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Month: November 2015

Today, I Am Grateful

11 / 26 / 15

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Because I am privileged. Because I have all the things a younger version of myself prayed for. Because I have a fat turkey in the oven and a warm house and two cats curled up in bed. Because, though he drives me batty, my father is here–and he is in recovery. Because I live in a city I love. Because there are so many other cities to fall in love with. Because of cheese and chocolate and anything that is even close to a noodle. Because my wife is my best friend (and because she’ll understand why she came after noodles). Because I meet 60+ students every semester, and so many of them challenge me to be a better person. Because it has already snowed once–and will snow again. Because it will then stop snowing. Because of oceans and wild things and all of the unknown. Because I have choices. Because I have been able to wear mostly pajamas for the past 4 months. Because I am not alone on the holidays and because I am not alone. Because one bestie last month, one bestie next. Because a mother who is now a Mimi. Because a tree, tomorrow. Because Finn has been asleep for 63 minutes, meaning he got through his first sleep transition without waking up.

Because Finn. Because Finn. Mostly, because Finn.

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Work: It Is A Comin’

11 / 24 / 1511 / 24 / 15

I’ve been a pretty lazy blogger over the past couple of weeks. That’s partly because we’ve been uber busy. And that’s partly because I’ve been in a kinda-sorta-funk. I’ve gone from trying to be Super Mom and Super Wife to being pretty unmotivated.

I’m blaming the weather change, mostly. It’s suddenly cold and grey and snowy in Chicago–all parts of winter that I readily and excitedly embrace–and it’s kicked me straight into hibernation mode. I don’t want to work. I don’t want to leave the house. I just want to cuddle up with my baby and a cup of tea and listen to holiday music.

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But I also think that my funk can partly be attributed to the creeping, sneaky dread of having to go back to work full-time, leaving Finn in a yet-to-be-solidified childcare situation for four days a week.

My bemoaning going to back to work is more of a surprise to me than anyone. Don’t get me wrong: I love my son. Yet, I was the first to tell everyone how happy I’d be to return to work. How I wasn’t cut out to be a full-time mom. How I needed to have a life outside of the house and Finn and endless piles of diapers.

I was THAT PERSON–maybe a little self-righteously so–who swore she “couldn’t take” this stay at home mommy thing forever.

And I still don’t think I could do it. I need some kind of intellectual stimulation beyond being a momma. I need other creative and social outlets. When I’ve been with the students in my one-night-a-week class this semester, it has been a reprieve. When I’m in that room with them, I do feel like I can access an important part of myself that I can’t access when I’m at home, and I’ve really enjoyed the oasis that the classroom has always provided me.

But when that class is over–like the very second I step out of the classroom–I’m checked out. I’m back in momma mode, and it’s a miracle if I find a single second for the rest of the week when I am tuned back in to my professional responsibilities. And that’s just real talk.

So, I knew the transition back to work was going to be tough, come January, but I didn’t anticipate such an emotional hurdle. Last week, I chaperoned a group of students to an all-day writing conference. It was the longest I’ve been away from Finn in weeks.

The night before the conference, Sona was holding Finn, and I looked to their side of the couch to find that he was staring at me with this wide-eyed wander. He was looking at me like he was thinking, “That’s my Momma! And I love her SOOOO much!” It’s a look that slays me every. single.time.

I took him, gave him a big hug, and started to sob. I don’t even know why I was crying. Probably because I think he’s finally started to actively show excitement at my presence. Probably because I’m just a overly sentimental mush. But mostly, it was because I’m realizing that my days at home with him are numbered. It’s like I can see a grey cloud of doom slowly rolling in, and all of my interactions with Finn are now colored by its presence.

I know how melodramatic that sounds, trust me. But that’s also how melodramatic it feels. Trust me on that, too.

The worst part is that–like so many aspects of this parenting thing–I never saw it coming. I knew I’d be sad, sure, but I didn’t know I’d feel this.

Ultimately, I know it’s better for me, and for our family, and for Finn. I know I have a purpose outside of the house, too, and I know that my time with Finn has been sweetened by the fact that it’s temporary.

But I also get it, now. I get all of the FB posts from my mommy friends, lamenting their return to work. I’ll admit, I used to–kind of harshly–judge them. I used to secretly think, “Suck it up!”

Now, with the tables turned, I get it. I’ll be the blubbering mess, come January. And probably a lot of days leading up to then, too.

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It’s Our Insemination-versary!

