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For those of you who can't get enough of the antics of a 5-month-old in a diaper.

The science of sleep, according to a new mother

I promised myself I would do this. And there’s nothing more that I hate than promising myself I’ll do something and then backing out. Part of my overachieving nature, guess. But the allure of going back to sleep is pretty tempting right about now. It’s 7:20 a.m. and I said I would write after I fed Julian for the first time today. It’s not really that early, I know, but I worked last night and didn’t make it to bed until 1 a.m. or so and I still have that need in me for as many hours of sleep as possible. It reveals my youth, I guess. It may be covert laziness.

What I wanted to do was shed some light on the night of a nursing mother. Everyone groans and groans myself included, when I tell them about waking up to feed Julian every night. Well, now, it’s waking up every morning. He stopped getting up when it was still dark maybe a few months ago. Now, we put him down around 7 or 8 and he’s up around 6 or so for a first feeding, then again around 8 or 9, when I still am very interested in being back asleep. With the exception of this morning (I can hear him cooing in the bedroom)), he usually falls right back asleep after the first feeding, as do I. And when he awakes just a few hours later, he’s pretty ready to be up for the day, but I’m still clinging to my last few precious minutes of sleep. The second feeding is by far the hardest, just ask Ian.

He’s the one who usually hears Julian up that time. I think we both stick our heads under the pillows and hope he goes back to sleep. Wishful thinking because I don’t think he’s ever done that. Frustrated at his interrupted sleep, Ian will get up, bring him to me and I’ll feed him again. But, for Ian, the seal’s busted this time around and unlike the first feeding, he can’t sleep through this one. It’s either head for the couch or the coffee maker.

But I stay in there with Julian, trying to sleep when he’s eating and feign sleep when grabbing his toes and looking around after he’s done. Yes, I even put a pillow on the other side of him and then turn by back to him to try to catch a few more minutes, even seconds, of shut-eye. But his charm avails. He’s usually the happiest in the mornings. Smiling at nothing, or everything, depending how you see it. He’s so happy when he sees you, too. I think he first started recognizing us around 2 months or so, nature’s crafty way of keeping parents in the game. It’s hard to grumble at a kid who’s poop has leaked through to the bottom sheet (in his bed or ours) when he looks at your with twinkling eyes and a wide, open grin when your gaze meets his. It’s the same with the waking-up-to feed-him thing. Yeah, it’s a pain and I would love a break from it, but it’s worth it. Even if we weren’t breastfeeding, we’d still have to get up to feed him. 

And besides, we chose to do this. We could have had it another way. I’m glad we don’t. He can wake me anytime.
postscript: I originally posted this blog with 'sunday' as the day. Until just a few minutes ago, I thought it was. Motherhood does make you loopy.

post postscript: I'm not sure many of you realize my love of the New York Times. Often scorned by those in the journalism world for being pretentious, I find it full of fascinating, supremely relevant and intruging things. Including, today, a wonderful tribute to Willie and, of course, another person's take on love.

Excellent adventures

We just took Shiva to our favorite dog park, Red Bud Isle. Stopped at Torchy’s on the way for a few of the best damn tacos Austin has to offer. Apparently every dog at the park thought green chili pork tacos would make a good lunch, too. Shiva fended them off and we eventually ate in peace, once all the people talking on their cell phones finally moved on. I thought taking your dog to the park was supposed to get you away from things that require batteries and signals. Oh, well. We enjoyed our little adventure.

And little adventures comprise big adventures, right? Lots of people dear to me are on some pretty sweet grand adventures right now. Bobby is guiding Scouts in the boundary waters of Canada. Daniel just got back from weeks touring around South America and is wrapping up his 10 months abroad. Cousin Nick is doing the same thing in Costa Rica. Rachel and Russell are breaking in their Portland shoes, Blythe is planning the Big One, Brittany is on the verge of a move to the Big Easy, Emily is hitting her stride in San Francisco. I guess taking risks is a prerequisite of friendship for me.

However, a conversation with dear friend Coulter recently (he was visiting from PA for a few days) planted a seed in my head: exotic travel or big moves (or even late nights of debauchery) aren’t the only kinds of adventure. He’s got that fear of settling that we all have. Settling for less than what we deserve. Throughout college, the way to avoid that was to go, go, go. And when you graduate and get a real job, 6 months or a year into it, you get that urge to go again. I did. Most people I know did. And I imagine it’s a cycle that takes years to break. One of the realities of having Julian, I accepted, was that my adventuresome days of college were ending. And that made me a little sad. No yearlong stints teaching English in South America (at least not for 20 years or so).

I didn’t realize, however, that the adventure was just shifting. From circumnavigating the planet to holding a little boy’s hand as he discovers sitting up and sippy cups. A trip to the dog park and Blockbuster may be the only time we leave the house today, (well, minus work) but this Julian thing makes home life an adventure all its own, with all the ups and downs and thrills and tears that any balls-to-the-wall trip may hold. Having a baby, deciding to leave your high school sweet heart, putting in the grunt work to plow through graduate school, getting a promotion at work, these are the adventures of another of life’s chapters. Eventually, if you go, go, go for longer than you are supposed to, you’re just avoiding these other adventures, the not-so-glamorous ones. But there’s a time and a place for both, and I’m certainly glad that I, and so many of my friends, are willing to embrace whichever kind we find ourselves facing.

