Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The Old and the New

A few days ago I saw this tweet and it really struck a chord with me:



It really got me thinking about my own friendships and how they've changed. I would instead say something more like, "friendships change once you have a baby". As you get older, there are a lot of life events that cause some level of division between you and your friends. Being single separates you from the coupled up people. Back in the day, we fondly called us singles "the loser table". You know, those people that get glommed together at a wedding because they're all singles. Then those that are coupled off eventually get engaged and that separates you from the "singles". Getting married changes some things, but I guess more than anything it separates you from the "unmarrieds". When you have a baby, you enter a whole new ballgame.

This fun begins as soon as you are knocked up. Suddenly those raging fun nights at the bar become exhausting, nauseating, and just plain annoying. All your energy is spent by 9pm and you become more than willing to spend an evening on the couch watching Dateline rather than expend all of your energy trying to keep up with the non-preggos. Phone calls and texts start dwindling down and you're just fine with that.

Then the baby comes. A rush of girlfriend visitors come over to snuggle your new bundle of love and ask in vain how new mommyhood is. What was the birth like? Like, what was it really like? When they leave to head out for their next night on the town, you're left in a pile of burp cloths, yesterdays sweatpants, and no make-up. You can't wait to close your eyes for a few precious hours until the baby is hungry again.

As the newness dies down and life settles into a new "normal" for you, you find that your new "normal" is largely misaligned to your old friends' "normal". No longer can you have a booze filled night out on the town with no regrets, followed by sleeping in and then a booze-filled brunch the next day (after 10am) to recap all the fun that you barely remember. Suddenly a night out requires a baby sitter (or a daddy staying in), a lot of planning if you're breastfeeding, and the reality that when the baby wakes up the next morning (hopefully not before 6am) you're back on duty.

At first I tried to buck this trend with all my might. I was not ready to accept that I was over the nightlife. We had family babysit, we hired sitters, we drank, we tried to keep up with our non-parent friends. But in the end, the power of new-parent reality won out. It's just not as fun anymore. Sure, I love my non-mom friends. They've been there for years and hopefully will be for years to come. But the reality is, the dynamic of our friendship has changed. I rarely see them anymore, which is hard to accept, but it's what has to happen. They can't be dragged down by nights in at my house all the time. Or be expected to deal with daytime visits where I can barely listen to them as I chase my tornado of a child around. Just the same, they can't expect me to figure out childcare, head out to the bars with reckless abandon and then pay a major price first thing the next morning. 

Of course, I'm not suggesting that being a parent suddenly means you suck at life and do nothing but sit in your house all day with no friends anymore. Far from it. I'm just suggesting that you're social calendar changes quite a bit, to totally new and different outings. I've had an amazing outlet for socializing with some great mommy groups. I've had one from the start of my mom-adventure that continues on, as well as a newer one through work. (Something has luckily been in the water the last year there, so babies are popping out on a very regular basis.) These mom's group get togethers provide a great social outlet for me as well as Adly and I highly regard these times. As soon as you find yourself with child, I highly recommend finding yourself one as soon as possible. Many hospitals offer them as well. They are a true lifesaver!

Mom's group babies celebrating Elliot's 1st birthday!

For now, none of our closest friends have a baby (except one that's going to be here in hopefully less than 31 days.....but who's counting?!). Although I see my non-mom friends half as often as I used to, the times we do get to hang out have become much more meaningful. I plan get togethers more carefully and they are definitely farther apart than they used to be (we're talking months).  But now when they do happen, we always pick up right where we left off. One such get together that I always look forward to is my book club that was started long before I was pregnant, married or engaged. These monthly get togethers are always the highlight of my social calendar because, more than anything, I look forward to getting to catch up with everyone.

A rare sighting of the elusive non-mom and new-mom together at the bar. 

Things have changed socially between the two of us as well, obviously. Our date night dinners now usually include our little bundle of fun. We've joined the elderly crowd, eating at 5:30pm to ensure Adly gets into bed on time. One amazing thing about living in the city is that restaurants are everywhere. This allows us to safely stroll to a local eatery, have an early dinner, chat it up with our munchkin all while enjoying a tasty beer or glass of wine or two. And hey, we always get a table at that hour.

Did you just say, "we eat with the old people because of me?!" Look who's talking.

And then every so often, Adam and I try to take a night out together. This part is hard because both of us struggle with missing our "old lives". We miss our friends dearly, yet we know it's important to also have time for just us. Typically we've compromised by doing a dinner just the two of us and then meeting friends out. However, parenthood has changed the both of us. We no longer make it out very late and are usually fine saying our goodbyes far earlier than anyone else. For me, the reason being that the morning routine is lingering in the air. I know I have to be back "on" in a number of hours and there is nothing worse than being hungover and/or exhausted with an infant that is into everything.

