the first mother's day...

[i actually started this on mother's day and had no time to finish it before jude woke up and off i went to be mommy...]

you know, i really kind of hate days that are specifically labeled one day a year to be celebrated commercially... i would rather feel like each day is worth celebrating. nonetheless, i was kind of looking forward to my first mother's day. neither zach nor i are very good at gifting... well, in all fairness to him, he can be very good at it when he wants to. or when he has the time to, i suppose. so i try not to make a big deal out of birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, etc. for the most part.

this morning at 6am, jude woke me up and REFUSED to go back to bed. at first, i will have to admit that i got up, plopped him down in his crib and laid back down with the covers over my head for another thirty minutes. then, realizing i needed to get a card for my own mother (procrastination station, right here) i took advantage of the opportunity (jude being up before his normal breakfast time) and packed him up in the tahoe and off we went to walmart. it was nice doing something like that, just jude and i. that rarely happens. so we snapped up a couple of cards, a DVD, and a plant and headed home. i stopped in the driveway to get jude out of his carseat to sign the cards and then went in and traded cards with mom. it was such a super nice feeling to be able to share that experience with my mother. she had gotten me a card "from jude" which was very thoughtful and i loved it.
when zach got home, he handed off his cards, and after i read them i pointed out that one of them was something a son would totally say to their mother (ironically, the one he labeled as "fitting" for us) and so we had a good laugh about that. i guess that's how it goes in relationships... you usually raise your man, and when you have a child together, you are pretty much "mom" to both. so maybe i shouldn't label this as my first mother's day afterall ;)
i can't complain though because zach is downstairs right now freezing pureed chicken in ice cube trays for me so i can gobble down the bowl of cereal (that he brought to me) and finish the first season of weeds. i am so truly lucky and blessed.

of course i should be doing homework...

so i should be finishing my last essays of the semester, or at least watching/listening to the documentaries i am writing them on... but instead i am drawn to the internet like a moth to a flame. i think a lot of it has to do with the fact that, as a mother, i spend each day (all day long until around 9pm) constantly taking care of my child. my poor brain seeks refuge from all the thoughts, ideas, worries, etc in the vast ocean of entertainment known as the interwebz. it is so ridiculously EASY to waste away entire HOURS doing nothing but googling. for instance, i might begin by googling song lyrics only to find myself "bargain" shopping two whole hours later. it's so strange to realize that the very same train of thought i might have while trying to fall asleep (you know, you start thinking of one thing only to have that lead to this and this lead to that before you forget what on earth you were contemplating to begin with) also occurs externally in my lap on a computer screen. when did i let my brain become a 13" macbook pro?! exactly. while the information available online simply can't be beat, the endless amount of distractions one is subject to encounter during a browsing session really, really detracts from the initial usefulness. if we spent a fraction of the time that we waste surfing the web devoting ourselves, instead, to creative or academic interests... well, the possibilities are endless. and if we spent it in solitude and silence, just think how much less chaotic our lives would feel. what if we spent that hour a day in prayer or praising the Divine power of the creator/initiator of all of this madness? how connected to the universe would you be?! i mean, hell, you'd practically be an avatar, right?! but seriously, mother nature needs to be more in sync with us than the information superhighway. just think about it...

now, after all this banter, i will probably continue searching for distractions well into the wee hours of the morning before falling asleep in just enough time to be in a comatose state by the time jude wakes up, thereby ruining my entire day tomorrow with the need for a nap that i'm sure won't happen. for the past few days jude has decided that he no longer wants to nap from 10am-1pm... just my luck... i am finally nearly finished with school and now that i would actually be able to enjoy these three-hour naps with him, the opportunity is no longer available... hopefully he will get back on schedule soon. i think he might be cutting more teeth, honestly. he's been waking up and keeping me up in the middle of the night (which he has never done) or else sort of waking up but mainly just crying with his eyes shut as though he were asleep when he's really somewhere inbetween. i feel sorry for the poor little thing, but part of me really just needs sleep. something's got to give... and it will probably end up being me. if you're looking for me, i'll be the bawling mess in the floor with my ten month old at 4:30am...

another rushed update...

i actually started this last night and of course jude wakes up in his crib crying to get in the bed with zach and i so i couldn't finish... but here you go!

still no time for photos, barely time for blogging. tonight (friday night) i turned in my final blackboard assignment so all i have left until the end of the semester is a two-part take home essay for my rock documentary class and an ecology final on monday night. YAY!!! the end is finally in sight...

so of course while i'm having an incredibly busy last month of school jude is learning and growing like a weed. i regret not being able to spend more time with him for the past month. it seems like everyday, as soon as my mom gets home in the morning, i hand him off and trudge unwillingly up the stairs to the solitude of my bedroom to write papers and do homework. i HATE that. i hated being in class 3 nights a week, too. nearly half of the week i do not get to be the one who bathes him and puts him to bed. but thankfully that is over now. or at least it will be after monday. i am so ready to spend the summer with my baby! (and zach, too)

we put down a partial deposit for our new apartment and will be getting the keys sometime tomorrow, hopefully. we are supposed to be out of our duplex in harrodsburg by the 18th, so about two more weeks and we will be moved to lexington. YAY again!!! however, i know that the moving is also going to take away from my time with jude, so i am not too happy about that. plus we haven't packed a single thing as of yet... bleh.

