We met my HS friend Lily and her hubby Arnold’s baby on Saturday. Harrison is 11 weeks old, and a quiet little thing who hangs out inconspicuously in his carrier and sticks his tongue out as he looks out cozily. It’s hard for me to imagine Harrison being almost 3 months, since it seems like just a few weeks ago that Lily gave birth. Time flies when it’s not your own life, I guess.

Harrison also seemed newborn-y to me. His head still needed to be supported, and he was tiny. His parents said he’s been consistently in the 30-something percentile. Allie was born in the 99th percentile plus and has remained there, so the last time I saw her looking that floppy was before 6 weeks old, when she started holding up her own head sitting.

It’s true about the mommy amnesia thing. Mr. W and I were so impressed with how low-maintenance and quiet Harrison was the whole evening, even while we were out at our favorite neighborhood Greek restaurant eating. He cooed quietly here and there, and may have whimpered once before he was picked up, but that was it. I kept saying how when Allie was that age, we could not have gone that long without her crying and freaking me out. I knew Lily was okay with new-motherhood and didn’t have postpartum depression like I did when I received an email from her early on, and in it she’d written, “I always think Harrison is cute, even when he’s crying.” Wow. Back in the early days, when Allie cried, I was terrified and miserable, often near tears myself. When Allie wasn’t crying, I was having an anxiety attack thinking I heard her cry, or that she was about to wail. I was always on eggshells, something the therapists said was a hormonal imbalance thing due to PPD. It was nauseating. Even tho Mr. W had agreed with me that Harrison is WAY more mellow than Allie was at that age, turned out I didn’t give Allie enough credit. I went back to my blog at her 11-week point, and read. At 11 weeks (early February), she was going through the crazy-sick thing when she had to be on the nebulizer, was so congested she couldn’t breathe, but I still had her on a regular napping schedule according to her needs, she did well and was happy and I had been so impressed with her (the pediatrician was, as well) for being such a good, happy, smiling baby despite her miserable symptoms. She had been going to Gymboree for a few weeks and was very active, talkative, and kicky. She was also very interactive with people. She was picking up things and sticking them in her mouth, and was sucking on her fists and trying to get our fingers into her mouth to suck. Mr. W pointed out that maybe Harrison wasn’t doing those things because his parents had put newborn mittens on his hands. That’s true, I recalled. For all we knew he was signing the alphabet in there and we couldn’t see it.
Reading more posts on my blog, I was surprised that when Allie was Harrison’s age, I was already going through my nanny search in preparation for returning to work. In my head, that’s pretty late in the game and Allie had made a ton of progress and we were “out of the woods.” I guess when I imagined the early days of when I was convinced Allie had colic, that was the first 6-8 weeks or so. Man, those days seemed to have gone on for months. I would’ve been more traumatized than I am now if it weren’t for my mommy support system, the new-mom friends who let me text them at 2, 3, 4 in the morning, who’d always responded promptly and gave me unending encouragement and tips from their experience. I should’ve sent them Mother’s Day flowers. I wish I’d have thought of it. I hope I remember next year.

