Odds and Ends

I've been so busy with my looming prospectus deadline that I've fallen behind on sharing pictures of Nora.  Here are a whole bunch of them from the past two or so months!

A few weeks ago Nora's school had a "Super Hero Spirit Day" where you they were supposed to wear their favorite superhero tee shirts.  Nora doesn't have one of those, so I used fabric markers to do one better: a whole Wonder Woman costume!  She happened to have red shoes and the perfect shorts, but I knew she was on board with the project when she picked up her Slinky of Truth for the pictures!

 

We got Nora a kiddie pool when the weather got warm, and it is a much bigger hit this year than it was last summer.  She loves sitting in it and splashing all around, and Billy and I like that putting our feet in the chilly water makes sitting out in the yard with her more bearable.  She loves to be outside no matter how hot it is, but sometimes we get quite sweaty playing with her "ousside."

Billy's cousin Jacelyn's family moved from a townhome into a single family home, so they had us all over for a family cookout last month.  Nora is finally old enough to really play with Cash and Lily (rather than just watching them run around and have fun), but I was still surprised by how much she insisted on participating in the slip 'n slide fun!  Jacelyn and Allen's new house is perfect for summer playtime, so we are glad we got to enjoy this day together as a family.

Nora has two teachers in her classroom, and one of them decided to leave the day care center in order to spend the rest of her summer at home with her little boys.  We were happy she has the opportunity to spend more time with her own children, but I know Nora misses her.  We have had such a good experience with the teachers at this location that we are sure Nora will warm up to her replacement quickly.  I already miss Ms. Candice myself-- in part, because now Nora no longer comes home with these beautiful braids!  She does NOT sit still long enough for me to do this with her hair. : )

While they were visiting family in Delaware, our old friends Erin and Brent from my Calvert County days brought their daughter Julia over to visit us for a day.  This was the first time we've seen them since Julia began walking, so it was fun to see her and Nora interact a lot more.  She was a little weary of Nora's rough-and-tumble ways, but I think they will eventually be great friends!

And finally, one of my friends in the PhD program held her annual backyard cookout, so I took a break from what I've been calling "prospectus purgatory" to do some actual socializing.  Since there are plenty of people who criticize the decision to have a child as a grad student, it was extra nice to be surrounded by the classmates who've always been supportive of my decision.  This was the first time those of us who've had babies since we started in the program were able to get them together to play, and it was a delight for me to see them interact. After two year old Cy taught Nora how to pull ice cubes out of the cooler, she spent the rest of the evening trying to find more single cubes in there.  Though you wouldn't know it by their sizes, my friend Maggie's son Xavier was born almost exactly a year after Nora.  I know the nature of our profession will take all these littles to different parts of the country, but I hope I'll get to follow their development online throughout the years.  They have a special place in my heart as Nora's fellow Tiny Terrapins!

Breastfeeding Through the Minefield

Updated 6/21

I have some (okay, a lot of) things I want to say about breastfeeding.  In the original version of this post, I said: "The best way I can think to express them is to borrow the conceptual framework Annette Kolodny uses in her powerful and influential 1980 essay, "Dancing Through the Minefield" because for me, trying to reach one year of exclusively breastfeeding with my daughter felt like I was attempting to navigate a large field that was full of hidden land mines that might detonate at any moment."  But after an interesting conversation on facebook about the undertones of antagonism this framing device might suggest, I've decided to modify it to better articulate what I mean.

Perhaps, rather than suggesting breastfeeding is like navigating a minefield, it is more accurate to say it can feel like traveling a path that already has some obstacles of its own, but which is made much more treacherous by hidden mines that are planted along it.  The mine image still resonates with me because, if one of these mines detonates on you, there is no way to predict how much it will derail your progress.  Depending on how negatively these obstacles and mines impacted you, you might decide to take another path even if you were initially committed to the breastfeeding path.

I want to explain what I know about this breastfeeding path, how I navigated it, and how I try to help other women do the same.  So I am going to do those things here, as directly and as best I can.  I am not going to address the specifics of why breastfeeding is beneficial for mom and baby-- neither in terms of nutrition or nurturing-- because a google search would be more productive toward those ends.  If you are interested in reading this post, please keep in mind that it takes for granted my basic attitudes about breastmilk and baby formula, which are these:  Breastmilk provides babies with precisely the nourishment they need.  Baby formula meets many of a baby's most fundamental nutritional needs, though it does not have all the nutritional benefits of breastmilk.

