Up at night

It's 2:30 a.m. We have to be up at 5. Our flight to New Orleans leaves at 7:15.

I had a hard time falling asleep after spending a several hours expertly packing everything I need to keep me and Aida alive and happy for three days and four nights away from home.

I feel like I'd just fallen asleep and forgotten all my worries when she awoke, crying. I fed her, changed her, rocked her.

Now she's humming to herself in the dark of her crib.

Because the worries that were keeping me awake earlier came flooding back, I thought I'd get online and do a little research to see if I could help inform said worries and put them to rest.

Yeah, that worked.

Reminds me of how I spent many an early morning hour this time last year: wide awake with a computer balanced on my giant belly, thinking about the not-to-distant future and wondering how in the world we would make it.

Gotta believe everything will be just fine.

Playing chase

One moment, she's sitting on her pudgy diapered rear. The next, she has somewhere to be. Slap! Her hands pound the floor. Her head is up. Her legs scurry behind her. Right hand, left knee, left hand, right knee. Flip-flap, flip-flap, flip-flap. I edge behind her, mimicking her crawl, the debris on the somewhat clean floor poking my heavy knees like rocks. "Imgonnagetyou. Imgonnangetyou!" "Eeeeh!" she squeals as my arms come down on either side of her tiny body. "Eeeeeh!" "Igotyou!" I kiss her neck and her belly. She laughs that giggly baby laugh. She stops, sits up, still smiling. And then she remembers she has somewhere to be. Slap!

Getting bigger, getting braver

The first time we took Aida to the pool, she cried. She was five months old, and we brought her to the Y. She froze up as soon as we entered the noisy indoor pool area. As I waded into the baby pool she clung to me for dear life. Our visit lasted 15 minutes at most. She was still shaking when I tried to remove her swim suit in the locker room.

The second time we took Aida to the pool, it was to the outdoor public pool near our home. She was about six and a half months old, I think. Again, we waded into the baby pool and Aida clung like a baby monkey. She wasn't exactly happy to be there, but she coped as best she could by sitting in my lap and staring down at her squeeky toy. She barely looked up, as if to do so would remind her of what an awful, terrible place we'd brought her.

By then, it was summer in Florida. I thought surely she'd get used to a pool. She was enjoying her baths more and more, right? So I bought her a canopied blow-up baby pool. I huffed and puffed my brains out  to get that thing set up in our backyard. She cried as soon as I put her toes in, latched on to the edge and wouldn't budge. Again, her coping mechanism involved grabbing the nearest floating toy and trying her damnedest not to look up.

The second time I tried a month or so later, she cried even more and tried to climb out.

So, we here in the CM household decided to give it a rest. We wouldn't talk about the pool. We wouldn't think about the pool. We didn't read any stories that involved going swimming or any other pool-like activities. We were very, very sensitive to what appeared to be our baby's clear fear of pools.

Then, Sunday came. We went to visit my mom at her bayfront apartment. We packed a swim diaper, a hat and a big bottle of baby sunscreen.

Here's what happened:

Working Mom Stereotype Exhibit A

Four out of five days lately, I wear the same pair of black Anne Klein Sport ballet flats to work.

My jewelry selection is restricted to stud earrings. And my wedding ring.

This week, I walked out of the office for a rare coffee run to Schakolad on Central Ave. and realized I haven't been out to eat for dinner in, God, I don't even remember.

Three of my current top favorite work-appropriate outfits were purchased at Goodwill.

I am happy if I am able to squeeze in a shower and wash my hair in the morning before work. Bonus points if I completely blow dry said hair. More bonus points if I do so using the big, round brush.

My mind still feels like dull static. My ability to focus on tasks is severely strained. I've been trying to write a longer-term story for work and, truth be told, my biggest obstacle is my lack of mental acuity.

I feel like I'm becoming a stereotype, but that I really shouldn't publicly acknowledge that it's happening. Bad form. Professional poison. And, in the name of all competent women who work, heresy.

I drink coffee to help with the brain activity. Doing so interferes with the milk production. I drink more water to balance that out. Doing so forces me to take numerous bathroom breaks, thus breaking my already rickety concentration. I try to run down to the "Nursing Mother's Room" (as the sign outside the door proclaims it) more than once during my eight-hour work day. When I get there and close the door and set the pump up and pull my shirt down and press plastic against my chest, I stare down, tired, and despair over the slow trickle, the tiny splatter that is signaling a truth I didn't yet want to face: my months of keeping my daughter supplied with the healthiest of food is coming to an end.

Am I doing anything well?

Today, I dusted off the two framed photos of Aida that I brought to work with me when I returned to the office in March. In one, Aida stares straight at the camera from her spot cuddled against me in her Baby Bjorn carrier. Her blue eyes are bright under the purple brim of a woven cotton sunhat. Her little nose and toothless mouth like perfect buttons. In the other photo, she's propped up on the couch, reaching up toward me and smiling as I snap her picture on her three-month birthday.

My baby. The day I put those on my desk was a tough day. Tears. Bathroom runs. Broken sentences and sniffles.

