"Beat up the baby"

So today at the park I was letting Perrin play around, meaning: cruise around on the playground equipment and attempt to eat handfuls of wood chips every time I took my eyes off of her.   Up runs a little boy, who starts climbing around near her, saying something over and over.  "Beam up the baby." No, that's not it.  "Be the baby." No. [Listening closer...]  "Beat up the baby.  Beat up the baby.  Beat up the baby."  Seriously, little six year old was climbing around chanting, yes chanting, "Beat up the baby."  That is the only thing he would say.  Over and over and over...  "Ok Perrin! [big smile that shows nothing is amiss] Time to go home!"  I'd like to hear that kid's story. 

~

Joseph gets home from Mexico tomorrow!  He has been there for 6 days in Merida training nurses in a dialysis clinic.  This is nothing to my productivity for the week which involved keeping the baby alive and replacing our 2nd hand armchair from LensCrafters with a 2nd hand armchair from Craig's List.  It is a futon chair my friends; YES A FUTON CHAIR!  Who knew these things even existed!  Of course you have to be 7 years old or younger to be able to sleep on the thing---BUT IT'S A FUTON CHAIR!  Anyway, I like it and it only cost me $15.  

So as for our family news...I am going back to work for 4 days a week starting on the 5th, and Joseph has officially worked his last day in the office with Davita, AND, Perrin's 1st day of day care is the 12th.  Thing are really changing for all three of us, and I really think it will make us all happier.  It has been a tough year in the Clere-Callis household.  Some change is pretty welcome at this point to be honest.  Joseph gets to pursue his passion of working daily with tongue depressors [that's what Doctors do, right?], I get to again have a more multifaceted daily life, and Perrin gets to socialize with some other children and learn all the good curse words from them, as they are twice as old as her.  2 year olds know all the good curse words.

I don't mean to say that being a stay-at-home parent is lame and one dimensional.  Lots of people are able to do that work and not lose themselves, turning into only "mother" or "father."  But I personally just have such a hard time turning off my "mom" mode, and have done a poor job still being myself.  I know that going back to work at LensCrafters isn't exactly going to sooth my soul and allow me to be my best self, but it will get me out of the house where I only have to worry about my own actions for about 8 hours, 4 days a week.  I will also get to talk to other adults as much as I want to---which for those of you who know me [meaning everyone, as I'm pretty sure my blog following is my sister and my mother] this means maybe a few muttered words every couple of hours, as I am a big hater of the human race, which all of my co-works will surely be a part of.  

 ~

I was shopping at the Goodwill the other day and bought this t-shirt for myself because I liked the graphic on it and it happened to be my size.  I wore it over to Tara and Jeff's house and Jeff was like, "You like 'Pretty Lights?'"  And this is where, if I was a quick thinker on my feet I would have said, "Oh yeah, they are super cool.  Love that band." But then I would have been wrong, because it's not a band.  Evidently Pretty Lights is a DJ, or something, who is from here in Denver---and I guess he is supposed to be pretty cool.  Yep, that's the kind of hip I am...inadvertently hip.   

It's funny the roller coaster of "cool" one goes through in ones life. When you are an adolescent, I think everyone feels un-cool--maily due to the fact that everyone's armpits are starting to smell.  Then you get into your early 20's and you realize that there isn't just one kind of cool and you definitely feel like you are, in this unique way.  Then you get into your 30's [ok, maybe I am just speaking for myself] and you realize in some random moment while you are talking to some younger, more interestingly dressed person [who probably doesn't go to bed before 11pm], and they are saying, "You know, *[insert quirky band name]?  They are playing at the bla bla theater Saturday."  Then I say, "No, I don't know them."  This conversation happens approximately 4 times, and then you have the epiphany.  I am square.

*I realize I have officially gone nuts with the brackets usage in this post.

Zen moment with Perrin.  

"Can you put the food in my mouth while I sleep?"

Home again home again

Here we are, home again.  Part of me wants to recount, day by day, Perrin's Summer Tour 2013 to you because each day of it was wonderful and magical--in big heavy handed ways and tiny ways.  But for some reason I think that would be a little sad for me, not to mention tedious to read. It is hard to switch gears in your heart and head from full family immersion back to family of three life.  I feel back in the stride of things now though, after one weepy--I miss my family why would we ever stay so far away from all of them I love love them--day.

