Penny will be six months next week. It blows my mind. She is soooo much fun at this stage, and for the first time ever I’m really starting to wish time would stop.

She’s eating solids and loves everything. Rice cereal, sweet potatoes, acorn squash, the occasional banana, and pears. She’s in 6-9 month clothes with the length getting iffy on some of those pants. She’s taking good naps and is back to sleeping through the night. Her first tooth just came through on the bottom middle! She can sit up, she can roll over, and she loves playing with noisy toys now.

We had a really fun weekend celebrating Christmas with my parents and sisters’ family in town. Penny absolutely loved watching and playing with my sisters’ kids, and they were so good at playing gently and including her. Next week we’ll see the other side of the family, and I know she’s gonna love interacting with Matt’s nieces and nephews as well.

Our days have been busy hosting parties and guests, but this week it has started to calm down and we are back to the usual – laundry, errands, a trip to the library and out to pick up Matt’s Christmas gift. She continues to be great when I drag her all over kingdom come, although she hates riding in her carseat, which will make our drive to NJ next week very interesting.

For every rough night we have had in the past month with constipation and teething and growth spurts, we have three or four fabulous days together, and I still can’t believe how blessed I am to have her as my daily companion. When I realize that I am halfway to my breastfeeding goal (if I can make it that long! UGH!), I realize how quickly this first year really flies by. I have a feeling the second half will speed by even faster than the first with all her many upcoming milestones.

And as for her smile, well it just melts me.

From Daily Daguerreotype

Yesterday I dropped Mojo off at a shelter. It had nothing to do with the fact that this weekend Penny started teething full-on. Ok, it might have. But really I have been jonesing to find him a new home for about six months now.

I cried like a baby when I dropped him off, which the lovely lady working that miserable job was quite sensitive to. This was the epitome of logical decisions, something I am infamous for rarely making, and at the very end my impulsive, emotional side wanted to snatch him back and drive home with him coddled in my arms. But I didn’t. I just drove home crying, and drowning my sorrows in an iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts (they never taste as good down here) which I ordered via the drive-in window with my sunglasses hiding my tear-streaked face.

I gave him a home for the past seven years until our love/hate relationship eventually soured to the point where he needed a new forever home. For the first few years I was fine cleaning up after him daily, but then we got a dog that was actually more low-maintenance than our cat, and I started to reconsider his place in our family. And then we had a baby. No matter how hard I tried she still shoved chunks of cat fur into her gullet every day, and I dreaded the day she learned to crawl.

I have lived 28 years and only four of them were lived without a cat. Ok, a few more than that, but only four where I actually had to clean up after myself. And it was in college, during which I was certainly not very tidy. Yesterday and today I have been scouring our home cleaning up the cat fur from every imaginable surface, and reveling in the thought that in the future I will merely be cleaning up dust… not clingy white fur. I can wear black again. I can sleep at night without a ball between my ankles. I can stumble to the bathroom in the middle of the night without stepping on a fresh, wet hairball.

In other words… I could get used to a cat-less existance.

If I can ever get over my guilt.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my daughter isn’t sleeping for the second week in a row! Last week it was constipation, this week it’s teething. She is so miserable, and my heart breaks for her. Orajel doesn’t seem to do anything since I’m guessing the pain is deep in her gums. So last night I started her on infant Tylenol and some homeopathic thing which is like The! Best! Thing! Ever!!!! And we both got a little bit of sleep. The timing of it all, in the midst of holiday fun and business, is really almost comical, and I keep telling myself that if this stress continues much longer the inevitable upswing is gonna rock my face off. I mean, eventually things are going to get So! SO! GOOD! Right!?

Post cut short. She’s crying, and I’ve gotta go.

I always hesitate writing blog posts on mothering because I have a large audience of mothers, most of whom are mothers of many kids all grown up and 90 years old after attending Ivy League schools and giving back to society in great ways. So my twenty-eight year old foray into motherhood with a teeny tiny five-month old turtle must seem awfully ridiculous to them.

But I love the supportive community of motherhood so much, that I very much want to share what I’m thinking or learning through the process. So when I hesitate to write these blog posts I push through it imagining that those same idyllic mothers do not take recycling seriously. Idyllic non-recycling mothers, I JUDGE YOU. SEPARATE YOUR PAPERS AND PLASTICS!

