Whew!

Whew! Ok, my blog just had a mid-life crisis, I know you all understand.

Thanksgiving '08

Aunt Jean, Aunt Paula, Uncle Brad, plus new girlfriend with two teenage kids and Aunt Paula's mother. This is what Thanksgiving consisted of this year, and no, we're not really related to any of these people. But these people are what our family is now. We've known them almost as long as we've lived in the Springs and we've bonded through miraculous tragedy. Jean and Paula are the women who stayed up with me all night the night that Shane got run over. Brad fed us again and again and again at the hospital. We bicker and fight like family, but we always come back together. We have virtually nothing in common, but that's what keeps things interesting, right? There was no indegestion after dinner this year, no splenda (thank God), but no Jake and Claire, either, big bummer. No mishap with too many people bringing bread. And the best thing about Thanksgiving this year? There was no Shane walking home in the snow (in shorts) after slamming his broken $60 bottle of Stranahan's in the middle of the intersection. Is that the anger management problem we've been hearing about?

I'm 9 months old!

Carissa is 9 months old, and has said her first word! She has been babbling since she was around 3 or 4 months old, occasionally saying mama, dada, baba, agoo, etc. But yesterday she looked right at me, said, "Maaaammaaaaaaaa!" and held out her arms. I have to believe that she really meant mama as in the person who keeps her warm and safe and snuggly. She also successfully used the spoon to get yogurt into her mouth! I really didn't know what I was trying to accomplish when I gave her a spoon loaded up with a white, gooey substance that would in all probability end up all over me, the floor, the walls and not in her mouth; but she really put the spoon in her mouth and slurped up the yogurt! I was so excited! Ok, I'm not trying to say that my child poops gold or anything like that. You all know what a tough year I've had adjusting to motherhood. I'm just so glad to finally see and feel some.......progress? results? enjoyment? (She also can play peekaboo! and isn't that the cutest picture ever?)

Carissa's Hip Update

I thought I would update everyone on how Carissa is doing with her hip dysplasia. Today we went to see her orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Siegel. Just writing the word "surgeon" freaks me out, and yes, surgery is always a possibility for her. Let me recap what has happened with her hips recently. At almost three months old we were told that Carissa could stop wearing her harness altogether, her hips looked good. At six months old we were told that her right hip ball hadn't formed from cartilage to bone, and therefore her hip angle wasn't coming along as it should; she would have to wear a brace again only at night. I also had her wear it during naps, too, since she slept so well with it on. Today Dr. Siegel said her x-ray showed both hip balls had formed bone, and her right hip angle had come from 29 to 24. The goal is to get it to below 20 by age two. Her left hip is already at 20. In Dr. Siegel's words, her hips look, "gorgeous." I am particularly worried about Carissa's gross motor skill development. She seems to have no interest in moving around. She won't scoot, crawl, creep, pull up, or stand with my support. She sits. Dr. Siegel said not to worry, at all. In fact some babies don't walk until 18 months! She reassured me not to worry unless she's still not pulling up at 12 or 13 months. "Listen to how vocal she is, though," Dr. Siegel said. It's true. My little girl is a talker. She babbles and coos constantly. At birth she could say, "agoo," and it's just built from there. Today I asked her for an orange she was playing with with my hand stretched out and she gave it to me. I think she's doing really well where language is concerned. And she may be a gymnast! Because of her hip dysplasia, she is incredibly flexible. When I lay her on her tummy sometimes her legs go straight out to the sides in the splits. Dr. Siegel also said this was totally normal for babies with hip dysplasia, nothing to worry about and she would probably be flexible for the rest of her life. Lucky her. Thank God for orthopedic surgeons and for hip checks at birth. I asked what the consequences of hip dysplasia were. She said that if hips weren't formed perfectly then there could be degenitive arthritis and hip replacement surgery at 30 years old. Wow, that's scary. She also pointed out that even though her hips look good now, there is no guarantee that her hip checks later on will turn out great. So keep praying!

Hmmmm.....

I just want to think a bit outloud...bear with me. We are trying to go see some friends in Portland. Some really good friends whom we haven't seen in at least 4 years. We've entirely missed one of their kids' birth and childhood. The other three we've missed a great deal of their lives. Sad. So we're going. But here's the problem. It seems like it's so much work to go on vacation. What are we going to do with the dogs? The cat? The house? The BABY!! Ok, we're taking the baby, obviously. How are we supposed to bring food and formula (oh yeah, I'm not nursing any more, judge me, I dare you) and diapers and a curling iron-you know, the necessities. Oy! It just seems like it's too much to handle looking at it from this side. But a lot of things looked like they were just too big to handle, but they turned out to be ok. Just look at Shane's rising from the dead. I'm glad I didn't see that one coming.

