What makes me happy and hopeful that Allie truly is the “wonderful person” Rebecca had seen when I was pregnant and/or when Allie was a newborn, is when Allie shows spontaneous unprompted signs of a loving personality. Earlier, I was at the kitchen sink rinsing out her breakfast bowls and prepping some peaches and cherries to make into a pureed snack (or dip) for her, and I heard the playful “wap wap wap” of her feet when she’s running with deliberate small but loud steps. Then I felt her tiny arms around my left leg. Before I could turn around, I felt and heard her plant a kiss on my butt (which is where her lips reach against me). I looked down and she looked up. We smiled at each other. “Hi, baby!” I said. I would’ve hugged her or patted her head but my hands were wet. She released and I went back to what I was doing. I felt her arms around my leg again for a second hug. And then she wapped off to the breakfast nook to find Mr. W.
Eddie and Michelle had a kids’ birthday party to attend in local city Irvine this past Saturday, so they contacted me and asked if they could swing by afterwards so that our daughters can finally meet. The last time I saw their daughter Scarlett was through Michelle’s belly at her baby shower. Allie was 3.5 months old at the time. Now Allie is 9.5 months and little Scarlett is 4.5 months. They didn’t interact much, but I can see them running around together in another year or so. 🙂
It was a triple-digit weekend and Allie was wearing a cool pinafore-style top with matching ruffled diaper-cover shorts, white with red needlepoint embroidery, very Bohemian looking (a gift from Rebecca). But as soon as I brought the babies face-to-face, I realized that I’d forgotten who Scarlett’s parents are. In the past, when the four of us hung out, I’d be in UCLA gear and Eddie would be in USC gear. So of course Allie had to be changed into something more appropriate.
Scarlett: Fight on!
Allie: *discreetly* Gag!
This is actually the only UCLA item Allie owns, and only because Christi (flip flop girl) had the foresight to buy this for her the time we visited them up north. The shirt is for girls 12 months, so I’d put it away into the “future wear” drawer. On Saturday when I finally took all the tags off and pulled it on my 9-month-old, it was a PERFECT fit. She would’ve outgrown it without my knowing had Eddie and Michelle not come over! And I would not have been happy about the missed opportunity for Bruinwear.
Scarlett, on the other hand, had spit up on her pretty ‘SC dress and had to be changed out of it, and her parents were prepared with another USC onesie, which she wore after the dress. 😛
On Sunday, my parents came over and took a ton of video footage of Allie, since she’s toddling around on her own and is now up to 5-6 steps walking without assistance. She did most of her continous walking on Saturday and may have gone more steps than 5-6, but she had already gotten to where she’d wanted to go so she’d stopped (we need a bigger house). It’s usually one end or another of the L-shaped couch, where we place her toys for incentive. Unfortunately, my parents didn’t get any footage of a long walk. I think Allie was just distracted because of all the people around her, and of all the dancing she had to do, of course, since we put some music on.
Here’s Allie rocking and doing the head-bang to rock:
And here’s Allie doing body rolls and hippy movements to R&B/hip-hop.
That last toothy smile? She was just hamming it up for the camera for my mom (who was video-ing). She does a lot of stuff to deliberately “play” with grownups. What a clown. Rebecca did say very early on that Allie would have a wonderful personality, a great sense of humor which she would develop very young, and would deliberately do things for a reaction, to make people laugh.
Guess what! The stepdaughter is going to be on internet radio TONIGHT! Well, not her live, but one of her songs. This stepkidlet had a barrage of songwriting when she taught herself guitar at age 17-18 and all her teenage emotions poured out and took beautiful form in her music. Now, however, she has pretty much stopped creating music, and now just sings with her church(es). I really wanted to commemorate her creativity of a few years ago, and asked Garrett and Rebecca if they would air one of her songs on their radio show. I sent them “Ready to Fly,” one of the stepkidlet’s rare happy songs (she WAS a teenager when she was songwriting, after all — you should see my overdramatic teenage poetry; you’d be shocked I didn’t kill myself already).