I believe that the best thing a woman can do to meet her breastfeeding goals is to familiarize herself with the breastfeeding path, its obstacles, and the mines she might encounter along it.  And I believe that people who want to help women reach their breastfeeding goals can best do this by helping them navigate these obstacles.  We can help moms overcome the obstacles, show moms what the mines are and where they are likely to be encountered, help moms to deactivate them, and avoid setting additional mines for moms to navigate around.  Before I elaborate a bit on those beliefs, I want to describe, in as concise a way as possible, what I recognize as some of the obstacles that seem to be inherent to the path as well as what are, in my opinion, the most common among the many land mines one might encounter on this path.

In this framework, it is helpful for me to think of the first three obstacles on the breastfeeding path as precisely that-- obstacles.  This is because they are not actively "set" by anyone, as the mines are, though they may be exacerbated by the mines.  These obstacles are some of the complications of breastfeeding itself, and most of them come at the beginning-- as if a woman has to climb a steep hill immediately upon starting on this path.

Obstacle: The demands breastfeeding puts upon a woman's body
Breastfeeding is physically draining, especially in those first few weeks when the baby is likely to nurse every 1-2 hours (sometimes for an hour or more at a time).  It depletes a woman's body unlike anything else she will ever do-- even more so than pregnancy.  It also requires that she wake up frequently in the night to feed, which interrupts her sleep, further exhausting her physically.  I'd wager to say every mother faces this obstacle, and how much it derails her depends on how much support she has.

Obstacle: The demands breastfeeding puts on a woman's time
Breastfeeding takes a long time.  When Nora was a newborn, I once calculated that I spent over 6 of the 24 hours in one day nursing her.  Even once the child gets older and spends less time nursing, the demands are significant.  Mothers who must rely on pumping breastmilk must also devote considerable time to that endeavor.  Again, I think every mother must grapple with this obstacle, and whether she can overcome it depends on how much freedom and/or flexibility she has with her time.

Obstacle: Breastfeeding complications
There are quite a few "naturally occuring" obstacles to breastfeeding which can affect baby and mom.  These include, but are not limited to: tongue tie, shallow latch, oversupply, undersupply, inverted nipples, nipple soreness, thrush, plugged ducts, mastitis, and milk blisters.  These obstacles are different for every woman, and some of them can pop up at any time.  But in general, how much information the mother has about them when they strike has a large impact on whether she can overcome them.

So that brings us to the mines a woman may encounter along the breastfeeding path, by which I mean social, medical, cultural, and political factors that interfere with a woman's ability to successfully breastfeed her child.  Some of these are set intentionally, and some unintentionally.  Some were set long in the past and some continue to be set today.  But they can all be damaging enough to cause a woman to choose a different path for feeding her child.

Mine: Misconceptions about what to expect from breastfeeding
Partly because Americans have relied heavily on formula in the past, there are many widespread misconceptions about how the breastfeeding relationship should develop and how breastfed infants should behave.  When this mine detonates, women might be told their milk did not come in soon enough, they are not producing enough milk, their child is not getting enough milk, their child is feeding too frequently, their child is not gaining enough weight, and so on, even if none of these things are true, simply because many people do not know what to expect.

Mine: Obstetric Practices
There are many obstetric practices that can help save the lives of women and babies in extreme cases but which also reduce a woman's chances of successfully breastfeeding her child.  These research findings are sometimes controversial, but there have been studies which show that induced labor, the administration of certain medications to the mother during birth, cesarean section, delay in the first opportunity to breastfeed, and separation of mothers and babies in the immediate postpartum period decrease a woman's chances for breastfeeding success.  Not all healthcare providers educate their patients about these risk factors, so many women agree to these procedures in less severe cases with no idea that they might impact their breastfeeding outcomes.  When this mine detonates, it can stack the cards against the mother from the beginning, making it more difficult for her to reach her breastfeeding goals in the long run.

Mine: Patriarchal attitudes about women's bodies
I'm happy to go into more detail on this in individual conversation, but in brief, I will simply say that it serves the goals of male-dominated structures of power to sexualize the female body.  The power of patriarchy is so strong in our country that men and women alike often think that baring the breast for the purpose of nursing is "inappropriate," "weird," "disgusting," "pornographic," etc, even though nursing seems to be the primary biological/evolutionary function of the breast.  When this mine detonates, it can make women feel ashamed about using their bodies to nourish their children in public but also within their own homes.  It can also cause them to stop breastfeeding before they are ready if they are told their child is "too old" to be at the breast.

