2/2/22

having slower mornings lately with baby, which is nice. He’s starting to daydream on his own and talk to himself for a little bit without me having to amuse him every minute. Noticing he’s not as desperate to eat, maybe just when he wakes in the middle of the night, still desperate, but in general breastfeeds for less time than before and is more relaxed about it. we started feeding him single ingredient solids about a month ago – the doc said it was ok to at his 4-month appt.

tonight in the dark, just the humidifier’s blue nightlight wavering on the ceiling and walls, us laid down together – two small figures in the middle of the queen bed, facing each other and him nursing, all quiet with the white noise going, me holding his little soft and fat, dimpled and warm, free hand against my chest, all quiet, his eyes closed, the angelic already-handsome face drifting off to sleep, i thought, “there’s nothing in the world like this.”

2/3/22

A kind of disturbing game he likes to play is when he’s lying down, if you give him a towel or burp cloth or anything, he will very deliberately put it over his whole face and just leave it there. I keep taking it off so he doesn’t suffocate, and he’s smiling and laughing when I take it off. But…idk, as a mom that’s all about keeping my kid alive, it disturbs me a little. maybe it’s fun for him to temporarily restrict his senses in that way or something. idk but he really seems to get a kick out of it.

1/28/22

last night, at the end of breastfeeding, he bit my nipple hard while pulling away and I yelled. my yell scared him – he made a scared face – and then he started crying.

today, I feel initiated into something. he gave me my first mark across the face: while I was carrying him, he scraped his nails across my face, near my mouth, with his hand. it stung and bled bright red.

1/20/22

the crib situation/him sleeping apart from me is not going as well as I initially thought. The first night, he – for some reason – DID stay in his crib and sleep pretty well there, not complaining each time I put him down. But the following nights, I tried the same thing, and it wasn’t as clear-cut good. Once in his crib he rolled towards the bed (where I was), all the way up against the bars, whimpering and stretching his little arm out to me through the crib bars, his mouth pressed against one of the bars, and of course I broke. Other times, he just was fussing a lot about it and wouldn’t fall asleep easily in the crib; he wanted to be next to me touching me in the bed, because the times I would relent and bring him in bed with me like usual, he would stop fussing and sleep, or nurse until he was asleep. So I don’t know what to do. I just put him in the crib to sleep whenever I can, but if he cries too much, I take him out and bring him back to bed with me. I was thinking maybe when he gets old enough to sleep through the night (I think it should happen any month now?) then I can put him in the crib to really sleep the night, because he won’t be waking up so much? At least I know he CAN sleep in there by himself, because sometimes he does. I’ll just keep trying.

1/21/22

instead of day by day, I’m taking it minute by minute. it’s all i can do.

12 am

two things I think parents get really good at, or at least are really concerned about: 1) doing things one-handed and 2) how to do things as quietly as possible (when baby’s sleeping).

3 am

all the things the baby puts me through, i sometimes feel like i’m being hazed..into some strange fraternity. The torturous aspect of being kept up all hours of the night, getting shit on and peed  on and barfed on, it’s like pushing you to your limit in the same way.

4:38 am

I feel like a lot of newborn parenting is spent just being scared he’s gonna wake up. and revolves around the sleeping and waking of the baby.

1/22/22

so many things I loved are now buried underground.