If you aren’t able to get to it tonight, Garrett and Rebecca archives all their shows for podcasts, and I’ll post the specific link when I get it afterwards. YAY!!
(For a original song performance video and photos of the stepkidlet at her 2009 city pageant, in which she took Best Talent, Miss Congeniality AND First Runner Up, click here.)
*** UPDATE AT 8:35P ***
That was great! The broadcast just finished. I didn’t know this, but the host Garrett had some trouble uploading the song to prep for the show because it wasn’t in an MP3 format. So he asked the stepdaughter to call in, and she was embarrassed to do it, but she was a great sport and called in. Also, I got my techie hubby to convert the .wma song to .mp3 and emailed that immediately, so Garrett and Rebecca were able to play the song as well as talk to Ana. Here is the link to the archived show…you can listen immediately! http://tobtr.com/s/3703401
The radio online chat room (simultaneously running during the show) was abuzz during the song. People loved her, and loved the song! Yay! (BTW, I had let Garrett know that the stepdaughter and her boyfriend were both here, and when Garrett first mentioned the boyfriend’s name live on-air, I turned and watched the boyfriend’s eyes go wide, like he’d seen a ghost. It was so funny, I emailed Garrett and told him the reaction. Of course after that, Garrett made sure to keep re-mentioning the boyfriend’s name. HAHA!)
I’m behind, so this is gonna be mostly pix, with just a few of my usual lengthy descriptive paragraphs.
Last Friday, I did my very first outing alone after Allie went to bed (despite the fact that I’m still doing 4:30a wake-ups daily without fail to pump). Rebecca was in town, doing her daily radio show with her co-host Garrett broadcasting from a local-ish Laguna Beach restaurant called The Cottage as a special event, so I drove out to see her and to meet Garrett for the first time. Here they are at The Cottage office during their live broadcast.
Yes, that is THE Rebecca, our favorite clairvoyant! If you’re interested in giving her internet radio show a listen, or feel like calling in for a free mini-reading, she’ll answer questions live on the air! The Garrett & Rebecca Show is on 7:30p-8:30p Pacific time Mondays through Fridays, and you can listen to their podcasts RIGHT NOW for any of their past shows: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/garrettmillerradio
Now you can see what I was talking about on here about Rebecca. 🙂
So ANYWAY, Rebecca and I basically just hung out and caught up over chocolate mousse cake dessert at the restaurant after their broadcast, and Garrett joined us briefly before skidaddling off to his busy life by the beach. The Cottage Restaurant is awesome, BTW. I’ve seen it driving by but never went in. It used to be an old house, and now serves amazing breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Rebecca and I stayed until after closing and they were so nice about it, still coming by to offer us refreshments and service.
Last Saturday, Edgar & Ruby got married! We had to miss the ceremony because it was far away at 5pm, and no way we could be there and get Allie back in time for bed by 6pm, so we skipped the ceremony, put Allie down like normal, then Jayne came over and they babysat (not much to do but be here and get her out of the house in case of flood or fire) while Mr. W and I went to the reception. They had two photobooths with tons of props, and we had fun with THAT. After all, it was the first time we’d gone out together after Allie’s gone to bed. He’d been out with his friends here and there before, but I hadn’t been out past 6:30p since…Allie’s birth.
Here’s Eddie, Michelle, and us not quite knowing what to do with the props — our ourselves — on our first photobooth session.
Mr. W and I celebrated in style, as you can see.
We soon found that the problem with photobooths at weddings is that people can just come in and crash your photoshoot session. And then the camera bears witness to all the fighting that ensues.
I’m just kidding; Eddie’s always welcome where we are. Wait, that’s too blanket of a statement…
We did attempt to get some normal shots in…but the camera was messed up at the time because someone had turned off the light in the booth (as was explained to us later by the boothmaker, Edgar’s younger brother) so the camera went on totally slow shutter speed, causing the blurring. Oh, well.
