First Cold

Well, it happened the week before Easter—Huck took his first cold home from day care.  And it only took 1 week at school to get this!  So, all the progress that we had made with sleep at night basically went down the drain and right before we were to go out of town for the upcoming holiday.  This particular week had also been a crazy busy one for me at work, which made it even more difficult when the lack of sleep at night returned.  I knew it was inevitable—I would blog about getting sleep and into a regular sleep pattern, then sure enough within that same week, we lost it again.  Oh well; Murphy’s Law I guess!  Needless to say, Easter weekend at my parent’s was quite rough because on top of little Huck not feeling the greatest because of his cold, I got the cold too; so no one was sleepingJ.  I’m not sure why I thought I was immune to whatever he had, but I definitely was not.  It was a nasty cold, and I am still trying to get rid of the congestion.  Huck also still has a stuffy nose, but seems to be on the mend. 

Now when I get a cold or have any sort of sinus congestion, I have found it is best to set my yoga practice aside until I am well; otherwise, it simply escalates all of the symptoms I am facing and seems to make the cold 10 times worse.  Setting my practice aside is not an easy thing for me to do both physically and mentally.  I find that at times when I have to do this, my life feels as though it is turned upside down.  I find it hard to focus, hard to relax, and MUCH harder to stay calm when trying to calm a fussy baby.  I used this past week to try to recover from feeling so rundown and listen to my body telling me that I needed rest.  This is a very difficult thing to do when I know how much my body and mind thrive on being physically active.  I have always been drawn toward movement to be my natural stress-relief, so not being able to practice magnified the tensions I was facing in my life this week.  Since I have limited time to workout these days, I generally prefer to just be able to practice at home or leave from our house to walk or run outside during the day or drive to the campground by our house to take Huck for a walk.  Although I did try to get out and do some physical activity when I could this week, the weather also caused havoc with this.  Which causes me to reflect on how all of this is tied together and realize that perhaps there was some greater force telling me to take it easy last week and cherish the sleep time that I was getting and the time for other things more pertinent in my life at that moment.  I did not hesitate to go to bed earlier when I could in hopes of trying to catch back up on some lost sleep, but even being well-rested does not compensate for the feeling I get from being physically active and the calmness it brings into my life.  

I do feel as though it was easier for me to accept that I needed to take time to rest and recover before rushing back into my practice or pushing hard through a workout and listen more carefully to my body than I would have in the past.  In the past I would have been more mentally violent towards myself because I was not having time or feeling up to working out, but that was not the case for some reason this past week.  I guess that could mean that I am making progress someplace within my yoga practice to be able to surrender and accept what is.  But at the same time it was equally frustrating to not be able to find the calm I often times can find when trying to soothe Huck because of my daily practice.   So, we’ll see how things go this week, and hopefully the cold my little monkey gave to me has not set me back too much.  I do, however, think the workout I did on Friday night at one of the local CrossFit gyms might give my body some resistance from the tension it pumped back into my muscles.  But, as my teacher always says “Let’s just see what happens!”

 

Rolling Over...Sleep Returns

Well, an update on what is new with our little man and how things have been going the past 2 weeks since he has been at “school” aka Day Care.  Early in the morning on April 3 (we’re talking 4:00 AM, so you could consider this middle of the night…I usually do J), Mr. Huck started rolling over in his crib with his Woombie on—for those of you who know about the Woombie (one of the greatest baby inventions ever in my opinion), you know it totally contains a baby’s arms so they can’t flail about, so this is not necessarily a good thing once they start rolling over onto their tummies.  And because Huck didn’t have use of his arms, the little guy just laid there face down in his crib crying into his mattress.  You can imagine how discouraging this must be for someone so helpless.  Well luckily, I was right in the room after it happened, so no need to worry that my child was being neglected and in danger.  I had just put him down after feeding him and was watching him to make sure he was good before I stepped out of the room when sure enough he let his binker fall out of his mouth. But instead of just crying for it, he went in search of it with his mouth—dive-bombing his mattress.  Now this is not new for us, but it is a sight to see.  Back when we were trying to let him “Cry It Out”, he discovered how he could scoot around his crib by arching his back and bending and straightening his legs.  He would get so upset while crying that he would just move in circles all around his crib.  After we gave up on the CIO, we would start him at one end of the crib at the beginning of the night, and by the morning he would be at the opposite end and horizontal in his crib.  It was at this point that I knew we would soon be saying goodbye to the WoombieL.  He was doing a similar move to try to get to his binker on this particular night.  So when he rolled all the way over on his own in the Woombie, I took it off and tried to get him to go to sleep without it; I even tried just using a Swaddle Me sleep sack from his chest down.  But our little monkey’s Moro reflex is just so great that no matter what, when he sleeps on his back, he is constantly waking himself up from startling himself.  Enter the swaddle and swing. 

