Baby It's Cold Outside

Actually, it's not.  Another warmish winter here so far.  Hopefully that changes soon.

But tonight, on Christmas Eve, M and I were doing things around the house with Sweet Pea underfoot.  We had Pandora on and Glee's version of Baby It's Cold Outside came on.  Being the insane couple we are, we both started dancing over to each other and then took that dance into the living room.  Sweet Pea watched with, well, glee, and danced a little herself.  Then wanted "up" to dance with Daddy.  She completely flopped on him, cuddling him close.  That gave me plenty of room to still come in close and dance, too.  So, all three of danced around the living room in some strange sort of family dance of love.

At the end of the song, I had to point out that I thought it was pretty funny that we apparently are just drawn to dance to songs with two gay people singing to each other.  Our first dance was I'll Cover You from RENT.  In the ceremony there was Under Your Spell from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  And now Kurt and Blaine belting out that classic on glee. 

I love our family.

Merry Christmas.

Lady Gaga 2 (Electric Boogaloo?)

I mentioned previously that Sweet Pea loves Lady Gaga music, likes to have the LG Pandora station on, asks for music to be played by asking for "Gaga", etc.

Tonight it went further.  By late evening it was time for some Gaga, so I put Pandora on.  Happy baby.  Eventually, though, something other than Lady Gaga came on.  Some Glee stuff, actually.  And she pitched a fit.  Total tantrum with body on the floor, legs and arms a-kickin', etc.  Hilarious stuff.  She kept asking to turn it off/that she was all done and that she wanted Gaga.  I tried to explain that this song would end, another would come, etc., but that wasn't good enough.  Next a Cascadia (or something) song came on, same thing.  Total meltdown.

An actual Gaga song came on next.  Happy baby returns!

She definitely knows, and loves, her Gaga.  Her first concert has absolutely become her favorite artist.  Not being a huge fan myself, this is a little tough for me.  But alas, it's good training for the days when we disagree on everything else in life, too.  :)

Pink sweat pants

Apparently a bunch of us in my family all went to Target the same day a few years back and all got the same style of basic sweat pants/shirts.  We're slobs with no style, fine, whatever, we own it.

Today I was folding laundry and Sweet Pea reached into pile to pull out my pink (*sigh*...yes, pink.  I told you: *no* style!) sweat pants.  My mom has a pair just the same color.

She pulls them out and says "Mom Mom!" (what we call our grandmothers).  And then proceeds to say that over and over again. 

Mom Mom had worn them while watching her just the day before.  Yup.  Smart cookie.

Gaga

The first words of many babies, it now holds a special place in our home: Sweet Pea loves to have internet radio turned on and to dance.  Alas, she is not a fan of much of the 90's alternative or 80's pop channels that we often lean towards.  Nope, she likes Lady Gaga Radio with its current fantastic dance rhythms and heavy beats.

She will go into the living room, point at the tv (we stream Pandora there), raise her arms in a little dance motion and say "gaga."  Tooo cute.

I think it's extra funny since, technically, Lady Gaga was her first live concert.  When I was just a couple months pregnant I took my niece and one of her friends to see Gaga.  I remember at the time being a little worried that the very loud sounds and penetrating base notes couldn't possibly be good for the fetus.  She seems to have survived.  And perhaps it's why she loves music, dance--and especially Gaga--so very much.  :)

Rhythm

I'm amazed by the sense of rhythm babies and kids seem to have.  Sweet Pea can't resist a good beat, whether it's Middle Eastern Drumming or some heavy metal or...whatever.  Every day we play music and she just loves to dance, spin, raise her arms up, jump...all for the love of that beat.  Not to mention her love of clapping, stomping, marching, banging all sorts of "instruments" together and so on.  I know probably most kids do all the same things, but I just adore seeing it in her and love that she has such an innate love of music. 

Full time

I recently moved from part time work (two 12 hour night shifts a week) to full time work (three 12 hour night shifts a week). 

And it's killing me.

Friends who had babies around the same time and returned to full time work while I was part time used to comment about they couldn't believe how much else I did, excursions we planned, errands I could get done, etc.  I would tell them that that extra shift they were working made all the difference in the world.

Damn, was I ever right.

Full time is making me exhausted.  It's tough to work night shift in general.  Your sleep is just screwed up, plain and simple.  Now I have to do that three nights a week and that means at least three days a week I'm all messed up.  Usually it's more as you have to recover.

It doesn't help that I'm in school, still trying to juggle house/home stuff and such.  I've got near constant headaches barely relieved by frequent meds (from a woman who rarely takes anything and always takes half doses).  Stress, tension and frustration are building up.  Well, that's been happening for a while, but it's definitely worse now. 