The day after that, which was last Sunday, my Canadian cousin Mark being in town for the first time in 16 years (by his calculation, but I thought it was longer) gave cause for a family reunion of the relatives on my dad’s side. This is all us cousins with our kids (those of us who made it to the reunion):
Doesn’t my cousin Diana’s little todder Elle on the top make you want to giggle, or at least wave back? That’s what happens when you tell a little kid, “Elle, look here at the camera! Hi! Elle!” She says “hi” back.
My cousin Jennifer with Allie:
Allie never looks so hairless as when she’s with babies close in age (Jennifer’s daughter Alexandra is 2 months older), and the lack of dark hair makes her look whiter than she looks when she’s alone.
Don’t the 2 grandmas look so happy to be holding their respective granddaughters? Aww.
Last Thursday, the cousins had agreed and planned months in advance to all take the day off, leave our respective tots with their regular daycare situations, and have a child-free day to spend showing cousin Mark around. Mark drove out from Diamond Bar where he had spent the week at my parents’ house and spent Wednesday night at cousin Jennifer’s in Irvine so that we had all day in Orange County. Cousin Diana ended up with a work emergency so she spent the day (that she did have off) putting out fires at work (figuratively); cousin Olivia decided she didn’t want to be in Orange County where we’d made a day packed with plans, so after her attempts to snag Mark away back to Diamond Bar for lunch had been met with avid refusals (my refusal caused me to drop the f-bomb in front of 3-year-old Elle…oops), she settled for after-dinner dessert plans with Mark after he returned to Diamond Bar Thursday night. So it was just Mark, Jennifer, and myself for Cousin Day Thursday and it was A BLAST.
We started in Downtown Disney…
…went to Slater’s 50/50 for lunch so that Mark could do some more of his burger reviews…
(we ordered and split the Slater’s 50/50 burger which has a patty made from half beef, half BACON; the vegetarian burger; and the “peanut butter and jellousy” burger which has for its condiments PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY…blech)
…intended to hit up our lake for kayaking but ran out of time so we just went straight to Yama Sushi on the lake for omakase, and enjoyed the view of the lake from their patio before sitting down at the sushi bar.
Mark claimed that we were “sizing up” the sailboat on the lake here.
The omakase was amazing and Jen missed half of it cuz she had to run out mid-dinner when she realized she’d missed 15 calls from her husband, who was stuck in traffic on his way to pick up their daughter from daycare and couldn’t get there in time. Life sure has changed. She and I made tentative plans to have her return for sushi and lake activities in the near future with her husband and baby, and Mark vowed to not wait another 16 years before visiting again.
It was sure nice having a social life again, even if for a few days and in bits and pieces. For future reference, I was able to do a full day because I left after nursing Allie as usual in the morning after she woke up, handing her off to Jayne shortly before her nap, then I drove to Jennifer’s, pumped there, then did Downtown Disney and Slater’s, then we went back to Jennifer’s, I pumped again, and we got into our respective cars and drove to the lake, then we all split up from there and I went immediately home to catch Allie right before bedtime and nursed her to bed like normal. Oh yeah — after that post about a month ago when I said she’d stopped falling asleep after a nursing, that only lasted 2 nights and she’s now back to nursing to sleep, which makes life easier on me.
Hubby is planning for retirement. I’ve been planning, too, but in an unspecific, nebulous, not-thinking-about-it sort of way. My retirement accounts and investments are in order and have been growing since I was 23, the Roth-IRA was begun when I turned 21, the real estate is in place with good renters in it, and the 15-year mortgage on it will be paid off in less than 6 years. But in hubby’s planning, he knows stuff like where he wants to live when he retires (Ashland, Oregon or the Big Island, Hawaii), what he wants to do when he retires (travel whenever possible for weeks or months at a time, internationally, depending on Allie’s school year calendar), and most importantly, WHEN he retires (in 5 years). This is troubling for me because this means he also knows what I’D be doing when he retires — at least, what he wants me to do. As I would be too young to retire and would be ineligible to draw from my retirement benefits, he wants me to simply quit.
