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.

Ever have one of those weeks where it all just keeps on coming, and all you can do to survive is dream about vacations you’ll never be able to afford because all of your money from here til the end of time will be going towards your house and hospital bills?

I knew you would understand.

We have roots. The kind that get into your septic pipes, not the kind that make Jimmy Fallon think he’s actually kinda cool. So there goes a few thousand dollars.

And Matt shot his finger with a nail from his nailgun, so we were in the ER last night. He barely winced, which started a whole conversation about what a great EMT he would make. Guy’s made of steel. Meanwhile I was shaking like a leaf.

But before he was maimed he did this:

From Daily Daguerreotype

Which, frankly, is the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. I spend a lot of time in my kitchen because cooking (and subsequently eating) is my favorite hobby. So I’ve spent a lot of time bent over this sink gazing into the ugly and dusty window gaps that are now beautifully covered!

When his finger has healed, and he feels up to picking up that nasty wasty nailgun again, he’ll add the top of the window trim that looks something like the top of these doors:

From Daily Daguerreotype

And then we’ll caulk, prime & paint her up, strip the window hardware, repaint the window, and it will be ready for the little curtain I plan on making.

It’s been a helluva weekend, but somehow just typing about these home renovations and our future plans has cheered me up.

That’s sick.

But I’m not sure what I would say.

I don’t know if this is the four month growth spurt or just something that happens when a kid turns four months old and suddenly they’re all “You can’t force me to sleep, Milk Lady!” We are just in a stage where my daughter is getting more complex and harder to read. And I feel like I haven’t slept in weeks.

My darling turtle who used to sleep through the night and take a few solid naps during the day despite the fact she was the salty sea captain of the Crappy Napper, has been waking up many many many many times nightly out of hunger. And angst. And playfulness. And now she is taking nearly as long to go down for her naps as they wind up being in length. I am trying to switch things up to make it easier on her, while still keeping some semblance of the routine she’s used to. We’re trying to bump back her bedtime to make her more tired during the day. We’re trying to bond her with her snuggly wuggly lion in hopes that he can calm her down, or at least entertain her in her crib. And sometimes I just give up altogether, throw her in the Ergo and take a fourty-five minute walk so that she’ll sleep all the while considering that a mighty fine nap and a good way to eventually fit into my favorite pair of jeans.

I feel like I have the mental strength to tackle these new challenges, but what is really puzzling me is the lack of energy I suddenly have. It’s taken four months, but my body is finally back to normal – in the sense that I no longer ache along my incision, I have regained feeling in my stomach, and all those ligaments that moved around during pregnancy seem to have gone back to their normal places. I am working out more than ever before, but am not getting all the energy I’m supposed to with that. I think my exhaustion is a combination of saying goodbye to those marvellous pregnancy hormones that make each new mom into a veritable Superman, and the lack of sleep that is finally catching up with me.

Sleep.

And so I’m trying to slow down on the booking of fun things and amp up my time at home with hopes that Penny and I both can get a bit more rest. I’m also trying to just let go and follow her lead during this time of change. It makes sense that she is having trouble sleeping now that she can nearly sit up on her own and wants to constantly be petting the dog or throwing toys on the ground. Life awake has become much more fun. For her and for me.

But how do I survive until the waters calm and we fall back into a new routine? What are your tips, seasoned moms?

Since we bought this house about a year ago I have gradually been nesting in various rooms of the house, but was mainly focused on the construction and renovations that we were taking on. I made most of our rooms livable, but I was constantly dreaming of the day when we wouldn’t have drywall dust or muddy plumber tracks on our floors, and I could finally hang up curtains in the living room.

This past weekend we finally got around to buying a piano – our Christmas ’09 gift to each other. We had hoped to find a cruddy old thing on Craigslist that sounded good but needed a facelift so we could paint it bright yellow. Don’t ask – something about our passionate love for Elton John. But instead we found a great deal on a nearly new (10 years old!) piano in great shape, so on Saturday we drove down to Murfreesboro with the very helpful Roberts brothers and moved the piano into our living room.

