I think I can...I think I can...

I think I can...I feel like the little engine that could. I needed to see if I could parent solo successfully so I ventured out on my own with my new baby girl. Once on Father's Day to give her Daddy, Mr. C some snooze time. Which to a new parent is worth its weight in gold and he was oh so appreciative, when he woke up at almost 3pm.Zoey and I left the house at or around 10am hit the drug store and headed for my parents house. A comfortable territory for me to practice my parental skills with some supervision from Gammy and Grumpy. Gammy took her from me almost immediately, put her to sleep and I didn't really see my baby till I was about to leave. After his late awakening we spent the rest of the afternoon up until 10pm that night at his folks house for a Father's day Celebration. I had her most of the time when the his family wasn't passing her around. I wanted him to be able to enjoy his family and play some of the games they had set up (volleyball, horse shoes, target shooting). All in all a pretty safe and successful journey, but I had lots of help so it didn't satisfy my need for independent parenting.

I needed some more practice. So on Monday, baby girl and I ventured out again on a huge outing to my cousins house for a drop in visit which ended up at the river and not only with my lil' girl but also with her two lil' boys of 2yrs and the other of 4yrs old. I didn't realize what I was in for. My daughter behaved beautifully, to my surprise. My cousin tried to soothe her cries but she wanted Mama and I bounced her and fed her like a pro. I can't hardly believe it myself. Usually when she starts a fit Mr.C is the only one she wants and quiets for him almost instantly. This time I was sufficient for her and she relaxed just the way she does for him. We sat in my cousin's front yard under the trees till her 4yr old came home from school at or around noon. Then off to the River.

I was nervous about going on a spur of the moment trip to the river. New moms usually don't do anything on the fly and I didn't realize I said yes till we were on our way. As we were driving I started to get anxious and started doubting myself but I should have been doubting my cousin.

When we got there. My cuz drops me, baby girl, her 2 boys and all the gear off near the river shore. She leaves me to carry it all and watch her kids while she parks the vehicle back up in the parking lot a long ways off. I felt like a camel with a crooked hump trying to lug it all to a spot on the beach. Did I mention I had a c-section like 7wks ago. She didn't remember obviously. Her boys listened pretty well and followed me to a sunny spot. Of course all the shady spots under the trees were taken already. So we copped a spot directly in the blaring sun. Not exactly ideal for my infant of now 7wks. A nice beach goer offered her kids toys for my lil cuzzez to play with and introduced her boy of 3yrs and her daughter of 6mo. The 3yr old played with my cousins children till she came from the parking lot. My daughter was asleep and stayed that way till we left. She was a dream.

I was very nervous of the heat and fussed over her and shaded her with my two umbrellas. I got in the water about up to my hips but couldn't take my eyes off her on the shore. She never even stirred. She was great for our first trip. After a little while I relaxed some.

As I sat on the shore watching my family play in the river, I notice my cousin playing with her youngest and chatting with the beach lady. Then I notice beach lady's son, who had on a life vest, playing with my cousins eldest the 4yr old who had nothing but shorts on and a smile. I called to my cousin 3x hey!, hey!!! Cousin!!! Get your boy!!! I see his red hair under water. I begin to get up because she was so oblivious to what was going on. The beach lady's boy was not intending to but was holding down my cousins boy as the both of them went sailing down the river about 20-30ft. I get up to rescue my cousins kid and just as I did, he popped up and gasped for air and was able to touch bottom. Thank god!!! I made him get out for a bit.

Needless to say I scolded my cousin's parenting skills, she was sooo oblivious. She is new to parenting thing too, these are foster children she has and intends to adopt them. She has only been a parent a little longer than I have been. Not only that but she was standing in knee high water with the 2yr old wading on his back between her legs so he could practice floating. She didn't even realize how awful that looked as she wiggled above his head in a dance to make him smile. I told her that is completely inappropriate for her to do with her kid whether her intentions were innocent or not. It looked horrendous. I told her that we needed to be getting back and started to pack up my daughter, who was still sound asleep.

These outings deeply satisfied my need for independent parenting practice and now I feel much more confident and not only do I think I can, I know I can. My cousin however needs much more practice. Until next time wish me luck.

