moving the blog

just so peeps know, I'm moving babycakes to wordpress. This URL should redirect by the end of the week. We'll be at:

http://babycakesblog.wordpress.com/

I'll be publishing over there from now on. Hopefully this move will make things a little easier.

ummm

bfp

no kidding...

Kidizing the World

I get that the entire world can't be child-proofed, that not every person's house is set up for kids, that not every restaurant should provide crayons and a kids menu (although it's pretty nice when they do). I understand all that, but what really gets me are people's general attitude toward kids.

Finn is not a cart kid. It generally takes some degree of bribery (popcorn at Target, a sucker at Trader Joe's) to keep him in the cart, and even then he never lasts long. He'd much rather be walking with us or (usually) throwing stuff that looks cool into the cart. This is what happened yesterday at Trader Joe's. A couple licks into his sucker he hands it to us and decides it's time to get down.

Let the chase begin.

We happened to run into Finn's friend Tristan, sitting quietly in his cart, but not for long. Soon the boys were chasing each other, running through Trader Joe's.

A kidless person's absolute nightmare. Well, minus the screaming.

It was a joyous display of childhood, these two little boys having the time of their lives. M. or I were with them the entire time, but I kept feeling the burning glares of people as my child rounded corners, veered toward the cheese case, zoomed down the frozen food aisle. Because more importantly than having family-friendly spaces in this world is having child-friendly attitudes, and I tell you, attitudes towards kids sucks sometimes.

I would have been one of those people glaring before Finn came along. I would have muttered to M. about people not controlling their children. I now know that children are not made to be controlled, that their joy should not be suppressed except for safety reasons, as long as their parent is present and attentive.

Maybe we broke all the social rules of parenthood yesterday. Perhaps I deserved a few of those glares. I think that people in general need to be more kid-ized, to see kids through the eyes of a child, to see all the wonder they bring to a simple trip to the grocery store. I'm okay with spaces not being appropriate for children and I'll respect that, but I do tire of attitudes that don't respect children being present in this society as well as being allowed to be who they are...children.

Don't Go There

The egg is out the gate. M. won't let me give it a name, but if I were to name it, I would call it Slick. Why? Because it's the phoenix, rising from the ashes of our previous TTC. It's a rebirth. It's the Rebirth of Slick, which is an awesome song from one of my favorite albums ever.

I'm very busy Not Going There.

I remember our very first ever cycle. It was crazy making. We hadn't figured out that we were most likely NOT pregnant yet. We were sure that we were. Every little twinge, every little urp, every little slightly strange movement of my body was a BABY. And here we are again, and I am determined, intent, to NOT GO THERE.

It's been pretty funny.

M: I've been burping a lot.

Me: Don't go there.

M: I have really bad heart burn.

Me: Don't go there.

M: It's a full moon.

Me: Don't go there.

M: I'm breathing...

Me: DON'T GO THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!

I tell ya, it's hard not to go there. Any little thought I have about the fact that we might be pregnant, we might have another baby soon, we might need baby clothes and bottles and sweet little diapers, I just shove it back into the dark corners of my mind.

I think it's because I know this is really our last shot. We don't have the money to do a lot of interventions beyond an IUI. And we now KNOW what it means to have a child, and we know that it's not all wonderful, and we know it's going to mean not sleeping again and being tired and cranky, and we know it will probably last for a year. We know it will hurt Finn, even if it's a good thing, it's going to hurt him, and that is the last thing we want to do. We know this will stretch our already stretched finances even further.

We know this is a big fucking deal.

So I'm promising myself that this time I'm going to make it through this without feeling like I'm on the edge of breaking down. This is why I'm not going down the road to Crazytown. I swear.

My heart tells me that we'll get pregnant and my mind tells me that if we don't, we'll be okay.

We are sperminated

Project Baby the Sequel has commenced.

Yikes.

Sleep. Sweet, sweet sleep.

Sleep and Finn has been difficult, to say the least.

At times it has seemed like everyone else in the world was blessed with the perfectly sleeping child while we have the nightmare. For YEARS now the parenting never stopped because he would only sleep a maximum of two hours, sometimes as little as twenty minutes. There was a time when I'd get home from work and have to go to bed immediately because Finn wouldn't sleep without me. Nighttime was tinged with the anticipation of cries of "mommy, mama" from the bedroom.

We've gone down the road of self-blame. We didn't cry it out. We have a family bed. Our kid is too attached. It's OUR fault. WE have not allowed him to learn self-soothing because of our suffocating parenting style. If you'd told me when Finn was little it would be two and a half years of this hell, I might have made some different decisions. At times I've wanted to make different decisions. Anything for a little sanity.

Then it happened. A switch. Our boy is not only sleeping the entire night, he's PUTTING HIMSELF TO SLEEP.

As Finn's gotten older he's stopped nursing to sleep, and at some point M. and I realized that us staying with him until he fell asleep was actually not working. So we did something crazy. We started leaving. And Finn did something crazy. He started putting himself to sleep. It's been six weeks now and basically we lie down with him for about twenty minutes, then kiss him, hug him and tuck his covers around him. Then we leave and he goes to sleep. Just like that. Sometimes he gets up so we retuck him again, and that's usually only once or twice.

There is hope.

I've come to see sleep as a process, not an event. People love to ask if you're baby is sleeping through the night, as if it's something that is supposed to just happen in the first year, and for some it does. But there is no "supposed to" about sleep, and it can take time...a lot of time. Forcing it has consequences, and while many are okay with those tough decisions, forcing Finn to sleep is something that neither M. or I have ever been comfortable with.

So we have sleep. For now. And I'm going to enjoy it. For now.

Is he a boy or dog?

boy or dog?, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Finn is so funny. He insisted on carrying this stick in his mouth.

I want a FUN kid

As much as I hate labels, we have a very sensitive kid. He's been sensitive from pretty much the beginning. We've worked hard to parent our sensitive kid, to respect his experience in this world, to make it a safe place for him to be. Sometimes his sensitivity makes him a really fabulous, sweet and intuitive kid. Actually most of the time. Then sometimes M. and I feel like this kid is not the one we signed up to parent.

I JUST WANT A FUN KID!!!!!

I wanted that kid who runs around and has a million friends and plays and can go anywhere and just have fun. I didn't get him.

Today we decided to try out a local indoor play area at a community center. We walk in and there's a bouncy house. Kids are supposed to love bouncy houses, right? Aren't they the ubiquitous fixture at kids birthday parties, isn't that how people lure you to picnics and other activities? Hot dogs. Soda. A BOUNCY HOUSE. They're the modern-day kids entertainment, exercise and bright colors all rolled into one.

Call it Bouncy House Fail.

We walk in. Finn signs "all done" and starts telling us that he needs to go outside as he heads to the door. No indoor play area. No bouncy house. No FUN.

It's hard to have your expectations destroyed over and over, and sometimes I feel like that's what parenting is. It's this constant falling into the abyss that exists between your expectations and reality. And when you've left the one millionth social situation because your kid can't handle noise, or crowded rooms, and gets easily overwhelmed, you start to feel frustrated. You start to want to scream those words that you feel no parent should ever utter...

WHAT THE EFF IS WRONG WITH MY KID???????

So we encouraged him to play with something that wasn't noisy, and when it was apparent that he could not be distracted we left and went to Target. Because Finn loves Target and mama & mommy needed a little shopping therapy that wouldn't destroy our budget.

We're also going to have Finn's hearing checked, because there actually could be something going on, and we'll keep working on coping mechanisms for noisy environments. We'll keep working with our sensitive lovely boy to be as okay as he possibly can be.