Between the packing, moving and baby-having, it was hard to find time to post these pictures of Abby from the "River Queen" boat ride that took when we were in Big Bear in July. I know it was so three-months-ago, but I wanted to make sure that there were some recent photos of Abby somewhere on this blog. It's amazing how much she's grown since these were taken. That child grows like a weed!
I am "borrowing" a post from my new favorite blog: The Motherlode on nytimes.com. It's a hip, funny and upbeat blog for working moms and stay-at-homers alike. It's a nice mix of mommy-related news items and guest posters.
I read this post by Lisa Belkin, and was thrilled. Especially since I carry around a suitcase-worth of guilt about having to work full time. I'd like to know what readers out in blogdom think, so leave me a comment and let me know where you stand on the working mom vs. stay-at-home arguement.
And when you're done here, surf on over to the Motherlode. I'm sure you'll love it as much as I do.
Working Moms and Cuddle Time
By Lisa Belkin
There are endless ways of trying to measure the immeasurable, and researchers in Australia are now counting cuddles. Their conclusions: the babies of mothers who work outside the home get just as many as those of mothers who stay home — an average of 138 minutes a day.
Not only was cuddling-time equivalent, the report last month by the Australian Institute of Family Studies concludes, but so was the amount of time that babies were held, read to and talked to during the day.
The data was taken from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, a time-use diary kept by the parents of 3,000 babies between the ages of three months and 14 months. Counting snuggly moments, the researchers found that the cuddle equivalence was partly because working mothers who spent much of the weekday away from their infants became efficient about creating time together when they were home, and also because fathers were stepping up to prevent a gap.
“When mothers work full time, they spend 83 minutes less per day with their child compared to a stay-at-home mother, but the child spends an average of 81 minutes more a day with their father,” the report’s co-author, Jennifer Baxter, told the Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph.
Other data from the study:
Breast-fed babies got an additional hour of one-on-one time with Mom each day, compared with bottle-fed babies. They were also read to, talked to and sung to more — about 27 minutes extra per day, and “held, cuddled, comforted and soothed” for 32 minutes more per day, though one would think that most of that overlapped the time spent breast feeding.
On the other hand, breast-fed babies slept 40 minutes per day less than bottle-fed babies and spent five minutes more per day crying than bottle-fed babies.
Mothers who are college graduates spend 22 minutes more per day reading to their babies.
Start that clock, and commence cuddling.
Ask any mom and she'll tell you memory is fleeting. I've seen this featured on other mommy blogs and I thought I'd give it a whirl. So here goes, my first edition of "Things I Don't Ever Want to Forget."
1. The first time I heard Ellie REALLY laugh. My mom and I were on a road trip back from a wedding in Lake Tahoe, and we were pulled over and Ellie was on my lap. Mom was recanting a hilarious (and somewhat inappropriate) story about a massage chair at a nail salon. We were both laughing so hard--and I guess Ellie felt left out. So she starting cracking up with her husky little laugh.
2. Abby tried to soothe Ellie by putting her binkie in her mouth. It was way too big and Ellie gagged, but it was a VERY sweet moment.
3. We first walked Abby through our new house after the carpet was in and the paint was fresh. She went from room to room, letting out HUGE gasps and squeals of delight. Each room, and each now color was a total amazement to her. Made all that hard work seem totally worth it.
4. The way that sometimes just before bed, when she's getting drowsy, Abby will climb up on the couch with me and want to snuggle. It's a rare treat for me and I love every minute of it.
5. Abby will brush my hair and try to style it for me if I sit on the floor with her. Our new favorite game: Sleeping Beauty. Mommy lays on the floor and pretends to sleep and Abby styles my hair. She has fun AND I relax.
6. The way Abby loves to dance--with her arms waving high with reckless abandon like she's at a Greek wedding.
7. Ellie still wakes up in the middle of the night for a bottle. Usually after that, I hold her and rock her until she falls asleep. She opens and closes her little fist against my chest. Just like a little kitten, it seems to help her fall asleep. And when it stops, I know that she's fast asleep. She breathes like a little puppy just after she's fallen asleep in my arms. Her skin gets all damp and her breathing speeds up just a bit. It's those dark and quiet hours of the wee morning that have become a really special time for Ellie and me.
