One Year

At the beginning of this month, I celebrated 26 years of life on this beautiful planet. That means for 25 years, 1 week, and 1 day, I existed without you here. How is that possible?

We measure our life in units of time because that's what makes sense. The passage of time is universal; it's one of the only things that every human experiences. Before your first birthday, we counted months. Before you were born, we counted weeks. You are one year old now. Every year on September 16th we'll celebrate you and the joy you have brought into our lives.

I can hardly believe we've already reached this point. How has it been a year since I first held you in my arms, both enamored and terrified? Yes, I was terrified. Despite all I'd read to prepare for your birth, I was completely unprepared for the realization that I was now responsible for another human being's well-being. It didn't hit me until I held you in my arms-- this tiny, helpless baby, beautiful beyond the description of words and completely mine.

Here we are a year later. You are still more beautiful than I could describe and still fairly helpless and I am still pretty terrified of my responsibility at times. So what has changed? 

Everything.

My entire world has transformed since you entered it a year ago. I still feel so inadequate in many areas but in others I am more confident. You have taught me patience and kindness the way no one else could. You have taught me how to slow down. You have taught me a fully checked off to-do list should not be the measure of my day's worth. You've taught me one smile or a giggle can turn a terrible, sleep-deprived morning around. You've taught me to trust myself as a mother. Thank you for being a patient teacher. I'm excited to learn more this year.  

You are radiant. You are the light that fills each beautiful day of my life. I will never have a gray day as long as you are here. 

Happy Birthday, Sweet Baby James.

On Breastfeeding

(Reader beware: I use words like "breastfeeding" and "nursing" throughout this post so if that topic makes you uncomfortable go ahead and ignore this.)

I have a secret: I have been breastfeeding James since he was born but we stopped nursing last December. We'll probably continue breastfeeding for a couple more months.

Before James was born, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months of a baby's life and the World Health Organization gives that same recommendation and also recommends breastfeeding up to two years and beyond. All of the books I'd read in preparation for James' birth touted breastfeeding as the best way to go (or only way to go in some literature). I was determined to breastfeed for the first year.

When James was born, he had a terrible time latching. Part of my carefully designed birth plan indicated I wanted to breastfeed immediately after James was born but he was whisked away to the nursery because of some minor complications with his breathing. I don't really know if this contributed to our bad nursing relationship. Sometimes I like to put the blame there because I did everything I could to make it work and it didn't. If it was something that was out of my control, then I can feel better about my efforts and not wonder "what if I had done this differently?"

I don't really want to go into all the details here so I'll summarize: James was a terrible nurser. In those early months that are already difficult and confusing without worrying that your baby isn't eating, he would wake up hungry, fight against the breast, finally start nursing and nurse for an hour, fall asleep while eating EVERY TIME, wake up hungry again anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour and a half later. Occasionally, he would wake up not starving and be alert and playful for a little while before beginning to scream that he was hungry. These alert and playful periods after nursing were rare, more rare than the usual sleepy newborn phase. We didn't get out much. I would never be able to discreetly nurse him because he would thrash and scream for at least a few minutes every time before eating and then once he started eating, I wouldn't be able to move for the next hour or so, and when he was finally done eating, he would be asleep in my arms. So, we spent most of our days cooped up in the little blue bedroom we shared. Nursing was pretty traumatic for me. I would dread the next time he was hungry, in addition to the awful scream- eat- sleep routine, nursing him was really painful. It never stopped being painful in the three months we worked at it, despite meetings with a lactation consultant and our attempts to fix his latch. I never had that bond-building, peaceful nursing relationship. I can honestly say nursing was detrimental to my relationship with James. I hated it and I didn't want to do it and I hated that he needed me to do it.

