So my little one is still not sleeping. I’ve read a zillion books on getting your baby to sleep and most of them claim that if he gets his naps in, he sleeps better at night. Ahem. Not. True. There are days David naps perfectly and he still wakes up every two hours. There are days he doesn’t nap much at all and he sleeps three hours or more so I’m going to say all those books are…crap!
On the good side, he’s healthy and happy as a clam. He smiles these wide, beautiful smiles that engulf you. When he’s facing my cheek, he opens his mouth wide and gives me a bite/kiss. His lips are so soft. His tiny hands rest on my chest while he eats and he holds on so tight when I’m carrying him around. He’s actually laughing at me several times a day now.
My friend Roni asked me how my life changed since I had David the other day. (I think that’s what you asked, right Roni?) Just as I was trying to figure out what to say, David decided he was hungry and I attempted to nurse him in public and when that was a disaster, I had to go home so I never answered her question.
I was telling a friend that it’s impossible to prepare for a baby. You think that nine months would be enough to expect the changes a baby will bring to your life, but it’s nothing. And I mean NOTHING compared to how much your life really changes once the baby comes. There’s no preparation. One day you’re two adults who love each other and like to spend time together, the next day you’re a family. A little baby that is constantly there, a baby not capable of eating, sleeping or changing himself. A wonderful and scary thing that will NEVER leave. Well, he will, assuming he goes to college. But it will be a long time before he does. And until then he is my responsiblity.
And it’s scary. It’s hard. It’s challenging. It’s tiring. I look at him and I wonder when I grew up to be old enough to have a baby. When did I become an adult? Am I screwing this boy up? What if I do? This little, beautiful boy who wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. I owe it to him to make sure his life is full of wonderful moments. Full of joy. Full of love. Compassion and kindness. Curiosity. Hugs. Love. There can never be enough love.
All the parents in my group ask where I get the energy to get through the days since I am not getting any sleep and haven’t had a full night of sleep for thirteen months. Fact is, I wake up and I see David each time. I created this little man, and if he takes years to sleep through the night, then I will wake up for years. It’s only the beginning of the things I can give him. Hugs in the middle of the night.
After all, it won’t be long before he won’t let me hug him and I cherish these moments.
So having a baby has changed my life indescribably. It’s changed it permanently. And I am thankful for it each and every day!
I came to the United States in August of 1992. I had just graduated high school in Istanbul and flew across the Atlantic Ocean to attend Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. Even back then I knew that I intended to stay here and was determined to do all that was necessary for me to achieve the goal of making the US my permanent home as quickly as possible.
My senior year, I turned down offers from companies that wouldn’t guarantee a green card application, namely JP Morgan and went with one that promised to apply exactly one year after my start date, namely Goldman Sachs. Exactly one year after my beginning date, I made a phone call from London where I was for a project and asked them to start the proceedings. Thanks to a great law firm, I got my green card relatively quickly, in two years, with the Extraordinary Ability clause. Exactly three months short of five years later, I applied for my citizenship. That was December of 2004. Today, I took my oath and walked away with my naturalization papers.
I am officially a citizen of the United States of America.
There were over 1,000 others swearing in with me today. We were told to arrive at 8:30 but the ceremony didn’t begin until 10. It commenced with a group of local junior high school students performing a medley of Footloose songs. The relevance still baffles me. We then waited while they gave some awards to some officials and sang the Star Spangled Banner. Someone made the motion for all of us to become citizens and a judge accepted it after we took the oath of allegience. The judge’s parents were naturalized citizens themselves so he was very moved to be there and cried a bit as he talked about how great America is and what a special day it was for us and how honored he felt to be there. There was another moving speech and then the judge read the names of all 94 countries that had citizens being naturalized today and asked us to get up as our country’s name was called. Being in San Diego, he left out Mexico and at the end the crowd yelled, so he said, “What there are people from Mexico here?” and half the room got up and cheered. It was quite funny and specific to our location, I imagine. If I weren’t so worried about David going without food for so long, I might have enjoyed the proceedings more. As it were, I wanted to get my certificate and be done with this long ordeal.
I know there are many cynical and bitter people out there and not everyone agrees with me. But, to me, becoming American was a lifelong goal and one I am incredibly proud to have accomplished. This country has given me everything I’ve ever wanted. It allowed be to find myself and gave me the space to grow into what I wanted to be. If I hadn’t come here, I am not sure I would have done half the things I’ve done in my life and I am so glad to live here every single day. I am proud to be a citizen. I am delighted that I will get to vote. Not to mention how much easier it will be to travel now!
It only took thirteen years.