8. When I go to pick her up after a long day at work, I always see Abby with her little nose squished totally flat (or shoved up like a piggy) against the window near the door. I am so lucky to have such a great friend to watch both girls. They are so happy there!
9. Last, but not least, what an amazing mom I have. Without my mom to help me over the past 18 months, I would go crazy. Seriously, I be blogging from a room with padded walls. She's available to help me anytime I need it--and she'll drop whatever else she has going on to be with me and her granddaughters. I love her so much and I know that I can lean on her when things get tough. I am acutely aware that when I am old and gray, these are the times I will look back on with fondness.
I'm sure that I'll have many more memories to add to this list (and some pictures too) but that's it for now...
Gotta love the way Girl Scouts burned that song into my brain. Anyway, I ordered some pretty dang cute announcements for Ellie today from Shutterfly and I am very excited. I know she's two months old already but things have been busy so LAY OFF ME.
This picture so clearly captures the difference between Ellie and Abby as newborns. Abby never slept, let alone take a mini nap in a basket! I love it that Ellie is such a sleepy little snuggle pup.
Don’t worry, I’m not dead. I think once you get to the bottom of this post, you’ll understand why I’ve been MIA in blogdom. Here are the brief highlights of the last two weeks:
I had an emergency root canal. I chipped my tooth (in the back) a month or two ago and I guess it got infected. As I was leaving the dentist office with numbface, I got the call from the nurse at my OB’s office. I failed the glucose screening test and had to do the three-hour comprehensive exam.
The next day, still suffering from now painface, I started having contractions at work. I tired to stay calm, but after about an hour I decided I should do something about it. After a quick trip to the fetal monitoring center (which is conveniently across the street from my office) I learned I WAS having real contractions, and not the fakey Braxton-Hicks. But I wasn’t dilating and the contractions weren’t steady or regular. My OB wanted to pull me out of work at that moment, but I begged him to give me until the end of the week to wrap some stuff up at work. Luckily, he wasn’t suggesting full-on bedrest like last time, I just have to find time to “take it easy.” Yeah right, anyone with kids knows that chasing a one-year-old around is anything but relaxing.
The next morning, I had the three-hour glucose screen, where I learned that I had gestational diabetes. Yikes!
I met with a nutritionist that week that walked me through the process of taking my blood 4-5 times a day, and starting a super strict diet. I was trying to stay positive and be diligent, with the faint hope that I wouldn’t need insulin shots.
I was wrong, and last week I started my insulin shots. This may sound lame, but this is probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I hate needles. And I’m used to being a human pin cushion, given what I’ve been through the last couple of years. But it’s a whole different ballgame when I actually take the needle (which just looking at it makes me wanna hurl) and mix the insulin, draw the solution into the syringe, and stick it into my baby-filled abdomen. It’s enough to push me over the edge. Right now, I am doing the shots twice a day, and using the lancets to prick my fingers throughout the day. I just tell myself as I wince as stick the needle in that I am doing for the baby. It’s really amazing how much I am willing to endure when I know that it’s for my lil’ baby in there.
But my numbers still aren’t that great, so I have a feeling that after my doctor visit tomorrow, I will either have to increase the dose each time or add more shots throughout the day. I am praying for the former…
I ended up wrapping up as much as I could at work, and signing off until baby #2 is here. I’ve got about another 4 weeks until the scheduled c-section. Hopefully, the diabetes thing will vanish right after the baby is born. I just keep focused on that—I can do anything for four weeks, right?
Between the weekly OB visits, the thrice-weekly, two-hour visits to the fetal monitoring center, the dietician/endocrinology visits and the all-day management of diet, shots and blood-drawing, I am going to be busy. I need to remember that the point of the not working thing is to RELAX. But that’s so much easier said than done. Even though we can’t really afford it, we’re still going to send Abby to daycare during the week so I really can try to get a little R&R.
Just typing the recap is exhausting. I’ll upload some new pics of Abby as soon as I get a minute. For now, there’s a blood glucose meter calling my name…