This is many women’s Cinderella dream: to meet a handsome man, fall in love, have a family, and have him say, “I will take care of you financially. Just quit and travel with me and our child.”
I’m petrified. I have been financially independent since college and part of my sense of self, freedom and security are based on having my own money. I like not having to answer to anyone else how I spend, save, or invest my money and generally, I haven’t had any problems. I’m not irresponsible with money, and I like that I reap my own rewards that way. I don’t have to be affected by how others, even my husband, spend their money, and that’s a huge stress-saver in a marriage. To lose my job means to become dependent on my husband’s retirement income. He keeps saying that it’s “our” money and not “his” money, but in my head, I see myself as a helpless burden with her hand out for an allowance, sheepishly taking money she didn’t earn and would be afraid to spend without express permission for each item to be purchased. I feel small and powerless. Unentitled to an opinion on purchases or to have preferences. I feel like I should be calling him “sir” and hoping to please him so he doesn’t fire me or find a younger hotter model of companion and put me out on the streets. *cry*
Mr. W: Where should we go on vacation this year?
Me: Well, maybe —
Mr. W: The airfare to Afghanistan is at a nice low rate right now. Let’s stay there for a month during Allie’s summer vacation.
Me: Yes, sir.
*cry*
I know, I know, it’s not that bad. We’ll get to take Allie on educational trips, she gets to experience different environments which will open her eyes and increase her tolerances to worldly cuisines, cultures, and people. We’ll make sure she’s fit and ready to do the nice physical excursions, too, like hiking to the nice vistas, rafting through the rivers, and, just for me, running with mom at Disney races and maybe even a Boot Camp Challenge or two. We’ll both get to be around for all of Allie’s school events and activities, or extracurricular stuff. We can move to places with excellent education systems and not be tied down by things like commutes to jobs. I’m trying to get my head wrapped around this to be okay with the major upheaval coming.
A lot can happen or change in 5 years, I know. But I know my parents aren’t going to be happy that their only child is moving their only grandchild out-of-state. They’re already unhappy that we live almost 40 miles away from them. Ugh.
Rebecca said something the other day about making and reaching for your dreams. “Think about what you would do if money were no object. Make a list. And then make those things your intention. The universe will pick up on it.” I guess my nebulous “retirement” will have to now take form.
P.S. Did I say that Mr. W can’t wait and talks about retirement daily, and contrasted with his retirement dreams, current daily life drives him crazy? He’s eager to not have to go to work anymore, whereas for me, I feel like I’d be abandoning my judge. =/ I’m also nervous that losing my salary would kill our safety net and if Mr. W has an unforeseen expense come up, I wouldn’t be able to spot him like I currently am able to during property tax or insurance due dates. I guess that’s why we’re consulting with a financial advisor right now. I need a realistic picture of when we can afford for me to quit. *biting fingernails*
Allie’s been rolling from her front to back for awhile, which is very disruptive to her naps (that she takes on her tummy), because she hadn’t been able to roll back to her front. During our road trip earlier in the month, Mr. W swore Allie rolled from back to front while she was playing, but I didn’t see it. She’d been getting close, sometimes “accidentally” doing it, but often trapping her arm underneath. Early this morning, we saw on the monitor that she was peacefully sleeping on her stomach in the crib altho I’d put her down as usual on her back. I think it’s official now. And I’ll have to remove her bear that she sleeps on and wrestles and cuddles with, now that it’ll become more of a suffocation risk. 🙁 I hope a flat mattress instead of a cozy bear, when she’s half-awake and reaching for comfort, doesn’t jar her fully awake.