(And, if you're a hard, passionate worker with a little bit of luck, the glamorous adventure comes to you. Rock climbin' Corey has been so dilligent with schoolwork and regular work in the past year, and a month or so ago he got the offer to rig an avant garde, outdoor dance project called Blue Lapis Light. Coulter and I got to watch the dazzling fruit of his labor Friday night during one of the group's performances. After the show, we got to talk with him and some of the dancers. He was absolutely in his element and was the happiest I've seen him, I believe. Good things come to good people.)

Possum love

Waking up to a sleeping baby and a surprise thunderstorm? On my day off? Now that’s what I’m talking about.

Sister Rach had an encounter with a opossum this week. In her new home turf of Portland, Ore., she was chillin’ with some neighbors when they saw a momma opossum, belly full o’ babies, waddling across the street. Talk about an impressive mother. I cannot imagine having five or six Julians stuffed in my belly at all hours of the day. She was probably on the move because her food source ran out or her home was destroyed, and all she was trying to do was replace them so she could take care of her babies. I think opossums are disgusting creatures, but as a mother, I most certainly can empathize. Rachel, who does not have children but does have a killer maternal instinct, got out in the middle of the road to stop traffic for her to cross, but she dropped one of her little possumettes in the chaos. Sleuth Russman did some detective work on the internet about orphaned opossums, so they took him in for the night, tried to give him some baby formula and keep him warm with water bottles. He just wanted the hell out, so he scratched all night on the box they put him in. They named him Oliver.

Russman was a little freaked by the wee vermin, as I would be. But that sweet Rachel, always taking care of the ones no one else wants to touch. She is the proverbial “hair holder.” Reminds me of this time in Spain when something I ate left me writhing on the bathroom floor. Guess who brought me a comforter and glasses of water and washed my sheets the next day? Like a new mom, she was up all night, feeding and fretting over the little guy. But she’d made a decision: raising this orphaned possum wasn’t an option. So she used the magic that is craigslist to find another home for him and the next day he was gone, just as quickly as he’d come.

When the time is right, however, these guys will make great parents. As long as they don’t keep the kid in a box stuffed with towels.

Fuss bus isn't running today

Waking up to a fussy baby makes for grumpy parents. Especially those who like sleep. Even more so for those who work late into the night. JP has been a pleasant sleeper in past weeks, awaking anywhere between 4-6 for a snacky snack. Daddy-o, who loathes the sucking sound our offspring makes when he eats, has given the green light for in-bed feedings, which have helped tremendously. Imagine if YOU had to wake up every night, leave your warm and cozy bed and move to a scratchy, pillowless, blanketless couch to feed a squirming child. You, too, would relish in the small things, like feeding in bed. Occasionally, the little guy surprises me with a diaper filled with poop the consistency of melted peanut butter, which is always a delight to change in my dreary early-morning state.

So, Julian was fussy early, which meant both of us old guys were too. At the pending day at work, at the tossing and turning of the night before, and at each other, eventually. That's no way to leave for work, but that's how it goes sometimes when you've got a kid. Just as Julian forgets his fuss, so do we, for now at least. But irritability is contagious, so it will be back. We just have to remember to be kind to one another when it comes.

Troy died a year ago this week. It’s all pretty blurry to me because Ian and I were in the remote Canadian Rockies, so I didn’t find out for several days. The days in between his dying and my finding out are pretty eerie for me to think about. My best friend, and for a very long time my other half, had left this world, but I was still wandering one of its most beautiful pockets, pondering my life, this world and where I belonged in it. The stuff Troy and I used to ponder together. The stuff that, to a growing extent, Ian and I had started pondering. I’ve said before that was a true before/after moment, clearly not the only one I had last summer (cue Julian cry), and a year later it is something I think about every day, and some days, like today, every hour.

After a particularly moving “I feel Troy near me” moment today, I went out and bought Modest Mouse’s new album, “We were dead before the ship even sank,” and Voxtrot’s debut “Voxtrot.” One band old and very familiar. The other fresh, new. Hip, Troy might cheerfully disdain. Modest Mouse has been a particularly prevalent conduit between Troy and me this year, so in his spirit today, I bought the album that Troy never got to know. Voxtrot is another painfully hip, just-under-the-radar band that Troy thrived on listening to (read Of Montreal, Neko Case, Drive By Truckers, et al). I’ve decided each year, around this time of his birthday and his death day, I’m going to buy an album, book, movies, etc. that he knew and loved and I’ll also buy something new that he would have known and loved if he were here.

Doing this kind of stuff for/with/in rememberance of Troy makes being fussy seem a whole lot less, well, reasonable, as he’d say.