The Menagerie

Peach Blogging

It seems about time to post a couple more Peach pics!  Also, other than wanting to post a screed about  Alexander McCall Smith fans (I was nearly trampled by a herd of them at Powell's Friday), I have very little to say.

Here's Eden in the tub, accompanied by the back of my head:

We get pretty serious around mealtime. 

Every girl named Eden needs a giant stuffed snake, right?

We took Peach to the Oregon Zoo today (more on that, including pictures, here), which was a blast.  The big hits were goats and black bears, because she was able to pet the former and see the latter at a close, albeit protected, distance. 

The call I didn't want to get Monday AM at 9

Peach is running a temp of 104; Matthew is bringing her home so I can take her to the pediatrician at 11:45.

UPDATE: It's all perspective.  He was misinformed - she's actually running a 100.4 temp; if Matthew had called to tell me that, I probably would have been just as scared/annoyed, but now it just seems like a relief.

UPDATE 2: Again with the perspective.  At the pediatrician, the temp was 103.2.  Tylenol has brought it down, and the doctor is pretty sure we're dealing with a cold and/or roseola.  It boggles the mind all the virii this poor kid is in for in the next couple of years - let's hope the grownups get passes. 

Personal Milestones

Today was a significant day in a lot of ways.  Some good, mostly bad.  I probably would have had a very tall, stiff drink if it wouldn't have made my head hurt even more.  But rather than dwell on that, I leave you with the following summary of my two newest accomplishments as a mother:

• I changed Peach without benefit of a changing surface; and
• I peed, flushed, and washed my hands while holding Peach. 

So it wasn't all bad. 

It wasn't the picture I set out to take, but I'll take it

Eden at almost 10 months.

Not quite ready for bed

Cross-posted at Eden's Garden.

For Sarah

Not a great view of the Pob, but it was hard to hang onto Peach when she decided to start jumping!

Enough already!!!

Sick of being sick.  Sick of taking care of sick people.  And really, really tired.

Current tally:
Matthew: Influenza.  Down for the count and unable to help much with the parenting right now.
Shelley: recovering from strep throat, developing new cough.
Peach: recovering from ear infection, coughing, projectile vomiting brought on by coughing. 

And the 35th birthday party I was supposed to put on tonight?  I canceled it.

Gah.

It might never be the same

Today the Peach figured out that if she crawled over to the iPod boombox and touched it, music came out.  (OK, not quite so easy - she worked at it for a while.)  No matter what I did, I couldn't distract her away from the iPod.  And the song that randomly popped up?  Baby Hold On.

Oh -- I forget to mention she's creeping, crawling, and sitting up on her own?  She put it all together and is quite mobile -- lots of babyproofing in our immediate future (after getting over our respective illnesses). The belly crawl cracks me up -- she looks like a marine landing on the beach.

Got to run - she's making a break for the iPod again. 

Look at the noggin on that kid!

This was a long, whiny post about how I now have strep throat and feel really awful, but I deleted it.  Wah, poor pitiful me.  OK?  Done.

More interesting was the Peach's 9-month pediatrician visit: 19 pounds, 7 ounces, 26.6 inches, and I can't remember (and don't want to go downstairs to get) the measurement for her head, but her head is in the 95 percentile, while her body weight and height are 50th and proportional.  I've been telling everyone that she has a huge noggin, but yikes, it's a huge noggin.  And she is already bigger than I was at 12 months, according to my baby book. 

She also has a small ear infection, and is on amoxocillin.  I wasn't expecting her to get any, since neither Matthew nor I did as kids (I had my first ear infection in law school, during my very last set of finals -- good thing I didn't really care about grades at that point).  But now I'm wondering if it's a blessing in disguise - with her and Matthew on antibiotics now, I don't have to worry about them getting it.  I do know I'm looking forward to the river of greenish snot coming to an end. 

Giving amoxocillin liquid to ferrets was much easier than it is to give to a baby.  Unfortunately, babies don't have a scruff to hold onto.  On the positive side, she doesn't shake her head and get pink gunk all over my clothes, either. 

8 months already

It's crazy how fast time passes now.  I'm still confused that it's winter -- shouldn't we be in August right now, maybe September? 