I also hesitate to write openly about my spirituality because I have a vast audience of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists and Atheists. Perhaps there is a Muslim out there in the crowd!? Wouldn’t that be wonderful! Not only do I want to be very respectful of where YOU are coming from, I also have a personal rule of drawing certain lines. Despite the fact that I might seem to over-share in certain ways, my spirituality is the core of who I really am, and I tend to only share that with a select few people. Typically offline. In fact, most of those people don’t even read my blog. They don’t know what blogs are. By not sharing my spiritual beliefs online, I get to preserve that very beautiful and intimate part of my life and share it only with the realest and truest of my friends.

But I’m tossing all of that aside for this post because I haven’t slept in days. And yesterday I had Taco Bell for lunch even though I am on a diet. Rules!? What?! I’ve thrown them all out with yesterday’s bathwater in which Penelope peed.

We had a marvelous Thanksgiving. For five days straight I ate somebody else’s food, dirtied somebody else’s house, and took long showers while somebody else played with my kid. It was extraordinarily relaxing.

And then we came home.

At first I thought Penelope’s strange and fussy behavior was because of our red-eye flights and lack of sleep. Then I thought it was because she missed all the action and attention (“Grandparent Deprivation Syndrome” as my mother refers to it). And then I thought it was because of the strange balance of solids and formula and breastmilk that I’m trying to feed her in order to get her enough calories to sleep at night. And then yesterday it dawned on me that she hadn’t pooped since Sunday.

Come to find out, rice cereal and bananas and formula, all things that she had been eating over the past few days, lead to constipation. And every mother out there will understand what I mean when I say that I melted down with guilt. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! I SHOULD HAVE GOOGLED THIS!

I read that pears would help with the constipation, and providentially I had picked up organic pears while at the grocery store on Monday that were just now perfectly ripe. (Yes, I’m only giving her organic fruits and veggies right now because it’s the one thing in a million that I can actually control… a little bit.) In the past 20 hours or so she has devoured an entire pear and loved every bite of it. And just a few hours ago finally pooped, had some milk, and is napping soundly.

All of this to say I was melting down yesterday with exhaustion and frustration and the realization that motherhood is SO not for perfectionists. And even though I am only one half of a percentage point perfectionistic, that one half was screaming very, very loudly. My house is a mess. Literally, there are leaves and pine needles and mud all over my floors from the Christmas tree and the dog. And if there is one thing I am anal about it’s my floors. My kid was crying constantly even when I danced around singing Christmas carols in my best Burl Ives voice. I could do nothing right.

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks that I hadn’t once sat down to pray about my frustration. And so I did. And I got back to square one.

I think everyone has a square one – the one thing that drives all of their parenting. The one thing they hope to accomplish with their kid. Perhaps they want Judy to become president, or to marry a nice guy, or to not get knocked up in high school. Whatever it is, their battles and the way they choose to fight them comes back to square one.

I decided my square one a few days after Penny was born and I was riding high on the spiritual and hormonal journey of childbirth. I decided that the ONLY thing I wanted for Penelope was that she intimately know God, and that her life would reflect Him. I realized I couldn’t control if she was diagnosed with something, or became a convict, or God forbid was taken from me. And the only thing I wish to do is to create an environment in which she can observe a life that is driven by knowing God.

So yesterday when I sat down and got back to square one I realized my floors were ridiculous. And my Googling was ridiculous. And my attempts at making all the right decisions were ridiculous. And I just prayed til I was blue in the face that God would please help my baby poop. That He would take away her discomfort. That the pears would work.

Another rough night with very little sleep, another rough morning with a fussy baby and a face full of pears. And then one heck of a poopy diaper.

This post is ridiculously long. I’ll wrap it up by saying, why, oh why, does it take me so long to get back to square one? Why do I spend so much effort stressing and researching and trying to make the best parenting decisions all on my own when the answer is right in front of me? The answer being that the only strength or wisdom I could ever have with which to mother my child comes directly from my Creator… when I ask for it. That the only way I can hope to show her a life that is driven by intimately knowing Him is to let my faith be proven despite the circumstances.

