The Sleepless Secret

We have a big secret in our house.  My wonderful, curious, independent, amazing, well behaved and reasonable toddler doesn't sleep through the night.  Not only does she not sleep through the night but she wakes up every hour. And the only thing that will get her to go back down in nursing.  I am her lovey and if her father dares try to comfort her she will cry herself into hysterics.

It is exhausting.

And while I curse the fact that I have gotten no sleep or that I woke up with a back spasm because the sleep I got was in a weird position trying not to roll over on the baby that has climbed into bed; I know I will one day miss the sweet baby cuddles.

But tonight is not that night.

Tonight is the night I wish I could stick a pacifier in her mouth and a dolly under her arm and just send her off to bed.

But I can't

I can't have my child scared and upset because I'm not there. So I will finish my tea and post my blog entry and go back to bed before she wakes up again.  And tomorrow I will be tired.

But my child will be happy.

On the Eve of Jellybean's First Birthday

At this time on this night a year ago my waters had broke and I was in hard labor with our precious little Jellybean.

Getting ready to head to the hospital.

Yep, contractions a minute apart, lasting a minute in length and it when on like that for 14 hours. And you want to know something, labor was pretty cool.  My contractions felt purposeful, uncomfortable but productive and not painful.  Pain came later. Pain is how I knew something was wrong.

Meeting Jellybean for the first time.

I am so in love with my little girl. But it still hurts when I think that her delivery was not what I had planned.  I have done a lot of healing in the past year; I no longer cry when I think of her delivery, I no longer have daily pain in my abdomen or at my incision site. Even my scar is almost invisible.  But I am still coming to terms with how an awesome labor can turn into an unplanned cesarean. Eventually I may write Jellybean's full birth story, but for now I will just leave you these photos.

How can you not love that face?

Hats off.

I have a confession to make,

I love baby hat.

I mean seriously I'm obsessed with them.

Especially with ears,

Or hand made,

Or hand made and with ears.

Better yet, baby gnome hats.

Even little bed time pilot caps.

And to double the love and baby obsessions, baby hats while babywearing.

A Rythm Method

My desk at my Grandparents' farm

Writing hasn't been happening lately.  Truthfully there are a lot of things that haven't been happening lately.  And it isn't because of crying babies, dirty diapers or lack of sleep, or any other trapping of Motherhood.  I couldn't figure it out.  My writing had been declining for months, I mean month and months, in fact everything I do had been tapering off or had not been happening.  Since I had moved from Connecticut all of my creative endeavors had just been lagging.  And I couldn't figure it out.  Turi and I had a lengthy discussion about it today, with no real resolution. But I kept thinking, and muddling, and finally laying in bed it came to me.

When I was living a single life my time was my own, my world was my own I had my own rhythm.  It may have been an unconventional one, but it was my rhythm.  It included time for thoughts and creation, quiet personal refection, and all the other things people have to do.  It even included time to just sit outside everyday.  When I moved in with my husband, gone where the nights of sitting outside thinking at midnight. 

The start of an embroidery project

He never asked me to change my ways, I just did.  But instead of creating a new rhythm for myself I just floundered about; doing what ever, when ever. 

The Waldorf Movement focuses heavily on a child's daily rhythm; wake, dress, eat, playtime, story time, nap... and on goes the day, one thing flowing into another.  There is a day for baking and for washing, each day has a colour and even a grain associated with it.  It may seem like a rigid structuring, but it is not.  It is like breath; you breath in and concentrate on something with in, you breath out and move within the world around you. In and out all day, your breath exchanges and your rhythm continues.

This is what I need, this is what my baby needs, and this is what my art needs.  Over the next few weeks I am going to try to establish a rhythm for my family.  I'm going to be using a traditional Waldorf rhythm and adapt it and integrate it into my world. Hopefully this will improve things here.  And you all can see it's implementation in action.

Where Have I Been?

We need a nap

I am incredibly bad at self care.  I manage to feed and water myself.  I remember to go to the bathroom and usually leave the house in shoes and not slippers. But things like taking a little time for myself... I'm just bad at it.  I have wanted to take a bath for weeks, but all I can manage is a mostly regular shower.  I have had a myriad of posts on my mind and haven't written a one.  I desperately want a foot message and yet somehow I forget to ask for one.  I am just bad at doing things for myself.

Jellybean's new 'cosleeper'

I am also incredibly sleep deprived.  My little adventurer has decided that I am her pacifier and that she needs her passi in her mouth. All. Night. Long.  So I nurse her all night long.  This is a new thing that started shortly after she started crawling.  Hopefully self soothing will come soon and she can happily go back to sleeping in her cosleeper (which is actually now her full sized crib next to the bed with the side rail dropped).  She is getting so big.

In other news I have an Instagram account and can be found there regularly: Growing_Mama

Sleepy Six Months

I look at Jellybean and am amazed that in six short months she has become such a little person. She is fully awake to the world around her; she laughs, she reaches and grabs, moving around she enjoys and explores her surroundings.

But when she is a sleep and her face becomes soft and quiet, I put her cheek up to mine and smell her sweet milky breath, and for a moment she is that newborn baby.

Who in the dark of the hospital room at
midnight I clung to as if she was a little dolly.  Scared and excited, healing from the wounds of her birth. It's the peaceful little face that I stared at as the sun came up the next morning.

Jellybean, ready to join the world, was that tiny little newborn for only a handful of hours.  But when she sleeps I am reminded of that long, precious, quite first night.

Double Cross Carry Tutorial

This was supposed to happen last week as part of International Babywearing Week, for Teach Me Tuesday.  But I couldn't get a hand for the video until tonight.  So I present to you my first attempt at a video and using YouTube.

This is my favorite Carry right now.  I keeps baby secure and close, allows her to look around, nurse or sleep.  And it put the least amount of stress on my lower half while I was still sore and healing from a cesarean birth.  I do a variant on the Double Cross Carry.