Nadia Version 0.3 and General Updates on the Life of B

Shortly after this photo was taken her dress was soaking wet with drool and barf. Now that it's summer and her clothes are moveable she loves to add a side of dress to the main course, her hand.

Today Miss N, a.k.a. Lil' Roo is 3 months old. We're halfway through the exclusive breastfeeding period....only....3....more....months. I know it's best for her and a lot less work in most ways, but I'm exhausted. Tired of it being all on me. Since she has all but given up naps and has decided instead to nurse all day I have very little opportunity to pump. Sure there's the hour or so after she goes to bed (consistently these days at 21:00), but by then all I want to do is go to bed as well. Pumping is quite the undertaking. But I'm planning to be firm with the 6 month thing unless she starts suggesting otherwise, despite assurances from the medical profession that it would be ok to start cereal next month. In Europe I guess it is quite common at this age.

If she's not nursing, she is requiring a lot of attention, which, if I have had adequate sleep and exercise, I'm usually happy to give to her. She enjoys books, singing, and smiles. She often laughs out loud so forcefully it is more like a shriek. (sp? is that actually a word?) Tres cute.

The only way she likes to be carried is on my left shoulder with her head peeking over the top so she doesn't miss anything. She'll tolerate the sling for a few minutes but will inevitably start trying to vault herself out with those aforementioned power-legs of hers. And no, I don't think it's because I had a c-section and didn't hold her enough in the first few weeks. She was held plenty by both me and J. She's just a strange baby. A strange and active baby who needs constant movement and change.

Speaking of movement, she is still trying desperately to roll over some days but hasn't yet figured out what to do with the pinned arm. She coos her way through it but so far only ends in frustration. My mom swears I never learned how to roll over, but I remind her that since I know how to now, I must have learned at some point even if it was in my teens.

My priority is to get to the gym so that is all we're able to accomplish most days. She is sleeping less and less through my workouts so I try to go to classes in the evenings and weekends when J is available watch her. I am spinning, stepping and even trying to get to yoga today. When I am able to hop on machines, I can now run 20+ minutes with only minor abdominal aching and strangely, rib cage and mid-back pain. I'm pretty sure that within the next month I'll be able to run 3 miles or 30 minutes, whichever comes first. I'm actually surprised that running has come back so quickly.... I didn't think I'd be able to run this much until the end of the summer. I guess healing is going well.

We're still waiting to hear back about J's chosen orders. He asked for a Portsmouth sea job. Not crazy about back to back sea tours, but hey, it's better than the desert! Cross your fingers for Virginia!

What's Better Than a Nightmare but Less Than a Dream?

I always knew I wanted kids. I knew that I would like to spend at least the first 6 months at home for his/her/their benefit. I also knew that I didn't want to be a stay-at-home mom. How would this all work? That I didn't know.

Now I know. I am very glad I am being forced by the SOFA agreement and my nationality to stay home and spend Nadia's first year with her. Because I gotta say, if there was any inkling of work in my field, I would be a pumping fool, and as much as it twists my soul to think of her spending all day with strangers, I know I would take it in a heartbeat.

I knew it would be difficult and would take a lot of creativity. Our mornings are good. She is smiley, she eats, we laugh, we go to the gym, she sleeps. The afternoons, however, she no longer wants to sleep. (Except today of course, making a liar out of me once again.) I try everything.... feeding her to sleep, rocking her, rocking her in a darkened room, putting her in the swing, rocking her in her carseat....all of the former failsafes are now failing. And she wants to sleep, I know she does. She is cranky. But it's almost as if she doesn't negotiate with my kind. I try and try to open up talks but I am stone-walled. I think she may soon impose sanctions.

Rants and Rolls

Before I get into the meat of the blog, I gotsta 'splain the first picture. Nadia has been smiling since about week 5, and consistently since week 6. She is especially smiley first thing in the morning when she sees one of our faces. (Though for a couple of weeks, it was just my face and that made J sad.) This is one of the only times we have been able to capture it, sort of. It doesn't do the magic of her smiles true justice, but we did our best. In fact it was J who quickly hopped out of bed that morning and made a race for the camera.

Anyway, so about that stimulus money you Americans are getting. Guess who is not getting it. That's right, us. Not just me... obviously without a social security number (there should be one for me now though!) I would expect not to get it, but J is also not a recipient. Why? Because we dutifully filed taxes jointly (I'm not allowed to make any money, so why would we file separately and furthermore if we did, we would get less money returned.... either way the feds are putting the screws to our bank account) and any tax return that names two people but only one person has a social, is not entitled to the government's bribe, I mean, generosity. Why am I so enraged over this? Because it essentially penalizes citizens for marrying foreigners and affects approximately 288,000 troops. Hey thanks for serving our country, now eat it.

