cindy's world

This work week has been trying on everyone. Jayne has to get up earlier than she’s had to in many years of being a stay-at-home mom; Mr. W has given up his 4am gym runs; I’ve had to leave my baby and sit on my hands at work trying to calm myself between pumpings and processing backlogged divorce cases and settlement conferences. For Allie, as much as people say babies are more resilient than adults, it’s been “off” as well.

Monday, she had one shorter nap but over all it was a good day. Ate on time, slept on time, played well. I’d even made it home to nurse her for what would’ve been her third and last bottlefeeding, because she’d slept extra long that afternoon. Tuesday, all her naps got short, but they were still on time as with her 3 bottles. Yesterday was pretty bad. Looking at her sleep/eat chart that Jayne kept up with on the app (so that Mr. W could see it on his sync’ed app on his iPad at work), she took FOUR catnaps instead of 3 long naps, which was rather distressing to me because that would mean she’s not getting restorative sleep when they’re under an hour each, AND it means she’s cat-napping at a time when she ought to be awake, so that throws off her routine and sleep/wake rhythm. I was afraid it’d mess up her night sleep organization, too. If she developed day/night confusion, I would be frantic. Things got weirder when Mr. W observed that in addition to her 4 little naps, she also got a 4th bottlefeeding when she should’ve had 3. She was eating every 2 hours instead of every 3. What was Jayne doing? Was she aware she’s completely gone off Allie’s “norm?”

I was also concerned that Allie wasn’t napping long enough because she kept waking up and being unable to fall back to sleep when she’d roll to her side and then roll to her back. I called a few friends whose babies I know have started rolling over to ask how they handle those naps. The only person I got a hold of was Flip Flop Girl, who called me back and I spoke to her on the drive home. She wasn’t at all concerned about Allie’s extra feeding and “off” naps today, saying babies do go through these adjustment phases and it’s fine (so that made me feel better); she was more concerned about my communicating effectively with Jayne to see why she chose to do the things she did that day. “Just ask her, and find out what was going through her head. If she did something you’d rather her not do, just let her know that you would’ve preferred her to handle it another way, and in the future, to do it the other way. Hear her out. Who knows, you might go, ‘Oh, I see now. Thank you for doing that for Allie.’ ” As for the rolling in the naps, Flip Flop Girl said Allie is just going to learn to go back to sleep after her extra mobility, just as Allie has learned to go back to sleep after waking up to noise (which she’s better at now).

After we got back home, Jayne immediately told us it was a very peculiar day and informed us of the super-short naps, and the extra feeding. She was actually more frazzled about the baby falling off-routine than I was (which made me feel better). Jayne was stressed not knowing what was wrong because Allie was so tired and was rubbing her eyes and fussing and impatient, and Jayne tried everything to distract her, play with her, and nothing worked. I asked what was behind the extra bottle. Jayne said because Allie was actually screaming, on top of giving cues of hunger. Even as Jayne made the extra bottle, she was telling Allie, “You can’t be hungry, you’re completely off the routine today, and now you’re off on the feedings, too.” She was so concerned that we’d worked this hard at establishing a good rhythm and then suddenly it all went out the window. Jayne made a perfect imitation of Allie’s desperate hunger sounds and mouth motions, explaining that even as Jayne tried to be discreet in making the bottle, Allie kept lunging for it and sucked it down as if she were starving. So there was nothing I could tell Jayne that she didn’t already know (which again made me feel better). And she was clearly feeling very bad and concerned about both us and Allie, and she knew Allie well enough already to say this is not Allie’s normal personality. I reassured Jayne as best I could and she went home. I put Allie to bed early and she zonked out easily (all night).

At Flip Flop Girl’s earlier request, I called her back and gave her an update. I had mentioned that given that Allie’s a little over 15 lbs, her daily ounces of milk intake is 1.5 times her weight for 22.5 ounces daily, divided by 5 feedings, so that’d make it 4.5 ounces per feeding. I was concerned she was being overfed yesterday and wouldn’t be hungry for her bedtime feeding. Flip Flop said, “Are you sure it’s not 2.5 ounces per pound of her weight, and not 1.5 ounces?” I was pretty sure and didn’t consider anything beyond that.