The gist of the whole trip was introducing Perrin to our families.  It was indescribably FULL feeling to see them together.  It felt so right to see her with her extended family that it begs the question, Is it wrong to keep her away from them?  This is not a reasonable question to ask oneself I have decided.  

 

There was a moment on our trip while we were staying at my parent's house that Perrin had woken up in the night crying.  It was about 2:30am and I found myself standing in my childhood bedroom holding my daughter to me while I rocked back and forth, staring up at the glowing star stickers on the ceiling that I had placed there years ago.  I still don't know what that moment meant, but it was captured in my mind like a snap shot.  It made me feel a million miles away from my childhood self, my Martinsville self, but it was also a beautiful full circle moment. 

We got a special kick out of seeing Perrin with her cousin Solaris for the first time.  Since they are just months apart in age, we couldn't wait to see how they would react to each other.  After an initial bonk on the head with a snack cup, Sol took to Perrin pretty darn well I would say.  She even feed Perrin her own pumpernickel rye slice.

 They were darling together.  We miss you sweet Sol!  Perrin also got to meet her cousin Brendan and a few second cousins.  Everyone loved everyone.  It was a big hippie fest.

 

By the way, Perrin just turned 1 this past week. Happy birthday to my girl.  Here she is with her new piano from Aunt Tara and Uncle Jeff.  I love this picture as she is playing the piano just like Tori Amos.

 

 

Picnics, Books, and Bad Attitudes

Yesterday was my birthday celebration picnic in the park, and it was so lovely--a significant improvement upon the gas station burrito on my actual birthday.  Jeff made chicken and veggie kabobs, Joseph and I made an amazing salad with strawberries, almonds, gorgonzola, and red onion with a balsamic & olive oil type dressing that makes eating salad more like eating, well--something way yummier.  (Yes, I am a bit prejudiced against "the salad" as a category.  It is one of my short comings as a grown woman.)  Tara made a beautiful trifle that I finished eating out of the beautiful trifle dish yesterday with a giant serving spoon.  That's pleasure.  

 
We waded in a little creek running through the park, played paddle ball, ate lots of food, drank some champagne to celebrate Tara and Jeff's recent engagement---What!  Yep!  Congratulations Tara and Jeff!  I am happy for you two and happy to see my sister in such a good place in her life.  Love is beautiful, isn't it?

~ 

Joseph just bought two boxes of books for school from a graduating med student.  He got a great deal on them which is terrific.  However, they are not even all of the books he will need.  Then he got many that aren't required, but will be very helpful.  So there they all sat, on our living room floor.  We are just looking at these books, both thinking the same thing.  So I said, "Go ahead, learn that stuff."  Seriously, we are just trying to fathom the amount of information he is going to have to absorb come August.  Open head.  Insert knowledge.  Perrin, being of stronger character than her parents, was not brought up short even for a moment.

We already had more books than bookshelf space, so to Home Depot we went.  As of today we have a brand new six foot long book shelf above our tv in the living room.  We now own riveting titles from, "The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics" to "Rapid Interpretation of EKGs."  Man, I can't wait to get into those.  This is me not being jealous of Joseph.

~

Last night Perrin woke at 11pm and wouldn't go back down without eating.  She has been having some random (but sadly increasingly regular) nighttime wake-ups for the last couple of weeks.  It is generally making me grumpy.  So when the cats started loudly begging for breakfast this morning at 5am, thus waking up Perrin, I was NOT NOT happy.  I hadn't even set my feet on the floor and I had already dropped the F bomb--"Those f!@#$%* cats...grumble, grumble, curse, curse..."  

I don't want to be that angry person.  Cursing at the cats before even getting out of bed for the day seems like a good--let's stop and take stock--moment for me.  Yes J and I have been varying degrees of sleep deprived for 10 months, but, PULL IT TOGETHER.  Anyone with advice on living with sleep deprivation and not turning into a complete A!@#$%^, let me know your best tips.  I really don't want to be that angry cranky person.

 

33

I turned 33 this week.  It feels much like 32--more like a negation--not young, not old.  I'm fine with that.  Joseph and I aren't people to cling to our youth, anyway.  We already enjoy things that will make us happy old people; we like to sit and read, enjoy a nice chair on a porch with good beverage, watch high quality science fiction.