In any case, Peach continues to grow and grow. She turned 8 months today!  I can't believe it's been so long -- or that it's been so fast.  I just packed up some of her gender-neutral preemie clothing for a neighbor, whose son and daughter in law just had a 5 pounder.  I kept looking at these itty bitty clothes that were just immense on her during her first weeks of life.  She's gone from 4 lbs to 19 lbs, 19 inches to 27 inches, <3 percentile to 70th.  It's nuts. 

In the last week, she's become a different baby.  She's almost crawling -- up on her hands and knees and rocking -- although she still rolls around the room to get where she needs to go. She loves to play "up," where she holds my fingers and I pull her up (but have been letting her do an increasing amount of work) to her feet.  She's nowhere near steady, but likes to look around. 

What I'm loving the most is the communication.  I'd taught her "Pat-a-Cake" -- if I put my hands up, she would put her hands to mine.  But now she's clapping, babbling, waving when we wave (I'm such a lawyer that I had to type "waive" twice before I realized that wasn't the right word), and we're working on Mama.  (Her babbling inflections sound like language, but nothing close to English.)  We've had hand signals for "I'm hungry" for over a month (she puts both of her hands together in front of her chest, then brings them up to her mouth over and over), but now there are signals for "pick me up" and "pull me up." 

Still no teeth, although it doesn't stop her from gumming up a storm.  She doesn't like Cheerios yet, although Matthew and I do, so we're going through Costco-sized boxes every two weeks.  She can eat the most revolting baby food -- pureed spinach and potatoes with no seasoning?  Blech -- but makes faces at fruits. 

Although she's under the weight limit for the papsan chair and swing, she became much to wiggly for either (besides, she's too long).   We got an amazing amount of use from them both, and I'm still in friend Nikki's debt for the sanity they've saved.

Peach loves -- and I mean loves -- her Magic Mozart Cube.  I'm absolutely sick of the tunes, but it's charming watching her study it and turn the instruments on and off.   

And amazingly -- she has an honest-to-god nursery now, and she sleeps in her crib.  Yes, we finally converted the den to a nursery and the living room to a den.  I've got one more piece of furniture to finish painting (it's been so darn cold in the garage) and then the nursery is absolutely, completely done.

However, even though she has a nursery and sleeps in her crib, I'm still not getting enough sleep -- and it's really showing right now.  I'd best head off to bed myself. 

Peach Blogging

Waving the Elephant of Truce

After her morning snooze, Peach started to play in her crib with a stuffed toy.  From my angle in the chair across the room, though, this is what I saw.

And sitting (with some help getting there):

So far, so good?

The Peach had her first day at "school."  (I detest the term "day care" and can't think of anything better.  I decided on "school" so that when the time comes for kindergarten, "school" is something she's an old pro at, mentally speaking.) 

My role in this is quite small.  It's at Matthew's place of work, in a federal building. This means I get her ready to go while Matthew is getting ready to go -- and he takes her, drops her off, and deals with the separation; he also has the duty to pick her up, retrieve her stuff, and bring her back home.  This is at least 30-45 minutes each way with a 7 month old in the backseat, and I'm fine with not being a part of this, trust me. 

She wasn't entirely happy with the process.  Once there, she was fine up until she realized someone else was holding her, and then she started to cry.  Apparently she's also a social crier, and when any of the seven other children cried, she joined in.  She was mostly content to play by herself, but did spend a little time with a baby (belonging to a GS-14 that we strongly suspect bumped us from an earlier opening, even though we'd been on the list longer - but I digress.).   They had a hard time getting her to nap, but the bouncy chair helped.  I know all of this because they give us a sheet every day that lists all the times she ate, wet, pooed, and so forth, along with a summary of her day. 

The best part about all of this is that Matthew works on the same floor as the "school."  (I need a better term, or else just need to dump the quotation marks.)  He managed to visit with her during his lunch (she woke up for part of it) and could interact with her.  Wait -- I just asked him how many times he visited with her and he said, "It was a lot more than lunch, my dear."  (Apparently, he visited five times!)   Taking her is much more time than he gets to see her on average work days, and it's all a bonus for him.

But for me, it was weird. It was the longest I'd been away from Peach since the night after she was born (she stayed in the NICU for 24 hours).  I kept thinking about how I needed to be careful to let her sleep - and would only realize that wasn't an issue several beats later.  Most of the day I was confused about what day of the week it was (more than normal), because I was never without Peach on a weekday.

