"Your life will never be the same" ...and neither will your furniture

Everyone loves to tell you how your life is going to change forever when you have kids. That's very true - nothing is ever the same. Even from day to day, things are constantly changing. Like when your child starts crawling, for instance...

The pack n' play, which was practically collecting dust in the corner ever since our big man outgrew its main function (the changing table attachment!), has suddenly become my best friend! That, and the jumperoo. I can no longer sit and pump, leave the room to go pee, or even turn my head to glance out toward the kitchen without securing him in some sort of containment device!

I have purchased more "babyproofing gear" in the past week than I care to admit. Perhaps I've gone a little overboard, but I'm so tired of the bumps and bruises! It's bad enough that crawling has brought about an uptick in the previously-only-occasional face-planting-in-the-floor business - that is nearly impossible to prevent, if you want to allow your child the space to develop those motor skills and learn his physical capabilities. I've got to try to prevent the bumps and bruises that I can prevent. That said, I refuse to line every edge of my coffee table in foam (though his little noggin somehow manages to find each and every angle and edge throughout the course of a day)!

Homeboy loves him some electrical cords. GAH. This is the cord to a particularly tall and top-heavy floor lamp that he has nearly brought down on his head more than once. Thank God for these nifty cord hiders! He has lost interest now that the cord is no longer in play.

Gotta lock up those poisonous cleaners, ant baits and paint thinner! It seems that crawling has also brought about a sudden epiphany concerning cabinets - that they contain super-fun, baby-unfriendly items that he's just dying to drink, or cut himself with.

Ohhhh the epic Battle of the Buttons. Since the advent of in-home electronics, babies have been obsessed with dials, buttons, touch screens... anything they can get their little paws on to destroy the delicate balance of settings that allow us to continue enjoying our favorite television programming. I found these life-saving "dvd guards" on Amazon - they're attached by velcro for easy parental access (and probably easy toddler access one day, when he figures out that he's stronger than a few strips of velcro!). Of course I'd also like to teach him that these items are off-limits, so that as he gets older he doesn't think that it's fun to play with the buttons on everyone else's electronics, but that kind of limit-setting is really beyond his understanding at this point. We still tell him "no" when he starts in on the electronics, but this keeps him from driving us completely bonkers by actually changing settings while he's at it!

We have yet to order the gate for the top of the stairs, mostly because I'm a bad mother, I suppose. We just don't play in that area, and I'm not crazy enough to take him into that area and then turn my back on him! But accidents are called "accidents" for a reason... you never plan for them to happen. So I do need to get on that. Maybe on pay day. The upward stairs are a whole 'nother beast, and I'm not quite sure how we're going to finagle a gate for that set-up...

Yeah. You tell me. We may have to hire an engineer for that one. 

Crawling has also made nap time a nightmare, all over again. Usually it's an issue of him waking too early, not an issue of him fighting the nap in the first place (though a few times a week he does fight me). When he has been asleep for less than an hour and wakes up, I know (from my own extensive experience with this particular child) that he hasn't had enough sleep yet, particularly if this happens with his first nap. He'll be I-just-woke-up jolly for about a half an hour, and things will rapidly deteriorate from there. My choices, then, are to go get him and just deal for the rest of the day, or to encourage him to go back to sleep. Neither is particularly pleasant. My hope is that this sleep disturbance is largely a result of his little mile-a-minute mind just racing with wonder at his new skills and all that he is discovering about his surroundings and himself, and that once he wakes he just can't settle his mind enough to drift off to sleep again. If that's the case, then the problem should correct itself gradually as this crawling thing becomes old hat. Of course, then he'll be onto the next big thing! 

Oh, babies. It's always something. Good thing they're so stinkin' cute, and that this milestone-reaching business is such an amazing spectacle to behold. Watching him beam and giggle with pride as he furiously races toward me on his hands and knees just melts my heart!

On Mommy Guilt and Med School

I'd just like to start by saying that this started out as a Facebook status, but then I started rambling and epiphasizing enough that I decided it would look silly as a status update. LOL! I crack myself up with my long-windedness sometimes. Can't even leave a simple status update anymore. Oye.

So ANYWAY...

