Whew

Dave and I have decided to start Sam in daycare two days a week. It's not an easy decision for me, but I think it's for the best.

It's necessary because I simply have to work. We can't make ends meet any other way. This is complicated by the fact that I refuse to rush him to sleep during the day so I can "get stuff done." And the whole evenings and weekends thing is not working. Even if it were remotely fair to Dave to drop Sam in his lap everytime he shows up at home, I am left with the pesky fact that I am in love with my husband and our son and like to spend copious amounts of time with them whenever possible. So suffice it to say that work is the least of my priorities, until I have a deadline or am totally broke, at which point I stay up working for three straight nights, which kicks up the dust around my fibromyalgia, which makes me feel like I was hit by a truck, etc., etc., etc.

Two days. Supposedly two full days, but probably just from 9 to 3 to start off, while I get used to the idea. We found a really great, loving provider who is close to home. It will be good for him. He can hang around other kids, and eventually play with them. He won't forget who his mommy is. (He won't, will he?)

The fantastic news is that he has started sleeping through the night. This is making me feel better, as it is surely a sign that he is extremely well-adjusted. Also, I'm still breastfeeding, which is hard has hell, but totally worth it, at least for me.

I hope he's happy and that he loves me, although sometimes it's hard to see. He cries for no reason and you think, "I'm a terrible mother." But then you drop him off for a few hours with his grandma, and he cries from the time you walk down the sidewalk until you walk back up it. And grandma says, "You're a wonderful mother." So who are you going to believe?

My day in pictures

Just when I thought I had escaped the icy promotional grip of Spider-man 3, this happens:

Am I the only one who didn't see that coming?

In other news, as Sam and I zipped into Starbucks this afternoon, this hot little number rumbled by:

Of course, I immediately called Jen.

Come on, even if your name IS Jesus, isn't that a little weird?

And lastly, it's time for the cute Sam picture of the week:

I know. Could you die?

Chicken Big and Chicken Little

Bros

Danny's home from college for a couple of weeks. Yesterday, we all sat around watching Happy Feet, which was beautifully drawn, but otherwise kind of lame. Hence the snoozing.

Everyone laughs when we tell them Sam and Danny are brothers. But boy, wouldn't you like to have a big brother like this to teach you stuff and hang around with at the playground?

Except when he's sleeping.

I jinxed it

Oh well, back to all over the map.

In-laws visited this weekend. It was fun, but rather overwhelming for the baby. I did enjoy having my sister-in-law here to feed and hold him, which she loved. I could have used the opportunity to work, but instead I used it to put away 4 weeks worth of clean laundry.

My sister-in-law also cleaned the fronts of my kitchen cabinets, wiped up the kitchen floor, and scrubbed the gunk off of my coffeemaker. Normally, I would have been totally embarrassed, but I really just didn't care.

On Saturday, the pollen here was so awful that Dave couldn't even go outside. Unfortunately, he did it anyway and had a day-long sneezing fit that probably caused one of the disks in his back to pop out. Now he is laying on the living room floor totally immobilized. Yay.

Danny's home for a couple weeks. I love love love having him here, especially since it's such a short visit, but with him and Dave both home today, it's making Sam loopy. (Turns out we DO have a schedule, which goes out the window when Dave would rather stick with Judge Mathis than watch the entire Raffi DVD at the appointed time. No, you can't turn it off just because he's sleeping).

On the other hand, lying flat on the floor does not preclude a man from letting a baby sleep on his chest, which is definitely buying me some time right now.

In other news, a client's IT guy called to get me to change their DNS. I took the opportunity to pick his brain about why my new (old) computer won't talk to the network, and he totally hit the ball out of the park. I've been wrestling with it for 3 days, determined not to turn the laptop back on. Go Grant!

Okay, to work.

Not to jinx it but...

Sam has started sleeping longer at night without a feeding - like 6 or 7 hours.

This took me totally by surprise. I mean, one night, it was every 3 hours like clockwork. And the next night, I put him down at 9:30 and he didn't make a peep until nearly 5 am.

Last night, he went to bed at 10 and woke up to eat at 4:15.

A girl could get used to this.

Last night I told Dave that, even though breastfeeding him is a pain in the ass, I can't imagine a world where I'm not doing it. That is not a value judgment at all (see MamaTulip's lovely post on breastfeeding, and not). I just mean that with this particular baby, it's been going so well and seems so normal that it's going to be weird to stop some day.

But of course it will happen. One day it will just start to seem weird. He'll need it less and less, and then we will stop. But I think I'll miss it. Time marches on. I guess we'll just wait and see.

In-laws this weekend!

Tuesday

I like Tuesday.

I guess I'm glowing. I just wrote a long email to a friend describing all the cool things Sam does now, and how great his brothers are, and how many times he wakes up to eat at night, and how often he poops, etc. Okay, not the last one.

The thing is, you carry this little tiny baby in your belly for nine months, and you've been trying to get him in there for two years, and face it, you wanted him in there since you were 11, but the whole time you're pregnant you're thinking, "Am I really going to be any good at this? What is my life going to be like? Am I going to regret it? How could this little baby really love me?"

And then he arrives, and your whole world is topsy turvy. And you love it. And you hate it. And you are adamant about breastfeeding, but your whole body says NO! And people ask you what you need, and all you can say is "Sleep." And your husband becomes even more precious to you, but you are mad at him all the time for no good reason. And the whole time you're worrying, "Is he eating enough? Is he growing enough? Does he know who I am? How are we going to make ends meet when I can't even answer the phone?"

And one morning, when you lift him out of his bassinet, he smiles at you. And that big toothless grin lets you know that he does know who you are, and dammit, he's happy to see you. And one night you're breastfeeding while your husband snores next to you, and he falls asleep in your arms. And you hold him for 10 minutes extra because sleep doesn't matter as much as that time with him and how he trusts you.

It falls together. He figures out how to play by himself for thirty minutes so you can type an email and how to fall asleep in the swing while Raffi plays in the background so you can do the dishes. You figure out how to change diapers in the dark and when to pump so you can freeze some milk for your meeting.

Gotta go. My baby needs me.