he does right now is, we’ll be having adult conversations, forgetting him in the background temporarily, and when we all laugh at the end of a joke or telling a story, we’ll hear his little laugh joining in and his eyes looking at all of us too, as if he was in on the conversation the whole time and understood the joke (even though he can’t talk yet), and everyone looks at each other and laughs even more because of this. He really does laugh (and cry/whines) easily.

8/3/22

sounds weird but i think im getting used to his bite. I think he’s still biting just as hard but it doesn’t seem to hurt as much. He still bites me several times a day during day feedings, and not at all when he wakes half conscious to nurse at night.

8/4/22

cried while nursing tonight cause he bit me so hard, twice, and took so long for him to go to sleep.

I was thinking it’s kind of cruel that nature, or God, makes this perfect storm of circumstances where you have this baby in what is probably the cutest phase ever of his life and you’re too tired to fully enjoy it. He falls asleep relatively early (9, 10, sometimes 11) but then wakes a few times to nurse (12, 1) then again around 3, then 6, then wakes up around 8, by which time I’m exhausted from the constant waking, but luckily can sleep when mom takes him in the morning. i sleep uninterrupted maybe 8 to 11 (with one eye always checking the laptop if any work came in), then get up for the day.

8/6/22

read about “earthing” in one of the books I checked out about postnatal health – I just ordered a grounding pad to sleep on and excited to see if it will help me feel better rested. Also this morning, went out to the backyard with baby and we stood with our bare feet on the ground for a few minutes, he seemed interested, but not super exhilarated – we had to go in after some minutes cause I felt some bugs/flies biting me. So many mosquitoes out 😦

7/26/22

Tonight while adjusting the light blanket on him, I grabbed a handful of where I thought his foot would not be – but his foot was there! I totally misjudged his length and grabbed a handful of his foot lol. Even tho I see him every day, he’s taller than I thought. So much happening inside of him, daily, that I just do not see. Growing…so much, so fast.

7/27/22

two annoying things he does while breastfeeding, is that he’ll poke his little finger inside my belly button, poke poke poke, and it’s uncomfortable and I either hold his hand or have to keep swatting his fingers away because he won’t stop. other thing is he will pinch my other nipple and twist it. Luckily I got Silverettes, these hard silver things that go over your nipples that you wear inside your bra, and that protects me from this, when i’m wearing them, so most of the time. Other than that, and the biting still, the breast-feeding is going well. I can’t believe in approximately one more month, it will be one year of it.

I always loved how intuitive R was, and I guess it’s no different with the baby. He will frequently guess or seem to know what the baby wants, even though he can’t talk yet, inferring just by his eyes or pointing and body language I guess. It seems to come more naturally to him- knowing what the baby wants- than to me.

just read in one of the nursing books I’m reading that my prescription steroid, bethametasone, hasn’t been proven safe to use while breast-feeding so I stopped using it and started hydrocortisone in its place, which it said was safe. but now I’m in a kind of purgatory where it’s not healing (it’s on the tops of my feet), maybe because it’a not as strong, but it’s not super bad either: I’m just really uncomfortable every day and it made me realize how much more of a layer of stress my skin problems put on things that are already stressful. I keep thinking that if my skin problems just went away, I would be able to handle the other problems in my life much better.

7/16/22

If I’m eating and not doing something else or otherwise multitasking, I feel guilty/impractical. like it seems to be a huge “waste” of time to just sit and eat and enjoy the food, as i used to pre-baby, because things to be done are always surrounding me now.

7/17/22

being a new mom is like: if you can’t take the heat… you still can’t leave the kitchen. You can either kill yourself, or adapt to life in a hot kitchen.

7/18/22

sometimes I have so many things to do and so little time to do them, and such brain fog, that I actually have to, in my mind, talk myself through each task in order to make my body move: it sounds in my mind like, “turn on the lamp, turn on the sound machine, go scrub your face, go brush your teeth, etc.” like I need a voice telling me what to do or else I would be lost – I need a verbal coach to instruct the details of every day tasks to myself, or else I can’t get my body to move.