In preparation for my glorious return to medical school in a few weeks, I've been watching summer year-2 lectures given by my former classmates who are now 4TH-YEARS (so proud of them... they're pretty awesome lecturers)! Never thought I'd say it, but apparently I've been missing this. It's almost got me excited to get back into it. Actually, I think I really am excited and didn't want to admit it just then. Isn't it silly that I feel guilty for being excited about this? Motherhood sure does dramatically warp your sense of self! It's not a bad thing, it just stretches you into this multi-dimensional person I guess, and it takes some time to settle into that new reality and to believe that you can house multiple dimensions inside of your one "self". That you can nurture and develop "multiple personalities" without actually dividing yourself into less-than-whole "selves". Mommy Jenna can be just as complete a part of me as Student Jenna and eventually Doctor Jenna. People try to tell you that, but when you first become a mother it seems like crazy-talk. I think that motherhood is just so all-consuming that it completely takes over who you are, at least for a time. Well, let's be real... it's takes over who you are for life. It's changes you in a multitude of fundamental ways - it's not like you can ever "change back". But the point is that you don't have to "change back", you just have to grow. The assimilation of the "mother" role is sort of an automatic thing - not to say that everyone is automatically good at it or automatically accepts it, but it automatically takes over your life and your psyche no matter how hard you might try to resist it! This "take over" can be a very positive thing - it has been for me, and I'm eternally grateful to God for it - but it's easy to get completely lost in it and forget other parts of yourself. There are other parts that need nurturing too. At first I just forgot those parts altogether, because I am so fulfilled as a mother that I really haven't missed them. They weren't in my face begging for my attention, so they got lost, and I didn't care! Not even a little! Then it came time to reintroduce myself to them, and my initial knee-jerk reaction was pure guilt. They weren't total strangers as I had expected them to be... I found that I kinda missed them, and I felt guilty about that. I thought that it meant that motherhood wasn't "enough" for me anymore, and that it should be enough. The fact that dread was no longer the dominant emotion when I thought about returning to school made me feel like a bad mother.

WHAAAA?????!!!!

I should be ecstatic that this is the case. Finally, the dense fog of fear and apprehension has been lifted and I can see the sunlight! But it just made me feel bad. I should want nothing more than to stay with my baby, at home, forever.

The reality is that I do feel that way. I do want nothing more than to stay at home with my baby forever. But somehow I also feel that I do want to become a doctor. I feel both feelings very intensely. That's the expansion that comes with motherhood. It's nothing new to say that humans can experience two conflicting emotions so intensely, but it's new to me. I've been waiting a long time to have this epiphany, and to see that while in physical reality those may be mutually exclusive events, in my heart they can both be bopping around in there forever. What I feel in my heart for my son is what makes me a good mother, and when a choice must be made that forces me to be away from him, I have to cling to what's in my heart. I don't have a choice about him going to day care. Financially speaking, I can no longer stay at home with him - it's either school or work. But even if I had the choice, it would be a tremendously difficult decision to make. When I'm honest with myself, I can admit that I want this whole doctor thing. I really do. Isn't it sad that I haven't wanted to "admit" that to myself... that I have a dream, and (miraculously) the opportunity to make it a reality?! That doesn't make me a bad mother, though it often feels that way to me. It just makes me a multi-dimensional person, struggling to grow into that multi-dimensionality day by day, struggling to assimilate the many parts of who I am into one functioning person.

It's a tough road, but such a beautiful thing when you think about it. Who I am, the fabric of "me", has stretched and grown and added new textures and designs. I can see now that my intense devotion to mothering my son will always teeter dangerously close to shutting down my will to strive for anything more, because being a mother is such a tremendous gift all its own. I truly need nothing more. What an incredible force motherhood is! But I had to admit to myself that my heart has more than one desire in this world, and that that's ok. What a beautiful reality to live out... watching myself grow and change and deepen in my capacity to really feel out what matters most in my life. That's one of the greatest gifts of motherhood. It has given me a new kind of deep and wide perspective on what matters most, because I now know what it feels like to have something matter so profoundly that my life would seem utterly empty if I lost it. That's not to say that people without children don't know what really matters most to them - of course they do. I also don't mean to suggest that moms who do have the blessed privilege of staying home with their children aren't "striving for more" - we all use our "mom glasses" to see the world in new and different ways, and to determine which desires and opportunities before us warrant our commitment of time and effort. It doesn't have to be a "job", per se, that we choose to pursue with this life we're given. I guess I'm just trying to say that there was this glorious realignment that occurred in my life when we welcomed Eli, and I love the way it has changed my perspective - it is a gift that I will always treasure.

