Notes to Zoe

Month 12, aka Year One: HELLS YEAH.

Big Kid Zoe, you turned one today.  Just let that sink in… one whole year old!  Of course, this means nothing to you yet, but it’s everything to me and your dad.  Just one year ago, we were so happy, and simultaneously so scared, so excited, and so instantly unready for what was to come.  We had months to prepare, to read books and blogs, to hear endless advice from family, friends, folks we barely knew, homeless people, strangers in the elevator, and yet: when they placed you on my stomach for the first time, when I first saw you as a being wholly separate from me, I felt it instantly and to my core: I knew nothing.  

Wait, strike that: I knew that I loved you immediately, and that part of me would always from this point on be preoccupied with how you were feeling, what you were doing, what you were thinking, how I could help you best.  I instantly knew all those truths about unconditional love that I had only guessed at before.  But outside of that?  I knew nothing.  Thank god for labor and delivery nurses!

As you might imagine, your dad and I have turned extremely nostalgic this past week, and while we’ve certainly been getting moony over pictures of your first few weeks, we’ve also found ourselves reminiscing about that time before you made us three, when we were just two folks who were in love and really liked spending time together and brought the best out in each other.  It was a gorgeous, golden time.  I don’t think I’m building it up to be more than it was either.  Your dad and I had so much fun as a pair, and every single amazing thing we did was made even sweeter because we were doing it together.  When we started contemplating adding you into the mix, who knew what we expected — people tell you all sorts of things, but come on: people tell you ALL SORTS of things.  Who knows what to believe?  

Now, looking back, I can tell you this: your dad has seen the worst of me this past year, and I’ve seen the worst of him.  We’ve yelled, cried, whined, (probably?) thrown things, made incredibly unreasonable demands on each other, and generally been complete brats.  But we’ve also observed each other at our most beautiful, in full dedication of ourselves to the goal that we’ll always share in this life: to take care of you and help you thrive, to love you so much that you overflow with it (which I’m guessing is what’s really behind that damned drool situation).  We made you, and you made us parents, and we made each other parents, and holy moly, we’re all so intensely lucky.

I feel like I should mention the progress that you’ve made in the last two months: crawling, standing, cruising, holding your bottle, gobbling down food, and near-constant babbling.  But pictures can tell those stories.  For now, just hear these words: I knew nothing a year ago, and I can’t say I know much more now, but you?  You will always know that your parents love you, sweet girl, so very very much.

Happy Birthday, darling Zoe!

Love,
  Mama

Month 10: Waterbaby!

This past week, Zoe, you turned 10 months old — in line with your new swimming prowess, let’s dive right in!

So you’re not quite Michael Phelps yet (that reference will make no sense to you, oh well), but with summer’s advent, we’ve begun bringing you into the pool every weekend or so, and it’s definitely surprised me how naturally adept you are in the water.  Your dad holds you, but after a few minutes, you barely need his support, a fact that engenders in him a pride visible from Siberia.  

This is just the first of many instances of us teaching you a new skill and opening you up to a completely new experience.  And while it’s incredible to watch you absorb these lessons, it’s almost as astounding for me to see us morph, slowly but surely, into natural teachers and parents.  I did not grow up around a lot of children.  I was — and probably still to some extent remain — awkward with other kids.  When I was pregnant with you, I’d secretly fret that I wouldn’t be able to connect with you, because I don’t know how to talk “kid-speak,” because I couldn’t figure out how to break down interactions and instructions into pieces appropriate for and digestible by a child.  But I read a great sentiment a few weeks ago, surely meant for folks just like me who have reservations about not knowing how to be a parent.  It was this: a baby doesn’t suspect that you are clueless — they just have these core needs, and you do your best to fulfill them.  By the time they’re aware enough to actually think about how qualified you may or may not be to be their parent, you already have years of experience under your belt.  Voila!  Instant qualifications!  Ridiculous that this made me feel better, and yet: so so much better.

This month you also had a lovely visit with your Po Po, my own mama.  The two of you are bound to be conspirators, I can already tell, and tonight, reflecting on my first Mother’s Day as both a daughter and a mother, I am so incredibly grateful for that.  I found my own grandma charming and playful, but I only ever saw her once a year or so, and while technology has brought us many modern challenges, surely one of its great gifts is the ability to bring far-flung family closer.  For now, that means Skypes with Po Po and us sharing photos of your everyday discoveries, but I foresee a future where you exchange silly jokes, recipes, musings, and secrets with your grandparents as instantaneously and continuously as if they all lived next door to us.  

Today, while your dad and I were taking you on our evening walk through the park, we reflected on how the last two months have flown by — eight months seems like it was just yesterday.  I don’t want time to slow down exactly, because delights are meant to be ephemeral.  But I do know that I wake up every day thinking two things: 1) CoffeeCoffeeWhereIsMyCoffeeeeeee and 2) what a lucky hand I’ve been dealt that I get to spend any part of my day with you.  

Time is speeding by because every single day since you’ve been born to us has contained moments of utter euphoria.  I was reminded this evening just how precious those moments are, and how much we must remember to enjoy them — not only because they will soon leave us, but because enjoying each other is what makes everything worth it.  

Happy 10 months, my darling.  Here’s hoping for so, so many more.

Love,
  Mama

Month 9: Crawling towards Little Ladydom!