And it was a productive day -- not only did I get to eat breakfast before 10 AM, but I worked, went to the courthouse and the law library, and even had lunch (if Round Table counts) by myself (I ate alone!  And read while I ate!).  Nice stuff.  Once back at home, I painted some in her room -- this brilliant, bright pink that I found among the rejects at Lowe's, then painted a picture frame to match, then tackled the great china cabinet project in the garage (also the pink color - but another story). 

I did miss the little Peach, though.  I was so happy to see her when she came home, although she was so exhausted that it took her a full ten minutes to wake up enough to smile for Matthew or me (Norris, however, got grins right away -- she LOVES that dog). 

Now she's sleeping - in her crib.  In her room!  Those are good times.  (And I'd also be sleeping if I hadn't fallen asleep on the couch and dumped half a mug of peppermint tea in my lap...)

One...step...at...a...time...

I'm becoming one of those bloggers -- you know, the type that only posts once in a blue moon, and when she does, it's all whining about how busy she is. 

What do I do, you ask? As you can see from previous posts, I feed the baby, change the baby, play with the baby, repeat, try to get a couple of things done before the cycle starts all over again.  If I'm lucky, I might get to pee without interruption. It takes me until Friday to finish the Sunday Times crossword - and that's on a good week.  (OK, at least a part of that is because I am a mediocre crossworder.) 

Taking care of the Peach and watching her grow has been fabulous, wonderful - but exhausting and mind-numbing, too.  I feel incredibly guilty about her going into day care, primarily because I'm looking forward to it so much.  I think I'm finally understanding the push-pull of the Mommy Wars, and that's with going into this knowing that I would absolutely not be the one taking care of her full time.  But I'm also looking forward to the fact the time I spend with her will be time I desperately want to spend with her, as opposed to not having any other choice. 

Now, affording  day care is another matter, but of course, the presumption is that I will be working full time again.  I love my contract work, but it's feast or famine and right now times are lean.  I'm torn between wanting to aggressively market myself as a contractor versus seeking full-time regular lawyer work.   The contract work is so flexible and fun -- research problems and persuasive writing are the best part of what I do as a lawyer, plus, I can work on wildly diverse areas of law.  But the money isn't regular, there are no sick or vacation days, and I'm not a girl who handles uncertainty well.  (This is probably why I am a good researcher: I WILL find the answer.)

As for working at a firm...

...crap.  I'd finish this post, but the Peach just woke up -- twenty minutes before I have a telephone meeting scheduled with a client.  Gotta run.   

A day in the life, redux

Yesterday was amazing, crazy, and wonderfully productive.  Peach and I worked our tails off, and she was a trooper, up to and including going to the courthouse.  (She had her usual reaction to the courthouse.  She pooped.)  I did a bit of everything and felt wonderful about the day - I crossed more off my to-do list than I have in a long while. 

Today was amazing, crazy, and not wonderfully productive.  Today's work-at-home-mother-attorney's action items:

• Wake up at 5:30 because baby is making sounds on baby monitor.  Realize husband slept through alarm; wake him.  Go downstairs for clean bottle.  Baby is asleep again.  Go back to sleep, wake when husband asks where the razors are; go back to sleep.
• Wake up at 6:30 because baby is very much awake. Eat Luna bar.
• Feed baby.  Baby falls asleep; watch Trading Spaces (fast forwarding the boring bits) until arms hurt.   Put baby down.
• Get dressed.
• Make bottle.
• Dress baby. Baby barfs on outfit number one, and we move onto outfit number two. 
• Go to Saturn dealership for very late 41,000 service. Discover must now have more expensive service.  Discover front brakes must be replaced.  Authorize replacement of brakes.  Entertain child while brakes are being replaced, change three diapers in three hours, down a triple venti non-fat peppermint mocha with no whipped cream and a Diet Dr. Pepper.  Eat two Luna bars.  Endure changing blown-out poopy diaper in dealership bathroom, where they are kind enough to have a Diaper Genie -- without liners.  Discover this the hard way.
• Home.  Baby screaming.  Put dog out, change baby into outfit number three.  Let dog in.  Feed baby.  Put baby in swing (she's almost too big for it, but it still works).   
• Downstairs: call opposing counsel, who provided draft judgment after business hours on Monday.  Naturally, it's due Friday, and I can't get ahold of my client.  Opposing has no objections to extension for entry of judgment.  Whew.
• Organize desk. 
• Start to draft motion.  Realize I'm getting a migraine and decide it's a toss-up between seven and eight on the pain scale.  Hunt down Frova, pop one and close eyes.
• Baby wakes up. 
• Change, feed, play, change, play with baby. Call Matthew and weakly demand that he not work late tonight, and that he returns forthwith with dinner.
• Consider doing laundry, but head is throbbing.  Close eyes and lean against sofa; pull baby out of basket full of (clean) diapers. 
• Put baby in swing again - she falls asleep.
• Put dog outside.  He immediately starts to bark at obnoxious neighbor dogs.  I consider going out in the rain to stop him, then close the door instead and put my hands to my temples.
• Matthew walks in the door with food. Fast food.  And I'm not feeling guilty about it, no.
• Three bites into dinner, baby wakes up.