I also can’t really, as I used to, plan out things in my mind to do the most efficiently – I just always feel rushed to complete every task as soon as it comes to mind, so I think I am doing some things just really illogically in terms of efficiency, but it’s the only way I get things done nowadays, it’s just to do them as soon as I think of them, or else I would just be sitting around planning forever because of how slow my brain is moving.

seems like he’s entering his cutest phase yet. He is talking with you and on his own babbling, and they sound like real sentences, but they are all nonsense words. and the tone of his voice sounds like he’s giving orders, lol. Here and there, he will repeat a “real” word, right after you say it. And he still says mama and dada a lot. Still staying at parents’ during the week so they can help, it’s working out well in that they’re helping me a lot, but i feel bad sometimes cause i know it’s extra stress for them. as soon as i can get my energy up, i will try to handle him on my own… 

7/20/22

biting people sometimes now. He’ll attach himself to you really close so his face is smashed into you, then bite down. Bit mom’s thigh the other week, last week he bit the back of my arm, and then my shoulder, and this week he bit the top of my thigh. His other front tooth is still coming in so that the one that came in first is full size, and this new one is about half the size, which looks really funny when he smiles.

I don’t think I ever really feared for my mental health until I had a baby. Besides the hopelessness I felt at the beginning (which has abated as I’ve gotten used to the baby/routine more and gotten more help by staying at parents), there is the anxiety always that he is not being treated the absolute best he could be by whoever is caring for him at the moment (whether it be my parents, my husband, or myself), and even nightmarish irrational fears, like I know he is sleeping behind me right now and I just saw him, but what if the next time I turn my head to check, he is gone? Or has somehow suffocated to death silently right next to me? I second, third, and fourth guess myself and my conversations with others, reading over text conversations, afraid I said something mean by accident.…I think a lot of it though, is because I’m still not sleeping the night – I think this contributes a lot to the bad feelings.

7/23/22

i think kids have a fire. and i think there are so many things they could see or hear or otherwise experience that could put the fire out- even just by a look you give them, or a tone of voice- they sense everything. i feel that one of my responsibilities to Hunter is to protect his innocent fire. And should i see it weakening one day, to have come to know him so well that i know how to feed it.

7/13/22

I don’t even have the desire to drink (alcohol) anymore; I’m already, due to lack of sleep, forgetful and absent-minded enough sober, every day. if I drink, I feel like my mind would be just…way too empty/full.

he’s taking a lot more steps now, maybe six or seven, and then falling on top of you. And he starts laughing while looking at you as if you just told the funniest joke even tho you didn’t do anything, out of nowhere, and a lot. it’s the cutest.

7/14/22

I think one of his cutest times of the day is when he first wakes up. at first it seems like he doesn’t know where he is and he’s dumbfounded and is looking at you but he also is usually in a really good mood and smiling, and wanting to talk. if he’s still drowsy, he’ll say “mama” or “nene” with the weirdest accents and intonations and lilt in his voice that he usually says correctly when fully conscious, or he’ll roll over for a cuddle and fall back asleep hugging me. And I get to be there for each one of those times… I’m so lucky.

I had a strange dream early this morning that I keep remembering (but now I only remember a part of it I think). It was…I was at some kind of rally with a lot of people- people filling a huge room and also I think flooding onto the streets, listening to a speaker. And I think I was agreeing with/into what the speaker was yelling about- I forget what he was saying now- until….there was a part in his speech where he asked the audience something like what they deserved from their country/government or what the people wanted. And a man (maybe a scruffy strange man) standing near me said, “SEX!” (in the dream this meant sex with their partners/wives whenever they wanted it) and then a man near him seconded it, and maybe a few more, and in their voices, I felt their dissatisfaction with the way things currently were, by the way they shouted – and that’s when the dream turned for me – I felt scared and suddenly very…aware of my body, the vulnerability of it when surrounded by men shouting that they wanted sex on demand, and in the midst of a riled-up crowd, I immediately got a sense that things might go really wrong if I stayed standing where I was, so I bolted as soon as this shouting started, my heart all frightened, but also this…this righteous-angry feeling, like “WTF.” I ran in the dream – I ran far and hard- I think even out of the town and into some grassy more woodsy location- with all my might and my sense. I felt like I was fleeing for my life, and that I had to warn others…like other women, maybe. That’s all I remember now, it’s been many hours since the dream. I forget what happened after that. i know i had more dreams too, like 2 or 3 others, but this is the only one i remember. 

