Four months (and a day)

This game again, eh, mommy?

Little dude hit the mythical four-month mark yesterday, and I had hoped, planned, and, for fuck’s sake, actually felt like praying that I would have some time to sit down and hammer out some pithy observations about motherhood and babyhood and development and all that shit but instead, I was busy playing Jack-in-the-Box to all Declan’s (and Oly’s!) whims.

Amongst the coffee-stained (yep, I like to caffeinate my breast milk!) detritus on my desk at work is a wee sticky note with what probably appears to be an exceedingly bizarre list:

• Halloween
• Fromage
• Devil Creature
• Ragnar

These are all posts in the “incubator” (AKA the great darkness of my imagination). I may someday ruminate at length on these themes. Rest assured that if I do so, I will somehow tie them into some discussion about Declan.

I guess this gives you a concise update on how things are going ’round these parts: busy. Stay posted.

Pants negotiable (apparently)

You wouldn't want to be looking at this photo if either of us were wearing a banana-smuggler.

I have this pretty impressive — impressive in the way Dan’s painting is impressive; that is, unattractive and unavoidable (but charmingly ”original”) – stretch mark down the length of my stomach, creating little puckers in the jiggly post-pregnancy stomach fat. Occasionally, when I am feeling insecure about one thing or another, this reminder that I packed on 31 pounds creating Declan leaves me disconsolate (more frequently, though, I poke at my fat with the same kind of horrified fascination that I usually reserve for ’80s-style waterbeds and other such travesties of good taste and logic).

A while ago – pre-Declan days – Dan and I rented a beach house in Folly Beach, SC with some friends for a weekend of, um, let’s be honest here, complete debauchery.  The next morning was one of those mornings that had we still been in college (rather than merely acting like we were), we’d have all brought an open beer into the shower with us.  We (collectively?) didn’t because all of us were/are (at times) responsible adults but there was a lot of groaning and stumbling around blindly for the bottle of Advil that someone should have brought.  Exploiting our collective inability to function, our friend, BM (unfortunate initials there, sailor), decided to wander around in a stupor in his tighty whities until someone finally barked at him to put his pants on.  He did, and proceeded to proudly declare, “I’ve decided that it’s a pants day. You’re welcome.”  It’s a wise philosophy, and while I would be the first one to agree that wearing pants is frequently a drag, as Mark Twain so sagely noted, “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”

Lest you think I’m a prude, let me assure you that I am the first person to shuck my clothes if it’s remotely appropriate – and, given the right amount of booze and/or exuberance and/or a hint of a dare, occasionally when wildly inappropriate.  But of late, I’ve been loathe to bare it all and not because the weather here sucks my a-hole but because pregnancy and childbirth did some awkward things to my trunk. Yep, I’m vain (and neurotic – it’s the curse of the Kavanagh women).

It needs addressing.

Enter bikram yoga, the kind where you need a canoe to get you off your matt afterward. 

These are my fishing clothes. Happy sailor!

I’m a yoga opportunist – I only go if it’s cheap as hell or free – not a disciple, so I have little patience for the fruity, nonsensical side of it. (No, lady, I cannot see the “purple inner landscape of my breath” and I think you’re a fucking wingnut for even asking me about it.) I think, for the most part, that yoga clothes, particularly the ones that cost more than my weekly grocery bill, are pretentious and absurd. BUT! BUT!:

But 1: Yoga feels awesome, mentally and physically. And it’s nominally less boring than running—unless you’re making crazy and running obscenely long relays (more on this soon)—which is currently my other go-to for getting back in shape.

But 2: Yoga clothes are waaaaay better than the alternative, which is (finally) the point of all this nattering.

In short, a plea to the men in my bikram yoga class: Let’s make it a Pants Day.  You, wearing the thin and grotesquely wee running shorts, how did you avoid learning that cavalierly displaying your very noticeable boner is a big social no-no?!? Fair enough, it was an impressive tent pole but the arms crossed behind your head and the smug look on your face as you lay there in a sea of sweaty women with way more clothing on than yourself was inexcusable. I wanted to stomp on your erection. Instead, I moved my mat and averted my eyes…

Which leads to me to the next YogaMan train wreck: Dude-who-looks-like-Kevin-Klein-with-no-body-hair, the little black thong banana smuggler was nothing short of horrifying. I repeat myself: HORRIFYING.  And you didn’t have to put your mat directly in front of mine so I could watch beads of sweat drip off your hairless taint (Brazilian? I wouldn’t put it past you.). There was plenty of room for you over by Boner Man.

Is that a budgie in your panties?

Finally, to top off the most wildly uncomfortable yoga class I’ve ever been to, I started lactating mid tree pose. Exactly 30 seconds after I tore off my sodden tank top in a desperate attempt to cool off. And, yes, I was wearing a white sports bra. Let’s just say…well, I don’t even know what to say. But I do know that my leaky nipples were visible in the mirror from 15 feet.

