Six Words

Mom 101 is one of the first blogs I began following when I found out I was prego. I get a kick out of her. Today she posted this link to a contest:

Six-Word MOMoirs! • CONTEST: Six words on being a mother or your relationship with your mom.

So having just completed a MEMOIR writing class through UCLA, this mention of writing about your mother or mothering experience in 6 words has presented a good challenge. I think I might take a stab at it. But how the hell do you sum up your relationship with your mom in 6 words?

I'm not a "Mother's Day" fan. I think everyday is mother's day and since it was the mother who chose to become a mother they just need to suck it up, do the work and enjoy the ride. The good the bad and the ugly of it. No kid truly appreciates the work of parenting until they become a parent themselves and then if their mom is around to hear it, the apologies for every horrible thing ever done between birth and the age of 30 start flowing. I think it's a gift to parent some one.... see 6 words will be very hard for me.

Vote!

I'll submit your favorite. Oh and you try it too it's FUN!

1. My mother cursed me a daughter. (just like me - I was a sh*t)

2. Beer, nookie, a daughter born. Looky!

3. Our daughter. Me and hubby combined.

4. Love, Marriage, baby carriage, life complete.

5. My greatest joy is with Finley.

6. Nothing prepares us for motherhood, nothing.

7. Nothing prepares or compares to motherhood.

8. Speaking mum's words to my daughter.

9. Car featured on Hoarders, since kids.

10. Three minutes of push ups, baby.

Two Bad Words.

I'm Tired.

There I said it. Two words in a new mom's vocabulary and with Finley on the cusp of her 13th month and finally sleeping through the night I should not be saying these words at all. I should be playing catch up on sleep. Instead I'm enjoying my new nighttime freedom, pushing off sleep and staying up to an ungodly hour like 11 pm or midnight. By the time I get to bed I'm over tired and it takes me another two hours to go to sleep. "What the hell dude? Why are you doing this if you know it's making you tired?" I ask myself. Myself has no answers. I close my eyes for a coupe of hours and that's when Fin decides she is going to change her sleeping pattern too by beginning to wake up at 6:30AM instead of her, since birth, waking hour of 8:30AM. She's peppy and I'm soooooo tired.

I'm bored, tired, restless and I need a project I can sink my teeth into. This is what I lie in bed thinking about. I want to work on a gig, I want to host dinner parties with my friends, gawd I miss my friends, I want a giant chunk of my old life back and I want to be a good mom to Finley.

A balance may never be achieved but a new normal should occur. That's my resolve. Proximity to our friends is the only issue and a failed American economy has us locked into our home for a while longer. I appreciate we have a home and we have a good life here. It's just lacking in a work place for me and our friends are too far away.

This gypsy is itchy to move again onto the next chapter.

With all of this swirling in my brain is it no wonder I can't sleep?

My Girl Wants To Potty All The Time

Potty all the time potty allllll the tiiiimmmmme.....

Well actually, that's not true, as she has been on the potty strike since February 13th 2010. She was just 10 months old and had discovered walking and other exciting things and so she temporarily gave up pooping on the potty.

While she won't do her business on the potty - the potty has been left out so she remains familiar with it, so she engages it in other ways like toting it around the house and she also really, really, really, enjoys going into the bathroom to pull all of the toilet paper off the roll and place it in the potty. The mere mention of the potty sends her racing to perform this super awesomely fun activity. If I catch her in the act she stops and pretends to blow her nose then offers me some of the toilet paper. How thoughtful.

While I'm not quite sure what is so exciting and liberating-ly fun about hiding to poo in your diaper. Or toddling around unsteadily then falling down hard on the squishy poo diaper, Fin digs it, and that's been her M.O around here until this past week.

This week things changed up a bit. When I ask if she needs the potty she smiles broadly at me and runs toward me for a change - like I just caught her sneaking candy. At least she knows she doesn't like to wear dung anymore and wants a change. She will even go get the diaper and lay down on her change pad for me without a fight. Aha! She's back in the know of her eliminations! Eureka!

This morning we had a small breakthrough. She signed potty and then went to her potty pulled it out into the middle of the bathroom floor and asked to sit on it! So I helped her and she sat there for a few minutes. I was so proud of her!

She is almost 13 months old. She has not use the sign for potty in almost three months. This was very encouraging.

Twwly counselled me to keep the EC dialogue open and that was practicing EC. It's about the communication not just the poop.

We've been talking about the potty and singing the potty song all along:

"My girl wants to potty all the time potty allll the time."

A total rip off of the Eddie Murphy and Rick James song. It's catchy and we like it and now she is revisiting the concept of the potty. So it works.

Just thought ya'll would want an update on our EC practice! (insert eyeball roll here)

Flower Pots and Hiding Spots

This weekend I bought a few new flower pots. I thought they were for my plants but as it turns out they are the best place for a 12 month old to hide! She's been climbing in and out of them at every chance she gets. I almost hate to fill them with soil and the shrubs I had intended them for.

Day One

Day Two

She also likes to put her orange ball in the flower pot.

