My Monday: Sorry Friday, nothing personal

It's another Monday! I've had to force my Monday excitement a little bit lately, but it's a habit I refuse to give up. Sometimes it's important to develop a habit even when all you want to do is sit on the couch eating pizza and peanut m&ms (and yes, I'm speaking from very recent experience). Most people love Fridays, but not me (except for Shabbat). In all of these months that we've been looking for new opportunities I have come to resent the glaring reality of Fridays. All week long we hope to hear some good news--maybe a job interview or some tiny bit of progress--and then Friday rolls around with little news. Each week I throw so many hopes and expectations at my Friday, thinking that finally good news will reach us, and then at the end of another week with nothing to show for it, it can be hard to stomach. Sorry, Friday, nothing personal. But we need Monday. Its potential is our lifeline. It carries us.

This is what my Monday looked like:

• I walked Alyce to school, one of my absolute favourite Monday activities. Nothing gets me excited quite like the fresh start of a new school week.
• We sold the minivan. A second car isn't a necessity for us, and since we hope to move back to Toronto this year, we wouldn't have wanted it there anyway. I tried parallel parking that thing a few weekends ago, and it wasn't pretty.
• Shira had roughly 398 tantrums related to nursing. I am now spending some time thinking about how to manage my boundaries when it comes to breastfeeding my toddler. Because nursing at the car dealership while signing paperwork? Not really that much fun.
• I watched Shira cover herself in sparkly butterfly stickers. 
• Ate pizza for dinner with Matt (see above). Delicious.
• Working on my course design. I haven't taught this course in over a year and already I feel like that old person returning to work, gawking in amazement at all things the new kids are doing. I have a lot of work to do.
• I've been dreaming about our future, and that feels good. 

How was your Monday? I'd love to know. Do you think differently on Mondays?

And now she is one

Modeling the cap she wore coming home from the birth centre one year ago.

No matter how much I try to avoid it, Shira's birthday did happen. I know everyone says they don't know how it happened so fast, but why does it happen so fast? I sometimes have a hard time remembering Alyce's first year, and I wonder all the time if I'll remember the details of my days with Shira as much as I want to. Everyone always tells new parents that you're lucky to forget so much about that hard first year--the pain of childbirth, the sleepless nights, the sleepless days--but I learned the first time around that you also forget some of the good stuff. I can't remember so much of what my days were like with Alyce as a baby. I remember the events of that year (like Matt getting a job here in Delaware), but like with most things, the day to day stuff is harder to remember. I will never forget some of the really good stuff, like how her skin smelled and the noises she made while breastfeeding, but I wish I could remember so much more.

Clearly, I should have started this blog three years ago.

So with the passing of Shira's first year I'm feeling a bit down about the things I might forget. Like the sound of her voice when she yells at me for more strawberries, or the way she fits against my body perfectly when she nurses in bed with me at night, or the look on her face when Alyce walks into the room. But here's what I won't forget: how she immediately became part of our family, like she was here all along. I will never forget her sweetness and the gentle way she greeted us each morning. And I will never forget all those glorious hours we spent in bed together, my little nursling and me.

 
P.S. If you are interested, you can find some details about Shira's birth here.

Facebook is a boob

I am so very tired of hearing about another instance of Facebook deleting photos of mothers breastfeeding. This is so, so old, Facebook. There is a great discussion going on about Facebook's recent jackassery here (thanks Sierra Black at Strollerberby for pointing this out). Breastfeeding in public is protected across North America (and elsewhere), but Facebook gets the willies when it catches a documented glimpse of a baby's lunch on its site.

Babies need to eat. A lot. Many babies eat by breastfeeding. Breastfeeding involves breasts. End of story, or at least, it should be. There is just no other way to talk about this. Are some people offended? Well, they shouldn't be. And if they are, that's not my problem. And if I want to share a photo of myself breastfeeding my baby on Facebook, why is anyone wasting their precious time worrying about it?

I nurse about 5,928 times a day*. This is part of who I am right now. And Shira is very grateful for it. Does this give you the willies? Then you need to get out more.

*Maybe not this much.

Good things on Thursday night

I'll just start by stating for the record that I thought Grey's Anatomy was good tonight. I know, I know, they threw in all that singing, and sometimes it was a bit irritating, but I think they pulled it off. I'm always a sucker for a storyline that involves either babies or Callie and Arizona, so maybe I'm not the most objective judge. But I'm guessing nobody actually cares what I think about Grey's Anatomy, so I'll continue with favourable reviews. Actually, that's not true. Matt cares very, very much because tonight Grey's interrupted the first night of baseball season. He is now finally able to finish his game.

I don't have much in me right now. It's been a busy couple of days. Did you know that tomorrow I can start declaring, "next month we're moving!" This time last year I would have been saying, "next month I'm going to give birth to my second child!" A lot happens in a year.

But I couldn't go to bed without sharing two great things with you.  I love the internet. I love that I open up my reader and discover that some really smart people have left a message just for me (and maybe a few other readers). Yesterday I stumbled across this post. There has been a lot of talk lately about what it means to make your family vulnerable in wave of oversharing, first-person parenting blogs (like this by Katie Granju), and I think Alexa over at Flotsam has nailed it. I could read her blog all day long.

I also found this post, over at The Leaky Boob, and yes, it might be the greatest blog name of all time. If you have a thing for breastfeeding (like I do), you might want to check this out. It's a nice reminder that sometimes breastfeeding is just breastfeeding. Not a parenting philosophy, just feeding your baby. Honestly if were more than just food and time spent with a delicious baby, I might have given up long ago. Plus, it's called The Leaky Boob.