Maybe I’m just better off feeding my fat to Declan.**

**No pictures of Declan in this post. Too inappropriate, and although I generally blithely ignore such conventions, it would just be grody to associate my chunk-o-lunk with Boner Man and King Thong.

Quarter-year birthday!

That's some funny shit, mama!

Big stuff… Declan has been squawking for THREE MONTHS now. All the usual hyperbolic proclamations apply: we can’t imagine life without him; everyday is a little miracle of human evolution and development; he’s amazing and the coolest thing we’ve ever done, ad nauseam.  It’s been pretty fun to watch his personality unfold, and it’s quite the personality (as if that surprises anyone…).  I suppose everyone says that about their babies (“he’s so advanced,” “he’s 100-percentile,” blah blah blah…) but I’m pleased as piss about what we’ve made so far: a perfectly normal, mostly happy, stout and healthy human. He laughs, he coos, he makes human cheese in his fat rolls, he recognizes his favorite people (me, daddy, Grandma, Grandpa…).

Mommy? It was THIS big!

(An aside: my husband just popped his head out the bathroom door to inform me that he had just produced a “turd longer than his foot” — the copycat is stealing my lines! Apparently, after witnessing hemorrhoids ripping out of my ass with the malevolence of that repulsive creature in the infamous “chestburster” scene in Alien, Dan feels that there is no detail too private, disgusting, or disturbing. We’re intimate like that.)

Mommy, I'm so happy it's 5 am!

The first few weeks (months, who am I kidding?!?) were consumed with learning how to be parents, how to be responsible for something with two legs — and you thought you couldn’t even leave me alone with your beer.  And we’re okay at it! (So far, and with all the usual caveats.) But sometimes my innate ability to be a decent mother (again, so far) surprises the living shit out of me and I have these flash backs of, oh, you know, MACING AN ENTIRE BUS (that one was for you, Fraser) or, um, falling out of a tree and landing on my head on a rock wall — in a wedding dress — or being (temporarily!) banned from flippin’ DUTCH HARBOR but then I think maybe all those experiences were just training for understanding my future teenage son. (But Declan, I swear on all that is unholy I will kick your ass three ways to Sunday if you ever pull any of that shit and I find out about it before the statute of limitations lapses.)

Are you fucking kidding me?

ANYWAY.

Recently, the big struggle ’round these parts is trying to regain some semblance of our pre-baby routine (minus…some things).  A couple weeks ago, I made my not-so-triumphant return to the venerable Socca Khan. While I was out on the soccer field, getting my ass handed to me (and my first head injury in almost a year), Dan was home with the baby, flooding our house with three-plus gallons of beer (lesson learned: the drum sticks should be used for the drum set, not for propping the tap open on the kegerator).  It was fun, though, and I enjoyed the “adult time” with my teammates, discussing rim jobs and bears and “adult” things like that.

Grandma, will you teach me how to do Irish yoga?

This week marked my triumphant (could it be anything less?!?) return to work. It was actually fairly anticlimactic. Even my mama-anxiety was kind of lackluster. My mom came up to help with Declan during the transition and he showed her a good time — my mom discovered that his fountain-like emissions weren’t actually colossal exaggerations.  Now that she’s gone (boo, come back!), we’re attempting some insanity with work schedules — I get some insight into what the graveyard shift bus drivers have to endure and it ain’t purty…the stench of stale booze at 5 am is nothing short of vomitous, and people who reek of booze and vomit and whateverthefuckelse that early in the morning are just not nice people.

But more on the working-mom conundrum very soon (because I can’t resist a good dissection of the challenges of being naked at work).

Who the hell is that?

Being back at work has helped pull me out of the post-birthing what-the-fuck-just-happened haze, and though I still forget simple things, like leaving my dog at coffee shops and my husband’s name, I’m getting back in the saddle, so to speak. That saddle doesn’t have a mouth tube attached to a saddle bag full of whiskey anymore (so I’m not totally back to normal…) but I’m back at whining impressively about running, washing my butt, and sometimes even daintily sipping a pint. (I’m setting this up for these future discussions: yoga [or, boners and thongs]; Declan’s first camping trip [or, how baby shit repels mosquitos]; and Dan’s and my first anniversary [or, how I think a blow job is the perfect present for every occasion]).

And for those of you who haven’t wearied of my incessant photo-documenting of every second of Declan’s first months, check out Week 10 mugs here, Week 11 shots here, and Week 12 pictures here.

Thank you, New York!

Hooray for New York!!!

I feel like I woke up this morning to a brand new world. Okay, I know this all went down last night but I have a 10-week-old (holy shit, how’d that happen so freakin’ quickly?!?) and we missed all the New York brouhaha last night, even with the three-hour time difference.  But!!! HOO-FUCKING-RAY!!!!