The look is a bit more formal than what I’m going for in the living room, but I can make it work. Having the piano has finally lit the fire under my butt to get the room looking a bit better, so I have ordered my curtain fabric online and can’t wait to get my drapes made. Yesterday while out browsing with Penny I fell IN LOVE with a clearance upholstered armchair and ottoman at HomeGoods which sparked the typical reaction that happens when I fall in love with things.

I couldn’t pass it up. And I wanted to buy it to replace Matt’s chair (The Dragon Throne) which we bought on the cheap under false pretenses a few years ago, and I have nearly-hated ever since.

But anyone who has ever tried to replace a man’s Dragon Throne will tell you that it is worse than pulling a cat’s teeth. It’s worse than having your house burn down. Nay, even worse than seeing an enormous cricket on your cutting board on the countertop. (Yes, the horrors belong in that order.)

Typically Matt doesn’t put  up much of a fight with my design choices. He might roll his eyes or give me a dubious glance, but he has learned to trust me and, in the end, be amazed. But replacing his Dragon Throne with this lovely, shapely, Danish modern chair was not going to happen. Regardless of the ottoman and my puppy eyes.

Even so, I made the purchase and spent last night moving furniture around in the room to see how we could accommodate both chairs as a compromise. I tried. I tried really hard. And I love having two armchairs as well as the sofa for extra seating.

Except I don’t want one of those armchairs to be Matt’s current Dragon Throne. I want the Dragon Throne to live upstairs in the den… and…

Now I want to get another chair.

With a few more aches, pains and divorce papers, I hope to have our living room up and running in the next month or so. Just in time for us to have to move everything around again to put up a Christmas tree.

Because… CHRISTMAS!

This weekend we found ourselves in New Jersey introducing Penny to Matt’s family and enjoying the fruits of Penny’s Pops’ clambake. It was outstanding.

Don’t believe me?

Visual proof:

Penny did a great job flying and being in a new place all weekend, and handled the festivities well with only minor meltdowns. I was awfully proud of her. But frankly, I was proudest of myself.

You see, on Saturday night we left her with my mother-in-law and sister-in-laws so Matt and I could go out to dinner to celebrate our six year anniversary. It was my first time leaving her with anyone other than Matt and for longer than two hours or so. Fortunately, she was in the very capable hands of an allergist’s nurse, a pediatric nurse practitioner, and a therapist for the criminally insane. Which really gave her maniacal alter ego free reign to go all Winnie the Pooh on the nearest jug of peanut butter, should it wish.

I got a little verclempt walking out the door, but as soon as we were in the car listening to some Genesis, I relaxed and proceeded to thoroughly enjoy the company of my best friend at the restaurant where we celebrated our very first wedding anniversary. I ate all of the sinfully delicious delicacies that I swore off during pregnancy including clams and oysters on the half shell and a filet mignon still mooing. Penny only came up in conversation briefly, but other than that we had a great time just being with each other alone.

I’m glad I did it. I’m glad I can be away from her for a few hours so early in her life without turning into a basketcase. I want my daughter to be independent and confident. I consider this first night out as the first step towards making sure she never moves home after college.

Letting go has hit me with full force in another way this week. My special friend has returned. I suppose it is the price to pay for a little nugget who sleeps well at night, but I was not at all ready to welcome it back into my life. And I was not at all ready for the shakeup it would cause to my milk supply. I’m desperately pushing through it to make sure I can continue breastfeeding, but since Thursday I have had to give Penny two bottles of formula.

Yes, the first bottle had me sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor crying.

I’ve already mentioned that I’m not outrageously passionate about breastfeeding, but I guess I expected to be able to wean her when I wanted and how I wanted, not to be stuck in a moment with a hungry baby and nothing to give her. I should have known better.

I could be a purist and just make Penny feed every thirty minutes or so until things kick back into place, but I hate seeing her hungry. So I have resolved to give her formula when I don’t have enough milk for her and to pump 24/7 instead. And you know what? It’s not going to kill her even though it’s killing a teeny tiny little piece of me.

Because I know this letting go is good for me, because I want to be a chill and laid-back mom, I am choosing to roll with the punches and keep smiling.

But that doesn’t mean I didn’t totally reorganize my linen closet and kitchen cabinets today to have something I could control. Boo-ya!