In Retrospect,

Cheering wildly and praising him for genius every time Owen messed up something/dropped something/broke something/knocked food off his tray and then appropriately said "Uh Oh!" might not have been the greatest idea Andy and I ever had.

my future's so bright

...I gotta wear shades.

askmoxie.com, how I love thee.

askmoxie.com is an amusing Q&A parenting blog that I read somewhat regularly, and today I came across possibly the greatest 2 paragraphs about parenting ever written.

You know, the more I think about this, the more I think your friends are giving you bad information. There is a ton of stuff that comes up in parenting that you have NO CONTROL over, so to imply that people who are "prepared" (and what does that mean, anyway?) are going to have an easier time with parenting is magical thinking. You can read every book, take every class, buy every product available, and be super-positive that motherhood is going to be the apex of self-actualization, and your kid might come out colicky or with reflux or with delays or trouble latching or high-intensity or any other thing that makes parenting super-challenging.
Honestly, it makes me a little angry that someone thinks everything's going so well for her because of something she did! That basically means that she thinks that people who have problems with their babies are having problems because they haven't done things the right way. That's insulting, misogynistic, and ridiculous.

yes, yes it is, Moxie. Thanks for reminding me.

The whole post is worth a read and can be found here:
http://www.askmoxie.org/2009/03/qa-having-a-baby-worries.html

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Owen turned one yesterday. One year old. It is so hard for me to beleive this, but here we are with one foot out of babyhood and the other dabbling in toddler. It's sort of surreal and terrifying and wonderful all at once.

I thought I'd take this opportunity to do a year in review, of sorts. Some things I'm proud of, some things I'm not. A recap of year #1.

Taking the wise advice of accentuating the positive, some of the things I'm proud of:

1. we're still cloth diapering and going strong. After the 523rd person told me "that'll last two weeks" when I announced my intention to cloth diaper while pregnant, even I started to doubt whether it would work out. But I'm happy to report that we're not only still happy with our diaper choices, I love that I have never bought a package of huggies.

2. I nursed until 8 months. I am enormously proud of this because it ALMOST KILLED ME. I'll spare you the gory details, but man, did it pretty much suck. I'm glad that I stuck with it though, because I have drunk the breast is best koolaid, and I really wanted to make it until six months. I choose to beleive that Owen will a)care and b) appreciate how difficult it was for me. I am also certain neither is true, but whatever. I'm impressed.

3. Owen has made it to his first birthday without ever watching TV. I'm happy about this because I had a professor in graduate school who terrorized my clinical practice with children class with study after study insinuating tv causes brain damage in children under three. The studies were not peer reviewed and the professor was admittedly unbalanced, not to mention that common sense would disprove this easily, but it scared the bejebus out of me. So I said no tv, and I've managed to stick with it.

4. We made it through a LOT in the past 12 months. When we had the baby I was smack in the middle of a semester of graduate school as well as working full time, Andy was working like a maniac and we were trying to buy a house, ...and things haven't slowed down much since. But we're all still alive, functional (at least, andy and I show up for work every day and Owen hasn't set any neighborhood animals on fire) and I'm really happy about that. It hasn't been easy, but it's getting easier.

5. Owen is a really sweet boy. He tries to hug and kiss everyone that crosses his path and he is, (in my admittedly biased opinion) turning into a genuinely nice little boy.

And now for the things I'm not so proud of:

1. It's much easier to give my kid a cereal bar than actually make him a balanced breakfast, and so I do it pretty often. Like every day. And if I'm being honest, I do it quite often for lunch and dinner as well.
2. I didn't even try to teach him baby sign language.
3. I let him sleep in my bed if he wakes up in the night. In fact, he's slept in my bed about 290 of the last 350 days. I keep setting arbitrary dates when I'm going to stop doing this, but the truth is, I'm full of crap. I am a complete wuss when it comes to crying it out, and I'm not going to do it now or probably ever.
4. Once I took him to the doctor because he had a rash and it turned out he had a 104degree fever and an ear infection in both ears. Whoops.
5. Sometimes my version of "playing" with him involves surfing the internet while occasionally looking over and making interested sounds. And by sometimes I mean, well, a lot.
6. Once, he dumped his whole dinner on the floor, and I was so tired that I just took him out of the high chair, moved him to the floor, and let him finish eating it from there.
7. I am totally unconcerned about germs. If he finds a six week old bite of food under the couch and wants to eat it, that's fine with me. It's very unlikely it will make him sick and I theorize it's good for his immune system. This goes double for anything he finds outdoors.
8. More than once in the first three months I contemplated giving him back, mailing him to Abu Dabi, or trading him for xanax. I'm definitely glad I didn't do any of those things, but I'm not going to pretend it didn't cross my mind.

So it's been a mixed bag, this first year. A little good, a lot stressful, a little terrible, a lot wonderful.

Happy birthday Owen. Mama and Daddy love you so much. We can't wait to explore year 2 with you!

I've kind of got my hands full.

Sorry for the delay in posts. I think the evidence will show that despite my best intentions, my blog updating time is limited.

feedin' mah self

I iz not so gud at it.

Everything is awesome today.

You know the part in "The Music Man" where Marian sings 'till there was you? (no? come on, bone up on your musical theatre!) anyway, I'll provide the lyrics for you:

There were bells on the hill
But I never heard them ringing,
No, I never heard them at all
Till there was you.

There were birds in the sky
But I never saw them winging
No, I never saw them at all
Till there was you.

And there was music,
And there were wonderful roses,
They tell me,
In sweet fragrant meadows of dawn, and dew.

There was love all around
But I never heard it singing
No, I never heard it at all
Till there was you!

Anyway, I've always liked that song, A) because it's a pretty tune but B) because I think, for a short cheezy song it does a pretty good job of describing a feeling that everyone has once in awhile - when something good happens and all of a sudden you realize that everything else is good, too.

I've been absentmindely humming "'till there was you" to myself all day, because Owen is finally, FINALLY, sleeping through the night. And everything is better. Everything! Work is easier, it's more fun to play with him, I feel healthier and exercising is less of a chore. I am actually really enjoying my life right now and most especially my funny, charming, mischevous son. I can't even think of anything to be gloomy about, which is rare, because as you might know, I'm kiiiiind of a pessimist.

Don't worry. I haven't gone TOO far off the deep end. There's always global warming and the recession. I'll be back to my old self tomorrow.

In retrospect, am I sorry that I didn't take a harder approach and bring this day sooner? I know most people thought I should just put him in the crib and close the door, and leave him there till morning letting him cry all night if I had to. Eventually (or at least I assume) he would have gotten the picture and slept through, and maybe I could have been all roses and sweet silver meadows six months ago. But I guess sleep training is just not for me. I honestly feel that Owen couldn't sleep through the night until he was ready to, and that pushing him to do it sooner when he clearly was resisting it so strongly wasn't the right thing. I know there are lots of babies who are ready earlier, and for whom sleep training works quickly and without heartache on either end. But Owen wasn't one of those kids. The day I walked in after letting him scream and bang for 10 minutes only to find his mouth dripping with blood because he banged his face on the crib rail sealed the deal for me. Unfortunately I had a kid who was just not going to go gently into that good night. (man, I am FULL of these cultural allusions today.)

And so we seem to have made it. Owen's slept through the last 4 nights in a row and is waking up cheerful and babbling in the morning. And it's wonderful.

there were bells, all around, but I never heard them ringing...