Pregnancy and Motherhood Archive

Yesterday was Sophia’s first swimming class. We were afraid she would scream and cry through the whole thing especially since she didn’t take her afternoon nap, but she LOVED IT! I mean she really LOVED it - A LOT! There was one part in the middle of the class where we sat the kids on the side of the pool and sang/uttered/or in my case mumbled Humpty Dumpty, then the kids would “jump” to their parent in the water. There were only two other kids (toddlers) our group and Sophia was the only infant. Sophia sat on the side with me holding her in place. Her chin was quivering because of the seemingly cold air on her wet skin, but she laughed the whole time! They did that three times and then we had them stand on the side while we sang/uttered/mumbled London Bridges Falling Down. On cue, they would jump in. I of course held Sophia in position, I lifted her up and into the water, but on the third “London Bridges” she pushed with her legs trying to jump in.

That first part with in the four-foot area of the big pool, but after that we went to the small side pool that was much warmer and only one-foot deep. The instructor dumped out a basket of bath toys and had the kids put them back in the basket. Sophia caught onto this pretty quick and actually put the one toy that came to her into the basket again.

We went to the Tulip Festival today. It was cold, but at least it wasn’t raining. The tulips are blooming late this year because of our funky weather so I may take Sophia up again in a couple weeks. Hopefully it’ll be warmer!


While we walked around the tulips fields, we saw a couple with a one-month-old baby that made us cringe. We kept our baby bundled in a jacket and two blankets - they didn’t. Uugg!

And then there was the mother telling her three-year-old not to muck around in the mud because he was wearing his new shoes. Why the hell would you bring a child through fields of mud in new shoes if you want them to stay clean?

This morning I set Sophia on our bed in the sitting position. She can sit for a few seconds before falling over, which I knew she would do before I was ready to grab her again. I set up the not-a-Johnny-Jump-Up and the child fell forward on the bed reaching for a toy. She laid flat on her tummy all pissed off cause she doesn’t like tummy time. She’ll usually tolerate short periods of being on her tummy, but sometimes she’s simply not in the mood for it. I left her there because I’m evil mommy. She finally got frustrated enough that she rolled over! For once, her useless arms were at her sides and not stretched out like a puppy on smooth flooring so she was able to roll over it. YAY!

Yesterday Kurt witnessed Sophia push herself off the boppy pillow with her elbows into a sitting position. She’s no longer a flailing turtle when she lays back - as long as the pillow is behind her and she’s not flat on her back. Hey, it’s a start!

The work part of my first day back was nonexistent. I spent the day catching up on email and learning about all the changes that had taken place in the last six months. Yes, I know as an American living in the US, that I’m so lucky I had six months of maternity leave. For anyone living a country that is actually family oriented and you get more than six months – I’m not above accepting your sympathy in the form of large sums of cash sent to my PayPal account. Actually I don’t like PayPal cause they take too much of the cut. I’m closing my account, so you’ll have to send your sympathies via money order.

The toughest part of my day was leaving my baby at home asleep with our not-a-nanny. I didn’t even get a chance to say good-bye to her in the morning. I didn’t have the not-a-nanny’s email on my work email so one of my co-workers the not-a-nanny my new phone number on my behalf. She sent it with the message, “Because she’s just waiting for you to call her. :)” She wasn’t lying, I’m that pathetic. Before returning to work the longest I had ever spent away from Sophia was about two hours and I only did that about four or five times. Thankfully our not-a-nanny agreed to drive to my work at lunch so I can feed Sophia. Actually I think it’s probably less of a favor for me and more of a sanity saver for her since Sophia refuses to have anything to do with a bottle from her. Sophia with drink from a tippy cup from Kurt, but would get very upset if presented with one from our not-a-nanny. Sophia doesn’t like it when I try to feed her via sippy cup either. She’s one smart cookie; she knows I’m a walking milk cart.

I started to get anxious around 11am and so my co-worker showed me the email volley between her and the not-a-nanny, “First day is going well. She seems to be sticking to her routine, except the part where she cried instead of played. *sigh* But it wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared it would be. And it wasn’t for very long. She’ll adjust quickly to the new situation, I think. Babies are so resilient.”