Mine: The pushing of baby formula
The World Health Organization has established a code that formula manufacturers are supposed to follow, which forbids them from doing anything I would describe as "pushing" formula on women.  But they don't always follow it.  They're trying to sell baby formula, so they find ways to make it seem desirable to women.  There are other ways that formula is pushed on moms, too.  I've read about and spoken to mothers who suggest they have been coaxed against their wishes into giving formula by OBs, pediatricians, administrators of social programs, and family members.  The list goes on.  When this mine detonates, it can inhibit breastfeeding success by upsetting the mother's breastmilk supply, perpetuating misconceptions about breastfeeding, and making women feel like the only way they can properly nourish their child is by providing baby formula.

Mine: The "Breast is Best" Campaign and other attitudes that position mothers in a hierarchy
I would like to believe the "Breast is Best" phrase was supposed to be an easy-to-remember reminder that breastmilk has nutritional advantages baby formula does not.  I can see how that would be useful given that in years past, a lot of women were taught to believe their breastmilk was nutritionally insufficient.  But I think the inclusion of the word "best" in this phrase is highly problematic.  When people to go around saying "breast is best," they erase all the many complexities of the mother/child breastfeeding relationship.  "Breast is best" ignores the situations in which breastfeeding might not be best for the mother, and by implying that breastfeeding is always best, the slogan creates counterproductive competition between mothers.  By positioning women who breastfeed as those who give their children the "best," it implies that women who use formula in any capacity must be inferior as mothers because they are not giving their children the "best."  In my opinion, that's just plain wrong.  When this mine detonates, it alienates would-be breastfeeders from the very women who could help them improve their chances of breastfeeding success.

Mine: Judgemental breastfeeding advocates
Unfortunately, there are a lot of lactation consultants and breastfeeders who engage in active shaming of women who do not exclusively breastfeed and/or do not know as much as they do about breastfeeding.  This upsets me for a lot of reasons, but most fundamentally, it is upsetting because shaming the mothers ignores the fact that they are not responsible for all the mines I've described above.  Further, shaming others is not only wrong; it is also not the way to get anything positive accomplished.  When the shame mine detonates, it can make a woman who needed more help or information about breastfeeding feel like the people who are supposed to help her do not have her best interest at heart.  It can make her feel like she is being persecuted by "lactation nazis" who do not understand her struggles, who judge her as a bad mother based on this single factor, and/or who think they are superior mothers or people just because they were able to breastfeed more successfully.  I imagine the detonation of this mine is painful at the deepest level and can see why it would turn mothers away from the idea of breastfeeding entirely.  If a woman wants to breastfeed but is unable to do it for any variety of reasons, she likely experiences feelings of disappointment, frustration, sadness, guilt, and/or insecurity on her own.  So to have someone add insult to her injury, even when the mom tried her best with the information she had, would give her good reason to never want to speak to a "breastfeeding advocate" again.

Believe it or not, that is the nutshell version of what I have learned and figured out about breastfeeding since 2011.  As you might already realize, part of the reason I have access to all of this information is because my socioeconomic and educational backgrounds afford me privileges that the vast majority of Americans do not have.  Breastfeeding success rates among different demographics in our country demonstrate that, like most types of success in the US, certain people of privilege have a much easier time accessing the most useful information and making use of it.  I am, of course, happy to talk to people in more depth about any of these ideas on an individual basis.  But now that I've outlined some of the most common obstacles and mines women encounter in this path, I want to explain what I did to navigate around them and what I try to do to in helping other women do the same.  My hope, I guess, is that people will take what they can use from my experience to help them reach their own breastfeeding goals and/or help empower other women to meet theirs.

What I did to navigate the path
If you want to breastfeed your child, you increase your chances at success by educating yourself about this path before and after the birth of your child.  (As an introductory overview, I recommend Breastfeeding Made Simple: Seven Natural Laws for Nursing Mothers, and as a web resource, I recommend kellymom.com.) I made clear to family and friends from the start that I intended to exclusively breastfeed.  Continuing to learn about breastfeeding after Nora was born allowed me to maximize the luck that came my way and minimize the effects of the mines that detonated on me.  I accepted that I could not expect healthcare providers to give me good information all the time-- whether they are obstetricians, midwives, lactation consultants, or pediatricians-- and I ignored examples of "advice" I felt were ill-informed.  I found one woman I trust who values me as a person and has breastfed successfully, and leaned on her help and support.  My lifelong friend, Krista, also put me in touch with a whole network of women to answer my questions, which helped a lot.  But I found that having even just one woman who knew what I was up against, who treated me like a woman instead of a milk delivery vessel, and wanted me to succeed had a huge impact on my success.  She helped me learn to navigate the minefield for myself.