Ok, here's another totally different train of thought. I'm so tired of being nice!!! Where has nice gotten me, really. I'm just lying to myself and to everyone else. So my "friend" totally flaked on us, again, the other night. We had invited her, them, whatever they are, to have a fun wine tasting, just like Filoli does. Well, Saturday afternoon rolls around, and we still hadn't nailed down a plan. So my dear Speedbump calls her up. Well, maybe she can and maybe she can't. She's sooooooo busy today. AAAARrrrggggghhhh! I was pissed. That's worse than flaking. It's like we have to hold our schedule open to see if we will be blessed by her presence or not. So I called her back and left a message. Have fun with whatever you're doing, we'll be doing something else, said I. I'm so proud of myself for honestly assessing the situation, being justifiably pissed off, then doing something about it. Is this a wise path to travel on? Hmmmmmm......

Obama '08

I went to pick up an Obama sign last night, but there is a statewide shortage! A good thing, I guess. So I made my own today! Pretty cute.

Gerber Baby Turned Monster

I can't believe that mere hours ago I was as so proud of my baby girl I could fly. Now I have careened back to Earth, plummeting into the planet creating a huge, ugly crater. Much like the one I just put into my wall. This morning, although she didn't nap well, was off to a great start. After Carissa's not so lengthy nap we packed off to our "neighborhood" coffee shop. Raven's Nest is halfway across town, but I wish it were in our neighborhood, does that count as a "neighborhood" coffee shop? We're really good friends with the owners, Paul and Heather. I was sooo dissapointed that Heather wasn't there, but Paul sneaked (yes, that is correct grammer) me a free coffee. Carissa and I sat on a couch in the bright morning light admiring the new art around the shop. As I snacked on my danish and sipped my coffee, Carissa happily played with my wallet, diaper bag and rice poof dish. Two ladies with toddlers came in and I could hear them whispering, "My baby never sat like that." "Mine neither." I was so proud my heart fluttered. Then I got up and paid for a newspaper. While it was only 3 feet away I could see the mommies watching Carissa to see what she would do. She just kept on playing, not crying for me or topplying off the couch, or anything! I read several sections of the paper while I finished my coffee. To those of you who don't have kids--this is an amazing feat. I could hardly believe my little munchkin was sitting with me on the couch, at Raven't Nest, while I read the paper. Incredible! AND that wasn't even the best part of my morning! This lovely middle-aged woman comes in and apparently is immediately struck by the beauty of my little girl. (Gack! I know--brag alert). She plops down in front of us and starts saying things like, "What a lot of hair she has!" "Beautiful caramel color" "Blue eyes turning brown" "She must be a picses, she looks so sensitive" "She knows what she wants" "Beautiful name, too" "She looks like she could be in a magazine" "Gerber baby" My heart soared! Someone else has seen what I see everyday...confirmed that my baby is the most beautiful baby in the world!! Ok, I'm being hyperbolic, only because she turned into Godzilla baby not less than 3 hours later. All those cat-naps today have added up into one complete catastrophe. I won't go into details, but let me just tell you that both of us were crying and one of us threw a book and now there is a hole in my living room wall. Not enough sleep makes both mommy and baby completely crazy. She's napping now, Thank you Jeebus.

The Great Pumpkin Run 2008

This morning I was lucky enough to find myself at Venetucci Farms in Colorado Springs preparing for my second ever 5K. I was determined to run the whole way and improve my previous 5 K time. What a beautiful morning! The sun was rising, a breeze was blowing, and my husband and baby were there to cheer me on. I had a great time. The run took us around a horse barn, a pig pen, around corn fields, through a field where horses were roaming freely (and almost ran us over if it had not been for a cowboy chasing them away), through trees, by Fountain Creek, then on to the finish.

After the race I had a lot of fun showing Carissa her first horse,

chickens, tractorand going to the "Farm Stand." I didn't win any prizes, but I did improve my time by 3 minutes and I ran the entire route. I even closed strong by whipping past two people on my way in. I can not tell you how good it felt to run this morning.

Life has never been the same...

