Friday 4 April 2008

Ahhhhhhhhhh....

Whew, good lord that took awhile. Ray has been back to the 'going down for the night, waking up every fifteen minutes 3-4 times before REALLY going down' thing for the last few nights. I think he's on the verge of another milestone...and I think this one may be verbal. He's been doing the "mamamamamama" more often, and usually when he seems to want me. Sometimes it's while he's whining, and hanging on my leg. I've heard that the "mamamama" sound is more angry/frustrated, and the "dadadada" babbling is happy, which I've seen evidence of. However, a few times today, when not upset, he would take off after me going "mamama". At one point this evening I was in the kitchen cooking, and he took off toward the back of the house looking for me after he heard me yell something to Anthony, going "mamamama!", but not upset. I said "in here honey!" and he came back to the kitchen gate to eyeball me. Cute!

But yeah, back to the "oy that took forever". I just spent a solid HOUR trying to put him to bed. Nursed him three times in that time. He was so restless, he would just lay there in my arms sucking his thumb and "singing", "MmmmmMMMmmmMMMmmmMmmmmMMMmm". To the point where he would actually fall asleep, thumb pop out of his mouth, still humming. Then the sound would wake him and he'd go back to sucking and more humming. Finally I put him in his bed, as he was mostly asleep but squirming to flip over, and he stayed. Whew! Maybe tomorrow he'll wake me up with a happy, "Mama!". :)

I've told Anthony time and again that with the next one we'll make sure he's more involved in the sleeping process. It's a little harder to work it in, with the breastfeeding, but what we should have done (I think) is make sure I pumped a bottle for him some nights and let daddy feed him to sleep. Not worth the trouble of doing it now, as Anthony will be gone in about a month, and we'll only see him once in the following five months. But on the next little one? For sure.

I see some folks enjoyed my last post, and I'm glad. I guess I'm at a place right now, in my process of "processing", where I'm taking more responsibility for the decisions I made, but at the same time I feel like the "system" really failed me, as it fails SO many women. Men, women, if you have a chance to see the Business of Being Born, please do so. It is so informative. It doesn't address all the current problems in our system concerning mothers, babies, and doctors, but it does bring up some of the biggest issues and for those that haven't read in depth about the current state of these things in our country, I think you may find it very enlightening. Whether you're done having kids, just starting, or don't plan on doing it ever. If you're male or female, show it to your daughters and your sons. Make them AWARE.

Things are moving along well here as far as our leaving is concerned. The car is in the shop, the movers come on the 10th to make our house truly empty and terribly boring for a week, and we're somewhat frantically trying to find a home for our lovely Claudia. Our flight is officially set, and we've purchased my plane tickets out to SC. On top of finding a house and getting the lease set up (and possibly getting our household goods delivered there before we leave) we hope to buy a car, which Anthony will drive out to San Diego as soon as we've left for SC.

In the home life, things are good. Ray is doing great, and truly getting more fun by the day. He loves to play, with us and on his own as well. He's a solid little guy, still pretty slim but heavy and STRONG. Gosh. It truly amazes me. Still not much hair but a mouth full of teeth. He's in love with cheerios or pretty much any finger food, and loves to eat eat eat.

I've received my birth doula manuals in the mail, and I'm slowly getting started. Not as quickly as I'd like but I've found some awesome blogs (listed on my sidebar) and I've been drinking in the info like a dying woman. Doulas, midwives, feminists, authors...so many interesting points of view. I love it.

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