What I try to do to help other women navigate the path
In fact, Krista has been such a help to me that I largely follow her model of support when trying to help others reach their breastfeeding goals.  I try to let all my pregnant acquaintances know that I'm happy to share my breastfeeding experience and advice with them, and I hope I don't make them feel like I am pushing it.  When friends and family members reach out to me for more information, I explain what worked for me.  I try to pass along the information that was most useful to me about where to look for proper information and what to expect.  I encourage them to get in touch with me at any time if they're having trouble.  I hope to make clear that when they face these obstacles or any of these various mines detonate on them, and they begin experiencing breastfeeding complications, I will be there to share the information I know, help them find answers to questions I can't answer myself, and point them in the direction of additional help and resources when they need more experienced advice.  I also think it's important to tell them they don't have to follow all the "rules" of proper breastfeeding all the time, and I try to help them figure out which shortcuts might help make breastfeeding more sustainable given their particular struggles.  If you're looking for help with reaching your breastfeeding goals, please let me know.

In every conversation I have about breastfeeding, I try to keep the following things in mind-- because these are the things I wish some people had been more cognizant of when they have discussed it with me.
-Every woman has a right to choose whether to breastfeed, how much to breastfeed, and how long to breastfeed.  While I can encourage what I think are healthy choices by sharing what I know about the advantages of nursing, especially with those people who are closest to me, I do not have a right to try to push my values on anyone else.
-As such, I feel it is my job to help women meet their own breastfeeding goals, not the ones I might set for them.
-Breastfeeding can be very difficult, especially at first.  The more encouragement and support a woman gets, the more likely she is to get over that initial hump and into the zone where it is beneficial and rewarding for everyone involved.
-Mothers are not the ones responsible for any of the obstacles or mines I described above, so they are not to blame for the vast majority of factors that complicate breastfeeding attempts in this country.  I try to make sure they know it's not their fault when trouble arises.
-Practices that empower women help them and their babies.  Practices that disempower women, even if they are done under the auspices of "helping" the child, often end up failing to benefit the child in the end.   The better physical and emotional shape a woman is in, the better off her baby will be.
-Shaming women will not lead to an increase in breastfeeding rates.  It contributes to a mother's feelings of alienation, which decreases her likelihood to breastfeed successfully.
-Everyone experiences these obstacles and the detonation of the breastfeeding mines in different ways.  Only the mother attempting to navigate the path can decide when it would be best for her to choose another path, whether that might mean introducing baby formula or switching to entirely.  I have, instead, an obligation to support the women I know in their efforts to feed their children as best they can.  And sometimes that means reminding a mother that any amount of breastfeeding she is able to do is beneficial to her baby-- whether that is nursing for two sessions, two days, two weeks, two months, or two years.  At other times, it might mean reminding them that there are plenty of other ways to nurture infants.

So there you go.  Everything Liz has wanted to say about breastfeeding, in 3,000 words or less.  I recognize that my form of activism only really works on women who want to breastfeed already.  But I firmly believe that by empowering those women, we will make breastfeeding more appealing to other moms, too.  Learn about the path, the obstacles, and the mines so you can best navigate the journey.  Help other women do the same.  And do your best to avoid setting additional mines that may inhibit their progress.

Welcome, Julian Beck!

One of the posts I'm way behind on publishing is one to welcome my friend Anne-Marie's new baby, Julian Beck!  He was born on February 6 at a healthy 8+ pounds!  I know there are no "awards" given out for childbirth, but if there were, Anne-Marie definitely earned one.  She labored for a really long time while recovering from a broken patella, and since little JB came out in the posterior position, he did not make it easy on her.  We are so happy that mom and baby are healthy, and we're excited to welcome Anne-Marie and Jon into the chaotic and amazing world of parenthood!

I've been lucky enough to visit Anne-Marie and JB a few times since he was born.  I know Anne-Marie and Jon are still in the stage where they feel very overwhelmed by the demands of a newborn, but these few visits confirm my suspicion that they are going to be great parents.  They've been successful at keeping Julian calm whenever I've been around, he seems curious and alert when he's awake, and he is gaining weight like a champ.

