The Slippery Mom Jeans Slope

I used to think the phenomenon of "Mom jeans" happened when moms stopped caring what they looked like and didn't pay enough attention to stay on top of current trends.  Recently I realized there are practical reasons why moms might prefer a higher rise.  Low rise jeans are great when your activities include sitting and walking around.  Low rise jeans are even great for the first 1.5 trimesters of pregnancy, when your bump is small enough that their low waistband still rests comfortably beneath it.  Low rise jeans are especially great for when you want to fit into your pre-pregnancy jeans as soon as you return home from the hospital after delivering your baby.  But low rise jeans are not great for when you spend the majority of your time bending over to pick up your baby and sitting on the floor to play with her.

I used to spend a lot of time thinking about my clothing-- I even blogged about it for almost a year.  I got a lot of pleasure out of putting outfits together.  These days, most of my energy regarding clothing is devoted to finding clothing meets the following criteria:
1) Fits my slightly modified shape comfortably
2) Easily facilitates nursing 8-10 times a day
3) Is machine washable
4) Keeps me from exposing myself during various mothering activities
5) Is affordable, especially since I'm replacing much of my daily wardrobe for the second time in two years.
Once in a while I find an item which meets all 5 criteria perfectly, which explains why I currently own five different versions of the exact same Target crossover dress.  Variety of style or silhouette is no longer a priority.  It's no longer practical to use statement jewelry to add personal flavor to an ensemble.  If I didn't enjoy clothes as much as I did pre-pregnancy, I can see why I might not care enough to put in even this much effort.

So it goes with my hair, as well.  While pregnant I kept it long because Krista told me I'd have days where the only thing I'd feel good about was my thick, shiny, long hair and because my hairdresser told me she "refuses" to change a woman's hairstyle significantly when she's pregnant because they always end up regretting it.  My face never got chubby while I was pregnant, but the rest of me felt enormous, so I was thankful to have lush, beautiful hair there at the end.  I cut most of it off shortly after giving birth to Nora, and then somehow another 5 months passed before I made it back to the hairdresser.  This time I cut it even shorter.  Why?  Because my daughter's new favorite trick is pulling my hair and putting it into her mouth to suck on it.  I generally let her do whatever makes her happy, but this is where I have to draw a line.  Gross.

Here's a photo Billy took today of my new look. Obviously I'm not posting this because it's a good picture of me.  It's also not a perfectly accurate representation of my hair, either, which I think looks a bit longer than it is because of the angle of my head.  It barely fits behind my ear.  I'm going ahead with posting this photo because, in this picture, I look about the same as I feel most of the time these days: haggard.  I love my baby.  I don't begrudge her the nighttime feedings because I love nursing her and I'm glad she's healthy.  But motherhood takes a toll.  And yes, this is one of the 5 dresses from Target.  Plus, how funny is Nora's face here?  I've never seen this smile before in all my time with her; it's like she already knows how to fake a smile for a picture.

The other reason I cut off my hair was because before the chop, it was long enough to fit into a ponytail, so you can guess how it ended up most days.  That wasn't doing anybody any favors.  Now that practicality is key, I'd also like to boast that I can finally transform my hair from soaking wet to dry and styled in under 10 minutes.  How?  Because I purchased a new supersonic blow dryer upon the recommendation of a childhood friend-turned-Vegas-cocktail-server that is a.maze.ing.

So on the one hand, I think I look like a version of my old self most days: I'm clean, my hair is styled, my outfit looks put together, and I'm not exposing any parts of myself that my mother or my daughter would find embarrassing.  On the other hand, I realize that I'm getting dangerously close to becoming that mom who has a uniform that consists of a helmet hairstyle, a pair of high waisted jeans, and some version of the exact same shirt every day.  So dear friends, please feel free to stage an intervention whenever you see me slipping too far down this slope.  You're welcome to tell me I've let myself go, so long as you follow it up by leaving Nora with someone else in order to whisk me off to Annapolis mall to visit my hairdresser and purchase new clothes.  But I've forewarned you about my criteria, so I hope you've done some pre-scouting to make sure I'll find something that works.  : )

6 Month Stats and Photos

Nora finally had her 6 month pediatrician visit today.  She weighs 14 pounds 4 ounces, measures 24 1/4 inches long, and her head is 17" around.  This means she's gained a little over a pound and grown a little under an inch since her 4 month visit.  She's on the small end of the scale, but she's very proportional and growing well, so our ped confirms she's doing great!  She had her next round of immunizations, so although she'll go back at 9 months for a physical examination, she won't have to get poked again until she's a year old!

