Before I begin, and in my defense, I never actually said those words in regard to parenting. I'm a "to each their own" kind of girl, so I didn't do the stereotypical when pregnant "I would never let my baby to this," or "I would never do that with my child," kind of thing that a lot of women supposedly do. I try really hard to stay open-minded in all things, especially things that I have no experience in, such as raising babies. :) That being said, I'm surprised to find that I did have a few preconceived notions of things I thought I wouldn't do, and am now surprised to find myself doing on a regular basis, and things that I swore I would do religiously that I just don't.
Biggest case in point: bed-sharing. I swore up and down that there was no way I would let my baby sleep in bed with us. It is so dangerous! What if I roll over on her in the middle of the night? Eek! Plus, it only makes it harder for her to get used to sleeping on her own.
She started off in her bassinet. By the end of the first week of her life, I still had not gotten a good night's sleep even though she was sleeping up to 4 hours at a time. I was constantly getting up and peering into the bassinet to make sure she was still sleeping and that she was breathing. We were having problems with breastfeeding on top of it all, and I was super stressed out. I opened up a couple of the books I have on breastfeeding, and they all said the same thing: put the baby in your bed for a day or two of nothing but sleeping and breastfeeding. Spend that time getting to know each other with no distractions. So, I grabbed Jilly and climbed into bed one night with her. She scooched herself right into me and fell straight to sleep, and so did I. I slept better than I ever slept. If I woke up to check on her, she was right there with me, so I barely have to rouse out of sleep to be sure she's okay. Happy mama = happy baby. Yay!
Still, I felt guilty. I caved in on something that was a solid stance in my eyes. Isn't it wrong to have your baby with you in bed? Marshall and I discussed it a few times, and he was never bothered by her being in bed with us. He sleeps on the left, I sleep in the middle, and Jilly sleeps on the right with my arm tucked around her safely and a rolled up blanket behind her. Then, a ran across this article talking about the benefits of co-sleeping. No more mommy guilt, yay!
So here's what I've discovered. Jilly and I went breastfeeding pro a few days after I put her in my bed. Seriously, I call her "Barracuda Baby" when she eats because it's a chomp and gulp that reminds me of an animal attacking it's prey. We both sleep better and longer. Ironically, I usually wake up just before her when it's time to eat. I'll stir, notice her stir, then wake up, then she'll wake up. So by the time she's fully awake to eat at night or in the morning, I've already gotten enough wits about me to know what's going on. (Fortunately for me, my daughter and I wake up the same: slowly and drowsily.) Since sleeping together, there has not been ONE time where she's woken me up by crying or fussing. Even on the rare occasion she wakes up before me, it can't be that long she's awake because I wake and look at her to see her staring at me like "Oh, hi Mommy! It's boob time! Wake up!" But no fussing. It's like we are so in tune together that we can read each others' minds. Freaky! Freak-ay!
My favorite things about bed-sharing that made me decide to keep doing it are as follows (well, actually there's a ton of things I love, but I'm narrowing it down to a few here):
- We sleep skin-to-skin. I'm down to my sports bra style super comfy nursing bra and undies, and she's down to her diaper. More skin-to-skin means happier baby and mommy, at least for us. I luuuurv (that's love in strang language) feeling her baby soft skin against me as we snuggle off to dreamland.
- The first thing I see every morning is my baby. The first thing she sees when she wakes up is her mommy. The first thing we do upon waking and making eye contact is give each other a huge smile. There is nothing better in the entire universe than seeing your baby look at you and smile every single morning without fail. God, I love her!
- Rivalling that baby smile in heart melting ooey-gooey love is what she does when we lay down. I lay her on her back with her head resting slightly on my arm, so her head is about even with the bottom of my chin. She will roll onto her side, scooch herself right into me so we're pressed together, and look up at me until she falls asleep. Or she'll whine a bit until she gets her paci that she loves oh-so-much, then look at me and fall asleep.
- Lastly, for humor, because I think this is hilarious, sometimes I wake up because in her sleep, she has placed her baby mouth around my boob like it's chow time. Over my bra. She's not actually trying to eat, but I think it's hilarious because it's like she just wants to have it there for comfort. "Don't take that boob away, Mom. I'm just gonna put my mouth right here so that I know you're not taking it away."
I've never once even come close to rolling over on her like I was afraid of. Mommy instinct, I think. And it's really nice that we all get to cuddle together like a family. In a couple months, when she sleeps fully through the night, I'll start integrating her into her crib, and I think it'll be harder on me than her!