Watching such a close friend go through the newborn adjustment period has been an uncanny reminder of what that period was like for me.  Anne-Marie helped me keep my spirits up while I tried to navigate the anxiety I felt as a new mom, so it is nice to be able to offer her encouragement now.  Mostly, I just tell her the things I'd tell myself if I could go back in time:  Everything will be okay.  Nursing will get easier and easier until you actually enjoy it.  The days are so long, but the weeks and months go by so quick.  Enjoy every other minute.  It really does get better once you hit that three month mark.  Don't be so hard on yourself. Leave the house, even if you only go to target.  You will get to sleep again... and so on.  Plus, now that Nora is a full-blown toddler, having another infant to visit and new mom to talk with serves as a welcome reminder of that anxious but amazing first year with Nora that went by all too fast.  Anne-Marie let me hold Julian in the Baby K'tan as we walked around the mall, and as I wrapped him up in a big hug, it took me right back to those days when Nora was an itty bitty thing.   But then I got to go home for a full night's sleep, so it feels like the best of both worlds!

Congratulations again, Anne-Marie and Jon!  I can't wait to see Julian and Nora get to know one another as they grow.

Quilting

Over winter break, I took up quilting.  Mom taught me how to sew when I was young, and I had an operating sewing machine until I burned it up sewing a new ceiling for the SGA Homecoming dance in 2007.  With several babies close to my heart set to arrive this winter, I thought it would be fun to try to make them some baby quilts.  I asked Billy to get me a new sewing machine as my (early) Christmas gift, so once I passed my exam, I began working.  I had a lot of fun figuring out how to make the designs I dreamed up in my head, searching etsy for patterns, and cruising the craft stores to find fabrics and figure out which tools would help me most.  It is always hard for me to transition from hyper-efficient academic mode into the more relaxed pace of semester breaks, so having the crafts to work on also gave me something to do in the evenings that was less stressful than schoolwork.

The first thing I set out to make was a baby quilt for my friend Anne-Marie, whose shower was in mid December and whose baby is due any day now!  She loves William Carlos Williams, so I found an excerpt from a WCW poem that reminded me of what it felt like to fall more in love with Nora as I watched her take in the world.  I had fun embroidering the words onto the fabric, piecing the quilt together, and learning that binding the quilt is definitely the most time consuming part.  Overall, I was pleased with how the quilt turned out, though when I took this picture I realized that the lettering was much harder to read than I thought.

Once I finished that quilt, I began making a play mat for Everett.  I found this pattern on etsy for a play mat with a drawstring around the outside that turns it into a bag.  The idea is to throw the toys in the middle, cinch up the straps, and carry it as a bag when you're taking the baby somewhere outside the house where you plan to set them on the floor.  I knew that if I had ever shown up to new mom's support group with this dual-purpose blanket, I would have been the envy of everyone, so I hoped Ashley would find it useful for Everett.

It's tough to be an inexperienced quilter and a perfectionist, I learned.  I managed to get the corners to line up perfectly on Anne-Marie's quilt, but I just had to let go of my irritation about the strips not lining up on Everett's play mat.  Maybe if I make this again for someone else I'll do a better job.  I did award myself bonus points, however, for choosing an animal print backing that makes it look pretty trendy when it is in bag-mode.

Ashley is really good about sharing photos of Everett with us, so here is one in which he is doing a VERY careful inspection of the ribbons I sewed into the seams.  If he shares his cousin Nora's love of tags, he will be even more fascinated by these when he gains the use of his arms and fingers.

I also made a birth stats wall quilt for Everett, but I forgot to take a picture of it.  Thankfully, I learned my lesson about low-contrast lettering before making something that my colorblind brother would want to read.  Instead of stitching the birth stats into the fabric, I used felt lettering.  I also made some fabric headbands in cute patterns for Vickie, since she now has to wear plain navy blue scrubs to work every day.

My newly acquired quilting skills are back on hiatus during the semester, but when I have time again, I'm planning to begin working on a twin sized literary-inspired quilt for Nora.  And if I can get my emotions together someday I would like to do something with the bags of Dad's t-shirts I have stored away.

Welcome, Everett James!

My nephew Everett arrived Thursday!  He arrived on his scheduled due date, but not before putting his mom and dad through the childbirth ringer.  As I understand it, he was born about 38 hours after Ashley first started feeling contractions strong enough to keep her awake and about 17 hours after they arrived at the hospital.  You certainly wouldn't know it from this picture his proud papa took of mama and baby moments after the birth!

