Juliet Martinez

Thu, Apr 29 2004

Co-sleeping is safe and healthy, but don't take my word for it.

Check out this nice fact sheet on the topic. Here's a nice article on the sociology of co-sleeping, too.

It just pains me to think of all those babies alone in their cribs and bedrooms. When will (white) people figure it out? Babies belong in the arms of those who love them.

Okay, since I got started, I'll just say that like people who put their babies to sleep in another room, I do think it's fine to "teach" a baby (or let a baby discover) that it's okay to be alone. So occasionally when Lil P has floor time, with toys she likes or pictures to look at, I get out of her line of sight. As long as she is having fun, we're cool. Or I may check in with her every few minutes. When she starts to seem bored or irritated, I pick her up. The difference is that she is having independent fun without the crying and wondering if anyone is ever coming back. It just seems better to me. 'Nuff said.
by Juliet Email me

Tue, Apr 27 2004

So how's the whole diaper-free experiment going?

So glad you asked.

Well, it was going great for a few days, but then I started noticing that Lil P was on the pot about 2/3 of the time. I mean, every time she got a little cranky, I was putting her on the pot. She started to object.

I decided to back off a little.

Then yesterday, after being in diapers all weekend, she was a little red, if you know what I mean. So this is what I decided. I told her I was going to take off her diaper, and if she peed on me - or worse - it was no big deal. The clothes I wear around the house are just baby-fluid-receptacles anyway. So that's what we did, and you know what? She only peed in her diaper or when I wasn't holding her. I put a lot of absorbent cloths and diapers under her in case, and it was no problem. Today I even put her in one of her bajillion pajama sleepers so she could pee in it. I mean, I might as well try to give each of them at least one use before she outgrows them, right?

OMG --- I was just getting to the part where I said that today I let her play on the floor without her diaper because her legs just had no mobility otherwise, but this amazing thing just happened! I let her lie on her stomach and she actually pushed herself across the blanket with her feet!! Wow!!! She was trying to get closer to the collage of wedding pics I put there for her to look at. She likes to look at the faces, and once she realized they were in front of her, she basically crawled on her belly to get closer. I am so amazed by this little one. She is really something.
by Juliet Email me

Bad mama

I accidentally dripped soapy water into Lil P's eyes this morning. It was our first tub bath in a long time and we were having so much fun, but after I washed her, I was washing me and some soapy water got into her eyes. I did not respond effectively. First I rinsed my hands and tried splashing water on her face - we all know what big fans babies are of unexpectedly having water splashed on their faces while their eyes are burning and stinging. That didn't go over like I'd hoped. So I hugged her to my chest, but unfortunately my chest was still soapy so she got a whole face full of it - also kind of a bad move in retrospect. She was screaming at full volume, but I kept hoping her tears would rinse the soap out and she would start feeling better. I kept her in the water so she wouldn't get cold, but her apparent agony continued. I even tried licking her eyes to see if I could get the soap out. I just tasted tears instead.

We got out of the bath, I wrapped her up and we went to the bed. She cried really hard for a while longer, then fell asleep, poor thing. It was only then that I realized I should have used the world's best antibiotic, ear infection treatment, skin moisturizer, and, oh yeah, eyewash: breastmilk. I'm just not used to having a pharmacopoeia hanging on my chest. Well, next time (if it comes).
by Juliet Email me

Fri, Apr 23 2004

About those accidents... We had one this afternoon. Fortunately my jeans are dark denim, IYKWIM.
by Juliet Email me

Recent Google searches

"no diaper:" This was for tips on letting Lil P go bare bottomed. I read that you can just wait for the little pre-evacuation grunts and hold the baby over a dedicated receptacle (I use a little plastic bowl). It's quite amazing. I take off her diaper for a few hours throughout the day, and so far we've had no accidents. Even more impressive was that when I first did it and explained what I was doing (holding her over the bowl, making a little "pssss" sound to reinforce the association with using the bowl), she looked right at me and peed into the bowl. Amazing. Now she will often make her little sounds, I put her over the bowl, "pssss," she "goes" and smiles up at me. She's only 3 months old!

