Love

I found this photo on my mom's iPhone today. It looks like Aunt Alyssa walked him to sleep in her arms, and then he wouldn't let her put him down. So she did what Ash and I always do in that situation.



Now THAT'S love.


(And yes, also ridiculous. I wish you all babies who are deep, DEEP sleepers.)

Some photos

Found my chef hat my Uncle Johnny gave me when I was a kid.



Here are some pictures from a day he spent at Mamaw and Papaw's house while I was at work:







I'm so excited that his bottom molars are coming in!! Pretty soon, he will be able to chew real food!!!!

P.S. He ate AN ENTIRE BANANA TODAY.

Luca's first minor injury!

On the morning of Sunday November 11th, Luca tripped and fell into a still burning bonfire from the night before. Ashes went down his sleeve and burnt his arm. I stuck it in the cold river water right away, took him up to the house and put aloe on it again and again. It still blistered, but there were only small blisters from his wrist to his elbow. I covered it with non-petroleum jelly (some debate as to whether this helps or hinders) and nursed him for two hours while he slept. When He woke up, it looked a lot better so I knew he would be ok and be able to heal on his own. He did not act like it was hurting him any more, though I know from my own burns how much it must have hurt at first. But he never really cried too much. I covered it with aloe, calendula, anti-bacterial ointment and bandages every day after that for a week, and it is almost completely healed by this point. I wish I had pictures of the whole healing process, I'm so impressed with how well it healed and how QUICKLY!

He has started at least attempting to say EVERYTHING we say. He has added a couple animals sounds ("aka-dooooo!!" is a rooster) and will say "thank you" almost every time we say it. He also says "turkey", "cute", "mama", "papaw", and we made up a sign for watching videos of himself on the iPhone ("camera", while looking through a lens we make with our hand) which he learned after exactly ONE time of me modeling it for him. He also does a great fake laugh, to play along whenever we laugh.

We let him watch Mr. Rogers at my parent's house. I can't believe what an amazing program it is. The music has the most lovely original melodies, with whimsical lyrics that delight as well as teach. He effectively teaches all the values Ash and I hold dear, like self-compassion, emotional honesty, cooperation, love... I can't believe how much I'M getting out of watching this show. And there is VERY little editing and the pace is nice and slow... a touch slower than real life, which is also important to us. So far, this and live musical performances are all he has seen. It sure is nice to have something to entertain him for a few minutes, so I can eat with two hands.

At 12 months we experienced a period of easy sleep for Luca. He went to bed without any trouble and he was sleeping regularly for long stretches. But then his molars started coming in, and have taken their sweet time. He is back to waking every 2 hours at night, and nursing like a newborn during the day as well. It's exhausting, but Ash and I are taking turns doing the nighttime parenting now that he is old enough to not "need" nursing at night physically. We bought some herbal extracts for "calming kids" which works quite well. We also take turns sleeping in, in the mornings.

I feel I have really turned a corner, lately. This is day 6 of me feeling really happy. No depression, no anxiety, no stress, so self-hatred... I think it's a combination of some things I have been trying in therapy, my increasing comfort with being a mom, and my increasing ability to identify my needs and work to get them met. This past Wednesday, I looked at him and really FELT it for the first time... he's not a baby anymore. He's a little boy. And he is separate from me. This was a big deal for me, since most of my anxiety came from me absorbing any of his (perceived) suffering. I can also see a lot more how my struggle was feeding his difficult temperament.

Thanksgiving was so wonderful. My mom made some really great food, my dad built some really nice fires, and my brothers and sister and I played some really great music. Luca ate 3 or 4 helpings of thanksgiving dinner. I guess he just happened on be on a growth spurt day on that day, with such great food for him to eat!! Unfortunately, from all the talk going on he figured out the word "pie"pretty quickly. I don't let him have sugar, but luckily Mamaw had made Papaw a low-sugar pumpkin pie bars (made with honey and whole wheat flower). So I have been calling that "Luca's Pumpkin Pie", and he seems to buy it.


He keeps climbing under the end table and getting stuck in there.

Trip to Asheville

The day after we left, Superstorm Sandy hit and brought a whole bunch of snow to the mountains!! So our trip was very well-timed.

We ate at Rosetta's, Green Sage, Homegrown, Edna's... and we went hiking. Good food and the great outdoors is what Asheville is all about!! I also went to their giant Goodwill store and bought some stuff for mine and Luca's Halloween costumes. We went to HalloweEno together in Durham so we needed costumes!

