Squidbits
It's been a great week in Squidville, and the only complaint I have is that I've been too sick to enjoy it the way I would like. Himself's about to travel for work for a few weeks - our first solo parenting experiment since I returned to work - and I hope that the Squid's equanimity holds up while he's gone. This month had so many ups and downs for me, I don't even really know how to write about it - but things are definitely getting better as he gets older and more interesting, and I'm thrilled to have put the "fourth trimester" behind us and be enjoying the Squid more and more each day.
Of eating: The Squid is four months old! And the size of a small tank. He has started to eye my food when I eat with a disturbingly avaricious expression. Soon no foodstuff will be safe, and his dear little face will never be clean again. I'm delaying it for another few weeks at least, until we see the pediatrician and he okays it, but I can tell the Squid is ready. Bring on the new diaper toxicity alert system, I guess.
Of returning to work: Working motherhood is certainly interesting. Thus far, I have failed to show up at a meeting (it had been cancelled, but I forgot to let the person I was meeting with know that), spilled breastmilk all over myself, the couch, and the floor while pumping, and sleepwalked through at least one presentation. Between pumping and eating, I am not quite working full days, and it's hard to resist the impulse to steal time from work to have a shower, or some cherished personal time, though I hold out, most days - this is one of the many curses of working from home. I thought I would be better at this than I am. But while my work suffers (and I'm still getting things done, just not as well as usual), it's so great at the "end" of the day to pick up the Squid and be glad to see him all over again. The variety in each day is, I think, helping my attitude toward both work and parenting, as I had hoped it would.
I have also applied for several jobs, though no nibbles as yet; please wish me luck, as my current contract runs out in 2/07 and I really would like to find a better match for my skill set and work habits than my current position. Whatever it is, it will also surely be less Squid-flexible than what I do now; we will, however, negotiate that tightrope when it happens. I have to get the job, first. And when I do? This is the face I will make:
Of the stinky: The Squid is a damn cute baby, and we will always have the pictures to remember this time by. But nobody can bottle his baby smell - that indefinable milkbreath-and-neck-cheese aroma that makes up his own personal scent. I like to sniff the top of his head. I procrastinate on bathing him until he is quite ripe. I will miss it when he starts to smell like little boy and not like baby anymore.
Of the "Whoa, trippy": I am not much of a "whoa, trippy" person. Things are either interesting to think about or not; very little strikes me with the sort of "the world in a grain of sand/and heaven in a flower" kind of cosmic "wow" that some people seem more subject to. But my friend I, on her visit, pointed out to me that I had made the Squid.
"You made him," she said.
"Well, with help from his father," I replied, sort of shrugging it off.
"Yes, for the initial genetic contribution," she said, "but that's just the beginning. The rest of him, every cell, came from you."
Okay, whoa. Trippy. Because except for a little formula, when we supplemented for about two weeks, she's right. Every single cell of this 14-plus-pound human child came from my body. That's...wow. Just wow. Sometimes I look at him and just boggle about it for a bit. This may also contribute to my reluctance to start him on solid foods; right now he is mine mine mine and I don't want to share. Silly and irrational, but there you have it.
Of developmental milestones: We have laughter! I've only heard it once, but he's done it several times for Himself. Another of the "big" milestones I was hoping for, hooray! The Squid's age-mates, of course, are rolling over and making progress toward crawling. But to that I say, "whatever". My wee Squid howls if left supine for more than a minute or two, so I fully expect that he may not master rolling or crawling until after, I don't know, college or something. But he laughs! Who needs mobility when you have plain old-fashioned joy? Speaking of which, yesterday, by dint of sneaky camerawork, I managed to capture the elusive Squidsmile, and now have photographic proof of his delightful sweet nature.
Of eating: The Squid is four months old! And the size of a small tank. He has started to eye my food when I eat with a disturbingly avaricious expression. Soon no foodstuff will be safe, and his dear little face will never be clean again. I'm delaying it for another few weeks at least, until we see the pediatrician and he okays it, but I can tell the Squid is ready. Bring on the new diaper toxicity alert system, I guess.
Of returning to work: Working motherhood is certainly interesting. Thus far, I have failed to show up at a meeting (it had been cancelled, but I forgot to let the person I was meeting with know that), spilled breastmilk all over myself, the couch, and the floor while pumping, and sleepwalked through at least one presentation. Between pumping and eating, I am not quite working full days, and it's hard to resist the impulse to steal time from work to have a shower, or some cherished personal time, though I hold out, most days - this is one of the many curses of working from home. I thought I would be better at this than I am. But while my work suffers (and I'm still getting things done, just not as well as usual), it's so great at the "end" of the day to pick up the Squid and be glad to see him all over again. The variety in each day is, I think, helping my attitude toward both work and parenting, as I had hoped it would.
I have also applied for several jobs, though no nibbles as yet; please wish me luck, as my current contract runs out in 2/07 and I really would like to find a better match for my skill set and work habits than my current position. Whatever it is, it will also surely be less Squid-flexible than what I do now; we will, however, negotiate that tightrope when it happens. I have to get the job, first. And when I do? This is the face I will make:
Of the stinky: The Squid is a damn cute baby, and we will always have the pictures to remember this time by. But nobody can bottle his baby smell - that indefinable milkbreath-and-neck-cheese aroma that makes up his own personal scent. I like to sniff the top of his head. I procrastinate on bathing him until he is quite ripe. I will miss it when he starts to smell like little boy and not like baby anymore.
Of the "Whoa, trippy": I am not much of a "whoa, trippy" person. Things are either interesting to think about or not; very little strikes me with the sort of "the world in a grain of sand/and heaven in a flower" kind of cosmic "wow" that some people seem more subject to. But my friend I, on her visit, pointed out to me that I had made the Squid.
"You made him," she said.
"Well, with help from his father," I replied, sort of shrugging it off.
"Yes, for the initial genetic contribution," she said, "but that's just the beginning. The rest of him, every cell, came from you."
Okay, whoa. Trippy. Because except for a little formula, when we supplemented for about two weeks, she's right. Every single cell of this 14-plus-pound human child came from my body. That's...wow. Just wow. Sometimes I look at him and just boggle about it for a bit. This may also contribute to my reluctance to start him on solid foods; right now he is mine mine mine and I don't want to share. Silly and irrational, but there you have it.
Of developmental milestones: We have laughter! I've only heard it once, but he's done it several times for Himself. Another of the "big" milestones I was hoping for, hooray! The Squid's age-mates, of course, are rolling over and making progress toward crawling. But to that I say, "whatever". My wee Squid howls if left supine for more than a minute or two, so I fully expect that he may not master rolling or crawling until after, I don't know, college or something. But he laughs! Who needs mobility when you have plain old-fashioned joy? Speaking of which, yesterday, by dint of sneaky camerawork, I managed to capture the elusive Squidsmile, and now have photographic proof of his delightful sweet nature.
posted by The Stute Fish at 11:36
2 Comments:
Love the look on his face in the first picture. Good luck on the job hunt. I am also on the job hunt.--Anonemuus
HIRE US, PEOPLE!!!!
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