today was popo’s funeral. my family said she was around 90, but no one knew her exact age. It was also one of the best days I’ve had in a long time. But not because it was her funeral, it just happened on the same day I guess. Rodrigo helped carry the casket to the hearse. we held hands all the time in the funeral home, I felt a little sad and scared during the service, but it helped a lot that he was there, and he watched the pictures with me that dad had gathered that were playing on the screen.  he told me I looked fat in one of the old pics and we laughed because I did, and I’m usually not. we did the car procession to the cemetery and put roses on her casket.  during the procession drive, the sun was so strong today that when we were passing under a lot of trees, rodrigo said he liked the strobelight-like effect that was happening, I thought that was nice, I didn’t notice that. we all went to lunch afterwards at P.F. Chang’s, and I didn’t like any of the food except for the spicy tuna sushi. Uncle George, aunt Betty, cousin Arnold and vickie, and Arnold’s son Andrew, and a bunch of other people from I think New York were there, who I didn’t know. It was nice to see family again, as always. I sat between rodrigo and mom, and felt nice sharing a meal with them, and we left Hunter with R’s sister, who sent us really cute pictures of him and everyone said how cute he was lol. I felt a little anxious the whole time because I needed to pump my boobs and they were getting harder and harder; I didn’t have time to pump since the time I woke up around 6 or 7 until the time we were at P.F. Chang’s, around 1 pm or so. I missed Hunter a lot during the lunch, I kept thinking everything looked like him, even the tiger on the PF Chang app. then we left, we were the first ones to leave the lunch, and while driving, rodrigo was like “want to go to that motel we went to on our honeymoon?” And I just laughed, but I saw him programming somewhere into the GPS and I just shook my head, i was too tired to ask. I wanted to get home to Hunter and pump the most, but again, too tired to care much. He pulled into this parking lot that looked like for an apartment building, and faced the front windshield of the car towards a fence and it looked like no one could see us. He was being kind of crazy, and he told me later it was because we hadn’t had sex in so long and he kept watching our sex tape recently so he was really horny lol. he climbed in the back with me where I was trying to get my breast pumps on since we left the restaurant, and he helped me and then we just got into it and had sex in the back while my breast pumps were pumping away lol. afterwards, rodrigo said he felt like 2 pounds of weight were lifted off of his balls. And during, it was beautiful, the sun was still really strong coming through the windows and hitting me all over my body, my face, as my husband pumped away on me- that was my best moment today I think, and what made my day: just relaxing and losing myself on top of him, under him, closing my eyes in the strong sun while he drank, in a way, from my body. I pumped during sex and also while we drove home after, and got like 8 ounces of milk total which is really good – maybe it was the sex oxytocin, maybe it was from missing Hunter or a combination, I don’t know. when we got home, all I was wearing were my breast pumps in my bra, my tights, and overcoat, because my dress was too tight to put back on with the pumps on. and it was freezing out.

  I keep looking at all the people around me and thinking, “they were babies once who kept their mothers up all night, and now they don’t” To give myself hope, bc sometimes it seems lk it will never end.

1/23/22

went to bed feeling ok, but this morning, I’m falling apart emotionally for some reason. I think mostly because of physical, bodily reasons: hunter woke up a lot to eat last night, and when I wanted to sleep the most (around 7 am) he was active and awake, and I could hardly function. I notice myself frequently staring into the distance/at one spot during the day and night (I think my brain is trying to rest or something).  also little things throughout the night added up: he peed in our bed (it came out the diaper), and spit up a whole breastmilk meal – once in our bed and once in his crib. 2 out of these 3 times before I cleaned it up, my body was screaming for sleep and I had to force myself up. I ran out of towels and burp cloths and needed more so that the last thing I used was literally the shirt off my back: I took it off and wiped up his milk barf – that was around 11 am this morning, and I emerged from the bedroom totally exhausted and now naked (and thus cold), to pass the baby off to R.

1/10/22

tonight hunter had his 4 mo dr checkup. I asked about some rashes on his body, if they were eczema, bc I have it too. after inspecting, the dr said yes it was. my heart dropped; it was one of the things actually all my life preventing me from really wanting to have kids, for fear I’d pass on this painful…condition. r knew and sensed my sense of…sadness, despair, I think. he reassured me and made me feel a lot better. he said he thinks hunter is really half him and half me, so maybe the half of him (he has great skin) will let him grow out of it, like the doctor said he might. he said if it gets bad, we could move to Brazil or FL, and that comforted me, that he was so willing to just pick up and leave for the sake of our son. I would do it too, for hunter. I feel like I would do anything to prevent him feeling pain or suffering. and R, when we got home, in the flurry of settling back in and unpacking all the baby shit we have to lug around every time we go out, we happened to meet as I was coming out of my room and he had just come downstairs, and he wordlessly took me in his arms, and hugged me for an extra long time. No words, but I knew what he meant. he was telling me it would be ok, that we’d get through anything, no matter what, together. I knelt down by the couch and cried hard for a few minutes after we got home, then felt better.

the last two nights, for some reason, baby was waking up every hour/two hours to eat. it made me so tired and almost crazy, wanting so bad to be asleep and getting woken up again and again. by the time I needed to wake up for work, I was exhausted. I had a few minutes of quiet in bed before i got up and didn’t know what to do, how I would find the energy for the day. I started praying in the early morning light, laying there. I prayed for strength and grace and beauty. I felt ok after i prayed, not as bad as I expected, not exhausted, really. on the zoom mtg this morning, it was the only time this ever happened – the sunlight came through the blinds so that it streaked down my hair in a curiously beautiful pattern, so that when i looked at myself on screen, it kind of amazed me.

1/11/22

I feel like I’m learning a lot from this time with baby growing up, so many things that it’s like I haven’t fully processed/learned them yet – it feels like I’m only at the beginning of the lessons. But I feel they are: loving someone unconditionally, no matter how they’re acting/what they’re doing (screaming, kicking, crying, biting at your nipples…). This feeling like I will change myself- my habits, my acts, my life- whatever it took- to protect him and give him the best. This great lurching ache in my heart like nothing else when he’s hurt (got some vaccine injections at the doc last night). It’s also made me really appreciate how good a person I married is. I couldn’t do this myself – R helps me a lot.

