12/6/23



________________________


12/10/23


the baby wants me to hold her for this nap so i am obliging.


i freaking spilled a pouch of breast milk that took me half an hour to pump. i hate pumping so much. but if i want to do things away from the baby for more than 2-3 hours, then i have to have milk to give her in case she gets hungry while i’m away.


i knew i wanted to breastfeed, but before i started i did not realize just how much it physically tied you to your baby. i remember being pregnant and thinking “i’m looking forward to having my body back to myself.” but it’s been 5.5 months since i gave birth, and it’s still not over yet because i’m breastfeeding. she still very much relies on my body even though she is outside of it. i still have to be conscientious of my caffeine and alcohol intake too. that part is probably good for me.


don’t get me wrong, i really love breastfeeding itself. i’m really proud of myself for sticking with it. for me, it’s so much easier than preparing a bottle and washing parts all the time. always perfectly heated, perfect amount, never spoiled, free of charge, tailored specifically to her health needs. it’s such a lovely bonding time between us too. i’ll be sad when i’m done, but relieved too.


i’ll wean her when she’s 1-year-old and can drink normal whole milk. she would need formula if we stopped before then, and that’s expensive and seems like a whole thing i would have to learn how to deal with that i don’t want to learn, lol. (nothing wrong with formula at all, just that breastfeeding makes more sense for us at this point.) i always thought that breastfeeding could stop once babies started solid foods, but turns out solid foods are more just for funsies and exploration rather than nutrition, so they still primarily rely on milk until 12 months.


i’m burning crazy calories from breastfeeding. i’m hungry all the time, but i weigh less than i did before i was pregnant. bodies are wild. so weird how these things affect people so drastically differently and it’s something you can’t control at all.


i still feel icked out because a co-worker said i “had a perfect pregnancy” because my bump was small and i “looked great the whole time and after too.” i need to work out why it made me feel so icky…


she definitely meant it as a compliment but it had the opposite effect. what if my symptoms were the same, and the baby came out just as healthy, but i had gained more weight? would it not have been a perfect pregnancy then? what if my next pregnancy i’m a lot bigger? would it then not be a “perfect pregnancy”? i hate that she said it in front of other women who are already mothers (and women who one day want to be mothers), too. that kind of comment insults their pregnancy experiences and appearance if it was/would be any different than mine. who is she to deem any other person’s pregnancy as “perfect”? what if someone felt good about their experience, and then heard that comment and felt bad about having gained weight? just such a thoughtless thing to have said.


(side note: honestly, i wish i had been bigger because people couldn’t even tell i was pregnant and would make comments about how small my bump was all the time. it made me [and my husband!] worry about the baby’s development. i was jealous of people who were clearly pregnant at 5 or 6 months. made me feel like i didn’t “earn” my pregnancy. which is wild, because i definitely was pregnant and gave birth and my size did not determine whether that was earned. no person should feel like they have an imperfect pregnancy because of size and weight!!)


the same kind of thing happened when my delivery doctor complimented the fact that i didn’t have stretch marks and said how bad she felt for women who did have them. um??? why are you commenting on your patients’ bodies??? no one can help if they get stretch marks—it’s genetic. why invite comparison? why imply that it’s such a negative? women are trying so hard to break the stigma of stretch marks. they are completely normal and women are still beautiful with or without them. ugh. another icky “compliment.”


comments about appearance at all always invite comparison. even comparison to our past or future selves, which can be tough. and no one ever needs more comparison!!!!! goes to show that commenting on anyone’s appearance, whether “positive” or negative, is always not good!!!! only exceptions are things people can easily change or have control over, like their hair or clothes or makeup. i think that, most of all, is why i felt icked out over those “compliments”—because i had no control over those things (weight, stretch marks), and i very well could have gone the other way and then had been on the receiving end of their judgement.


this turned into an unexpected tangent. glad i sorted out those feelings though.


11:21pm

late nights


i have officially started my stay-home-motherhood and it is lovely. it is so wonderful to not have to dread going to work or school the next day. i can just focus on my baby girl. i haven’t had this since my maternity leave.


one similarity between this time and my leave is that this is kind of like a holiday break for me. my husband and i are going to sit down and make a schedule together of things we would like done around the house on a weekly basis. we’ll start the new schedule in the new year. then it will be like starting my official “job.” i’m looking forward to it but i am also nervous. i am homemaking-inclined in the sense of mothering and cooking, but not as much when it comes to cleaning & chores. not to blame it all on my parents, but i never had to do any chores growing up at all. so they’re all relatively new skills that i learned in my adult life and i do not have a great relationship with them (i hate them). but i’m hoping that when framed as my “job” i can buck up and do what i need to do, rather than, say, trying to vacuum after a day of work or on my day off.


an unfortunate side effect of not needing to report anywhere the next day—i have reverted to my night owl tendencies (like i have done on every single holiday break of my entire life). my natural inclination is to stay up until 2am and sleep until 10am. this is not sustainable nor possible with a baby. i have mostly been doing the staying up part but not the sleeping in part, and i am so tired. so so tired. i need to start going to bed at 9pm again.


