More Adventures in Momdom (Momdumb?)

Yay for tiny victories. It’s 11AM and I am feeling like a successful mom. This is new, and it may fade before I am relieved later by working dad, so quick, lets celebrate it while we can.

First of all, I got a straight five hours of sleep last night, as the boo got fed by dad at 2am, when I am just not a nice, functional person. Then at the next meal time, she passed out next to me in bed and everyone slept another couple of hours. Then, dad hung out with her while I made myself a “real” breakfast. These basics of food and sleep are so ridiculously key to my self esteem, coping skills, and general mobility I can’t even express it properly.

Next, this is the first day I have carried Lyra around in a front pack. My god is it more comfortable on my back than just hauling her around the house. Plus it’s the only way I’ve ever done things around the house while hauling her around. When she won’t sleep this happens frequently, as our house has four main rooms and four flights of stairs. Every other floor has a place for her to sleep. She went to sleep so much faster in the carrier than trying to put her in the crib or bassinet. She screamed, but then I turned on the washing machine and the rushing water made everything okay.

This is novel…I’ve read my mail, thought about some earrings I’d like to make, done a little online shopping, made several phone calls, and acted like the person I relate to more easily than the completely frazzled and freaked out person I was on say, Monday.

We had a very successful traveling foray with the boo. She was easy to travel with:



There were lots of new experiences...we fed her in parking lots and changed her in rest areas and once in the hatchback:



The problem is we were more active and more awake and we drove long hours in heavy rain and fog so by Sunday night my nerves were frayed, and Monday was just a disaster with screamy baby and weepy mom. Every day is a new adventure. Yeehah.

We got to see our close friends Shannon and Jonathan get married in a nouveau native ceremony in a lovely setting near Woodstock, NY. It was mellow and had both ceremony and silliness and suited the two of them well, though so would have a bit more sunshine. There were all the fiascos that would make a traditional wedding crack apart: pouring rain that started during the outdoor ceremony, one of the rings lost in the grass (and later found), and more, but the creative and laid back friends and family present all laughed and went with the flow and ate delicious barbeque. It was fun, and I am so glad these two are together.



It was exhausting hauling around the boo in her car seat (it had mosquito netting on it) and calming her and feeding her and watching her, but we wouldn’t have missed it. We stayed in cabins with close friends as our neighbors who all got to meet Lyra, and that was super fun. It made me want to bring her up in a communal atmosphere like that. It was down the street from a rushing river where people were kayaking through gates and the sound lulled Lyra to sleep.



And did I mention how cute she is? Oops now she’s alternating head butting me and giving me neck hickeys while in the carrier. Time to visit the laundry machine again…ahh, still in success mode, whew.

So a weird observation – you know how I complained about how entirely invisible I was while pregnant? Never getting seats on the subway, one morning not being able to get on the train at all, no one meeting my glance on the street? With the bulky, awkward stroller, people peer in, people say how cute she is when they can’t even see her for the sun shade on the stroller, people help lift the stroller into crowded subway cars.

I would just like to point out that It is Much harder to walk around with a nine pound baby in your stomach than in a stroller.