Stranger Danger mixer with a Paranoia garnish

Well, Today was a good productive day, saw a cousin and put him to work moving a piece of furniture out of my boudoir, ran several errands and now I will be able to continue on with life as I know it, I'm all paid up. On the way home from these errands my Lil' baby girl decides to have a screaming fit, I know surprise, surprise. The thing is that this time it struck as we were driving. So we sat with that screeching till we were almost home but the sound escalated to that 3 alarm fire siren I am oh so fond of, I had to pull over. Luckily we were near a park and so we pulled in to give her and my nerves a break.

The park was lovely and wierd all at the same time. I've never quite noticed it in this light before. There were children on the playground, a music function under the gazebo's, a study group of some sort measuring the ground (I don't know), people lounging on the cool grass in the shade soaking up the fresh air. Normal right, wrong what I failed to mention is the unusually large group of icky and rowdy bums. I don't mean to be rude. I do realize the park is for everyone and I know what it is like to not have a lot of money, but it was like some sort of bum convention. There were like 15+ bums chilling, smoking, drinking, chummin' it up and taking up the whole side walk with their shopping carts, bikes, bags, and what not. Wierd! Its like the dark warning you see in those generic movies in grade school about "stranger danger" that we all laughed at. But they were really there and it just looked really out of place because the children weren't very far away and the bums frequented the restroom right next to the playground while children went to the bathroom unattended. Where were there parent's I wondered.

Come to think of it may be it wasn't them, gasp! Maybe it was me. I was in fact trying to soothe a lil baby, and it was my first time nursing on the grass in front of the whole world, watching everyone at the park with suspicious eyes. I wonder if this is what Motherhood is... constant paranoia...who's watching me, what are they thinking and constant worry...will I ever be ok with letting Zoey play at the park with this dark presence, will I ever let her go alone when she is 10-12 years old, will I be the dark presence watching her with her friends from behind the bushes in case something happens. Sheesh! I feel like someone turned on the neighbourhood watch in side me. I have a new keen sense of "stranger dangerism" alarms going off at random. No one told me of the head trips I would be having, I wonder how long this lasts? I must say aside from all that it was a nice day at the park.

I live with the banshee and I call her Zoey

This morning started off as usual since the afterbirth. 7am or earlier my baby girl starts to stir and start crying...Mr.C gets her and says "She's hungry, are you gonna feed her?" as if I didn't know she was hungry and like I wouldn't feed my child...30min of feeding till we all pass out again till around 9 or 10am...Screaming from the crib begins again..."She's hungry, are you gonna feed her?" I think I will say "Nope, not gonna do it" tomorrow to see what he does. Some times she goes back to sleep and sometimes she doesn't. Things have been like this for a while now off and on with some regularity. But today for extra fun she doesn't stop crying.

My little sweet child of now 6 weeks is practising her bone chilling screeches and testing her little wind pipes to see exactly how loud she can make noise and she chose today to do it. I pat her, sing, push her knees up to her chest (to crank out a fart), I put her on her tummy and then up over my shoulder and then on the bed on her tummy,I rock and swing her, we bounce in the bouncy/buzzy chair, I rub her back, made silly faces and googly eyes, nothing worked. So it was Mr. C's turn because she isn't calming down for me. She has had it with my shenanigans.

We live in a 1 bedroom house and you could hear a mouse fart with how thin the walls are. So I call sweetly "Michael", "Michael?", "Daddy?"...nothing. No sound of stirring, no bed creaking from him getting up, no sound of footsteps coming to soothe my sweet bellowing little baby. "Can he really not hear me or baby girl for that matter" I thought how unusual is that. Mr. C is normally a very and overly attentive Father, but where is he. Our child is screeching like a banshee. So I go to find out what's going on...or not going on. There is my love lying so peacefully on the bed real calm like, wait...are his eyes fluttering. Are you serious... He is pretending to sleep. So very calm and casually I say "Ahem...do you hear this shrieking child...do you think you come and soothe this baby." Now maybe that may have had a touch of sarcasm and tone but so did our child's cry. He did manage to get up with an evil glare of "how dare I disrupt his false slumber" and as soon as he held her lo and behold she stops her howling. That was all it took. I said thanks and I went to make breakfast while he rocked her. It wasn't long before she was asleep again. So we all passed out. We were up late the previous night.

Now I thought I did everything I could've possibly done to stop her from freaking out. Why did she stop with him. When she did fall asleep, he acted smug,like "was that so hard". Urg! Men sometimes,I swear.