I had been swaddling Huck and strapping him into his swing to take naps and it seemed to do wonders.  He was taking nice 3 – 3 ½-hour naps in the morning and was developing his afternoon nap nicely with this technique.  So by 4:30 AM on this particular day, I knew what I had to do if I wanted to go back to sleep for a couple hours:  move him to his swing.  I did and the little guy slept until about 8 AM when we had to wake him so that we could get him to day care and get on with our day. 

The following night, we decided to skip even trying the crib because we knew that when he would roll over, he would either lie facedown crying into the crib or look up like he was doing tummy time, there was no turning his head and laying it down to sleep.  Huck was showing tired signs around 5:30/6:00 after his bath, because since going to school, he doesn’t really nap near as much as he did when he was just with me.  I was still working, and he was hanging out in his bouncy seat (which also happens to be his swing seat when it’s not on the swing stand) while Daddy was getting supper ready, so I just moved his seat to his swing base, which at this point was in our living room, and tucked a blanket around him so he would have felt like he was being swaddled, thinking he would just take a little nap while we ate dinner.  That “little” nap turned into a 4 ½-hour nap!  At this point, I fed him, swaddled him, and put him back in the swing for the duration of the night.  We had set the baby monitor up on him in the living room so that we could see him just in case…granted our bedroom is on the same level and maybe 50 feet from where he was, so really we’d be able to hear if anything happened, but nonetheless, it was nice to be able to watch him from our room if we wanted to check on him.  After putting him down, this time for the night, he slept until 3 or 4 AM!  Then again until 8!  The following night was even better; Matt and I went to bed around 8:30 because we were so tired and weren’t awakened until around 4:30!  Why didn’t we do this before?!?! We were getting sleep and our little person was too! 

We have since moved the swing into Huck’s room so that we can still live normally in our living room in the evenings and have just recently started to try to acclimate him back to his crib by getting him to sleep there for a little each night if we can—he is rolling over onto his belly, but has now learned and is continuing to learn how to lay his head down on its side to fall back asleep when he does this.  Yes, I know…”back is best,” “back to sleep,” but I am not going to go in and move him if he rolls in his sleep and will stay asleep or put himself back to sleep.  Now, he hasn’t made it a whole night in his crib yet without the Woombie, and there are nights like last night, when the crib wasn’t happening at all—and believe me, we gave it a good try last night, but he was too cranky for it.  So we put him in his swing and he slept from about 7 PM – 6:50 AM…yep, you heard me right!  He slept almost 12 hours and didn’t even wake up to eat or for his binker!  I had been trying to get him to eliminate these night feedings because I knew from talking with our Doc that he didn’t really need them anymore and if he could, he would be fine to stop them. So for about 3-4 nights when he would wake in his swing, I would simply go in and put his binker back in his mouth and he would fall back asleep.  I knew he was ready for this because when I would get him out at his 3:00/4:00 AM wake to feed him, he would eat a little, then fall back asleep and wasn’t all that interested in eating. 

As I’m sitting her writing, he is asleep in his crib, and I have had to go in a couple times to put the binker back in his mouth, so we’ll see how long it lasts tonight.  I typically give myself a certain number of times to go in his room (usually around 5 depending on what time it is—if I want to go to bed, it’s probably fewerJ) before I decide to swaddle and swing.  So at least for a couple nights, sleep returned to us.  I’m sure it won’t last long, because before we know it, there’ll be another milestone that will cause a disturbance, but until then, I’ll take what we are getting.  It could also help that Mr. Huck only sleeps about 60-90 minutes at school each day…if we’re lucky.  So, unfortunately, the naps aren’t the greatest anymore, but the continuous sleep at night in the swing at least for now, is working for us!

3 Realities

This week my husband, Matt, and I will celebrate our 4 year anniversary.  The best advice I ever got before we got married actually came from my mom.  She told me that “no matter what happens in life--kids, jobs, hard times—remember that the most important thing in your marriage is your relationship with Matt.”  Pretty good advice, Mom.  And I have to admit, I too often let this slip to the back of my mind rather than keeping it at the front.  But I was reminded of it yet again this past week when planning a time this coming week that we can spend some time together to celebrate our marriage.  Time away from our infant, just the 2 of us, just like it used to be…sort ofJ.  Except that now we have this little person in our lives that I’m sure we’ll find ourselves talking about—at least that’s what everyone says will happen right?!?! 