Hooray, nine months!  It boggles my mind that you’re SO MUCH closer to 1 than 0 now. Though, when I think about events from last fall, I realize what a total baby you were, whereas now you’re definitely more of a baby/kid hybrid.

So this month, big things afoot: as of today, you’re sitting up pretty independently and have gotten to the point where if you fall over (mostly forward, reaching for something or another), you can push yourself back up to sitting.  At your eight-month appointment, the doctor had noted that your sitting wasn’t quite where it should be, so we’ve been practicing a lot this past month to get your muscles all strong.  And success: at this month’s appointment, you sat up the whole time, totally impressing the doctor like the valedictorian of the pediatrician’s office that you are.  We secretly breathed a little sign of relief that we don’t have to take you to physical therapy, which just seems like a crazy thing for babies to have to undergo!  

Staying on the movement front, you’ve always been a strong stander, but now you’re pretty intent on it — there are plenty of times when if we want you to sit, we have to physically bend your knees for you, since you now know how to lock them in your desire to stand sturdy and tall.  Your balance is not quite there yet, so we haven’t felt like we can leave you to hold yourself up, especially given your current girth (more on that later!), but the strong legs are definitely there.  So for now, we hold on to your hands, your side, your back, grateful for the opportunity to steady and reassure you.  But we can definitely see the fast-approaching day when you let go, push us away, and take those first wobbly, toddling steps on your own.  

When I first showed your Po Po these pictures, she asked me, “isn’t Zoe supposed to crawl first?”  And yes, that is generally how these things are supposed to go.  I’ve heard from some fellow parents that it’s pretty common these days for crawling to be an afterthought to standing/walking, since so many babies these days spend less time on their bellies.  But we want you to crawl!  So just like with the sitting, we’ve been doing lots of practice and tummy time this past month to make sure that you’re as strong as possible in preparation for crawling.  

Let me share an honest, if harsh, truth here, dear girl.  Looking at you in previous months, I’ve had my doubts about exactly how your chubby-but-still-somehow-willowy limbs are going to support your mass: your cuddly bubble belly and your surprisingly huge ribcage (you’re welcome), not to mention that big ole noggin.  I’m still not sure how that’s all going to go down.  Apparently your doctor agrees, as she told your dad this month to not worry too much about crawling, since “big babies take longer.”  Ha!  Your adorable little features mask it somewhat in photos, but, sweetie, let me tell you: you are a biiiiiiig baby.  Not like one of those babes that look like they got into a pantry filled with butter and brownies, but as my newly-toned biceps can attest to, you are not petite.  Though you’ve been holding pretty steady at 50% weight (and 90-95% height!), so maybe I’m just a wimp… who’s hoping you won’t be a four-year-old who wants to be held all the time.

So, crawling!  Just today, actually, you had some breakthroughs, realizing that you can push up really far on your arms, lock your knees, and balance for a bit on your feet before collapsing into a backwards scoot.  It’s pretty exciting for us, though it seems a little confusing and frustrating for you, since when you move, you actually end up farther away from the thing you were pursuing.  But we have faith that you’ll put it all together soon, and then, yes, we have to figure some stuff out… like how to move everything we own above the three-foot-line.

The things we have been using to encourage you to crawl have really clarified to me what your favorite toys truly are, versus what I would like them to be.  As the first grandchild on both sides, you do not want for lovely toys.  And yet, in no order, your most favorite things in the world include: tags, paper, napkins, my glasses, iPhones, the cardboard boxes that baby food comes in, twistoff bottle caps, and the little wooden “Z” that I got as a wall decoration for your room and then foolishly hung right above your changing table.

You and your treasures:

I’ve learned this stare means, “you don’t really need those spectacles, do you?” and directly precedes a clammy-handed but deft grab:

What it looks like when you realize that I’m taking your photo with the iPhone that you’d rather have in your mouth:

And my Baby Z with her Little Z:

A final note, my darling daughter, and this is a bit of a serious one.  In an attempt to keep myself from going too far down the crazy-parent hole, I take care to read articles and blogs about extreme parenting behaviors.  Mostly it’s schadenfreude, thinking about how lucky we are to not be total psychos.  But recently, I read about the woman who just gained notoriety for putting her seven-year-old on a diet, and thought about the disturbing phenomenon of toddler beauty queens, and it hit me how much I will be (am?) a role model for you.  No question, your dad will certainly be a strong influence in your life, but the specific business of teaching you how to be a woman in this world is primarily mine.

Though it’s still early in your life, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this lately.  I’ve been lucky to have never succumbed to any body dysmorphia or eating disorders, but frankly, I’m also lucky to have had the genetic metabolism allowing me to eat pretty much anything I want.  Still, I’ve also spent a lot of the last nine months thinking that I would be happier if I just was five or ten pounds lighter, or a bit more toned.  Let me stress that this sort of thinking is totally and completely normalized in our world, sweetie, and especially so in LA.  But looking at you every day, realizing that I have the responsibility of guiding a daughter into this world, makes me realize how hypocritical it is to continually say, “I’m not happy with myself” while trying to build a happy life for you.  As such, I’ve resolved that one of the best things that I can do for you is to truly love and accept myself.  It’s a process, but I think it’s going to be worth it.  Even at this early age, you look to me so much for cues.  I fervently hope that that continues as you grow older, and that you like what you see.  So far… seems like we’re on the right track.