We’re in day 2 of a Family Law divorce trial. Not really interesting, and it’s been a challenge to pump while trial’s going on. I’d simply leave and pump in the jury room with the door closed, and while I’m gone, my judge will swear in any new witnesses and jot down new trial exhibits identified, and when I return to my desk, I check my court reporter Louise’s realtime transcript on my computer and compare it with notes, and catch up for my minute order. This is all going to change. With the $15 billion deficit that our governor announced earlier this week, California has been cutting its budgets by going beyond trimming the fat, deeper than the muscle, down to the bone. For us, in addition to other measures, this means the state is ripping every court reporter in our county out of their positions, lining them up by seniority, laying off the 60 lowest on the totem pole, reducing the next 60 into part-time workers, redesignated a bunch of courtroom as no-court-reporter and/or partially-reported courtrooms, and the remaining reporters are going back into available courtroom positions by seniority. With this upset, we are losing the reporter we’ve had since I’ve worked for this judge (which is practically my entire career of 13 years).
We’re a trial courtroom and we do primarily Civil Law trials. Under the new rules Civil Trials will not be provided a court reporter. If the parties/attorneys want the proceedings recorded, they have to provide their own private reporters. This is crazy to me. How are they going to appeal anything without transcripts? What if there’s a dispute as to what happened? It’s all going to be he-said-she-said? For me, it means also that I no longer have realtime, so when I leave (to go pump) and miss something, I miss it completely, forever. I guess I can have my courtroom assistant take some notes for me, but it’s still very uncomfortable as she’s unaware of what kind of information I would need written down. And I’d have to count on her to pay attention AND understand what’s going on, both of which are not guaranteed. :/ Also, if I’m going through my notes at the end of the day and I realize there’s a discrepancy, like I have two exhibits with the same number written down, I can’t just go to my reporter’s office and say, “Hey, I think I may have misheard an exhibit number…can you check your notes for me?”
On a more personal level, Louise has been more than a coworker to me. She’s been a big sister, giving me guidance with work issues, personal/emotional issues, and a friend who’s been kind unconditionally, not just to me, but to people around in general. She’s been my outlet at every major emotional episode since I was 21, using her own life experiences and compassion to help me through very hard times. She gets my humor and laughs when I made oddball comments that go over other people’s heads. She’s changed my life in so many ways. Emotionally, she’s taught me to recognize the difference between negative actions stemming from my ego feeling hurt, vs. legitimate reactions to protect or improve myself. She’s taught me about the strength of acceptance and inaction (i.e., resisting retaliatory behaviors, or in childish terms, not “getting someone back for what they did to me”). My physical health has improved thanks to her, too. I started running way back in 2000 with her advice and encouragement, as she has been a lifelong marathoner and gave great tips on training. We worked out at the same local gym for some years, and would give each other new workout ideas and exercises and tips. Since she started her health and nutrition kick some years ago, she’s been sharing her knowledge (and sometimes, cookies!) with me, taught me so much about nutrients, vegetables, organic foods, cooking. Oh yes, and we took a few cooking classes together for fun at a bakery she’d discovered. And she found Rebecca. She’s also helped me out in so many little ways when I was overwhelmed at work, whether it be from putting a cart of files together (when I was in Law & Motion) or by babysitting the courtroom because I had to get away to do something in another part of the building. She also co-threw me my work baby shower.
She’s still in our courtroom reporting this Family Law trial because Family Law has been designated as reporter-required proceedings, but as soon as this trial is over, she’s released from us, as if the Powers that Be just cut the cord that bonds us all to this courtroom, and she’s being dragged away and will be sent on a day-to-day basis to who-knows-where. Wherever her assignment office decides they need a reporter for that day. Louise has been well-adjusted about it all and her perspective is that she’s grateful to still have a job and a reliable paycheck, but our little work family is going to be forever changed.
I keep telling myself that my losing her as “my” reporter doesn’t mean I’m losing her as “my” friend. She’s not disappearing off the planet, and I still have her phone number and we’re online social networking friends so I can still stalk her (heh). As far as my finding one of my favorite people in the world, this job has already done its job. Staying in each others’ lives is in our own hands.