It’s amazing to think that David’s been a part of our family for four whole minths. Actually thirteen months if we count the time he spent in my belly. Part of me can’t believe it’s been that long and part of me doesn’t remember a time David wasn’t with us.
The changes from month three to month four have been exponential. In the last month, David’s found his hand, his feet, and his voice. He now drools like nobody’s business and he sticks everything in his mouth, including his toes. He has found a way to make a ton of different, funny sounds, some sharp and high-pitched and others gutteral and trembling. He can go between laughing and crying in less than thirty seconds. Sometimes he jumps back and forth between the two so much that you can’t tell if he’s mad, sad, or just playing.
His smiles have gotten wider and he can definitely recognize mom and dad now. His face lights up when we look at him, regardless of upset he might have been. He gives us kisses (or tries to bite our cheeks depending on your perspective) and his little hands are soft like cotton. He has learned to grab things and hold on to them, including my hair.
His favorite thing is to bounce up and down and when his daddy holds him up high. He has grown over 4 inches since he’s been born and more than doubled his weight. He is cute beyond words and can drive us insane beyond words, too. He has learned how to get a constant whine going. He has learned to get bored and begun seeking more attention. All in the last four weeks. It looks like he’s going to take after his mommy and be a big talker. He’s practicing now. Along with the loud and stinky farts.
Having a baby is challenging. It’s time consuming, it’s humbling, it’s frustrating. And it’s incredibly rewarding.
And will be more so when he sleeps…
I love you David, happy four months. To four thousand more.
I’ve decided that my favorite thing to do in my spare time is to read. This is after spending time with my family, of course. Of the things I love doing like writing, taking photos, surfing the net, knitting, etc, reading is by far my favorite thing to do.
There have been tims that I took a break from reading agressively. The most notable being during college. The first two years of college, I didn’t read much during the school year. When David was born, I stopped reading for a while. I wasn’t getting any sleep and I had a hard enough time juggling him and work that reading was out of the question. A few weeks ago, I randomly started reading again. I am not exactly sure how it happened but it opened some sort of flood gate. I’ve read 8 books in the last three weeks. I started with the fascinating Opening Skinner’s Box and the always wonderful Elizabeth Berg’s new Year of Pleasures. I moved on to Freakonomics and Hornby’s columns from the Believer and Wisdom of Crowds and Anne Lamott’s Plan B and Alice Munro’s Runaway. I am now reading Ian McEwan’s Saturday and enjoying it immensely, especially considering there’s very little happening in the story.
It’s almost as if I’d forgotten how amazingly rewarding reading is for me. It’s like food for my soul. I don’t even know why I feel that way but each time I put a book down, I can’t wait to get back to it. My favorite time of the day is the one hour after David goes to sleep where I crawl into bed and read. Okay, my favorite time actually is the mornings when David wakes up because he’s so ubelievably happy but right after that is the reading hour.
To add to my joy, some of my favorite authors are coming out with new novels this summer: John Irving, Nick Hornby and Melissa Banks. Thinking about those books makes me giddy!
I don’t know what prompted my return to reading, but I am so glad for the distraction. As David’s growing old enough to voice his boredom loudly and he’s still waking up anywhere from three to seven times a night, it’s the books that seem to keep me sane lately.
Friendship is such hard work. I’ve been thinking a lot about the friends I’ve made in my life. I guess more than the ones, I’m thinking about the ones I’ve lost. I try to invest a lot of time, effort, and emotion into my friendships and so when they disappear, a piece of my heart walks away with them.
I’ve notices three different trends in ways that my friendships disappear. The first is the most obvious one of busy lives. I’m busy, he’s busy. We work in big companies, we work too many hours. We mean to call. We mean to write. When we get together, it’s tons of fun. It’s just that we never do get together. We don’t write. We don’t call. One’s traveling, the other is at work late. Fact is, we’re never as busy as we think we are. There’s always time for a good friend and for good coversation. It’s good for the soul. A good friend and I had found a solution to this when I lived in NYC. We’d set up a regular date for Thursdays after work. The two of them and the two of us had a regular date at a bar in SoHo. We always showed up and spent anywhere from one hour to five hours at the bar chatting. Somehow, because it was regular, we never ditched it. There was never the worry of scheduling, it was ongoing. I wish I could do this with all my friends. Maybe a regular phone date. Or email, even. Good friends never really disappear and even ten years later we can catch up but there is that little bit that vanishes and once daily life isn’t shared, we do have a bit of distance between us that never closes.