One more funny Jilly fact about her new skills and habits. She's discovered she has a voice. She'll look at me and coo, goo, and mostly growl and grunt, then smile and start the process over. We'll talk to each other, which she loves. Anyway, lately, her favorite thing to talk to is, you probably didn't guess this, my boobs. She'll eat a bit, pull off, and grunt and coo and smile at them for about 30 seconds to a minute, then chomp back on and eat again. I think it's the funniest thing I've ever seen. Her eyes get all big and she moves her hands and feet excitedly. I imagine she's thanking them for the meal they are providing her. She gets so excited about food!
Okay, that's enough of my random ramblings for today. Bottom line message is my daughter is awesome and I adore her! ♥
Monday, February 21, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Marshall and the Med Board
The title of this post sounds like a bad children's book, lol. Anyway, for those of you who have been following Marshall's situation and the craziness that has found its way into our lives, I have an update for you!
To recap for a reminder if needed, and very briefly: Marshall started breaking out in hives after we moved here. It's been going on for a year and a half. After a year, they ("they" being Air Force peeps) decided to send him to a Physical Evaluation Board (aka Med Board) because they think hives are the devil for some odd reason, and that Marshall cannot possibly function on a day to day basis with his job if he breaks out in hives every so often. His first board came back with the shittiest judgement possible: discharge with severence pay and a 10% disability rating. Basically, they pooped on us. So, we decided to appeal to the formal board, meaning Marshall had to leave Feb. 2 to go to Texas to meet with this new board, in hopes that they would not poop on us and see how stupid it is to remove an excellent Airman from his duties because of stupid hives. (Whew, that was a giant rambling mouthful!)
Well, I'm really starting to think God is trying to tell us something with this. First off, my husband arrives with no problems on last Wednesday. Thursday, he meets with his attorney, who tells him that with Marshall's awesome APRs and the letters he had from supervisors saying he's #1 and how awesome he is, it should be no problem to get him returned to duty. Marshall calls me and tells me this, and we get excited and joyfully talk about how our lives can finally go back to normal after this. Woo hoo! Or at least as normal as they can be while adjusting to parenthood. His attorney was supposed to call him that afternoon and tell him when his hearing would be, but for some reason, Marshall never hears from him. We assume he'll call the next day.
Friday, Texas gets a freak snow storm of one inch of snow. The base shuts down. Marshall still doesn't know when his hearing is, and everything is closed. Saturday, I call Marshall's room for the first time. When he answers the phone, there's 30 seconds or so of nothingness before a tentative hello. Turns out, his room phone ringer doesn't work. A little light blinks to indicate a phone call, but no ring. He just happened to be sitting right next to the phone and catch the blinking when I called. So if anyone was trying to get a hold of him, they couldn't. A work order was placed for a new phone, which as of today he still has yet to receive.
Anyway, Monday morning he stops into the attorney's office first thing, and finds out his hearing was in half an hour. Score one for him for finding out just in time. Of course, they had been trying to call him, but since his phone doesn't ring he had no idea.
Marshall called me after his hearing feeling pretty confident. After all, his attorney was confident he would be returned to duty, and Marshall said they asked him questions such as "If you end up being in the 1% of people this doesn't go away for in a few years, what will you do?" We would be receiving an email in our home email with the results.
I checked the email like a hawk. A few hours later, we got the results. Discharge with severance and a 10% disability rating. The same thing as the first board. So apparently, hives really are the devil to the Air Force. We had just heard that someone just came back with a heart condition they were born with and they were returned to duty. Hives, apparently, are worse than a heart condition. Big exasperated sigh of confusion!
There's another board. This is a big one. He'll have a JAG officer as his attorney. Last night, he told me he's going to appeal this, too. So, we're back in medical limbo. This time, it'll be at least 6 months before he goes to this board (right now there's a 7 month backlog). He's got a really good plan for how we're going to spend this time waiting.
Okay, baby's up now, so that's all for now!
To recap for a reminder if needed, and very briefly: Marshall started breaking out in hives after we moved here. It's been going on for a year and a half. After a year, they ("they" being Air Force peeps) decided to send him to a Physical Evaluation Board (aka Med Board) because they think hives are the devil for some odd reason, and that Marshall cannot possibly function on a day to day basis with his job if he breaks out in hives every so often. His first board came back with the shittiest judgement possible: discharge with severence pay and a 10% disability rating. Basically, they pooped on us. So, we decided to appeal to the formal board, meaning Marshall had to leave Feb. 2 to go to Texas to meet with this new board, in hopes that they would not poop on us and see how stupid it is to remove an excellent Airman from his duties because of stupid hives. (Whew, that was a giant rambling mouthful!)