Co-worker, “Cool, she’ll be super happy about that. It’s so nice to have her back at work, but I know she misses her kid.”

Not-a-nanny, “If it makes Erica feel any better, Sophia misses her, too. She was doing fine until she realized an hour into being awake that I was doing all the things that Mommy should be doing, but I’m not Mommy. *chuckle* Then she got very angry. I felt so sorry for her. You can’t just tell a 5 month old that she’ll see Mommy in less than two hours. They don’t understand. But she calmed down after a while. She even smiled and cooed a bit before naptime.” That didn’t help me at all. Both Sophia and I were very happy to see each other at lunch. The not-a-nanny told me Sophia would play for a while then looks up at the not-the-nanny, realize she was not-the-mommy and becomes upset. Apparently she did this many times throughout the day for the first couple of days. I guess Sophia adjusted faster than I did. I’m just getting used to going to work now after a couple of weeks. Sophia does really well with the not-a-nanny, but wants my attention as soon as I get home.

Sophia doesn’t like it at all when we break the routine… We watch four episodes of M*A*S*H every night. Kurt plays with her during that time and it upsets her if she hears the theme song come on and Kurt isn’t at least in the room.

On Tuesday I left very early in the morning to go to Seattle for a Microsoft 2008 product launch and I didn’t get my usually baby visitation at lunch. Our not-a-nanny was great and sent me three pictures from her cellphone to mine, two of them with Sophia holding her own bottle.  Apparently Sophia not only held the bottle, but even brought it to her mouth.  That day was the first day Sophia didn’t get angry for the not-a-nanny suggesting that she drink from a bottle. She got confused when the not-a-nanny ate her lunch inside a restaurant instead of going through the drive thru and then got angry when they arrived home without stopping to see me. I didn’t get home until an hour after my usual time and I was about to explode. I wasn’t able to pump in the morning because I left much earlier then usual, didn’t get my baby fix in the afternoon, and it was an hour after my usual arrive at home time. I walked through the door in pain and couldn’t decide what to do first, go to the bathroom or feed the baby. Yesterday morning I could see Sophia checking things off her mental list as we went through our usual motions and seemed relieved that the day seemed to be starting the way in which she had become accustomed.

This morning we threw her for another loop. Kurt stayed home because he has a couple doctor appointments, so while I was getting ready for work he answered Sophia’s morning wakeup cries. She was not happy. The only time she would stop crying is when I held her – no one else. I finally had to go, so I left her screaming in Kurt’s arms. All was well once I left. She seems to think that the other people in the house are only to care for her if I’m not there. – The little shit.

I returned to work on March 18th, which was a Tuesday. I chose to start on a Tuesday because I wanted to make sure I would have a short first week. I had planned on a quiet Monday that would replicate a day at work for me so that Sophia could spend time really getting to know her not-really-a-nanny, but it turned out to be a train wreck. No, really it literally was a train wreck. Kurt got up at his usual Monday morning time and hopped into the shower. He doesn’t really hop in the morning, but stay with me. While he was in the shower I heard a loud crash outside that sounded very much like the time years ago before we drew the line from “just dating” to annoying some (many) family members by living together in wonderful sin in his old apartment complex. One night some person either driving drunk or visually challenged at night, couldn’t avoid or could not see the giant green dumpster just in front of their car just before impact. On Monday March 17th that metal on metal impact was amplified from dumpster size to multiple train engine size and the car was now a semi carrying pizzas. Aside from the fact that I live close enough to hear the impact it was phenomenally cool, yes I’m morbid. Unfortunately, no one was hurt. I’m with Uncle George on this. I like multiple car accidents, massive hurricanes and serial killers.

