Thursday, August 31, 2006

Happy six-week birthday

Looks like she's doing a festive jig to celebrate.


Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Seems about right

Quiz stolen/borrowed from Matt's LJ. But his result was funnier, I think; his life was a cult classic that appealed to only a few fanatically devoted fans.

EDIT: "Fanatical fans"? I am ashamed of myself. That's almost as bad as the sign that drives me crazy at my laundromat-- "WARNING: Do not leave clothes left unattended." Luckily, I can now blame everything that's wrong with me on sleep deprivation.

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Black Comedy

In your life, things are so twisted that you just have to laugh.
You may end up insane, but you'll have fun on the way to the asylum.

Your best movie matches: Being John Malkovich, The Royal Tenenbaums, American Psycho

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Love



I am pretty sure I am being completely clear-sighted and hard-headedly objective when I say that Daisy is the most lovable person EVAR.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Mark tops me yet again

I thought I was pretty crazy for having placed Daisy on the bathroom floor so that I could pee at 4 am, but I'm afraid I have to announce that Mark has topped me. He revealed that he peed with her in the baby bjorn the other day.

I am looking at that baby bjorn in a slightly different light today.

Un-thought out

I seem to have a few minutes while the baby is in her swing, so I thought I'd type something, spontaneously. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have time these days to think out a blog post in advance and, like, prepare it and edit it and stuff. First of all, sorry that I had to put on that word verification filter thing-- I hate those because sometimes I can't read the code myself, and I get it wrong and the blog calls me a spam robot, which hurts my feelings. But I had to put it on because I was getting so much spam on this blog.

I am doing better than I was before. I am learning some ways of being with Daisy that are more sane and less frantic. The first big breakthrough was discovering the fabulousness of the baby bjorn. The baby bjorn means you can strap the baby on and actually carry on about your day, washing dishes, doing laundry, preparing food to eat--and the baby isn't even screaming, because she likes the movement. I was so relieved that I could walk about and do things-- it was a momentous discovery for me, as simple as it seems. Second, I discovered a little trick to using my mechanical swing. The trick was not to put Daisy in it when she was already in a fussy mood. She just fusses and wants to get out after ten minutes. But if I put her in there when she's calm, she'll stay for an hour or more. I feel guilty, like I'm a bad mother, but I can't hold her all day long or I'll go crazy.

So I am getting out more and feeling less trapped and helpless and incompetent. I have some reflections on the past few weeks. Mainly, I think it turned out not to be true that "the first two weeks are the hardest," which is what they told us in our newborn classes (no harsh critique of the classes intended, however--I really appreciated them). I was so manically high and euphoric those first two weeks, and everything was so new and exciting, I felt like I could have gone on forever, never sleeping, being endlessly fascinated by Daisy, introducing her to everyone, etc. So-- if I were to give advice to a new mom, I'd say the first two weeks are not the hardest, even though you are learning everything for the first time and you're physically recovering (the C-section recovery is certainly the hardest in the first two weeks).

But the feelings of post-partum downness were harder later-- I'd say in the third and fourth weeks (I'm not quite to the end of week five, so I can't say anything yet about that). I thought the first two weeks were so thrilling and exciting that I could never be down about them. And, in a perverse way, I kind of liked being in the hospital. I even liked the food, which is a weird thing that I need to think about. It was when the initial excitement started to die down a little, and the weeks of sleep deprivation caught up with me, and the practical realities of day-to-day living with a baby hit me with full clarity--along with full understanding of the things you can't do anymore--that the poopy feelings started to assail me a bit.
My mom went home, and Mark went back to work, and there I was, with Daisy, unable to take a shower, or do email, or check all my favorite blogs, or make a simple phone call. That was when I started to feel a little depressed, or, at least, when I started to feel some grief about the life that was lost to me. I found myself sitting in the glider, trying desperately to glide Daisy to sleep so I could rest myself, weeping inconsolably to a lullabye CD my friend gave me. Who ever knew lullabyes were so sad? (Most people, probably.)

But I am doing better this week and feeling more like my old self. And the baby is swinging happily! I will go get her soon and take her for a beautiful walk in the stroller to Baker Beach.