Right now Perrin is napping.  I am out on the balcony resting my coffee on the cooler that has been cast out here since Christmas last week.  It is one of those little sad life facts.  Every time I look out the sliding doors, I see the cooler sitting there and I think about how it has been there for about five months instead of in the garage where it belongs.  For some reason we seem physically unable to clean it out and restore it to it's proper place.  This fact alone does not concern me.  But it does feel like some sort of measuring stick for my general adeptness at life; particularly when I am having a bad day.  Said measuring stick is coming up reading "less than enough."  Humph.  

I think it is this impending job search that has got me feeling crummy.  Really not so impending now; I guess it is time to get serious.  Looking for jobs just makes me feel so incredibly judged--as I'm sure is true for most people.  But instead of motivating me or just pushing through it, I feel completely paralyzed.  Having not interviewed for a job since my college days, the thought of a job interview makes me want to drag my family into the mountains to live like wolves.  If it wasn't for J's pesky career plans...why care for people's health and get paid for it when you could huddle against the cold with your family in the wilderness?  


This Saturday we are celebrating my birthday in the park with a picnic.  Tara is making a vanilla lavender cake trifle.  This is going outside of my normal--chocolate on chocolate--birthday cake request, but I am feeling summery and this sounds wonderful.  I will try to bring you a picture of this creation, as trifle is so pretty!  

The actual day of my birthday J worked from home and took me out to lunch and cupcakes.  It was lovely.  By evening there had been a misunderstanding between us and what was to be a dinner of chicken in mushroom sauce, ended with me eating a gas station burrito and J eating ramen.  The details are not important.  What is important is this lesson:  Be patient with your loved ones.  Usually when there is an argument, it is because of a miscommunication--not because after years with this person they have suddenly--as of today--turned into a complete ass.

One a lighter funnier note, Perrin has discovered the washing machine.  Aaaand she likes it.

 

Irrational

I have been thinking about how parenthood makes people pretty irrational.  The other night I was in bed reading while J was getting ready.  He was opening drawers on his big old wooden dresser that are very heavy and creak like crazy when opened and shut.  All I could think in that moment was...Perrin is going to wake up!  What the hell are you doing?  Why would you be opening those drawers right now except that you want to ruin my night and our baby's sleep.  You hate me and everything that is good and wholesome in this world!  

Of course I said nothing because the poor man was just trying to put on his pajamas.  And concurrent with those thoughts was...This is no way to live.  Chill out.  Neither does my husband hate me, nor everything that is good and wholesome.  Crazy lady.  This is one example of something that happens numerous times a day.  Big things, smaller things...thinking it might be possible for Perrin to choke on a piece of lint she just found on the floor and popped into her mouth and is now chewing.  It can be difficult to relax and keep rational perspective when dealing with your children.  This is something I am going to try to get better about...because poor J.  I don't like to be mean to him in my irrational controlling mom internal dialog.  


Perrin's crawling is progressing slowly.  She seems to sometimes forget that she knows how to do it, so she will just sit and play with what is right around her or roll to something near by.  But when she does go, it sure is fun to see.  Here she is with her first crawling conquest, my camera cord.  

Today we went outside in a little green space right near our house to get some fresh air before nap time.  It is a beautiful 60 degree day and being outside tends to put P in a good mood if things have gotten a little testy.  I think with the crawling revelation she is just slightly out of sorts, but sitting out on the blanket in the sunshine made us both feel good.

She crawled!!!!

Perrin officially, no doubt crawled this morning!!!!!  And the timing was wonderful; Joseph hadn't left for work yet and got to see.  Go baby go!!

As of this very moment, she is putting a damper on the excitement of the morning, as she is laying in her crib napping crying.  She doesn't like to dole out the parental joy in too large of doses, as it may inoculate us to her baby charms.  I see the logic.  

Well, she has got to work it out for herself in there for a little while longer, as I am pumping right now in preparation for tomorrow--Joseph and I's anniversary!  He got tickets from his work for us to go see Mary Poppins at the Buell Theater in the afternoon.  Tara is going to babysit--sort of for the first time since the other times Perrin had already gone to bed.  It will be the longest Perrin has been away from both J and I when she was awake.  It will be fine.  It will be fine.  