Maybe that's how basket ball was invented?

Should I ask James Naismith?

My pics a re little blurry - they are taken on my iPhone 3GS - and the kid is always mooooving!

Peonies

Memory Lane

I heart peonies as much as the ants do!

I bought these peonies yesterday at the Washington Farmer's Market. I'm so happy the farmer's market is up and running again! Finley and I strolled uptown to the peruse the wares and came home with home made BBQ sauce, fresh local grown strawberries, a dozen fresh eggs and this bouquet of Peonies.

The side of the house of the home I grew up in, was lined with great big Peonies bushes. They were planted there by my mother when she and dad bought the house. The Peonies plants were from her father's garden in her childhood home. We had pink and white ones but the pink were always my favorite.

At the end of the school year my mom and I would go out to the side of the house early in the morning to cut some peonies so I could take them to my teacher. The grass was cold and dewy wet, mom was usually in her nightie, bathrobe and sandals. She showed me how to cut the peonies stems on an angle just below the leaves. "They drink up the water better if cut on an angle." she told me. She would run the heads of the Peonies under the garden hose to get the ants off. "The ants help the flowers open," she told me. I just thought she didn't want me to carry the ants to school with me. Carefully she wrapped the ends of the stems in wet paper towels and covered them with a plastic bag held secure with an elastic. "It's to keep the flowers from wilting until you get them to school,"she told me.

I loved presenting the peonies to my teacher. I felt special all day. I loved seeing them there on the desk knowing they had come from my mom's garden, my mom's ants had helped them open, my mom's thoughtfulness had landed them on the teachers desk.

I bought a bunch of Peonies and thought about all these things on my short walk home pushing my daughter in her stroller. One day I will tell her about the ants on the Peonies buds and hopefully she will also know the unexpected joy of bringing such beautiful flowers to her teacher.

Happy Earth Day!

A small scene from my backyard.

Get outside and enjoy the day - even for a few minutes!

Weaning

Finley and I have had a good run at breast feeding. She took to the breast and never looked back! We always did breast feeding on demand. She refused bottles, pacifiers and took a very long time to try a sippy cup. She is a boobies addict.

I have had mixed emotions about the whole breast feeding thing. Most of the time I love it. The bond we share, the snuggle time, the fact that her food is portable and always stored at the right temperature is a bonus! Our nights were much less disruptive, I wasn't up mixing formula, we rarely became fully awake and she never cried during the night. The flip side to this is the high needs times. When she is teething and wants to attach herself for hours drives me crazy not to mention it's beyond annoying and doesn't feel awesome! All I can hear is the nurse in the hospital telling me, "Don't let her use you as a pacifier!" Um, yeah - I failed at that. I am Fin's pacifier.

Finley has been weaning herself. We had gotten down to only one feed between 4-6pm and then I would nurse her down to sleep at night and then nurse her at her usual 5am feed. It got to the point where I stopped offering her the boobies and only when she signed milk at me while scaling my legs to get near the boobies did I feed her. Usually it was a comfort reason - not- hunger. Then that subsided too, so, I was just nursing her to sleep...Our pediatrician said "cold turkey - just stop!" I decided I'm not taking that advice. It's called weaning for a reason. Besides, I don't want to become engorged and get a breast infection or something nasty! Gradual works.

Then Fin began to latch every stinking half hour ALL NIGHT LONG. Teething again. I was climbing out of my skin. It was driving me crazy and I was resenting the fact that I was not getting any sleep. Truthfully I don't think Finley was either. She was cranky and whiny during the day until after her morning nap. I didn't want her to feel my resentment and then there was the biting when the supply ran dry. She was getting frustrated and biting me. Yeah - that's awesome! Not so much.

Last week we began to night wean. I warmed organic cow's milk put it in a sippy cup and we snuggled in the big chair. The first night she drank all the milk wiggled a little and fell asleep right there in my arms. I was so amazed at how easily she had done this and then I began to cry. I had a great big sobbing cry. My baby is a big girl now. We're moving into new phases this is a great new step kind of cry.

Finley woke a number of times in the night throwing a tantrum when the boobies were not offered. I gave her the cup of milk. She refused it then gradually she would take it and fall straight back to sleep. This went on for several nights and then in the last two nights she had taken her milk at bed time. Rolled around in bed and then fell asleep all by herself. I'm right beside her, she's not alone, but she is self soothing and sleeping. Last night she only woke up twice and I was slow to offer the cup of milk. She settled herself and went back to sleep sans milk. The only feeding she took was at 5am and I'm certain she was very thirsty. Then she settled again.

The nice thing for me has been the early evening. Instead of running upstairs to resettle her with nursing every time she wakes up which was every hour, she now whimpers and settles herself. I get to relax and have some me time. It's been a year since I've had any!!! I know I'm preaching to the choir.

This is going really well, although I dare not say it aloud. Next step will be getting her to take her morning nap without me.... She falls asleep in my arms or in the Ergo Carrier but wakes the second I put her down. Arrrgggghhhh!

One step at a time.

Advice? What worked for you?