I am so humbled today. Ironic as it’s the beginning of the Advent season, and I have been thinking a lot of how blessed Mary must have felt to be the mother of Jesus. How blessed I am to be Penelope’s mother. How blessed I am to receive grace from God. And how blessed I will be if she knows Him intimately.

Today my tiny turtle turns five months old. This month might have been the most fun because she’s changed so dramatically in the past thirty days.

We started her on solid foods this month, and so far she is digging white rice cereal (hated the organic brown rice I tried to shove down her throat… go figure), bananas and squash. Next week I’m going to start her on sweet potatoes.

She can sit up unassisted for a few minutes now, but then falls over and is quite miserable. Each morning I have her practice sitting in her crib surrounded by pillows, and she seems to really enjoy being able to look out at the world.

My pediatrician chided me for not being more persistent about tummy time. Looks like my kid might roll back to front before front to back.

She is totally digging the dog, and the dog is totally digging her. Each morning when Berlin and I go to get Penny out of her crib there is much squeeing and wagging of tails. Berlin licks Penny from head to toe which seems to delight both of them. I am so happy Turtle is going to have a pup to grow up with.

The sleeping and napping seems to be getting slowly better now that she’s getting more solids in her. I am pretty hopeful that we’ll have a more recognizable schedule within the next few months.

And now for gratuitous pictures…

From Daily Daguerreotype

From Daily Daguerreotype

From Daily Daguerreotype

From Daily Daguerreotype

I don’t really know how to slowly ease my way into this post, so I’m just going to jump in. I’m still fleshing all of this out, so it will wind up being a brain dump that is not at all well thought out. Forgive me.

It’s hitting me like a ton of bricks. An understanding of my mom, and my sisters who are moms, and all the other moms I’ve ever bumped into. I remember looking at my mom thinking she was crazy because she poured her life into my sisters and me. Then when she became an empty nester she just found other people to pour her life into. What about pouring her energy into doing what SHE wanted?

And then my sisters – both stay at home moms. They talk of eventually going back to work after their kids are in school, but I could never really understand why they would just want to stay home with their kids and not have their own thing – a career – all for them.

And now I understand. Because pouring all of your energy into someone else, yes, can be draining. But you get so much more out of it than you ever get out of just pouring your energy into yourself. I wake up every day and live my day for Penny. Nearly everything is wrapped around what is best for her, what will grow her, what will challenge her, what will give her a warm, safe, loving home. I’m no longer all that interested in doing things to make me smile… I just want to see her smile.

It’s hitting me like a ton of bricks because I used to think people who lived like this were weird. I would get together with friends for coffee and they would sit and talk about their kids nonstop. I wondered what happened to their depth when kids came along. Where were the deep philosophical and political conversations we used to have? Suddenly I was just sitting listening to them talk about spit-up and poopy diapers. It seemed so weird.

But now I see that when you’ve gotten a taste of living your life for somebody else, you never ever ever want to go back to just living for you.

I thought I’d crave date night. I thought I’d crave girls night. I thought I’d crave time to sit and paint my toenails. But I don’t. I would rather spend a Friday night at home with my family watching Matt tickling Penny and making her giggle. It’s far superior to the latest blockbuster.

I’m sure in time she will become more challenging, and I will need more time alone to regroup. But I’m struck by the realization that I don’t feel like I need another identity – another aspect of life that’s just about me and me alone. I’m Penny’s mom and Matt’s wife and that definition is all I need.

Weird. It’s just weird. I never ever ever thought I’d enjoy it like this.

And I’m realizing that it doesn’t take kids to learn this lesson – they just force it on you. I wish I had learned this lesson when it was just Matt and me. How much more beautiful would those six years of our marriage have been if I had been spending every day pouring myself and my energy into loving and serving him instead of serving myself? It could have been really cool. And I can start doing that today, but it will be a bit more difficult since I have more balls to juggle in the air. Good thing we’ve got retirement one day.

I used to think my mom was kinda crazy pouring herself into us kids, then her own mom, and now her grandkids with very little energy directed to herself. And now I see that she can’t go back because pouring your life into other people is far more fulfilling. And man, do I respect her for that.

I’ve lost my own identity, and I never want it back.