The Holidays

I'm BACK! Turns out my computer is still alive and kicking, just required a $40 repair! He's 6 years old and his age is showing but for now he's sticking around. I'm so happy to have my computer back and to get back to blogging once again. So, even though the holidays feel like they were forever ago, here is the post that I started before the sad crash of two weeks ago. Please excuse me while I play catch-up! 

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This holiday season was all about firsts: our first with Lola, our first in a home of our own, our first in Oakville. I'm happy to report it was all incredibly amazing.

As soon as we hit December, Sean, Lola and I got ourselves a tree and decorated the house for Christmas. We watched a ton of Christmas movies together, Sean even came home from work one night with a box set of Home Alone DVDs. It was easy to feel festive.

And we had a lot of holiday engagements. First, Lola met the big man in red and took her token crying on Santa's lap picture:

Then we had a Christmas dinner with my best girls from high school and the boys. It was soooo lovely to have everyone gathered around the table laughing about old times and drinking wine into the night. The boys had to put up with our retelling of classic tales that make us laugh until we cry but since we only have the most hilarious stories, I'm sure it wasn't that bad.

 And then on Christmas Eve we had 16 people from our family over for dinner. We ate and drank and played Head's Up, which was a great laugh.

Then on Christmas morning we headed to my parents house in our fancy Christmas outfits and the real festivities began. Well, the real picture-taking began that is.

The fun really only began after we changed into our matching Christmas jammies which we stayed in all day and all night. 

It was so magical, 20 of us sitting in the family room together, getting a home visit from Santa himself.

 

It really didn't seem like it could get any more perfect... and then, out of nowhere, Uncle Rob was standing up in front of everyone making an announcement. He said "This year is special because we are all here in Canada for Christmas for the first time ever but there's also something else that's special about this year..." Suddenly, without even processing what was going on, all of of us turned to John and Nicole and before we knew it, he was down on one knee and we were all bawling our eyes out. 

It was absolutely incredible to share the moment with them and we were all totally blown away. Not only did John pop the question in front of 19 of his future (very loud and obnoxious) family members but he also made a beautiful speech to my beautiful cousin Nicole as he was proposing. It was the sweetest!! Congrats Nicole and John!! Side note: AND THEN Nicole made me cry further when she asked me to be her matron of honor!!! (co-matron of honor that is but its my blog so I can advertise what I want when I want). You can now all refer to me as captain of the Reggio-Hirsch wedding. 

So that was Christmas day...then, the next day to continue the revelry, mom arranged for us to take a "sleigh ride" (/tractor ride due to weather) through the woods. We stopped in Christmas Town where a fire, marshmallow roasting utensils, and hot chocolate were waiting for us. It was seriously magical. Mom you knocked it out of the park. 

At night we ate fabulous dinners around a massive square table that sat all 20 of us. Then we payed pool, listened to music, and drank wine by the barrel. 

It was such an incredible, magical, delightful, lovely Christmas and I loved every second of it. 

Having been home with Lola for the months leading up to the big event, I pretty much witnessed the day to day unfolding of my mom's plotting and planning so I knew it was going to be a great one but didn't realize just how truly awesome it would end up being...Thank you mom for everything you did to make it such a memorable Christmas! And thanks to this beautiful, hilarious, boisterous, ever-expanding family, I love you all so very much :)

Crashed

Well, it doesn't rain but pour.

On Sunday night my faithful computer of 6+ years finally took its last computer breath. Now he is just a white screen of nothing.

I hope to remedy the problem this weekend - probably by paying $90 to confirm that it is indeed an unfixable problem followed by finally purchasing a new laptop - so I hope to be back then.

Sigh, and I was halfway through a Christmas post too!

 Good thing I'm a hoarder and still have most of my pictures from September onwards on my camera...

See you soon!

PS just a quick update: I'm two days in to work and so far so good!

On Monday, It's Back to Work

Well, tomorrow I start work...