Love,
  Mama

Month 8: Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Da.

Happy eight months, darling!  The last month has gone by so fast.  I just reviewed what happened last month, and I honestly can’t believe that wasn’t last week — guess CRAZY SICK DAYS tend to feel like they last forever, and in contrast, the relatively healthy, fun month since then has sped by.  

So a few big updates from the past month: as we predicted last month, your first tooth came in recently, in the center of your bottom gum.  It was followed the very next day by a second tooth right beside it, and when we took you in for your eight-month doctor’s appointment, she confirmed that your next few (the top center ones) will be very soon in arriving.  What a relief to finally be justified in blaming all your bad behavior on those damned teeth!  Someday, you’ll come home from school totally infatuated with your dirty mouthbreather of a boyfriend who works at a medical marijuana dispensary and makes penis jokes right in front of us, and your father and I will nod sagely to each other: “She must be getting some new teeth.”

For now though, your teething-related pain and misbehavior is mostly limited to acting unbearably sad when you have no reason to be, which causes us to clown around harder than ever to try to cheer you up.  It worked about half the time today.  Your highs were sharp and gleeful, your lows harrowing and tragic.  What’s incredible to us though is how much more capable we feel now than we did in your first few months.  The keys: knowing we can rely on you to sleep through the night, which gives us a bedtime goal to encourage us through the long day.  Knowing that you will be our consistently sweet girl again after those teeth finally poke out.  And the most gratifying?  Knowing that we know you so much better than we used to, and you us.  You’re my girl, and I KNOW you, my sweet.  No matter how completely you grow every day.

Another new thing this month that was only hinted at last month: you now make all sorts of sounds consistently, including our favorite, “da!”  There are hours where you happily proclaim, “da-da-da-da-da-da” in all sorts of intonations, and while I know that you are too young to associate that particular sound only with your father, it’s still one step closer to the moment where you smile ruefully at some terrible pun your dad makes and say, affectionately, “Daaaaad!”

Man, this month has caused me to picture your teen years a lot.  Huh.

We took you to Seattle this month, where you met and shared secrets with a new slew of loved ones, from your Great-Grandma Betty to your new BFF, Max:

Not only was it wonderful to see people, but we also knocked out a few other firsts: first solo mama-baby flight (you were so amazing, I can hardly believe it), first road-trip (90 min each way, and you somehow slept almost the whole time), and of course, that most important of milestones: first face lick from a loving doggy.

Besides the priceless faces you pulled, your reaction to Utah’s enthusiastic kisses was pretty calm, which is so great, as we hope to always raise you with pets, and having you be comfortable with them from the get-go is crucial.  Perhaps Utah awoke in you a greater awareness of animals in your midst?  Since our return, you’ve been absolutely fascinated with our cat Fog — watching her every move, and grinning madly when she comes nearby.  We’ve been trying to make sure you pet her gently, mostly just having Fog swish her tail over your hands, which launches a cavalcade of giggles (from you.  Fog doesn’t giggle, unfortunately).  The building of a relationship between the two of you is something I’m looking forward to so much, and it seems that you’re just as excited as I am!  

Growthwise, you are holding pretty steady now at 50% weight, 95% height.  Like someone I know, you’re going to be a tall (and silly) drink of water!

Finally, and DEFINITELY most importantly, I’ve realized this month how much I love this shirt on you.

(“this is HOW many calories?!?”)

Just a teeeeeny bit obsessed.  :)

Okay, my big girl, bye for now, and all my love till next month…

Love,
  Mama

Month 7: Some things you do for money / And some you do for Love, Love, Love.

Darling Zoe,

I’m writing this after one of the most trying days of our new life.  Today’s trials had nothing to do with your behavior; in fact, your giggles and babbles (more on that later!) brought us the only moments of pure joy today in our time of sickness — last night, your dad got some intense food poisoning, I developed a milder version of it today, and you started a new cold this morning, which overlapped with both your last cold and teeth on the way.  I’ve been “lucky” enough to get every single one of your daycare colds thus far, but your dad has been fairly cold-resistant, so having him be the sickest one in the house for once has been eye-opening.  As I cared for him through the worst of it last night — I saw into a future when I’ll do this for you, and for a moment, it truly hit me: I’m a mother, and will be for the rest of my life.  While I can certainly understand new parents feeling that EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED from the moment of a baby’s birth, or even from the moment that you find out you’re pregnant… that just wasn’t me.  Instead, the simple truth strikes me at random moments throughout our lovely new life with you: I’m yours.  I will always be there to care for you and love you and help you.  Fact.

I was so worried when I was pregnant: worried I wouldn’t do things right by you, that I wouldn’t know how to make the right decisions, worried that I’d wouldn’t even know what to properly worry about (Seriously.  Please, let’s hope you don’t inherit my anxiety gene)!  And I’m not saying those have totally gone away, but one thing that makes me laugh now is that panicky worry that I had in my darkest moments: what if I didn’t love you?  What if I had a black hole where I should have that most basic of human emotion?

Girlie: I was an idiot.  Loving you is the most natural, instinctive feeling I’ve ever felt.  I love my parents for all that they’ve done for me, for the person that they’ve shaped me to be, for the amazing childhood they provided.  I love your father because we’re really compatible, we have so much fun together, and because he puts in the effort towards being an incredible partner.  But you?  I love you because I love you.  It’s so simple, and before you were in my life, I honestly had no clue.  It’s also freeing in a way — knowing that while your dad and I could make any number of wrong or questionable decisions as we fumble through raising you, but we will always love you.  It’s our one guarantee.