I throw in my lot with everyone who is happily celebrating a major coup in the fight for equality in congratulating New York state in getting their legislative heads out of their asses and doing what’s right: granting everyone the right to love and marry as they please.  Now for (most of) the rest of the nation to follow suit…

And while I don’t really have any original discourse to add to the whole debate over gay rights — because, as I see it, this IS a black and white issue: the assholes who want to deny human rights to a whole group of people because of how they choose to love are just WRONG. Period. — I have to admit that the headlines out of New York and the outpouring of celebration after its landmark vote had me in tears this morning.

I want Declan to grow up in this kind of world, one where he can feel secure in his freedom to love who he chooses, and one where he can support the choices of others.  I wish for him a world where this freedom is taken for granted. Thank you, New York, for helping make the world a better place for my son (and everyone else, too)!

Two-month photo update

It's not a goiter, it's my cheek!

Holy crap, my son is two-months-old today. He’s sitting on my lap cooing and smiling up at me as I type this, probably remembering shitting all over me this morning and laughing to himself about it.  Either way, it’s pretty adorable and buys him another safe day that I won’t be tempted to eat him.

Hey, Crazy Lady, diaper's full...

Ahhh.... this guy's not always sticking a boob in my face!

The past two months have been…oh, let’s see, what superlative should I employ? AMAZING! AWESOME! INCREDIBLE! Hilarious, exhausting, exhilarating, frustrating, confusing…they all work.  Full of firsts, too:

First (non-gas) smile: circa five weeks (I *guess*)

First plane trip: to New England to meet all his mama’s crazy, fun extended family (and his paternal grandparents).

Four generations of Kavanagh

My great-grandfather drinks Busch Lite?!?

You mean I'm related to all these crazy people?!?

First…huh. See? Short-term memory is a disaster ’round these parts. So much for capturing all his “precious moments” for posterity. Hopefully, he’ll be as unsentimental as his mama as an adult and won’t really care that his baby book is still blank when he’s 25.

But it’s not like I don’t take THOUSANDS of pictures:

See Declan’s first vacation here.  And link to a pile o’ unedited photos from Week Eight here.  And, if you’re not yet overloaded, check out Declan’s Week Nine mugs here.

One Month!

Yeah, my diapers are cuter than your skivvies.

My son is a month old today.  Wow, never thought I’d be saying that… Dan and I were reminiscing about some of our less impressive moments — you know, the ones that you pray your mother never finds out about (I’m kidding, mom!) — and laughing at the fact that a few years ago, on this very couch where I now sit breastfeeding our new baby, we both passed out while Dan’s head was, you know, down there, like where the baby came out. Certainly not parental material. And yet…

Communing with daddy

Don’t he look respectable?

This has been the neatest, happiest, most mind-bending month of my life. Declan can shit on walls! Declan can make crabby old men smile! Declan makes me smile, even at 3 am when he can’t stop screaming and my eyes are wobbling in my head!

Sleep all day, party all night...

But really, adding another person to our life has been joyful and hasn’t inspired anywhere near as much anxiety, exhaustion, or hormonal breakdowns as we expected. Sure, the first week recovering from birth was…awkward. It’s been a long time since I’ve worn diapers, especially diapers filled with ice. And though I was finally able to peer down between my legs for the first time in months, I was a tad horrified by the battle wounds. But they healed quickly (six weeks!?? HA!), the hemorrhoids retreated, and the breastfeeding is melting the loose, saggy flab of my post-birth belly.

I promise I didn't pee in the bath!

That’s not to say the first month hasn’t been a steep learning curve but I think the biggest thing we’ve learned is to trust ourselves. All the sundry and faintly judgmental “parenting” books are piled unread under unfinished crossword puzzles and soggy nipple pads.  We’ve learned that it’s fairly basic: feed him, wipe the poop off his butt, keep him warm, and cuddle, cuddle, cuddle. (Okay, that last bit is cheesy but I seriously can’t stop ogling my baby.)

What, mum, you don't like all the vomit in your cleavage?

Gawd, that last bit sounds cocky. Declan is not your quintessential “easy” baby; he screams, sometimes uncontrollably and with determination. His nighttime sleep schedule mimics that of mine in the worst throes of insomnia. He is a prolific and forceful shitter and we burn through diapers (probably normal) and still haven’t learned to cover his little holes while we’re changing diapers, so a few times a week, we’re cleaning urine and poop off the walls, the blinds, the ceiling, ourselves and whatever else is within an eight-foot (seriously!) striking range.

Squeezing out farts with Grandpa!