Everett James weighed 7 lbs 5 oz, is 20 1/2 oz long, and has quite a bit of cute blonde hair.  I have spent the past several days more thankful than ever for camera phone technology, which has allowed me to see for myself through plenty of pictures and two video chat sessions that Everett and his parents are all happy, healthy, and enjoying the chance to get to know one another.  I am so proud of Nate and Ashley for keeping calm throughout her extended labor and trust that this final "test" of pregnancy will serve them well as preparation for being parents of a newborn.  I suspect they needed this lesson less than I did, since they tend to "go with the flow" better than I do, and since Ashley has plenty of experience with littles.  But if they did need a reminder of how to manage stressful circumstances where you feel like everything is out of your control, and all you can do is wait until things change, they got a good one!

Selfishly, I am quite excited to have a new little baby in my life!  Seeing Everett's pictures and hearing about how he's doing gives me a chance to reminisce about when Nora was an itty bitty baby, and it is easy to be nostalgic about that time now that Nora sleeps 12 uninterrupted hours a night, makes nursing a soothing experience, goes down for naps instantly, can stay in the same clothes all day long, and is almost always pleasant and content.  : )  It will be so much fun to see and hear about Everett's development along the way.  I am also very excited to watch my brother continue to embrace being a dad.  It has been fun for me to see how Nate has grown, changed, and come into his own as Ashley's partner.  It's also been a pleasure to find out what a positive influence she is in his life and how they've learned to balance one another out to make such a strong, happy pair.  I can only imagine it will be even more enjoyable to see the ways baby Everett enhances their family and changes their outlooks on life.  Everett is so fortunate to have parents who are so loving and devoted to one another and to him.

I am also excited to find out what it's like to be an aunt.  I perceive my responsibilities to include offering all the support and encouragement I can while also withholding any and all "advice" unless it is specifically solicited.  I have more than one year of round-the-clock on-the-job training, so I know a lot of things now that I wish I'd known when I was in their shoes, but I think the best way for them to figure everything out on their own.  How things work for them and their little guy won't be the same as how things have worked for me, Billy, and Nora.  At the same time, Nate and Ashley, I hope you know you are not in this alone, that I'm more than happy to act as a sounding board for any questions or problems you might have, and we'd love to help if there's anything we can do to make the road easier for you.  I love you guys, and I love your little guy, and I can't wait to see you all in a few weeks!!

And now for the photos.  Here's the first picture I saw, with Nate holding Everett, where I could really make out his face.

When we woke up in the morning, Nate had posted this one of Everett's first bath.  I showed it to Nora after telling her that her cousin had been born while she slept.  She said "HIIIII!" and pointed at Everett's face.  When I asked her, "Do you see the baby?" she started saying "Bayybeee!  Bayyybeee!"

Later that day, we got a chance to video chat with the little guy and his parents.  Everett was even awake!

Mom was at the hospital when Everett was born and got to see him shortly after birth!

And here is a photobomb of other adorable pics!!

The only minor drawback of Everett's arrival is that it's really made me feel like Nora is not a baby anymore.  She's still a little thing, but she walks so well, has so much hair, and has a smile so full of teeth that she definitely seems like she's in a whole different category than her little cousin.  Oh well... time marches on!

A Day in the Life

A few weeks ago, my high school friend Jo did a couple of posts that documented "a day in the life" of her attempts to balance motherhood and with her career.  I was amazed and intrigued by how different our day-to-day lives seem to be, even though we're both professional moms who share similar values on a lot of parenting questions.  People are always saying things to me like "How do you get it all done?", so maybe they care to read about it on a micro level.  Plus, I've done "day in the life" posts before (see here and here), and I enjoy looking back on them.  So whether or not anyone is interested in this level of specificity, I thought I'd keep track of what I was up to on an average work-from-home Monday so that in the future, when this whole semester is a blur, I can remember what putting one foot in front of the other looked like as I prepared for my exams.

10:08pm Sunday night: Billy turns off the TV and we say goodnight.  I'm surely asleep by 10:11.

11ish pm: I wake up to the sound of Nora's coughing fit.  She does this once every night, and we don't know why, but our pediatrician is unconcerned about it.  I try to figure out why she's doing it at this time, since it normally happens around 4 or 5am, while I listen to see if she needs me.  She doesn't.  If the coughing wakes her up, she goes right back to sleep, so her mom does the same.

5:22-6:00am Monday morning: I wake up.  I get up to pack up the lunch for Nora that I prepared the night before.  I fix her bottles, pull clothes and sheets from the laundry, and prepare her school bag.  I make coffee, eat breakfast, feed Oscar, and let him out.  Once Billy is up and in the shower, I go get dressed.