So, this has gotten a bit off-topic, but I wanted to make sure you knew that, under all the tears, tantrums, and teasing that will surely make up our near future, is a foundation of pure love.  

Now then: seven months!  You are still a sleeping, eating, and pooping champ.  Developmentally, you easily roll from your back to your stomach, but don’t seem particularly interested in rolling back — your dad has seen it happen twice, but you usually prefer to just whine about being on your stomach for a bit, then lay your head down sideways and just rest in that position.  You can sit up, but only for a few seconds before falling sideways or forward, especially when you’re seeking out those delicious-looking feet!

You babble frequently and loudly now, and it’s so CLOSE to talking!  It’s so exciting being on the precipice of communication — right now, we just make noises at each other, but soon, it will be a whole new world!  Just in the last week, we’ve heard you say “mama” and “dada.”  Sure, we could just be hearing what we want to hear, but it’s still awe-inspiring, little person!

You adore being upside-down, which is so weird to me, but you can seriously spend an hour hanging out on your dad’s lap, your head wedged between his kneecaps — often, when I come home from work, I find you two in that position before you swivel your little upside-down head in my direction, make sense of an upside-down mama, and then smile a face-splitting upside-down grin.

You’ve continued your steady growth, and I think it’s three or four straight months now that you’ve been 50-65% for weight, 90-95% for length/height.  When I was pregnant, we used to hypothesize about how Amazonian you’d be, and I’d laughingly insist that we not put any crazy expectations on you — I wouldn’t want you to feel bad for topping out at 5’3”.  I think I’m convinced now though: not only am I sure now that are you going to be taller than me, I also can tell that you’ve inherited your dad’s crazy-long wingspan and monster feet.  Now all you have to do is avoid inheriting his prodigious facial hair, and I think you’re on track to be a stunner!  

In fact, a lot of people remark on the similarities they can already see between the two of you.  Combine that with the incredibly sweet, close relationship that you two are already developing, and I can’t believe that I’m lucky enough that this is really my life.

Love,
  Mama

Month 6: EatSleepPlay… but mostly Eat!

My Zo-Zo,

Another month has passed, and it has definitely been the funnest one yet.  These days, you have such a great personality, and I’m not using that as code for you being ugly — in fact, your ever-growing range of expressions makes you cuter than ever:

While the transition from baby to kid is a gradual one, I definitely think your dad and I will look upon this time in your life as when it all began.  More and more, you are doing things with such fervent intention that it’s not hard to see the person you’ll one day be.  For example, as soon as any given object is within grasp, you grab it forcefully and execute your prime objective: putting it in your mouth and subjecting it to a lick-a-thon!

Nothing is safe from you, Lick-a-saurus Phoenix, and thankfully Dad and I aren’t particularly concerned about germs, because the amount of energy necessary to keep things out of your mouth is way more than either of us can muster.  And while you don’t scream or cry nearly as much as you used to, woe to the ears of the person who tries to take something out of your mouth!

Perhaps I should rephrase that last statement though.  You don’t cry or scream much anymore… from a place of anger, fear, or frustration.  What you do now is pure sound experimentation.  You have discovered the fun in making loud noises, which are sometimes screams but just as often: croaks, squeals, creaky-door noises, growls, gurgly babbles, and baby-language conversations with yourself.  When we respond to you, you give us the courtesy of pausing while we talk, and then once we’re done, you rev up again, as if we’re having a real conversation.  It’s immensely fun, and is such exciting practice for our future interactions!

This month, we brought you to Montana for Christmas, and in addition to your first holiday season, you also experienced your first snow and subsequently your first cold-weather clothes.  OH. MAN.  Twenty years after I stopped playing with dolls, I’m beginning to realize the awesomeness of having someone to dress up again.  I’m going to treasure this short period of time before you surely begin to exhibit strong opinions about your clothes, especially since it appears you’re somewhat less charmed by this particular outfit than we are:

Your sleep is still steady and fairly regular.  Every so often, you decide to prove your Phoenix-ness by taking a three- or four-hour nap from which you wake ever-so-slowly and with looooooots of stretching.  While you strongly prefer to sleep in a crib, you’re not unable to make do when that’s not possible.  A girl’s gotta sleep when a girl’s gotta sleep!

Whether it’s from all the sleep, daycare, or just the passage of time, you’re hitting all sorts of developmental milestones lately — rolling over, grabbing toys, ALMOST sitting up, and most recently and excitingly, eating food!  We started you on sweet potatoes a few nights ago, and are totally psyched about your introduction to this new world, especially since it includes faces like this:

My sweet Zoe, we are having so much fun with you, and as always, I can’t wait to see what joys await us next…

Love,
  Mama

Months 4 & 5: Becoming Zoe

I can barely even enumerate the ways in which we’ve all changed and developed in these last two months.  Let me just describe the situation I’m currently in.  I’m sitting at the breakfast bar in a two-bedroom apartment in Miracle Mile, chatting with your dad, listening to music at a regular volume, with a video baby monitor showing me an adorable you, asleep in your crib.  I mean, WHAT?