The other exciting development is that he gave us the go ahead to continue with our plans to using the "Baby Led Weaning" approach to introducing solids.  Nora has been feeding herself safely shaped bits of food for the past week or so, and she seems to be really enjoying it, so we just wanted to make sure our pediatrician didn't have any reservations about this choice.  He told us to follow our instincts because Nora is growing well and we know what's best for our baby.  I follow a few parenting groups on facebook and see plenty of stories about unsupportive and/or confrontational pediatricians, so every time we visit ours and he puts my mind at ease, I feel thankful that we found a doctor who is such a good fit for our family.  A couple of days ago I snapped a photo of Nora focusing hard on eating sticks of bread, banana, and flavored corn puffs.  It is fascinating to watch her reach for different food items, manipulate them around in her hands, and get them into her mouth.  A lot of the food comes back out or ends up on the floor (which Oscar is enjoying) but I am surprised at how much she is actually chewing and swallowing already.  We bought her a little chair that clamps onto the table, so in addition to the joy she takes in experimenting with food, she seems to love sitting up by herself at the table with me and Billy.

Loading this photo onto the computer from my phone reminded me that I have quite a few pictures I haven't shared via the blog yet.  I joined the smartphone revolution in January, and though I do enjoy having internet capability on my phone for a variety of reasons, the great picture quality of the iPhone 4S is definitely the best feature.  Nora likes to listen to music, so I normally have my phone nearby while we're hanging out at home, and this means I have a chance to capture a lot of our simple moments.  Here are plenty from the past month or so.

Getting ready for Orioles Opening Day!  I think this hat makes her look like an O's teletubby. : )

Showing off how good she is at rolling and looking all around while on her belly

It's amazing how good she is at mimicking our actions now.  She wants to try doing everything we do.

Her eyes look especially blue when she's wearing certain colors, but they definitely have some brown streaks in them.  Our pediatrician says they're likely to stay this way, but only time will tell!

Checking out the weather with Dad on Daddy/Daughter work from home day

Modeling the t-shirt Aunt Vickie brought back from Uncle Nate's brew pub in Bend (Oscar's never far away!)

She sure enjoys riding in her carseat these days!

We don't feed her from the bottle when I'm around, so although I'd heard from Patti and Billy that she had started holding her own bottle, I hadn't seen it in action until a few weeks ago when Billy happened to be feeding her as I walked in the door.  She's also taking more control when she's nursing these days.  Until recently, I had to help her a lot to establish a good latch, but now she can latch herself on pretty well most of the time.  This is a good time for her to develop this skill because she's so curious that she wants to look all around, even when she's nursing.  Today she even used her hand to help the tech while he gave her the rotavirus vaccine that is administered orally!

Our few days of having an extremely sick baby back in November make us extra thankful that she has been so healthy ever since.  We know we are fortunate to have a beautiful little girl who is growing and developing well.  We just love her to pieces!

Nora's Newest Developments

Since her half birthday, Nora has really improved her ability to sit up unassisted.  She still wobbles around a bit, but she manages to stay upright for longer periods every day.  She can even hold her toys while sitting now and no longer has to steady herself with her arms like a tightrope walker.



I can't believe how much more of a "kid" she seems like now that she can sit.  I thought the mobility milestones like rolling, crawling, and walking would be the ones that made me feel like she was really growing up, but this one definitely seems like the biggest stride so far.  It doesn't feel like too long ago that she couldn't even lift her chin off her chest, so it's remarkable to me that she can hold her whole body upright.