Kurt said that he heard the train horn before impact and that it was longer than usual. Then he heard the impact, followed by sirens. I was half-asleep and only caught the impact. I was sure there had been an accident since the sound was clearly not the train just slowing down on the spur track while each successive car slows and pushes on its hitch. Seriously, it was that loud. And our house isn’t *really* that close to the tracks, but I had no idea that it could be so bad that the tracks bent into a pretzel. It was awesome. I woke up our not-a-nanny with, “do you want to take pictures of a real train wreck”. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think she normally wakes up so quickly. After Sophia’s morning nap, our not-a-nanny and I spent the day going back and forth on the roads the police would allow us on. I actually found a road off the Ford dealership that the police hadn’t determined to be dangerous yet where we got a great view of the three engines and the mangled track. I guess the whole thing really helped make up for the fact that I would be starting work again the next day. Although maybe it was a sign.

From the local paper, The Everett Herald:

Train, truck collide in Marysville

By Jackson Holtz and Diana Hefley
Herald Writers

The collision happened about 5:45 a.m., said Marysville Fire District spokeswoman Stephanie Price. The truck driver and one train crew member were taken to an Everett hospital as a precaution.

The truck apparently was making a delivery to the Pacific Grinding Wheel Company headquarters, Marysville police Lt. Jeff Goldman said.

A spokeswoman at Pacific Grinding declined to comment Monday.

The engineer on the northbound train tried to avoid the collision, applying the emergency brake and blowing the train’s whistle, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway spokesman Gus Melonas said.

The train was traveling about 49 mph in the 60-mph zone, Melonas said. It was headed to Vancouver, B.C., from Pasco. Three cars were loaded with general freight and 69 other cars were empty, he said. It typically takes about a mile for a train that large to come to a stop.

The truck was stopped at a private crossing that’s marked with a cross-hatch and a stop sign but not equipped with signal lights or crossing arms. It would be up to the property owner to invest in any improvements, Melonas said.

Investigators on Monday were trying to determine why the truck was on tracks, Goldman said.

State Avenue between 136th Avenue and 116th Avenue was expected to be closed until early this morning as crews cleaned up the mess, Goldman said.

Sophia had her six-month check-up on Friday. She is twenty eight inches tall/long and weights fifteen pounds and fourteen and a half ounces.

Sophia has been working on sitting up for the past two weeks. She still needs her boppy pillow but she’s getting a lot more steady. When she leans forward she can self correct and sit up again, but if she falls back she’s a flailing turtle. She tolerates being on her tummy, but still doesn’t use her arms to push her torso up. As a matter a fact if I put her into the half push up position she’ll slide her arms out to her sides. She absolutely refuses to use her arms to support her weight in any way. She knows her arms exist - ok maybe she only knows her hands exist. She’s been using them to grasp and pull objects towards herself and ultimately into her mouth since she was about three months old.

This diaper of the month is brought to you by the letter “S” for SUPER STINKY. This diaper brought an onion cutting tear to all our eyes. We have brought our nanny to the dark side and she’s the one that snapped this picture with her Cannon digital SLR on the 22^nd, so this six month diaper is in super high resolution just for you!

Sophia has been doing so well with her rice cereal that today we decided to move onto bigger and more flavorful things. Last night I made an ice tray full of sweet potato puree to thaw as single servings as needed. And because she was eating so much when we gave her rice, I thought I’d start with two cubes of the puree instead of just one. I’m an idiot. The puree was one large sweet potato to which I added a half cup of filtered water. I kept the cubes that I was going to use this morning in the fridge but let it warm up to room temperature about thirty minutes before feeding her. It looked a little thick so I added an ounce of breast milk. Mixed it all up and much to the shock of my child gave her a big baby spoon full. I really should have set up a camera for this. Her arms flew up from her sides. She twitched and gagged. Nothing came up, but she really gagged. I thinned it out with another ounce of breast milk and tried another spoonful – a small scoop this time. She opened her mouth and closed it around the spoon but let the now peach color puree ooze down her chin. Well that reaction wasn’t as bad but she still twitched. I gave her a few more small spoonfuls and each time the flavor seemed to give her electrical shocks because she twitched every time. Yes, this is the same baby that sucks on her leather shoes and is currently chewing on her shirt. I don’t know if I should try again tomorrow or if I should go back to rice cereal for a couple days.

This morning she also had much more solid poop – not a formed one but quite a bit more solid that the pure breast milk poops. Don’t worry; you’ll get to see it on the diaper of the month post on the 25th. I’m always thinking of my readers.