In the last two months, we’ve moved house, started you in daycare, gotten you to sleep on a schedule (11-12 hours through the night, and 3 naps throughout the day) and in your own room, flown with you for the first time, and gotten through your first cold (damn planes).  I’ve gone back to some work, and start a full-time job next week.  Babes, the Phoenixes are on a routine now!  And it’s friggin’ amazing!!!

Possibly due to the routine, possibly due to daycare, possibly due to just being older — you are Full On Awesome these days.  Just thinking about your personality and interactions with us now versus the last time I wrote two months ago is mind-boggling, and I’m so glad that what everyone said was true: Time did pass!  Things are better!  We did make it!

Nowadays, you’re full of smiles, from the moment I come greet you in the morning (in your holiday jammies, so cute!):

to your obvious gusto for your toys and playmat:

…which has been a godsend in itself — it sounds idiotic now, but a few months ago, I don’t think your dad and I ever realized there would be a future when we could easily put you DOWN.  Nowadays, we plop you on your playmat or in your Bumbo chair (thanks, Goodners!), and while we keep an eye on you, we can also do other things with our time!  Or we can sit on the ground and play with you AND the toys, which is also pretty damned awesome.  

You’re currently at the stage where while on your back, you can roll over to your side, grab toys, and attempt to put them in your mouth (like you do with everything, duh.).  While on your tummy, you can tuck your arms together under your chest, look all the way up and to the sides with your head, and adorably, you keep trying to stick your butt up and get traction under your knees.  

Let me just go on record here as saying that I CAN’T WAIT for you to crawl.  Seriously.  I don’t even care that you’ll get into everything, that I won’t get to take my eyes off you for a second.  I don’t care!  Just thinking about your utter joy and excitement in learning new skills makes me all giddy — CAN’T WAIT.

These are the moments that I think “This. This is why I wanted to be a parent.”  To be frank,  that was certainly a question that I asked myself many many times in your first few months.  The enormous responsibility of taking care of another person, of keeping you safe and happy — for months, it yawned in front of me like a huge abyss that I could never completely fill.  But now, not only does it seem slightly easier, but the daunting task is also balanced by the joy and pride I have in observing and gently guiding your growth.  No longer just some cute little baby-thing, every day you take another step towards becoming Zoe, who smiles with her tongue sticking out!  Zoe, who prefers sitting to laying down, but whose true obsession is standing!  Zoe, who takes a little time to wake up from a nap, so don’t talk to her too much in those first few minutes!  Zoe, who likes to interject hilarious growls into the brief lulls in Mom and Dad’s conversations!  I know these sound minute, just teeny glimpses of the person that you’ll be, but I’m hooked, sweetie.  It’s like that first time you hang out with a new friend that just GETS you, and you realize that though you’ve just said goodbye, you can’t wait to hang out again.  While, hello, I certainly enjoy your periods of sleep, I have also begun to absolutely savor the waking periods too, when we get to discover and delight in each other.  So, hip hip hooray, my girl!  Here’s to so much fun in our future!!

Love,
  Mama

Month 3: Mo’ sleep, mo’ crazy

My sweet, you are three whole months old today!  Congratulations, the internet says that you are not a newborn any longer, but an infant!  I’m not sure if this qualifies you for anything awesome besides the title change, but it does mean that you’ve ended the fourth trimester.  That being the idea that babies are born not completely ready for the world, and so, for the first three months of their lives, we need to help ease your transition by recreating the sounds and feel of the womb, slowly bringing you into our current world.  Practically, it means a lot of white noise, swaddling, swaying, and doing any old crazy thing to try to get you to calm down.  Having now experienced this period, can I just make this suggestion to babies: be born three months later.  

That’s not to say that I haven’t been enjoying you these past three months — amidst the long stages of trying to get you to sleep and the too-short stages of when you actually sleep, there have been some lovely, engaging moments.  That’s especially true for this past month, which has been way awesomer than the last two.  Assuming things continue down this path, little one, life is looking up!  For example, I think perhaps you had smiled some before, but now not a day passes without a multitude of smiles, and for now, it doesn’t matter what you have just done — the smile instantly turns your dad and I into goo.  Frankly, it’s embarrassing how many times we exhort each other to look at your face, insistent that this particular smile is totally new, amazing, and worthy of attention.  Silly us — we should know by now that no matter how many times we have seen that same gummy grin, both of us would drop everything to see it again and again.  You’ve turned us into fools, really — we’re addicted to your happiness.

So, sleep.  Well, you’re making progress there as well!  It’s hard for me to admit that, because you’ve been giving us some frustrating nights lately, and, well, I do so love to complain.  But, yes, thinking back to a month ago, things are definitely better than they were.  You’re almost exclusively sleeping longer at night than during the day now, and there will be stretches of time when you doze for an astonishing amount of time — 6 hours, 7 hours, and on one glorious evening, 9 hours and 14 minutes, omg omg omg.  We try not to carry high expectations from one night to another, but your dad and I would be liars if we didn’t admit that after we woke up at 7:30 (after putting you down at 10:16), we didn’t harbor glorious hopes that this was our new reality.  Of course, that was a week ago and you haven’t done a thing like that since.  But the jig is up, baby — we know you *can* do it!