Now it's almost midnight - about the closest I ever get to me time.  I had a bowl of Cheerios (I like them, OK?  And they're good for my high cholesterol), watched an episode of Mission:Organization (insipid and full of people with high-class problems, but it has useful tips), and typed this post because I've forgotten the thoughtful post I came up with at the car dealership this morning.

Birth Certificate Remorse

CNN.com's  story about naming remorse (and changing) fascinates me.  When we decided on "Eden Alexandra," I knew that it was highly unlikely that we'd want to call her Eden at the beginning, something that was even more true when she arrived more than a month early.  I'd wanted a name that an adult woman would be happy with, and was less concerned with how it fit a child, let alone a preemie.  Alexandra was there for multiple nicknames, if she wanted them in the future. 

And so not surprisingly, the nicknames for Eden started fast and furious.  While she was still in utero, Matthew nixed my favorite ("Ed") and second favorite ("Edie"), although I suspect they'll make a return in a couple of years.  Because the last nurse we had in the mother-baby unit said someone must ride next to her in her car seat to make sure she stayed "pink and wiggly," that became her first nickname.  At home, she made the smallest little mewing sounds, and I called her "Mouse" for a while.   "Little E" was a favorite (and still gets used on occasion). 

I can't remember how I started calling her Peach.  Maybe it was her coloring, or her peach fuzz hair, or because she's peachy.  It's stuck around the longest of all the nicknames -- but I'm not sure how long it'll last, either.  Because the baby that was "pink and wiggly" and "little e" and "mouse" and "e" and "peach" -- she's starting to look like and act like an Eden. 

10 things I wish I'd known before getting pregnant

I’d been thinking about this post for a little while, but now that a close family member is expecting a baby, I pushed it to the forefront.  Here are a few of the things that I wish I’d known at the time Peach was born (I’ve already listed the de rigueur gear in a previous post, and LL has some fantastic updates to her list, five months on). 

It goes without saying: I really wish I’d known I was developing preeclampsia and would be induced at 35.5 weeks, because I would have been infinitely more prepared, otherwise.  But here’s a list of the things I wish I’d known of or thought about before getting pregnant:

1.    Those inexpensive snack-packs of peanut butter/cheese and crackers, purchased in bulk at Costco.  I’d have kept a few in my bedroom at all times, because when I was pregnant, I would inevitably go to bed and not be able to go to sleep because I was starving, or I’d wake up at 2 am and would be starving.  A friend brought some over right after Peach was born, and they were a godsend when I was too exhausted to do much more than roll out of bed to make the next bottle. 

2.    Pack a cardigan in your hospital bag, in case you get cold. I didn’t even think of this. 

3.    Pack some of those snack-packs of crackers in your hospital bag, because you will be hungry in the middle of the night.  Matthew would nag me to call the nurses, because (he assured me) and I have to say that when I did and they would bring me food, they were always really sweet about it, but I hated to bother them over something so trivial. 

4.    When you’re postpartum, pay attention to the meds you’re handed, no matter how exhausted or out of it you might be after the baby is born.  Some resident tried to prescribe ibuprofen and codeine for me, neither of which I can take (ibuprofen would burn a hole in my stomach, and I’m allergic to codeine).  And if they give you meds and you’re still in pain, push the call button and ask for more.  There’s no excuse for under medicating someone

5.    Pampers “Gifts to Grow” program.  Basically, each Pampers product has a code on it that you can enter on their website.  You accumulate enough points, and you can redeem them for prizes (mostly toys and books).  I didn’t catch on to the points program until Peach was four months old or so, and I would have a lot more points if I’d started from the beginning.  We go through a lot of diapers – my philosophy is that there is no such thing as a little wet.  If she’s wet at all, the diaper gets changed.