7/15/22

we’re getting back in bed and going to sleep again faster than I have time to clean the bed. I like to make the bed daily, but this week like 3 nights passed before I had time to.

7/16/22

yesterday checked out two (physical) books from the Philly library: “The Year After Childbirth” by Sheila Kitzinger, and “The Postnatal Depletion Cure” by Oscar Serrallach, and dove in as soon as I got back in the car, with R driving. felt good to hold books again (I’ve been reading so many e-books since the pandemic started) and I drank in the words with my fingers resting on the smooth pages. After beginning both books, I realized today as I closed the Kitzinger one (they both seem REALLY good though) how much stronger I feel just when I know more – I haven’t even put anything into practice yet- but just KNOWING and learning more gives me such a sense of well-being. Especially when I’m so specifically thirsty for the exact subject I’m reading about.

I’m only 36 pages in, but something that struck me so far was this bit. After sections talking about how time is no longer your own, the anxiety and emotional rollercoaster, Western culture guilt and pressure placed on new mothers, stresses on a relationship, and physical bodily changes: “With all of this happening, it can feel at times as if, in having a baby, an elaborate hoax has been played on you. This sense of being cheated is accentuated because becoming a mother is seen as a great achievement. Congratulation cards flow in, and people…smile as if you had done something out of the ordinary and the baby was a special kind of gift.” I just feel so much healthier/sound of mind/normal when I read that I am not alone in my experience.

7/4/22

The past few weeks, he’s been standing up a lot, more and more, and recently has been taking  one or two  steps and then falling

I heard Mindy Kaling comment about parenthood something like: “I just have this low level of anxiety 24/7” and I kind of know what she means now. especially when we leave the house and are out somewhere, my mind is searching for every possible danger to baby. The other day we were in Walmart and he was in the shopping cart and I kept thinking that someone was going to come too fast out of another aisle and T-bone us right where baby was sitting (and I told R this worry, I didn’t care if it made me seem crazy or too anxious) – i couldn’t relax. And I noticed frequently when I feel uptight like this- which is a lot- my mind goes to blame my husband. My inner dialogue goes something like: “well if you didn’t put this baby in me, I could be a carefree happy bitch like I always was, but this is what you wanted, so this is how it is now.” but i want to analyze this blame; I’m not sure it’s true. 1) It’s not 100% him who wanted the baby, I know that somewhere, I wanted him too, even though I never said it was time to ‘try’ now and we never decided it together officially. 2) I don’t do the reverse of this blame and credit my husband when I get feelings of joy and happiness from the baby (which is a lot) – I only blame him when it feels bad. That’s not fair. 3) no matter what happened, whether it’s a breakup or having a new baby, no one other than me can control my reactions to things and how I feel. I create my reality, my inner dialogue, the story I tell myself about what’s happening. It’s totally in my control and it’s my responsibility to comfort myself as much as possible during challenging times using my creativity. No one will do it for me or should do it for me or can do it as well as I. Yes, there may be more anxiety due to caring for another life, but that doesn’t mean I need to be in a state of anxiety AND blame, which adds a whole nother ugly level to the already-bad feeling. I think blame is just the easy way out, to keep from assuming my own responsibilities and skirt the work of self-reflection.

And lastly, I just don’t want to feel that way toward my husband. I don’t want to blame him in my mind for something he’s not really guilty of. It’s untrue, and dangerous in that if left unchecked, hostility can build up toward him and get between us, and for no good reason.  Our baby is amazing, so amazing and cute and handsome and smart and wonderful, even if he is a lot of work. And for all the sleepless nights and anxiety and upheaval and everything, I think I would never go back after meeting hunter and knowing him – I could never give him up now. And much of the reason I married and fell in love with my husband is because I saw that he’s not afraid to change in life, to push limits, test boundaries, which having a kid does all these things like To The Max, and if I had married a “safer” person, maybe I would never have experienced the joy of having a child, as I think that on my own, I would be too afraid to have even tried to get pregnant, because I was always focused on the pain of childbirth and the work of raising a child and not really on anything positive about the experience, which I kind of do a lot ( it was the same reason I never would’ve bought a house on my own- I was focused just on the headache of paperwork, but I’m glad we did, glad that we went through it, with R leading the way).