So we’re pretty obsessed with your sleep these days, so a few more notes on it.  First off, it’s really cute:

Secondly, you’ve been doing this totally hilarious thing recently: while in the first stage of light sleep, with your eyes still closed, you indicate to us that you’re about to sink deeper into sleep.  Sometimes the indicator’s a deep sigh, sometimes a fleeting smile, and sometimes, awesomely: a guttural, slightly creepy “heh-heh” laugh.  The first time I saw it, I almost DROPPED you, I was so shocked.  Thankfully, I didn’t, and you kept your eyes closed and snuggled down, still asleep.  You’ve done this plenty of times since; apparently it’s not uncommon for babies to laugh in their sleep.  We’ve only heard you laugh while awake once or twice, so right now, it’s one of your special sleep things — yet another reason to go to sleep!  

Ooh.  As I’m typing this, you’re giving your father a hell of a time because you won’t stay asleep for longer than 30 minutes.  Baby!  DO IT, YOU CAN DO IT, YOU MUST DO IT.  Are you happy?  You’ve turned us into tireless cheerleaders, except I can attest to the fact that we’re actually very very tired.  Maybe some pictures will help.  MORE THIS:

A LOT less this:

Just to be clear, your Po Po is charmingly playing around.  You are not.  I’m not trying to be mean, but just trying to remind Future Me and Future You — you cry a lot, and I wish you would just quit already.  

This month, you had a few out-of-town visitors who stayed with us — first, Aunt Stefanie, who is my friend from growing up in Cleveland, then Po Po for a week while Daddy was away for work.  It was amazing to see you interact with other people, but really, just sharing the load of taking care of you was the true gift.  It makes me, the ultimate proponent of modern urban life, mourn for the first time that we don’t live in a tribal society.  The support system and sharing of knowledge and work sounds pretty heavenly right now.  But we soldier on!

The tribe that you do have right now is me and Dad, and while small, it’s not a bad one to have been born into, little Zoe.  I’m going to try to not get too sappy here (foreseeing eyerolls and “ewwwww”s aplenty), but your dad is simply wonderful.  There’s no one else in this world that I would want to undertake this adventure and this responsibility with, and I try to let him know that as much as I can, but it’s still not as much as I should.  Besides the things that make him a great dad (he’s endlessly inventive, patient, and animated), he’s also proven himself yet again to be a terrific partner.  

We’ve been together for 11 years, and there have been many ups and downs in those years, but with NO HESITATION, I can state that these first few months of your life have been the hardest test for us yet.  I don’t mean to make you feel bad — please know how much we love you, love you, love you — but a new baby is a level of stress for which neither of us could truly be prepared.  Going through it with your dad, my Evan (ha, I did that one JUST to induce an eyeroll from you)… it has underscored how much your dad and I are an incredibly strong team, one that I hope to be on for life.  It’s also one with room for one little girl — so, baby, when you’re ready to join it, just tell us.  

Um, in English, please.

Till then, we’ll be here waiting for you, and in the meantime, we’ll keep up with that whole feeding/diaper/soothing business as best as we can.  

Love,

Team Phoenix (Christmas-themed clothing optional)

Month 2: Figuring It Out, One Grunt at a Time

Dear Zoe, you’ve been alive for two whole months now!  Those months are pretty much just going to pile up from here on out like… hmm, let’s think of terms you’ll be familiar with… like your drool on my shoulder?  Like the onesies you’ve already outgrown?  Like the number of things we try to do just to keep you sleeping for another 10 minutes?  Yup, let’s go with that one.

Unlike many parents, your dad and I are NOT (or at least, not yet) mourning how quickly your development has progressed so far; instead, we’re so excited for every little milestone you hit, and like classic junkies (see: separate conversation we’ll have when you’re older), we want more! more! more!  We speak wistfully about the days when you’ll be able to say “daddy” and “mama,” when you’ll understand what we want from you (even if you then instantly do the opposite), and most of all right now: we cannot WAIT until you can hold your damned head up yourself.  Note, the current head flop:

The first few weeks after I realized that I could loosen my momma-death-grip on you, it would stop my heart every time your head took a quick flop back.  It may sound silly that I literally thought your head could break off (and it is), but in my defense: sleep deprivation and hormones are a crazy combination.  While that particular worry has subsided, we now have a new problem.  When I hold you upright against my chest, you now love to jerk your head forward, headbutting right into my collarbone.  I’m not so concerned for my collarbone, which after all, has had a lot of time to harden.  But the thought of your sweet little head repeatedly hitting into a hard bone, just because babies are stupidly born with no neck muscles?  It drives me insane, enough so that I’ve started almost exclusively walking around the house with a thick burp cloth draped over my shoulder so that I can pick you up with a little cushion already established.  But that’s a lot of extra work on my part, Zoe — it would probably just be easier for you to go ahead and learn how to control that noggin.

Speaking of worry and fear, we had your two-month doctor’s appointment today.  It meant the end of some of our worries: as suspected, you have gained a ton of weight, now weighing in at 11 lbs 8 oz, which is 55th percentile and over 5 pounds heavier than you were at birth!  It’s a load off our minds to know that you’re growing and thriving with what we’re doing, and I plan on using this information to not freak out so much the next time you act offended by my proffered breast.  OH I KNOW YOU LIKE IT, CHUNKY BABY. STOP PLAYIN’.