Later, Flip Flop Girl texted me. She’d looked it up. The proper formula for what an exclusively liquid-fed (breastmilk or formula) baby is indeed the baby’s weight times *2.5* oz per pound of their weight, divided by the number of feedings a day. Allie was very underfed. So she wasn’t sleeping long because she was hungry and would wake up to ask to eat, and was screaming and cranky because she wanted more food (like a newborn). This wasn’t an issue before because she drank whatever she needed from me directly and I didn’t have a way of measuring what she’s taking out by nursing, so if a bottlefeeding wasn’t enough, in giving her one bottle a day, she’d just make up for the rest of the caloric deficit by getting more out of me in her nursing feedings. However, when I returned to work, she didn’t have 4 other nursings to make up for the insufficient bottle; she had 3 bottles in the middle of the day consecutively. So the caloric deficit had been building until day 3 when she reacted how she did. This explains so much — the fact that she didn’t have enough nutrients to poop since last Friday; the middle-of-the-night feeding she started toward the second half of transition week (when she was bottlefed more); the earlier wake-up times in the mornings. And of course, all of yesterday’s daytime crankiness and sleeplessness. With an extra feeding under her belt, she slept very soundly last night and this morning.

I’d called Jayne last night after Allie went down to check up on her and reassure her that she didn’t do anything wrong; Allie was just going through her own thing. This morning, I was happy to tell her we think we figured out the issue. It may not make everything perfect today because Allie is still going through teething, new caretaker, mommy being gone all day, new developmental milestones in the rolling over, BUT it should resolve one big issue and things will smooth over on their own after that over time. I certainly feel a lot better, and my confidence in Jayne (who read Allie’s signals all correctly yesterday) is much higher.

I must’ve known it was weight x 2.5 oz / number of feedings at one point, but it didn’t stick with me. I looked it up myself after Flip Flop Girl’s text. Typical ounces of intake a day is between weight x 2 on the low end, weigh x 2.5 for the high end, so for Allie, daily intake should be 30-37.5 oz, and all feedings being equal (which I know it’s not given that she still gets her first and last meals in a nursing), that’s 6 – 7.5 oz per feeding. We’d been giving her 4.5 – 5 oz in her bottles. *facepalm*

This is why I was an English Lit major. =P

Allie didn’t nap that well yesterday. Jayne greeted us after work with, “Her charts look horrible, we get an ‘F’ for today.” It wasn’t THAT bad; she had 3 naps, they were just short. They were also earlier than I’d napped Allie (not sure if the off-timing had something to do with their short durations) but that was out of necessity because she’d be up too long once she wakes up too early from her naps if the next nap isn’t advanced. I’m not sure that Jayne is letting Allie cry as long as maybe I would when Allie wakes up naturally around the 30-minute mark after one sleep cycle. I’ve found that if I can grit my teeth and deal with my anxiety attack through up to 15 minutes of crying, she goes back down solid for up to 2 hours. Jayne said she did let Allie cry to see if she’ll go back to sleep, but that Allie would appear to her to be unlikely to go back down, so Jayne goes and picks her up. There’s likely some developmental stuff going on, too, since Allie is now moving around a lot more in her crib. I’m hoping she’ll just take longer naps on her own very soon without waking up to cry after just the first sleep cycle. I still have a very hard time thinking about it or seeing it at work, so I look on the cameras as little as possible.

So yesterday morning, I was dumbfounded to receive this long text from Laura on my phone:
“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. Its meant for good. FYI – for the benefit of Ali, I would and can work for $10 an hr, 11 hrs a day, no over time $ change and cash only. That would work out to be $550 a week so Ali could be home. Don’t worry about insurance either. If you are interested, let’s talk soon. I would need [Mr. W] to be on board with this decision too.”
I was so shocked I didn’t know what to do. Was she not there in our last phone conversation when she made any trusting relationship with her impossible? Was she not there when she sent me the text the day after to guilt me about the other position she wanted having been filled? How could she think anything would be salvageable after the things she’d said to me, not to mention that for this job, I’d have to leave the most important things in my life completely vulnerable to her (my baby, my cat, my home)? Did she think I was too dumb to pick up that I was being taken advantage of and bullied and berated?
And the way she said that she would “need” my husband to be on board with this too, as if she were advising me, “I know you want to jump at this, but hold on, you should talk to him, too.” My judge is hoping she isn’t trying to set me up for some loss of earnings lawsuit (she can sue, but she has no claim).
So I went in circles trying to think how I should respond. I got a lot of suggestions from friends, from advising me not to respond, to suggested responses such as “After in depth discussions with my husband, we have determined that your services will not be required.” I considered sending “Thank you, but we do not believe any agreement between us is possible. Good luck with everything,” “We are not inclined to change our current arrangements, but thank you,” but I didn’t want to allude to any “current arrangements” because I don’t want her to inquire or give her any openings for any further conversation. She appears to assume Allie is in daycare (which was the plan and still may be, depending on how Jayne works out), and I don’t want her sniffing around the house and making assumptions and accusations. I need to protect Jayne, as well as Allie. I was afraid she was a step away from boiling our bunny. So finally, I took Rebecca’s advice, and texted back the shortest more definitive thing suggested: “No, thank you.”
Haven’t heard from her since.

