Sometimes I think I should wear random band-aids on me all the time,

River likes to point at them, say 'owwie', and give them kisses.

Play Area

So, to make a long-ish story really really short, I got fired yesterday via TEXT MESSAGE! Anyways, I was expecting to work today, so I had nothing planned and didn't want to leave the house for fear of spending any money. Thanks to that, I finally got to check off one of my blog to-do's, and put together a little tour of River's play area!

For those of you (if anyone actually reads this) who follow my life, I'm currently living at my parents' house. I've been here since December 2010, when my life fell apart thanks to my soon-to-be ex-husband. I'm being blunt and honest when I say that my parents are not very child-friendly people. They are quiet, clean, scheduled people and children are often none of those things. This is why they only had one, and this is why it's been very hard living at home again. Their constraints always manage to make me feel like a teenager again. I just want to argue, yell, and do stupid things in the name of rebellion.

Anyways, all of that aside, here is the tour via collages made on Photobucket.com, sorry for the repeated picture :/

After much arguing over there being ANY child toys in common space, they finally relinquished a small corner of the living room under the condition that the toys were to be kept out of sight unless they are currently in use. My grandmother had given me an awesome old shelving unit with these yellowed, cracked bins. Two of the bins were salvageable, but I'm glad to have the shelves free for other things. There is also a toybox and a dress-up chest.

On the top of the organizer there are three bins from Ikea with some of their circus toys in them. I love toys that foster creative imagining! The book I referenced in my last post (Your Brain on Childhood) talked about finding toys that are 80% child and 20% toy. This means no talking flashing plastic crap that tells a child what to do or what is happening. For example, a keyboard should play what keys are pressed, not a prerecorded tune. The circus set is a little further towards 60%/40% since it dictates that they are members of a circus, but it's still more about the child's imagination than the toy.

Also on top is an owl play clock (an awesome estate-sale find) and River's one-year book from winkflash.com

(The bins are labeled: Coloring Supplies, Cards, Felt Food, Musical Instruments, Small Stuffed Toys, Alphabet Blocks, Ring Stacker & Shape Sorter, and Blocks.)


Living with the parents is certainly not all bad. My mother salvaged the needlework on the dressup bin and gave the bin and some costumes to River as a Hanukkah/Christmas gift this year. She also had the toy box in the basement, full of fabric, and gave it to me to use for River (and also as part of her quest to clean out the basement and get rid of a lot of fabric). She painted lizards on the back and bottom.

I love that River is still too small to get into the toy box on her own. It lets me hide special toys for when she's getting tired of what she has access to, and also gives me a place to dump things that don't otherwise have a well-labeled bin to call its own.

Of course, while taking pictures, River decided that it was a good time to play with all the toys I had just cleaned up :) She also demanded to wear the wings that normally hang on the trellis with my leafy wings. I think Elmo pants, a strange Japanese padded shirt from the Salvation Army, and monarch wings are the coolest!

At the top right she's riding her awesome rolling bumble bee (another resale find), and on the bottom she's decided that playing with a plastic tube she found in the garbage and a magnet are way more fun than all the awesome toys she has. I agree.

After some spinning, getting frustrated with the wings, and then vacuuming with the popper vacuum, it was time for some art! Also, I know it's kind of cheap, but I love this effect :) Also, since the paper was so big and she didn't want the box of crayons on top of it, she had to keep getting up and walking back and forth to get crayons.

Next on my tour list is a tour of my bedroom... once it stops looking like a bomb went off in here. It's really horrible, but I have all of my necessary possessions (other than food) stuffed into one room, so it's a bit cramped.

Pictures!!!

After my camera dying slightly and my long-term dissatisfaction with its picture quality, I finally caved in and bought a new camera.

Know what this means?

PICTURES!

River is 20 months old

She loves making some silly faces! This one is her "boob face"... according to her. yeah.

Not that you can see much of the background, but these pictures were taken at Family Grounds Cafe in Chicago, IL, and Nibbles Play Cafe in Wheeling, IL. They are some of our favorite places!

I'm a big fan of free play time and think that it's more important for child development than most people give it credit for.