yucatan hammocks: I have a dream of hanging a luxurious mayan hammock in Lil P's room so we can rock to sleep there when I want to join her for a nap. Sounds nice, huh? They're a little pricey for us right now, but I can dream.

mr happy crack: Sad, sad news for our house. We have discovered that the water we thought was leaking out of the water heater (and because of which we got a new one through the home warranty) was actually coming from a very long crack in the foundation of the house. Yes, it is awful. I thought I would look up this page because I've seen the ads in The New Yorker. At least we got a new water heater out of it.
by Juliet Email me

Mon, Apr 19 2004

Body image

I weighed myself today: 210 pounds, lightly dressed.

I don't like that number. It sounds so fat, especially for a woman. A man at 210 might be muscular, but a woman is just, well, fat. I think to myself, "I have to lose weight. 210 is absolutely Not Acceptable."

I've actually gained weight since my 6-week post-partum checkup. I thought that with breastfeeding and a moderately healthy diet (lots of veggies and fruits, some whole grains, a decent amount of protein, not much refined sugar) I at worst wouldn't have to worry about weight gain, at best would start slowly to shed the pounds. Apparently I was wrong about that.

So I resolved to walk to the store more often for little shopping trips, drive less. I told myself it's time to start eating regular meals again instead of graham crackers and carrot sticks and bowls of cereal at night. These are good goals, all totally up for grabs on any given day of taking care of a baby.

There's another hitch. As much as the Social Acceptability of weighing over 200 pounds is quite low, I actually (and secretly) like my body best at this weight. I've never been wild about my long-legged, high-waisted, thick-kneed body at any weight under 175. It may be better for walking through the rows of seats at a movie theater, but that body shape always looked a little slapped together to me.

My current bod, on the other hand, looks to me wonderfully rounded, luxurious and feminine. Particularly when Lil P is in the Maya Wrap, snugly nestled against my chest, and I look in the mirror, I feel proud of what I see. At least from the neck down, anyway. My face may be pasty, my hair dun-colored and shapeless, but my generous breasts and fertile, curving hips are redolent with female beauty and power.

That power is literally what has shaped my body over the last 11 months. The power to nurture a human being inside me, with all the joy and vulnerability, the loss and discovery of identity, the risk, confusion and faith involved - that is what has reached through and altered every part of my life. Reshaping my body was just a side effect of bringing my baby daughter through into this world.

So while I am going to try to eat better meals and fewer snacks, walk more and drive less, I want to do those strictly on principle: good health requires a healthy lifestyle. But I'll hold on to the earth mother body as long as I can.

by Juliet Email me

Sun, Apr 18 2004

Birf plan I was reading all these premature birth stories on BirthStories.com (and crying my eyes out), and it struck me how few of the parents had made a birth plan that took into account an early or induced labor. So here's mine. Enjoy.
by Juliet Email me

Thu, Apr 15 2004

Insomniac-ac-ac-ac-ac-ac

I've been waking up too much with the 2:30-ish feeding and ending up awake from 3 (a.m., in case there was any doubt) to anywhere from 4:30 to 8:30. I've been so hungry then, too. I have a feeling that's related to the Kellog's diet I'm on. It's when you don't go shopping, run out of fruits and vegetables, have a new baby who requires lots of attention and end up eating cereal 3 or 4 times a day (if you're lucky enough to get that many chances to eat). I have been eating other things, just not as much as the cereal. Don't worry - Joel and I went shopping yesterday.

The 3-ish to 8:30 insomni-odyssey was this morning. Lil P had gone back to sleep after nursing, and after trying to get back to sleep myself, I took her sleeping in my arms into the living room to check email. I like feeling her heft in my lap. I'm convinced that the popularity of Beanie Babies was due to the way the bean bag filling they used behaved just enough like the heft of a baby relaxed against one's body. We all have our theories. But back to my story: The munchkin nursed again around 4:30 and woke up to feed around 7, but wouldn't go back to sleep then. I remembered to make myself some chamomile then, got sleepy and finally woke Joel up to take Lil P off my hands so I could get some sleep. Aah! Sweet slumber! I think I slept for an hour and a half, but it felt like all night.