I was feeling comfortable enough with Jayne that I didn’t cry at all my first day back at work yesterday. I did find it hard to look at the babycam monitors and didn’t do it much, especially around the time she was supposed to go down for a nap, because I felt too emotionally fragile if I should see crying or struggling. I know that things will be fine and to expect a little adjustment period, but to see it or live it minute-by-minute would be too hard.

Work was good; I met the new supervisor (who is very nice and effective), a bunch of coworkers/friends came by to say hello and to welcome me back with warm hugs, and many judges complimented me that I don’t look like I’ve been off for maternity reasons. It’s rather amazing to me that so many coworkers observed that I appear smaller now than before I was pregnant. I am, but I didn’t think it was that noticeable. I wouldn’t have expected people to remember what my size was before I was pregnant, it was so long ago. Mr. W rearranged his schedule and got a coworker to cover for him so that he could take me out to lunch on my first day back. It was a nice day. I pumped the first time in judge’s chambers (because the jury room was being used for a mandatory settlement conference) and the second time in the jury room after lunch. We managed to make it back home in time for me to feed Allie her 4th feeding for the day, because her afternoon nap ran long. Jayne was fine and said it was a great day.

Allie’s first nap apparently went down like a dream; not a peep, not a protest. Allie’s second nap was reportedly “odd.” She had turned herself from her tummy to her side and struggled a little to turn back to her tummy but couldn’t. But she was tired, so she just napped on her left side, sucking her left thumb. Jayne said it was kind of a restless nap, but she did nap. The third nap was of course fine and ran long probably to make up for her less restorative second nap. Allie got a bath last night and didn’t cry and we started her bedtime routine a little earlier since she has been looking very tired and drowsy at 6:30p. She was fed and in bed by 7:15p, slept through the night again.

This morning, like yesterday morning, Allie woke on her own at 6:20a, saving me from having to rouse her myself at 6:15a. I’ve woken her once at 6:15a last Friday and I hated doing it. After I nursed her and brought her downstairs where Mr. W and Jayne were chatting, I asked how Jayne felt, whether she could see herself doing this long term. She gave a big smile and said, “Oh yeah, 10 years should be good.”

Today, I probably shouldn’t have looked at the monitor at 9:15a but I expected her to be already in her crib for her morning nap, which should’ve started around 8:30a all things being “normal.” Instead, I saw that she’d scooted herself all the way to the top of the crib, her head against the corner of the bumpers (thank goodness we put in her crib bumpers last week), propping herself up, looking around, running into the bumper corner, not sleeping. I was kinda messed up after that. Not to the point of tears, but the anxiety hit. I stopped watching immediately. By the time I looked again later, Jayne had picked her up and was bottlefeeding her, which was a good thing if she wasn’t napping. I’m hoping she didn’t miss her nap, she just had a shorter one. She was eating on time at 9:40a or so because her morning feeding was now 6:30a instead of 7a-ish. I looked next a little after 10:30a and saw Allie already napping in her crib. I assume she was giving sleepy signs early from her morning nap being short. And Jayne did the right thing; advance her next nap because she had a shorter first nap. Allie had against scooted herself up to the front end of the crib and her head was against or near the front bumper. I guess she’s just about to start crawling.

Meanwhile, work is at a nice pace. I’ve had a few little hearings and events in the mornings, but nothing overwhelming and I’m grateful I didn’t come to work after being off for 5 months and walk right into the midst of a death penalty jury trial or something like that. Today, I did my first pumping in the judge’s chambers again. It seems to take a long time (20-25 mins) to set up, pump, store, and clean up (and I’m not even washing). I gotta figure out how to streamline it more, or if I’m gonna take the same amount of time wiping out the pump parts and pouring the milk together, I may as well do the pouring into storage bags and thorough washing of the parts so I can save myself that work when I get home.

I’m sure anyone reading this blog has fond childhood memories of frolicking to and fro inside a parent’s moving car, goofing off with a sibling or friend our age from the backseat or station wagon “trunk” to the front seat to the floor of the car and over the backs of the seats again. My judge even has memories of his teenage self taking off fast and slamming the brakes of his old Woody and laughing with his older brother as their youngest brother tumbled from where he stood behind their front seats to the rear of the car. (The kid brother is fine and is not traumatized by their horseplay.) In California, it has gone from that, to a law in my teens requiring seat belts to be fastened on all occupants of the vehicle, to another law saying all kids under age 6 and under 60 lbs had to ride in the backseat on a child booster seat, to this new change, effective January 1, 2012:

Any child under age *8* must ride in a child booster seat in the backseat. If the child is 8 years old or at least 4’9″, however, he/she can use a regular seat belt instead of a child safety seat or booster seat.
Violations mean stiff fines and penalties, and possible child endangerment criminal charges.