(I really need to do a book review of Your Brain on Childhood, by Gabrielle Principe, it was great! And a review of the two places that the pics were taken.... I should start a todo list)

TV, Attempt to Slow Down, and the Increasing Need to Leave the House!

I've been keeping River and myself very busy lately! Every day has been filled with either working, errands, or adventures. We've done something involving considerable (2 or more hours in the car) driving every weekend for the past six or more weeks.

This weekend I wanted some time at home without any plans, so I purposefully left Friday and Saturday completely blank in my planner (other than a reminder that I need to do laundry, which is currently sitting downstairs being forgotten about >.< ). I'm regretting it!

River's obsession with Sesame Street has led to every moment at home being a battle to get her away from the TV. I can either give in and get things done with the time that she spends zombified, or I can fight her.

To give her credit, she's not a total zombie. Yes, sometimes she gets that glazed look in her eyes where I can tell that her brain has stopped working, but very often she's up in front of the TV dancing or pointing to body parts or otherwise "interacting" with Elmo and the other characters.

I've been finding myself, very often today, thinking of errands that I could devise even though they aren't completely necessary or of places we could go just for a change of scenery and a bit more separation from the TV. I think we might be going out today...

My Little Performer

River seems to have gotten a lot of her father's personality traits. Normally, I would attribute that to nurture, but her father took a nice 7 month break from being a parent (though, to give him credit, he is now reemerging as, if not a parent, a sort of uncle-figure).

It's so strange to see her start being loud and silly to get a person's attention. She loves having every person in a room watch her. She's purposefully silly and loud and fantastic.

I'm just glad that I can see these traits as something I loved in her father instead of just reminding me of the pain he caused.

V-Day

My daughter has a valentine.

I don't.

Maybe I'll ask Elmo.

How ironic...

River was just gifted an Elmo book...

See previous post.

Why we DO NOT buy Elmo books.

I posted earlier about TV rules, which included a lot about how obsessed River is with Sesame Street, Elmo in particular. Not only does she ask for Elmo whenever she wants to watch TV, we also have a little plush Elmo (surprisingly hard to find when shopping amongst all of the plastic moving talking singing Elmos). This Elmo comes everywhere with us, and I've even been forced to nurse it more times than I'd like to admit.

Today we went to a big-name book store to exchange one of our late Hanukkah presents and was completely unsuccessful. The trip turned into a huge battle between River pointing out every single Elmo or Sesame Street related product, some from across the store (at least I know her eyesight is good), and me trying my hardest not to buy any of these products.

As far as branding goes, I don't mind Sesame Street so much. The show tends to be educational, doesn't include a ton of fast flashing scene changes (which can be hard for young minds to keep up with but doesn't let their attention leave it), and according to their commercial they put all the money generated from their products back into producing Sesame Street in a ton of other countries.

But what I don't want is an Elmo book. Let me explain:

• There are plenty of shows on TV, but River only wants Elmo.
• There are plenty of stuffed toys in our house, but River only wants to play with Elmo.
• At the library and stores River can spot Elmo from across a crowded room.
• On the back of her Tag Junior books (a purchase that I am not so proud of) there's a picture of one of their other books, it has Elmo on it, so she points and yells "ELMO!" repeatedly but doesn't bother to open the book.
• She has multiple pairs of pj's, but she only wants to wear the pair that my mother made her that has Elmo on them. (Great way to ensure that your PJ's are her favorite, mom)

This all leads me to believe that, if I were to let an Elmo book enter our house, that it would be the ONLY book she would read. She would bring it to me night and day, and force me to repeat the book over and over until she had it memorized.

While an attachment to a certain book would not be the worst thing, I would much rather the attachment come from the story rather than recognition of a certain fuzzy red character.

TV Rules?

I'll admit it; our TV rules have a lot of "if"s in them.

The rule is: River gets to watch one episode of Sesame Street or two episodes of Play With Me Sesame per day. Usually she chooses to watch her time first thing in the morning, but when we have a busy day she's watch them on my computer before we go to sleep.

However, this isn't always how it works. Some examples of my exceptions to the rule include:

• When I need to get shit done and I just need River distracted
• When either of us are sick
• When something horrible has happened, and it's my fault, and I feel bad enough that I need to make it up to her
• When I really need to read something and there's no way that I can do it an entertain my daughter at the same time
  
• When I'm just feeling like a horrible, lazy parent

River is going to have a hard time learning rules......