I’m glad I kept up the blogging through the PPD. I’d either blocked info out, or things were just a blur to me as I lived in a sleep-deprived, anxiety-ridden haze. My posts were pretty detailed, which made me realize I’m less detailed now about what we do daily. That’s probably cuz I’m back at work and the baby’s “daily” is more in Jayne’s realm. So, a typical day:
I wake up between 4:30a and 5a to pump out the overnight engorgement with the hand pump. I get out between 7-8 ounces. Then I sneak downstairs with the pump, my purse, electric pump backpack, and I store the milk in 2 breastmilk bags, pop them in the freezer. I fill a syringe with 0.25ml Amlodipine (for high blood pressure) for Dodo, bring that and the now-empty pump upstairs, making sure along the way that the computer downstairs has all 4 cameras displayed for Jayne later, and that the front door is unlocked so Jayne can get in. I go upstairs, wash out the pump parts, draw up 1ml of liquid potassium for Dodo, and administer both meds to him orally while he struggles. I then get myself ready for work. Meanwhile, somewhere in there at 5:30a, Mr. W gets out of bed and gets himself ready for work and has breakfast. I join him for breakfast between 6a and 6:15a, then we go get Allie up. Often, she’s already up, and playing quietly in her crib. I’m happy if she wakes up after 6a, but she wakes up between 5:30a-6a a lot. We just leave her alone and she just hangs out in her crib quietly rolling, crawling, practicing standing, humming to herself, playing with her bear. When we get her, I open the curtains and say, “Good MORning, sweetheart!” She smiles at me, stretches, smiles at Mr. W as he talks to her and tickles her, then he picks her up and changes her as I take her bear out of her crib and preps her room for the day, moving the stepstool out of the way of her crib cuz Jayne doesn’t use it, getting her clothes for the day, etc. Then Mr. W hands her over as I’m in the feeding chair, and I nurse her. When that’s down, I close the curtains and blinds again, preparing the room for her naps, then go downstairs with her. Jayne may or may not be there by then; she’s been coming in later and later, and today didn’t get there till 7a. Mr. W and I chat with her a few minutes and we rush out and go to work.
In the day, Allie now takes 2 naps, the first staring between 8:30a-9a, and lasts about an hour or a little over, the second starting between 12p-1p and lasts between 1-2 hours. On odd days, like yesterday, Allie only slept half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon and was crabby from lack of sleep all day, so I gave her the optional late-afternoon nap at 3:30p and she slept for a little over an hour before I woke her so that she wouldn’t be messed up for her bedtime. Her mood was much improved after she got sufficient rest. She still goes right into soothing position upon entry into her room: head resting against my chest, sucking on her left thumb. Eyes close slowly as I sway side to side for a few minutes. When the sucking slows and stops, I lay her gently in her crib. She wakes up during the move, sees the approaching mattress, and drops her face into it and goes to sleep on her tummy. Also in the day, Allie now gets 2 feedings of solids — a puree of a veggie + brown rice cereal and a fruit late-morning, another veggie and fruit + rice cereal early afternoon. Right now there are pureed peach, pear, prune, cantaloupe, purple yam, peas, zucchini, and yellow squash in baggies in the freezer to choose from, all no more than a week old since I puree a batch of something every 3-4 days. She’s also got carrots and broccoli in her eating repertoire, and sweet potatoes waiting to be introduced. I should do spinach soon before her growing taste buds start thinking they can refuse different-tasting foods. White meat’s coming up later this month. Allie right now still gets 5 breastmilk feedings a day, the first and last by nursing. The middle 3 bottles are 7 oz, 7 oz, 5 oz.
When we get home after work, it’s about 5p and we have about an hour to play with Allie, give her a feeding of solids around 5:30p, bathe her every other evening, read her a story on our bed, and put her to bed. In her room with just me around 6:15p, her nightly routine is a diaper and a change into her PJs, I apply Aquaphor on her dry ankles and her neck folds, pick her up, nurse her to sleep in the La-Z-Boy, lower her into her crib, and close the door behind me as I walk out. I aim for this to be between 6:45-7p. There’s a whole strategy to nursing her to sleep, too, including making sure her last side is the right side so she’s facing the right way to be picked up and placed in the crib, letting her slow her sucking into a slumber before I move her upper arm out of the way, letting her go back into a slumber before I withdraw, then letting her stir and go back to sleep for close to a minute before I move my arm under her neck and cradle her for pick-up, letting her drift again before standing up and moving her into her crib. Otherwise I place her in her crib too roused and she’ll wake up and cry and thrash around in there for awhile before going to sleep. After she’s put down, I re-medicate the cat and Mr. W and I have have dinner, then do our own things. Lately it’s been him playing Diablo 3 and me reading. I try to be in bed around 8:30p, altho I may not sleep till much later. This morning Allie slept in until we had to wake her at 6:30a so that was good, altho I always feel bad waking her.

Allie’s a lot of fun right now. When I open and close my hand in a wave, she smiles in recognition of the game, and does the same back. I think because she sees my palm when I do this to her, she does it back by facing her own palm toward herself, also, so she can see how she’s doing what we’re doing. We say “bye-bye” or “hi” when we do this wave, and it’s done when I greet her in the morning or after a nap, and Mr. W does it to her when he waves bye-bye to her as she goes upstairs with me for a nap. Over the weekend, she was tired and fussing for a nap, and she started waving at us. We think she’s associating it with “Need to go nap! Go bye-bye to nap!” She also crawls around and explores everything on her own, following after Dodo sometimes. I WAS hoping to not need to babyproof, but that’s starting to look slim. She also likes to get to the edge of the couch or to the landing of the stairs to pull herself to stand. She’s starting to cruise, just a little. Maybe a step or two, or to change direction, as long as she has an adult’s arm or some furniture to keep a hand on for balance.

Playing peek-a-boo is a lot of fun. I would cover her head with a burp cloth, and say, “Where’s Allie? Where’d Allie go?” And then she’d yank the cloth off herself very suddenly, and I’d say, “THERE’s Allie!” and she’d laugh. Then I’d put the cloth on my head and say, “Where’s mommy?” She’d put her hand on the cloth, wait for me to pause in my speech, then yank the cloth down and I’d be face-to-face with a huge wide-mouthed, 4-toothed grin, and I’d say, “HERE’s mommy!” and she’d laugh. And then we’d repeat with Daddy. She’d occasionally initiate the game by placing the cloth awkwardly on her own head. I’d fix it to cover her better, then ask where Allie is.

She’s also easy to take out to a meal. As long as she has her high chair and we bring some purees to feed her first, she’s fine to sit and people-watch. We went to dim sum yesterday for lunch.

(Yes, I’ve stopped wearing makeup. No point when the kid runs her hands all over my face when I’m nursing. Unless I want her to eat foundation.)

Yesterday, after Allie awoke from a nap and played with the camera and pulled repeated on its wires, Mr. W had to move her on-crib camera to over-crib, mounted on the ceiling (amidst very colorful language in which even the crib’s mother was insulted). This is our new view of Allie’s crib, so we get a new perspective on her sleeping form:

She laid like that for a long time. How does she keep her leg up in the air like that? It’s like she fell asleep in mid-dance.