done camped
Back from camping. We had a great time, only it turns out that taking care of a baby and a dog prevents me from doing much in the way of photography. The greatest oversight was not getting a shot of the tent—shots, inside and out—because it was absolutely the cushiest set-up you could ever imagine. It's a new tent, one we just picked up a couple days before the trip, and it features, if you can imagine, a screened-in porch. Also enough room for a (similarly brand-new) queen-size air mattress, Harvey's basket-nette, and Rascal's bed. Our clothes and stuff, too.
Which it was a good thing we had a comfy base-camp setup, because we didn't do nearly as much hiking than we usually do. Harvey is none too light to lug around, and Leah isn't up to her full athletic peak after giving birth six weeks ago; also it was pretty rainy. It rained most of Friday afternoon, but that was alright. We relaxed in the tent and listened to the pitter-patter overhead (and the squish of mud underfoot, thankfully contained by the ground-sheet). Our friends Cara and Alan came up to join us, and they camp with an impressive array of tarps and things, which were also welcome in keeping off the wet (though less helpful with the armies of mosquitoes).
We managed one peak, little South Bubble, and we would have gone up Dorr (perhaps dying in the process) had not my mother phoned us from Massachusetts and warned us of the coming storm; good thing, since that day, starting under the blazing sun, we had no rain gear, nor had we closed up the tent or the car windows. We ate at the Cafe three times, we got some good burritos and tremendous ice cream, Harvey slept great, and Leah didn't have to do dishes once. Altogether a complete success. Except for the pictures. Leah has some good ones, though, as you will see.
Harvey enjoyed the tent:
We got to change him in all kinds of exciting places! (here, Camden):
Vacation photos
I have been rather lax about posting baby pictures on the blog, for no reason other than it requires resizing which sounds like work. Now that I'm back to work, however, resizing baby photos is a lot more fun than resizing photos of ugly webinar speakers, so without further ado, here are some photos of our recent vacation to Bar Harbor.
The Archibald family on top of a (rather small) mountain!
Photo evidence that I made it up the mountain carrying the baby in his orange bjorn.
Rascal guarding Harvey at the campsite.
The baby enjoying his trip to the Maine coast.
why are we still awake?
We are chronically sleep-deprived lately, for obvious reasons. So why are we still up, with it lacking only three quarters of an hour til midnight? Well, it turns out that when you have a child the only time you have to be adult is after he goes to sleep for the night! So I suppose we're done sleeping until he's, oh 21. Oh wait, there will probably be other children. Say the next 30 years, then. Oh well.
corn
I never grew corn before this year, and I wouldn't have this year either had not friends given us a dozen seedlings as a baby-shower present. It took me a little while to come to terms with having to find a place for corns in the garden, but now I'm so excited about how they're doing! There's something amazing at looking up at those giant mutated grasses, or whatever they are.
What we have this year isn't for eating—it's that multicolored stuff you put up on your door in the fall. Which is good, I think, because it takes the pressure off: I get to play with growing the stuff, but if most of it dies or get eaten by raccoons I won't be too too upset, because, you know, how many decorative centerpieces do you need?!
So instead of worry, all we have is the thrill of seeing the first ear poking out a stem!
the bed at 9:00 am
This is what happens after the grown-ups get up in the morning:
Good thing they let us have a little room at night.
Are you Mommy's Smiley-Kins?
The elusive baby smile has finally been captured on shaky video. Any visual similarities to the Blair Witch Project are wholly unintentional.
WARNING: If you are nauseated by momese or an adult woman otherwise sounding like a complete idiot, then for the love of God MUTE YOUR COMPUTER BEFORE HITTING PLAY. You have been warned.
you never know what you're going to get
Yesterday Harvey just didn't want to sleep. After eleven in the morning he napped for only about three quarters of an hour, total, until we wanted to go to bed; and then he was still wide awake. Not only wide awake, even, but actively resistant to sleeping. We eventually got him calmed down and into bed (at quarter of eleven) but it was a struggle.
Today, he's been sleeping since four and shows no sign of waking up. Are we taking advantage of the free time around the house that this gives us? Yes, if you count baby-free relaxing as a necessary task, which we do. Will he sleep at all tonight, when we want to be asleep? Only time will tell!
harvest news
Things are going alright in the garden, despite my refusal to water or weed or anything like that. We grow flowers, too, not just veggies; the cutting and arranging of them is left to Leah. Zinnias above; they do great without much work, and produce an amazing number of blooms!