I shared this bit of advice when visiting with my good friend the other day who has just about a month left in her pregnancy and is getting to that anxious stage of wanting to get so much done before baby arrives and continuing to worry about the birth process and being a new parent—what’s important and what’s not as important.  I told her to really pay attention to that piece of advice that my mom gave me because it is so true, yet an easy one set aside.  I have always felt a very strong connection with this friend since I met her a few years back when I started the job I am in now and she too was in the same role, also a remote worker, so we would spend hours on the phone talking not only about work but life as well, and always seemed to know when each other was thinking about the other person and needed a phone call.  I had a feeling she was pregnant before she knew she was pregnant, so was thrilled when she called and told me the news.  I have so cherished the conversations I’ve had with this friend throughout our pregnancies, especially after having my sweet little Huck, because she doesn’t hesitate to call and ask the questions that any soon-to-be mommy has.  Questions in which the answers are so fresh in my mind and life that I can easily give her my opinion and feedback.  Sure, she has sisters and other friends who’ve had kids, but I take it as a huge compliment that she calls me with these questions—and maybe it’s just because she knows I’ll be brutally honest with her and tell her how actually it is.  I guess you could say that’s always been one of my…uh, strengths?  Although, I know it has come back to bite me at times in life, in others, it can be quite helpful.  But I guess since we’ve had similar situations in life and through work, she trusts my judgment and insight.  In the past few months we’ve talked about everything from labor and delivery options to C-section recovery, nursing supplies and bras to being ok with choosing not to breastfeed, and ultimately appreciating life now, before the baby to coping with how much life changes after the baby.  In the end, she will have to figure out what works best for her and her family, but it sure helps to have someone to ask some of those uncomfortable question to in hopes that it will somewhat prepare you for what’s soon to come.  Something that you really can’t prepare for until it actually happens because you discover you indeed have no control over it.  I’m no expert by any means, especially since I am only 3 months into being a mommy, and as with any new baby, it’s a trial and error process in survival mode of new parenthood, but I have recognized 3 truths throughout the past year of pregnancy and being a new mom. 

Letting Go of Control

Early on in my pregnancy, I had an aunt who told me how she thought pregnancy was such a beautiful thing in that it completely prepares you for being a parent—you lose control of what is happening to your body and much like parenthood, you think you have control over your baby or child because you are the adult and the parent, but ultimately, they have their own minds and are going to do what they want to do.  Boy, has this been clear to me raising a fussy baby.  I am learning to accept the fact that I can do everything in my power to make Huck as comfortable as possible and meet all of his needs, but he’s the one deciding to be happy or fussy, and I can’t do much about thatJ.  It took me a very long time to have this sort of acceptance in my pregnancy because I have always worked very hard to maintain my fitness level and body, so to have to give that control up and accept the changes that were happening was difficult.  Perhaps that’s partly why I have such a spirited, strong-willed baby.  Perhaps he is a reflection of who I was mentally during much of my pregnancy.  I’ll never know for sure, but it’s certainly a connection that could be made. 

Making Time for the #1 Relationship

I already touched on this one earlier.  It is so important to keep this focus because if the relationship between you and your spouse is not strong, nothing else will be in your family. It is definitely hard to do when so many hormones are trying to find balance once again in your body leaving you an emotional mess, when you are learning how to be a mom and potentially struggling with bonding with your new baby, as well as learning to accept the changes that you now see in your body every time you look in the mirror, worrying how others, and more importantly your husband, now sees you.  Now sees that new permanent line marking your body, reminding both of you of the trauma your body went through so that you could meet your precious baby.  And perhaps for others it’s the weight gain or stretch marks that now hold true as reminder of your baby.  All things that can interfere with your relationship if you let them.

Accepting Your Beautiful Body

The last truth I have recognized is true acceptance of my body for what it now is; each physical change that I now see is a beautiful reminder of the joy of God’s true miracle—LIFE.  A new life and proof that we are living creatures capable of creating life.  Therefore, I look not at these permanent marks and changes as negative things I have to live with, rather embrace them and be happy with who I now am  because I am going to be able to share the world with a child.  I get to teach him to admire the world around him and to grow into a happy, successful, contributing member of society.  And creating this life wouldn’t be possible without gaining some beautiful “battle wounds.” So each time you look at those “wounds,” be happy for who you are and what you have done.

Each of these realities still challenges me at times, but using them to guide how I live and adapt to parenthood will hopefully allow me to teach my child about the important things in life.