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Image by hackett via Flickr

I just returned from The Woods today with the Squeaker.  It is Spring Break in El Paso so a lot of my family, including my grandma, caravan-ed out to Houston to stay with my parents for the week.  4 out of my dad’s 7 siblings were at my parents house along with their families.  Now I love El Paso and going to El Paso to see everyone but I love it even more when they come to Houston to stay with the ‘rents.  At one point there were 25 family members in the house.

We went to El Paso over New Year’s.  Sometimes there are good visits with the fam and sometimes there are not so good visits.  It’s just the way the cookie crumbles.  This New Year trip to introduce la familia to Olivia was a not so good one.  I just was not prepared for the onslaught of parenting advice that we got and by the end was totally burnt out.

This visit was not like that at all.  It was great.  I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it.  It was what a family should be and I wished that my family lived closer so that we could have these moments more often.  It was just so nice to have everyone sitting wherever they could find space eating beans and rice and enchiladas.  It reminded me of the times when we still lived in El Paso and at least once a week we would have dinners like this at my grandma’s.  Like Thanksgiving or Christmas but without all the pressure and expectations.

I really want Olivia to experience this all the time.  I know that we will only be able to go to El Paso a couple times a year.  Maybe we could get our friends together for something like this.  I don’t know.  Maybe I just miss my family.  They’re big, they’re loud, they’re pushy, they’re busybodies but, man, do I love ’em.

Image by Ben Scicluna via Flickr

This is one of a gazillion nicknames I have for the Squeaker.  Since I’m with her just about every second of every day I come up with a new name for her pretty often.  The list of them is for a later post.  But I reserve Grumpy Mumkins for when she’s being a total grouch. 

I have been following the facebook updates of several people that have had babies recently.  They are so joyous and happy.  All their posts talk about how happy they are and how every moment with their baby is a beautiful gift that takes their breath away.  That life is perfect and they could never imagine the happiness they would feel all the time with a child.

Reading this filled me with complete and utter annoyance.  These babies are only in their first months.  These people should be sleep deprived and hormonal.  Our first month with O was really hard.  Ok, let’s be honest, it was kind of miserable.  She wouldn’t let us put her down.  Ever.  She didn’t sleep unless she was in someone’s arms.  Breastfeeding was super difficult.  And because hormones were up and down trying to settle into their pre-pregnancy ways, I was a wreck.  A total wreck.  Those first months, the name of the game was survival.  Every day I was totally in love with my daughter and was so happy to be a mom but that doesn’t mean it was kittens and rainbows all the time.  These people posting these facebook messages, come on, [gag] give me a break.

I shared these sentiments with Kraft at dinner one night.  My very wise husband knows that sometimes I need to say things that are in my head even if they’re dumb.  He knows that he doesn’t particularly have to respond or tell me that I’m being dumb because I’ll figure it out.  I need time to mull it over.  So after I stated my case he just sat their and looked at me while munching on dinner.  I stared at him for a few seconds, “Am I being a jerk?”  “Eh, a little.”  Munching continued.

I know.  I was being a jerkface.  After giving it some more thought, I realized that I was annoyed by these happy and joyous statements because they made me feel like a bad mom.  I felt like I was a bad mom for not enjoying labor.  A bad mom for sometimes getting so frustrated with O that I had to give her to Brandon because I wanted to drop her.  A bad mom for not being happy every second that I held O.  A bad mom because I wanted to scream if O woke up again during the night crying.

No.  I am not a bad mom.  My experience and the way I cope with things is just different.  Can’t I just let these moms revel in the joy that is a new child without pooping on their parade?  Yes, I can.  I have these wonderful joy-filled moments with O everyday.  Motherhood, along with being fun and great, is a life of sacrifice, of frustration, of pain, of loneliness, of confusion, of second-guessing, of total responsibility and accountability.  But then in the middle of these moments, your little squeaker looks up at you and gives you a huge grin from ear to ear and your soul feels like it is soaring.  And you just have to say, you little punk.

New moms – be cheesy, be ecstatic, be angry, be sleepy, be whatever you need to be.  In the end we know you are completely in love with your baby even if you don’t feel it every moment of every day.

I’ll stop being a grumpy mumkins.  Without the bitter the sweet ain’t as sweet, right?

Image by clarkwoods via Flickr

Brilliant is what the Exersaucer is.  This is the first toy that we have found that the Squeaker will stay occupied in for more than 5 minutes.  It’s awesome.  This is a conversation that Kraft and O just had while she was playing in it:

O: [chewing on a toy fish attached to the Exersaucer]
K: Honey, it’s not Friday.  You don’t have to eat fish today.

I love my family.

PS.  For those wondering, this is not a pic of O.  Just some stock photo.

Image via Wikipedia

I think most people would characterize me as a modest person but motherhood changes all sorts of things.  No, that doesn’t mean I walk around in a micro-mini and a bra but my modesty, as far as breastfeeding goes, went out the window in NYC.  Like I mentioned in a previous post, you just have to nurse wherever you are because you can’t go to your car or anything like that.  It was actually really liberating finally becoming comfortable with breastfeeding in public.  I was always just so nervous that someone was going to think I was being indecent.  Thankfully, S was really supportive and made me feel like it was not a big deal to feed the Squeaker wherever we were no matter how cramped the space was.

So I discreetly threw a blanket over my shoulder and fed O in the following places:

Grey Dog’s Coffee – I enjoyed a delicious apple cider here.  There was a couple here that was super PDAing it but they kept admiring O.  I wonder if she was pregnant.

Suzu Sushi – We walked in and were the only customers in the restaurant for a good 40 minutes.  It was kinda funny, the whole place was empty but they sat us right up against the window.
 
The Met – Right by the Medieval Art section.  It was kinda beautiful to feed O surrounded by paintings of Mary and Jesus.  The American Wing with the Tiffany’s stained glass window was really amazing.

St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic Church – We ducked into this church when it was snowing like crazy and there was lots of slush everywhere because the plows hadn’t come through yet.  What a refuge we found.  And it worked out perfectly because we arrived 30mins before daily Mass so we sat and prayed (O ate) and then we stayed for Mass.  When we left the sidewalks were a lot better.  Store owners had shoveled the areas in front of their stores so it was much more navigable.
 
Otto Pizzeria – Talk about cramped.  I couldn’t feed O at the table because the tables around us were so close together that I would have had one elbow in the table on either side of us.  I had to feed her in the bathroom.  This is actually the first place O ever sat in a highchair.  What a rock star.

Rockefeller Center – After eating at Otto’s, we went and bought some cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery.  We took the cupcakes to the bottom floor of Rockefeller Center and ate them as we watched people ice skating.  Yum.

Who cares, you may ask.  Me.  Just wanting to remember how my modesty was changed for the better on this trip.