Also: One of River's favorite words is Elmo. She's also been saying Zoe, Cookie Monster, Grover, and (Big) Bird. Now whenever she eats something, she's usually calling herself the (pasta/cookie/yogurt/whatever) monster. It usually comes out sounding like "Pata Monta." Yes, it's adorable, but it also shows how she's been branded!

River + Lamby = LOVE!

In an effort to be able to get a job or even just leave River with someone else for a period of time, I've been trying to get her to bond with an object or a 'lovey'.

At first I tried carrying, nursing, and napping with a certain crocheted blanket that I made her while I was pregnant and desperate for crafts I could do on top of a giant belly. While she loved being snuggled in a blanky, it held no particular importance for her. I then switched to a fleece blanket, thinking that maybe the crocheted texture was throwing her off and that the crocheted blanket was really too large for her to be lugging around with her when she started going places. She didn't bond to the fleece blanket either.

I think I assumed that she was going to be a blanky-baby mostly because I was one and because I still love snuggling up with a good blanket. What I don't know, is why I stuck to trying blankets for so long! Seriously, nine months and my brain never said "let's try something else!" I can be so dense sometimes.

Well, last night, during her 9-11 pm wakeful time, I pulled out one of her particularly adorable stuffed animals, a lamb that isn't much smaller than she is. INSTANT BONDING! Her eyes got all big, she grabbed it by its adorable little ears, and proceeded to kiss it.

At one point, while nursing River, as she was on her way to dream land, she even grabbed lamby and put him/her/it on my other boob >.< as awkward as it felt to be nursing a stuffed lamb, it was so sweet that she wanted to share nursing boob-time with her new friend.

Today I've been doing everything I can to keep 'lamby' (my name for it until she's old enough to name it herself) within view.

River and Lamby in front of the window

Bullet points = FUN!

Here's some news / random observations... IN BULLET POINT! because I'm awesome.

• We signed up for a diaper service. WEE! I don't think I need anywhere near the amount of diapers they give you for the first month, but we can adjust after he doesn't use them all.
• River is strangely sick. Unable to eat any solid or solid-ish foods. She gags and throws up (not spits up, I know the difference). Other than throwing up, she's totally fine. She's been on a boob and watery oatmeal diet for three days. We're taking her to the doctor today because, if it's serious, I don't want to wait all weekend of find out.
• Libraries RAWK! seriously. I think I go to the library 3 times a week, at least! Any day I don't have something else to do is an invitation to check the programming schedules of all the local libraries and pick something, or just go and let River play with the toys and watch the other kids. 
• I'm in a crafting rut. Nothing has sold from Etsy, so I stopped churning out cross stitches, and it's too hard to work in my mother's basement, where the sewing machines are, with River... 
• I applied for three jobs... haven't heard anything from any of them. :-/ sad panda.
• The Weather Is Awesome. (or at least it was yesterday, I haven't been outside yet today, but I think I'm going to be disappointed)
• Going to see the ex today. I'm so emotionally drained from all the visits, but at this point he gets supervised visits with River, so I suck it up.

Well, I'm off to the library for story time! Adios!

River's health concerns

Recently, I took a hiatus from blogging that lasted longer than anticipated. It began due to some scares we had with River's health. Specifically, she fell off the weight charts. Not like she was low on it, not like she was just a little underweight, she had NO CURVE. She was growing in length, she seemed ok mentally and was developing well, but she was SKINNY.

River in October, 2010

Now, I'm no large person. Actually, I have a pretty standard explanation that I have to give doctors along the lines of, "no, I'm not anorexic or bulimic, I'd love to gain weight, but I just can't seem to." That said, I didn't really panic when she was seeming skinnier than most.

It took some pretty, in my opinion, immature behavior on the part of my family to make me finally see that there was a real issue with her weight. Specifically, during a family trip, my entire extended family apparently 'had a discussion' about River's weight, and while they were all perfectly fine with critiquing my parenting decisions (specifically attachment parenting) none of the talked to me about her weight. Instead, after everyone got home from the trip, my grandmother called me and my mother had a discussion with me about it.