The second is a bit more painful. It’s the case similar to the one above but one party is obviously making a bigger effort than the other. This is painful when I’m the one making the effort and it’s painful when the other party is. If I am making the effort and calling and writing with no response, I feel hurt and rejected. If the other party is doing it, I feel guilty and frustrated. There’s something obviosly out of balance here. Sometimes, it balances out randomly when the other person changes their mind but it’s rare. What generally happens is that resentment builds and the friendship whiters away to nothing.
The last one is my least favorite one. It’s the one where something happens. Big or small. Something that makes you question the friendship. Something that leaves you with sour taste in your mouth. It might be a bickering that should have never gotten out of hand or a true betrayal that hurts deep down. Either way, there’s no going back. You can try to apologize, forgive and go back but things will never be the same again. That thing is now there. It’s like a thorn that is too deep in your flesh. This only happens with really good friends because those are the only ones you give a shit about enough to have this pain. And it hurts like hell.
There are days when I feel it’s easier to just be with my family and books. There’s much less potential for pain there. But then a friend calls and I remember why it’s important to have him or her in my life.
I recently finished reading Opening Skinner’s Box. It was one of the most enjoyable and thought-provoking reads I’ve had in a while (not that that says much since it’s been a while since I’ve read but I am restarting, even if ten pages a night). There’s been a lot of controversy over this book. There are articles on whether the author made stuff up or misquoted some of the psychiatrists she spoke with. Regardless, it’s an interesting read and I would recommend it.
The book talks about ten experiments the author claims are the greatest experiments of the twentieth century. One of these experiments is about psychiatric wards. I will summarize very quickly and apologize if this is not clear. A researcher got eight of his friends to go to prestigious and public psychiatric clinics and they were to say that they heard a voice that said “thud” and see if they would be admitted. All other details they gave were to be 100% accurate and once inside, they were to act completely normal. All the patients were admitted and spent from 9 to 53 days at the wards. This was to prove that psychiatrists don’t recognize sane people.
This experiment caused a lot controversy and pissed many people off. One pyschiatrist claimed that such an experiment would never work today. So the author decided to try it out. Just like the original nine, she didn’t shower or brush her teeth for a week and then went in and said she heard a “thud.” Partly due to the experiment I explained above patients are never admitted anymore unless they are a danger to others or to themselves. As such, the author was not admitted anywhere but she was diagnosed in all places as a schizophrenic or some other equally serious disease and she was prescribed over 50 pills in total. All this after a ten to fifteen minute diagnostic solely based on her hearing “thud.”
Reading that gave me the chills. For some reason, right around the pregnancy I became very anti-medication. I am not saying there aren’t legitimate times that call for pills that are tremendously helpful and necessary. But I find that in our society, today, we over-medicate. Most of the medications have strong side effects that then reequire other medication. Fact is, medicine rarely works long term. Your immune system adjusts and you need to up the dosage or change pills. All you’re doing is intrdocuing a lot of foregin, not well tested stuff into your body for short term relief (not that it isn’t really needed at times). This coming from someone who took Vioxx for almost two years. So I wasn’t always such a pill-hater. But now I am. And reading the author’s experience only made me more sure that doctors are too quick to try to solve stuff with pills, especially if they don’t really know what’s wrong with you.
When David was six weeks old I thought I might have thrush and called my pediatrician. The nurse was going to write me a 21-day prescription over the phone. Without even seeing me and making sure I did have thrush. I told her that I wanted to see someone and be sure. She gave me an appointment and lo and behold it turned out not to be thrush. If I weren’t so adamant, I would have been taking unnecessary medicine (not to mention giving it to David through my milk) for three weeks.
How scary is that?
ps: For those of you who’ve been following the no-sleep saga, things have improved slightly. David now wakes up three times a night, around every three to four hours. I would be okay with twice a night and am praying that it’s coming soon. Some of my sanity is already coming back and I am really glad. Thanks for listening and being there.
There’s an episode of Desperate Housewives (yes, I watch that show but I watch everything on TV so it doesn’t mean anything) where one of the moms finally comes face to face with the ADD medication she’s been taking to keep up with her sons and she has a nervous breakdown. She’s sitting in the middle of this soccer field when her friends find her. As she shares with them how horrible she feels about the kind of mom she is, they each tell her their storeis of the hard times they endured with their children and the mistakes they made. She then asks her friends why they never told her this stuff before and they tell her that no one likes to look like they aren’t on top of things. The woman then tells her friends that they need to share those moments, that’s what friendship is about.
I need some of that lately. I am tired of everyone around me being so fucking perfect. Their kids are wonderful. They take all their naps on time and nice and long. They sleep through the night. They eat the perfect ten to fifteen minutes on each side and latch off when done. They burp on cue. They roll over, stand up, sit up, reach out, grab or whatever else they’re supposed to do by that developmental age.