Luca got sick halfway through the vacation, spiking a fever of 103.5 and refusing to nurse. He didn't nurse until 6 days later. The only clue we have is a couple white dots on his lower lip, which might mean he caught the herpes virus. Either that, or the molar that was coming in was bothering him so much, he didn't want to nurse. I felt pretty terrible because I was worried about my baby, and also terrible because of the hormone drop from a sudden lack of nursing. I was EXTREMELY engorged almost the whole time, which was very painful. Pumping brought little relief. When he woke up at night to nurse, but couldn't, I would give him a sippy cup of water and then daddy would walk him back and forth until he fell back asleep. But he would fall asleep initially at nighttime and naps without any effort of nursing, so that was nice. A few times he insisted on using my bare breast as a pillow... poor sweet baby, missed his nursies!! At the end of that week I actually got excited at the thought of him potentially weaning. Because of the D-MER, I have never got to enjoy nursing, and only stuck with it for his sake. But I'm glad he's back on it... my goal is still 2 years.

Luca also learned how to frown intentionally on this trip. So cute.













One of our managers, Amy, took this photo of the Elmo's staff dressed up for Halloween!

On Nudity

I have been advised several times, usually from people older and wiser than me, to remove the images of Luca on the internet in which he is fully or partially naked. I would like to explain why I will not be taking them down. This is a decision my husband and I share, and it is the choice we have made for our family. We do not judge others who make different choices for their families, and we recognize that others may have different values.

Of course we are aware that our opinions and beliefs matter little in the eyes of the legal system. But the legal system draws a fairly clear line between what is considered child pornography and what is considered perfectly innocent pictures of babies taking baths. There is little precedent for anyone (concerned neighbors, family members, etc) successfully charging parents with child pornography if the images in question have no sexual undertones and if the taking of the picture does not involve abuse or some other danger to the child. Of course we would never, ever, EVER do such a thing to Luca and if we ever knew someone to place their child in such a situation, we would be leading the charge against them along with the rest of you.

Given that we are not doing anything to incite legitimate legal action against us, Ash and I feel free to act according to our beliefs, which are as follows: We firmly believe that there is nothing wrong, shameful, or automatically sexual about the naked human body, and that this is especially true for children. We enjoy being naked whenever the weather allows it. We feel that censoring a child's naked body tells a child (and everyone else) that the child is responsible for the thoughts and actions of OTHERS. This is the same logic that legitimizes rape by saying that women who expose their faces, ankles, shoulders, etc., are "asking for it".

I believe it is wrong to sexualize children. If you require a 3 year old girl to wear a bathing suit top at the pool, I call that sexualization of children, because a 3 year old has no "breasts" to cover and ought not to be ashamed of herself. Now, with a top on, she has imagined breasts that are "covered", and she gets the sense that there is something "wrong" with them being shown.

When you ask a breastfeeding woman to go to the bathroom or cover herself up, you are asking her to take responsibility for the thoughts and actions of others. She is just feeding her baby. By covering it up, you imply there is something shameful going on, when in reality it is the thoughts of others that may be shameful. This has been happening to women for thousands of years, and I won't let it happen to my son.

It is not the responsibility of the individual to try and live their life to accomodate the lowest common denominator in society. I am not going to walk around assuming everyone is evaluating my rape-ability, I'm going to wear what make me comfortable. It is everyone else's job not to rape me. If a married man looks down my low-cut shirt, that's his problem and not mine. There is nothing about the human body that requires "LOOK AT ME AND LUST AFTER ME SEXUALLY", that's a choice we all make according to what our culture has taught us.

90% of the time, my child is naked. I'm not going to censor the fact just because a pedophile might be using the photo to their advantage. That's the pedophile's problem, not mine or my child's. It is their decision, and it's a decision that hurts only themselves. I'm not going to sit around imagining all the terrible things people might be thinking or doing because of the way me or my child is dressed. Attempting to remove the object of a crime does not make the crime go away or even necessarily reduce it; just look at how well the war on drugs is going.

Our society over-sexualizes women and children. I refuse to participate in that culture, by censoring my body when breastfeeding, or by censoring my child's body while he innocently runs across the driveway. It's important to me that my son views clothing as a convenience, a practical solution to natural problems, and a personal choice for self-expression and cultural participation... but NOT as a requirement for being a good person or as a way to prevent evil in the world from affecting him. The evil and suffering is going to exist, regardless of what you wear. There is no need to carry shame around because others are making poor choices in their interactions with you, or with the images of you.

When my son is old enough to talk, if he expresses to me that he wants the photos taken down, I will respect his wishes. He is the master of his own body, and nobody else can tell him what he is or is not comfortable with, or whether he should or should not be ashamed of himself. The best I can do is set an example of my own values, and make sure he knows that I love him no matter who he becomes or what he believes.... and teach him that the thoughts and actions of others are the responsibility of no one but themselves.

It's been a while...

Luca's second year of life is starting out great. Fall is here, our favorite season. Luca wakes up each morning and points to the record player, grunting and whining until we put on music. Some of his favorite records are Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, The Beatles' Revolver, Chopin Polonnaises, Handel's Water Music...

After a month of terrible teething symptoms with a major sleep regression (back to waking crying every two hours), Luca has THREE new teeth cutting through (one being a molar!!).