How she's changed since then. Sitting. Biting. Crawling. Scaling furniture like baby spiderman. Repeating our words. "Up, down." "Dada." "Dis." "Maaah."

How she's changed. And, my God, how have I.

Home from work with a feverish Aida, Wed., Sept. 21, 2011.

Baby fever

Aida has a fever.

It's the third time my baby's been sick in her short life.

The first time it happened, she was only four and a half weeks old. We'd taken her for her first big show-n-tell at Steve's office Christmas party and, a day later, she was coughing and congested.

For me, that sniffle was a major crisis.

Months before, Steve had scored free tickets to see the Lightning play the Thrashers Wednesday, Dec. 15 in Tampa. He hoped it would be our first date night post-Aida -- one of those pre-baby plans that, post-baby, seems almost absurd.

Even before Aida got sick, I was on the fence about whether or not I could get up the nerve to actually step foot out of the house without this beautiful child in my arms.

I knew that Steve really wanted to have a night out with me. And I liked the idea in theory. But after these days and weeks of marathon feedings, changings and cuddlings, the thought of driving a half hour across a body of water to be in a cold rink with hundreds of people who aren't my baby felt just, well, criminal.

When Aida came down with a cold, it cinched it. What kind of mother, ferchrissakes, would leave her child during her first-ever illness? I urged Steve to go on without me and suggested that my mom take my place.

That night, I held Aida for hours in the dim, yellow light of her little moon nightlight. I draped her head over my shoulder and rocked, back and forth, while the misty stream from a warm vaporizer poured over her face.

In those hours I prayed for her health and thought about all the uncomfortable things that would surely lie ahead in Aida's life, all the things I can't protect her from but wish that I could. The colds, the fevers, the heartbreak and hurt feelings. The disappointments and sadness. The scary things. I'm sorry, sweetie.

We rocked and rocked and rocked. I couldn't leave.

I don't remember now how long it took Aida to begin perking up again. I remember that at some point we placed a towel under the mattress to get her on an incline so that it would be easier for her to breath while lying on her back. And we probably kept the vaporizer churning for a good week.

Last night, when Aida cried and I went to her and realized she was sniffling, I asked Steve to set up the vaporizer again. He placed it at the end of the bed while an alert Aida watched on from my arms.  

Sniffle. Sniffle.

I tried to rock her again a little like I did that night. But this time, my sweet, 10-month-old girl arched her back and reached out for her crib as if to say, "Thanks, Mom. But I really just need to put my head down. I got this."

I lowered her gently, patted her tummy, released her blanky into her care and tiptoed out.

Wishing I could take all the head bumps, sniffles and fevers for you. Taken Sept. 8, when we both had boo-boos on our heads.

Aida's new barrette

Video taken Sept. 13, 2011.

Scenes from the life of a 10-month-old

Aida turned 10 months old on Monday. All weekend, I was having flashbacks of what life was like this time last year. Me, seven months pregnant. Getting so large and the baby so active. Unable to sleep. Unable to work. So hot. So happy. So worried.

 So. Big.

A year later, here we are. Smaller and larger. Getting used to being three. Figuring out our as-normal-as-we-can schedule. Aida entertains us, we entertain her. I put a barrette in her hair. Steve pulls her across the floor on a towel. She laughs at just about anything we do to try to make her laugh. Sleep is still a commodity. But I can't think of any better reason for such exhaustion. Our sweet, sweet Aida.

Sunday ironing. Sept. 11, 2011.

Playing with cups. Sept. 12, 2011. Photo by MaMere.

In the doorway. Sept. 12, 2011. Photo by MaMere.

Breakfast with Mommy. Oatmeal with mango. Plus barrette. Sept. 14, 2011.

Fun in the kitchen

Didn't someone say I could find toxic cleansers in here?

Mmmmm. Colanders.

Almost as tasty as camera straps. (All photos taken Sept. 1, 2011.)

Aquarium disco

When we were in San Francisco last month for my cousin's wedding, Steve, Aida and I stopped in at  the storefront to Dave Egger's writing school, 826 Valencia. It was midway through a long walk from my friend's home to the Mission. I was starting to get nervous that Aida needed to eat, but finding a quiet place to nurse is often difficult, especially when you're in a busy and unfamiliar city. Inside the store, there was a nice, dark, curtained corner just near entrance with a lighted aquarium and two short rows of theater seating for uninterrupted fish-watching or, if you're me, uninterrupted nursing.

'How's the baby?'

In my new life as a mother, there is one question I get on almost a daily basis.

"How's the baby?"

It is, of course, my favorite question. Because, in my new life as a mother, the baby is almost all I think about. I mean, sure, there are other things that fill my mind. There are groceries and dinner and school board politics. I think about whether the gas tank is empty, if I filled out my time card before it was due and if I'll ever lose this extra weight. I spend a large portion of my day thinking about how the heck to string together enough cohesive sentences to be able to tell a news story that someone will run and -- even better, someone will read -- in their newspaper.

But, truthfully (and maybe I'm not supposed to say this), less than a step beyond my every action and plan, is one thought: The Baby.