One of the joys of coming to work is dimming, though. Mr. W is becoming ever more eager to leave California as we watch this state go on its downward spiral…and I’m starting to come around and resist less.
Tuesday morning after breakfast and Allie’s first nap, we got ready to check out of the Plaza Suites in Santa Clara. I didn’t mention that a roller coaster theme park called Great America was across the freeway from our hotel. It would’ve been a fun place to explore, if Allie were only tall enough to ride the rides. Oh well, maybe next year. 🙂 Another great thing about the hotel location is that it turned out we were 10-15 minutes from just about all our friends, no matter what direction we were going. That was convenient. Anyway, Allie was a good girl and sat patiently in the Boppy with her hands clasped as we got ready to leave.
Here she is watching her daddy disassemble her pack-n-play.
And then we were off! Allie took a nice long nap in the car as we drove to Pismo Beach, listening to Baby Rock. What’s Baby Rock? Turn on your speakers. Mr. W even rocks out to some of these lullabies.
We checked into Pismo Lighthouse Suites, which is one of the cutest hotels we’d ever been in. Everything is lighthouse themed, and our 2-bedroom “family suite” was practically a condo. Allie had her own bedroom and attached bathroom. The property was also right on the beach. Mr. W read some reviews of local eateries, and decided to try some supposedly famous clam chowder that people drive from all over to eat, at a casual local joint called Splash Cafe near Pismo Pier. To continue with adventuring for Allie, Mr. W decided we ought to walk it.
Allie was very cooperative on the way there, but it turned out to be farther than expected. We were pushing her awake-time again.
Finally we got to the restaurant, and thankfully, despite what the reviews warned, did not have to wait in a long line around the block. We like Tuesday afternoon outings. We even snatched a nice street-facing window counter seat.
The chowder was good and extraordinarily creamy and rich. But it wasn’t very clammy. It did fill us up, though. Poor Allie didn’t get any, altho she took a swipe with her hand and dipped her fingers into Mr. W’s breadbowl. Mr. W got her hand just in time to wipe it off before she started solids without our permission. After that she was put in a corner to watch passerbys and munch on Sophie.
On the walk back, we stopped by a swingset on the sand and Allie got her first swing ride!
(Click play for 65 seconds of Allie giggling on the swing.)
And then Mr. W decided this would be a good time to let Allie sit on her first sand beach. She’d been to Seal Beach before when we visited Rebecca, but she was always in the carrier and we stayed at the town side and on the pier. Same thing with San Clemente Beach. She had also hung out on a blanket on the sand part of our Lake when she was 10 weeks old. Now for the first time, she got to interact with the beach.
As you can see, she dug around like a happy little crab. She had so much fun that we couldn’t get her back to the hotel fast enough after that; she hollered to nap, then finally gave up and started her nap on Mr. W before we made it back. She continued it in her pack-n-play back in the hotel room, and then after she woke up, we went to a nice fancy seafood restaurant a few doors down for dinner. There, Allie got to sit in her first high chair, since we decided to just hand-carry her there as it was so close to the hotel and therefore didn’t have her carrier. Turned out that altho she can sit upright on her own, the high chair was way too big and roomy. So we won’t try it again for awhile. Here is Mr. W instructing Allie on proper fine dining behavior. She did pretty well, no fits.
The next morning, we had kind of a disappointing continental breakfast at the hotel, since we had been spoiled by Plaza Suites’ hot breakfast buffets. Allie didn’t mind, tho, since she got her usual meal of fresh breastmilk anyway.
After her morning nap, we were off and got home a little before 2pm. Allie took a niiiice 2 hour 10 minute nap in the car on the drive back, so we didn’t even have to stop until we got home.