This is based on stats that show putting kids in a booster seat (instead of a seat belt on the vehicle’s seat alone) reduces risk of car accident injuries to that kid by 59%. Seat belts are designed for an average-sized adult, so it doesn’t lay right on a kid under 4’9″. Supposedly, the previous law endangers kids between ages 6 and 8 because they’re too big for child safety seats, but still too small for a seat belt to work effectively, so the new law bridges the gap by requiring the booster seat use until age 8. (Wanna read the actual law? See www.chp.ca.gov/community/safeseat.html)

Age 8 is 3rd grade. That’s old enough to be embarrassed. So what does this mean for a kid like Allie? …It means that she’ll be sitting in a regular seat using a regular seat belt by age 6.

99th percentile for height! She’s practically 3 feet tall NOW at 4.5 months.

They DO grow up so fast.

I haven’t written about my body stuff in a long time. It just wasn’t that consequential to me, as long as I’m alive and producing breastmilk, other details about my body didn’t matter.

However, on April 1, I noticed that my tailbone seemed to be protruding more than I’d ever noticed. I could actually feel the BOTTOM of my tailbone if I press in a little with my fingers. I was totally freaked out and grossed out.
My parents came over yesterday and my mom commented on how skinny I looked. She was concerned, and my dad noted the same thing. Mom said when she hugged me that I felt like all bones. I know my pre-pregnancy clothes fit more loosely than before I’d ever been pregnant, but beyond that, didn’t spend much thought on it. Mom asked what I weigh, and I told her I didn’t know. So last night, since she’d asked, I pulled out the scale and stepped on it after dinner. I was 111 with food in my stomach. I couldn’t believe it. I haven’t seen 111 since 6th or 7th grade when I was busy passing it on my way up. Maybe I was feeling my tailbone because stuff that used to cover it is disappearing, not because my TAILBONE had moved.
Thinking back, here are the few weight markers I have:
125-127 shortly before pregnancy
120 in the 1st trimester
156 the day before I delivered
128 six weeks after I delivered
125 two months after I delivered
121 three months after I delivered
now 111 four and a half months after I delivered

I could win some of those weekly Biggest Loser weigh-ins for percentage lost (29%) since pregnancy 4.5 months ago, which would be a good thing, except that I have NOT been dieting or exercising. I’ve done some weight-lifting with holding my 15-pound baby and I’ve done a stroller walk here and there, but I’ve done no gym stuff. So this is due to breastfeeding and depression. NOT good. I’m gonna need to hit the gym as soon as I’m back to work and have lunchtimes to do that. Of course, lunch will also have to be shared with eating, milk pumping, and transportation to/from the gym. How is THAT gonna work?

Some photos from last weekend:

I had the feeling for the longest time about my baby being Riley. I felt I knew him, felt him, his personality was familiar. Rebecca had said that he was my son in a previous life and that he was coming with the same intention he did then — to take care of me. I felt his sense of humor, knew that he helped send us a family of dolphins the day before the embryo implant. So when the 20-week ultrasound revealed a girl, I was totally confused and felt like I’d “lost” Riley.

I brought up in my phone conversation with Rebecca last night that I had always thought I’d have 2 kids, a boy first, then a couple years later, a girl. I had thought Riley was that boy. But I’d also always felt that if I could only have 1 child, I’d like to have a little girl, like me (I’m an only child, too). Rebecca had told me years ago during a coffee house reading that there were 2 souls ready to come through as my children, they were just waiting for me. I felt then it was my boy (I “saw” him as a little taller and older than the spunky little girl) and my girl. Now that we’ve given up our other embryos, the would be no older boy and younger girl. Based on other things she told me about my would-be son early on in pregnancy when we all thought it was a boy, he would be “very small,” would take awhile to start talking but that when he did, it would be well-established longish sentences. None of those things matched Allie; she’s long and tall, she was big at birth, and she’s so talkative now and concentrating on our mouths when we talk that I feel like she’d be talking really soon. The “feel” I have for Riley doesn’t match the “feel” I have for Allie, as if they’re different people. So guess what. Rebecca told me over the phone that her intuition is that Riley WAS about to come through. Allie and Riley were on the Other Side preparing, Riley was asking her, “Come on, are you doing to do this with me?” But at some point they KNEW it was just going to be one, not two, and Allie was saying, “I need to go through, I need to go NOW,” and Riley and Allie agreed that Allie would come through and be the only child, my little girl. Riley “opened the door” for Allie to come through. I said this must’ve happened later in my pregnancy, then, because I “felt” Riley earlier on. She said souls can come in and out of a fetus and they settle in about 3 months. 3 months would be my 20-week ultrasound when the tech told us, “To me it looks like a girl” and shocked the hell out of us. That was when Allie came through and stayed. Before that, I DID feel Riley, as I’d described in this post.