I've been so wiped out lately because of the insomnia. Yesterday I was so tired all afternoon that I determined to go to sleep when Paula did. But she went to sleep around 6, and the sun was still up. I didn't like going to bed when the sun was up when I was 5, and I don't like it now. I told Joel, "As soon as it's dark, I'll go to bed." But I just couldn't make it. I went to bed at 7:30 at night. Fortunately I was never a real night owl or partier, so I can't say Look what's become of me! But once upon a time I did enjoy knowing that as an adult, I did not have to go to bed when the sun was up if I wasn't sick. Those days are gone, at least for the time being.

After I got back to sleep Wednesday morning I had a great dream. I dreamt that little Paula was making her wonderful "talking" noises to me, and she suddenly used real words! She said "pretty baby," then after a while she said "good baby," and repeated it a few times. I left her lying on a chair (like an idiot) and ran off to find a phone to call Joel with the news. When I got back (I hadn't found a phone), she was on the floor, but seemed unhurt. It was so vivid that I can't help but wonder if this is a continuation of the dreams about her that I had when I was pregnant.

In the first dream I was holding her in front of me, a tiny little baby the size of a doll, maybe 12-14 inches long and wearing a loose pink dress. In the second dream my parents, Joel and I were sitting in our living room and I felt I might be in labor. My mom said, "Well let me check you," and she opened the top of my abdomen like a kangaroo's pouch and pulled out a baby girl, complete with dress and hair bow (sometimes dreams go out of their ways to make sure you get it - I still didn't get it, and expected a boy). "Oops," my mom said. She held the baby, dangling it by an ankle for a moment as we looked at her awkwardly. "I guess you wanted to do this a different way, huh?" my mom said. Since I'd had the baby, everyone and their monkey's uncle came over to see it, crowding into the living room. I was sitting on a hard chair, trying to get the baby to latch on to nurse, but people kept telling me to cover myself up (I took that as a warning and intentionally discouraged mass visits for the first few weeks post-partum). That was when I got a good look at her face and saw that she looked just like my sister, Paula: green eyes, dark hair, chubby cheeks. Aunt Paula's cheeks aren't so chubby now, but as a kid she had big, cute ones. I interpret that part of the dream as a premonition that we would name the baby after my sister, and I hope it will also turn out that Lil P has green eyes. But that's anyone's guess. If we're lucky she'll have more than her aunt's name: in addition to her generous heart and up-front character, my sister has immaculate fashion sense. If Lil P has any, it didn't come from me.

The rest of the dream involved me going off on a misguided trip to a hardware store with my sister and taking the bus back to be with the baby. Who knows what that means. Avoid Home Depot? Your guess is as good as mine.

It's 9:20 already and I'm bushed, but not as badly as yesterday, since I got that nap this morning. We ran around getting our taxes done, signed and in the mail this afternoon and picked up Wendy's for dinner. I had a burger and one of their new salads, which I liked, BTW. But having now eaten a respectable meal that contained actual protein, I'm pretty hungry again. Better to eat now than have another damned bowl of cereal at 3 in the morning.
by Juliet Email me

Tue, Apr 13 2004

Has anyone seen Jocelyne Houghton? She was once a close friend and now I can't find her... Not even Google knows where she is.
by Juliet Email me

Mon, Apr 12 2004

New

Check out the page I made for Joel.

by Juliet Email me

On further thought... I did put a tip jar on the nav bar to the left. We'll see how this goes.
by Juliet Email me

Top 10 schemes for paying off my $70 grand in student loan debt

10. Fake my own death

9. Rob a bank

8. Win the lottery

7. Accept donations through my site. This worked for a compulsive shopper.

6. Get a book deal and write a bestseller.

Crap. I can't even think of ten.