Another cool thing about having a baby is that people want to come visit you. Well, they want to come coo over your baby but that’s cool because then you can take a shower and finally scrub the dog jizz off the floor while Grandpa makes silly noises at your son.

Finally, links to the comprehensive Declan files:

Week One.  – self-explanatory. Photos from his first week of life.

Week Two. – also self-explanatory.

Week Three. – you got it, week three.

Week Four. – right… don’t need to explain.

Declan’s fancy photoshoot. – ah ha! Herein I subject my son to all manner of indignities trying to take contrived and adorable baby photos. (This was a joint effort with another new mom from our birthing class. It was a hilarious debacle of nursing, dogs, and explosive baby fluids.)

Slacker!

Holy Shit! I'm already 2 weeks old!

Wow, I suck. I’ve been home with this chiguine for over two weeks now and a disproportionate amount of that time has been spent with him tethered to my boob while I screw around online… in other words, plenty of time to catch up on emails and at least fire off a half-assed blog post.  Apparently, though, the powers of procrastination are too strong to overcome. But, boy, am I on top of the goings-on in Facebook world!

So, here (it’s long — if you want to skip the details you can proceed directly to his Week One album):

More old news: Declan Emil Simon was born at the Group Health Cooperative birthing center in Seattle, WA a little over 18 days ago, at 3:27 am, Friday, April 15, 2011.  He tipped the scales at 8 pounds, 4 ounces and measured about 19 inches — an inexact science, apparently, now that they don’t hold babies upside down by their heels to measure their height anymore.

In other words, the kid is built like a brick shit house, which befit his entrance into this world: poor guy got beat up on the way down the birth canal and came out looking like he was on the losing end of a bar brawl.  We’re talking black eyes, bruises all over his face, his eyes swollen shut (and bloodshot when they did open).  Apparently, my little pugilist thought it wise to make the journey toward the light (yes, that’s my euphemism for my vagina) with his fist balled up next to his face.  I can vouch that this was a piss-poor idea for all involved.

Birth was…messy.  They tell you “nothing in the vagina for six weeks,” ostensibly to give you a chance to heal but really, I think it’s so your husband has time to forget.  Nothing like the image of head sticking out of his wife’s hoo-hoo looking at him to kill the sex drive…

Let’s see, the grit and the gore, right.  Labor was long as hell.  Contractions woke me up at 2:15 am Wednesday morning. Declan was born roughly 49 hours later. The first 12 hours — early labor — were intense but plenty of rest between contractions, then by 2 pm Wednesday, things got serious.  The contractions were intense and pretty much what I was led to expect but they were manageable… what got me in the end was the g.d. EXHAUSTION.  The four hours of sleep I got Tuesday night were insufficient to take me through the 49 hour ordeal.

It turned out that dear son was “occiput posterior” — sunny-side up, facing the wrong way, etc — and his head was tilted back instead of tucked in nicely to facilitate a smoothER journey down the pipes.  I guess it’s not uncommon for these kind of babies to take their sweet time.  It didn’t help that a) his head was also resting crooked in the pelvis and that b) my contractions were coupling.  I don’t really know what that means except that they are “disorganized” and occur pretty much on top of each other without respite.

I found that I could deal with the pain through intense concentration and breathing (hello, yoga!!) but I could not deal with the pain AND move around, which was apparently what needed to happen to rock little dude’s head into a better position.  In retrospect, we probably should have used a few more of the coping tricks to help relieve the back pain a little but I was hell-bent on breathing through my contractions all sprawled out on the toilet.

At 8:30 pm Thursday night, after being stalled out at 6 cm for 10 hours, almost completely depleted of energy, dehydrated, and my hemorrhoids — my midwife euphemized that my “rosebud” was “blossoming.” Please don’t call me Rosebud. –  growing in dimension and intensity by the minute, I opted for an epidural.  As much as I wanted to have a natural birth, I wanted to avoid a C-section more and I don’t think I would have physically had the energy to push Declan out without the two-hour rest the epidural gave me.

So, epidural. They let me sleep for about two hours, then backed off the meds a bit so I could feel the contractions (but they still weren’t super intense, just crampy) and started moving me around in bed. By 1:30(ish) am Friday morning, I was ready to push. Pushing went smoothly. It was tiring but I pushed about 8 times, waiting through contractions so I didn’t tear (too much), and Declan finally made his debut.

Quietly.

After all that, the beast didn’t have the energy (or something) to cry or respond and that was THE SCARIEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE. The nurses quickly cut his cord and whisked my non-responsive baby away, leaving me a mess of blood, amniotic fluid, shit, and whatever else is involved laying on the bed.

Suffice to say, he’s found his lungs. I’ll cover the first two weeks in another post soon (promise!).

Post script: Dad was AMAZING during the whole ordeal. I couldn’t have had a better, more supportive, loving, awesome person there with me. Thanks, Dan!