Rebecca said they did know that if I were to have 1 child, I would’ve preferred a girl. I said I hoped Riley wasn’t offended. She said there’s no “offense” in the conscious field; the two of them made their decisions together, they decided she would come through. There’s no judgement or right or wrong; they were just decisions and paths. I guess it’d be like, do I want to wear a blue shirt or a white shirt today? Just neutral decisions.

But I FELT it. I KNEW it. This would explain why I felt the disconnect with Allie early on, and I’d thought it was the postpartum depression. I had expected Riley, and altho I’d thought she maybe WAS Riley but just in a different gender, turns out, she’s Allie. She’s always been Allie and Riley has always been Riley. They are two.

I couldn’t help it when I told Mr. W this — I cried. I love Allie, but now in addition to my love of my child, I miss my other child, Riley. I know there’s no good or bad and that Riley will just come through to this plane a different way, but now I understood why I’d felt my confusion and my loss before.

Rebecca also reminded me that Allie is a wonderful person, altho instead of being the boy who’s here to take care of me, she’d be the girl who’d boss me around (in a cute way). “But you’ll soon see, there are good reasons for her choices in life. She may tell you, ‘Mommy, do this, not that,’ and you’ll ask her why, and she’ll tell you ‘Because of this and that’ and explain it to you. And you’ll go, ‘Oh! I see. Okay,’ and do it the way she suggested.” Rebecca still sees Allie in the medical profession because she’ll want to help people, and she sees adult Allie in a white lab coat.

I’m gonna figure out a way to have a chat with Riley, if I can handle it without bawling.

So Mr. W’s renter’s wife, Jayne (turned out it’s not “Jane,” it’s “Jayne,” which is so much prettier) came over to meet Allie. She came by yesterday afternoon when my parents were here. (My mom insisted on coming over because I didn’t respond to her texts on Wednesday and she didn’t know what was going on so she thought I was out doing something “foolish” and was freaking out.) I thanked her and hugged her at the door. As soon as she walked in, the entire energy was SO different. I didn’t really think about it, but I guess I wasn’t ever actually happy and relieved to see Laura. Maybe it was cuz she was usually a little bit late. And I didn’t realize there were so many MORE red flags with Laura until Jayne. For example, when Jayne came over, Allie was napping and I showed her cameras on the monitor. She immediately did this “Aww!” thing and I thought, “Hmm, I didn’t get that from Laura.” When I showed Jayne our bedroom and Dodo was napping in the closet, she melted in an “Aww!” again and went over to see if she could greet Dodo. Which made me realize that Laura in our bedroom had barely glanced at Dodo, altho she said she’d always had cats and grown up with cats, and knowing about Dodo’s kidney disease, Laura had said, “Now, he’s going to start having ‘accidents.’ I’d hate to see that ruin your nice carpeting. So maybe I can fence him in right here,” motioning blocking off the tile section of our master bathroom, which is like 8 square feet. What? You’re going to come in here and confine my cat in our bathroom? He’s already only in the bedroom. Who the heck do you think you are? Seeing my hesitation, she said, “Okay, maybe I’ll just close the bedroom door, then.” When Allie woke from the nap and I went to get her, Jayne melted and said, “She’s such a mix of both of you!” and kind of respectfully walked around with me smiling at Allie, and then later, asked, “Can I hold her?” Laura had just kind of come in and picked her up and held her as if she owned the place. I’d thought at the time, “Great, she’s comfortable here,” but knowing what I know now, she was totally audacious and bossy. Also, remembering how Laura was practically pushing us to evict Jayne and her family and get paying renters in there so that we can get better income to pay Laura and pay for her health insurance, I now realize, “What the heck. These are OUR major life decisions, she’s known us a WEEK, she doesn’t know the relationship we have with our renters and Mr. W had already told her they are good people and we like them, who is she to tell us what to do?” She told me how to feel, too. When I was a mess on Wednesday cuz my intuition was screaming at me, Laura had said, seeing my discomfort, “I think you should be pleased. Everything went really well here.” I watched my daughter screaming and crying in her crib to the point where she was rolling over. Rebecca said yesterday, “She’s YOUR daughter. She has intuition, too.” Jayne asked me how I do things, and wanted to watch me so she could learn how I want things done, listened carefully to me, kept saying she wanted ME to be comfortable. Laura, on the last aggravating phone call in which I disclosed how uncomfortable I had been, argued, “*I* was VERY comfortable.” It was such a difference. Allie seemed GREAT with her, too.