Lola will be 3.5months old and this seems to generate a lot of opinions. Less so from friends in the US who's common response is "oh how nice that you got a long maternity leave!" But when I tell anyone here, the common response is "why?"

When a year-long maternity is the norm, it does seem a little strange, I get that. What makes me upset though is when people imply I'm doing Lola a disservice by leaving her at such a young age. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't feel guilty about this and that its not a big concern of mine. She is so young. But I can't believe what people say to me about it, as if its not going to be the hardest thing in the world for me. Here's a sample conversation from back in November.

Lady Behind Me in the Checkout Line: That is a tiny baby! How old is she?
Me: 10 weeks!
Lady Behind Me: Wow she is so young! I hope you're staying home with her for a long time.
Me in my head: Whats it to you lady? Don't answer her honestly, just smile and nod and this will all be over soon.
Me actually: I'm going back to work in January.
Me in my head: Didn't we just talk about this?? Whyyyyyy did you just say that??
Lady: Oh your husband is staying home instead?
Me in my head: Yes, just say yes.
Me actually: No he works too.
Lady: I guess you must have a really good job then otherwise it wouldn't be worth it. You're going to have a nanny I assume. What's the job?
Me in my head: I hate this woman.
Me actually: I'm a psychologist.
Lady Behind Me who Has No Manners: Oh I suppose you're making good money then. Well it must have to be good enough in order for you to afford that nanny.

Though this was probably the most obnoxious of exchanges, its not the only one of its kind thats for sure. Mostly though people here just ask, "do you really have to go back so soon?" and "can't you ask for more time?" or they try to be helpful by telling me, "I think legally they have to give you more than 3 months!" I even found out that at work they all were assuming that I would indeed be calling and and asking for more time, I think they may have even factored that in or thought of Jan 5th as a starting off point for negotiations. But, alas, it is what it is.

I guess not all of you reading this know why it is that I'm in this situation so I'll quickly recap. It all happened because I thought it would be a good idea to get some experience applying for jobs and putting myself out there. As my internship year was finishing at the end of August, I would be needing a new job at some point and I'm not the best at facing the anxiety that comes with looking for employment. Applying for positions forced me to spruce up my CV, start writing cover letters again, calling and talking to directors of programs and hiring psychologists at private practices, etc. I though that this would then make it easier to do this post-baby when I would undoubtedly be feeling tired and rusty. So when I got an interview at the job I'll be starting on Monday, I thought great, more practice. And then when I got a second interview it was the same. And then I got back from the second interview with a feeling that I might actually land this thing... and suddenly Sean and I were discussing various scenarios - How soon after having the baby would i be ready to go back to work? Is this job a dream job or something I could pass up? Would I regret it if I was offered the job and didn't take it? There were so many questions and it didn't help that at the time we had no idea what Sean's situation would be either.

In the end I was offered the job and when I told them that I was pregnant, they told me they could wait for me until the new year. From that point on I couldn't stop doing the math in my head - for ex: if the baby is born on this day then I will have this amount of weeks with her before I go back. When Lola was born one week early instead of coming later than expected, I breathed a sigh of relief: more time with my baby girl. 

I thought about work A LOT the first few weeks of Lola's life. Even though it was months away at that point, it felt imminent. It was actually a blessing in disguise as it got my ass in gear from day one especially in terms of Lola's sleep habits. I know for sure that if I hadn't had a deadline in mind, I would have been way more relaxed about it. Lola seems to have a natural inclination for sleeping well but had I been more relaxed about it, I could have unknowingly thwarted her efforts. It also made me enjoy my time at home with her more than I might have otherwise. Some days felt long and sad and during those low moments I thought to myself, the end is in sight and on good days I didn't feel guilty about sitting down and watching TV when I managed to find 20mins to myself. And it let me reframe my thinking - with Lola's feeding, instead of feeling like a milk machine as I would have if I knew it would be a year of this, I was able to think of those multiple times per day as a special time that we had to enjoy while we still could.