J and I are really looking forward to going out.  I get to put on a dress, drink an adult beverage somewhere, and then just sit for awhile.  Not to insult the cast of the musical, but the sitting down with out interruption for nearly two hours has a good chance of being the highlight for me, and I really like Mary Poppins.

Ok, time for baby torture to come to an end.  Off I go.

Back to normal

At the Denver Aquarium 

I drove Grandma Callis back to the airport this morning so it is time to get back to our normal routine.  How wonderful to have company that you love and can actually enjoy spending two weeks with.  It is sometimes a bumpy path getting back to our normal weekday routine where Joseph is at work and Perrin and I are a twosome with no Grandma to help me out, play with Perrin, and tidy our kitchen secretly when I am not watching (thank you mom!!).  This just illustrates one of the strange things about the daily task of taking care of a baby.  The days are very monotonous, but yet such small experiences you have with your child or things you observe them doing feel huge and hilarious, and you think you will burst for loving them.  But you don't.  What you do is keep feeding them, keep cleaning them, keep putting them to bed everyday.  The way everyday is monotonous, but at the same time so remarkable, confuses my feelings about being a stay-at-home parent.  

With limited ability to be spontaneous, I feel like my world has gotten much smaller since becoming a parent.  This is tolerable however because it has also gotten so much richer.  I am trying to relax more about Perrin's eating/napping/bedtime schedule.  We were spontaneously asked to an early dinner the other night...and, WE WENT!  We didn't get Perrin to bed early like we should have since she missed a nap that day, but we had fun, she had fun, eating bits off people's sandwiches and drinking water from Grandma's straw (hilarious), and we all survived the day.  The problem for me is feeling like no matter what I do for Perrin, I am probably not doing it right.  When we buck the afternoon nap time and go out on errands or to the library (because I have cabin fever!) I feel guilty for not respecting her schedule, but if I turn down everything that comes up because "it's Perrin's nap time," I feel like one of those parents who drowns themselves in their children's lives and ceases to exist for their own sake.  I hope finding the middle ground becomes easier with time...it must, yes?

As for the happenings while Grandma was in town...we went hiking with Perrin in her new backpack, we went to the Denver Aquarium, bowled, and dressed Perrin up in some of Tara and I's old baby dresses that my mom brought to give to me, aaand discovered that Perrin loves bubbles!  I don't know if she had more fun laughing at them fall or if we had more watching her.

 For months now we have been having diaper rash issues with Perrin.  We have tried different creams, oils, stripped diapers, changed diaper detergent, changed diaper wash cycles, tried disposables, and so on.  Her doctor said she just has really sensitive, dry skin.  We haven't nailed it all down perfectly yet, but her butt is looking less angry--which is good because it was seriously having some scary raging days where it just made you sad to see her little bottom.  

Here are the three things that are helping us--I think.  

1. No more coconut oil!  Parents on-line had raved about coconut oil, especially for cloth diapered babies.  We used it for a good while and didn't even consider that something so natural could be bothering her.  But I put the jar away last week and switched to olive oil (moisturizing and safe for cloth diapers).  This seems to be a good thing for her.

2. We stopped using disposable wipes.  I always bought sensitive skin, non-scented wipes, but they still have alcohol in them, plus ingredients that I don't recognize, so that seemed bad.  I got some soft cotton and cut it into squares.  Now when we change her, we spray a mixture of water, olive oil and a bit of tea tree oil on her butt and the cloth wipe, then just toss the wipe in with the dirty diapers to be washed.  This turned out to be much easier than I thought when I heard of folks using cloth wipes.  Secretly I always thought, "Come on! Cloth wipes?  That is overboard!"  But I was wrong.  Simply put, it is easy and cheap!

3. When her bottom is looking red and she is getting itchy from dryness, we are putting oatmeal soak in her bath.  I started out buying the Aveeno oatmeal soak, but it was expensive!  So I looked on-line and you can make your own by literally just finely grinding up oats, period.  Colloidal oatmeal that helps dry skin isn't anything special that you have to buy.  If you have oats, you have colloidal oatmeal--just grind it up to a fine texture and toss it in your bath.

Perrin moment of zen...

                                                                Huh?

Visit from Grandma

"Grandma is coming to town!!!!"

Yep, my mom is coming to visit us for a couple of weeks this Wednesday. I am trying to think of fun Denver things we can do that we haven't already shown her...  I wonder, is 8 mo. too young for Perrin to get any kick out of the Children's Museum...  To be honest, I just really want to go there myself.  There are always fun things to play with and see; now we have the excuse.  "It's my baby--she has been bugging me and bugging me to go see the Children's Museum." 