Today, Jayne came over in the morning as a trial run. She and her husband had talked and figured out how to work the ride situation. Having her help us out had come up long before at her husband’s suggestion, and at that time, I was instantly happy and at ease, so relieved picturing this, but when I’d called her and she’d said it wasn’t possible because she had to drive her daughters to school and work, I’d been disappointed and nearly in tears again. This was before the nanny sites, before Susanne. She and I talked a long time then and she’d been trying to find people from her church and social circle to help me, but nothing long-term or full-time came from her leads. Now suddenly, very recently and unexpectedly, her older daughter got her license, and they just got her a used car. She suddenly was able to do this, and she found herself suggesting this to her husband when he told her about his meeting with Mr. W over the rent issue, thinking, “I can’t believe I’m suggesting this, and feeling completely at peace with it.” So they decided they could rideshare, drop him off at his work on the way to our place, and the younger daughter that needed a ride to school could get it from her boyfriend, or a neighbor friend and they could even pay the neighbor a little gas money. Her husband said that getting in to work at 6am is a good thing for him because then he could take calls from the east coast and midwest clients, pick up more business that way. Things totally just lined up to where even Jayne was amazed. (My dad noted that this was a major personality difference: Laura wanted us to cater to HER needs and wants, even to our detriment, and was ungrateful and demanding; Jayne and her husband were trying to figure out how to arrange their lives and routines to accommodate us and our needs because they appreciated us and wanted truly to help, and were turning an inconvenient situation into a blessing, i.e. the time difference working to the husband’s advantage.)

So today, the husband dropped Jayne off at our place, and came by later on to pick her up. She spent a day with me, and did EVERYTHING, including putting Allie down for her noon and afternoon naps. Allie cried for 10 minutes during the soothing, and then fell asleep on Jayne. When Jayne put her into her crib, she awoke cried for about 10 seconds, then settled into a peaceful nap that lasted an hour and 45 mins. Jayne was scared I’d be dying downstairs watching the monitor while Allie was crying, so after awhile of the crying, she came out and said, “Do you think something is wrong?” I said no, she just needed to be held a little lower so her head has somewhere to lean. After that, it was fine. I saw that as Allie was crying in the crib, Jayne was torn about whether to pick her up and resoothe her, so I ran up and motioned Jayne to come out of the bedroom and let Allie settle on her own. I was totally at peace thru the whole thing, unlike when Laura was doing it and I was watching Allie go into hysterics in her crib and I lost it crying in the car on Wednesday. I knew intuitively it was fine, and told Jayne her protest crying is going to be shorter and shorter each time until she got used to Jayne, it’s not a problem. The afternoon nap, Allie cried for FOUR minutes during the soothing, and maybe 30 seconds in the crib after she fell asleep and was transferred, and this time Jayne knew to come out and let Allie settle. Allie settled and napped an hour and a half, very long for her afternoon nap. She even had two poopies. The chart for today looks BEAUTIFUL. Jayne and I also had great chats, getting to know each other better during Allie’s naps. I chatted with Laura during Allie’s naps, too, but I always felt slightly uncomfortable, and forcing myself to kind of make an effort to act friendly, even tho in the back of my head I was already feeling guarded.

Rebecca called me to check up on me yesterday, and she had said that the energy with Jayne was “right,” and that as two couples, we’d be good friends in maybe 6 months. She said Laura didn’t respect us, but Jayne saw me as an equal except she would defer to me as Allie’s mom and would do things the way I would want her to. That certainly turned out to be true, from napping to bottle-washing. I didn’t even realize that Laura never asked me stuff about how I wanted the bottles and nipples cleaned until Jayne asked me and watched me clean a bottle to see the attention I gave the nipple and how I used the nipple brush hidden inside of the bottle brush handle. I had noted that the nipples of the bottles that Laura washed were hazy and I had rewashed everything. Now I’m thinking she just rinsed them; she never even asked me where the dishwashing soap was.

So I’m totally comfortable and at ease now. I’m looking forward to work on Monday, as much as I may be crying in the car on the way there, not because I’d be scared or nervous about Allie at home, only because I’d miss her.

Tomorrow we’re meeting up with Jayne and her husband in the afternoon to discuss placing a value on this arrangement. They were thinking her working as our nanny could partially pay for each month’s rent, but their total monthly rent is actually well LESS than what we would’ve been paying Laura monthly. I’m happy with her care covering their entire rent each month, and still giving her paid holidays and vacations.