I could try to switch to days but 1) I couldn't stand to be away from Sweet Pea that much especially since it would adversely affect our nursing relationship that is still important to us both, and 2) I like and maybe need the extra 10K a year I get from working nights.  I already took a pay cut in changing jobs so I really don't want to lose any more.

It's all worth it in the long run (I think, I hope) and we have a plan that will hopefully come to fruition in the next year or so that will have me working less.  But right now?  Right now I am exhausted and frustrated and sad and angry and just plain beat.  I need a vacation, and I just had one a few weeks ago.

I'm still orienting on my new job and I just hope that when I'm out of the watchful eye of a preceptor that I'll feel a bit more comfortable and maybe that will make some of the stress melt away a bit.  :/

Dinner

Sweet Pea has generally always eaten well.  We've done "baby-led weaning" so she's always had pretty much whatever we were having.  Lately she doesn't seem to be eating as much for whatever reason, but tonight we went out to dinner with my mom and oldest sister.  And she ate...

5 potstickers
4 pieces of sushi
1 shrimp tempura
1/2 broccoli tempura
1/2 sweet potato tempura

And of course, lots of water, ice and then "milkies" twice at the table.

I love how that kid can just eat whatever is thrown at her.  :)

Flash forward

It's easy to get stuck thinking your baby will always be a baby, or whatever age they actually are, when you have one.  You can tell yourself it's a lifelong commitment or that they will grow up, but...it just doesn't feel real in the moments of craziness.  But every now and again, it hits you.  They are growing.  Growing up.  You will forever be their parent, whether they are 17 months or 17 years or 71 years!

Tonight I had one of those moments.  I heard a little creak upstairs, like a door about to open.  I wondered why/how Sweet Pea, currently 17 months old, had learned to get out of her crib and open the door.  I laughed at myself for thinking she could have done it.

But then it hit me.  Soon, that will be a possibility.  She will crawl out of bed as a toddler.  Walk out of her room as a little girl.  Occasionally actually come downstairs and grace me with her presence as a teenager.  She will walk right out these doors and start a life "on her own" (but I'll always be there, whether she likes it or not ;).

These odd little flashes occur every now and again and they are so hard to explain.  I'm guessing other parents go through this, too, but I would imagine a lot of non-parents might find this very odd and say brilliant things like "duh!" back to me.  But it's real and powerful and overwhelming when it happens.

I love watching her grow up, even if it breaks my heart sometimes.  :')

Uh-oh!

Sweet Pea is about 16 months old now so "uh-oh!" has of course become a word of choice.  It is used appropriately and the expected inappropriately as well (I threw this cup on the floor!  Uh-oh!, etc.).

Last night, she woke up screaming just a couple hours after going to bed.  Unlike her, so I'm guessing bad dream or something. 

I went to her room to soothe her, but apparently hadn't cleaned up like we normally do before bed.  I kicked/stumbled over some sort of rattling toy as I walked in but didn't say anything about it; the toy just made its noise.  She stopped screaming and said "Uh-oh!" and was quite easy to settle after that.  It was totally adorable.

This morning she found a loose thread on Daddy's sock while he was trying to put it on and pulled at it.  As it got longer and longer and we talked to her about what was happening she stopped and said "uh-oh!" as though she understood this was a bad thing/the sock was messed up.  Once again, totally adorable!

All day long we're lucky enough to have these adorable moments.  Such fun.  :)

Baby's firsts

It's hard when a parent is away for a baby's first (word, step, etc.) but in today's world it's common for one, if not both, parent(s) to miss out on a few things.

We were lucky that any concepts of words happened slowly over time so we more or less experienced them together.  Her first steps were from my arms to his.  Those were the biggies for us, so I'm glad we both got to experience them.

Today she had another first: her first spin.

Sure, we spin her around in our arms all the time.  Occasionally in a chair.  Or in a sling/hammock sort of thing.  But today?  Today she stood in the middle of the room and starting spinning herself around.  And after about three spins, fell to the floor giggling.

We never gave it much thought before, but Baby's First Spin is actually really important to us and I'm so glad we got to see it together.  :)

Mom stupidity

My BFF has a daughter just a couple weeks younger than Sweet Pea.  It's a tiny part of what makes her my BFF.  We went through pregnancy together (and some rough times before that with miscarriages and trying to get pregnant) and then had our fabulous daughters almost exactly two weeks apart (she couldn't just stop pushing for 12 minutes so they could have the exact same birth time?  Jeez...some people!).

Anyway... 

We went out to lunch the other day and while we feasted on cheesecake (International Cheesecake Day for the win!), our daughters got a bowl of strawberries that came with a bucket of whipped cream.