She also cut her first tooth this past week!  We've been able to see her bottom front teeth making their way up for a while now, but Billy noticed on Wednesday that the left one had finally pushed through.  It sure is sharp!  The right one looks like it's only a few days away, and her top teeth don't seem to be far behind, either.

Congratulations, Mama M.A.!

When you are married, live in the suburbs, commute to graduate school, work to fund your studies, and especially when you have a child, friendships look different than they did when your friends lived or worked in the house, dorm room, or classroom around the corner.  These days I try to interact with my friends "in real life" whenever I can, but those moments tend to be fewer and farther between than I'd like.  In the meantime, the foundations of my friendships are maintained mostly online via blog posts, facebook posts, and emails.

So today, I'd like to use my own corner of the internet to offer a hearty CONGRATULATIONS! to my friend and classmate Catherine, who successfully defended her master's thesis yesterday.  Like Catherine, I completed my master's degree while holding a graduate assistantship, and I seriously doubt whether I could have done this while also rearing two delightful little girls, as she has done.

Catherine, thank you for helping me to imagine otherwise in a field where doing serious work and committing yourself to your family are often seen as mutually exclusive acts.  Your encouragement, support, and example have provided me with so much peace of mind over the past few rollercoaster semesters.  Thank you for reminding me to take my time and for reassuring me by showing me that another smart, thoughtful, and caring person shares my priorities.  I'm so thrilled to see you reach this major goal and can't wait to see what you take on next, even if I have to watch it unfold online.

And Nora says congratulations, too. : )

Nora at Six Months

As promised, here is a short-ish video compilation of some of Nora's favorite ways of occupying her time these days.  Of course, I haven't yet managed to capture video of how well she is learning to sit up.  This evening she let Aunt Vickie get a look at how stable she's getting, but as soon as we got out the camera, she started flopping all over the place. : )  Oscar also does his best to sabotage her stability by thrashing his ball around and distracting her.  If he only knew that she has to learn to sit up before she can start dropping food on the floor for him!



If you'd like to compare this video to the one I made at three months and the one Nate made shortly after she was born, those are posted here.

Happy Half Birthday, Nora Jane!

Nora is six months old today!  It's hard to believe that when we wake up tomorrow, we'll be closer to Nora's first birthday than her birth day.

On the one hand, it's hard to believe it's been six months since she was born and a full year since we made the public announcement that she was on the way.  On the other hand, it's beginning to feel like she has always been a part of our family.  We love getting to know her little personality more every day.

My biggest reflection on reaching her half birthday is that six months is enough time to get used to being a parent.  I no longer feel completely overwhelmed and clueless about what to do in any given situation. I feel like I know my daughter well enough to be able to go with the flow of our day to day lives without getting as discouraged as I did in the early months.  We've had enough days together that when she has a bad one, I can recognize it as such rather than fearing something is wrong with her.  She's finally old enough and cognitively developed enough to develop a loose routine for the day.  Most importantly, I think, she's come so far in these past six months that I can start to imagine where she will be in the future.  There used to be a time when I thought I'd never be able to set her down without her screaming or never be able to get her to go to sleep on her own.  A week ago, she seemed so far away from having the balance necessary to sit on her own, but rather than wondering when she was ever going to show improvement, I knew that one day soon she was just going to surprise me.  Sure enough, over the course of the week she went from being completely unstable to being able to sit for around 10 seconds on her own.

I guess another way of saying this is that I've finally learned how to take the "this too, shall pass" attitude to heart.  And I'm realizing that it applies to things I enjoy about each stage as much as things I don't enjoy, so I'm trying to do a better job of living in the moment.  For example, Nora's getting so good at going to sleep on her own that I am starting to really miss the days when I got to hold her while she slept.  I try to balance being proud of her improving self-soothing skills while also making sure to savor the times she falls asleep on my shoulder and to give her an extra snuggle when she falls asleep in her sling when we're out and about.