I'm not kidding, this is a picture of our dining room table from about 30 minutes ago. Notice that I have two black mugs by my plate. One is from the tea I started at 6:30 this morning, unfinished. One is the coffee I shouldn't be drinking because I'm still nursing. I don't have a placemat--it's on the floor because that's where Carissa threw it. Double bibs: she's just that messy.

30 miles and ten weeks later.....

I did it! After ten weeks of running a 5K every Tuesday night with Jack Quinn's Running Club I finally got my t-shirt. Even better, I ran the entire 5K route without stopping once! I'm so flippin proud of myself. Ok, so here are the gory details.

My wonderful, supportive husband, who has a horrible head cold wanted to bring the baby to come support me as I ran my tenth Tuesday night. It was more difficult to bring the baby, definitely. I had to bring her dinner (oatmeal and peaches, butternut squash and formula), they had to find somewhere to not get in trouble while I ran, and then we had to figure out how to get the baby, husband and myself into the bar and wait to be "shirted" at her bed time. I started off way too fast. I guess I was just excited about running my tenth time, plus, everyone I was running with was zooming past me this way and that. I took particular notice of three chicks wearing heavy perfume. One of which was platinum blonde, had her hair in pigtails and was wearing a running skirt that was way to small for her well endowed behind. Jack Quinn's is a bar, as I've mentioned before, and therefore, the barflys that might be more comfortable standing around inside decide they might get noticed more if they run around outside with the rest of us who are actually serious about running. So this barfly runs past me and I think, "I'm just going to run at my own pace. My goal is to finish without stopping, not to pass people." So I keep it up. I'm running pretty slowly, not passing anyone. But then at the turn around as we are heading up a big hill I see the barflys--walking. I'm still running and run right past them. Yay! What a rush, what a feeling of accomplishment. Then not more than two minutes later they zoom right past me again. They are running way to fast and I wonder if they will be able to keep up the pace. Nope! I pass them again, and again, and finally, as I pass them for the last time I hear one of them say, "shit!" Now that felt good. It felt even better that when I finished and was cooling off with my husband and the baby we waited about 10 minutes before I see those platinum blonde pigtails sail past.

Dear Carissa,

It's been a while since I last posted, and the reason is that I am scared to write what I've been thinking of writing. I wrote a letter to my daughter a few weeks ago in my journal and I decided I wanted to write it in my blog for all of you to see. It's just that I'm scared for everyone else to see it. Will you judge me? (the hyphens are unique to my journal writing, I really do know how to use the comma and the period)

Dear Carissa,
I had a thought today-you are who you are-even now. Your eyes, your skin, your hair-they are all uniquely yours-I have no control over any of it. Your mannerisms-the way you don't care for pears but you love squash-what you laugh at-what you think is funny-the way you get up at 4 am-or all night long. That's YOU. Take it or leave it-that is who you are. I can't control that-any of it. I can't hate you for it. I will love you any way. You are my unique baby girl and I will love you for you and not begrudge you your differences. I'm sorry that that's what I've done. I've hated your differences-all the things that make you unique I've labeled as difficult and unworthy. Yes-some things are difficult-like not sleeping through the night-but that does not make up all of who you are-that does not make you unlovable.

Give me courage, dear Lord, to respect Carissa's differences and uniqueness. Give me a big love for all of her.

Obama kisses please!

Does anyone know where I can stand at the Democratic National Convention so Barack Obama can kiss my baby? It's going to be really sad if I don't get up to Denver and stand around outside of a stadium somewhere to see (hopefully) our next future president and have him kiss my baby. He would pick mine, right? She will be the cutest one =). I'm counting on you, Filoli, to find this out for me!