also when R’s waiting for me to get ready and it’s taking me extra long to do things because I now have a baby to think of too, I get mad because….well the inner dialogue that makes me mad is, “well you knew how I was, that I already took a long time to get ready as a childless person, what did you think would happen? That I would get faster with a baby to take care of?” In truth though, it never (even when we were dating/living together) seemed like R minded waiting for me to get ready – i think this is just a stressor I alone put on myself, for some reason.

there’s also this tendency I have to think about alternative ways my life would have gone, if not for the baby. I think about how I would look prettier (bc i’d be getting enough sleep and not have this little chub left on my belly still from pregnancy), maybe be smarter because I would’ve had more time to read, that I would be more well-rested, less tied down, etc. But I also realize that this is a really destructive way of thinking, because it makes you not live in the moment and not be grateful for what you have. And I know deep in my heart, if I had to choose, I would always choose the life with baby. It’s just so hard that i need some way to deal, and I guess this way of thinking is my defense mechanism for coping with hard times.

7/7/22

I think I’ve never felt so compelled to buy so many things for someone until this baby.  I just love to see how his face changes with happiness at new things.

feeling slight cramps today and yesterday that almost feel like period cramps/like my period is coming? i kind of don’t want it to come back; it’s so nice to have that one less thing to worry about.

7/8/22

noticed a change lately- instead of extremely tired, i’m feeling just “very tired.” which is progress. maybe it’s because of the warmer weather? or just body is adapting to this baby routine? Bc he doesn’t seem to be sleeping much more at night… still wakes maybe 3x a night. i might try brewers yeast to get me closer to feeling normal, i just read that helps mothers w their energy levels.

6/27/22

he realizes where my boobs are now/has made the connection, cause when he wants to eat he starts clawing at my shirt and sticking his hands in my bra to get to them.

he started biting sometimes while nursing. it’s not the worst- he’s not biting my teat off – but…it’s like a jolt of pain every time he does it (around 1-3 times during each feeding) cause he has a top tooth and bottom teeth now. If it doesn’t get worse than this, I think I can hold out to my goal of breastfeeding him for 1 year. Only like 3 more months to go. And he only does it during day feedings/when he’s awake; when he wakes half-conscious during the night, he doesn’t really bite.

tonight for the first time, he woke from sleep and instead of reaching for my boob, he cuddled into my arms fell back asleep.

6/28/22

Hunter going through a really cute phase; he’s babbling all the time without saying any actual words, trying out his voice, and it sounds so funny. His body is big and bulky but also compact at the same time. A bundle of warm squirmy joy is what he is right now, a pleasure to be around. even when he’s whining (which he does a lot) he’s cute somehow.

Just heard my dad say as they were carrying Hunter downstairs, “How does he make his mouth so round?” (Mom laughs) “…it’s like a perfect circle,” dad mused.

6/29/22

got such a clogged duct today that it felt like skeleton fingers were stuck inside my right breast. i was grossed out while trying to massage it away, kept imagining some strange fingers inside there. hurt too. (in a few hours, late into the night, after he had nursed like three different times with me massaging the clog as much as I could during those times, it finally unclogged and I felt my breast soften again, finally, and I sighed with relief)

how i’m choosing what i buy and wear these days is if the piece could also function as a bib/drool/burp cloth (I always need one with the baby, and usually right away).

7/1/22

had a dream this morning that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t look pretty. I put on some nice pants, but then my feet that were sticking out of them were ugly, and I couldn’t find any matching top in the closet. it was a weird room; mine, but unfamiliar – maybe a hotel room. I tried to turn on the light in the room to see what I was doing, and it wouldn’t turn on no matter what I did, and I couldn’t open the window to let light in, so I couldn’t see the clothes to match them.

i’m pretty sure this dream is in response to rodrigo telling me last night that we might go see some people for the holiday weekend, and I’ve been living in house clothes/pajamas so long that my immediate reaction was fear I couldn’t put together a nice outfit.