Well, I'm really starting to think God is trying to tell us something with this. First off, my husband arrives with no problems on last Wednesday. Thursday, he meets with his attorney, who tells him that with Marshall's awesome APRs and the letters he had from supervisors saying he's #1 and how awesome he is, it should be no problem to get him returned to duty. Marshall calls me and tells me this, and we get excited and joyfully talk about how our lives can finally go back to normal after this. Woo hoo! Or at least as normal as they can be while adjusting to parenthood. His attorney was supposed to call him that afternoon and tell him when his hearing would be, but for some reason, Marshall never hears from him. We assume he'll call the next day.
Friday, Texas gets a freak snow storm of one inch of snow. The base shuts down. Marshall still doesn't know when his hearing is, and everything is closed. Saturday, I call Marshall's room for the first time. When he answers the phone, there's 30 seconds or so of nothingness before a tentative hello. Turns out, his room phone ringer doesn't work. A little light blinks to indicate a phone call, but no ring. He just happened to be sitting right next to the phone and catch the blinking when I called. So if anyone was trying to get a hold of him, they couldn't. A work order was placed for a new phone, which as of today he still has yet to receive.
Anyway, Monday morning he stops into the attorney's office first thing, and finds out his hearing was in half an hour. Score one for him for finding out just in time. Of course, they had been trying to call him, but since his phone doesn't ring he had no idea.
Marshall called me after his hearing feeling pretty confident. After all, his attorney was confident he would be returned to duty, and Marshall said they asked him questions such as "If you end up being in the 1% of people this doesn't go away for in a few years, what will you do?" We would be receiving an email in our home email with the results.
I checked the email like a hawk. A few hours later, we got the results. Discharge with severance and a 10% disability rating. The same thing as the first board. So apparently, hives really are the devil to the Air Force. We had just heard that someone just came back with a heart condition they were born with and they were returned to duty. Hives, apparently, are worse than a heart condition. Big exasperated sigh of confusion!
There's another board. This is a big one. He'll have a JAG officer as his attorney. Last night, he told me he's going to appeal this, too. So, we're back in medical limbo. This time, it'll be at least 6 months before he goes to this board (right now there's a 7 month backlog). He's got a really good plan for how we're going to spend this time waiting.
Okay, baby's up now, so that's all for now!
Friday, February 4, 2011
Clockwork
I worried a lot before Jilly arrived about how to get her on a schedule. I kept trying to picture in my mind how exactly I would make it so she would understand when to sleep, eat, play, nap, etc., knowing that it would be important to do so, but baffled at how you get a baby to do those things. I'm surprised at the fact that she seems to have a schedule of her own that I've just adopted. Maybe I'm just lucky, but in my head I never pictured a two week old having any structure to her day. Although, I pictured a two week old as crying all the time, never sleeping, and pretty much doing nothing exciting or interesting besides laying there between crying and small amounts of sleep, to be honest. I was wrong.
Jillian's day is pretty much clockwork. We wake up at 7:30-7:45 a.m., get a fresh diaper, then eat breakfast in bed while Mommy watches the tail end of some celebrity gossip show on AFN and the start of Law & Order (which, for the record, doesn't interest me much but does make time go by much faster during feedings). We get up, Mommy puts on some music, and we sing, cuddle, dance, and play until shortly after 9:00 a.m. when we take our mid-morning nap. This is when Mommy enjoys a cup of hot tea, plays on the internet, writes blogs (sometimes, hee hee), and showers and gets ready for the day. We wake up a little after 11:00 and eat, then play and have tummy time and snuggle until 1:00 p.m., when we eat again then take our afternoon nap. Mommy sometimes sneaks a little nap here, too, or she calls her mommy for a nice chat. Around 3:30 we wake up and eat, then after snuggles have some bouncy chair or swing time to look around and make funny noises. We eat again at 6:00 or 6:30, depending on when Mommy decides to eat her own dinner (and we usually plan our food for as soon as she gets done fixing hers without fail). We spend some time on the couch playing with Mommy again or take a bath here instead, then at 8:00 we eat again, and then it's bed time. We wake up to eat at 11, sleep, 3 a.m., sleep, then start our day again at 7:30. Although we have occaisionally gone until 8:30 before waking up.
I'm really satisfied with this. She's always so happy, and that makes me happy. It's amazing to me how routine she is, and it makes it easy for me to plan my day. I feel so lucky to have such a cooperative little baby.
Seriously, I thought I'd have a terror on my hands. I wanted a baby so bad, I had myself convinced that when it finally happened I would have a demon child to deal with, because I couldn't possibly get lucky enough to finally have a baby and have her be perfect. But instead, I have a baby who's as close to perfect as you can get. It's baffling, lol.