At her two month weigh-in, miss N was 11 lbs, 3 ounces. She is still squarely in the 50th percentile for everything but I maintain that she is going to be a little girl. My friend had a boy a week after her born a few ounces lighter, and he has already surpassed her in weight. Maybe it's a boy thing. I'm trying not to worry, but as a new mom how can I help but second guess her feedings and whether or not she is getting enough.

After two weeks of baby insomnia (having to sleep in the swing or car seat after hours of trial and error on the part of her parents), she is finally back to putting herself to sleep. (And no, this is not through 'crying herself to sleep.' At this age, I'm not sure it's so much 'crying to sleep' as it is 'passing out from sheer volume of stress.' So we don't let it come to that.) She is able to sleep for 6-8 hour periods but since she goes to bed so early, it means many early mornings for us. This on top of the fact that naps are getting trickier, makes us quite tired most days. The only things saving me from utter meltdown some days are my workouts. I can now totally rock the elliptical, run a whopping 10.5 minutes and even started spin class last week. I am feeling hotter by the day even if the pounds aren't dropping as quickly as I thought they would. Our visiting nurse seems to think that the body wants to hang on to some of the fat while one is still breast-feeding and is confident those last few pounds will come off either when she starts solids or when she is weaned completely.

Behaviourally, Nadia likes to make liars of us. I was just mentioning to our doula yesterday how she had stopped talking once we got back from our trip and a few hours later she was cooing up a storm. She also started 'cooplaining' last night. She has never been a screamer but her version of crying is now starting out with warning complaints that sound like "hey yoooouuuuu." Much less annoying.

And finally in baby news, she is a hand-sucker. She goes to town on those badboys like they were going out of style. She even attempts to 'double-fist' it on occasion. Ah, the ridiculousness of being Nadia.

Oh yeah, fyi.... we had no intention of putting that money back into the U.S. economy. Sorry Dub, just ain't goin' happen. Not with the star of david clearly stamped on all of our bank statements. So maybe it's just as well we didn't get it.

Cross My Heart

Sorry for not posting regularly. I know you have all been feeling like this 'sweet pirate' ....

(If you ever come to Italy, buy as many clothes with English words as you can. Hilarious.)

I'm going to try my hardest to start posting a significant amount at least once a week, most likely on weekends when J can entertain miss N. Because she is mostly sleeping through the night, naps are hard to come by and usually happen when I'm out at the gym so it's hard to find a few minutes to sit down and write. Minutes that if I do have to myself I should be using to tidy up the house and/or deal with household logistics.
But I promise, this weekend. Topics to include the xenophobic "economic incentive" we are not getting, how it looks like miss N will not be going through childhood as a behemoth like her mother, and whatever else comes to mind at the time. Many blog topics come to mind on a daily basis but the idea of writing them down doesn't seem to strike at the same time.
For now, I'm exhausted. We've had a rough day. A blown-out diaper, a lot of barf. So instead of cleaning the sink full of dishes, I'm going to try and do this, except on the couch, not in the swing. Like I said, behemoth.

The Trip Home

Though our trip started on the 18th of April, our journey really began the day before. We found out that there may not be space for us on the military flight to Norfolk and spent the day scrambling to reserve commercial tickets that would have run us about 3500$ and only allowed for a day in Virginia. Needless to say we were stressed-out messes and rose early Friday morning to get to the terminal and find out for sure. Fortunately there was more than enough room and we headed to Norfolk on the much quicker and enjoyable military route.
Jet-lagged and hungry after 14 hours of travel and little sleep the night before, we went out to J's former watering hole to get a bite. Without going into details, poor Nadia ended up doing a face-plant into said watering hole's carpet, prompting her first trip to the ER. (And no, we didn't have a baby in a bar, we sat on the restaurant side). Thankfully she checked out fine and only suffered minor rug burn on her face. After a few hours of tears and hyperventilation, we finally got to bed at around 2 AM. 3.5 hours later, J got up to run his first half-marathon. Yes, I told him he was crazy and no, he didn't die or injure himself. He actually managed to run it in just under 2 hours. I hope to do the same next year. (Run it that is, not necessarily in under 2 hours.)
So that was pretty much the most eventful day. I'm not going to bore you all with the ins and outs. Nadia met about a billion new people, especially in Edmonton. There was one day in VA when she was up from 4:30 AM to 22:30, something I attribute to my venti Starbucks cup o' drip and being around too much stimulus all day, but for the most part she tolerated our schlepping.
The strangest thing for me was bringing her back to a life I lived while single and thus, many of my still-single friends, mostly male. I found myself trying to recapture the same dynamic, urging my friends not to let her distract them from the conversation. But as one friend put it, "um Brianne, it's pretty hard not to." So I guess things can't be the same. That doesn't mean they're not as good, just different. And I must say that it is kind of amusing to see single men react to a baby. Ie. for the most part, they have no idea what to do.
There was Starbucks, there was Victoria's Secret. There was mexican food, there was Thai food. It was glorious. We can't wait to move back.

We're Back

(Nadia, 2 months old.)