Either everyone’s baby is perfect or they’re fucking lying.
I don’t understand the value of keeping your struggles to yourself. It makes it such that we suffer alone and make everyone else look and feel like they are the only failures in the world. What’s so fucking wrong with the truth? I’ll go first:
My son’s been on some sort of strike lately. He whines more often than he ever did. He really struggles to take naps and several times a week, we get in the car and drive around just so he can get some sleep during the day. He’s been eating so much lately that I feel like both my breasts are empty all the time. Last night, I finally took him to bed with me because he’s been waking up every 90minutes for the last week and I couldn’t take it anymore. In our bed, he slept a solid five hours before waking up for a meal. He doesn’t roll over yet (though he did once but I think it was probably an accident). He reaches out sometimes but won’t grab stuff unless we put it in his hands. There are times in the day when I’d be willing to pay him a thousand dollars for him to sleep for one hour so that he can be better rested. Lately, almost daily I question my ability to do right by him. If I can’t get him to sleep, what hope do I have of doing anything else?
I don’t want to hear advice. I am capable of spinning all this another way. I can tell you he smiles all the time and his smiles are wide and all consuming. I can tell you he’s in the 50th percentile of all his numbers. I can tell you he’s been gaining weight consistently and well. I can tell you he’s been perfectly healthy since the day he was born. I can tell you he’s the most beautiful baby in the world. All of that would be 100% true.
But so is the other part. And I don’t see why it’s important to hide it. I feel like if I shared my struggles, it might help another mom who’s also struggling. I remember when I was pregnant and hurt so much, I hated the fact that others didn’t tell me how difficult it could be. That lasted only nine months. This is much longer. This is too long to be acting. Is it really that important to look good? What’s the point of friends if not to share the rough times and to make others feel less lonely in their misery?
A year ago this time, I wasn’t pregnant. Or at least I didn’t know it.
A year ago this time, I quit drinking diet coke and started going to yoga more regularly.
A year ago this time, I was trying to have a baby.
David was conceived sometime in the month of May. Last year, this time, he was just a concept and now he’s a three-month old boy who has big blue eyes.
It seems like such little time has passed since he’s been born and at the same time I can’t imagine life without him. Having a baby has been a trying experience in so many ways. In the last week, he hasn’t slept longer than a three-hour stretch day or night and he seems to only be able to take a nap that last longer than twenty minutes if he’s in the car or attached to my breast. He eats in small bits and likes to bit or wiggle around. Two nights ago, he pooped twice in the middle of the night and three times in a row at six in the morning. He pooped right as I was changing him, all over my hand. Last night, he peed himself three times and I had to change him three times, which meant he woke up completely and it took me an hour to wind him down back to sleep. I haven’t been able to do anything that takes more than thirty minutes in the last three months. I have washed my pajamas and daily clothes at least thirty times to clean the spit ups. I can’t even count the number of laundry loads we washed of David’s clothes. I have books I want to read. Projects I want to complete. I want to update my site more. I want to take photos. I want to keep better track of David’s first months. But none of that is happenning. All I do is feed and play with David and try to put him to sleep.
The same three months have brought the biggest joys of my life. I know it’s cliche but he really did change my life and he really is the most amazing thing that ever happened to me. I don’t mean that the rest of my life doesn’t matter and I don’t think I would like to give up who I am. But each time I look into David’s smiling face and his shiny eyes, I can’t believe he came out of me. Jake and I made this little man. This little, happy man. And no other accomplishment in our lives will ever compare to that.
Happy three-months little boy.
The upside to baby sleeping through the nite: more sleep for mommy, less cranky baby, more sleep for daddy, less crankiness all around. Happy baby makes happy family. Well-slept household makes everyone happy.
Except my boobs.
Twice this week, David graced us with sleeping more than five hours consecutively at night. I have an overactive letdown, which means milk sprays out of my breasts too fast with too much power. Imagine feeding yourself with a garden hose on high. No matter how much you like what the hose is spurting into your mouth, you probably won’t like it when it’s being delivered this way. One of the ways I work around this is to feed David on one side at a time.
Last night, David ate a bit on both sides at 6:30 before he went to bed, his next feeding was at 1:40am, seven hours later. At that time, I fed him on the left side for a long time and we both went back to bed. My right side was already full and hard but I didn’t want to upset him and his sleep is currently more important than my pain, so I went back to bed. He stirred at 4 but didn’t actually wake to eat until 5:10am. By this point my right breast was in severe pain. A rock is softer. I got up and stood in front of his crib as David thrashed around. Sadly, I kept hoping he would open his eyes so I could pick him up and feed him. And the second he did, I swept him up and put him on my right breast. Within minutes relief was mine.