They were right, she was underweight and was starting to look sick because of it. So I took her to the doctor. The doctor wanted us to see a specialist, but during the wait for my (now) ex to get insurance, I changed her diet and she started gaining weight regularly again. We still don't have insurance (thanks to the ex), but she's gaining so steadily that our family practitioner is satisfied with just keeping a close eye on her to make sure that she doesn't plateau again.

More recently, look at those cheeks!

I'm not going to get into the whole ex thing yet, that's a post all its own.

Anyways, after the first visit, my mother decided to tell me that one of my uncles had actually threatened to call DCFS (Department of Child and Family Services) on us because of her weight. There is some disagreement about whether he was actually earnest or was just offering to drop the shoe to get me to take River to the doctor (which I guess they didn't think I would do for some reason). Either way, he seemed to think it was a valid threat to make, and my mother seemed to think the threat was needed even after the fact.

Needless to say I WAS LIVID. It was a medical issue, we took her to the doctor as soon as someone talked to me about it in a serious way and I realized that there actually was an issue, and in NO way should that warrant a call to DCFS. Not to mention the fact that my uncle's son has ALWAYS been larger than normal, so he doesn't exactly have a standard basis of comparison.

Setting all bitching aside, River is now steadily gaining weight and is approaching a normal weight, looking healthier, showing no developmental setbacks, and has some amazing chubby baby cheeks! Now I just make sure that she's eating at least three big meals per day, getting a variety of foods, and continuing to gain.

(only a couple days after the first doctor appointment, when we were still terrified, was when I found out my ex was cheating on me >.< it was quite a blow)

Slow Return??

My daughter, playing with fruits, veggies, and a toothbrush. She's going to be better about her health than I am!

I'm not entirely sure yet, but I think I'm going to return to the blog-o-sphere. A lot has happened in my life since my last post, most notably River had a medical scare, which has been nearly resolved, and I am now a single mother.

I can honestly say that my life has been very hectic lately, which is not the norm for me. I'm usually very chill and laid back.

I will not be linking to every post on my facebook, mostly because I don't want a lot of people that I know IRL to be reading this.. But I need to vent. I need somewhere that I can let go and talk and feel like maybe, somewhere, someone has heard me.

I also intend to keep reviewing books, movies, products, etc... So check back often! I really hope this blog doesn't just turn into some personal journal full of my bitching...

unsolicited advice

I've heard unsolicited advice and comments throughout my pregnancy, and I really wish I had kept better records of all the silly comments. So, in light of that, I'm going to be keeping track here of the stupid comments I get from people when I have River.

(I'm not going to write about every pervy look I get while I'm breast feeding in public, that would take too long, but suffice it to say, there are MANY!)

The other day I was in Jewel with a couple friends. We decided to take a walk to the grocery store to pick up a couple ingredients that I needed to make dinner. We were outside in the heat (about 90 degrees) for a good 15 minutes there and 15 minutes back, and must have spent about 5 minutes in the store total. River was just in a diaper and in my sling. At one point during the walk, she started getting fussy in the sling, so I took her out to avoid her overheating. We were in Jewel, standing in the produce department, I was breastfeeding River. An old lady with some indistinguishable accent walked up to us and started lecturing me. She told me that my baby was cold, was going to get pneumonia, etc... at one point, after realizing exactly what was going on (this was my first public lecture) I turned to her, called her a rude old lady, and kept shopping. She said that she had never seen anybody do that with a baby, and walked away. I saw her a couple other times while we were still in the store, she would shoot me these evil glares and then keep walking. Unfortunately the two friends I was with didn't know what was going on until to told them later, otherwise I think they would have stood up for me.