I planted carrots last year, but they grew so slowly they didn't really form the carroty part until around the end of October or something, when I had forgotten all about them. They're still around, flowering in a pot (I want to see if I can make carrot seeds) but that isn't much good from a culinary standpoint.
This year we had much more success! Planted earlier in better-prepared soil, the carrot plants are flourishing, and the other day I picked the first three for use in a salad. As you can see, they come in a range of sizes:
Very exciting!
home again, all in the same day
All of us except Rascal took a trip today down to New York, where Leah had to attend a work meeting-slash-party. While she met, Harvey and I walked around the city, taking in all the sights, sounds, and smells of the Big Apple. Surrounded on all sides by skyscrapers stretching to the heights, we... What's that? We weren't actually in New York City, only minor Westchester suburb New Rochelle? Oh well, it was plenty big-city for us little country mice, and we're glad to be back home now. And this time, "all in the same day" is really something to comment on!
How many calories does blogging burn?
So, part of this no-longer-being-pregnant thing (something that still takes some getting used to... how come everyone stopped giving me their reverence and undivided attention?) is that I'm trying to lose a hefty twenty pounds. At almost two months out, the bloom is rather off the already-lost-thirty-pounds rose. I went from a nice series of four-lb-per weeks, to a string of 2-lb weeks, and now I'm leveling off at one pound per week, a velocity that doesn't make me excited about prospects for my fall wardrobe. Sure, now I can get by in the same flow-y dresses I wore all through my pregnancy, but if I get to october and I'm still wearing maternity jeans I'm going to be sorely disappointed. I OWN jeans. They're down in the basement. They're around a size 8. I miss them.
I know that breast feeding only burns 500 extra calories a day. Indeed, people share this fact with me at an alarming rate. Oh really? Only 500? Then let me take out this lard IV then. Thank you kind stranger at the gym! Anyway, that's why I've enlisted the help of weight watchers online, as well as my tried and true method of exercising my ass off. Dan has been so kind as to give me an hour and a half every day of the week to spend at the gym (including transit time) and I've availed myself of one weight-lifting class a week flanked by daily cardio all days but Sunday. When there's nothing that interests me in a spin class, I head out around the neighborhood for a run, and the 2-mile loop around the local digs makes me feel like my old self again, if only because I can pretend like it's one of my "off days" in marathon training. In reality, 2 miles is about all I can travel these days, and that's being generous... the loop is realy about 1.8. And also? I gotta get my ipod plugged in and back in rotation... It's a bit of a disconnect to picture yourself a hard-core runner when you're hopping along humming "Old McDonald" to yourself for 25 minutes.
So why the slow weight loss, you ask, despite the athletic streak? Well, for one thing, as a nursing mother weight watchers gives me 32 points a day, which is a decadent ice-cream-sunday mania for a regular dieter. Nursing mothers are apparently SUPPOSED to lose weight slower, according to medical guidelines, which I think is just doctors' way of saying "Hey, we don't get to see you every week anymore, but we'd still like to screw with you and freak you out from afar!" And yet, who am I to question guidelines that allow me a midnight snack of cookies and a beer? I mean, medicine has done a lot for the human condition.
At the current rate I'll be back in fighting trim just in time to stuff myself silly over Christmas. I had hoped to accelerate the process a bit in order to fit into SOMETHING I ALREADY OWN for Harvey's baptism, because between the maternity wear and the nursing bras, I've already spent enough money outfitting myself for parenthood. As long as I always carry the baby in front of me, I'll be fine.
I love Harvey when he's sleeping
Most evenings Harvey falls asleep fine; Leah feeds him and he drifts off while eating, and he stays zonked out while we transfer him to his bed. Every once and a while, though, he's overtired or overstimulated or who-knows-what, and I have to lug him around, joggling him slightly, until he drifts off. Since I naturally am doing this in the dark, I can't see his eyes to judge his wakefulness, but luckily he provides another clue. Wide awake, he pulls both hands up to his belly as I cradle him in my arms, but the more sleepy he gets the lower that outside hand drops until, full sleep indicated, it hangs completely limp. Pretty cute! Of course, he fights to stay awake, so the arm will go up and down over the course of several minutes, but I know that in the end he won't be able to keep his eyes open or his muscles tense, and then I can finally relax my own muscles and put him down. No need for gym memberships; you should see these biceps now!