Luckily for me and James, we were born at a time in history where such things as breastpumps exist. James lost way more weight than he was supposed to right after he was born because he wasn't eating well. He was also jaundiced and couldn't get rid of the excess bilirubin because he wasn't pooping (because he wasn't eating). His doctor sent us home after his first visit in that first week with formula to get him eating and pooping otherwise he would need to be hospitalized. He had no problem with formula but I wanted him to have breastmilk so that night I went out and bought a manual hand pump. When James was a little over a week old, I was able to rent a hospital-grade pump for a few weeks. In addition to hours spent nursing, pumping was now also on my schedule. While this was initially difficult, I began to see a change in James' demeanor when he was able to eat from a bottle. He was more alert and more content after those meals. I was able to take him out of the house. It was totally worth it. After a few weeks with the hospital-grade pump, I was able to get my own electric pump which was more portable-- which meant being able to do even more things. I am not exaggerating when I say that pumping saved my life. I could do things again and James was happy, healthy, and not screaming.  

Around Christmas time was when I decided to stop nursing altogether. We'd been traveling and pumping was much more convenient in every respect (except bottle cleaning) than nursing was. After we came home from traveling, I was sold on the idea of exclusively pumping. 

Even though pumping saved James' and my sanity, it was hardly easy. I was pumping around the clock in addition to feeding James after pumping. I had to store milk and wash bottles and pump parts every day. If I was going anywhere for longer than a couple hours, I would have to pack my pump with me and figure out a place to pump while I was out. If I was visiting with people at home, I would have to excuse myself for half an hour to pump. And unlike nursing, where I at least get the satisfaction of a cute baby in my arms, I was hooked up a machine tugging at me while making loud annoying noises. It just wasn't a fun experience. 

But I did it because I wanted James to have breastmilk for his first year of life and I knew I was capable of giving it to him. Also, I am incredibly stubborn so when I made that a goal before he was born, I was determined to do it. And here we are, a little over two weeks away from his first birthday, he still gets breastmilk in addition to his food. Even though I had to stop pumping just last week because I started a new medication for my SLE that prevents me from breastfeeding, I have deep freezer completely full of milk to bring James past that one year mark.

I think I wrote this entire post because I really wanted to celebrate that James and I are making it to a year of breastfeeding. It's kind of a bigger deal than I thought it would be when I first made the goal before he was born. All along the way, I didn't think it was possible. It was really hard. If someone wanted to get me a chocolate cake to celebrate, it would be totally justified.

Here's a few pictures of my chunk to make reading this novel worthwile:

       

Back to School Again: Looking Back and Looking Forward (PREAMBLE)

Hello dear readers,

As you may have noticed at this point, I don't tend to write on this blog very often. I usually leave that to Natalie, who usually has better things to say and better ways of saying them. What mysterious force has ended my long silence, you ask? Well, I'll tell you (He's going to tell!).

Yesterday was my last day working at ANICO (read: major life event/beginning of the next step on the path towards dentistry) and we celebrated by going out to lunch at Queens Barbecue. By we I mean myself, Natalie, baby James, my mother-in-law, and two of Natalie's cousins (Jonathan and Justin Viernes, epic ballers the both of them). I got myself a thing they call a Cliffhanger. It's basically a grilled cheese sandwich with chives, some special mayo sauce, and a great deal of glorious meat (Friday's special was ham). It's a meal I've had before, enjoyed yesterday, and look forward to eating again as frequently as my wallet and vital organs will allow. So anyways it was a good lunch.

I have recently been doing some work towards compiling a second Halloween mix and was talking about some of my recent and exciting finds over lunch when Jonathan asked me to send him the link to the first one because apparently he hasn't been reading every single post on this blog for the past three years. I mean, how can you expect to have decent lunch conversations with relatives if you haven't recently read every blog post they've ever made? Rude.

So Natalie went ahead and sent JJ (AKA Jonathan Viernes) the link to the post that I posted a few years back that included the link to the Halloween mix that I made. Turns out JJ didn't know I ever completed the mix, but to his credit he was present at the fateful/glorious moment when I discovered SOUL DRACULA, a terrible disco song that has changed my life. We were playing Monopoly at the time at the Gariby household. It was the middle of the summer in 2011. This is probably the only time in recorded history that something good has come of people playing Monopoly, if only due to the fact that I was so bored with the game that I was researching songs about vampires on my phone.