6.    I would have stocked up on Diaper Genie refills, or looked for something that uses ordinary trash bags (I wonder if I can rig something up for ours – hm, that’s worth looking into).  We have two Diaper Genies (a I and a II) and we go through a lot of refill packs.  That’s where they stick you, by the way.  Diaper Genies themselves are inexpensive, but those refill packs (in our area, at least) are $5.50 to $6. 

7.    Buy or register for one of every type of bottle out there, instead of a lot of one kind.  As LL and I discovered, our kids didn’t work well with the bottles we’d stocked up on (but fortunately, our kids liked each others' bottles and we were able to swap)!

8.    You don’t need a lot of clothes for the first six months.  I take Peach out quite a bit, and I am self-conscious about taking her out in a sleeper (although it’s been made clear that this is just my neurosis), but seriously, other than five or so sleepers, you need maybe three more fancy outfits.  I struggled to get Peach to wear everything she was given at least once, and that’s just silly. 

9.    Two piece pajama sets are much, much more versatile than one piece sleepers.  My kid’s got the trunk of a 12-18 month old, but the legs and arms of a 9 month old.  This means she wore 6 and 9 month outfits for maybe a month.  Her 12 month sleepers are already too small, trunk-wise, but the feet are huge on her, and I have to fold up the arms and legs.  But if I put her in 9 month two piece PJs, they fit perfectly. 

10.      It goes as fast as everyone says it does.  Take lots of video. 

The baby's first Christmas, Grinch-style

Holidays in my family are high drama.  Six Chrystals with big personalities, then grandparents with big personalities - yikes.  So it was stressful getting to church Christmas eve, stressful getting up for stockings to unwrap, stressful with the formal breakfast, stressful waiting for four children, grandparents, and parents to all get ready for the formal unwrapping of gifts, the tallying of gifts for the purposes of thank you notes, and the painful one-by-one unwrapping.  Done by noon, it was exhausting -- and the formal Christmas dinner preparations hadn't even begun yet.  That meal was another drama extravaganza.  The last couple of Christmases Matthew and I took part in at Speedwell Manor involved the kids and Matthew hiding out in my brothers' room and drinking beer to avoid the fireworks up in the kitchen. 

So.  In our family?  Matthew and I rarely have a tree (in law school it was important to me, but not before or since).  We have a low-key dinner, cooked by me, Christmas eve, then unwrap gifts.  (If we give gifts: recently it's been more like budgeting how much we can spend on ourselves, and then we choose what we want - that's how I have a new Treo and Matthew has a new chip for his PC).  If other people gift us, that's when we open those.  And ten or twenty minutes later, we're done, and I might play some Christmas carols on the piano (although no more, since the piano has gone via Craigslist).  Christmas morning?  We wish each other merry Christmas and have a nice, low-key day.  I abhor the commercialism of Christmas, the idea that I should go into (more) debt to buy people things they probably don't need or want, and the hypocrisy of the "most wonderful time of the year," when people do the kind things they really ought to be doing all year round.   I am the annoying un-gifter, who will give money to charity in people's names, or will get gift cards.  Too Scottish, I guess. 

But maybe I hadn't already mentioned that I'm the Grinch?  And that this minister's daughter (me) and former evangelical (Matthew) are non-believers?  Sure, I love the idea of celebrating the winter solstice, and the return of the sun, and I do know multiple verses of every Christmas hymn (and like them all, except for "Away in a Manger").  Most years we go to the Portland Revels.  But...I just can't get past disliking Christmas. 

And now, here comes Peach.  For months, people (women) have been cooing about the magic and wonder of Baby's First Christmas. I have outwardly nodded and inwardly cringed at this.  Before we'd settled on the baby's name, we'd established ground rules for Santa Claus.  (No, Peach, there is no Santa Claus.)  And the tooth fairy, for that matter.  (We might let that one slide.) And we've tried to come to grips with the notion that now that there is a baby, we have to celebrate somehow. 

We did, actually.  Not on a big scale -- I didn't dig the tree out from the garage and I retrieved only a few decorations.   And it was only last minute that I decided I might as well get Peach a couple of gifts, if only to prevent a future therapy session devoted to her mother's neglect.  (It was a hard call: the child wants for nothing.  Everything I think she might need, she has.  What else is there?)   But I relented and hit a toy store, and so she's now the proud owner of some German-made toys and a machine washable cloth doll (alas, made in China - but did I mention the machine washable bit?).  So far the toys are a hit, and the doll has been hit, back and forth, on the ground -- but hey.  Progress.  For me, for Peach, for the family. 