This last month has been all about preparation. I was so self involved at first. I thought that what would be hard about going back to work would be the exhaustion and me missing Lola so, I decided to attend a workshop (on Attachment, ironically) for the day and left Lola with my mom, thinking this would help me adjust. Well, I was fine (sort of, not really), meanwhile poor Lola had the shock of her life. I had bottle fed her a few times and knew she accepted a bottle and thought that was that, no problem if I randomly leave her for a day with bottles instead of boob. No easing into it, nothing. Lola woke up starving as usual only to find that mommy was gone and here was Nonna with some weird contraption coming at her instead. She did not appreciate it one little bit.

As a result of that day (and in combination with my refresher on infant psychology), I remembered its all about transitions and easing into things and practice practice practice. And so, thats exactly what we've been doing since that day in mid-December. I also eased her into spending time alone with Nanny and PopPop, her caregivers for the month of January. I know I drove my in-laws nuts as I came downstairs to hold Lola for a few minutes every so often but I felt it was important for Lola to know that I hadn't abandoned her. And as I left her alone with them for increasingly longer periods of time, she's gotten increasingly more tolerant of my absence. Yesterday she spent the majority of her time with her grandparents smiling like crazy and chatting away.

This is great news because its taken away the soul crushing feeling I've had since our practice half day with Lola's future nanny. Kayla was here for 4 hours and when she left I cried for 90 minutes straight. And not just a few tears, I was full out sobbing. It felt like somebody had repeatedly punched me in the stomach. I thought it would be easier leaving Lola with family but nope, last week when we did a trial run I found that it was just as hard to hear her cry when left alone with her loving grandparents. It turns out it doesn't matter how much I trust the person caring for her or how much love they have for her, it still felt to me as if I was abandoning my baby girl.

My mom keeps telling me that Lola will be better for me going through with this, stronger and more independent and I see that. In the last few weeks, Lola has been extremely clingy with me to the point where she would cry if anyone else, even Sean, wanted to hold her. And then there was her reaction to parties and get togethers. I'm not the best in social situations where I don't know people all that well and I was finding that Lola was picking up on this. Combined with her insistence on only being with me, it was starting to add up to a mighty antisocial baby. Now, with just half a week of practice of being without me for multiple hours each day, Lola has already improved a great deal. She settles with Sean as she does with me, she doesn't cry all day long with her grandparents, she is soothed by others, she smiles and interacts well even in my absence, and she's learnt to feed consistently from a bottle. Phew! That's a lot of great work for a little baby!

Because of all of this, I'm not as nervous about tomorrow as I thought I would be. I'm almost looking forward to it. I love being a psychologist and I've missed work so I'm excited to use that part of my brain again. And practicing being gone all day has helped me a lot. And I'll still get my mornings with Lola and a couple hours in the evening too...I'm trying to tell myself its quality not quantity. And I know she is in good hands when I'm gone so that helps immensely. Honestly what I'm most anxious about today is the early mornings and the monotony of the grind of a work week - things I would have to face regardless of if I was a mom or not!

So yes, I'm going back to work when Lola is very young and yes I suppose being home with her for longer would have been more ideal. But, I think we've made the best of the situation and I feel positive about it right now. Research shows that its not whether a mother stays at home or goes back to work that positively impacts her infant but rather whether a mother feels fulfilled with her life or not. And I think for me I'll be most fulfilled by being a working mom.

...or at least that's the story I'm telling myself ;)

Wish me luck!

3 Months!

Lola is 3 months old today! 

Its hard to believe that she's gone from this:

to this:

Well, actually more like this (as the above picture was taken just after she turned 2 months, below closer to 3 months):

This month has been by far the best month. Lola is getting so much more aware of the world around her and interacting with it more and more. Its incredible to watch and be a part of. Her smiles are so connected now. She'll look right at you, babble a bit, and then smile huge smiles, sometimes even with a little shriek or coo too. 