In conclusion, the reason I have broken my long blogging silence (or blogging long silence if you're keen on euphemism experimentation) is because at lunch the other day I had a conversation with my wife's cousin Jonathan (AKA JJ) regarding a blog post I posted on my blog a few years back. Now I'm watching my baby take his morning nap so he doesn't roll off the bed and so Natalie can eat some French toast I made. I pull out the volume of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman that I'm currently reading (Volume 6: World's End, whether or not you're curious). Before I start reading about the neo-mythological exploits of Dream incarnate, I decide to quickly read through the blog post that Natalie had shared on JJ's (AKA Jonathan's) Facebook. I remember that I had a lot of fun writing that particular post and this in turn decide that I should don my jetpack and shoot myself back up into the blogosphere. And here I am.

Wait - was this whole post just an explanation of why I'm writing it? Yes. Yes it was. Stay tuned for "Back to School Again: Looking Back and Looking Forward," which will likely do a better job of living up to the title!

PS - sorry for the relentless parentheticals (maybe somewhere I'm not scatterbrain). As always, thanks for spending some time catching up with our little family!

Sweet Baby James

As a new young mother, I have a lot of worries. I find my worries are like gnats buzzing around my thoughts-- there are tons of them just flitting past one another, interrupting my tasks throughout the day. But there is this one big monster-bug-sized worry that sort of bumbles through my mind, pushing the other little worries out of the way. And it's this: that I'll forget how sweet this time in my life is.

Isn't that a strange thing to worry about? Of all the many, MANY things I have to worry about (quick list off the top of my head-- school loans, going back to school, EYE SURGERY, health insurance, work), it seems silly to make one out of something tender and sweet. But honestly, of all the things that bring me concern the biggest one of all is that I will forget this wonderful period of motherhood where everything is new and different and exciting and scary and sweet almost all at once.

James will be eight months old on the 16th. We are already done with half of his first year of life! The time is racing by and I'm choking on the dust trail it's left behind. Why does this time have to go by so quickly?

Another list of things I don't want to forget:

• His soft, squishy arms and hands and the way they wrap around my neck when I carry him.
• His sheer, unapologetic excitement-- the way he feels his emotions fully throughout his whole body-- eyes wide, arms stretched out and hands shaking around, legs kicking, open-mouthed smile or squealing
• His baby babbling-- he can be quite the talker when he wants to be.
• The way he wants ME to hold him. Yes, this is frustrating at times (like when I'm trying to get out the door to go somewhere and he sees me leaving and starts crying and reaching out for me) but I cherish the realization that he feels safe with me, he is comfortable with me, he knows he can trust me.
• The way he refuses to feed himself his little cereal snacks. I pour them onto his tray so he can pick them up and eat them. He'll pick them up and hold them in his hand but then start fussing until I give him one. As soon as I pick one up, he leans forwards, reaches with both of his hands and guides my hand to his mouth.
• The day we made a breakthrough on his eating solid foods. This baby boy loves sweet potatoes! That day he opened his mouth wide for the spoon and hasn't looked back since then, except for yesterday when I tried to give him peas. His mouth clamped shut after the first bite dribbled down his chin and wouldn't open again except for a cereal snack.
• How he quiets as soon as we step outside together. He loves to watch the cars drive by on Ferry Road and listens intently to the birds in the our neighbor's old oak trees. When I open our front door with him in my arms, he reaches for the handle on our glass door to get outside.
• His absolute fascination with my cell phone. It doesn't matter how many toys he has in front of him, if my phone is anywhere in sight that is what he is going for. Yesterday we were playing with his toys on my bed and I couldn't find my phone. I was searching through the bedsheets and blankets for it when I turned around and saw him lying on his back after having fallen over, with a corner of the phone in his drooly wet mouth. I couldn't help but laugh.
• The way his little belly peeks out between his shirts and his pants.
• The way he looks in his hats. He doesn't mind wearing his wide-brimmed hats unless they cover up his eyes. He is so adorable in them.
• How he loves to stand on the couch, leaning his body against the back of it, looking out the window in our living room. If he had better balance, he would probably do that for hours on end.
• How he curls up onto his side when he sleeps now. He used to sleep sprawled out across his bed but now he bends his knees and rolls onto his side and stays in that position until he wakes up. 
• His interest in his peers. James is absolutely in love with babies. He often laughs out loud and squeals with delight when he sees other babies. It's so fun to watch him interact with them.
• Pudgy fingers wrapping around my own.

