BEDA (Day 18) - Pitasha

This is a story that my parents used to tell me when I was little.  I think it was one that my dad's parents originally told, but I'm not positive.  I'm pretty sure it's an old Russian story that parents told their kids to get them to bathe.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Pitasha and he HATED to take a bath.  Pitasha's mother tried everything she could think of to get her son to bathe but he just kept refusing.

"Pitasha!" His mother cried.  "You are so dirty!  It's time to take a bath!"

"No!" Sang Pitasha.  "I won't take a bath."  And he ran off to play outside.

Pitasha's mother followed him.  "If you don't take a bath, the garbage man is going to mistake you for garbage and take you to the dump!" She warned.  But Pitasha did not believe her.

One day, Pitasha was out playing on the curb next to the trash.  It was garbage night.  Pitasha's mother called him in for the night, but Pitasha was not done playing.  After his mother went to bed, he sneaked back out to play some more.  The moon rose high in the sky, and Pitasha grew sleepy.  He decided to lay down just for a minute to rest his eyes.  Pitasha fell fast asleep on the grass beside the curb.

Pitasha was so soundly asleep that he did not hear the garbage truck coming.  The garbage man looked along the curb and saw lots of dirty garbage.  He picked it all up and put it in the back of his big garbage truck.  All of it - including Pitasha!

It was dark and smelly when Pitasha woke up.  "Hey!" Cried Pitasha.  "Where am I?"  He realized he was in the back of a garbage truck.  "Help! Help!" Pitasha screamed.  "I'm not garbage! I'm a little boy!  Please don't take me to the dump!"

Inside the cab of the truck, the driver suddenly thought he heard banging and screaming.  He stopped the truck and was astonished to find Pitasha in the back of his truck.

"You are so dirty, I thought you were garbage!" Exclaimed the garbage man.  At once he turned the truck around and took Pitasha home.

Pitasha's mother was shocked and relieved when the garbage man delivered Pitasha home.  And even thought it was the middle of the night, she drew a nice, hot bath for Pitasha.  He got in without a peep, and never skipped his baths again.

BEDA (Day 17) - Homeless

Because we weren't already underslept enough.....

This morning at about 12:45am, I was ripped out of sleep by an awful, shrill, piercing alarm and a voice saying "Fire!  Fire!"  I flew out of bed and ran down the hall to Mara's room, Corky right behind me.  Just as I reached Mara's room, the alarm stopped.  Corky searched the whole house but found no fire.  Ten minutes later, Mara was just about asleep and it went off again.  This happened twice more and then, the last time, the carbon monoxide detector went off too.  I had had enough.  We threw some extra diapers in the diaper bag, I grabbed the breast pump, my purse and the dogs, we loaded up Mara and drove off to find a hotel at 1:50am.

Well, of course that couldn't be easy either!  Columbia Sportswear, which is based here, is having a huge event this weekend so naturally every single hotel in the area is booked solid.  Not one room available anywhere except the crappy motels (and frankly i would rather sleep in the car!)

Fortunately for us, my parents and my sister are in Las Vegas for the weekend so their house is empty... and I have a key! I called them at 2 o'clock in the morning. My poor mom could hardly understand what I was saying.   So anyway here we are.  This will be weird because I haven't spent a night here since I moved out for the last time in 2009. 

The fire alarm is one thing.  You go look everywhere and if there's no fire then there's no fire.  You can see, smell and feel fire.  Carbon monoxide has no smell and no taste.  You can't see it.  I couldn't risk it; we had to leave. 

Corky is attempting to get Mara to sleep on this little makeshift bed I made for her on the floor.  I'm sitting at the kitchen table pumping.  The dogs are running around maniacally, sniffing everything.  My mom's dog, Bettina, is at a kennel for the weekend.  I laughed imagining how weirded out she'll be to come home and smell Abby and Jax on everything here.

As we drove away from our house, I had a fleeting afterthought. Damn, I mused. I forgot to turn off the timer on the coffee pot.  Oh well. At least we'll have coffee when we get home!  Who do you call about this sort of thing?? I don't even know! 

BEDA (Day 16) - Sleep Regression/Teething

It was one of those things that I was warned was coming but that I was desperately hoping Mara would skip: the dreaded sleep regression.  Basically, at around 4-5 months of age, babies (and therefore their parents) experience a change in their sleep cycles.  Prior to this, babies sleep cycles were very different than adults.  We go through stages of sleep, ranging from hypnagogia (half asleep state where you startle awake) to deep REM sleep.  Before age 4-5 months, babies only had deep sleep.  At that point, their brains develop to the point where they have lighter and deeper sleep cycles, which will remain for the rest of their lives.  Now they wake up and don't know how to get back to sleep - hence the crying every few hours.  They don't know how to self-soothe.  I need to do some research on how best to help Mara.  There are several methods, I just need to find the one that is best for us.

In the meantime, I am so tired I can't even think.

But here's a collage of Mara.  She's pretty damn cute, makes it all worth it!

BEDA (Day 15) - Seriously Frank?

I had a rather unpleasant experience yesterday.  Actually, much of yesterday was unpleasant.  It didn't start out well but it ended fine.

