My new, unintentional look.
Jake and I celebrated our 8-year anniversary last night by seeing Band of Horses in Big Sur at the Henry Miller Library. We didn’t get home until 1am, after which Seabass welcomed us by crying for food at 2:15am and then greeted the day at 6:30am by rolling over and wailing like a stuck pig.
The show was really fun, but today I could be confused with a character from Night of the Living Dead. Was it worth it? I’m not sure. What do you think?
Suited-up and ready for roll-training.
About a month ago, I went to my mom’s group and marveled at how many of the babies were already rolling over. I came home and told Jake.
“Huh,” he mused. “Are any of them not rolling over?” he asked nervously.
“Yes, just one,” I answered. “Our son.”
This was my first mistake. Developmentally, Seabass was right on track; it can take anywhere from two to six months for the average baby to roll over. But the fact that ours was the only non-rolling baby didn’t sit well with Jake. No, not at all. And thus began roll-training.
In preparation for this exercise, Jake would spread a play blanket down on the floor and then lay little Seabass on his back surrounded by plenty of toys to reach for. At the beginning, the poor dude just lay there staring at Jake as if to say, “Now what do you want?” But soon the building blocks for rolling started to fall into place and we were thrilled at our wee one’s progress.
That is, until we put two and two together. Seabass+rolling over=laying on tummy=end of the world. Allow me to explain.
Despite our attempts to acclimatize Seabass to laying on his stomach during “tummy time” (a practice that is meant to strengthen baby’s neck and back muscles), the little fish hates hates hates to be face down. In a matter of mere seconds he unravels. He grunts. He wheezes. He plants his face in the floor and lets out painful, muffled shreiks. Worst of all, he never seems to get used to it. “Tummy time” may as well be called “Pit of hell baby torture time,” because that’s exactly how it looks.
But no, it never occurred to us that this was where the roll-training would eventually lead. Ergo when Seabass howled frantically in his bed last week, I could not for the life of me imagine what was wrong. And then I saw him: face down, arms swimming and feet kicking. “Oh my goodness, he did it!” I whispered to myself, elated. “And he’s furious.”
Try as we might to get Seabass to enjoy his pit of hell baby torture time, he just doesn’t. Interestingly, though, he absolutely loves the whole rolling-over bit. There has been many a nap in which I’ve rescued a face-down screaming Seabass only to watch him roll back over the moment he’s left to himself. The desire to move forward developmentally is stronger than the desire not to cry, apparently. Or maybe he’s just not thinking.
Whatever the reason, I can’t take it anymore. Yesterday’s naps where toast due to the roll-and-freak-out scenario, which meant that nighttime sleep was fragmented and weird. After weeks of waking only once in 12 hours to feed Seabass, last night I had to wake up four – count ’em: FOUR – times. Not surprisingly, I find myself longing for the days when all this kid could do was blink.
But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy seeing Seabass’ little tush in the air when I walk into the nursery. It’s a funny thing, baby development. One moment you’re wishing he could reach the next big milestone, and the next moment you’re wishing he would just stay put.
Hey, that's my address!
Ah, Netflix: Savior of the United States Postal Service and my evenings, at least since Seabass wiggled into the world.
For a bunch of boring self-righteous reasons I won’t go into here, we don’t have television. Nope, not even the free creepy religious stations. But we do have a TV, DVD player and VCR (you heard me right) because I’m pretty sure I would expire if I couldn’t watch movies. Let me spell it out for you: I am obsessed with them. Always have been, and probably always will be.
If I were asked to describe my own personal nirvana, it would include the local art house movie theater, a bucket of popcorn, and hours with nowhere to be. But I’m not picky. Even a bad movie is a good movie to me. It’s the whole experience – buying the ticket, the red velvet curtains, the moment the lights dim – that floats my boat.
In the narrative of my life, Seabass entered stage right as the whole movie-going experience exited stage left. The fact that I wouldn’t see a grown-up movie without the assistance of a babysitter for at least 10 years simply did not occur to me during pregnancy. Case in point: The last movie I saw in a theater before Seabass’ birth was the documentary Babies. Seriously. If I had it to do over again, I probably would have seen Evil Dead 19 or some such inappropriate rubbish.