Despite plenty of really difficult aspects that I don't want to discount, the past six months have been such a pleasure and a delight that I am excited to see what the next six have in store.  Several of our friends are expecting babies in the next few months, so I'm also looking forward at getting to see them get the hang of parenthood, as well.  Today Nora and I went to the baby shower for little Joshua, who our friends Rich and Angela are getting ready to welcome around Memorial Day.  Nora was on her best, most adorable behavior, and she was rewarded by getting to meet the Oriole Bird!  She has liked Billy's Orioles hats ever since she was born-- we think because they have a high contrast logo-- and now when Billy says "Where's the birdie?" she looks up at his hat and sometimes reaches for the brim.  It seems impossible that she made the connection, but she was mesmerized by the mascot and she had her eyes fixed on him as he walked around the room.

I've been working on compiling some clips for a "Nora at 6 months" video montage, so be on the lookout for that update soon.  We don't go back to the pediatrician until closer to the end of the month, but I'll be sure to check back in with the details of her growth.  She sure seems like she's doubled in size!

Through the Eyes of a Child

At some point in the past few weeks, Billy noticed that Nora really likes looking outside.  He opens the front door so she can watch the flag wave from her jumper and holds her in front of the back screen door so she can watch his anemometer spinning in the wind.  In a continued attempt to increase her level of comfort on her belly, I've been putting her next to Oscar on the couch to look out the front window.  At first glance, it's hard to understand why she would find this scene even more mesmerizing than the TV.  Nothing's happening, in my opinion.  But as I've been sitting there watching her, I notice that she sees the wind blowing the branches of the trees, she watches the robin jump from its nest down to the ground and back, she watches people and cars pass by, and she watches Oscar's reaction to all of these same stimuli.

One of the best things motherhood has done for me is force me to slow down.  I'm still not very comfortable living at this different pace because I sometimes start to feel like I'm not "accomplishing" anything from one day to the next.  As Nora approaches her half birthday, however, realizing how much she has learned and developed by watching the world around her and feeling it out-- simply by being, really-- has helped me to see that oftentimes the things we "accomplish" somehow manage to build up invisibly until moments of significant, remarkable breakthrough.  Tracking movements with her eyes, reaching for a toy, and rolling over have all seemed like things she just woke up one day with the ability to do, but clearly she has been spending all the "unremarkable" days between slowly accumulating the necessary information.

On Secure Attachment

Today we spent an enjoyable Easter Sunday with most of Billy's family at his Aunt Mary and Uncle Gary's.  The Pennsylvania wing of Patti's family was in town, all the Maryland and Virginia residents were there, Vickie was able to join us, and even Nana and Mr. Dick (Chuck's mom and her husband) were able to join us.  It is always nice to see everyone and fill up on delicious food, and today the weather couldn't have been better! For icing on the cake, the Orioles won their third game of the season and the US Davis Cup team won their tie against France.

It's really fun to see everyone interact with Nora and see how excited they are to see how much she has grown and developed since each of them saw her last.  The last time we were around the extended family was just under two months ago, and since then, she has really started to pay attention to everything around her.  I was proud of her for napping relatively well in another strange place, for maintaining a good mood most of the afternoon, and for letting different family members hold her for short periods of time.

This brings up an issue I've been wanting to broach on the blog for a while: that of secure attachment.  According to the (rather limited) child psychology I know from my education classes, secure attachment is the type of attachment you want to establish with your child when she is an infant.  Some psychologists even advocate one parent taking the primary caretaking role to facilitate the child's primary attachment to this parent because some research indicates this will improve the child's ability to "securely attach" to other family members as they grow older.  (This link gives a pretty bare bones summary of what I've read regarding secure attachment; I don't mean for this to be confused with "attachment parenting," which is a popular but fairly new parenting philosophy.)

I feel confident that Nora is securely attached to me.  She is comforted by being with me and she seeks me out when she is distressed.  She prefers being with me over being with strangers.  Patti reports that though Nora is starting to get upset when I drop her off, she recovers and engages positively with Patti while I'm gone.  She's excited about my return.  I think Nora has developed a healthy attachment to Billy, as well, because she gets very excited to greet him when he returns from work.  In fact, I'd say her favorite "state of being" is when I am holding her and Billy is engaging with her; for her this seems to be the best of both worlds.  I think the degree of her attachment to me can be traced back to her colic phase.  For the entire month of December, when she was upset for most of her waking hours, I was the one who was available to comfort her.  I know that this time we spent together made a significant impact on my attachment to her, so I can only assume that it had a similar impact on her.  In my opinion, her secure attachment to me is a very positive outcome of the time we've spent together so far.  It means she is generally in good spirits when she's full and rested, and the studies suggest that as she grows older, she'll develop good self esteem, she'll engage in positive social relationships with others, and she'll trust others enough to establish meaningful emotional connections.