Laura texted me earlier:

Thought you should know. The Saddleback position was filled because I let them know I had a job. They filled the job before I could let them know it had fallen through.”

That is of course none of my business and the ONLY purpose for texting that is to continue to make me feel guilty. However, the more she does this, the more transparent it is and the less I’m going to feel bad given her own way of being vindictive. I see Susanne online all the time and I leave her alone. I was considering texting Laura back, “You were and will continue to be in my prayers, and I will add to them that He reveal to you soon why he used our financial situation to keep you from those positions, since even if we had you continue for a month, it wouldn’t have changed those things.” To sort her bring her back from her anger at me to realize that this is something that likely happened for a reason.

And then moments later, when I was considering responding to her with the above, I get notification of Idlehouse’s comment to the prior post. It was so en pointe that I decided, this is the Universe’s way of telling me, “Do not go there with her.” So I am not going to respond at all. Thank you, Universe; I’m listening. And thank you, Idlehouse, for your caring and your comments.

It took me almost 3 hours to fall asleep last nite, and Allie had a 4am awakening and feeding, and that took me another hour to start to doze afterwards, so Mr. W’s alarm woke me up right when I started to doze after that, and the snooze alarm after that. I got about 3 hours of sleep.

I really loved the first Kindercare I visited; they had a brand new infant room as they’d just switched the infants who were there into the toddler room (they “graduated”) and were accepting a new class of infants. It was new cribs, new sheets, new mattresses, new everything. I met the director and the infant room teacher, and they were very loving, professional, and knew a LOT about kids. The director had 25 years of experience and the teacher had 8. There were kids around and they knew everything about those toddlers, what each cry meant, what they needed with a certain behavior. They interacted with the kids, no TV, all age-appropriate and developmental activities. They say it takes the average baby Allie’s age about 3 days to adjust and then the napping goes on according to the baby’s routine and scheduled provided; they’re not conformed to a routine for the location. Teacher-infant ratio is 1 to 4 so they had room for 1 more. Their first new infant goes in mid-month, with an addition of another one each week afterwards for 3. The place was sparkling and their system seemed amazing. I was surprised how much they provided — sippy cups, etc. And it was going to cost less than $320/week for a 5-day plan, less for 3 days and 1 day plans.

I tearfully forewarned Laura before I left (so little time because she came a few mins late again and I had to be at the Kindercare at 10) that Mr. W’s conversation with the renters the day before was not good and it looks very likely that we would have to put Allie in daycare. It was extremely uncomfortable to leave Allie with Laura just those few hours. I checked the cam once and Allie was still down for the morning nap that I’d put her in. Once more, didn’t see anyone and the baby was no longer in her crib. I checked it again on the way home from the bank and saw Laura soothing her in her room, and was surprised because it had barely been over an hour since she woke up. At a red light, saw Allie doing the same thing that happened last time when Laura tried to nap her — Allie was rolling over and crying, unable to soothe herself in the rolled over position. She did not do that when I napped her, she went peacefully, and this likely isn’t Laura’s fault, it was just different for Allie. But I lost it. I was in hysterics. And I also knew I couldn’t do it with Laura. When I arrived home, Allie was laying listlessly in her crib with her eyes open, but soon fell asleep in a different position for her. I tried to gently tell Laura what was going on and the direction headed toward. I explained the financial impossiblity of having her. I wanted to spare her of all my “red flags” about her because there was no point adding insult to injury, I thought, and it was all a moot point anyhow as we can not pay a nanny, especially what she’s demanding of us. And I paid her in cash the hours she’d been at the house for the past 3 days.

The problem with that is that she obviously tried to salvage her job, so she tried to convince me to evict the renters, to keep her on for a few months in case things got better, to try to turn my prior words against me about how Susanne flaked on me and I said I wouldn’t do that to someone else but here I am in that position. I told her no decision was made, I was telling her where things are as soon as possible so that she could put herself out there and not cancel out on other potential jobs, etc. She said she was already committed to this job so it was too late (altho she again didn’t say anything about Saddleback so I think she’s still potentially a hire there). It was uncomfortable and her daughter stopped by while I was still in tears to go with her to their plans. She left soon after because it was apparent I needed to be alone.

I put Allie to a nap around 3p and Laura called me again from there. She wanted to negotiate and threw at me all kinds of things designed to guilt me into keeping her on at least for the month. Given the stuff she was saying, I became less and less inclined to deal with her and felt increasingly uncomfortable by the way she was trying to verbally back me into a corner. I told her I’d talk to Mr. W about her offer and get back to her that evening, but it was a loooong pressure-filled conversation.