He loves waving and saying "bye", saying "boom" when he throws things, and pointing to various facial features while we say their names (or finding face parts when we ask him). He is getting pretty good at using a fork and spoon. He loves giving kisses to family members and to his special friends, Danielle and Leo. Every morning I wake up to him looking at my face or giving me a big wet kiss!

Speaking of Danielle, she has taken some great pictures of Luca lately. My camera is broken and has been for several months, meaning the only photos I have are from the iPhone. Leo and Luca have lots of play dates together, for fun or for building houses.

They did this all by themselves:

Photo by Danielle.

This is the Luca we know!

Photo by Danielle.


Photo by Danielle.


Photo by Danielle.

Luca eating black beans from Elmo's, his favorite food:


Luca's first pumpkin! Though it's his second Halloween.


The first Halloween, he was too little to do anything. This year, we plan to take him to HallowEno, at the Eno River!

Brushing his teeth:


Luca loves looking at himself in the iPhone.

Happy Birthday, Luca!!

Yesterday, August 9th 2012, was Luca's first birthday. He had the same cake that my mom made for all of us when we turned one... from the LLL cookbook. It's mostly carrots, pineapple and honey! He ate a whole piece.



Before kids, most people have had hard days, where they were ill yet had to go to work anyways, or they didn't get enough sleep; it's easy to think "I know what hardship is, I know a baby will make life harder. That's the price you pay for all that joy, right?  I'll manage." But somehow it didn't occur to me that every day was going to be hard. I don't know why. Overly hopeful optimism as some sort of poorly evolved coping mechanism?

 What didn't happen, after I had Luca, was truly accepting that life is now harder. I always thought in the back of my mind that parenthood wouldn't be hard for me, because 1) my marriage was invincible 2) my parenting would be better than everyone else's 3) my baby would have a personality like my own or my husband's. None of these things turned out to be true. I do have a strong marriage, and we work hard (with less energy and less time than we had before) to keep it that way, but that didn't mean it was invincible. I think I am a great parent, but I'm not the parent I thought I would be, and I don't think my parenting choices are better than anyone else's. My baby does NOT have either of our personalities- he is entirely his own person. He's a very demanding, sensitive, and exhausting person. But he's also sweet, silly, and inquisitive.  

I always thought that I would love breastfeeding. My mother and all women I knew talked about it only with positivity. But it really has not been an overwhelmingly positive experience for me. It hurt like hell for the first 3-4 months. I spent a lot of time during those early months crying while watching my husband get to sleep, next to me. I have D-MER, which causes me to have a dopamine crash with every milk let down (I feel anxious, sad, and angry whenever I nurse). He bites. Food proteins leaking into my breast milk forced me onto a very restricted elimination diet for several weeks, and he continued to have blood in his stool several times a week for still-unexplained reasons. Because he screamed in the car, we hardly ever left the house until he was about 8 months old.

The biggest adjustment was allowing sleep deprivation to become the new norm. I'm still getting used to this. I'm still a little resentful that I don't have an easy baby, who would sleep at night or nap consistently during the day. Everything is so hard when you're tired. It's so easy to loose sight of anything good in life when you're so, so tired.  I really don't think it would be safe for me to operate a car without caffeine. I certainly can't function at work without it. 

I always thought I would be a stay-at-home mom and that I would love it. Turns out, being home all the time is a recipe for ultimate insanity for me… and I couldn't afford it anyways, Even with government medicaid and the support of my family.  Contrary to what I had imagined, I actually enjoy having some time away from Luca during the week. I really do think it allows me to be a better mother.

The one thing I don't miss is "free time". There is nothing that resembles free time in my life anymore, and I don't really care. I feel like nothing I do is a waste of time, which feels good. If I pick a book to read, it's one that is really worth my time and energy (and along those lines, I don't play computer games anymore because they are a complete waste of time and energy). Any moments we have away from the baby are used to try and frantically complete a few things on our to-do list, and it's suddenly fun do do things like call the dentist (without being interrupted). It's nice to appreciate life for what it is, rather than wish I had more time to waste doing "fun" things. 

Having a child is a sort of ego death- you flail around for a while, trying desperately to hang on to who you used to be and who you are used to being. That flailing is more painful than anything you are actually going through in reality. But pretty soon, you learn to be groundless again and the second you do, you get your footing back. Your new role as a part-time martyr isn't that bad.

I've learned that love is an ever-flowing undercurrent, that you can always access, if you relax and allow yourself to stop resisting. I still don't know if I will remember this first year of Luca's life fondly (or if I will ever find the bravery and selflessness to have another child), but I know that as a person I have changed for the better… and I have no regrets anymore. 

Now that he is 1 year old, I feel like Luca is an extension of myself, and a natural, normal part of my life… and I can't imagine my life without him. 

Happy first birthday, Luca!!