Today just dragged. I was so bored and sleepy. I got a full night's sleep, which is why it was wierd that I was still so tired today. The baby was pretty normal: eat, fuss, play, fuss, sleep, fuss, play, fuss, eat, and so on. My only light was my run with Jack Quinn this afternoon. I SO looked forward to jumping into my car at 5, listening to "All Things Considered" for 25 blessed uninterrupted minutes, then going on my 5K run. My run took me about 45 minutes, 30 of which I didn't think of anything except the person in front of me I wanted to catch, but knew I never would, the person behind me I hoped wouldn't catch me again, and I didn't think a bit about the baby. Then I remembered that my new running book said that running could be a great way to work through issues you have been having. Hmmmm... I thought. What issues? Oh yeah, the baby. I thought about how I had had all of these ideas of what a great mom I would be. I would put the baby on a schedule from the beginning. She would never be addicted to a pacifier. She would sleep through the night at 8 weeks old, just like the babies in all of my baby books. And then I thought of how one by one all of my ideas came tumbling down around me. Schedule? Hah! What's a schedule? You don't need a life! Pacifier? Don't be so prideful, she's addicted to sucking the tag on her sleep sack--can't sleep without it. Sleep through the night? Not quite. She still wakes up several times "Squacking"as a mom in my library group calls it. Then I prayed, "God, help me to let go of all of these ideas I thought makes a good mommy, and help me to just be my own good mommy, whatever that is." I thought of what I would find when I got home: Shane feeding the baby. I held onto this image as I ran the last 5 blocks back to my car. When I got home I got what I really wanted. Shane was feeding the baby her dessert: peaches, and crooning whatever was on the ipod. I loved being a mommy right then, as Carissa gave me a big peachy smile.

Size 7 again!!! (Ok, you caught me out, I'm really a size 6)

I'm so freakin' excited. Today's the day that I slipped on my pre-pregnancy size seven jeans, and they fit like a glove. Not too tight, not too loose, just right. I had tried them on a week or two after having Carissa. It was disgusting--they wouldn't even come up past my knees. A month or two later I tried again, up to my hips this time. This morning I woke up and it was drizzling and 65 degrees in the house. Time to try on the jeans again. Thank you Jack Quinn's Running Club!!!

Who the heck am I?

Today I ran my first ever 5K. I sucked, I admit it. I was closer to the back of the pack than to the front. But I am so freakin proud that I actually got out there and did it. I have wondered my whole life, who the heck am I? And now that I'm a mom, without a "real job" I wonder about it even more. Leaving a full time job and becoming a full time mom can really cause an identity crisis. Am I supposed to be like those 1950's housewives who do all the cleaning, make the dinner, and kiss the husband when he comes home? Why aren't I as happy as other moms? Why am I so bored? Why don't I have a group of mommy friends to do things with? All of this pondering has caused me to try anything and do anything to help me find who I am as a mom. I've even tried running. I joined Jack Quinn's running club. Jack Quinn's is an Irish pub downtown where all sorts of people meet every Tuesday evening to run a 5K route. It turns out that I really like it. Even after feeling like I wanted to hurl after running so hard after my race this morning, this afternoon I was saying, I can't wait to try again.

Tonight my baby woke up crying at 9:30. My heart leaped, I jumped up--your baby's cry can do that to you. I took her out of her crib and cradled her in my arms. I could just see her fuzzy, downy hair in the darkness. I rocked her back and forth, back and forth. She stopped crying within seconds and fell asleep again. I held her and breathed in her soft baby smell. Sometimes being a mom can be wonderful.

Will I ever like being a mom?

Before I got pregnant I had grandiose, well, maybe not grandiose, but definitely inflated ideas of what being a mom would be like. I knew in the back of my mind that it would be hard. But I thought it would be the kind of hard like writing a 20 page paper in college was hard, or like confronting a parent of one of my second grade students was hard; you hold your breath, brace yourself, then you just do it. No, being a mom is NOT like that at all. You can't hold your breath, you'll just die from suffocation. When Carissa was born my husband, Shane, handed her to me and that was it: I was a mom. I played the roll I was supposed to play--I fed her, changed her, burped her. I cuddled her and counted all of her fingers and toes. But it wasn't until about the end of the first week that I started to freak out. I could not get any sleep. It was torture, pure hell. I woke up every 2 hours for the first three weeks to feed her. The hormones kicked into high gear about week 2. I couldn't stop myself from thinking that this beautiful baby would somehow die in the crib when I wasn't watching. I loved her so much that it physically hurt. Now Carissa is 5 months old. The hormones have leveled out, she's sleeping more, I should have the mom think under control, right? No, it never gets easier. I had this thought yesterday: what if I never like being a mom? What if I grow to resent this child? That thought made my blood run cold. I didn't want to admit that I didn't like being a mom. I wasn't this angelic mother who kisses and cuddles her child all day long like I thought I would be. I'm a sleep deprived woman who is stuck with a baby who fusses all day long. I confess, yesterday, if they were offering refunds for babies at the hospital, I would have taken one in a heartbeat. And at the same time I am utterly in love with my Carissa. One smile, one laugh, one coo and I am done for. She has me, once again, wrapped around her tiny finger.