Mr.C and I were finally up and at em and baby girl starts it up again. I have been able to decipher some of her cries, there is the sweet "wahh".... that says "I want attention", then the "ahhhh"...she is uncomfortable, usually a diaper change so better step on it quick...then there is the 3 alarm fire siren "Wahhh Ahhhh Ruuuuhhhh!!!!!...repeated over and over and over!!!!" meaning get it together and do something NOW I am pissed off cry!!!! We got to listen to this last cry for what seemed like and eternity today with baby girl taking short 5 to 10 minute naps in between so she could recharge her batteries for the next sound off.

I love this child with every fiber of my being, but wow, can she make you lose your sanity in aninstant! I wonder what is wrong with her, is she sick, does she need a diaper change, is she hungry, nope the culprit is the infamous gas mixed with constipation (I think because she hasn't do do'd in two days). The thing is there was nothing that we could do that would help her get it out. Mr. C rocked her and bounced her till he was about to fall over and I sang, nursed, played and cuddled her. We bathed her thinking the warm water will help her get it out. Nothing...so what do you do when you are at the end of your rope?, besides tie a noose in it and slip it over your head. Mr.C and I decided it was time to play the blame game. Dun Dun Duhh!!! He started with "do this" so I retort with a "do that" and that was all it took for us to squash our what seemed to be strong foundation of patience and gratitude. Yep! we threw it out the window just like that.

Finally after our little bickering match and short bout of the silent treatment, did we calm down and resumed being gracious to each other again; all about the time my little girl gave the screeching a rest and decided to sleep for a while to let us regroup and compose ourselves.

Gas and constipation are common for infants I was told, but never was I told how to stop it and how to maintain sanity while in the trenches.

Now she is out for the night I hope...for our sake. She let out some enormous farts accompanied by some belches and spit up. I think she is good for now. Its funny that when you are a tiny little infant is the only time when people are actually proud and excited by your bodily functions.

I hope tomorrow goes better than today. I don't like it when the banshee takes hold of my little girl ( I seriously think she was possessed) Ha ha!

After birth

Hmmm...Birth. Birth is not quite what I expected it to be like. Pain...yes, drugs...definitely yes!..., privacy...none..., Modest...no..., seriously thought you would die...yesssoouchhhh!!! What was about to happen after the birth when we came home I must say I didn't expect. That is when things became...different. This is the ending of an era and the beginning of the rabbit hole and I took the red pill! Wow! was that an eye opener!

People often warn you about their adventures in pregnancy and lightly drop hints on how you adjust to life after you come home. Books keep your head in a great fantasy world full of super women where if you do this then all will be good in your world. What if you are not a super woman? What if you are just a regular person, ya know, someone like me.

The thing your friends and their suggested motherhood manuals don't tell you is HOW to maintain sanity when you are in the heat of the moment and sleep deprived and there is a tiny human testing her wind pipes at 3 am while trying to remember all their great tips and tricks of the trade for child rearing.

Someone ought to make school for people with kids. They need dressing a baby101 class. To learn how to not break their delicate, little limbs off when you are putting on a Onsie. Onsie. A Onsie is a tee shirt for babies that has snaps in the crotch. That's another class in its self...Baby item vocabulary 102, or how to speak conversation baby language with other parents 103! I swear the names for things like a binky (pacifier/to me that "sucky thing"), a boppy, which is a basically pillow the baby lays on while you breast feed. Not even going to touch on breast feeding yet. Dressing isn't even the beginning. A How to stop a crying child class would be great and how do you do it when you've had no sleep class would be better. I now understand why there are some really messed up people in the world. Their parents got lost in the after birth and are forever in wonderland.

I wonder all the time how my new little baby girl is going to turn out in a month, a year, ten years from now from the choices I make for us. I wonder what she is thinking, I wonder if she loves me, I wonder if I will be able to endure the hard times that are in our future, I wonder what she will remember of me after I die...Hmmm I wonder.

The life of sleeping in past noon are gone, gone are the days of bar hopping (regularly), gone are the days of reckless love...but still are the days of firsts. First step, first word, first birthday, first Halloween and Christmas. Still are the days of making my own family traditions and instilling value and morals too.I hope I have the strength, wisdom and nerve to form my child into a decent,fun,kind and loving human being. I wonder.

Until the answers come to me I will be lost in wonderland. Wondering and learning how to decipher what cry means what and how to breast feed while walking and how to be somewhere on time when you have an infant and how to accept that I am enough and know that I am just what my daughter needs. I think I am going to enjoy the ride.