Another day I was sitting in my car reading while River sat on my lap. J and his friend were in a magic store getting some more tricks for him to use at work. I had gotten tired of standing and really wanted to get a little further in my book, and with the nice breeze outside, I didn't mind sitting and waiting. After a little while a car parked in the space next to me, and out came an older lady, a younger lady, and two kids. The older lady, after noticing me in the car, proceeded to beckon over one of the little girls and told her to look at my 'baby boy'. I don't mind gender mix-ups as River is usually dressed pretty gender neutral. Eventually while they asked questions and I answered with a fake smile plastered on my face like a good little mommy, I slipped in that River is a girl. The old lady then asked why she was wearing shorts and "where is her little dressie?" I was amazed, and she was serious. I snapped back (at this point I was annoyed that she was sticking her head in my car and interrupting my reading) that the women's liberation movement happened a while back and that I was a big fan. She stormed away in a huff and actually scolded me, saying "well, I Never!"

The most recent occurance happened yesterday and to my friend Tom instead of me. Tom, his girlfriend, and I were in a Teavana picking out some tea and other products. Tom was at the counter at one point when a middle-aged man walked up to him and started talking to him about 'his wife and child'. Tom politely corrected him, that I was not his wife. After some insisting that I was, and then finally realizing that I wasn't, he gave him a really confused look and said 'then you'd better get a lawyer!" Yup. Because how dare a married woman with a baby be friends with a guy!

Anyone else have experience with unsolicited advice or comments? I know I had a ton when I was pregnant (usually about how high or low I was carrying and how it must be a boy or a girl). Lately it seems like i'm getting more judgemental looks than comments, but I still get a few really golden ones -sarcasm-

an update and more excuses

River is growing more every day, she's two months old now.

Between her and the move (and roommates), I don't have much time for updating the blog. I was hoping that I would be able to continue researching and writing well thought-out articles, but that doesn't seem to be possible. I'm a two-handed typer, and typing with one hand frustrates me so much that I give up before I get a full sentence written.  I haven't been taking many pictures lately either. I know I should be taking them for myself so that I can always remember River as she is now, but I find that I'd much rather just sit with her, drinking her in, instead of looking at her through a viewfinder or on a digital camera screen.

Another issue is that it's summer... which means that I've gotten a little flighty... to say the least. I've been trying to make it to Bristol faire more often, bought a lot of tea products for some delicious iced tea (had my first glass today, it was amazing!), cleaning and unpacking whenever I can, and just being a mommy. Two of my friends also just got jobs at J's place of employment, plus he has a tentative raise and promotion in the works (they've told him that he's the best employee that they have and that they want to give him more responsibility).

The Dreaded Baby Shower :-)

I haven't posted in a while, mostly out of sheer insane busyness.

The 10th was the dreaded baby shower. I have to admit that it went surprisingly well! We did the onesie decorating activity that was featured on OffbeatMama.com and everyone loved it. I didn't get too much that was obnoxious and pink, just a few things.

One problem I had was with what appeared to be critiques of my parenting style. I've been practicing attachment parenting and on-demand feeding. This basically means that River is on me all the time and she's usually got a boob in her mouth. Unfortunately, the only time these parenting styles seem to be an issue instead of an amazing thing is when I'm around family. They all want to hold River all the time! I'm sorry, but when River is asking for food, telling me she's hungry, I'd rather get her the food she wants before she starts crying instead of waiting until she's too worked up to suck properly. When River is asleep and using my boob as a pacifier, I'm not about to break that and wake her up. I got a lot of comments from people who were amazed about how much I let her nurse and how attached she is to me. It might have been paranoia, but it really felt like everyone was critiquing my parenting decisions. At one point I even had to tell someone that my parenting decisions are not up for discussion.

Otherwise things went really well! J's family mostly stayed separate from mine except during the decorating activity, but I've learned to accept that as probably being for the best. I forgot my camera, so I spent the day without a lens in front of my face, again probably for the best. And River even slept through most of it!

I did get a surprisingly long period of time without River attached to me, for the first time since she was born! My grandmother (aka: Momo) has some serious baby super-powers! The second she holds River, River is passed out on her shoulder! I couldn't believe it! I tried to take major advantage of the time but kept finding myself going back to check on River and make sure she really was ok.

Well, sorry I don't have any pictures! I'll take pics of the onesies when I get them back from my mom.

First set of July Pics

Here is River's first set of pictures from July. These were taken with my awesome friend's amazing camera of doom!!!! Also, these are the first set of River pics that I bothered doing any color editing on, but in my laziness I did it with whatever software came with my lappy instead of transferring the pics to the desktop comp with photoshop on it. Anyways, there's a bunch of pretty similar pics, so here's a slideshow ^.^ Enjoy!