11 / 18 / 1511 / 18 / 15

One year ago today, we walked into our doctor’s office, thinking the timing was totally off, and we made Finn. You can read all about the process, here.

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It was our second attempt and our second donor. The first donor we chose ran out of “stock” before we had a chance to buy more. And THANK GOODNESS he did. I like to believe that everything works out exactly the way it is meant to. That is, I like to believe that we were always supposed to have Finn–not any other baby by any other donor.

So, thank you, first dude, for not giving a larger–err, donation.

November 18th was the day we made our son. It was also the last day–probably of our entire lives–that we didn’t fret about him, worry about his well-being.

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I look at this photo, now, and think about all of the things I’d tell these two soon-to-be-mommies. In a lot of ways, we were SO clueless.

But mostly, I would just tell them that they are doing the right thing. That the timing, as it turned out, was perfect. And that they couldn’t–not in a million years–imagine the love that was about to bloom.

 

 

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Finn Is 3 Months!

11 / 11 / 1511 / 11 / 15

Finn month 3

You guys: Finn is 3 months old! That means that he is no longer a newborn. A piece of my heart just died a little.

Our baby is getting SO big! He’s finally starting to outgrow his 0-3 months clothes, and we’ve just started packing up a box of stuff that no longer fits. (Insert sad face.)

He has become a very good sleeper, and he often sleeps 10 hour stretches at night. He still hates bedtime, though. So, we let him fall alseep in bed while breastfeeding, and then we transfer him to his crib. That habit will have to end, soon.

His appetite is huge, and he still eats every 2-3 hours. He mostly just breastfeeds at night, now, when Sona gets home from work. The rest of the day, he’s really good at taking bottles.

He smiles and laughs constantly, especially when his mommies talk to him. He really loves to be talked to, and he makes all kinds of adorable squeaks, trying to talk back.

He’s chilled out a ton, and now he’s good at playing independently for a bit or sitting in his MamaRoo while we do work around the house.

If the TV is on, he turns his head to watch it (teenager). He still hates his car seat and screams most of the time he’s in it. He’s tasted a few things–because Momma can’t help herself. He’s obsessed with his hands, and he’s very close to sucking his thumb. He has very strong legs, a good grip, and he drools incessantly.

We love him so much, and he gets more fun–and more interactive–all of the time!

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An Ode to Date Night (And Why Our Marriage Depends On It)

11 / 9 / 1511 / 9 / 15

A couple of weeks ago, when my mom was visiting, Sona and I had our first date night since Finn was born. We’d gone nearly 2.5 months without having an evening to ourselves–without ever leaving our son.

Needless to say, it was time.

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Not only was date night an excuse to spend quality time together, doing something other than changing diapers, but it was also a reason to actually wash our hair, put on a little make-up, and make more than the minimal effort to look, well, approachable and mildly socialized.

Everyone warned that we’d spend the whole night talking–and fretting–about Finn, but we have a dirty little secret: we didn’t. I mean, he came up a couple of times, sure, but we spent most of the dinner talking about non-baby things just like we would have BF (Before Finn). It was the best time I’ve had with Sona in a long, long while. It felt special in a way that our pre-baby date nights hadn’t. Maybe that was because we needed it so badly. Maybe that was because we recognized what a rarity dates nights will be, now. Maybe that was because Sona had her first drink of alcohol in nearly a year.

Either way, we had a fabulous time.

But things haven’t been completely fabulous in the relationship department lately, if we’re being honest. And that’s the whole point of this blog thing, right? Honestly. Or something like it. I know that, when reading other blogs, the ones I feel the most connected to are the ones were the writers–the humans behind the screen–admit their flaws and own up to their imperfections. I’ve thought a lot about this, lately–about resisting the urge to create a perfectly curated life for the internets. About authenticity.

And the other evening, while Sona and I were on date night #2, we had to acknowledge something: the image we craft online–via this blog and our various social media accounts–isn’t always completely truthful. It’s not that we’ve actively tried to lie about our lives, it’s just that the Instagram version of our family isn’t always fully representative of who we are.

So, here’s the truth: tending to a marriage after a baby is difficult, and we’ve been struggling a bit.

BF I worried a lot about how the dynamic between Sona and I would change. I’ve written a bit about that, before. I worried that I’d be jealous of how much attention–and love–she gave him. (I’m ashamed to admit that, but it is the truth.) I worried that we’d interact with each other differently after the baby. I worried that our home wouldn’t be the sacred space it’d always been for the two of us.