Thankfully, there is an escape-making machine called NETFLIX that pumps DVDs directly to my doorstep as if by magic. Moreover, if we are between movies via the mail, there’s always “Watch Instantly” for a handful of flicks – most of them pretty horrid – to watch on the laptop whenever we so desire. It’s a thing of beauty.
I don’t mean to glorify tuning in and dropping out. That’s exactly why we don’t have TV. But during these first months of Seabass’ life, we’ve needed nightly breaks from reality in a way that I never could have expected. Sure, at the beginning it took about five tries to get all the way through Last of the Mohicans, but even so, everything from the film’s bloody scalpings to Daniel Day Lewis’ melodramatic “I will find you!” suited our escapism needs perfectly.
So if I find myself in the midst of a challenging day – whether it’s that Seabass isn’t sleeping or I’m cranky from exhaustion or that we’re just pushing each others’ buttons – I know I can count on that flat red envelope to take me far far away in just a matter of hours.
Thank you, dear Netflix, for suspending real life one movie at a time.
We visited Dr. Awesome today for Seabass’ four-month well check and vaccinations. This wasn’t our first, second, or even third visit to the pediatrician. No, it was our fourth in as many months. Between a refluxy baby and a nervous mom, we’d already become well acquainted with the office staff. And that’s not taking into account all the phone calls. I’m pretty sure they recognize our phone number on their Caller ID now, too. If they weren’t all so kind, I’d imagine them rolling their eyes and pretending to shoot themselves in the head whenever my voice comes across the line.
It had been several weeks since the last time we’d weighed the little guppy, so there was a certain amount of excitement to see the number on the scale. Dr. Awesome laid our pink, fleshy naked boy on the infant scale and nudged the weight until it centered on 18 pounds. “Is that good?” I asked Doc. “Which percentile is he in?”
Now, I should take a moment to spill the beans and admit that I didn’t really understand the meaning of the word “percentile” until I had Seabass. It’s not as though it’s the hardest concept to grasp – I don’t know why it took me so long to get it. But now that I do, I want to know the percentile for EVERYTHING about the baby. And why? Because I want to know that he is normal.
No, scratch that. I want to know that he is better than normal.
There was a time in my life when I worked in the education field, specifically with young musicians. The kids were terrific: bright, funny, and eager to learn. It was their parents that were often the nightmare, nearly each one insisting that their child was a genius and deserved XYZ for it. There was a lot of latent and not-so-latent jockeying for position, even among parents of seven-year-olds. Perhaps especially among parents of seven-year-olds.
So you’d think I would take a moment to stand back and check my own not-so-latent competitive streak when it comes to Seabass. Yeah, you’d think.
Dr. Awesome entered Seabass’ weight, height and head circumference measurements into a program on his computer and I held my breath. “Looks like he’s in the ninety-third percentile for weight,” he reported, “the ninety-ninth percentile for height, and the ninetieth percentile for head circumference.”
This news yielded some serious high-five-ing and fist-pumping. “The ninety-ninth percentile for height?!?” I mused. “No wonder he’s so fussy all the time. His whole life has been a giant growth spurt.” Comments were made on how our boy would dominate the basketball court later in life, as though the fact that he has exceled at his one duty in life thus far – to grow – could possibly be construed as a competition.
Jake and I were both the first child to be born to our parents: Ambitious, head-strong, bossy and focused. Furthermore, we were both the only first-born members of our respective families. So when Seabass came along, we marvelled at the concept of a family of first-borns. “Our family is going to KICK BUTT!” we’d say. “Nothing will stand in our way!” Only occasionally did we back up a little, self-assess, and remind our obnoxious selves that life isn’t about winning. But that was before Seabass had percentiles to exceed.
Let the games begin.
Just don't look above the hairline...
Cradle cap. What’s the deal? Well, for starters, it’s downright disgusting: Scales of dead skin all over my otherwise-perfect Baby Seabass’ head. Kinda looks like a dried-up river bed or the skin of an ancient iguana. The baby book calls it “infantile or neonatal seborrhoeic dermatitis, also known as crusta lactea or ‘milk crust.'”
Seriously? MILK CRUST? “Well, Mrs. Sullivan, the good news is you’ve given birth to a beautiful baby boy. The bad news is, his head is covered in MILK CRUST.” The only less appetizing medical term that I can think of is scabies. Blech.