They both adore strawberries and were fighting over the one available as a garnish in a drink at the start of the meal, so we knew they'd enjoy them.

They dive in and enjoy them and are begging for more and more.  We oblige them.

And then proceeded with the dumbest mom moves ever: we both decide to let them experience the heaven of true whipped cream and dip their strawberries in that.

We both like our kids to try new things.  Expose them to different foods, flavors, textures.  Crunchy like that.  And somehow in our mind we thought experiencing whipped cream was important.

But once they tasted that heaven, the strawberries were now just a whipped cream eating device, getting sucked on over and over again as they double, triple and quad dipped their berries.

What were we thinking?  If they went their whole lives not experiencing whipped cream, it would have been okay!  It's not like we were trying to get them to enjoy the bitterness of fresh greens or something.

We felt like complete idiots as we now battled to get them to eat their formerly-favorite plain strawberries.  Fortunately, they remembered how much they liked them and dug back in.  :)

Balance

I'm not sure if parents ever truly find a balance juggling kids, household, outside work, etc.  But everyone tries.

One thing I've definitely learned when I have a lot to do in the mundane grownup world: I get so much more done when I take a lot of time out of my day to play.  Perhaps it helps her give me focused time later.  Perhaps it makes me work more efficiently because I have less time.  Perhaps it makes my soul happy and I therefore just work better overall.  Whatever it is, more gets done and we all end up happier when we all take more time to play.

I'm pretty sure that applies to all of life, really, and not just work-kid-life balancing acts.

Daywalkers

Often when I think about something as a "mom issue", I could easily think of it as a "parent issue."  There are a few things more specifically mom-related, like certain aspects of breastfeeding, but most things really could apply to "me" or to "us."  But since I'm a mom, I'll often write from that point of view.  It's not to shut the dad point of view out, to make it "less than" or to assume the situation just doesn't apply to dads (or any other partner(s) for that matter).  It's just my perspective, so that's how I write.

So anyway...

So I work part-time and work at night.  Just two shifts a week.  Sure, I sacrifice sleep on a few levels (stay up 24+ hours at a time regularly, sleep quality suffers in the day time, and then I just plain get less hours since I tend to only sleep a few hours after work rather than "all night/day") but The Vampire Life works pretty well for our family.

This past week I worked a night so slept the following day.  Then I had an all day class.  Then I had a most of day class I was teaching.  So, I lost a good portion of three days this week.  I became a bit of a Daywalker.  I hated it.  Hated It.  Being away from Sweet Pea all that time during her waking hours, missing all her bits of cuteness, not nursing together as much, not being there to change her, prepare food with her, play with her, cuddle with her...  Horrible!

Yes at night I do make the above sacrifices and worry about its effect on my health.  Yes I do possibly miss part of dinner.  And I miss bath time.  And helping her fall asleep.  And watching her sleep.  But....that's easier.  Being away all day was just too hard, and I barely did it for three days this week!

Kudos to you working moms who do what needs to be done and head off to work for five full days a week!  You are superheroes in my eyes!!!

Kids change your life

Well, duh.  Of course they do.

Day to day life is never the same.  You wake and sleep at different times.  Your daily tasks change.  You speak differently.  Every little thing about your day changes in some way.

But there are the big changes, too.  So big they can't ever truly be described.  Any attempt is always inadequate.  Like how your entire definition of love changes.  How you find yourself more in love than you ever were before or thought possible.  And how despite that love being bigger than anything you ever dreamed, it is still woefully inadequate to meet how much this child deserves to be loved.  Big, big, big things happen that just don't translate into puny little words.

But there's a middle ground, too.  The daily things that become big things, or maybe big things that are manifested in little things.  Something like that.

It's currently summer and life is abundant and sometimes doors are open for longer than usual and that means flies are in the house.

To me, flies are annoying.  They don't seem to really offer a lot to the home.  They make an irritating little buzzy sound.  They land on stuff and because of watching the horror that was The Fly we all know they vomit on everything they land on.  So...ew.  A little creature that although fairly harmless (it's no brown recluse) doesn't bring a lot to the table either (hello, adorable little lady bug).  I try to shoo them outside (crunchy), but most of them meet The Flyswatter in this house (very soggy).

But Sweet Pea is obsessed with this one (multiple? Alas, I'm racist here and admit they all look alike to me) fly that seems to like hanging out by our living room window.  She gazes at it when it is still and slowly smiles.  When it suddenly moves and darts about the windowpane, her bewildered eyes try to track its wild path and the excitement makes her giggle.  It flies up between the blinds and she turns her head to look up in wonder at an entirely new world of light peeking through wooden blinds casting shadows back on the window that holds a distorted reflection of her own little self.  The fly returns for a moment and we see the joyous revelation on her face that it is back within reach.  Her chubby hands now shoot forward to announce to the fly that a game of Tag has commenced.  The fly is an excellent opponent and keeps her racing after him.  But eventually the sharp mind of the little human sees some unknown to us pattern and goes to where the fly is just about to land.  The timing is perfect and her hand has mostly closed over the fly.  She holds her clawed hand over the fly, fingers standing up on the windowpane like little bars, enclosing the fly in a cage that in time would be found to be quite ineffective.