Although Allie’s naps were short on vacation (30-50 mins each on average), she did hit them all on time on her own and didn’t have a problem going down for the night, and slept through each night, so that was good. Poor Mr. W felt oppressed by the baby’s naps, tho, so this wasn’t quite a vacation the way he liked it. I felt bad, and asked him to think of it as scoping out places we can go for future vacations when Allie’s older. I’m really looking forward to the time when she’s old enough to really enjoy new sights and places. I think that comes at close to a year, right? Maybe a bit later? But by then food will be its own issue, when she’s eating solids but not adult-solids, yet. So I guess there’s always a challenge.
I couldn’t do any nap training while we were out because I didn’t want her crying to disturb other hotel guests, so when we got home, she fought me in her nighttime sleep and also in a few naps. That’s why we left half a week to readjust her, so that Jayne doesn’t have to do it. It seems like with so many babies, the issue isn’t that they don’t nap; it’s that they don’t STAY asleep. They wake up in 30-40 minutes after their first REM cycle and decide they’re done. As they get older, they fight more to stay up instead of go back to sleep when they find themselves awake. It’s interesting that the sleep book doesn’t really address this, only saying that after 4 months of age, any nap under 1 hour is not considered restorative, and gives advice on how to deal with the kid fighting going down for the night or for the nap. Here’s another challenge now: she rolls to her back, and doesn’t nap well on her back because nocturnal jerks wake her up. So if she’s up and fighting and starts rolling, if it’s at the beginning of the nap, she’ll jerk awake every minute or less until she gives up, and if it’s at the tail end of a REM cycle, the nap’s pretty much over. I’m looking forward to her outgrowing this.
We’re back from Allie’s first roadtrip. I think overall, it was a success. Sure, there were extra things to pack that we didn’t have to when Mr. W and I traveled on our own — there was Allie’s overnight bag, Allie’s pack-n-play, Allie’s diaper backpack, Allie’s changing area box o’ stuff, Allie’s Bumbo seat, and my breast pump and storage stuff. I still got up every morning before Allie did to pump and store, but I got to sleep in till almost 6am sometimes before I did that. Some things that surprised me — Allie is so obedient to her accustomed naptimes biorhythmically that she would fall asleep or demand to be put to bed. I don’t even know why I’d bothered wearing a watch. In the car, she’d just go to sleep at her naptimes. Her initial car naps were very light and short, because road bumps and the car moving around would wake her up, but she would keep falling back to sleep until about half an hour in. On the way home, as she got more used to the car, she had a nice 2 hour nap for her noon nap. Even when we couldn’t get her back in time for her nap, she’d be fussy, but if she were in the car, she’d fall asleep. I was unsuccessful several times trying to keep her up for even a few minutes as we rushed back to the hotel to put her in her crib.
It was a little tough trying to squeeze in all our friend visits in between Allie’s naptimes. When we arrived on Saturday afternoon, we checked in and went out to meet college roommie Diana, her husband Eric, and her new baby Alexis (2 weeks younger than Allie) at a Thai food restaurant for dinner. We didn’t take any photos as both babies were acting up in turn, it being close to their respective bedtimes. I think we all thought we’d all meet up again, but it didn’t happen because Allie and Alexis had conflicting naptimes all weekend. It was different and yet so similar to each other, seeing each other as parents of babies for the first time. Alexis felt like a compact little girl, since Allie is so tall and outweights Alexis by probably a couple of pounds. Diana offered to come by the hotel after the babies were asleep and hang out, but the suite turned out so small that we had to set up Allie’s pack-n-play in the living room area, so I didn’t want to walk in and out with her sleeping. She did go down without an issue in her pack-n-play every night and for every nap she took in it.
Sunday, for Allie’s second awake-period (the first was always spent eating the free breakfasts at the hotel), we drove out and visited Jimmy and Sabrina and their little girl Abby, now almost 2 years old. Abby was about 2 months old the last time I saw and held her. This time, she was a happy rambunctious little girl on the go-go-go! She ran circles around us with her toy shopping cart, stopping only long enough on occasion to give Allie a high-five.