6:00-7:00am Nora's already awake and waiting patiently, so I get her up.  I change her diaper, get her dressed, nurse her, and we say goodbye to Billy, who is leaving for work.  I finish getting her things together and start to get excited about getting out of the door early when I realize that I can't find her left shoe.  I spend at least 15 minutes searching the house and the car for it.  Luckily, she sits patiently in her pack and play and "reads" a book, laughing at me as I get increasingly frustrated.  (How do you lose baby weight?  Lose everything else first, and you'll make so many trips up and down the stairs that you won't need to exercise.)  When I finally give up and sit down to put a different pair of shoes on her, I see the toe of her left school shoe peeking out from behind the boxes I need to mail today.

7:00-8:00am I get Nora in the car and drive her to school.  In the car, we listen to Alice Walker's narration of The Color Purple.  I spend about two hours commuting every day, so audiobooks on my iPhone have allowed me to make use of this time.  I limit my listening to those novels which I've read  before and otherwise wouldn't have time to re-read.  I wonder what others in my program would think if they knew how many pages I've reviewed in this way, but I don't care.  I drop Nora off at school, get her situated, get her teacher up to speed since she was on vacation last week.  I drive back home.

8:00-8:20am: I shower and get dressed (again).  I realize I am starving so I eat a piece of last night's pizza.

8:20-10:00am: I finish reading Morrison's Beloved, review my notes from when I read it in a grad class, and write up my exam notecard on the novel.  I cross it off my list and triumphantly place it on the top of my "finished" pile even though I still have to figure out 4 lesson plans for it in the near future.

10:00-11:25am: I read Amy Kaplan's intro to Cultures of United States Imperialism and take notes on it.  Somewhere in this block I also took a 12 minute power nap.  I do this almost every day, sometimes twice.  Billy thinks the idea of a 12 minute nap is absurd; I think it's the only thing that keeps my brain functioning.

11:25am-12:05pm: I eat another piece of pizza, I check facebook, I work on this blog post, and I talk to Billy briefly on gchat.  I spend about 20 minutes of this window attached to my pump and yield just over 4 ounces.  (So it goes these days.)  I portion this out to Nora's bottles for tomorrow and rinse my pump parts.

12:05-12:55pm: I read Donald Pease's follow-up intro to the Kaplan one from earlier, take notes on it, and put that book in the finished pile.

12:55-2:10pm: I plan our meals for the week and make my grocery list.  I go to the post office to mail a few packages, but the empty parking lot reminds me that it's closed for Veteran's day.  I go to the grocery store, get our groceries, and stop for our mail on the way home even though I should have remembered that there is no mail today.  Facepalm.  I put the groceries away.

2:10-3:00pm: I begin reviewing Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

3:00-4:05pm: I listen to The Color Purple on the way to and from picking Nora up from school.  I chat briefly with her teacher and learn that Nora said "Wow!" while eating her lunch and she had fun playing outside.  She seems to have gotten over her hesitations about walking on the rubberized, padded playground matting.

4:05-5:00pm: Nora and I meet Billy at home to begin the best part of my day!  We play with her together for about a half an hour.  Today, this means watching her run around the living room and playing peek-a-boo by putting a bucket over her head.  Then I prepare asparagus and stuffing to eat with the rotisserie chicken I got at the grocery store.  While I'm waiting on those things, I watch Nora pull all of the food containers out of "her" cabinet and make her lunch for tomorrow.

5:00-5:30pm: Nora, Billy, and I sit down to eat dinner as a family.  She seems to have fallen out of love with vegetables, but she still takes a few bites of asparagus.  She can't get enough rotisserie chicken and she discovers that she likes stuffing.

5:30-6:10pm: After dinner, we play for a little while longer.  Then Billy cleans up the kitchen and washes the dishes and bottles while I get Nora ready for bed.  Bathtime, jammies, brush her teeth, empty her diaper pail when I remember it's trash night.  While I do that she "reads" herself Go, Dog! Go!.  This apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

6:10-6:30pm: I watch Friday Night Lights on my phone during Nora's bedtime nursing session.  I could be listening to my audiobook, but watching good TV while cuddling my baby is my one singular indulgence every day.  When 20 minutes is up, we say goodnight to Dad, set Nora down in her crib, and she's done for the night.

6:30-6:45pm: Billy has funny things he found on the internet to show me.

6:45-8:10pm: I finish reviewing Didion, read my notes from when we read her in one of my graduate classes, write up my notecard, and put Slouching Toward Bethlehem in the "finished" pile.