So the appointment brought us great news about your gains in both weight and length (23 1/4 inches now, which is 75th percentile, just like at 1 month — we’re already planning what tall-girl sports you’ll play).  But it also stirred up some emotions.  You had your first round of vaccines today, and I have to say that it surprised me how much it affected me.  In addition to a blood draw to test your bilirubin (they STILL think you’re a bit yellow — I somehow refrained from haughtily reminding them that you are half-Chinese…), this means you got pricked three times today.  Baby, I damn near lost it.

We’ve just been spending so much time at home in our sweet little nest, and your dad and I are enjoying so much learning how to anticipate and satisfy your needs these past two months… it seems strangely symbolic to me that we bring you out into the world, and the world hurts you “for your own good” (as well as the good of society) and we absolutely cannot keep it from happening.  We can’t even explain to you why it has to happen.  I know I’m blowing this waaaay out of proportion, but man, I hope this gets easier.  Ha, you know the first time a boy breaks your heart, I’m going to want to go ahead and break his legs.  Just FYI.

Whoo!  On a happier note, you have started to both smile and coo, actions which are just as delightful as everyone has told us they would be.  Just in time too, because you’ve also given us some crazy fussy nights lately, and following those up with precious mornings where the three of us hang out on the bed for 10 minutes and you make this face?  A really good way to get us to not give you up for adoption.

One thing that has definitely changed with you this month is the sheer amount and volume of noises that you make.  You were never a quiet sleeper, but it used to be lots of soft, aspirated moans and squeaks.  Oh those halcyon days.  Now, you’re a full-on loud snorter and grunter, and while the sounds often correspond with your gastrointestinal workings (the first time you grunted for ten minutes, let out a huge fart, and then sighed and snuggled back down CRACKED US UP — the twentieth time? Not so much.), I also think you’re just a bit of a natural noisemaker.  Our current issue is that while your grunts wake you up about 20% of the time, they wake up me and Dad up about 90% of the time, and god knows that would be 100% if it wasn’t for the blessed white-noise machine.  We’re learning how to quickly fall back asleep, but c’mon, baby. C’mon.

When it doesn’t wake you up though, you get into a cycle of grunting in your sleep for a good minute or two before settling down again.  My google history, always amusing due to my predilection to look up any old thing, was filled for a week or so with every possible combination of “grunting,” “baby,” and “normal????”  What we’ve found is that you’re pretty typical, honey, just especially curious about and not yet very skilled at digestion.  There are actually people out there who’ve gone and named this Grunting Baby Syndrome, and frustratingly, like so many of the things that worry us, the treatment for GBS is to just sit back and wait it out.  Also, tell the internet.  I’m pretty sure that was part of the treatment too.  

What’s that, Future Zoe?  You don’t remember this unladylike grunting?  You think maybe I just made it all up to embarrass you?  Here you go: a shot that I will surely show your prom date one day — the Zoe sleep-grunt:

You’re welcome!

On the topic of sleep, the greatest discovery we made this past month was the most obvious one ever: let you sleep!  Especially during the day, those sounds you make used to lead us to assume you were up and ready for feeding! diaper changing! playtime!  Waiting to pick you up when you were throwing out these signs seemed cruel, just the first step to becoming Mommie Dearest.  And yet: the first day that I hung back instead, and watched you grunt a bit, readjust your body, smack your lips, and then go right back to sleep, resulting in a three-hour nap?  Oh baby, it was the most glorious discovery — I might have let out a whoop that I then instantly stifled for fear of waking you up again.  

So now, during the day, you regularly take 1.5-3 hour naps, which is intensely amazing, and of course would be better if I knew when they were coming… but hell, I’m not complaining!  I also never know if a nap is going to be 30 minutes or three hours, so it’s kinda a fun game (oh man, the redefinition of these words) to find out how much I can get done during those naps.  At first, I completely eschewed tasks that could possibly take more than 20 minutes to complete, so while I would unload the dishwasher or fold one small pile of clothes on any given day, it took me a while to build up the confidence to, say, both prepare and eat my lunch in one nap-period.  I’m still working on it, but it gets better as we figure each other out more.  It would probably also help if I stopped staring at your sleeping baby face so much, so please take it under advisement to sleep less cutely, ok?

Zoe, to conclude: these past two months have been exhilarating.  Sometimes we’re frustrated by you, sometimes we’re amazed by you, many times we’re incredibly intimidated by the enormity of the responsibility we now carry — but above all, we’re so intensely in love with you, our darling girl.

So many kisses,

Mom

Month 0 (as told six weeks later): The Birth Story

It was early July, and I’d had a fairly easy pregnancy thus far.  A few gross symptoms had cropped up around 35 weeks, specifically swollen ankles and feeling uncomfortably huge.  I figured that feeling that way for the last month of my pregnancy was adequate payment for how smooth things had gone up until then, so I was ready for those last few weeks!

On the morning of Fri, June 8, I went to my routine 37-week doctor’s appointment — this would be the first of my weekly appointments, as well as the first one that would feature a cervical check.  At this point, I had ZERO expectations that I wouldn’t go the full 40 weeks — or more, actually!  My “female intuition” had told me that I was going to go late, which is typical for first-time mothers.

