Daycare days

Just wanted to leave these photos here.
Two dayhomes and one daycare center since he was a year old in two capitals: Ottawa and Yellowknife.

This May he is turning four, and it will be last month attending one. Come September, he starts JK.


My boy is growing. Life is going faster than I want it to.

Finding self

It's been almost two months since G left Yellowknife. Whole two months off of motherhood for me…

I’d be lying if I said I don’t enjoy this time. Time on my own. Every passing day I realize how much I needed it. Filling in days with experiences – no interruptions, no (serious) cooking, changing diapers, entertaining and taking care of a little human.

For some reason, I always felt that once I become a mom, I’d be “complete”. How can you not when everything around you screams that “marriage + children” = social norm. And yes, there was part of me that always felt so, that I needed to fulfill that void, expectation, whatever it’s called.

What about another part? Am I capable of experiencing joy and being happy outside of family life and motherhood? Am I contributing to the community I live in? Spending time on matters I care about? My thoughts and desires? My dreams? In other words, have lost myself without even realizing it?

I’m trying to figure it out. I take a dog from a nearby dog shelter for a walk while I think about that...wilderness is all around us… I feel centered. I feel mighty. I feel free…

Nobody said it’ll be easy

Four months in the North. Two full months of solo parenting. One day can pass by like a minute, another – like an eternity. It was a hard weekend. We both were sick, clingy and miserable. Saturday the babysitter came in, so I could get out for some groceries and a much needed break. To say the least, G wasn’t thrilled about my merely an hour absence. By the end of day Sunday, G lost it and scratched my face in the heat of a tantrum. I probably deserved it...

Grateful it’s Monday! even though it’s -29 outside.

Today it’s all clouds

Yesterday was sunny. We had such lovely day together.
Today V and I are both down with a bug - sore throat, weakness. But he had to go to work and I have to take care of baby G, who’s also very fussy and won’t sleep. I am on tea with honey and some lemon, but would love to add some ginger, only not sure if it’s allowed when you breastfeed.

Any home remedies that you know of that won’t have an effect on breastmilk?

New mom surviving tips

Look at that – we are getting along afterall!:)Baby G hit one n half months this week and I hit my own milestone with it – I am feeling much more settled in my new role. There are still days when G simply doesn't let me put him down (just like on the pictures) but I think I made my piece with those demands – they go away eventually and we are good again.

Here are some tips on how to adjust to being a new mother during the first month that I found helped me the most:

Incorporate your baby into your daily routine.
This may sound weird, but was very true for me. I didn't just switch on to being a mother right after G was born. Well, yes, of course I did everything expected of me – I took good care of him, but mentally and emotionally it took me time to adjust to the idea of his constant presense in my life. Then I've read in one of the parenting books that «you should do things without waiting when the baby falls asleep». Before, I was doing exactly that. I would wait for him to go to sleep before I started cooking, checking emails, cleaning the house – the daily things. It felt that I could only do them once he's asleep. It was wrong. Now I am making an effort to have him be a part of everything that's going on with me throughout the day. Well, to the extend of course.

Get out of the house.
Whenever I felt like I've reached the end of my rope, I've asked V to cover for me and got out of the house for an hour or two. Really, it helped me several times. I went out all frustrated and came back with totally new perspective. It doesn't matter where you go – library, store, coffee shop. Just take a baby break and do something nice for yourself.

Stay social.
As hard as this one can be due to lack of time, I recommend not closing down from your circle. Even if majority of people you know don't have kids yet, stay connected with them. If taking baby to a friend's house can be a challenge, invite them over for a short visit. Another great way to stay connected – social media. As a non-Facebook user, I found Instagram to be my window to the outside world while I spent most of my time at home these days. It's easy to maintain and I could see what peopple are up to while breastfeeding or pumping. Not to mention snap pics of baby G and document his growth.

Listen, but make your own decisions.
Naturally, people will want to give you advice. As much as it may be hepful, only YOU know what is good for you and your new family member. So trust your gut and take charge - that's how you learn to be a parent.