Maybe I'm dramatic, but in my opinion, it goes without saying: friendships change when you have a baby. Some friends totally disappear. That's hard. Some once good friends become more of acquaintances. Some friends that weren't close before become closer. Some friends totally stay the same, just in a new way. I'm grateful for the friendships I have and I look forward to more friends joining the baby brigade. I have no doubt that over the years these friendships will grow and change even more. It's the hard part of growing up. But for what it's worth, I hope that they continue to grow more together, than apart.

Until then, you can find Adam and I on any given Friday night enjoying a glass of wine and a new Dateline, or if we're really lucky, a new Shark Tank episode. Sometimes we even get a little crazy and whip out an intense game of rummy or a bag of popcorn. I know, I know. We're wild.

But I wouldn't change one bit of it. 


                                                 Out for a "new normal" date night.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Little Eater

You guys...tonight, against all of my controlling impulses, I gave my daughter the spoon AND SHE FED HERSELF.

I can't even tell you how far out of my chest my neat-freak heart leapt as I saw the spoon flip face out and swing over the side of the tray (nooooo!! I don't want to sweep and mop the floors again!!!!). But I held it in. And by god, as I sat there ready to pounce on her, she DID IT. She flipped and spun the spoon around into her mouth. And then she chewed it to death. But that's besides the point. Whats important here is we are one more step closer to independent feeding, never mind the mess that comes along with that milestone.

Watch it here first:

Thursday, June 12, 2014

11 Months


Adly is bursting into her last month of infancy babbling away. The girl is a Chatty Cathy. She doesn't. Stop. Talking. But hey, right now it's fun, right?! Even more fun is learning to decode what it is she's saying. Here is a translation guide to understanding Miss Adly Daniele at 11 months:

"Nye nye"= night night
"Daaaaaa daaaaa"= bottle
"Daaaaaa daaaaa"=bear bear
"Tee tee" = pretty
"Gaaaa gaaaaa"= big girl
"Ka-ka"= car 
"Oooooh"= anything interesting to her
And best of all, "mama"= me!

She's hugely into imitating at the moment and will usually attempt to say almost anything to tell her to repeat. It's simply fascinating to see how much she is soaking in right now as her understanding of language begins to develop and she attempts to involve herself in it. Speaking of imitating, a few weeks ago, Adly started touching my belly. We had a moment where we talked about bellies and patted mine then hers, saying "belly". I tried asking her the next day where her belly was and she ignored me. I figured it was lost in the mix or just too far above her for the moment. Well tonight while we were laying in bed she again touched my belly and I said, "belly". To which she started patting her belly and saying "baa baaa" (belly, I'm guessing), just like she had the last time we talked about it a few weeks back. So incredible how much they remember! 

She also loves hearing the alphabet sung to her and then will "sing" along to it after you sing. I was able to capture this the other day as she played in her crib. 


The world according to Adly is quickly getting much bigger as she crawls, pulls up, and scales along the couches and chairs. Just before turning 11 months, she also began surfer-style attempts at standing alone. We were surprised by this, and she was quite pleased with herself: laughing and clapping away after the attempts. As much as I'm not ready for it, walking is right around the corner.

Her three top, front teeth are plowing through right now and we've been met with a lot of food strikes and general fussiness. Thankfully the super cute angry face is slowly disappearing and my meanie child is returning to her former lovely self with only a random angry face every so often. 

In the last month we've been dealing with skin issues. Her skin is so, so sensitive. Since the time she was born we've been through a lot of trial and error to find products that can work for her. Lately, the problem has been with her poor bum. The girls got terrible diaper rash that just can't seem to be healed. We've tried a handful of creams to no avail. The latest attempts have been lots of nakey time to air out her goodies. This is funny because the sensation of being nakey must be pretty freeing, and for Adly, evoke the need to tinkle. Like a puppy, she tends to pee pee all over when this time comes. So now I've taken to laying out her changing pads to help prevent any more "accidents". This nakey time seems to be helping, but we still aren't cured. Hopefully we get it in order sooner than later.

And with that we head into her last month of her first year. I just can't believe it's almost here. Excuse me while I do everything in my power not to cry my way through the next month as my baby gets ready to turn 1.






Sunday, June 8, 2014

Robbery?!

As I walked into the living room this morning, I came upon this sight:


One might immediately think they've been robbed. But not in my case. Nope. Have no fear. That's just the evidence that my child has been there. 

Thank you, Adly. Don't mind if I do put back every piece of my wallet for the 4th time this weekend. 

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Big Moves

I was flipping through Adly's baby pictures the other day and it reminded me how big of a deal all of her milestones were back then. When a baby is 3-6 months old, there are some huge milestones they pass, but each of them are pretty far apart. Therefore, when they come it practically becomes a national holiday for you and your family.