Also had this thought today that I think kids grow up to be so…critical of their parents. Like—once he can—I think he will hold each of us – me and R- up to this like ethical or moral magnifying glass in his mind, somewhere, and decide if we measure up, or measure us up and judge us. it’s for this reason why I feel that I should not totally lose myself in caring for him – like lose myself so much that I lose my personality, who I am, because I feel like this is a kind of failing, and that my son in the future will count this against me (not to mention, myself will count this against me).

1/12/22

some things im really going to miss when i stop breastfeeding in bed w hunter: his little contented sighs in and out while he nurses that he only does when he’s starting to fall asleep. and his little warm feet against my stomach as we face each other while he’s nursing.

1/13/22

tonight a kind of monumentous night for me – after about 3 months of sleeping w baby in the same bed, i started, tonight, putting him in the crib beside me to sleep (and stopped using it as a dump for the clean laundry lol). i feel like he’s big enough now to sleep a little apart from me, though i plan to room share w him for his whole first year, until he stops breastfeeding. it kind of broke my heart a little to do this; i’ll really miss his legs touching me under the blankets (gotta keep him in a sleep sack now, since he’s too young to sleep w blankets in the crib).

thought i had tonight as i was going through all the emotions of having baby out of my bed: i want to be wanted for my body. it’s kind of all i can offer you right now, and since the beginning. i love that you only want me for my body. that’s ok with me.

1/15/22

this idea of filling someone up to the point where they want nothing more. I think this is what breast-feeding is to me- i’m so happy I can do this for someone. and why I love his contented sighs he sighs near the end, that certain satiated face he makes right after he’s pulled away after a long session.

1/4/22

when the baby falls asleep during the day and I have time to myself, it feels illicit and delicious, like I’m getting away with something I shouldn’t be. In reality, I’m using this time to simply clean up, shower, make the bed, fold laundry, etc. And then he’s up and crying again, after a task or two is done, usually.

1/5/22

days and nights feeding and rocking him, staring at the walls, the ceilings, the floors, the couch – something having a baby made me realize: that it doesn’t all begin and end with me (how i’ve felt most my life). that i’m just one link in a long and beautiful chain. so many have come before me…and so many will probably come after.

12/28/21

i think to him, it’s just me feeding him and rocking him to sleep when he cries. but for me, it’s turning into a dance. a nightly slow dance with my perfect, warm, compact little round-cheeked son before he gets too old to dance with me anymore.

12/31/21

my best moment yesterday was making Hunter laugh. I think it was the first time I did, and his laugh was so cute- it’s like a hearty old man chuckle. At first, he was whiny and almost crying, so I propped him up and started saying over and over, “whaddaya wanna do?” in a baby voice while nuzzling his neck and belly, and that’s what made him start laughing. lol.

12/20/21

I kind of just realized that after you have a baby, you have to accept that your life will basically be at a standstill, in a way, for maybe a year, or two, or more? I think I didn’t realize that before- I was trying to keep up the pace I had with doing things like normal, pre-baby. But everything changes. It’s all like, upheaved.

12/22/21

if you’re not there for the scream-crying, you also will not be there for the next minute when he goes limp and falls asleep on you, leaning all his heavy angel body weight against yours. That you can’t have the high points without the low I guess applies to…everything.

12/23/21

he’s so wiggly now. once he wiggled out of my hold but i reached out and caught his head mid- air. another time he wiggled and fell too fast for me to catch, he landed on the back of his head, he looked stunned and i felt so bad but then smiled at me right after and it seemed no biggie to him, and also the surface he landed was his changing table, which is a firm pad.

12/14/21

actually started getting cold bc of how wet my shirt was from baby drooling on me.

12/16/21

tonight ate a lasagna basically lying down on the couch (Hunter would not stop eating for like two hours, couldn’t change position)

“his mouth is going inside his face! because there’s so much meat on his cheeks. so much meat! So much meat! His mouth is fading” – R, 9:30 pm, holding hunter and walking around with him

12/18/21

last night, we went to bed around 10, but hunter did not go to sleep until about four. Was eating and fussing for like six hours I think. And he only slept two hours, he got up at six, around four I was at a breaking point. I had a strong urge to go upstairs to R’s room and lay down with him and cry, but I didn’t, because the baby needed me, and R had to get up early for work I think.

I also had a pretty horrible thought this morning: “now I know why some fathers just leave- they leave because they can- because staying is so hard- so much harder than just leaving.” I felt like if I was a father, I would be tempted, but as the breast-feeding mother, I could never abandon someone who needs me like this.