I hope to be able to catch up with reading everyone's blogs, at least catch up a little bit, soon.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Scrunchface

Friday, August 18, 2006

Measures of Tired

This morning I:

a) squeezed sunscreen lotion onto my toothbrush instead of toothpaste, for the second time since Daisy's birth, and

b) poured cat kibble into my cereal bowl, though thankfully realized the error before I partook.

PS
Blogspot still isn't letting me post photos. I have written to the help team to report the problem. Urg.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Ever so tired

Daisy, at 4 weeks of age, has decided sleep is for suckers.

Any ideas??

She was taking long naps right up until a few days ago. Now... ohhhh no. I took her for a long walk in the stroller this morning, and every time I peeped under the sun shade to see if she was sleeping, there were those dark eyes peering up at me and that incessant (cute but horrifying) tongue gesture that means, "I can't wait to be nursing again, draining all that remains of the life of you, Mama!"

I love her but, oh God am I tired. When she is awake (which is now, apparently, forever) she either wants to be nursing or being held and rocked or jiggled. Could this be one of those growth spurts? But isn't it too early for that?

Wahhhhhh.

Oh, but here's a cute picture of the little vampire, back in the sleeping days. I call it "Scrunchface":
(Okay, blogspot isn't letting me post it. I'll try again later!)

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Addendum

I forgot to add the fifth thing wrong with our First Foto birth announcements, as outlined in my post here: http://sarahgossblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/count-them-please.html

They are in blue, which in First Foto land signifies that Daisy is a boy (not that I put any credence in the pink-blue girl-boy color scheme, of course; it's just that in cataloguing the things they did wrong, it's worth mentioning that they decided she was a boy and accordingly color-coded her announcement in blue).

Monday, August 14, 2006

Sinking low

I can't believe how difficult even the simplest life tasks have become. This weekend, the baby and I went to visit my parents, who live about an hour north of San Francisco. Mark stayed home to get work stuff done. Anyway, at about 4 am, I had to pee. My brain was working in a semi-haze, but I summoned all my reserves of mental energy to try to solve the Great Problem: how would I go to the bathroom? I had no one to hand the baby to (I didn't want to wake up my parents); there was no bassinet or crib or other type of baby prison to leave her in; and I couldn't bring myself to leave her on a bed or sofa, cuz what if she fell off and cracked her poor little head and all the baby books warn you never to do that.

So finally, I took her into the bathroom with me and placed her, very neatly, on the floor while I peed. She was on a bathmat, and I put a nice bag of cotton balls under her head for a pillow. I still felt like she was peering up dubiously at me from the floor from within the straitjacket of her swaddling blanket, saying, "In some recesses of my pre-linguistic memory, I am recording this degrading experience, Mom."

Friday, August 11, 2006

Daisy notes

Daisy has been working on a piercing scream. She still doesn't cry very much, and believe me I am grateful (though also well aware that a crying, colicky phase could still come along). But a recent development, if you want to call it that, is that if she falls off the boob while nursing, for even one eensy second, she lets out an earth-shattering scream, as though I am murdering her, before I can latch her back on there. Does she whimper quietly? Gurgle? Fuss gently? No. She screams.

She also has come down with some skin conditions that are most displeasing to her shallow mommy. Her forehead skin is peeling and reddish, and she has little whiteheads on her adorable pudgy face. The pediatrician warned us this might happened and called it "baby acne." Normal or not, it is still darned tempting to pop those little whiteheads. I told Mom I wanted to pop them, and she let out her own piercing scream and told me that if I did that, I could give her a brain infection. She said bacteria would go into the baby's brain and she would die. When cross-examined, she admitted that her source for this scientific information was her Aunt Evelyn.

Not that I am going to pop the baby's whiteheads. I am not, so don't worry. But when Mom told me I needed to learn to love her now for her inner beauty, I'm afraid I did say that I preferred her outer beauty at this moment, and Mom told me she could see I was going to be a very problematic mom.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Updates from sleep-deprivation land

Hello! This will probably not be very aesthetically thought-out, but rather more of a ramble, as that's all I'm capable of these days. I am sleep-deprived, and I feel cranky a portion of the time, though surprisingly happy another portion. What makes me cranky: well, a lot of it is the fact that there are milk stains on my sheets and on a lot of my clothing, and we generate an astonishingly large volume of dirty laundry. I feel...bovine and milky. And there are just some moments when despair sets in-- say, when I've just put Daisy on the changing table and removed her diaper and she explosive-diarrheas at me. And it's four in the morning.