However, family situations like this one sometimes make me wish she was not quite so attached to me.  Nora's relatives all love her so much that they get very excited about the opportunity to see her, which I appreciate very much.  I think the fact that she will grow up in a loving, nurturing family will also help her develop the same positive characteristics I mentioned above.  So I can understand why it is upsetting to others when Nora makes it obvious that she would much rather have me hold her.  I sympathize with her family members who feel disappointed when she seems unresponsive to their attempts to comfort her, only to have her stop fussing immediately when they hand her to me.

Since several of you who read my blog are further along in this parenting journey than me, and I respect and adore your children (whether in person or from afar), I wondered if you guys could weigh in on this issue.  Did your children show the same kind of preference for you as I've described above?  Do your kids switch back and forth in showing preference for one parent versus the other as they grow older?  If so, at what age did that start?  How long did it take before your kids began to feel more comfortable with family members or close friends who live outside your home?  Have you noticed differences from one child to the next?  Have you found any particularly successful strategies for bridging this gap between being glad your child is attached to you and wishing your child could also be happier in the presence of others?

And now for the pictures:  Nora's second cousins, Cash and Lily, are clearly social little creatures.  Lily has always taken to me and Vickie, and Cash loves Brian so much that he runs him ragged every time they're together.

Since I was more focused on keeping Nora happy and trying to help her interact with different members of the family than on taking pictures today, I'm thankful to Patti for taking and sharing the following photos:

Nora with Nana (her great grandmother!) and Mr. Dick 

Nora with her Granddad

... and taking it all in from the comfort of Mama's lap.

Rub a Dub Dub, Big Girl in the Tub!

Lately, we've been noticing that Nora is getting close to outgrowing her bathtub.  I remembered that we took a picture of her first bath in the tub, so tonight we took a photo of her in the tub to compare.

Just shy of 3 weeks:

Just shy of 25 weeks:

I don't think I will ever get my mind around the fact that she grew from a single cell into a healthy newborn inside my body or that she doubled in size solely by drinking the milk my body produced for her.

In addition to the size difference, the comparison is fun for me to see because it captures a degree of how much more capable she is now.  She's smiling, turning her head to look at me, and chewing on the washcloth she brought up to her mouth on her own.  She was adorable when she was an itty bitty baby, but every day she seems even more precious because she is such a little sponge for new information and she is coming into her own personality.  At the same time, it's fun to think that some things stay the same, like the way she always holds her feet together in the water. : )

Keep Your Head Up

It's a busy week here in Baby and Books Land; my students are reading Faulkner and have their first paper due Friday.  This means responding to extra student emails, logging extra office hours, and trying to get extra far ahead in planning so I'll have time to grade next week.  In the meantime, though, I thought I'd share a few recent pictures that show off Nora's new rolling prowess.  She still doesn't like to be on her belly for too long, but since she can now hold her head all the way up, she seems to be learning to appreciate the new perspective.

She's also getting good at rolling from her belly onto her back, so sometimes when she's unhappy on her belly she's able to correct herself.  Between these barrel rolls and her habit of pushing herself backwards with her feet while she's on her back, she is really starting to get around!  Gone are the days of setting her down, going to switch the laundry, and finding her in the exact same spot when I return!

While she's working on keeping her head up, I am too, or else I'd be very discouraged with my students.  Almost none of them had finished Cather's The Professor's House on time, which feels like a personal insult given my relationship with this text.  Maybe when (if?) they pick up their copies of As I Lay Dying they'll understand why I told them that if they couldn't be bothered to read Cather, they shouldn't expect to earn a good grade for the course.  American Literature only gets more confusing from here.