12/19/21

tonight was looking in the mirror holding Hunter and thinking about how my hair is falling out a lot recently (my mom lost like 50% of her hair after she  gave birth to me and my brother) and how Hunter is also starting to pull it a lot too, he’s grabbing everything, and I thought, “oh well, at least I was pretty for 39 years. That’s a pretty long time.” and I meant it- i was grateful for it, for the time I had.  I will be sorry if  I lose my hair, but i think that the trade off — who and what I get in return – will be worth it.

12/5/21

I feel like this time is bad enough to make me try to avoid doing it again (no time for myself, baby fussing/crying, loss of some freedoms, not sure what to do, etc.) but also sweet enough (warm fat body, sweet face, cutest sounds and gestures and movements and look in his eyes and everything, etc.) that I will cry when he starts growing up, starts inevitably moving away from me. I know in the future I will miss this time and I’ll reminisce when his problems were simple, when all I had to do was pick him up and hold him, or stand and rock him, and his world was ok.

had to make a rule about bodily fluids because of baby. so mine is that if there is milk or a little pee on it, I don’t wash it, only if there’s shit on it I wash it. or I would have laundry loads every single day.

something I’ve learned – with a baby, have to watch more carefully sudden movements with your elbow/arm/hands when he’s on your lap, and holding your phone anywhere near where it could drop on him. never had to move like this before.

I noticed, or it seems like to me, that the Christmas season is a big distraction. The colorful everything, the lights, the festivities and traditions and sweaters and songs and gifts and everything, all seem like a big distraction to the fact that it’s the darkest and coldest time of the year. But I also feel like the distractions work. They seem to make the season pass by really quickly, every year.

12/7/21

hunter going thru a phase where he won’t let anyone put him down; he wants to always be held. just typed this all out w one hand right now, cause holding him in other arm.

12/10/21

today before me and mom put him down in the crib to sleep, his angelic face, mom was rocking him and she said something to me in passing that really struck me. She said she hears him sigh sometimes. She said, “I think he’s stressed out. Maybe you need to relax more. You shouldn’t give him the feeling like you want him to grow up so fast. They can tell, you know.” Whether this is really why he was sighing or not, just the general idea of not imprinting frustrated feelings on my innocent child really struck me and stayed with me.

God forgive me if I have ever touched this baby in haste, or impatience, or frustration (I know I have). Let me never touch this baby unless there is peace in my heart, and love in my hands. May he never feel a shred – an ion- of negative energy from me directed towards him. Let me give him all the time in the world he needs to grow. Give me divine patience and understanding for this child. Make me a good mother. Please, amen.

He humbles me (physically, spiritually, emotionally..). He levels me to the ground.

12/11/21

i thought this a few weeks ago, and it seemed like an epiphany at the time and still kinda does: i think if i can somehow teach my son to fully and thoroughly express himself and his feelings in words, that it will prevent a lot of bad stuff from happening and should be like a priority for me to teach him this. cause i think that ppl do bad shit when they can’t explain how they feel (or have anyone hear it) (so they “say” it in other ways). i really want to teach him this, if i can.

11/28/21

amazingly, and for no apparent reason, hunter’s wake schedule tonight was 12, 4:30, 8. four hours apart 🙂

The day ended today with me thinking, “there’s so much I wanted to do that I didn’t get done.” And feeling like crying, actually I cried a little.

12/1/21

falling in love with him. Even his cry is cute. He’s so big now. 13 pounds. his expressions and gestures and sounds to me convey spunk and character.

12/2/21

tonight baby was eating for so long, over an hour – more like an hour and a half. And R had just come home from work and had to eat alone on the couch, and it was actually painful for me to be in another room while he did– like physically painful – because it’s the only time we get to spend together, that small portion of the night when he gets home. (after like two hours, i finally pulled myself out of his mouth and joined R in the living room, he didn’t cry when i did it actually)

12/4/21

2:08 am – he makes me unafraid of the literal and metaphorical darkness of night, because we have sat up, rocked, touched, cried, wondered, clung to each other through all its ungodly hours – night after night, in a wordless but ever-expanding mutual understanding.

wondering when I’ll ever feel in control of my life again. There are little things I’ve been trying to do for months that I haven’t yet, because of baby duties, gotten to do (clean my upstairs bedroom, gather the requested documents to send hospital to apply for financial aid for the birth bills…) because every day is an endless cycle of feeding, changing, feeding, carrying… with showers and bathroom breaks and bites to eat in between. it’s kind of the same feeling I felt at the beginning of pregnancy, when I was overwhelmed at all the things I couldn’t do/eat.  it’s this temporary (I guess) loss of identity.