All of those concerns were for naught. None of that happened, luckily. Finn became a part of our family so easily and so completely.

But here’s what I should have worried about: time. There just isn’t enough of it–not nearly. Most days, it’s everything we can do just to keep up with our professional responsibilities, keep our home in some kind of working order, and take care of Finn. Even then, things fall through the cracks pretty regularly.

In an attempt to balance those things, we’ve forgotten about our relationship. It wasn’t deliberate, but our marriage just hasn’t been a priority. How could it be?! We barely get the dishes done, the emails written, the baby bathed… well, you get the idea.

We’ve focused so much on keeping everything else together; we’ve forgotten that we have to keep ourselves together. It’s a trap a lot of new parents fall into, I’m sure. Our therapist has warned us about how many marriages end within the first two years of having a baby, and it’s not hard to see why.

Time, of course, is the biggest culprit. There just isn’t any of it. Now that Sona has returned to working full-time, getting up at 4:30 every morning, the evenings are a non-stop sprint to get things done. She gets home, exhausted, and immediately has to pump. We have to clean bottles. Make bottles. Make dinner. Clean up from dinner. Take care of random household chores. Oh, and did I mention that there’s a baby that requires a bit of attention? Weekday evenings are tough and, when we’re lucky, Finn goes to sleep about 5 minutes before Sona falls asleep. Alone time? Pfffffffft. What’s that?!

I can’t remember the last time we got a chance to cuddle on the couch–or in bed–without a baby. Or without being so tired that we both had drool pooling on the pillow before the lights were even out.

And exhaustion is another culprit. I’m lucky enough to get a good bit of sleep, as Finn is still sleeping 10-12 hours each night. Sona isn’t so lucky, though. She’s experiencing what we’ll both be experiencing come next semester: you go to work during the day, and then you come home to work at night.

And even if I feel well-rested, I’m usually pretty stressed out. I’m still trying to figure out how to do it all: the teaching career, the photography business, the blog (which is, right now, the only creative outlet that’s just for me), the baby. THE WIFE.

Between the exhaustion and the stress, Sona and I aren’t always giving each other the best side of ourselves. In fact, we’re usually giving each other the worst. We tend to everything around us–neurotically and obsessively–and then we save the leftovers for our marriage.

Lately, there hasn’t been much left over.

There’s other stuff, too. Like the fact that having a baby–and thinking hard about how you want to raise that baby–forces you to put every aspect of your lives under a microscope. I’ve been thinking harder about the things I want for Finn–and the things I don’t want for Finn. And I know Sona has, too.

Sometimes, the things we can tolerate for ourselves, we can’t tolerate for our children. And so, there have been lots of conversations about re-prioritizing. De-cluttering. Re-focusing our lives.

All of this amid the new parent identity crisis that rivals tween-hood.

So, we need to do better. We’re starting by making date night a regular thing. We’ve found a sitter we like, and we’ve already got several dates on the calendar–we’re aiming for twice a month!

But we need to do better in between date nights, too. I’m not sure where we should start, but we’ll get there. We’ll get more used to our new routine. Finn’s bedtime will start to scale back. Maybe (hopefully) we’ll get more comfortable with there being dishes in the sink and laundry piled in baskets.

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Finn deserves to have two happy, loving mommies, but he can’t have that unless his mommies are happy, loving wives. We’re going to work on being better at that. We owe it to ourselves–not just to Finn.

(And, of course, I never would have written this without my wife’s permission. “I’m going to blog about our relationship,” is probably the most terrifying thing you can hear.) 😉

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Friday Photo Dump

11 / 6 / 15

Photo Dump 11.6

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If I Made A Mixtape For Finn

11 / 4 / 1511 / 4 / 15

Sona still has lots of CD compilations that I burned for her when we were dating. Oh, you youngins don’t remember mixtapes, but they were a thing. Just trust me.

Listening to those songs, even still, make me think of what it was like to be young and silly and stupid and oh-so-smitten. They were our songs, and they will always make me think of her.

I’m starting to collect songs for Finn now, too. I mean, look at this heartthrob. Who wouldn’t make mixtapes for this kid?

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This has happened pretty organically. At least, I haven’t consciously tried to find songs that remind me of him. Still, already, there are a few that I associate with him–all for different reasons.

The first song is Matt Kearney’s Closer to Love.