What a complete and utter shock awaited me that morning: my doctor proclaimed to me that 1) my baby had dropped, 2) her head was very low (which we had already seen the week before at my 36 week ultrasound), and 3) surprise, surprise, I was 3 cm dilated and 70% effaced.  I had NO idea, and while my doctor claimed that making it to this stage without knowing it was a good thing, I couldn’t help but be shocked, worried, and panicked.  Regarding timing, my doctor proclaimed that she would be surprised if I made it another week and could almost guarantee that I would not be making it to my due date — July 27, 19 days away.

That afternoon, as the shock wore down to just a dull panic, I began having light contractions while I tried to wrap up all loose ends at work to prepare for possibly not being there for the next week.  The contractions continued throughout the evening, semi-regular but still moderate.  After some discussion, Evan and I decided to go to our already-scheduled dinner with friends that evening.  I stopped noticing the contractions so much during dinner but they became apparent again on the drive home.

Saturday morning, I woke up at 5:30am with contractions that were still just moderate in intensity, but coming more regularly — about every 8 minutes — rendering me basically unable to sleep consistently, so I got up at 6am.  I walked around downstairs, read email, took a shower, and just hung out while trying to reconcile myself with what was happening.  Around 8:30am, Evan woke up and we started officially timing contractions for the next four or five hours.

Throughout the morning, the contractions got stronger, but still very manageable, and started coming consistently about 3-7 min apart, but most frequently 4-5 min apart.  Evan and I started realizing this was really going to happen today, and we ran around doing the to do list — washing baby clothes, putting together hospital bags, etc.  By about 1pm we decided to call my doctor, and she said we should go to the hospital in the next hour.

We got our stuff together and headed to the hospital around 2pm, and was checked in and examined.  I had progressed to 4.5 cm and 90% effaced… so we got to stay!

Staying meant that we got to move to the Labor and Delivery room, where I was monitored throughout my ensuing contractions.  They continued to get stronger, but were still manageable.  The contractions almost felt familiar by now, and this was what ended up being a fairly restful time — Evan popped out to grab a quick dinner and I had a delicious (seriously!) hospital-provided popsicle.  

Around 6:30pm, they checked me, and lo and behold, I was at 6 cm and full effaced!  However, the nurse said they were concerned that I was getting too comfortable with the steady and moderate intensity of the contractions — yes, they figured it was a problem that I wasn’t hurting enough, ha!  

So to make the contractions a bit stronger, so they broke my water for me at that time.  For some reason, I decided this was a good time to empty my bladder before the stronger contractions began, but I underestimated how quickly they would start, and the first of the stronger contractions happened on the toilet — awkward!  That one and the contraction directly afterwards were really intense but manageable, especially due to the strong flush of rest and relief that I got between them.  But the third started waaaay too strong for me and took so long to pass that I realized that I wouldn’t get much of a break before the next one would begin.  

The nurse asked me how I was doing, and I decided to go for the epidural then.  It ended up being good timing because with the contraction-stream that started then (they definitely stopped feeling like discrete occurrences), I barely got through the wait for the anesthesiologist and the epidural administration, which happened over the next half hour or so.  The contractions were so very strong and had so little time in between them that I was starting to forget what I was supposed to be doing.  Evan stepped up big time here, staying with me face-to-face and leading me through breathing with long, deep, controlled breaths.  I tried to stay with him, but there were times I totally couldn’t stay with him, but Evan kept at it, and eventually, I’d come back to reality.  At one point I realized it was a bit easier to breathing with sound, so we moaned, panted, and made funny noises (Evan, obviously — never me!).  It was hard to focus on what the anesthesiologist wanted from me.  Once I realized he wanted me to arch my back, when my body so intensely wanted to lean back and lay down, I panicked, but the encouragement from Evan, the doctor, and the nurse helped me finally get it done.  After the epidural was administered, I was left laying on my side with the contractions still coming but with less strength each time.  They became manageable again, and then not long after that, I was feeling pressure only.  I’ve heard women describe this before and I figured they meant they felt like something was pushing out strongly from inside of them.  That wasn’t my experience at all!  Instead, it felt like a strong, sharp (but not painful) pulling, and it wasn’t in the “general area,” but was super localized.  Thanks to the pain relief, I could talk again, and I decided to declare to the whole room where I specifically felt the pulling: in the right side of my vagina — I’m sure they were charmed!

The doctor checked me and confirmed that I was complete — 10 cm dilated, the baby’s head very low… basically it was time to push!  It was about 7pm.  I laid down on my side, and when a contraction was coming (I’d feel that pull in the vagina), we’d do three big pushes.  On the first pushes, Evan could see her head — he told me she had HAIR, which was a big thing we had debated.  I was getting so excited to see this person that we had anticipated for so long!  After a few cycles of pushing, it became evident that though the pushing itself was going well, the baby’s heartbeat would drop a bit afterwards.  To keep this from happening, we moved to pushing at every other contraction, and I was given an oxygen mask.  All in all, it took about an hour and a half of pushing, with resting in between.  Then the point arrived: I was being prepped to come down to the end of the bed, and get my feet into stirrups for The Final Push!  It took three pushes, and then OUT SHE CAME!  They placed her briefly on my stomach and I couldn’t stop laughing and crying, because HOLY SHIT.  We made a baby, an actual human life!!!  

And that human?  Healthy and absolutely perfect in her parents’ eyes.  Welcome to the world, Zoe Natalia Phoenix!  6 pounds 5 ounces, 20 inches long, born at 8:27pm on July 9, 2011.