1. Get a damn job and spend less time with Little Paula.

This sucks.
by Juliet Email me

Thu, Apr 08 2004

Boy do I wish I had time to write

We took Lil P to the ER the other day because she seemed to be in pain and we couldn't figure out why. Nothing was wrong, or nothing they could find anyway, and she had cheered up by the time a doctor saw her, of course. We sang Big Bird's alphabet song, "Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz," in Afro-cuban 6/8 to quiet the munchkin and entertain ourselves. Also enjoyed the ER standby, "WONG-BAKER FACES PAIN RATING SCALE." See, it's a pain rating scale developed by Wong-Baker, but we like to read it like a headling: Wong baker faces pain rating scale. It's really funny when you're waiting around in the ER with nothing to do.

But I don't have time to write more. I do spend a lot of time thinking of things to write, though. It's just that once I sit down to start, they logjam in my head and then Lil P needs me and I'm off to something else.

I'll try again later.
by Juliet Email me

Mon, Apr 05 2004

Today Lil P has hit three developmental milestones for the first time!

She admired her own hand and turned it in front of her face, she successfully guided it to her mouth and sucked on it five or six times (she sucked on her hands before, but was never able to guide one to her mouth), and she noticeably responded to her name!!!

I got an email from my dear friend Paula in the twin cities, and so was talking to little Paula about her Tia Paula (Spanish pronunciation, Pow-la, in MN), and her Aunt Paula (who she is named after). When I said the two names, she got a huge smile on her face. I repeated it again and she got that big, toothless grin again. It was like she was smiling with her whole body. I'm so in love!

BTW, new pictures are up. In case my minimalist alt texts aren't clear, the older man holding a little boy and sitting on the gold couch next to Joel and Lil P is my father-in-law, and the boy he is holding is my nephew Javier Emilio. The photo underneath that one is of my sister-in-law Livier (married to Joel's brother Javier), holding her son, Javier Emilio, a.k.a. simply as Emilio.
by Juliet Email me

Fri, Apr 02 2004

Dear Blog,

I'm writing because I have an uncomfortable admission to make and it's easier this way. I've been cheating on you. I started up with an e-list for stay-at-home attachment parents, and, well, I got hooked. It's not that I don't care about you - I do! - but you know, those people on the e-list, they write back. I'm sorry to say that all the thoughts and ideas I would normally have brought to you, I've taken to the e-list instead. I'm sure this is hard for you to hear, but they gave me something I really needed: a sense of participating in a discussion. I wrote to them, they wrote back with all kinds of wacky ideas. It even got a little heated at times! I realize that there's more to life than having people write you back, but you know what a sucker I am to jump into the fray.

Like that time I got involved with an almost-brawl between some skinheads and members (and fans) of Joel's old band. I went around giving out these Lemonheads I had with me. The skinbirds took them, the skin dudes asked me if I had put acid on them or something, and the people on Joel's old band's team gobbled them up. It worked, everyone drifted away, and there was no fight. Until later, anyway. Then there was that other time I got into it with this guy who was beating on a woman on the sidewalk in the middle of the night. That one almost got me shot. I mean, the guy fired into the air right in front of me. That was definitely a lapse in judgment on my part, but I like to think that I learned something. Stay out of fights with guys who pack heat.

Anyway, I spend a lot of time sitting in the glider, holding Lil P while she nurses or sleeps or strains to push a fart out. And I can't always spend that time with you because, well, (cue Neil Diamond/Babs) you just don't send me emails anymore. It's not like it was when we started out. I felt like someone was out there reading, and maybe that's still true. But this e-list stuff is the video poker/crack cocaine of online interaction. So many emails, so little work. Maybe it's the easy way out. Still, it's not all fun and games. I got a stern rebuke for discussing the discussion, and even worse, the tone of the discussion. Well you know me: If there's anything I love more than discussing a discussion, it's discussing its tone.

So I've come to you like this because I've realized there are some things that e-list can't give me, like the freedom to rant about whatever the hell I please. That's why I will never, ever leave you.

Love,

Juliet
by Juliet Email me