Well, I know there may not be many of you left BUT for what it’s worth I finally got something together. I will spare you the I am too busy to blog, blah, blah, blah…because it’s boring.
The penultimate post
Hi there! So as I am sure most of you have suspected, this blog is coming to a close. For many reasons: time, my eventual return to work and finally a desire to have a blog for family and friends that is a photojournal of the events of our life. I have explained in detail why I am uncomfortable with this format for as I enter the professional world in a long previous post so I won’t go into that again.
I do have a few loose ends here I want to tie up and will do that here (below). In a few days I will post the URL to our new site and then a week or two after that I will remove this blog from the blogosphere. We would love to have you follow us at our newest site but the format and goals will change. Rather than the blog being a diary of my life and my experiences in mommyhood, the new goal will be to keep grandparents and other relatives up to date and serve as a record of the first years of Baby Pit’s life for him to read later. Onto the loose ends….
On returning to work
I have decided that I do want to go back to work. I believe I will be a better mother if I get out of the house each day and feel like I am participating in the world. I don’t mean to imply that staying at home in anyway is easier or less important, in fact, I think it may be harder. Women who can pull it off are brave. Being home full-time would make it too easy for me to be the hovering over-involved mother that my personality leads me to be. Thankfully, I am aware enough that I don’t want to be like that and working will help me realize this goal. For now I would also like to work part-time but whether or not I will find part-time work is unclear. Another reason I want to go back to work is that we found a fabulous nanny who loves our little boy and he loves her. I feel totally comfortable leaving him with her. In fact, she has much more experience with babies than do! 
What type of work am I going to do you ask? At this point it is unclear but I have looked into some administrative jobs and outreach/science education jobs, in fact I had an interview today. The hope is that I will find a niche that I really enjoy and excel at. I will work part-time until my child(ren) are in preschool or older and then move to full-time hopefully with a clear career path already carved out for me.
Cloth diapering
I am so glad I stuck with this. Now it works fabulously and I can’t imagine going back to disposables. In fact my baby has the smoothest, non-diaper rash containing butt. I wasn’t planning on going into details but a few expecting moms that read here are considering it and I have to add my two cents…sorry….
My first bit of advice is don’t start out with cloth diapering if you are overwhelmed with the new baby. It’s kinda silly to buy newborn diapers anyway because they wear them for such a short time period. Just wait for 6-8 weeks when you are used to the new baby “routine” then slowly work them into your life. And always keep some disposables on hand just in case (although besides traveling we have been disposable free for over 3 months now!).
I also recommend buying a few types of diapers and trying them out. Depending on how your baby wets prefolds may or may not work. If you do use prefolds learn several folds and see which one works best, this is definitely the cheapest way to diaper. We like the angel twist the best with a Snappi and a Thirsty diaper cover.
Currently, we use a combination of insert diapers and prefolds. Using insert diapers when the sitter is here (they are more straightforward), to go out with (since they are a little more leak-proof) and slimmer under the clothes. At night we use an insert diaper with two hemp inserts and don’t have to change for almost 12 hours.
Which types of insert diapers do we like? Fuzzi Bunz are my favorites, all of them are second-quality so we purchased at significant discount. They are 100% functional and the irregularities are so minor that they don’t matter. The two snap combo that the Fuzzi bunz uses for fastening on all of their diapers works better for a snug fit than the velcro found on the bumGenius’. Several people recommended that we use the one-size bum geniuses, the idea with these being one diaper fits from newborn to potty training. Sadly, these don’t work for us. For appropriate leak management we are already on the largest size when I use this diaper so there is no way these will last until potty training. For more petite babies, however, they may work just fine. The last diaper type I tried was the Bum genius All in one diaper (insert sewn in). These work OK but they take a little longer to dry and really don’t save that much time since putting an insert in is pretty easy to begin with. I do like having the all in one diaper to grab to take with me as a change for the park, you just have to remember one thing.
Solid Food
After about a week of not knowing what to do when food was placed in his mouth he had an epiphany. Now he is such a good eater. Our nanny is impressed by the volume that he eats in one sitting for a baby his age! So far we have tried yam, banana, applesauce, green beans, spinach, carrots and avocado. He will eat it all but his favorites are yam, banana and avocado. Coincidentally, those are the dog’s favorite foods as well. I bought a food mill but so far am liking the miniature cusinart attachment that came with my mixer a bit better for making food. I am adding one new food each week, next week is blueberries (cooked and pureed) !!!
Misc
My appetite!! Wow! I am not sure if other older infant breastfeeding mom’s feel the same way but I have been eating like a teenage boy! I thought I ate a lot during pregnancy but that wasn’t nuthin! I am famished ALL THE TIME.
Mommy and me swim classes. We started these this week and they have fun but I was a little stressed out the first day worrying whether Baby Pit would like the pool. He does like the water but complains a little bit when we enter the pool. Once he gets used to it (it is heated) he has been enjoying himself. The goal of the class for Baby Pit is to get him used to being in the water and the goal for me is to get out of the house and meet people.