As expected, the wrapping paper was the best part. (I had been threatening to give her some wrapping paper and call it good.)  The Christmas eve gift opening was postponed to Christmas morning, due to Peach pique (she was screaming - it didn't seem like a good time for any of us) - which explains why Mama looks as though she just rolled out of bed.  (No, no stocking drama, breakfast drama, or getting dressed drama in this house.) 

The night before Christmas, I sang Christmas carols to her (with multiple verses, because an upbringing like mine has to be good for at least that!), and we visited our neighbors across the way.  Peach wore a Stuart plaid dress (we are Stuarts, Peach and I) and a hat that just barely fit on the massive noggin.  (I am now purchasing 2T hats for her - I am so, so glad the child was a preemie!)

So we've survived our first Christmas as a family. It ended up being low-stress, all the way around.  We didn't bother with a big Christmas dinner, although Peach had some peas with her formula.  My siblings and I declared a moratorium on gifts (we usually draw names), which ended up being quite nice - less stress and no clutter.  The Peach's first set of formal pictures were finished December 20, and they went out, framed, as gifts.  I made little scrapbooks of the Peach for my parents. 

The real holiday is still coming up - on December 30.  That's our fifteenth wedding anniversary (crystal, if you were wondering) -- and that's a holiday worth celebrating. 

A day in the life (or why I love four day weekends)

In the juggling act that is my work-at-home life, one of the things that has to give when I'm in crunch time is blogging -- for that, I'm sorry about the recent silence. I'm fine, health-wise, Matthew and the baby are healthy (although the Peach is now fond of making a weird sucking-in-breathing sound -- deliberately, Matthew determined -- which freaks me out every time I hear it, and I hope she forgets about it soon).   Life is pretty good. 

But the balancing -- well, did I ever mention how much I sucked at gymnastics?  I knew hitting the six month mark would mean she'd be much more demanding on my time, but didn't quite realize how much more.  Naps?  Maybe five minutes, maybe an hour.  Time to schedule a conference call?  I never bet on it.  Time to work on documents while she plays?  Only if I'm OK with drafting documents a sentence at a time. (Seriously: I drafted a response to a petition for review a sentence at a time.  It was maddening, but I did it and it didn't suck.  Why aren't there awards for that sort of thing?)  I absolutely love the clients and colleagues who communicate with me via email, because I dread phone calls -- the dog will bark, or the baby will cry, or UPS will appear at the door and then the dog will bark and wake up the baby who will cry.  It's the work-at-home trifecta.

Here's an example of an average day in the life:

5:00 am: Peach starts to fuss (in her papasan) or kick me (in our bed), signaling to me that meltdown is imminent, and I should start to prepare a bottle.  Matthew is awake and getting ready to go. 

5:30 am: Peach has been fed and I am falling asleep while holding her. Into her swing she goes.  Occasionally she fusses at me and so I'll sleep on the couch in her room (still partially our den - the TV and couch will be moving out of there in the next month).  Also, I will sleep on the couch if I lack the energy to get up and move into the bedroom.

8:00 am: Phone rings.  Matthew, client, colleague -- I don't know.  I answer and manage to sound awake and alert.  I write everything down, because otherwise I will forget it. 

8:05 am: Peach is awake and smiling at me.  I take her out of the swing and put her on her blanket on the floor.  She rolls around while I go in search of caffeine -- Diet Dr. Pepper or coffee.  Sometimes the coffee is a day old.  I microwave it and don't care. 

8:10 am: Water is running while I am changing Peach.  She's realized that she is hungry and her gums hurt, so she whines and sticks her fingers (or toes) in her mouth.  I hop up, wash hands, and make the bottle. 

8:10 am: While feeding Peach, I switch the Harmony remote to my left hand and turn on the TV (TiVo).  I mentally curse the American Pediatric Association for the guilt I live with as a result.  I angle Peach towards me, so that she can't see the TV.   

8:30 am: Thanks to a short attention span and the thirty-second skip hack for the TiVo, I finish a 30 minute program - currently BBC America favorites "You Are What You Eat" and "How Clean Is Your House?" (the latter has been marvelous for getting me to do things like clean the door shelves in my refrigerator in my few moments of free time). Peach goes back onto her blanket to play and roll around, and I grab some of her toys and books.  She's into eating her books, not being read to, but we try to do both. 