And sometimes everybody is tired.
the book of faces
It was perhaps inevitable that once joining LinkedIn proved not to be the end of the world, Leah and I would eventually find ourselves on the Facebook. Which must mean it's played out now, unless it has been for some months already. Add us or friend us or whatever it is you kids do these days; chances are that if you know what Facebook is you know better than we do how to indicate the location of our virtual presence on the site, which is not as easy as you may have expected. I may be at this url, but then again, I may not. I don't know what those numbers mean.
to snip or not to snip?
Before we had a child we had a lot of time to mull over important parenting decisions. The decision to try a home birth was a long though-out, well researched project. I read two books, talked to a woman who had done one and another who was planning one, and grilled our potential midwife. And all this before I even went off the pill! By the time we got pregnant (On our first month trying - have I mentioned that before?) I was so confident about the home birth decision, I could have debated the surgeon general on the senate floor.
Then the baby came out, and important decisions we had never thought about started flying at us fast and furious. Should he sleep in our bed? Should we get him circumcised? Should we get him vaccinated? And if so, how much vaccinated? All these decisions needed to be made with the available mental capacity of a sleep-deprivation test dummy. No time to read books anymore. Barely enough time to check wikepedia.
The circumcision decisions took a lot of turns for us. Before Harvey was born Dan and I casually discussed having a boy and what we would do about the, err, foreskin issue. The extent of our logic was pretty much: meh, circumcised penises look normal, right? I've never seen an uncircumcised penis, have you? No? Then I guess it's settled.
BTW, just for the record, I wouldn't advise anyone to make any decisions based on the number of penises Dan and I have collectively viewed. It's not what you'd call a statistically significant sample.
Anyway, we were pretty sure we were having a girl, like 95% sure, so we didn't spend much more time meditating on infant penises. But then it was little Harvey, and not say a little Lily, that came shooting out, and when I took a gander at what he had between his legs, my emotional reactions ran in this order:
1) "IT'S A BOY!" (I wanted a boy... I win!)
2) "Is that okay?" (Oh crap, Dan wanted a girl...)
It was only towards the end of Harvey day 2 that the logistics of a circumcision started to become real to me. Like, for example, that we would need to go to a hospital. Which entailed getting in the car. Which necessitated setting up the car-seat. And I'm in bed. And like, really lazy.
No, it was more than just laziness. Rebecca the midwife came over on day 2 and brought with her a heal-slick test that necessitated taking several drops of blood from Harvey's foot. It's a rather non-invasive procedure, except that Harvey wasn't a terrific bleeder, so the ordeal took several pricks over the course of five minutes. During the test, I held the baby while he screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed. He screamed like the world was ending. "WAAAA WAAAAA WAAAAA," he said, "REBECCA IS KILLING ME! WHY AREN'T YOU SAVING ME MOMMA?????" Well, at least that's what I heard. After everyone left that afternoon Dan and I lay side-by-side in the bed trying to catch our breath. I think Dan was the one that brought up this issue. "I'm not so sure about the circumcision thing."
Me neither. Indeed, at that moment there was no way I was stepping inside of that sterile smelling chamber of horrors with my child, certainly not for a voluntary mutilation. But before I could let apathy run its course I had to assuage my original fears regarding the appearance of God-given peni. So I (gulp) googled "uncircumcised penis."
Hey, I'm not that dumb... I didn't click on image search.
Seeing as I didn't search for something like "uncircumcised penis totally hard" or "uncircumcised penis and hot asian sluts," the first entry was Wikepedia. Thank You Wikepedia for containing all the search strings in the world! You saved my computer!
In a very scientific fashion, wikepedia showed me images of an adult circumcised penis next to an uncircumcised one, both in flaccid and erect states. For my part I was like, Really? This is what all the fuss is about? I had imagined a natural member acting something like the head of the medusa... Don't look at it or you'll be turned to stone!!! In reality, it looks, um, like a penis. No more or less scary (depending on your mood) than the typical variety.
But of course, circumcision is first and foremost a religious issue, so we consulted with the bible. The practice comes from Genesis 17, in which God establishes the covenant of circumcision with Abraham. Still, as Christians we tend to put a bit more weight on the New Testament, which is good since in the case of circumcision at least it's less baffling. In Romans 4 we have a long theological discussion from Paul to convince us that the uncircumcised still share in Abraham's inheritance, because Abraham "received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them." And an even a more straight-forward command came to the folks in Corinth: "Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God's commands is what counts." (1 Corinthians 7:18)
So that sealed the deal religiously, but there was still the matter of telling my parents. I didn't bring up Paul's letters (who's whatters?) or the unspoken truth that um, like, I'm not Jewish anymore. I just said that this was our decision and we done made it. Subtext? I'm Harvey's Momma. You wanna hang out with him? You gotta go through me.