She'll also now smile and babble to toys. Yes! She's become interested in toys! Our friend Arie sent Lola a set of material Lamaze blocks awhile back and nowadays Lola cannot get enough of them. Which brings me to the next great thing that has happened this month: Lola can now amuse herself. Its amazing. If she's in a good mood (usually the period right after eating), she can be left on her own with her blocks for probably a good 20 minutes before she protests. And when I check on her during that time, my God the smiles she gives! I can't tell you how great it feels to be doing something productive with BOTH my hands while hearing happy baby noises coming from the play pen. Best sounds ever.

My favourite time with Lola lately has been the mornings. After her feeding we hang out and talk to each other (incoherently of course) and then I leave Lola with some toys while I make breakfast and let out Charlie and then we watch Kelly and Michael together and chat some more until Lola starts getting fussy and I know its time to walk her around a little bit so she can fall asleep for her morning nap. Our mornings have gone from a confusing, hectic, sleepy time to a lazy, enjoyable, sweet couple of hours :)

Lola is also developing so much every day. I swear she gets bigger by the hour! Besides her social skills expanding, theres also a million new things that she starts doing every day. Her cheeks are red and shes a drool machine - just a couple of the signs that she is teething. And she is starting to grasp and use her hands in increasingly more sophisticated ways. It is SO exciting to watch all of this happen. And I get beyond proud of her every time I notice something new that she's able to do. 

Also, Lola is continuing to sleep well at night, despite her doctor's statement of "that won't last." She goes through periods where its a battle to get her down and we wonder if it was always this way or if it will ever change and then suddenly she'll go back to easily falling asleep as soon as its time to. We've been changing her sleep routine to suit her changing needs and that has helped so hopefully if we continue to follow her lead, we'll be okay. She's also starting to want to go to bed earlier in the evening. For the past few nights I've been baby free before 9pm! One night even as early as 8:30! Its amazing how much I can accomplish when she's asleep that early. 

There's a million more things that I could say about this month, its been so enjoyable, but I better get moving as the monkey is going to wake up any minute now and besides her to contend with today, we have 16 members of our family coming over for Christmas Eve dinner tonight!!

Merry Christmas!!! 

Growth Spurt

Poor Lola, somewhere between me dragging her across the continental US, her being held by a million different family members and friends, and taking her on three different germ-filled plane rides, she caught her first cold. A quick note about this - I first heard a bit of congestion on Saturday night but she didn't yet have a runny nose or cough. We had her two month doctor visit the following Monday where I explained this. The physician's assistant in training said that she did indeed hear some congestion in her nasal passageway but when the doctor checked he said he didn't hear any at all and that she did not have a cold...I suspected he suspected that I was a bit of a hysterical mother. Well, Monday night came along and boy did the runny nose start! And the cough. And the irritability that comes with being stuffy and trying to get some sleep. So all this to say - mommy always knows best. Even if she didn't go to med school.

Anyway, yesterday morning I woke up at 8:30am to discover that for the first time in a very very very long time, I had woken up on my own and not because of a crying baby. Lola was still fast asleep! I hardly knew what to do with myself! I chalked this up to her cold and we went about our day (feeling very well rested).

Around 8:00pm Lola seemed ready for bed (aka she was wailing inconsolably) so up we went to get her settled. I did everything I normally do but when it came time to put Lola in her bassinet, she was NOT having it. And every time I picked her up again, she acted as if she was starving. I was getting frustrated, to me it seemed that she was irritable from her cold and just trying to use me to soothe herself. I'm all for cuddling my baby girl and soothing her with some rocking and soft talking but I really do not like to be used as a human pacifier. Maybe thats not very motherly of me to say, but its how I feel. I'd probably feel differently if Lola wasn't so great at pacifying herself - she is skilled at using her hands to calm herself down - something we've worked on with her since day one when we noticed her natural inclination to do so. Since she has successful alternate strategies, I'd like to keep my boobs to nourishment only. Especially because (with the exception of her first few weeks of life when she was often too exhausted to stay awake for any long period of time, regardless of what activity she was engaged in) Lola is not one to fall asleep feeding and continue sleeping. If she falls asleep feeding you can bet your bottom dollar that she will be waking up within minutes and she will be pissed that you tricked her into finishing a meal early. All of the combined (mostly that last point) made me highly resistant to wanting to try feeding her again to soothe what I thought was her cold-related discomfort.