So now I have a dilemma. I am wondering whether I am willing him awake because my boob is big, hard, and leaking. Should I let him thrash around? Is it possible that if I didn’t interfere he’s actually sleep until the morning and I am hindering this progress in an effort to relieve my throbbing boob?
I know it will all adjust in time but until then my boobs are protesting the sleep-through-the-night plan.
This month’s obsession is sleep. I am sure I will write more about it as the obsession gets deeper and deeper, but tonight I want to specifically talk about middle-of-the-night feedings. At eleven weeks, my little one is still waking up several times for night feedings. The quantity generally depends on the quality and the amount of time I invest in burping him. For those people who said that breastfed babies don’t need to burp at night: You don’t know shit!
The middle of the night feedings are supposed to be quiet. The point is to quickly go to the aide of your little one, quietly feed him without rousing him too much, burp him, and put him back to sleep. You’re not to even change him unless he’s pooped. This way, he doesn’t fully awaken and thus it’s easier for him to fall back asleep. Makes sense, right?
I am pretty good at getting to him before he cries himself awake. At the first sound of hunger, thanks to my ultra-sensitive monitor, I rush to his side and make sure his eyes are open signaling actual hunger and not sleep talking. I pick him up and put him on the feeding pillow and we rock back and forth while I feed. It’s perfectly quiet for the first ten minutes. And then….
ACHOOOO!
My sneeze pierces through the night, making both me and my peacful baby jump. His eyes are wide open now and he doesn’t know what just happened.
ACHOOO! ACHOOO! ACHOOO!
Just in case he had decided to go back to sleep, my allergies let him know that’s out of the question. My sneezes pile on top of each other. Then to add to the punishment, my nose starts dripping. So actively that I have to actually blow it disabling all of David’s attempts to find that sleepy place. We’re talking fifteen nose-blows before the faucet of a nose I have will quit. Actually it doens’t even quit, it merely takes a break until I am leaning over to put David back in his crib. Then it decides to drip once more.
Now I have a conundrum. Do put him down more quickly to rush for a tissue and risk awaking him or do I let my nose drip on him? I won’t tell you which option I choose, but I will tell you it’s a nightly dilemma.
As David goes back to dreaming, I make my way into the bedroom, and just as I lay in bed it comes once more.
ACHOOO!
It will not quit until all members of my small family are awake and unrested.
Ps: I had intended not to write about my son or montherhood to not turn this log into one of those. I wanted it to be more than that as well as that. However, my life is little besides David and work and sleep right now so since it’s a major part of my life, I decided to write about it. This way, I ill hopefully get back in the habit of updating regularly and eventually start writing about more varied topics. If you don’t like reading about motherhood issues, visit me weekly and hopefully there will be at least one entry that’s not about David.
It’s quite funny that I wrote about letting go four years ago in reference to having children. Last night, in bed, I was thinking that having David has cured me of quite a few things. It’s a case of “when you have no time to worry, you simply don’t.”
I used to worry about everything. And I mean everything. I have a major issue with letting people down and if I feel like I let someone I care about down, I beat myself up for days and sometimes months. It’s not healthy and it doesn’t accomplish anything except to make me really sad. But I wasn’t able to stop doing it.
Before David, that is.
I’ve had some major letdowns in the last few months. I lost what I thought was a solid friendship. I realized that sometimes you can’t count on the people nearest to you. I understood the phrase “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” And I’ve finally admitted that often times the only one you can count on is yourself. I’ve also had some amazing surprises and an incredibly healthy and happy baby but those are not what we’re talking about for now. Ordinarily, just one of the things that went wrong would be enough for me to beat myself up for months. It would mean I’d mourn for weeks and go over and over the events to find the exact point where it all fell apart and how I should have done it all differently.
Before David, that is.
Now, I sleep the three hours a night that I can manage, I eat, I work and I play with my amazing son. I have somehow managed to move on and let go. If the people in my life aren’t there for me and aren’t willing to work with me, I guess we’re not meant to be in each other’s lives. Friendship takes a lot of time and commitment. It takes perseverance and being humble. So does family. If those traits are non-existent in a relationship, maybe there’s no relationship worth hanging on to.
It’s funny that I thought I shouldn’t have children until I’ve learned to let go. If only I knew having children was the thing that would teach me to let go.
Thank You, David.
Thank you Annie for letting me know that the comments are broken, I’m working on them.
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projects for twenty twenty-six
projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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