For you pregnant moms out there, cradle cap is really nothing special – affecting half of all newborn babies – and completely harmless. But it’s gross. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been cooing and making silly faces at my sweet boy only to notice errant flakes cascading down his back. So, after four months of being distracted by Seabass’ scaly, milk-crusty head, I decided to take action. Here’s the order of events:
The result? A crust-free, soft, beautifully kissable baby head and a happy mommy.
We just opened escrow on a new house. Upon walking in, I had tears in my eyes because I could imagine us raising our family there. We couldn’t be happier.
…Or more petrified. The negotiation process took a total of nine days and I’m already worn out. That’s BEFORE we’ve even started scraping the popcorn ceiling, laying new floors, fixing electrical problems, painting, packing and – oh yeah – moving in.
How do you protect a baby’s sleep schedule in such a chaotic chapter of life? How do you give them everything they need while also taking care of business?
During a breastfeeding class pre-Seabass, the lactation educator specifically warned us naive new parents, for our own sanity’s sake, not to move during the first 6 months of our new babies’ lives.
Huh.
As overheard while Jake changed the baby’s diaper this morning:
[To the tune of “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” by Rod Stewart.]
IF your name is Seabass
AND your diaper’s dirty
COME on, baby, let me know…
One of these babies is not like the other.
Have you noticed how boring my posts have been lately? Seriously: SNORE. I’ll tell you why. It’s because I’m happy.
And I’m happy, at least in part, because I’m on anti-depressants. That’s right, mommy’s on meds.
I have debated whether or not to share this bit of information with the World Wide Web since I popped my first pill a little over three weeks ago. While it’s true that I am a drama queen sans pareil, I also have a deep desire to help anyone who might find themself in a similar situation at some point. The friends who have told me their stories and helped shepherd me thus far are godsends. So I’ve decided to follow in their footsteps in the hope that someone out there finds in me a sympathetic virtual shoulder to cry on.
I was so naive pre-Seabass. Colicky babies were born to patient people, and post-partum depression was for Brooke Shields. During my pregnancy, I had a voracious appetite for books on how to nurse baby, how to put baby to sleep, how to implement a schedule, blah blah blah. All of the chapters on colick and postpartum depression were for some other mother. So I skipped those.
But all the books in the world couldn’t have prepared me for Seabass’ arrival. He screamed – a manly, deep, earth-shattering scream that belied his young age – in a way that gave entirely new meaning to the word “inconsolable.” Surprisingly, I was hopeful and upbeat for the first six weeks. This will end, I told myself. Everyone says it will end some day. I clung to a chart in the book The Happiest Baby On The Block which shows a precipitous decrease in babies’ crying from six weeks forward.
But when Seabass’ crying didn’t decrease at six weeks, faith in my own endurance started to wane. I’d heard that one in eight women experience postpartum depression. Looking around the room at my moms’ group, I saw seven happy, engaged babies and mothers. And then there was me and Seabass. (Beneath the exterior, I’m sure those moms felt the same sense of panic and unease as me, but to my bloodshot eyes, everyone else looked like they were on the best carnival ride ever while I was still stuck in line.)
One morning, just two hours after Jake had left for work, I called him in tears. “I can’t do anything right for this kid,” I sobbed, barely holding a howling Seabass in my arms. “I don’t know what to do.” When Jake asked me if he should come home, I didn’t even know how to answer. I just mumbled “Um, um, um” into the phone until he finally said he was on his way.
This scenario recurred with increasing frequency; I worried that Jake would someday say he couldn’t come home. When people asked how things were going with expectant smiles on their faces, I tried to be honest without being a wet blanket. “It’s okay,” I’d moan. How could I tell them that I wasn’t fit to be a mother?
Getting out of bed to feed the baby in the middle of the night, I felt a resentment like nothing I’ve ever experienced before – not at Seabass, but at life. Like someone was out to get me. To make me miserable. To find my breaking point. And insult to injury, Seabass was wide awake and wouldn’t fall asleep after eating. So I lay on the floor of his room trying to get some sleep while he rocked in his swing, eyes wide open for an hour and a half. When he finally went to sleep, I crawled into bed and promptly started to weep bitterly, hoping Jake wouldn’t wake up. But he did. “I’m so worried about you,” he whispered over my shoulder. “I think you should talk to the doctor about getting help.”
Interestingly, I balked at his suggestion that I was struggling with postpartum depression. “It’s not depression,” I snarled. “It’s just a tragic combination of tough baby and hyper-sensitive mother.”