I'm so grateful I have this opportunity to be with James. He makes me slow down and appreciate little things I wouldn't notice otherwise. On one of our walks around the neighborhood one day, a squirrel ran across the street in front of us, grabbing James' attention. I stopped pushing his stroller and turned it to face the yard to where the squirrel had run. We watched the squirrel walk/run/hop around in this neighbor's yard. We saw his bushy tail wiggle and we watched as he climbed a tree and then ran behind the house out of sight. As we started walking again, I tried to remember the last time I had watched a squirrel shake his bushy tail around. I couldn't recall. I remembered watching squirrels on the playground in elementary school and I thought about how wonderful it is to be a part of these new experiences for my baby. 

Today we sat outside and I blew bubbles from a little bubble wand while James watched them float away. Every Easter I would get a bottle of bubbles in my Easter basket and then that afternoon, after our Easter egg hunt I would stand in our yard or our driveway blowing bubbles, watching them float up into the sky, wrestle to keep their shape in the wind, grow bigger and bigger until I was out of breath and had to blow it off the wand or until it popped in my face. Nostalgic of these memories, I decided to share my love of bubble blowing with my sweet baby James. At first he watched them just float away. Then he watched me blowing the bubbles, trying to reach for the wand. Then he would try to catch them as they floated past him. I felt a tinge of guilt each time he touched one to catch it and it popped. A city worker drove by in a service vehicle, slowing down to smile at us and I wondered what he was thinking when he saw us.

I hoped he could see this baby is well-loved, happy, and comfortable. 

I hope I never forget these days we spent together, just me and this sweet little baby who made me a mother.   

My Funny Valentine

James will be five months old this Sunday. Each month of his life has brought new experiences and joy to our lives. He grows every day and I sometimes look at him and find tears brimming on the edges of my eyes because I can’t believe how quickly this time is passing. There are so many things I want to hold onto but know that I can’t. I take pictures almost every day but they don’t capture his personality the way I want them too. His personality is so big it can’t be held in an image no matter how hard I try.

Things I don’t want to forget:

• The way he raises his eyebrows and opens his eyes wide when I do something that intrigues him momentarily.
• The way he smiles and turns his head shyly to the side.
• His full-bodied laugh.
• The way he excitedly kicks his legs out while in his jumper.
• The way he sleeps with his arms wide open.
• His snoring.
• The way he sinks into my arms when he’s just woken up but still drowsy.
• The way he always tries to eat his right hand as soon as I’m trying to pull his sleeve on.
• His (ridiculously loud) happy squeals.

Earlier this week I was worrying about how he hadn’t rolled over since right before he turned two months even though he should be mastering that skill right about now. I laid him on his belly, determined to work with him to get him to roll over. I held one of his toys in front of him to grab his attention and then moved it to the side and up above him, holding his gaze the entire time. As his eyes followed his toy, he moved his whole body to give it his full attention and he rolled over. Just like that. I laughed at how easy it was and rolled him back onto his tummy to try again. We did it another six times in a row before he started getting fussy. It was as though he’d been holding out on me until I started to worry and then it was all, “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ve got this.”  

It’s strange to me how a single month makes such a difference in James’ growth and development. I’ve had years pass that I’ve hardly noticed. This May it will have been seven years since I graduated high school and it feels like it was just yesterday I was a senior in high school singing in our Spring musical. Since James was born, I’ve taken more notice of the quick passage of time. His first month of life was so hard for me and I thought I would never reach that milestone. I was told it would be easier after the first six weeks and I was just waiting to get to that point. It finally came and, yes, it was easier. But ever since then, time has flown and that itty bitty baby I was so nervous to hold because he was so tiny and delicate has become this huge nineteen pound chunksters outgrowing all of his clothes before he can even wear some of them (we are moving into his 9 month clothes now). He’s changing and growing so quickly. My time with him as a baby feels like water I’ve cupped in my hands to drink slipping through the cracks in my fingers. I’m trying to get so much out of this time with him at this stage but I’m worried I’m losing time and I’ll end up thirsting for more when it’s all gone.

Don’t change a hair for me, not if you care for me.

Stay little Valentine stay.