Adjusting

One month and one week into parenting but we are still adjusting to our new life as a threesome. It will probably take more than a month to feel completely adjusted, or maybe a lifetime? Ha!
Perhaps, it’s just me, but let me tell you that parenting is not what I thought it was. For some reason it is rarely mentioned anywhere how exactly your life is changed after you have a child. As far as I remember, the experience of it is somewhat misrepresented.
You see images of happy parents and children getting along, happily doing something together, parents carrying their perfectly calm babies in the carries or strollers, parents showing off their little ones in all kinds of fancy outfits. Or the worst one I remember – new parents doing their old things with a baby strapped to them, like sitting in front of the computer and doing their business like nothing changed. Well, maybe someone is that lucky, but my baby is strapped to the rocking chair while I type this, and I’m rocking him with my foot to keep calm. You don’t really see the images of distressed adults trying to manage a grunting month old who won’t sleep but screams. Nobody really tells you that putting an outfit on the baby actually takes practice, patience and time, and with all other things you have to do throughout the day, it is really not that practical to be changing them very often, let lone – take pictures of them in those outfits!
Yes, it’s been said to me many times: “your life will change forever”, but never have I heard what exactly that change entails?
Now I can tell that it changes in EVERY aspect. And it is not just your freedom that no longer exists (which is huge), but also the way you used to think, make decisions and function.
As an example, we went to Ikea with baby G the other day. And it was amazing to realize that even a small errand like that is totally different experience now. If before we used to go in, quickly navigate to the desired section by making shortcuts, grab what we needed, shove it in our Civic and drive home, now it is a whole different story! You can’t just quickly do things anymore; you have a baby in the stroller! Plus, things no longer fit into our Civic due to the car seat at the back. In other words – different experience. Not to mention, all the attention we are suddenly getting from people. Well, that, I actually don’t mind – he he.
You suddenly realize, that you have to think ahead and adjust the way you used to do things to a new level. A whole NEW level.

Crying baby. I have to cut this post short and check on him.

P.S. I will be back with more. That I promise:)

P.P.S Don't get me started on the image above. The way your body changes is unimaginable! More on that soon to come.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

I kid you not, this was my state for the most part of the past month – half awaken, half sleepy, always with clinging infant, who didn’t seem to understand that as much as I was ready to take care of him, I also needed my own time (getting my hair done would have been nice:))!

Boy, you can’t be prepared for this type of commitment.  Our (mostly mine, as V had to work) days were all about taking care of this little guy – feeding, pumping to feed, changing, bathing and doing TONS of laundry.
Some days I felt like I was in prison and baby G was my prison warden. I ate, slept, took showers and spent time on the computer only when he allowed:)

"Challenges” of the first month that we dealt with as first time parents:

Sleeping
As much as we were hoping to have a baby who sleeps a lot, it didn’t happen. We have a wakeful type of baby on our hands and that causes lots of broken nights, mornings and even days. This isn't the type of baby that you can care for in short bursts of time and then ignore in between. No. He makes himself felt almost all day long and a good deal of the night, too. Some nights it was like torture: I'd put him down all changed, fed and burped but once I started drifting off into sleep myself, I got awaken by a very angry, fussy boy. I started taking him out of the bassinet and into our bed where he had constant comfort and I didn’t need to sit up to feed. It seemed to work and I got couple hours of continued sleep but something is telling me that I will pay for that decision later.

Feeding
There wasn’t a problem for baby G here. It was me. I cried one day because I was so tired of this constant feeding and pumping business. It felt like that’s all I was doing throughout the day and night and I was ready to thrown in a white towel - aka give in to formula.

Pooping
Weird thing happened around week two. G developed a grunting baby syndrome. He seemed to have forgotten what muscles to relax at a certain time and instead turned all red, cried and grunted. Apparently not much could be done to help him (as much as we would like to), this should go away once he’s a bit older.

But of course, not all days this past month were gloomy. We got to know each other better, learned few tricks and all ready for next month's surprises:

First week of motherhood

What can I say?

I love being mom to this little dude.
This past week (has it been a week already?) has changed me in ways I can’t even put in words. So instead, I’ll skip the drama and go right up to updates.

Baby G is one demanding baby:) There were nights during our first week when while trying to soothe him screaming bloody murder, V and I looked at each other and everything was clear without words – what have we gotten into? Is this going to be like this every night? What can we do to stop this boy from waking up the neighbourhood? Neither of us was awake nor asleep during the days after such nights.

But we are learning.

Learning from this little man and he responds back with locked eye contact and little smiles that he doesn’t realize he’s doing yet. This week was also “a week of firsts” for all of us: first bath at home, first feeding with a bottle, first neighbourhood walk, first doc’s appointment, first hiccups – yep, not in my belly anymore!, first taking turns in taking care of him to let the other one to sleep:)

The week flew by like a day and I can’t stop the time to let me enjoy my newborn longer.
Next week will be about different milestones and goals. I feel like a timer was set off the day G was born and now it’s ticking on its own towards new firsts without even asking me if I’m ready to let go of the ones he just established.