But Lola was insistent and so I gave in. And then it happened again. And then again. It was around 9:30pm when Sean came up to see what was going on and found me STILL feeding. I told him my concerns about feeding to soothe and he understood but pointed out that right that second, she seemed to actually be eating, not just comfort feeding. He was right. Lola had changed from suckling to guzzling. It was probably another half hour before she was satisfied enough to go to sleep.

Sean wondered aloud if possibly this was a growth spurt. I doubted it but thought maybe I had remembered something about that happening at 10 weeks so I did something I usually advise myself - and any other new mother - not to do... I googled it. Normally googling things leads to nasty discussion boards where mothers take out all of their ugly mommy frustrations in the worst way (i.e. by being incredibly judgmental and mean to other similarly tired, frustrated, vulnerable mommies). But, this time was very different.

This time, we got confirmation that what we were experiencing was indeed a growth spurt. One mother  wrote "my son slept like a log the night before" - I literally had said those exact words that morning! Another mother wrote "she suddenly looked so much bigger" - not one hour earlier both Sean and I gasped at how large Lola suddenly looked on her change table. Another: "your baby may act like she can't possibly get enough to eat even though she just had a full feeding." In almost every article or discussion board we read, it was nearly word-for-word what we were going through. This was the second time this happened to us - just the day before others wrote online about their experiences with their babies after they got their immunizations. One mother wrote "my baby would be sleeping and then suddenly start screaming" and another wrote about how even when she was feeding her baby, it would suddenly pull away and start crying like she had never heard before. Every word was spot-on.

I think that's kind of amazing - the universality of the experience of parenthood.

I'm sure we would have figured it out eventually on our own but it was so nice to have an explanation and confirmation right in the moment. It allowed me to relax and just go with the flow. I didn't second guess whether what I was doing was right or if it would screw up all the work Lola had done in sleeping through the night. Instead, it made me commit to the work needed. I fed her until she was completely and utterly satisfied and I prepared my bedside table for a sleepless night. And instead of feeling frustrated about being a human cafeteria for 2 hours straight followed by similar feedings in the very early morning, I got to just enjoy the fact that my little girl was growing into a bigger girl.

This morning she again slept like a log until 9:00am then fed like a ravaged feral animal. I thought about three months ago when we still had yet to meet Lola and we worried about her lack of growth. I thought about all of the ultrasounds where I watched the technician consult growth charts with worried expressions. I thought about hearing that she had dropped from the 25th percentile to the 10th percentile in weight. I thought about having to be induced because she wasn't getting big enough in my belly. Then Lola finished feeding and smiled so big, with her whole face. My arm felt sore from supporting the weight of her body for an extended feeding, her 3-month outfit was fitting tightly, and her cheeks were round and full.

It was wonderful.

2 Months

On November 24, Lola turned 2 months old. I started this post then and forgot about it soooo, a few weeks later, here it is:

Two months doesn't seem right, I can't imagine nor remember life without Lola in it - it feels like she's been around for ages! I guess thats what happens when everyday is so different from the one before. 

Motherhood has been so different than what I thought it would be. I thought I would feel tired and irritable all the time and that as a result, I'd get easily frustrated (i.e. what happens to me when I don't get enough sleep). I worried that I'd be impatient with Lola and maybe not enjoy my time with her at first. I guess that's me expecting the worst again. But, I'm happy to say none of that has been true. Every day is such a joy and I find myself often thinking (or telling Sean), "I love being Lola's mom."

 I love it so much. 