But for the moment: success!  The fly buzzes within her little hand-cage and I think the buzzing sound in her hand makes it sound like the fly is tickling her.  And then I know it is, for she lets out such a laugh and a squeal of delight!  Her hand-cage can't withstand the power of her excitement and the fly is free once again.

This simple activity, this interaction between little human and fly, changes my world.  It's just a fly for heaven's sake.  Another one of those day to day things we don't think much of.  The fly is but an irritation to me, something to actually hunt down and kill because it dares enter my life.  But in the eyes of our daughter, it's a magical creature, a treasured pet, a source of wonder and joy and delight.  The fly lives another day.  And will probably live another after that.  And in the future, I might just leave the door open a little longer on purpose, just so more flies can join our little party.

In big and small and oddly-fitting in-between ways, kids change your life.

Seeing connections

This isn't rocket science exciting, but much of this blog will probably be little tidbits like this, just so that I use it regularly.  And then I also don't have to bore folks on facebook with every little update.  :)

So today Sweet Pea goes over to the dogs' water bowl, gets my attention, points to bowl, and then signs water/cup.  Water and cup are basically the same sign for her right now.  Makes enough sense since they are motor-skills close to each other and since she only gets water in her cup.  They are probably one and the same to her.

I tell her that I saw her water-cup.  It's on the floor in the kitchen.  And she proceeds to start looking and walking around the kitchen, sees and picks up the cup and enjoys a drink of water.

Just blows my mind that we're actually *talking* to each other.  Amazing stuff, these little humans.

Deede-ee deet deet deet deet deet deet deedle dee dee

Neil, singing about this blog.  Well, sortof...

I got a song been on my mind
And the tune can be sung, and the words all rhyme
Deede-ee deet deet deet deet deet deet deedle dee dee

Though it don't say much, and it won't offend
If you sang it at school, they're liable to send you home
Never knowin' what you're showin'
Think you're growin' your own tea
Good lordy

Let me hear that, get me near that
Crunchy granola suite
Drop your shrink, and stop your drinkin'
Crunchy granola's neat
Sing it out
Alright
Da da da da
Da da da da da
Dee dee dee dum

I know a man was outta touch
And he'd hide in a house and he didn't say much
Deedle-dee deet deet deet deet deet deet deedle dee doo

And like a man with a tiger outside his gate
He not only couldn't relax, but he couldn't relate
Now he can
Family man
Tried my brand
Dig

Let me hear that, get me near that
Crunchy granola suite
Drop your shrink, and stop your drinkin'
Crunchy granola's neat
Sing it out
Alright
Da da da da
da da da da da
Dee dee dee do
Deedle-ee dum dum
I'll have a double please

 

Obligatory First Post

I'm Tracy and together with my husband Michael and daughter Sweet Pea make up the Soggy Granola Suite.

"Soggy Granola" is a common enough phrase now, it seems.  I have generally considered myself Crunchy/Granola(tm), but it doesn't always appear that way or actually happen that way.  For one thing, I looked like a pretty standard suburban wife and mother, live in a non-crunchy neighborhood/house, and do all sorts of other things that don't look all too Crunchy/Granola(tm) on the surface, even when they are.  And then, we went and had a baby and the mom I thought I'd be isn't quite the mom I am.  There are many things in the realm of Crunchy/Granola(tm) that turns out haven't worked as well for us or I just don't have time for or...whatever.  That "whatever" is proof of my Sogginess alone.  I'm just too tired to come up with more for a simple list in a blog post.

The "Suite" here comes about because as the concept of "Crunchy/Granola" came about in the world, I couldn't help but hear the song "Crunchy Granola Suite" by Neil Diamond.  Alas, I was raised on the man's music and that little-known song will always stick in my head.  The silliness of the lyrics actually kinda work for some of my attitude about crunchiness and sogginess and life in general.  So, when it came time to find a blog name and I thought of Soggy Granola, I immediately tacked on "Suite" as that's how my mind works.

And since we're a little suite of characters and I plan on writing about a suite of topics, it works.  Just go with it, okay?

Hopefully I'll actually write here every now and again and share some of our silly soggy life, my thoughts about family and children and birth, and all manner of things.

Welcome!