Shanda aside (it's yiddish for GOD FORBID ANYONE ELSE SHOULD HAVE SUCH A DAUGHTER WHO BRINGS SHAME ON HER FAMILY) I'm pretty happy about our decision, especially when I look at that cute little penis peeing all over the changing table and I know that he gets to keep 100% of what God gave him. May all our parenting decisions be so rewarding in the end!
Speaking of which, first vaccinations are on Thursday. Ugh.
You like bouncin?
The Squibix blog presents: Harvey in an encore presentation of Smiling while Listening to Momma Sound Stupid.
concertgoing
Nothing says summer in New England like concerts at the gazebo, so I dragged the whole family out to one this evening. Leah still loves me, even though she got bitten by mosquitoes and stung by a bee, and then the baby started crying... On the plus side, it was nice and cool with the breeze!
Rascal was there too, but he didn't stand still to be photographed.
Back to Work
So this is my third week back to work, and I might flag myself as a bad mother for saying this, but I sort of like working. I mean, I like attending meetings, feeling productive, having adult conversations on topics other than the relative poopyness of various diapers. And since I've worked from home for the last year, I'm still able to breast-feed and see the baby several times during the day, without feeling like I'm chained to him. Oh no, did I really just compare my child to an instrument of incarceration? That settles it... I AM a bad mother.
Until the school year resumes, Dan is minding the child 8 hours a day, and his mom will take over for those hours once he goes back to work. So when I hear the baby cry now (unlike for the first 6 weeks of his life) I have the exhilerating feeling of knowing that I'm NOT the one responsible for his care.
Unless of course it's feeding time, in which case there's a sort of sign language negotiation between me and Dan as to whether the person I'm speaking with on the phone is familiar enough not to mind the squealing sounds of baby while he gets positioned on the breast... or whether it's a client who might deem the sound of a screaming baby unprofessional... in which case there's a synchronized swimmer type of dance where I try to find a stretch of conversation where I won't be talking, mute my phone, and then yell: "OKAY NOW! BRING HIM NOW NOW NOW!" And then Harvey screams till he's on the breast, and then I un-mute my phone. And then there are still some coos and gurgles when I resume my audio, but hey, they never know, I might not be a working mom, I might just be getting head under my desk.
I mean, anything is possible.
Of course, I'm struggling with the mommy guilt... guilt that I like working, that I need the money from working, that I don't see the baby enough, and that the tumbleweeds of dog hair rolling around our bedroom will clog the air vents and poison us all. (Note to self and internet: there are no air vents in our house... they're called windows.)
But still, it's nice to see my little baby boy, as he comes down the stairs for a mid-morning feeding, as a revelation of cuteness, rather than an every moment obligation of desperateness. Did I just say that? Desperateness? I AM a bad mother. I meant desperation. Desperateness isn't really a word.
Vaccination Obligation
This morning Harvey had his first shots. It's been a hard thing for me, the vaccinations. On a gut level I hate doctors and mistrust their poo-pooing of the risks, so I feel like I should be fighting to keep them and their needles away from my child. But on a scientific level, I don't feel like I have justification to act like a crazy person. Maybe the vaccinations are harmful, or maybe they're lifesaving. Or maybe both. But there's no good study proving the former, even though every vaccine reaction should be reported to the CDC. Barring a major government cover-up, shouldn't we know if vaccines were harmful at a statistically significant level? Like we do for, say, giving birth in the hospital?
I have a co-worker who's vaccinating her child on an alternate schedule, and it's like a part-time job for her. When you take a stand like that, every doctors visit is a battle. You have to stand up to all sorts of manipulative techniques: power ("I'm the baby's doctor..."), intellectual ("No studies have been done that show the link between vaccines and autism"), and emotional ("You're turning your baby into a pincushion!") I couldn't do all that work based solely on anecdotal evidence.
Anecdotal evidence, after all, is not data. And I have yet to meet a mathematician who choose not to vaccinate their child. And I read Jenny McCarthy's first book, and she's not all that bright.
