Juliet Martinez

Mon, Feb 23 2004

Oh, I'm a Blumberjack and I'm Okay

Lately my parents have been advising me quite emphatically to get out of the house with the baby. "We took Kit to the opera when he was two weeks old!" They keep saying. Well, this weekend we went wild.

First we took her to the reading on Saturday night. She cried inconsolably the whole way there - she doesn't seem to dig the car seat - so when we arrived and I took her out of the car seat, she fell right to sleep. I put her into the sling, zipped my coat over her, and we joined the surprisingly long line of people waiting to get into the reading. Paula remained asleep, or discretely nursing in the Maya Wrap sling, all night. Mom sent me a really nice nursing top that I LOVED because it made feeding Paula super easy and nobody was the wiser when my boob was hanging out of my shirt under the sling. Some people even half-joked they thought she was a prop - I let them look at her to see she is indeed a real baby. I kept her on while reading, and spent the rest of the night standing and swaying.

The readers were all fantastic. They read about all kinds of crazy stuff, like why one of them hates Boston, what bungee jumping was like, the most awkward conversation ever, trying to score with a poet, how Wicker Park has gone downhill since 10 years ago. That one made Joel and I shake our heads nostalgically. We realized it was in 1994 that I moved to Wicker Park and got involved with the punks and anarchists who would eventually introduce me to him. And yes, Wicker Park has totally changed from the working-class/artsy neighborhood it was to a slick, yuppie neighborhood full of posh restaurants, yoga studios and, as the reader noted, $3 slices of pizza.

One regret about Saturday night is that I didn't take better notes on who read what. I couldn't see anything since I was all the way in back, so I didn't even get to put a face to the bloggers' names. But I will say that Mimi Smartypants stood out among the very funny offerings of the night - she brought puppets. Jason Pettus was also hilarious. Louisa Heinrich read about the bungee jumping. In addition to being amazingly tall, she also took it upon herself to greet and encourage the other readers. Very nice. Joel said afterward he was tempted to suggest that she could play Xena if the opportunity presented itself, but thought better of it on account of being afraid Louisa could beat him up. I don't think she would have, though. Lacey Graves was there, too, and read some of her dreams. I loved them.

If you haven't already, I encourage you to check out the bloggers who read.

When we got home, Joel commented that all the bloggers were responsible for deforestation, and we should all be ashamed of ourselves.

Sunday we had appointments for haircuts in Chinatown. I had invited Vin to be part of the haircutting party, and Joel took care of the munchkin while I got my hair cut, then we swapped. Vin and Joel got great cuts, I got a pretty good one. Vin and I discussed the pitfalls of cross-ethnic hairdressing. She said when she has gone to places with a White clientele she gets a very conservative cut, no matter what she asks for. She went to a place with a Black clientele and got a Black hairstyle. I find when I go to this salon in Chinatown (Urban Roots), I get a great shampoo and scalp massage, a decent cut and a super conservative style. I usually have to go home, cry, wash and style before feeling good about the cut.

Woops! The munchkin is hungry. Gotta go.
by Juliet Email me

Fri, Feb 20 2004

Stretchy

I've always tended to avoid knit fabrics. The stretchy fabrics that expose, rather than hide figure flaws have never found favor in my closet or on my bod. But now something has changed.

Even when I was slender, lo those many years ago, I felt my clothes should resist rather than give in to my natural curves. Pants and skirts especially should stand up to the lumpiness of my hips. Tops should do something to accentuate, not merely flow with, my waist.

And then I got pregnant. I discovered maternity clothes: soft, stretchy, big in the middle. That's also how my body has become: soft, stretchy, big in the middle. So now, even though I'm not still pregnant, my maternity clothes find a way to hide what I want to hide without bending my body to their jersey-knit will.