When Sona and I first thought seriously about having a baby, we were pretty sure we wanted to adopt. I’ve talked about that before.

At that time, we were looking into working with The Cradle–an amazing adoption agency in Evanston, IL. We followed them on Facebook, stalked their website, and read through their forums. Through that, we found a video that a family had made, documenting the first time they met their son at The Cradle. This song played in the background. Sona and I watched it over and over, crying each time. This song became our we-are-going-to-find-our-baby-somehow anthem. And even though, ultimately, we chose a different path, I still hear this song and think about how much we worked to get our Finn. (Also, if I’m being honest, I still very much feel like Sona and I are meant to adopt. One day. In my heart, I know it will happen.)

And, because it’s too good not to share, here’s the adoption story. I dare you to watch it without choking up.

 

The next song is Young and Beautiful by Lana Del Rey. Don’t judge me.

Don’t worry. This has nothing to do with KimYe’s ridonkulous proposal.

When Sona was pregnant, she often listened to the LDR Pandora station during her commute to and from work. She swears that, whenever a LDR song came on, Finn would start moving around. It became our inside joke: “Finn loves Lana Del Rey.” And he did seem to respond to hearing her music.

So, when he was only a couple weeks old, I started singing this song to him when I was trying to get him to go to sleep. I didn’t really know all the lyrics–and still don’t–but I would hold his tiny little ear up to my mouth, swaying back in forth in our dark bedroom, and I would clumsily sing, “Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful? Will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul? I know you will, I know you will. I know that you will.” He always fell asleep, and, well, it became our thing.

 

The last song I heard by accident. I saw a little boy dancing to it on a segment of a talk show, and I immediately Googled the lyrics, trying to find it.

It is Sleeping at Last by Light.

Honestly, I can’t think of any song that better embodies what it is like to have a new baby. I can’t even listen to this song without completely falling apart, melting into the most sappy, sentimental puddle of overwhelming love for Finn.

Even now, as I’m writing this post, watching Finn nap on the monitor and listening to this song in the background, I’m crying like a–wait for it–baby. SO MANY FEELS.

But really, it’s just perfect. I’ve deliberately shared the video that includes the lyrics. Because, WOAH.

I can’t wait to keep collecting songs–and memories–as Finn grows up. There will be so many, I know, but I’ll always come back to these three. They are what the most special time in our lives sounded like, and if I could spend hours on my bedroom floor, copying them onto a black cassette tape and writing “Finn + Danielle + Sona 4EVA! <3 <3 <3” on the label (with hot pink pens that smell like strawberries, of course), I totally would.

 

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Finn’s First Halloween!

11 / 2 / 1511 / 3 / 15

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a… gumball machine?

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As it turns out, my first Pinterest-inspired costume-making adventure went off without much of a hitch. Lucky enough, Finn’s first costume required little more than a hot glue gun to construct. So, I felt up to the challenge.

We looked at tons of pre-made infant costumes, but nothing really spoke to us. There’s just not that much variety for a little squish that can’t even sit up, yet. So, rather than spend $50 for Finn to be a sadly misshapen lump of a zebra, we decided to go with something a little easier–and a little more fun.

As soon as I saw this gumball machine costume online, I was sold! It’s basically just a onesie, some pants, and a hat with pompoms glued on, after all. How could I mess it up? Plus, FOOD.

Of course, Finn is still a little too young to go trick-or-treating (can’t wait for the next year, though). This whole costume thing was really only for one purpose, then: photos. We wanted pictures of our little guy in his little costume, and we wanted to be able to say that–even if it served absolutely no purpose at all–we dressed him up for his first Halloween.

And since the only thing we really good do was take photos, we took A LOT of photos.

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Having these photos–and being able to torture/embarass Finn with them when he’s older–is TOTALLY worth a few glue gun burns.

We had a great first Halloween with our little guy. We have a tradition of watching scary movies and binge-eating junk food with a couple of good friends. Finn stayed up with us, this year, and I was a little nervous that we’d have trouble getting through the movies while watching him.

Our little guy was a champ, though! He sat on the couch and hung out with us while we watched movies, and he even went to bed without a peep, all while we were loudly watching Insidious 3 and a party raged upstairs.

All month, I’ve been eyeing our neighborhood’s Facebook page, taking note of all of the Halloween activities offered for kids. Next year, Finn will be able to participate in some of them, and I’m SO excited about it. But I’m not going to wish time away–the trick or treating days will be here soon enough.

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