I mean, its not hard to feel that way. She has the cutest little face and does the funniest things every single day. She has a great little personality and is still mostly a calm, go with the flow kinda girl. She definitely has a set of lungs on her but for the most part, when she cries loudly and with vigor, its usually for a purpose that we can distinguish (although not always something we can help her with, like when she needs to burp and nothing we've tried has worked). And best of all, she's a great sleeper. I can't stress how much we have appreciated this about her! Even in her early days we could tell Lola liked her sleep which made those nights when we could barely go 2.5hours between her waking much easier to get through. I somehow knew that it would eventually get so much better and I was right. This month Lola started sleeping in 6-7 hour stretches and then for 5 nights she slept through the entire night! Its astounding and incredible and I love her so much for gifting us with that!

Also this month, Lola is smiling more and more each day. Whenever we are having a bit of a stressful or overwhelming day, if Lola smiles at me it totally turns it around. 

I can't get enough of that smile. I often waiver between grabbing my phone to record her adorable silly face and reminding myself to stay in the moment and just enjoy. Honestly, I need to do more of the latter. Yes its nice to have pictures like above but fully being in the moment and enjoying her smile just for what it is - and not using it as an Instagramable moment - is what life is all about. Its funny, it almost feels like if you don't share it with others online, its as if it didn't happen. I'm really going to make an effort to live life with Lola so that I feel less and less like that is true!

I've also learnt a lot about myself these last two months...but as Lola is crying due to not being held so I'll have to save that for another time. Oh yeah, this month we also learned that nothing stops Lola crying like me simply holding her. With both hands of course, none of that lazy one-handed holding will do. I swear this kid of mine hates productivity!

Thankful

This past weekend we celebrated American Thanksgiving. It was a bittersweet one. On the one hand, Lola got to visit Allentown for the first times, she met so many friends and family, it snowed at just the right time making everything feel so festive, and we all laughed a lot and ate a lot.

 But, we were missing a lot of our family this year - Sean had to work, three of our Thanksgiving regulars had to be elsewhere for the first time in years - and it was our first Thanksgiving without Uncle Rich.

Despite all of this, it didn't feel as sad as I thought it would. I mean, it didn't feel the same as years prior but it didn't feel sad, and I was happy for that. Instead, it felt like the last of the hard things to get through and the end of the challenging year we had with so much loss and so much worry. Last year at this time Uncle Rich was so sick, Nonno had just passed away, Oscar the dog was only getting worse, and though we didn't know it at the time, Grandpa was a few weeks away from what would be a four-month touch and go hospital stay. Everything just felt so tinged with sadness and everything felt off.

And Christmas was tough too. With Grandpa in the hospital, mom and dad stayed in Oakville. And even though we all tried our best, Nonno's missing presence was a huge weight on the festivities.

So, to feel positive this Thanksgiving - the start of the holiday season - was a huge relief and I think a great sign of things to come. Having Lola here this year certainly helps too. Its a new time in our families, the start of new traditions, the beginning again.

Lola and I really, really missed Sean and it was so weird not having him around with us. There were certainly no shortage of helping hands though. Whenever I needed a second to myself (or even when I didn't!), Lola always had someone ready and willing to hold her, even if she was crying up a storm! That in and of itself was a vacation for me.

 I felt so relaxed and I got to go about my day in a way quite similar to how I might have had I not had a little baby to contend with. And at the same time I got my special time with Lola when she needed to eat or when I put her to bed. The best of both worlds.

The absolute best moment of our time in Allentown was when four of us (Me, Nanny, Aunt Gail, and Aunt Renee) ALL gave Lola a bath. It was hilarious, four of us crammed into the bathroom with Lola looking at us like what is all this about? At the Bailey's, each room has its own thermostat so we cranked up the heat in the bathroom and it was like a spa in there...well for Lola, the rest of us were sweating as we fussed over the baby and tried to figure out how to best go about this. It was the best.

More to say about the weekend - including some pictures from our time in NJ - but as we are still recovering from our trip, including Lola experiencing the woes of trying to sleep with a cold, we are off to rest our heads.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend (whether you're American or not!)

And special congratulations to Larissa on the birth of her baby girl, Eve, born Thanksgiving morning! xo