Assume the Perpendicular

I have huge regrets about the decisions I made regarding Eleanor’s nap times. She is totally incapable of napping in her crib, it is my fault, and it’s making me feel like a complete failure as a mother.

When she was little I held or wore her during her naps because I liked cuddling with her. As she got older we moved to her napping on our bed. I would nurse her to sleep laying down and usually say in bed with her for the majority of the nap, reading or playing around online. I could get up and do things and she could sleep without me, but I stayed there because I didn’t want her to wake up and crawl off the bed.

Now I really, really need her to nap in her crib. She’s so mobile that she doesn’t fall asleep well laying on the bed. She has to be rocked. Then she needs to let me lay her down and leave her in her crib. The first hurdle was getting her to stay asleep after laying her down. She gradually got used to it. So now she stays asleep through the transition, but will only sleep in her crib for 20 minutes tops. Usually it’s more like five minutes. The only way I can get her to actually take a decent nap these days is to hold her the entire time. I haven’t even ever heard of a baby her age who still needs to be held in order to nap. I can’t help but think “What have I done?”

I am so frustrated. I’ve always tried to simply do whatever I need to do to make sleep a non-issue, but now my passivity is really backfiring. I wish I could go back in time and get her used to napping in her crib when she was a newborn…but it isn’t like I didn’t try. She would just cry and wake up, and in the early days I just wanted to do whatever I had to do to get her to sleep. I kept telling myself as she got older she would just naturally start accepting the nap-in-crib situation. Boy was I wrong. She naps fine in her stroller and in her car seat, so I know she is capable of napping on her own, but she just won’t do it. 

I don’t even have any strategies to remedy the situation. I’ve tried waiting a few minutes to see if she will settle herself and go back to sleep. I’ve tried patting her back. I’ve tried sitting in her room so that when she wakes up she knows even though she is in her crib she isn’t alone. I’m at my wit’s end over this. 

So there you have it. I ruined my baby’s ability to nap like a normal one year old and I feel like a terrible mom because of it. 

I’ve been neglecting my cat, my beloved cat, who has been my constant friend and companion since I was in junior high.

Last night I sent a far too long email to an in-home pet grooming service detailing how after the birth of my baby my cat stopped grooming herself well, and I was too busy to help her, so now she is covered in mats. I instantly regretted writing so much as soon as I hit the send button. I’m sure I sounded a bit crazy, but I needed some kind of an outlet for my guilt.  

My cat has long, fine hair. All of her 12 years of life she has kept her coat immaculate. I’ve only ever bathed her three or four times. She never needed it. She always smelled nice and had beautiful, softy fluffy fur. I would brush her occasionally to help with shedding, but she wasn’t the biggest fan of my grooming techniques, so I mostly just left her to it. But after Eleanor was born she started getting mats. I’m not sure if she stopped grooming herself as well because she became depressed with the sudden lack of attention, if her age finally caught up with her, if the minimal brushing I was doing was really helping her, or if it was a combination of all of those things, but the situation is dire.

At first I tried to comb the mats out with a de-matting comb. She wasn’t having any of that. I took to trying to sneak up on her with a pair of scissors and snip them off, but she hated that too. After gradually going at her with the scissors I was able to get all of them off a few months ago, but since I still didn’t have time to give a lot of attention to her grooming they grew right back. She’s absolutely covered in mats again now. So I decided to bring in a professional to get rid of them, and I’ve promised after her coat is restored to its former glory I will brush her EVERY SINGLE DAY. Because I love her and I don’t want to neglect her and I want her to know that. 

So there you have it. I’m a bad cat mom. But I’m trying to be better.

Sometimes the stuff that comes out of my mouth is so inane. You know what I mean, that mindless, high pitched baby talk that just bubbles out. Sometimes it doesn’t even make sense. Sometimes I call Eleanor “sweet baby,” and sometimes I call her “sweet doll,” then sometimes (more often than you might think) I blend the two terms of endearment together and end up calling my daughter “sweet ball,” leaving my husband to give me the old side-eye and worry a bit for my sanity. Whatever. I love my sweet ball (baby/doll).

I wish I could always have a baby. I wish that as soon as my current baby turned into a toddler, I could just get pregnant and have another one. I wish that was feasible. If it was, I just might do it. 

Then this morning I saw a glimpse into my future via this Huffington Post article on Reborn Dolls and the crazy, let’s just call them eccentric, women who collect them, hoard them, and carry them around as if they were real babies. You guys, I clicked on the article thinking I’d have a nice laugh, and then I realized I totally identified with the crazy passionate Reborn ladies. They’re talking about how therapeutic it feels to hold a baby, and I’m nodding my head. They’re talking about how they miss when their own children were babies, and I’m thinking “YES!” 

As totally crazy eccentric as it sounds, I can totally picture my menopausal future self hiding one of these dolls in my closet and pulling it out when I’m feeling sad or nostalgic or just needing to cuddle something. But then I remembered that is what cats are for. Phew. 

Trigger warning:* This post is about poop.

I’m an eternal fan of cloth diapering, but I have to admit, it gets way, way more gross once solid foods enter the picture. You always hear cloth diapering mom’s going on and on about how cloth diapers are really just as easy and mess free as disposables, and its totally true when the baby is breastfed, but when it comes to that awful sticky poop that starts occurring after introducing solid foods, disposables win hands down. 

There are ways to make it easier to deal with these no-longer-exclusively-breastfed poops, like liners and diaper sprayers, but they don’t really compensate for the mess. The liners will catch some of it, if you feel inclined to take the extra step of stuffing them in along with your inserts, which honestly I don’t usually do, but you’ll probably still need to rinse or spray the diapers. Diaper sprayers are supposed to be awesome, but it can be tricky to find the right amount of pressure. If it’s down too low, it won’t get the job done. If it’s up too high or if you don’t angle it just right, poopy water will shoot off of the diaper and spray all over your floors and walls and sink. And you will definitely get it on your hands.

Regardless of the precautions taken, each poopy diaper these days requires at least a 5 minute clean up effort and a vigorous hand scrubbing afterward. Luckily for me Eleanor only makes a #2 every other day or every third day now that she’s older. I’m hoping things might get less gross when her poop solidifies more, but for now, and for the last few months, each diaper has been an ordeal. Obviously it’s not enough to make me stop using cloth, but I have to roll my eyes when I come across a cloth mamma extolling the virtues of fluff and absolutely denying that you will have to deal with more mess. 

(At least I think this is only my second.)

I’m really afraid of Eleanor turning into a toddler. She is so crazy sweet right now. It makes me sad to think of her becoming stubborn and willful, and doing things like hitting and biting out of frustration and anger. I understand why toddlers behave that way, and it isn’t that there is anything inherently wrong with it, but it’s just the thought of Eleanor going from a happy-go-lucky baby who loves to laugh to a cranky toddler who boycots naps and slaps me in the face. I’m also terrified of the prospect of having to discipline her. 

Moms of toddlers, please tell me it will be alright.