Of course I still cherish the hope that I will lose my baby fat and become once again the generously-proportioned but nonetheless-healthy woman I was. But I may keep the maternity clothes. Who has to know they're maternity clothes, anyway? I won't tell if you won't.
by Juliet Email me

Wed, Feb 18 2004

It's funny if you think about it

Paula had a pretty messy diaper today and as I was wiping her bottom clean I remembered something I had read somewhere. It suggested rinsing her in warm water to clean her. Nilufar does this with her baby, Faizi, so I thought I would give it a shot. I picked Paula up - undiapered - and just wrapped her little butt in my T-shirt. What the heck? I thought. The shirt stank anyway.

So I decided I didn't want to use the sink for the rinsing because if Paula moved her head suddenly, she could hit the basin or the faucet. I got out the plastic baby bath and began filling it with water from the sink. I did this by running hot water into another plastic tub I found nearby and emptying that (one-handed) into the baby bath. So far so good. I dropped the bath thermometer into the water and started adding cold water while still holding Paula in the crook of my other arm with my hand cupped around her fanny.

She was fussing a little, so I should have known something was coming. Suddenly she let loose with another monster-sized evacuation, right into my shirt and my hand. It's okay, I thought. I'll just take the shirt off. I didn't really plan out how I would do that, but I was still so optimistic. I got the water all ready and put her into it, and this is when things started to go downhill.

She likes to go into the bath with me, loves to float in the water with me supporting her head. She gets very calm and alert. I had assumed she would also enjoy floating in the baby bath. But no. She started to cry when I put her in, and continued as I washed her bottom off with baby soap. The longer she stayed in, the less happy she appeared, so I began to focus on getting her out as quickly as possible. I grabbed the towel I had set aside and pulled Paula out of the bath. I held her to my chest and covered her back and head with the clean, white towel. That's when I remembered that my shirt was still covered with wet, bright yellow poop. Now Paula was covered, too. Some of the poop was also on the towel.

If you're not a breastfeeding mom, you might have trouble understanding how I was able to handle this situation without vomiting. Not that I handled it well, but I didn't vomit. Because breast comes out of me completely pure and sterile. It's got what cereal boxes call "natural goodness." After my daughter digests it, it still seems basically clean, if less appetizing, more stinky, and more likely to cause a diaper rash. So even though my daughter and I were basically covered with feces, we carried on. I wrapped the clean part of the towel around her, laid her on the bed and got rid of my T-shirt, then cleaned her up and nursed her. Her next poop's got to come from somewhere, right?
by Juliet Email me

So much

is going on, and I have so little time to write about it. Little things float to the surface, things I want to write about, and I put them to the side hoping I'll remember them. It's like that gross story my dad used to tell me about finding a junebug in his plate of beans one time and pushing it over to the side of his plate, only to find it wasn't there when he was done eating. Anyway, one of those moments came this morning, as I wished I had diaper pins so that I could use these cool diaper covers we got, but which require diaper pins that we don't have. In a flash of inspiration, I grabbed small-sized binder clips and held Paula's diaper together with that. Boy, was I proud, until she got really fussy and I realized the clips were poking her. Oops. So much for improvisation.

She had her 1-month birthday and checkup yesterday, which was sort of fun and sort of a drag. The fun part was going outdoors into the balmy 35-degree sunshine. It was so beautiful! The drag (for me, anyway) was listening to the doctor try to convince me that vaccinations are a good thing, even though I kept telling him I agreed on that point, but was curious about why they start them so young. He admitted at one point that he didn't have a particularly good rationale for that. For Paula the real drag was riding in the car seat for 40 minutes or so without being able to see me, and having a dirty diaper at the same time. I only discovered the dirty diaper after we got to the doctor's office. But I knew something was bothering her - the screaming tipped me off.

We were supposed to get a referral for a hearing test for her, but doc and I both spaced it because of the vaccination discussion. I have to admit I'm holding my breath a little for that one. I had so many ultrasounds and they say that it sounds to the baby like a train pulling into a subway station. Maybe not so good for her hearing.

The munchkin is now asleep on my belly, and I'm again impressed with my ability to type while holding her. It's the little things, you know? She has a cold and sinus congestion, so she makes cute little snorting sounds when she breathes through her nose. It's cute, but uncomfortable for her and not so good for the nursing, so I'm giving her a decongestant, frequent bulb-syringings, and running the humidifier in the bedroom so that I could swear I was in a tropical rainforest.
by Juliet Email me

Sat, Feb 14 2004

Next Saturday

The Self-Publishers Event Council of Chicago and Gapers Block web magazine present:

An evening of All Blogger Readings

Featuring:

and me.