But on Seabass’ 10-week birthday, I felt cracks in the dam. The whole week I’d been listless, heaving monstrous sighs and thinking that nothing I’d ever done was right. Seabass couldn’t do anything right, either. Every little chirp and minor fuss he made joined a chorus of voices in my head saying that the good life as I’d previously known it was over. Talking over dinner one night, Jake was gentle but firm. “I think you need to tell the doctor how you’re feeling, love,” he said. “Life can’t go on this way.”
Still, I wasn’t ready to “give up.” It took conversations with two different friends who’d struggled with postpartum depression to get my attention. I relayed these stories to Jake. “She went on anti-depressants?” he asked, amazed. ‘And she did, too?” Something about knowing that normal, otherwise healthy women had felt the same uselessness and despair changed our perspective. Suddenly, postpartum depression didn’t seem so improbable.
I wanted my doctor’s opinion, though. After hearing an account of the previous weeks, he suggested I consider anti-depressants and gave me a short but thorough explanation of how they work. I started the medication the next day and haven’t had a single regret. I suppose I could let myself feel defeated or incompetent about the whole situation, but honestly, I’ve been too engaged in enjoying Seabass to feel much of anything besides gratitude.
A new mother does not envision herself taking medication for this sort of thing. She does not set up her registry to include diapers, receiving blankets and a six-month supply of Lexapro. And many women probably muscle through depression in early motherhood without giving anti-depressants so much as a thought. It’s very possible that they are stronger women than me.
But exciting blog posts be damned. I’m sticking with boring and happy.
Mommy's little hipster.
Last winter, Jake and I were on pins and needles waiting to discover the gender of our baby. At our “anatomy ultrasound” appointment, the tech squirted warm blue goo on my tummy and proceeded to point out different parts of the baby on the screen beside us. “That’s the baby’s jaw, the toes, the heart beating like a hummingbird’s wings, and….” Here she paused for a moment and asked cautiously if we’d like to know if the baby would be a Seabass or a Seabassette. When we said we would, she announced that it was a boy.
Upon hearing this news, Jake – who was unabashedly verbal about the woes of raising a teenaged girl – kicked his leg in front of him and played air guitar like Dwight Schrute revving up for a sales call. “Seabass!” he yelled. “Yessss!”
I was, of course, thrilled – not only by the fact that we were going to have a healthy baby boy, but by the fact that I was finally allowed to drain my bladder after the ultrasound. (Can I get an AMEN?) The only thing that made me a tiny bit sad was that little girl clothes are so much more fun than little boy clothes. No seriously, that was one of my first thoughts. And yes, I really am that shallow.
Walking through shops that carry children’s clothing, I’m never interested in touching and cooing over baby boy duds. It is the girl clothes – with their ruffles, bows, and bloomers – that make me weak in the knees. Not without a little sadness did I resign myself to a lifetime of grubby denim and striped blue shirts. How could I have known that stylish, adorable boy clothes that put girl ruffles to shame were just around the corner?
Enter Kate Johnson. Kate is a friend from several years back who I recently ran into with her two kiddos, Maddy and Sammy. At the time, Sammy was dressed in an unbelievably cute fitted vest and matching golf cap that demanded the sorts of ooohs and aahs I generally reserve for little girl outfits. When I asked where she bought his fetching ensemble, Kate modestly revealed that she had sewn it all herself. Turns out she is a natural-born seamstress, recycling plush woollens and pinstripes from men’s trousers to create intricate clothing for fashionable little dudes. “Boy clothes are way more fun to make than girl clothes,” she said. “They’re more tailored and challenging.”
A few days later, I received a gift from Kate’s mother-in-law, Beth (who is also a friend): a little blue pinstriped golf cap just for Seabass! We couldn’t wait to try it out on him, so I composed a sweet little outfit for him to wear to church on Sunday. I cannot tell you how many comments we received on his new cap. Adjectives included “exquisite,” “precious,” “freaking adorable,” and “scrumptious.” I heartily concur.
When I asked Kate if I could feature her on the blog, she passed along her website where you can buy any number of scrumptious wee golf caps for yourself or that dashing little man in your life. Visit her at http://www.etsy.com/shop/katejohnson25. And tell her Seabass sent you.
Higher Highs, Lower Lows 