One Month!

As of yesterday, River is one month old!

It's been a great month. It's felt too fast and too slow at the same time. We've done so much and so little.

This past month included, aside from having River and getting home from the hospital, River has gone to the Highland Games and Scottish Festival, to the Boerner Gardens Fairy Garden Walk, to the Bristol Renaissance Faire's GARBage Sale, and to her first fathers day celebration with her grandfather and great grandfather! It's been a busy month for such a little girl.

She's gone from being a little squiggly sleeping/eating baby to a slightly less squiggly and sleepy but still constantly eating baby. We're finally getting to know her, getting to know what all those funny little faces she makes mean, getting to know how to sooth her quickest so that we can get some sleep at night. She's even finally started giving us the littlest smiles and staring into our eyes.

We've learned a lot in the past month as parents. Both of us had never even changed a diaper. Now we've learned all about the practicalities of breastfeeding, how to swaddle and sling a baby, diaper rash, gas and burping, etc... We've also started learning about how to deal with all the unsolicited advice and over attentiveness. I even learned all about postpartum symptoms (like all the bleeding, achiness, joint pain, etc...).

This last picture is of J, River, and me from the fairy garden walk, we were dubbed the tree fairy family. She was slinged (slung?) and slept through almost the entire event.

((all pictures are in chronological order. Sorry for no newer close-up photo of River, I've been meaning to take one the past two days, but she's been pretty constantly attached to the boob))

Reading Reading All The Time

I grew up with books like The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Animal Farm, and The Last Unicorn. Later I moved on to Anne Rice among other authors. Although I did have some typically child-oriented books, such as Harold and the Purple Crayon, I was always encouraged towards more adult-oriented reading.

I've already begun continuing this tradition with my daughter. I read to her from whatever I happen to be reading. So far this has already included Lord of the Rings, Ishmael, and the Dalai Lama's book on science, as well as websites like OffbeatMama.com, Feministing.com, and CNN.com.

My hope is that she will become an avid reader like myself. We'll see how that goes.


As an aside: I still haven't managed to master the motherly art of feeding my baby and myself in a day >.< Baby gets fed, I don't... This needs to be fixed.

A day late fathers day post

Thanks to all the hustle and bustle yesterday, I wasn't able to make a fathers day post, and I really do want to share the awesomeness that is my husband and the father of my baby girl. Unfortunately, this isn't really that post.

The night before was another hard night for me. I had taken some benadryl before bed, so I was ridiculously groggy. River had woken up some time in the early morning hours, was having trouble latching on, and was getting quite fussy. Since I wasn't really able to wake up fully, I don't remember much of this, but apparently I was refusing to let J help with anything, saying that it was fathers day so he should get a full night of sleep. Eventually, with me crying, I let him change her diaper and help get us into bed. After that, River still would not latch or stop fussing, and I, in my Benadryl-induced stupor, kept getting more and more frustrated. I guess some craziness happened after that on my part (mostly half-asleep ramblings and a strange inability to differentiate sleep from wakefulness (according to J)).

One part that I do remember from that long night was J telling me that I shouldn't make a big deal about fathers day because he didn't even really feel like a dad. I know he's having a hard time right now because he's not able to feed the baby and she spends SO MUCH time eating! I know he feels helpless when she starts to get fussy and it's only mommy's boobs that can sooth her.

So, later in the day, I made a card for him with River's help (ok, I used traced her hand), and on the inside I wrote:

To the best baby daddy and kitty daddy,


I know you say you don't feel like much of a father yet,


But it's just because you are such a natural.


Love you so much,


Cheryl and River.

Unfortunately, J had to work through his first fathers day and I ended up going to my family's fathers day dinner with River. I was sad to spend the day separate.

Today is Gaming Day (basically, every monday, we have a group of friends over and play Warhammer, D&D, or WoW, though I haven't been playing much lately). He's downstairs with a big group of people while I am upstairs with little River who I am convinced is having a growth spurt because she WON'T STOP EATING! She starts fussing whenever she isn't attached.

This is a picture J took of River and me while we were napping on the couch. I love it.