My day actually started at 3 o'clock in the morning.  I got up to pump, wrote my BEDA entry from yesterday, but before I could finish pumping, Mara woke up.  Corky warmed up a bottle and fed her.  Usually she goes right back to sleep but not last night.  So once I finished pumping, I went in there and held her, rocked her, sang to her, shushed her, nursed her, tried (totally unsuccessfully) to get her to go back to sleep.  She was whiny and fussing.  When she grabbed my hand and brought it to her mouth to gum on my fingers, as she often does, I discovered why: teeth.  Uh oh!

At 6 o'clock, Corky came to rescue me because I had to get up.  I was subbing a Zumba class at 8:30am.  At that class, things got a little more unpleasant.

Okay, so I wore a slightly tighter shirt than normal.  But it fit well and covered everything.  However.... after class, a lady walked up to me and said, "You are adorable!  Is that your little baby bump?  When are you due?"

UGH I CANNOT EVEN TELL YOU HOW MUCH I HATE THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like... SERIOUSLY??? Don't you know you're not supposed to ask that unless it's REALLY FREAKING OBVIOUS?????? Like how I looked on my due date?  Okay.  You can ask me then.  Now?  No way.

But it didn't stop there.  After conversing with her for a few minutes, another lady stopped me on my way out and said, "So.. I just have to ask.. how far along are you, anyway?"  The first time was irritating.  The second time was just infuriating.  How many times am I going to be kicked in the pants today?  Geez!!

Okay so I'm NOT pregnant, just to set the record straight! I just have diastasis recti (where the abdominal muscles separate and cause the stomach area to stick out a little) really badly!  Mara was a big baby; you know, you saw the pictures!  And she's only 4 1/2 months old, so it's not so ridiculous to think that my body hasn't 100% bounced back from that yet.

There's these Frenchies that I follow on Instagram and Facebook - Manny the Frenchie and Frank the Funny Frenchie.  Frank is my favorite, and he makes the most hilarious faces.  Frank is almost always Not Amused At All.  

I have a sweatshirt with a picture of him making a grumpy face.

That is totally how I felt when the ladies were asking me about being pregnant!  Like... seriously????  Damn.  So here I am, on about 6 hours of sleep in 2 days, after teaching 2 classes yesterday, I have one today, 2 tomorrow and one on Friday.  Oh dear... this could prove to be a very long week!

BEDA (Day 14) - Coffeemaker

Yesterday I bought a new coffeemaker.  It's a Mr. Coffee... something.  It's red and has a clock on the top, the kind with hands.  Not digital.  It's beautiful.... ours was old and crappy and didn't work very well.  It would sometimes stop brewing mid-brew and you had to jiggle the pot around to get it working again.  Other times it would shift and coffee would go running all down the sides and all over the counter top.  The plate didn't get very hot so you'd have lukewarm coffee and therefore not a lot of flavor, plus you'd have to heat your coffee in the microwave if you waited more than 10 seconds to drink it after you poured it!

Anyway.  I guess that's one sign of adulthood (and new mommyhood?) when your favorite new "toy" is a Mr. Coffee! Lol!

Here we go. Another work week.  I'm subbing a Zumba class at 8:30am in Wilsonville.  That's a hell of a commute so I have to leave an hour beforehand, and pump before I leave so I'll be up at 6:00am.

That reminds me of a song: 6AM by J. Balvin Ft. Farruko.  I was trying to translate it the other night (Spanish to English) and I was having trouble!  My Spanish is... okayish... and I got about 70-80% of it translated roughly.  I'm sure my friend who is fluent in Spanish would have laughed her head off at my attempt though. Lol!

Click HERE to listen to 6AM by J. Balvin featuring Farruko

BEDA (Day 13) - Tired!!

I had never really realized how exhausting it can be to get up at 2 or 3 in the morning every single night and lose approximately an hour and a half or two hours of sleep.  

I had never really realized how tiring it would be to create food for another individual, to be their sole source of nourishment.

I had never really realized how weary it would make you to have to be constantly alert and troubleshooting all day and then not be able to get a full night's sleep.

I had never really realized any of that.

Now I do.

BEDA (Day 12) - Mimic

At this point I am starting to realize that I have to be REEEEAAAALLLLYYYYY careful what I say and do!  Mara is watching me... and she is smart!  She may be only 4 1/2 months old but her little mind is like a sponge, soaking up information all the time. 

Yesterday she was acting hungry even after nursing so I mixed up a little oat cereal for her and fed it to her with a spoon.  She grabbed for the spoon in my hand so I gave it to her and went and got another one to feed her with.  But then I started watching her play with the spoon.  She would bring it down near her leg and then up to her mouth. Down to her leg and up to her mouth. 

Oh my god... I thought. She's pretending she's eating!

She's not dextrous enough with the little plastic baby spoon to make it look realistic at this point but it was clear what she was doing.  

This kid is growing rapidly and looking to me - her mom, the one she spends the most time with - for information on how to exist and operate in this world.  I definitely have my work cut out for me. No pressure or anything!