Baby Pit has mastered rolling over back and forth, dragging himself around by his hands, pushing himself backward and sitting up for short amounts of time. He is still a little shaky sitting up and if distracted by a toy will lunge and face plant so I still have to keep pillows around him if I step further away than arm’s length. He also continues to be a tall baby (90%) who is average weight, most definitely following in his father’s footsteps as a baby, I was a tiny, tiny infant and child.
That’s it for now! See ya at our other site! Oh and of course, a picture….it is a little dark but the flash washes out his super pale skin too much. I feel like his eyes are glowing blue in this picture, no?
9 days?
Has it really been that long since I last wrote here? I have not been terribly motivated to write or spend time online. Life after grad school has been so much fun and Baby Pit is officially the world’s funniest little boy. I love him so so much.
Anyway, I promise to get to the last few posts I am putting up here and will soon introduce you to our new family site. Until then a wrap up of the last 9 days.
- We moved our bed out of the bedroom and into the living room. I feel like I am in college again….BUT it seems to have served its purpose.
- We moved onto night-time sleep training and I am pleased to report it works! However, it was no fun and the day approach was not really working so we had to ramp it up a notch. For three nights in a row now he has slept from 7pm-2am without crying or fussing so we are back to where we were at the end of month three and that is all I am asking for for now. We are going to remain in a holding pattern until at least month 6 when we may drop a feeding. Sadly, I have not gotten anymore sleep than usual since I am having some attachment and engorgement issues, I think once I get used to the new schedule it will be fine.
- I met with a mom’s group I found through Meetup.com. It was a lot of fun and I think I will go to another event tomorrow. The conversation never really moved beyond breastfeeding, sleep training, etc., etc., but it was so nice to have some company. I really want some social interaction that isn’t completely baby-based but that will come when I get to know these women better or I make an attempt to meet non-mothers. Until then I got some child development books that I hope will give me some intellectual stimulation until I can find it other ways.
- And on that note I am trying to figure out what the next step will hold for me employment wise. I am 90% sure I do not want to do a traditional postdoc but instead I want to move into administration, advocacy or outreach position. All of which pay better and have better hours. What I want to do exactly though I honestly have no idea. Would love advice on how and where to start looking from those of you that have left the academic track. Next month after our short trip (see below) I will actually start doing more than just thinking about working. Until then I am just trying to enjoy my baby and get more sleep.
-Sunday we watched and participated in the LA gay pride parade! We marched with a gay physician’s group until it got too hot and overwhelming for Baby Pit then we moved to the shade on the sidelines and finished the parade out. He did really well though and people were so appreciative of us bringing him along to teach tolerance, love and equality to our child at an early age. It makes me so proud to think about it. Can’t wait for the next event we can bring out little activist to!
-Baby Pit starting eating (a little) solid food. Since he doesn’t need the calories (meaning I am providing him with enough still) I have decided to shun rice cereal which is basically just empty calories. Instead we have tried fruits which have some nutritive value (applesauce and bananas). I am not sure how much actually gets into his stomach and he is not sure what to think of the whole thing at all. The faces he makes are too funny while you feed him. I think we will try some pureed veggies next. As long as he is gaining consistently with breastmilk I am no hurry to get most of his food to come from solids.
-Tomorrow he is 5 months old!! When did he get so old??! Such a cliche but time flies with a baby. Not that I am complaining, I enjoy him more and more everyday. On thurs he goes in for his 5 mos well baby visit, any guesses on how much he will weigh or how tall he will be?
-Next week we head to Detroit for the wedding of Mr. Rind’s brother and my fabulous soon-to-be sister-in-law. I can’t wait for Baby Pit to meet the extended family…I think he will “knock ‘em dead”.
-And I promised myself I wouldn’t be such a sloppy writer here once my dissertation was done but honestly there are so many other things I would rather do than proofread. Not to mention I just did more of that than I ever ever want to do again with my dissertation….so I think everyone is going to have to suffer by reading my spelling and syntax errors and wordy prose.
-Finally, a picture of Baby Pit’s new “Stinkface”. It cracks me up everytime he makes it. Not sure what it means or where it came from but I love it. And yes that is banana on his chin.
Grateful
It has been quiet here. We were enjoying the last few days as a family and ignoring the online world. Mr. Rind finished his first year of medical school, I deposited my dissertation and my thesis work manuscript is “in press”. I can’t believe I can say this but I am totally and completely done with all things graduate school related.
Something about putting all of this behind me has made me a bit weepy and introspective. I am so so grateful for everything I have. My family, my friends, my health, my pup, the online mom community, etc., etc. I know I am blessed.
I have lots of things to post (what the next month holds for us, cloth diapering, going back to work, child care, our new site, the sleep situation) about but alas…not tonight.
In the words of my former(!!!) advisor…”More soon!”.