Joseph recently took Perrin and I on a tour of his med school campus and to see Children's Hospital.  Most buildings on the campus are really new.  The University of Colorado teaching hospital and Children's Hospital are both on campus and were built in 2007. However the 500 building, at the heart of campus, was built in 1941 and used to be an old army hospital.  At the time it was the largest structure in Colorado.  President Dwight Eisenhower had a heart attack while visiting Denver in 1955, and was treated in the 500 building, then called Fitzsimons Army Hospital.  He was there recovering for seven weeks.  Now you can go and tour the Eisenhower Suite, which has been restored to just how it looked in 1955.  

Children's Hospital is awesome.  You walk in the lobby, and it looks like a really fun place to be, not a place to fear.  They had children's crafts going on in the lobby, they had a teen lounge, and tons of natural light, especially in the areas were the patients actually stay.  They seem to really want to make it a place where children and their families feel comfortable and not intimidated by that hospital feeling.  There is this great ball machine in the lobby that I could watch for hours--loops, springs, bells, the works.  Sure they probably practice really great medicine there--but the ball machine...I'm tellin' ya...

Thrift store shopping for Perrin the other day turned up a little baby scrub top!  He he he he.  I couldn't resist.  So here is a photo of Perrin Clere-Callis MD.  I want to get a pic of her in it wearing a stethoscope with the end of it in her hand--hilarious.  

Oh! We had sort of a major step with Perrin on Saturday.  She was playing on the floor while Joseph and I anchored her wardrobe to the wall.  We look over and she is on all fours rocking forward and back!  We were so excited--as though she was going to take off like a drag racer all of the sudden.

I am excited for her to crawl, but also thinking how much more vigilant we are going to have to be...  There are all sorts of random things laying on the floor or just a foot up.  I now see everything in terms of the size of a baby throat.  I look around and realize we are swimming in hazards!!  How does anyone live to adulthood!?  So...thank you mom and dad for all the work you did keeping me alive back in the 80's.  Good job--I had no idea.

                                           Zen moment with Perrin.
                                          "Giraffes taste like meat." 

Home from Coldwater

Well, I am back home from the lake in old Clarksville. Simon didn't throw up on the ride home from my parent's house last night so it really set a positive tone for our home coming. (This is noteworthy because he did throw up on the way to their house.)

Joseph and I had a wonderful time in Michigan, as we do every year. There were two additions this year however. Patrick Burke was there for the first time and well, he won me over. He was a good baby which means he let me hold him with out going to the bathroom or spitting up, much. It feels good to connect with a tiny person by holding them; it is the only way to communicate, by touch. Here, Melissa is holding him and he looks like a great cat sleeping in a tree. I am holding him in the other pic.


This is the fruit pizza my mom, Joseph and I made. The picture looks like wall paper in Willy Wonka's factory that you could lick and taste the fruits.

Introducing Sarah's birthday puppy. Her proper name is Sparkle Oreo, but Joseph and I have supplemented it for a more regal fitting sound, deeming her Sparkle Jaws Oreo Dyer I (the first). I must say, she was quite a toe nibbler- and I just loved her.

Also, Uncle Jack and Aunt Tammy have gotten kayaks recently and we took those out to Lost Lake. It's a lake that motorized boats can't access because the channel that leads to it is only a few inches deep. This makes it a serene spot where you can catch sightings of some wild life not noticed on the rest of the lake. Joseph and I saw two swans with their baby. As we were paddling out, one of the adult swans flapped across the lake at us saying, "and stay out!" I think. But he was beautiful.
Oh, also we saw a turtle that we slowly paddled toward, so carefully, so gently, so that he would stay above the water where we could see him better. We iiiinched closer. It was a plant. Drat.

Well, I am thinking about going to see a matinee of Transformers this afternoon. Yep, that's right. And you know you want to too. It takes me back to the days when my brother had a transformer toy and I could never make it into whatever it was supposed to transform to. But I could however have my barbie ride on the back of his Heman Battle Cat action figure. She was a little big for a realistic match, but then again, the cat was green with orange stripes and helped to fight evil, so I guess I was willing to let the realism go.