8:10-8:30pm: While waiting for tech support on audible.com to help me with my audiobook account, I get caught up on jezebel and gawker for the day.  An Elmo scandal? Why!?!

8:30-9:15pm: I begin reading Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five.  Oscar helps.  I normally try to work until at least 9:30 but I become convinced that my brain itself is "unstuck in time" and quit a few minutes early.

9:15-10:00pm: I bring my laptop up to the bedroom, where Billy is flipping around between Maryland basketball and Monday Night Football.  I work on this blog post and we relax until bedtime.

All in all, it was a pretty standard but rewardingly productive day.  As it turns out, it was a good thing I got so much done yesterday because today was a complete wash in terms of getting my own work done.  (I spent the whole day teaching and grading.)  Tomorrow, I get to work from home again, which means crossing more texts off my ever shortening list!

Relaxing? Weekend

We didn't have any plans for this weekend, so Billy and I were looking forward to spending two days home with Nora, relaxing.  Now that the weekend is behind us, I can definitely say that we enjoyed spending it at home, but I don't think anyone relaxed.  Goodness gracious, Nora is a handful these days!  She runs, she babbles, she gets into everything, she rushes over to whatever you set down thirty seconds ago when she notices it's out of place.  She chases Oscar, she tries to pet him while he's eating, she takes bones out of his mouth, she pulls his tail, she smashes her face into the sliding glass door while waiting for him to come in from outside, she laughs when he barks.  I tried to take a picture of her wearing the hat Ashley crocheted her, and this was the best I could do:

We can't help laughing at her every other minute.  Her little personality is such a trip!  She gets quite a kick out of herself, as well.  Two things she did this weekend really stood out to us, though.  First, she has started clapping when you unbuckle her from her carseat, like she is applauding you for setting her free.  She did it every. single. time.  And second, we confirmed that she is intentionally feeding Oscar when... well, when she put Cheerios straight in his mouth.  Previously, we suspected they were in cahoots because she would drop food down to him during meals.  But yesterday, when we let her snack on cheerios while she was sitting in her exersaucer, we caught her reaching around her toys to hand feed him.  

Busy Little Bee

Unfortunately, the Halloween Festival they were planning to host at Nora's school was cancelled as a result of the storm.  This meant we didn't get to see all Nora's classmates and schoolmates in their costumes, but we did take Nora to a Halloween party hosted by Uncle Brian's girlfriend, Lauren.  I haven't dressed up in years, but I thought it'd be fun to put together a simple costume to coordinate with Nora's.  To make my yellow knit hat and sweater combo read as "beehive," I fashioned little bees out of pipecleaners and clipped them on-- because this is how every woman who has a one year old and is preparing for comprehensive exams should be spending her time. My iPhone doesn't take great pictures in low light, but here are some of my favorites from the evening.

Nora was quite a hit in her little bee costume, and she showed off her new walking skills by stomping around in her sparkly boots.  Lauren's pomeranians were the biggest hits with Nora, though.  She has never seen a dog this tiny or this fluffy!  It's too bad pictures don't have sound because she was squealing with delight.  Thanks to Lauren for inviting us over!

Nora's Birthday Party

I have mixed emotions about Nora turning one, but I had no mixed emotions about one thing: her party.  Our little girl deserves all the love and support we can give her, so I was excited to have the chance to welcome everyone to our house to celebrate her first big day in her own element.  We feel very fortunate that so many family members and friends join us to let her know how special she is-- even my mom, who flew in for the occasion!  I signed Billy up for a lot more work than I realized, and we spent the whole past week getting ready for the party.  I was overwhelmed by the whole day, and it reminded me of the way our wedding felt like a whirlwind that was over before I knew it.  This time, as was also the case then, I noticed while clicking through the pictures that everyone was laughing and smiling.  So my hope is that everyone else had as good of a time as I did.  I know our little girl felt special when we sang her happy birthday because she stopped reaching for her cake and looked up at everyone standing around.  When she gets older, I am excited to tell her the stories and show her the pictures from her first birthday!

Decorations

Nora's Cake and Cupcakes

A New Ride (thanks Gram and Pop!)

Big Guests

Little Guests

Cards! A New Dress! Gifts!

Cake

Before I go, I just want to say a big thank you to everyone for making this such a special day for our family.  By coming to Nora's party, sending her birthday messages, picking out cards and gifts, and all the other things you did, you reminded us know how much Nora is loved and how much support we have behind us as we learn to be parents.  I also owe a more specific thank you to Mom, Vickie, Patti, and Lauren for helping get things ready and then cleaning up.