I would like to say that it was based on lack of convincing evidence from the hippy team that we decided to vaccinate Harvey. But really? It's because I'm a lazy parent. I'm so so tired of fighting with the medical establishment this year. My home birth cost me three grand out of pocket, and the fear of being denied care should I need something like antibiotics. I went to batt for all my home birth decisions because the stats were there to back me up. And in the end, I don't care if I need sustain a few patronizing lectures from un-scientifically trained doctors; I don't need routine care. On the other hand, Harvey has to go to the doctor every month practically. And I can't make battery a part of my regular routine. Every month another pained explanation on our non-standard reasoning... I can't handle that right now. Is that understandable? Does that make me a bad mother?
All week leading up to this visit I've been praying like I was in trouble. So much so that when he got the shot and didn't immediately fall down dead, I sort of like collapsed spiritually from all the exertion. Then he came home and got a fever, and ever since I haven't been very useful for anyone in this house. I can't figure out whether I should wake him up to bathe him, or let him sleep it off, and I'm convinced that either way his extra suffering is all my fault. Also? I feel like an terrible ass-hole for even thinking about going to my regular thursday night gym class while my child is sick, and I feel like a fat-ass for staying home. OMG, I'm going nuts. I suck at the parenthood.
I miss sex
When I was 18 years old, indeed on the day that I turned 18, I took the T into Harvard Square and got my belly button pierced. I'd been wanting to do it for aaaages. It just looked so darn cool. Cool and cutting edge. I already had 7 holes in my ears, and this would push me over the edge of sexy punk cool.
The day I got it pierced my belly button looked a little weird. The dude at the piercing parlor marked the spot with permanent marker, so for about a week I had a hoop ring protruding from what looked like an enormous black-head. Immediately after the black mark washed off my belly button looked weird for another reason. Turns out my stomach wanted nothing to do with the sexy punk look; my skin rejected the piercing and not only got infected but started to re-grow over the edge of the ring. Kind of like a tree around a boat-tie. I washed it out with salt water every night for a year, and tried to play it cool. But the infection never went away, and when I tried to show off my cool piercing to my friends, they'd be like "AAAAH! Put it away!" It was maybe the grossest looking thing you have ever seen.
On my 19th birthday, I shuffled down to the college health center and got it cut out with a medical saw.
I think of that hole in my belly fighting to close itself up, and I get a sense of my body's personality: stubborn, squeamish, introverted. Fights off invaders, doesn't act cool. Doesn't listen to directions.
And somehow I'm not surprised that I can't have sex anymore.
Most folks say 6 weeks after birth is the magic number: when mommy and daddy put the baby down for a nap and finally feel like a couple again, repair their marriage, convince each other that life as they knew it isn't over for the next 20 years.
But I past 6 weeks and went straight on to 8, and I can tell you right now that it's like a bear trap down there. Nothing is getting in. Don't even think about it. If someone down the street behind a closed door even thinks about maybe downloading porn off the internet, I get a spasm of pain. And then I'm all, "Oh, is it going to rain? I can tell because I feel it in my vagina!"
In the interim I have completely stopped thinking about sex, which means that I don't even get sexual jokes anymore. My friends are all: "Did you hear the one about the tiny piano player?" And I'm like: "No, what happened? Did he have a birth defect? Does he have a show on TLC?"
All this is to say: props go to my long-suffering husband. He has put up not only with stretch marks and bizarre belly-button scars, but with the daily witness of these physical features in the absence of the normal sexual hormones that make these sights more palatable. On the plus side... makes co-sleeping easier? more time to focus on blogging? Yeah, I got nothing.
my unsuitability for modern existance
We went to the mall today, to find some relief from the late afternoon heat and humidity. I guess some other people had the same idea; funny, I thought that more folks had air conditioning. It wasn't the crowds, though, that threw me, just the incredible number of stimuli they had going on there: we walked in through Macy's and just the different music blasting from each perfume booth (not to mention the smells) was overwhelming. Out in the mall proper add the gigantic advertisements pasted up everywhere (including, new since the last time we were there, on the pillars and the inside of the elevator doors) and, of course, the mall tvs. And the crowds too. I just can't handle it all anymore. Getting old, or maybe not having time to watch any tv, or even listen to the radio, is affecting my ability to process our modern culture. It'll be Sabbath Lake for me next.