Mr. W’s daughter came over with her boyfriend for dinner (she hadn’t been around for a few weeks) and I put Allie to bed, after which, and after many chats with Rebecca with her saying I must cut Laura off immediately because this was going to get worse and I can’t keep her for a month because this is just the beginning of her true colors, I made the call. It was basically her berating me for an hour about what a horrible person and hypocrite and liar and bad mother I am, altho she never used those words. She demanded to know how I could do this given that Susanne did it to me; I tried to explain that Susanne took a better deal for herself, whereas I was in an unexpected situational change and my baby comes first. I did have to tell her how I was uncomfortable with the month because I’d wondered about her priorities being her kids over Allie, which is a good thing for her and I hope to be as good a mother as she is, but bad for me as Allie’s mother. I need to think about the baby’s needs first. She said “Wow, I guess I shouldn’t be honest and tell people about my relationship with my daughters.” It was a lot of comments like that, it sounded like she couldn’t understand or accept what I was saying, didn’t see anything wrong on her end re my feeling insecure about the fact that she wasn’t there as much as I needed during a transition (she said that in every baby book, it says the transition shouldn’t be long, and should be as short as possible, so she already had felt that a week was unnecessary and that a couple days at most was best, but she imposed that on me, not the other way around, and she’d never communicated that. either way, she ought to do it the way *I* need to be comfortable, not the way SHE wanted), said that I had to understand SHE was going thru a transition with HER kids as well cuz when she starts the job she wouldn’t be around for her daughters as much. (They’re grown! And they were allowed to visit!) I was basically passive and explained the things she demanded of me, listened to her rail me and I simply told her I understood how she felt, but that I didn’t feel I have the time she seems to, to drag this on another month at her request. I didn’t feel like I could handle a month of limbo and then another transition after Allie got attached to her. She claimed Allie woudln’t have problems transitioning, so I should allow HER the courtesy of a minimum 2-week notice before termination. I said this isn’t a corporate job situation, this is my baby. She said she would’ve at LEAST done that for ME and I was going back on my word of our agreement. I said we were in a transitional, pre-trial period, it wasn’t to the point of agreement yet, but she disagreed. Besides, after all the berating, I KNEW I could not be comfortable leaving my precious baby alone all day for weeks with her while I was helpless an hour away at work. “I’m just so SURPRISED at your BEHAVIOR,” she kept saying. In the same tone she had said during negotiations, “Well, don’t YOU get paid when you take vacation?” to say why we should pay her full base pay plus any overtime on days of our vacation and her vacation. It ended with her demanding how I could do this, why, how was I different from Susanne? Didn’t like what I said, said we were going in circles, cried, and then hung up on me.

She has my sleep book, and I don’t want to get it back from her.

I had a loooooong talk with Rebecca after that. Rebecca strongly supports me and doesn’t feel I did anything wrong; of course Allie had to come first, and Laura was the beginning of bad news. If she was that demanding already, and controlled things in a way that I was uncomfortable with so immediately, it was going to get worse if she stayed and had a month to attach more — even to the point of lawsuit. Right now, because she’d only been on part-time for 3 days, the courts would see her as just a temporary babysitter who got proper compensation for her time. We were not in a contract period; we weren’t past the tryout period, and I DID give her early notice as soon as I knew things had changed; I didn’t stall her in the dark for a month just to get some use out of her and then say it wasn’t working when I had other things in place. Rebecca found her controlling behavior, and the things she said to me over 3 long conversations to be “appalling,” said I was manipulated, and asked me to put myself in Laura’s shoes; would I tell a new boss or a new judge I’m working for, “You want me in when? No, I’m going to come in later. No, I won’t be in that day, I’m going do spend time with my daughter instead.” Nope, especially not the beginning. And I certainly wouldn’t guilt him for having a problem with it afterwards. She basically feels wronged, and I get that. But to protect Allie, I can NOT have someone like this alone with her. Besides, she was due to take Allie back to her place next Wednesday when the cleaners are here, and we never got the invitation to her place nor do we have her address, all of which were supposed to be covered in the 1st transition week which she blew off.

Last night, I still felt rotten. I hope to get over it very soon.

I had a traumatic day and I can’t blog about it right now as it’s too late and I need to try to sleep. In a nutshell, Laura is no longer the nanny and she made it extremely difficult for me and left non-physical claw marks on me. However, my priority HAS to be the baby. I really liked one of the KinderCares I visited, and I would be comfortable placing Allie there; I would still prefer she be older, however. I have cried way too much today and have been slammed into the wall (figuratively) too dizzying much today and I’m still nauseated. Hoping for things to be better for everyone tomorrow.