But I have also had some truly joyful times. Never in my life has taking a walk been so fun, nor have I felt so appreciative of whatever destination I end up at. Going to the grocery store feels like a million bucks, I tell ya. And she's cute, and is starting to be more alert and look at me and do smiling-like things with her facial muscles.

Oh, and I figured out a great trick for bath time so she doesn't cry. Not only has she not cried during the last two baths, but she actually looked like she was sort of enjoying them. The trick was not to start by washing her hair. I was shampooing her hair first, which plunged her into instant distress and doomed the rest of the bath to screaming failure. I now realize that the wet head is the worst part of the whole experience for the baby, so the key is to wash the rest of her, leaving her head dry, then towel her off and wash her hair while she's dry. This has worked beautifully.

Anyway...I can't believe I am now blogging about baby bath techniques. It's no use pretending that I still have the same range and diversity of thoughts that I used to have. The brain is working very slowly these days. It's a good thing my mother listens incessantly to Air America so I know something about what's happening in the world (though, to be totally honest, I occasionally tire of Randy Rhodes...in general I applaud her).

A final comment for today: this baby farts so loudly it's mind-blowing. You would not think someone so small could fart like that. And she spits up--big volumes of milk. She is such an amazing collection of bodily functions. It must be hard for her, too, to feel so beholden to these functions. She is vulnerable and depends on me, which makes me feel moved. Tomorrow is her three-week birthday.

(Apologies for the red-eye on the Daisy pic.)

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Count them, please



Things that are wrong with Daisy's First Foto birth announcement (these are the folks who come around while you're in the hospital and sell you a deal on your child's first photograph):

1) It is in Spanish.

2) There is a large cross at the top of it that we did not request (we indicated no religious affiliation when we filled out the form, but for the record, Daisy's ma is Jewish).

3)The time of her birth is incorrect.

4) There is NO PHOTOGRAPH--which, incidentally, was the whole point of the self-proclaimed "First Foto" service.

5) The announcement is all in blue, which in First Foto world means she is a boy (not that I care that the announcement isn't in pink, of course).

The service also came with a "web nursery" featuring a photograph of Daisy and birth announcement. When I went to the site, there was indeed a picture there, but it was not the one we had requested. In fact, it was the worst photograph they took of her--possibly the worst photograph taken of her yet, by anyone. Her face is bright red, her eyes are closed, and she is in blurry mid-motion as she squirms away from the camera. We had explicitly requested they not use this photograph.

We are going to have to get our money back, but this all amuses us enough that we want to save a copy of it.

Errr...

...does anyone else's child creak in her sleep?

I just can't help it...

...for it is cute.






Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Two Milestones (written last week)

Thursday was Daisy’s one-week birthday. I had been eagerly awaiting this, since it seems significant that I kept her alive one whole week. However, it doesn’t much change the fact that she still seems insanely fragile to me. I can’t believe a person could be so young.

We also gave her her first bath a few days ago, a comical-tragical milestone involving the baby screaming louder than I have ever heard her scream since she was born, and Mom, Mark, and me being extremely flustered and tense with each other, ordering one another to do this and that and stop doing the other. Mom was reading aloud from a Baby Manual on how to give a bath: “Step Five, swab behind the ears. Sarah, have you swabbed behind the ears?” Me: “Mom, I’m already on Step Seven, I can’t go back to Step Five now, please just skip that part!” Mom: “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.” Mark: “The thing is for everyone to calm down, just calm down!” Me: “Don’t hand me that, that’s the soapy washcloth, not the rinsing one!” Water sloshing everywhere, the baby screaming and flailing.

There had been some talk of videotaping the first bath. I am glad that did not happen. Also, who would have done the taping? Apparently, it takes three full-grown adults to administer an even semi-effective baby bath. Maybe if two more adults had been helping, it would have gone a little more smoothly. And then all five of us could have collaborated to change a lightbulb.