Of course, I still do alright with the internet. A dozen tabs open, movie trailers, facebook, read one article while another one loads, you know the drill. But at least then I'm in a comfy chair.
harvest inadequacy
Last night I dreamed about soft, squishy cucumbers. Cucumbers, in other words, that were not firm and rigid, as cucumbers should be. What would Freud say? In this case, however, no sexual subtext need be uncovered; I'm just having a bad season with cucumbers. The real ones, the vegetables. The plants I put in hardly grew at all, so I've left the few stunted fruits they produced on the vine to turn yellow and gross and silently reproach me; I also over-bought cukes for pickles, and the leftovers are slowly spoiling in the fridge. So yes, it is a purely literal concern. About cucumbers. Oh man, gardening puts alot of pressure on a fellow!
early macs and big carrots
There are apples, now, which sure makes it feel like fall. Just the thing to get me in the mood for getting back to work with those school children, which I will be doing a week from today. There are also carrots; well, there have been for some time, but now they are present in a quantity that demands to be dealt with seriously. So for dinner I combined these two fresh local ingredients in two ways, just like a half-assed episode of Iron Chef. Apple and carrot salad, and apple and carrot muffins. That's all I got. Awful tasty, though!
Besides being plentiful, the carrots we're growing are also, some of them, very large indeed. Not long; the two varieties I planted, "Little Finger" and "Danvers Half Long", are both bred to top out at six to eight inches, which I thought would be prudent in my uncertain soil. They make up for their lack of length, though, by expanding to a considerable girth, as you may see from the following picture.
That's my normal-sized hand there, too, not some midget hand! The only problem with carrots of this magnitude is, they are nearly triangular in shape, and as such very difficult to cut into traditional carrot sticks or coins. It's worth it, though, because each one can feed a family of four for a week.
on the differences between mamas and daddies
When Harvey gets some drool or spit-up on his chin, Leah wipes it off with her own shirt. Me, I use Harvey's shirt.
By the way, check out his new-and-improved website at squibix.net/harvey, now with more than two photos (including some that have never appeared in the blog!). I have now made it rather easier for us to upload photos, so you may expect to see more as the baby keeps growing and being cute!
he's a maaaaanic, maaaaaniac on the floor!
So we wanted to take Harvey on a walk this morning, so we dressed him in his usual onesie. But then it was kind of cold downstairs, so we put on some leg warmers. But then Dan noticed the thermometer reading was even lower than we thought, so I grabbed Harvey a sweater. But then he stepped outside and felt the breeze, so I got him a hat.
In the hurry to get going yet protect the baby from the cold, we grabbed each piece as an individual thought, and this was the outfit we assembled...
No wonder he's crying in the photo.
late summer evening
Everything is calm and peaceful, and Harvey is asleep in the upper-left-hand window. My summer vacation is over; it's back to work tomorrow morning. It was the best summer ever... until next summer!
80085
So we're having a little production issue this week, vis a vis the milk supply. I don't know if it's because of the recent hot weather, or a baby growth spurt, or the fact that I recently lost 37 pounds (there's a reason cow's are fat after all)... at any rate, the heaving bosoms that only two weeks ago could have grace the cover of a harlequin novel are now more of the drooping sagging variety. Seriously, men with their viagra thing? I totally get that now. When the baby's crying again and there's hardly a drop left in the spigot, the performance anxiety can be overwhelming.
There were two days last week where it was so hot I could barely bring myself to shove down a piece of toast halfway through the day, and the baby was so fussy in the afternoon I had to slap myself and be like: Look Leah... This relationship you have between you and your body? You're not the only one involved.
Which is hardly news. I was pregnant for an absurdly long time after all, so I should be used to taking care of my body on behalf of someone else. But then eating was never something I had to, ahem, remember to do. When I was pregnant I couldn't survive through a two hour stretch without consuming my weight in bagels. I would have breakfast, pour several cereal bowls full of cherries, and eat them non-stop until it was time for lunch. I know right? Jealous?
But then as soon as the baby came out, my stomach was all "Phewf! Glad that's over." Literally, the day after birth I felt the first relief from hunger that I had felt in 10 months. And it was like aaaaaaah... So this is what it feels like to have a thought in my head that doesn't involve cake.
So as much as I'm enjoying the respite from being Leah-the-human-garbage-disposal, it is a challenge finding a balance between my weight loss and Harvey's weight gain. Not that he's going hungry, Mr. Double Chin 2009. He just prefers the milk delivery vehicles in heaving model. And really, can you blame him?
UPDATE: I ate a snack before bed, and over night the inventory returned to buxom levels. Go figure.