Sunday’s third awake-period, we took a stroller walk to a nearby sandwich cafe and met up with Dardy. He hobbled in on crutches, and we were both very touched that he’d go through all the inconvenience to come out and see us. He took a couple of photos of Mr. W with Allie, and me with Allie. I’ll have to retrieve those from email and post them some other time when Allie’s not screaming and stressing me out (yes, she was napping when I started this post, but the next door neighbor’s gardeners came right when she went down so she woke up early and is now screaming. I wonder if gardeners even register that they wake up babies; I’m SURE she’s audible from outside.).
** Okay, evening edit: here are those photos from Dardy.
For Sunday’s fourth awake-period before bedtime, we went to visit Christi (flip flop girl) and Mike, and their kidlets Kyden (about 2 years old) and Sienna (9 months). Kyden wrote his own account of the day on his blog. 🙂 He has better photos, too, because his mom used a real camera, so her photos were notches above my blurry cameraphone ones. I’ve never seen Allie interact so much as with Sienna. Allie was immediately fascinated, and Sienna’s flapping around made Allie laugh, even when some of those flaps landed on Allie herself. (I have a video of that.) Kyden shyly emerged after his nap, and joined everyone downstairs. It was interesting to see Sienna eat “solids,” which was mushed up babyfood that Christi had prepared (she’s fancy; Sienna had blended chicken and zucchini for one dish and blended strawberries and another fruit that I can’t recall for another dish). It was also very cool to see Kyden feed himself delicious salmon and veggies that Christi made for those of us with full teeth. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. BUT, I do agree with Christi (and I’m glad she pushed me to make this trip), that traveling with Allie at this stage is easier because she’s more portable being only a breastmilk drinker. Christi gave his her kids’ food mill that takes all the fibrous strings and skin out of cooked veggies and fruits. I don’t know if I can be as good a cook as Christi, tho.
On Monday’s second awake-segment, we drove out to see Diana at her office. I was thinking that since we were going to a law firm, we ought to be able to write off the trip, right? Anyway, Morrison Foerster had very cool grounds. There was a park-like setting in the center quad, it was not the boring ol’ buildings we’re used to seeing. Different food trucks drive up and provide the employees lunch on different days, and we conveniently ate lunch with Diana from one such food truck, sitting in the pretty quad overlooking the water and fountains.
We actually had Allie’s third awake-segment free and Mr. W had been bored from being pent-up during Allie’s naps, so we took a walk to explore a nearby Residence Inn that we saw driving by. It was beautiful, with ducks and geese swimming in a long river and large pond going through the center of the property.
(It’s nauseating at this point of blogging because Allie’s now screaming with a vengeance, but I’m re-nap-training so I have to leave her alone until she remembers to self-soothe; the nap was too short.)
The following photo demonstrates one of those sacrifices mommies have to make on behalf of their children. I’m posting this because Allie looks adorable, despite how I look.
And then we walked back to the hotel for Allie’s third nap, where Mr. W had some fun with a cap for dress-up.
The fourth awake-segment was spent meeting up with Rebecca and her 6-year-old, Ben. Ben was so excited he couldn’t stop himself from hopping up and down while he sang to Allie. Unfortunately, dinner went long as we were at a sit-down restaurant, and Allie had two melt-downs, Mr. W taking her out of Maggiano’s Little Italy both times until she calmed down. It was past Ben’s bedtime as well, and he had a rare quiet moment with his head on the dinner table while he waited for his dessert to show up. Allie fell asleep on the drive back to the hotel and stayed asleep in the carseat after we brought the carseat carrier into the hotel. Mr. W suggested I take a shower and let her sleep, and feed her the bedtime feeding when she wakes up. She awoke in the carrier as soon as I finished my own bedtime routine, and we treated her bedtime routine like a middle-of-the-night feeding (which I am a little rusty at); dark, feed, no talking or playing, and putting her right to bed as soon as she was done eating. It was a success, even tho she went to sleep more than 2 hours past her usual bedtime.
I’ll continue with Allie’s Great Adventure, Central Cal later…Allie needs some attention right now.
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 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.