Speaking of baffling (interesting segway here), Marshall is gone this week doing the Med Board thing. He left on the 2nd, and won't be back until the 10th. I'm getting pretty nervous about what the outcome of this will be. He did meet with his attorney yesterday afternoon, and his attorney is very confident he'll be able to get Marshall returned to duty. Yay! I hope this isn't just a case of giving us false hope. I don't want to rug ripped out from underneath us, so to speak. It makes me really happy to hear this though, and I could tell in talking to Marshall last night that he feels way better about the situation, too. So now we can just hope that the attorney is right and Marsh will still be an active duty Airman next week. His hearing will probably be on Monday. He has to get a few last minute things turned into the attorney today to show he's good at his job.
I wish I could be there with him. He's at Lackland Air Force Base right now for this, and won't have anything to do but relax this weekend. He's planning a trip to the Riverwalk for some shopping, and I jealously want to be there, too. I can imagine it in my head: me, Marsh, and Jilly strolling around, looking at all the stores and in the mall, stopping for some Mexican food (ooh chimichangas!), and enjoying our day together. I miss him a lot, especially in the evenings. Jilly can get kind of fussy right before her 11 p.m. feeding as I'm getting ready for bed and changing her diaper, and I really miss having him here to hold her while I brush my teeth and put my PJ's on. He'll be home soon, though, hopefully with good news. Hopefully I'll get a phone call from him today with an update on when his hearing is officially!
Jillian's day is pretty much clockwork. We wake up at 7:30-7:45 a.m., get a fresh diaper, then eat breakfast in bed while Mommy watches the tail end of some celebrity gossip show on AFN and the start of Law & Order (which, for the record, doesn't interest me much but does make time go by much faster during feedings). We get up, Mommy puts on some music, and we sing, cuddle, dance, and play until shortly after 9:00 a.m. when we take our mid-morning nap. This is when Mommy enjoys a cup of hot tea, plays on the internet, writes blogs (sometimes, hee hee), and showers and gets ready for the day. We wake up a little after 11:00 and eat, then play and have tummy time and snuggle until 1:00 p.m., when we eat again then take our afternoon nap. Mommy sometimes sneaks a little nap here, too, or she calls her mommy for a nice chat. Around 3:30 we wake up and eat, then after snuggles have some bouncy chair or swing time to look around and make funny noises. We eat again at 6:00 or 6:30, depending on when Mommy decides to eat her own dinner (and we usually plan our food for as soon as she gets done fixing hers without fail). We spend some time on the couch playing with Mommy again or take a bath here instead, then at 8:00 we eat again, and then it's bed time. We wake up to eat at 11, sleep, 3 a.m., sleep, then start our day again at 7:30. Although we have occaisionally gone until 8:30 before waking up.
I'm really satisfied with this. She's always so happy, and that makes me happy. It's amazing to me how routine she is, and it makes it easy for me to plan my day. I feel so lucky to have such a cooperative little baby.
Seriously, I thought I'd have a terror on my hands. I wanted a baby so bad, I had myself convinced that when it finally happened I would have a demon child to deal with, because I couldn't possibly get lucky enough to finally have a baby and have her be perfect. But instead, I have a baby who's as close to perfect as you can get. It's baffling, lol.
Speaking of baffling (interesting segway here), Marshall is gone this week doing the Med Board thing. He left on the 2nd, and won't be back until the 10th. I'm getting pretty nervous about what the outcome of this will be. He did meet with his attorney yesterday afternoon, and his attorney is very confident he'll be able to get Marshall returned to duty. Yay! I hope this isn't just a case of giving us false hope. I don't want to rug ripped out from underneath us, so to speak. It makes me really happy to hear this though, and I could tell in talking to Marshall last night that he feels way better about the situation, too. So now we can just hope that the attorney is right and Marsh will still be an active duty Airman next week. His hearing will probably be on Monday. He has to get a few last minute things turned into the attorney today to show he's good at his job.
I wish I could be there with him. He's at Lackland Air Force Base right now for this, and won't have anything to do but relax this weekend. He's planning a trip to the Riverwalk for some shopping, and I jealously want to be there, too. I can imagine it in my head: me, Marsh, and Jilly strolling around, looking at all the stores and in the mall, stopping for some Mexican food (ooh chimichangas!), and enjoying our day together. I miss him a lot, especially in the evenings. Jilly can get kind of fussy right before her 11 p.m. feeding as I'm getting ready for bed and changing her diaper, and I really miss having him here to hold her while I brush my teeth and put my PJ's on. He'll be home soon, though, hopefully with good news. Hopefully I'll get a phone call from him today with an update on when his hearing is officially!
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