9:00 am: Peach is getting bored and fussy, but isn't ready to take a nap yet.  If she's spit up on herself, she takes a bath.  If not, I change her into a "daytime" outfit and skip the bath (although now that she's wearing mostly 12 month outfits, of which we have not been given a lot, there's a lot less pressure on me to make sure she wears everything).

9:10 am: Peach goes into the jumperoo (in the computer room) and I make my to-do list, check my email, and try to do a little bit more on the Times Sunday crossword (it now takes me about five days to complete).  Look at blogs, maybe start a post, but then:

9:40 am: Peach starts the morning meltdown. I pick her up, change her, and put her in her swing. She's out before the music stops on the swing. 

9:45 am: I start working.  I'm still in my PJs, but I can't let a nap go to waste. 

10:45 am: The dog barks and wakes Peach.  Sometimes she'll go back to sleep, but mostly not.  We'll play for a little while. We play an elementary version of "Pat-a-Cake," which means I hold out both of my hands, palms facing her, say "Pat-a-Cake" and then she smiles and puts her hands against mine.  (We're nowhere near, say, the clapping bit.) 

11:15 am: The feeding-playing-changing cycle restarts.  While she's playing, I will try to work on my laptop - usually a sentence at a time.

1:00 pm: Peach goes down for a nap.  I check the email again and then take a quick shower and dress. 

1:30 pm: (Yes, I can go from shower to hair done/make-up done in 30 minutes.)  Work.  Maybe dishes and laundry. 

2:30 pm: Peach wakes up.  I feed her and watch TV - Flip That House, maybe, or What Not to Wear. 

4:00 pm: Maybe a nap for Peach, maybe not.  I am exhausted by this point.  I clean up the room while Peach plays and try to figure out what is for dinner.  If Peach takes a nap, I can usually put something together -- or I might just fall asleep, too, and not wake up until Matthew gets home.  Or, if Peach doesn't take a nap, send a text message to Matthew to bring something home. Think about "You Are What You Eat" and insist on salads. 

6:00 pm:  Matthew is home.  Peach is delighted to see him.  I run downstairs and grab my dinner. 

6:10 pm: I've gulped dinner and am out the door -- to get my mail, to go to the law library, to go to the store.  Will probably sneak in a trip to Starbucks for a triple non-fat mocha, no whipped cream. 

7:30 pm: Home. Coffee hasn't even touched the exhaustion, but there is work to do.  Matthew is taking care of Peach and playing a computer game.

8:30 pm: Matthew is winding down, and care of the Peach is returned to me.  By this point, she is as tired as I am, but (unlike me) has no desire to sleep.  I try to put her to bed, but it doesn't take.  I try not to think about my to-do list and the one or two checked items on it (out of, say, ten?).  We play. 

9:00 pm: Peach finally decides to go to sleep.  I get back to work, but am so tired I can barely concentrate.  I realize I have used the last of the clean bottles, and run downstairs to start the dishwasher. 

10:30 pm: Peach usually wakes up when I am transferring her into her (or my, depending on how things are going) bed. I change her, feed her, and then put her back to sleep.

10:50 pm: I try to work, but by this time I'm falling asleep while typing.  I will probably fight going to sleep myself until midnight.

12:00 am: Having given up the thought of getting anything else done, I go to bed. 

***
But on the weekends?  Matthew is primary.  I still do quite a bit with Peach, but I can leave the house guilt-free.  Watch TV guilt-free. And even work guilt free.   (But not yesterday - yesterday had all three of us staying in our PJs all day.) 

All right!

Eden and I may be sick, but the little Peach figured out two things today: first, that the food being spooned into her mouth is, well, food.  (The pediatrician told us that given her distaste for rice cereal, we could move on to fruits and veggies. After a few days of bewilderment at bananas and peaches, she decided today she liked peaches!  I love that sort of symmetry.)

Number two?  She discovered binkies are not a complete waste of silicon.  (Oh, the look she would give me when she would spit the binkies out!)  I don't know why I thought today was a different day -- maybe emboldened by the acceptance of "solids" -- but I tried a binki.  And I held it up long enough for her to experiment with it, and lo!  She smiled at me and sucked away. 

I am really, really pleased.  And I am way too tired to still be up -- g'night.