Fast forward to the 9-12 month phase and milestones begin happening at an alarming rate. So much so in our case that these days it's a mere, "Oh! She just did that. I should probably get it in the baby book soon". That's not to say I care any less....its just that they're happening so often it kind of loses the need for a huge party each time. Therefore, I felt it was time for a mid-month check-in. Adly is quickly approaching 11 months which is just dumbfounding. I cannot believe how fast this year has gone by.

In the past few weeks, we've made some big changes as far as feeding Adly goes. We've been cutting back on the amount of formula she's been eating and are now down to three bottles a day. In addition to that, we've also cut out her night time bottle. Someone once told me the nighttime bottle was the most important one to drop early on....because the last thing you want is a two year old who can't go to sleep without a nightcap. And I'm not talking about the kind of nightcap we all like, ya know what I mean? There is a lot of advice you are given when you are pregnant, and it doesn't stop once the baby is here. I try my best to just hold on to pieces that I think will suit our family. So far, she's handled the transition just fine. We replaced the ba-ba time with reading a book, which I think is an important night time routine anyways.

In addition to cutting back bottles, we are also trying to transition from bottle to sippy cup. In my ideal, glorious motherhood picture I had in my mind, I would've loved to transition right to a regular cup. There are some natural mama's who succeed with this early on- around 6 months- and I give them major kudos! I however, just don't have the patience for it yet. We've tried a few times and the result is a big mess and me holding the cup constantly. Therefore, what has worked best for us has been transitioning to a sippy cup. Another piece of advice I was given that I held on to was to use the sippy cup with formula to ease the transition. This, just like the bottle introduction, has been an expensive process. Because as with bottles, no two sippy cups are alike. Just like babies. So a sippy that 99% of moms LOVE means that your baby just might not. And the kicker is, you won't know until you've opened, disinfected and used the sippy. We've got quite the collection sitting in our cupboards! Thankfully, we were successful with one such sippy. So far we only have one because I wanted to be sure this was "the one" before I ordered a few more. What I like most about this sippy is the handles and the measuring lines on the side. Adly seems to only like a sippy with a rubber nipple that she can bite. The hard plastic ones are useless in our case.

Photo credit: Amazon.com

We're also experimenting like crazy with foods. She seems to love pretty much anything we give her except avocado. She's just like her dad in this case- loves guacamole, hates avocado. Our doctor gave us the advice to feed her what we're eating so that she starts liking what we like from the start. This has helped majorly with creating foods for her to eat. Her favorite by far is her daddy's famous roasted pork loin. She gobbles that up any time its available. The pieces she eats are getting bigger and bigger as she's learned how to chew and deal with swallowing too much. Watching her "choke" a little is still super hard. Her latest trick is to shove a whole bunch of food in her mouth, hide in her huge cheeks and then work her way through it. 

Speaking of chewing, she's also currently cutting three top teeth. I have to mommy brag a little and say so far we've been blessed with a pretty easy teether. She is seriously a teething champ. I didn't even know these three teeth were coming through until I saw them as she giggled laying down. Her reaction to teething seems to be just sleeping more. She's napping better than ever and the only other side effect has been drooling. Ok, baby brag over.

Now on to what we're struggling with....Adly's latest cognitive developmental process has been testing the limits. This comes by way of trying to sneakily work her way towards no-no zones, (electrical outlets, cords, drawers, toilet). She knows it's a no-no as she sits and shakes her head at me, then dives for it. When I remove her I'm usually met with a tantrum: cries, a VERY angry face and lately, slaps to the face. I will say this has been a very hard process for me. I know its normal (google told me so), but still it's very hard to see your sweet baby start to act badly like this. It makes me sad and wish she would always be happy. But she comes from two very strong willed parents, so there is no doubt her "determination" is here to stay. I've tried many parenting tricks of the trade to deal with this....we still have no magic answer but the best seems to be leaving her alone for a minute.


Lastly, she's begun pulling herself up to standing! This has been really exciting, yet terrifying. There are so many more things she's getting into now so babyproofing is a must that I've put off for too long. With this new feat also comes more boo-boo's. She's pretty shaky on those legs and is fine when she's on the rug pulling up using the couch. But this ability is carrying over into other areas of the house like cabinets, the pantry, bookshelves, anything that has a ledge. We're in the process of bolting everything to the walls, but the different areas of the house have different landing pads for her body when it comes crashing down. We've had a lot more tumbles, screams, and huge tears in the last few days as she learns to deal with her new ability.


So many things, all in the last few weeks. It seriously amazes me how much they grow and change at this stage. For now I'm willing time to slow down before my baby turns a full year old. 
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