Sick baby, Baby food making extravaganza, and BEACH BOUND!

Whew. CRAAAAAZY couple of days around here. Yesterday my day began with the discovery of some blood in the baby's urine, so a day that I had planned to spend laundering and packing for the beach was suddenly thrown into a total panic. I was flying around here like a house on fire packing for the hospital instead, until our pediatric urologist's team returned my page and calmed me the heck down! Given his underlying kidney issues, it is extremely important that we catch and kill any potential urinary tract infections as quickly as possible to protect his good kidney (since it's the only one he has!). We ended up wasting two hours of our afternoon at Express Care, NOT getting the antibiotic nor the urine culture that the urologist told us to get (I'll spare you the details of the incompetency that I encountered). Useless. Luckily the resident on call at Hopkins was able to call in the antibiotic for me. My poor baby was so pitiful, running a 101.8 fever and eventually vomiting his guts up just before bed :'( He fell asleep like a total wet wash cloth, so limp in my arms that I made a point of jostling him when I got up to lay him down, just to make sure that he was responsive. I also proceeded to check in on him several times during the night, of course. My first experience with a truly sick baby has been exactly what it's chalked up to be... the worst thing EVER. Ugh.

My poor lil babykins, sleeping in my arms at Express Care :'(

He seemed to be feeling much better today, though there were still some tinges of pink in his urine. No fevers, no vomiting, but he didn't have much of an appetite and was definitely dehydrated. At least he was acting like his normal, chipper self! After a follow-up appointment with the pediatrician, we were able to get some of the vacation prep work started - grocery shopping, laundry, some cleaning, and LOTS of baby-food-making!

3 pounds of organic apples, 5 pears, a butternut squash, 4 sweet potatoes and a bag of organic baby carrots. $21.49 at Giant.

Cut the squash in half, lay the halves face-down in a baking pan in about an inch of water. Bake at 350 for 45 mins - 1 hour. Scoop out the "meat", puree in the blender. Add a little of the baking water (which contains any leached nutrients) to achieve desired consistency. DONE.

The worst part of making baby food is the peeling. 9 Apples and 5 pears will take it out of ya! But really, if the only "cooking skill" you need is the ability to wield a knife, how hard can MYO baby food really be? The answer: it's not. 

For apples and pears, I peel, core, cube and bake in about an inch of water - 350 for about 30-45 mins (until fork tender... kinda depends on how ripe they are to begin with, particularly for the pears). Again, just add some of the baking water if you need to thin the puree.

This was my first go 'round with carrots, but they were SUPER easy. I rinsed them, checked them all for any "weirdness" on the ends and trimmed said weirdness as needed, threw them in a pot with a tiny bit of water (just enough to cover the bottom of the empty pot) and steamed until fork-tender, about 15 mins. Threw them in the blender on puree, and never had to make any adjustments - perfect consistency. Awesome! 

All told, I ended up with 182 oz of baby food. For $21.49. That's almost half of what I'd pay per ounce for the Gerber plastic containers of baby food. It did take up several hours of my day, but I only have to do that once every three weeks-ish. Ya can't go wrong, my friends! 

Now I'm all set to head to the BEACH tomorrow with my homemade baby food in tow! I'm a little nervous given Eli's recent health issues, but he seems to be responding well to the antibiotic, so we'll just have to keep a close eye and hope for the best. We'll only be about 3 hours from home anyway. We're heading to OCMD with friends of ours whose parents have a beach house, so we'll be staying for free, cooking in, and just enjoying some good old-fashioned relaxation (and hopefully some CRABS)! Packing for the beach this year - with a baby (and all the STUFF that said baby "requires") - has been a whole new challenge! I have about 5 different lists floating around the house, just trying to keep myself organized and make sure that no essentials are left behind! The place is littered with sticky notes, too. It can be difficult to differentiate between true "essentials" and "stuff that makes my life so much easier", but with limited trunk space (since trading in the Grand Cherokee for a CR-V) we're trying to be as minimalist as is practical with an 8-month-old. We'll only be gone for 5 days, and really, one can live without just about anything for 5 days. "One" doesn't want to have to live without anything on her list, however, so "one" will be quadruple checking before blast off tomorrow evening!

I hope you're all enjoying your summer! Catch ya on the flip side of vacay!!!