the baby is napping longer now occasionally which is wonderful. but you still cannot tell if it’ll be a 35-45 minute nap, or an hour-and-45 minute nap. i am trying to sleep when she sleeps but it is either ill-timed or i feel too guilty for it (bc i should be doing other things instead).


i have been tutoring a high school kid in AP English on a weekly basis and it’s taking up a good amount of my time. i have to read what he reads and then read and edit his papers and then type up a document of feedback to organize my thoughts for our virtual sessions. it’s nice working at the high school level again though. i have been working mostly with 5th-6th grade for too long.


been teaching a weekly improv class too. it’s so fun. they’re 6th-8th graders, mostly 7th. wild how kids can be such a huge range of personalities within the same elective—from the hammiest of hams, to making the bare minimum amount of sound.


my improv shows have been going well too. four out of six complete; just have the next two saturday nights. the improvised christmas carol one went really well and was very fun. very happy to feel good about that one.


ok i should go to bed

night xx


__________________


12/13/23


10:31pm

long day


tired. she didn’t sleep the best last night. i wonder if sleep coaching will actually work. will start on the 30th, after all our evening social commitments for the month are done. supposed to dedicate 3 weeks to the process.


my mom came over to watch her this morning. she took over putting her down for a nap and she only slept for 30 minutes. ugh. she had such great naps yesterday, over an hour each. i wonder if it was just because of me or other reasons why it was so different yesterday.


went grocery shopping while my mom watched the baby. finished steve martin’s audiobook born standing up. i liked it a lot. apparently he has two other books that he reads for the audiobook—will have to check those out. shopped at aldi and then went to our local grocery store chain for whatever i didn’t find at aldi (specifically salad dressing for the salad on sunday).


yesterday i had her try on her baptism outfit to see if it would fit her this upcoming sunday. she looks so beautiful in it, a little angel. she looks beautiful all the time. but white lace really makes her look cherubic. i unexpectedly love her white squishy slipper shoes that make her look like she’s wearing two little pillows on her feet.


yesterday, i noticed she had a hair wrapped around one of her little toes so tight that it was swollen and squeezing off the circulation :(((( i managed to get it off (with lots of tears from her), but it left an indentation in her skin all the way around the toe :((((( i am putting ointment on it and watching out for infection.


this is her second real physical injury (first was when my mom knicked her finger tip while trying to cut her nails). it is so distressing. she is so perfect and unblemished, i hate when her perfect little body is harmed by the world. so strange to think how she will have many small injuries like these over her lifetime. i want to protect her from it all. i also have the strange thought of, “i grew that perfect finger! i grew that perfect toe! and now they’re damaged!”


i also went for a stupidly long walk with her to the library today. it was a beautiful sunny but cold day. the walk was 50 minutes each way. and on the way back, i had a ton of heavy books in the stroller, which made it that much harder to push uphill on the way back. that whole time, i thought she would fall asleep and take a nice long nap. but of course she fell asleep 20 minutes from home and then couldn’t fall asleep in her crib.


my husband, baby, and i went to dinner with my (step) brother and mom. it was a good meal and the place we went was very cozy with colorful christmas lights and snowy decorations, and an amazing elderly man playing christmas songs on a keyboard and an accordion at the same time. the waitress gave my brother some sass on top of her somewhat neglectful service and it put him in a bad mood. he very kindly paid for all of us. the baby didn’t fuss until the end when it was clearly past her bedtime after a day of poor sleep. she did so good the rest of the time. so smiley and cute. she is the cutest. she has head-turning cuteness.


i started writing a sketch today for a sketch show i was asked to be in next year. i wish i had read my book instead.


i planned the rest of the improv academy out yesterday and am talking it over with my teaching partner tomorrow morning.


we’ve been watching a lot of everybody loves raymond and eating a lot of chocolate pudding that i make from the box.


i am so tired. but journaling is good i guess. i always write more than i mean to. this is why i like physical journal pages—because they limit me (in a good way).

good night flounder

xx


________________


12/22/23


solstice to solstice


six months ago, on the summer solstice, i was in labor with my baby.


today my husband and i exchanged the birth stories we had written. it was so fun listening to his perspective and reliving that wonderful day.


by morning we will have a six-month-old!


hard to imagine, even while we live and breathe it. we’ve been parents for six months!


planning on making salt dough ornaments of her hands and feet tomorrow! it’d also be nice if i wrote a reflection piece for our family newsletter. we will see.


still need to wrap presents. we didn’t really buy any for the majority of our family or any of our friends. keeping it tight this year and just focusing on quality time. people understand. i would like to write letters to some people though, at least. need to do that too.


very excited for swim lessons for the baby in the new year!


i need to text my tutoring student and ask him how his essay exam went.


will try to implement a more firm schedule with the baby leading up to her pediatrician appointment, so when we start sleep coaching it will be easier. she is already sleeping pretty well on her own with just sleep shaping. very proud of her. she’s gotten very good at putting the binky in her mouth by herself. i remember when the thought of that seemed like an impossibly far milestone.