Saturday, February 21

7:00

At Uncle Fun, 1338 W. Belmont in Chicago (773-477-8223)

Admission $5 - all ages - BYOB

Now I just have to decide what to read. Any suggestions?
by Juliet Email me

Mon, Feb 09 2004

Hiatus of sorts

Needless to say, life has changed quite a bit in the last 23 days.

Anything that is not feeding, holding, napping with, changing, dressing, bathing or otherwise caring for baby has to be squeezed into very brief moments when someone else is doing all that other stuff with the baby, or I can coordinate doing it while she sleeps. Paula reigns supreme.

Needless to say, I'm not keeping up with blogging very well. But don't feel bad - I'm also doing poorly with basic hygiene, and only scraping by on keeping myself moderately well-fed and hydrated. Rest is going okay, since my baby sleeps well, and when I exercise good sense, I sleep right alongside her. She's been on a kind of sleep marathon for the last 24 hours, and I'm wondering if my milk is going to dry up because 1) she's nursing every 3 hours, minimum, and 2) like a dope I didn't nap at all on Saturday or Sunday. That's the other thing I do: worry about my milk supply. The only thing that's motivated me to post right now, actually, is the fact that I'm going online to order something to boost my production of breast milk.

Parenting is seriously time consuming. This may mean I don't post as often, but I'll still keep up the blog. Just not every day. This will probably be good for the overall quality of the writing. Less may indeed be more.

If you're wondering, though, the sling situation has improved, and I've been able to carry Paula in the Maya Wrap for most of Saturday, yesterday and today. This affords me much greater mobility around the house, which may also account for less time spent napping and some of my poor milk production today. If it's not one thing, it's another.
by Juliet Email me

Tue, Feb 03 2004

Sling babe

My brother Stacy read my earlier posting and sent this email:

Subject: It's Sling-y! It's Sling-y!...

"It's fun for a girl and a boy!

"Hey Juliet,

"We read your blog this morning and Adele wanted me to let you

know that, while she tended to worry that the baby was uncomfortable in

the sling because of the noises and squirming, I just figured that they

were happy noises and squirming, and wore the baby whenever I had the

chance. Adele refers to this as "breaking the baby to the sling", but I

do not recall there being any discomfort or actual breaking involved.

After a couple weeks of me proving that baby actually liked being toted

around that way, Adele relaxed and slung like the wind. The one thing

that is important is to be moving around while the baby is slung. Most

wee 'uns don't cotton to sedentary slinging.

"Ummm... Adele? Anything I've forgotten?

"('No, you dork.' she replies.) :-)

"Stacy"

So I got re-inspired to try to situate Paula in the sling while I did some little things around the house on Sunday. I have just one comment. Is screaming a definitive sign of discomfort? Because that was Paula's reaction. But I don't think she'll like the alternatives (bouncy chair, swinging bassinet) any better, and I just can't handle rushing back and forth between her sleeping self on the bed and whatever else I need to do outside the bedroom.

So this morning I tried again, and eliminated two possible sources of discomfort: a dirty or wet diaper, and my personal funk. It occurred to me that my unbathed new motherhood might make little Paula's position so close to my armpit particularly unpleasant. Once those two factors had been dealt with, I was able to get her semi-comfortable (judging from the noises) in the Maya Wrap while I did dishes (this was a big breakthrough for me and our sink, which was growing a tiny civilization). Paula's expressions of hunger or mild discomfort generally fall into the grunting range, not unlike Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade. Her vocalizations were at about a 3 this morning, on a scale of 1 to 10. That's not too bad, I guess, but considering that Paula is entering a 3-day growth spurt, according to the lactation consultant I consulted today, we probably won't be back in the sling for a couple of days. Lactation lady says I'd better plan to stay in bed.

by Juliet Email me