i am so grateful for my beautiful sweet daughter. i am still amazed that my body has begotten life. truly a miracle. we are so utterly grateful and blessed. she is my favorite everything. my life has felt so much more meaningful and beautiful the past six months. i so hope that we can have at least one more baby so we can give her a sibling.


still glowing with happiness at the news that our best friends, our daughter’s godparents, are pregnant! her godmother is due just one day past my original due date—she will be on the same pregnancy timeline that i was. praying for them. we can’t wait to meet that little baby. our daughter’s godsibling. they will be such wonderful parents.


will try not to be stressed over the next few days. the christmas day meal is happening earlier than i thought (1pm instead of 4pm) and i am stressed that we will be there all day and i need to cook some things for it. trying hard not to say “ugh.” it will get done. will try to get it done with joy. and not stress. this is a special time.


will give the baby mashed potatoes on christmas!!! excited to see her try them, but also nervous about such a big milestone. my little baby is getting so big so fast already. holding so tightly to every moment. a high chair?! sitting on the sink with me in the morning?! rocking tabletop, ready to crawl soon?! she is getting to be such a big girl.


i will be so blessed if i am able to grow old and watch her grow old. it will be the greatest privilege of my life. being robbed of that is my greatest fear now.


solstice to solstice. this is a special time. i am glad we three were able to get in nature together today. walking by the river. walking through the trees. walking through the mud. crunching snow and leaves.



i love my little family.


_________________


12/28/23


11:06pm

end of year space


at the christmas eve gathering at my sister’s, both my mom and my dad were in the same room as my daughter at the same time, for the first time ever. they had only ever visited with her separately before then. it was really nice and kind of weird.


my parents got divorced when i was so young, i really don’t have many memories of them together, and if i do have memories from that time, they’re not of them being a couple. they have always been my mom and dad, separately. like people from two different friend groups—i just don’t associate them with each other.


at christmas eve, they chatted together a long time, just socializing like they would with anyone else at the party. they both are the kind of people who can talk to anyone (i get that from both of them). it was both surreal and totally normal at the same time. idk how to describe it.


it was special having them both smiling at their granddaughter at the same time. both of her true direct ancestors, together at the same time. my husband took a picture of the four of us all together from across the room. he said he wanted to capture what seemed like a rare moment.


…


i have to write her 6 month poem soon. before the new year. god, it’s wild how fast time is already passing. i think it already went at this pace, but i think having a kid multiplies it.


a day for her is a bigger fraction of her life than it is for me. i think that’s why days go by so much faster for older people. we are eating the time pie in tinier slices.


_________________


12/30/23



11:01pm

scattered thoughts


really cool when the baby cries for 5 seconds and wakes us up and then goes right back to sleep! goodness she scared me.


i want to engage with more flounderers! fyi to anyone reading this, my “paper cranes” file is my messages/mailbox file, which is not obvious.


i want to learn how to actually fold paper cranes. then i can teach the family how to fold napkins into cranes at easter. this is doable. i wonder if that would count as a new year’s resolution?


i was exercising a lot but have slacked off a bit this christmas week. hey, it’s winter break!!! i did do ring fit adventure on the nintendo switch. that is fun exercising. will resume my dedication when my in person exercise classes resume in the new year.


a friend found out she wasn’t invited to our small board game nye gathering and was crying and upset. explained to her at the party yesterday that we invited all couples, and the one single person we invited was to even out numbers with our other single friend; also i wanted to get to know that single person better since we’ve never hung out before.


this friend definitely thinks of us as closer than i actually feel. this thing felt so middle school. her immaturity for someone 12 years older than me is exhausting. she was drunk and refused to talk to me at first and—this kind of stuff is why we didn’t invite you, sorry!!!


i’m almost 30 and don’t want to spend my time with people i don’t want to spend my time with—especially now that we have a baby and our personal time is more limited.


i wrote at least one line a day in my bedside journal for all of 2023 and i’m really proud of myself. just one day left. it’s a five year journal and i really hope i finish it! crazy to think of my daughter as a little kid, maybe a kindergartener, by the time i finish it.


i have one more day to write her 6 month poem. also i want us to finish our puzzle. and we need to collab on my sah schedule for next year. also the baby might be teething and ruin any hope of sleep coaching. but i need to finish reading the sleep coaching book! ugh. i like tv too much.


a friend said she read SIXTY-THREE books this year. that is so many books!!!


it’s very funny how i am desperate to write and publish a novel, and yet i hate reading adult fiction. i like my nonfiction books. there are so many good child development books!! i like learning. and feeling like a better parent.


i need to find a new audiobook and podcast and find more time to listen to those again.


husband and i both got cd related things for each other for christmas. v cute of us. i burned him some mixed cds. he thrifted me a rad holiday shirt with embroidered skiiers and sparkly evergreen trees. and we both got each other chocolate from our favorite local chocolate shop. we decided future gifts for each other must be either 1) handmade, 2) thrifted, or 3) consumable.


i’m too excited about my party ideas. we always want to host parties!


i am excited to makeover our living room in the new year, if we can swing it.


happy holidays, y’all <3


/journal/

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