so anyway, like i said earlier it seems that since i have been too busy to blog jude has given me lots to blog about. i would love to go into detail about everything but honestly i am barely able to keep my eyes open at the moment. due to this, i am just going to be brief so at least i know it all got recorded.

jude can stand! he's a real pro at the cruising thing now and is getting more independent by the second. he can even pull up against the walls or doors! he used to need something to grab ahold of but now it's just so long as he has something to lean his weight on initially. once he's up, he doesn't need to lean on anything. i had been noticing this for a couple of weeks and then he finally just stood alone. accidentally of course. the first time was at my friend jesse's apartment and the second time was in my room at mom's. zach and i were fighting so i was in the floor playing with jude. he pulled up and was holding onto my shoulder and i absentmindedly handed him a flat little mirror to look at and he grabs it with both hands and hovers for about 5 seconds before realizing what he was doing and abruptly sitting down. since then i have been doing everything i can, trying to trick him into doing it again. he's done it a couple of times and then tonight i got him to stand several times in the grass outside. he's going to be walking soon! ahhhh!!! hello, baby gates!

jude has had meat, cheese, white potatoes, flax(in yogurt), cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus, and probably a few more things since i've last done a food update. he had the white potatoes tonight with his pureed meat and seemed to really like them. i feel terrible for not sticking to his new food schedule this month, but i really just haven't had the time to cook, puree, and freeze everything. so hopefully we can fit in everything from the 8-10months category that he hasn't had into the 10-12months time period.

also, i think i am starting to wean him. I THINK. i have such mixed feelings about the whole mess. it started when i realized that we were almost out of the vast supply of frozen breast milk that once took up so much space in mom's deep freezer. i had been dumping a lot of milk on class nights when zach and i went to the movies so that i wouldn't have to buy ice and bring a cooler. plus i was convinced that we had like a never-ending supply stored up. obviously not. so we bought some of the enfamil with lipil, the only kind of formula jude has ever had, and gave him a bottle to try. it might be gross to you guys, but when i heat up a bottle of my milk i usually taste test rather than wrist test because i don't trust my skin as much as my mouth when it comes to the accidental burning my sweet baby. well, i will have to say that breast milk is a delicacy compared to formula. it actually tastes like milk. and sweet milk at that. formula tastes like CRAP. i wasn't even thinking as i held the bottle up and squirted the tiniest taste onto my tongue... habit, i guess... but i gagged. ugh. it tastes like medicine or vitamins or metal or something! i felt like a horrible mother for subjecting my child to that. but you know what? he didn't seem to mind. now, no one else besides myself and my mom have tried to give him a bottle of this stuff, so it might just be because he trusts us and is used to us giving him bottles... but he really didn't even seem to notice a difference. i can tell that he doesn't really gulp it as greedily as he does my milk in a bottle, but he doesn't make a bad face or anything. and he pretty much makes a bad face to anything food-wise. but yeah, so i stopped feeling bad when i give him formula and am thinking i might start trying to wean him gradually. i had been wondering how exactly i was going to go about weaning him. on his first birthday do i just refuse to nurse him? no, of course not. i didn't think i would ever supplement with formula but i am not so opposed to it now. i am so conflicted, though.

on the one hand, breastfeeding is REALLY convenient. no bottles, formula, boiled water, etc to lug around and i don't have to take time to measure and mix the bottle. but on the other hand, i DO have to tote my pump bag around everywhere along with bottles (just in case) whenever i go out with mom or take jude somewhere for the day. and pumping takes like 10 minutes. so it totally sucks when you are stuck in traffic on your way to lexington and there is a crying, sleepy baby that really just wants to nurse. scoop, mix, and shake seems a lot simpler than the whole pumping thing. so maybe i will just enjoy the best of both worlds for the next couple of months and pack formula and water just in case, instead of my pump. but that brings me back to the not being sure this is what i want... if breastfeeding wasn't such a complete hassle sometimes then i would honestly probably want to extend it past a year for jude. it's been such a blessing. i have loved to spend that quality time with my baby. and being pretty much the only one who can provide him with the nutrition he needs has been pretty gratifying, really. and the thought that this nutrition is by far the absolute best i am capable of giving is really cool. but then there is the selfish side of me that wants to lose this last 10-15lbs, the one who wants to smoke the occasional cigarette with my beer at a Klime show and the mommy who is just tired of feeling TIRED! i don't drink as much water as i should, which has a lot to do with it i know, but honestly breastfeeding had made me feel perpetually exhausted. i just want my body back, and though that seems selfish to me at times, other times i think that's ok. i carried this little pea around with me for nine months and so now it's been over 18 months since i've been able to just do what i want with myself. so who knows what will happen with this weaning thing. despite the selfish mommy that sometimes rears her ugly head, i know that weaning is going to be harder and more emotional for me than it ever will be for jude. sigh.

now, after that ridiculous rant, let's see... what else has jude been doing?

oh! he points! this has really started to happen during the past week but he's been pointing occasionally for about a month at least. but now he points at things he wants. it's super cute. and helpful! haha. and also, i swear he said bye-bye tonight and waved as we were leaving the derby party at tom and kelly's. who knows with this kid these days. dadadada and up are his favorite words but sometimes he mixes it up and says other things. albeit incomprehensible things mostly. he's said mama a couple of times but that's about it. i haven't been doing the Baby Can Read with him over the past few weeks (mainly since i've somehow lost DVD #1) but once we get moved in to our new apartment i plan to start doing it again everyday.

hmm... what else? he won't clap, but he likes to slap things and he finally splashes in the tub. it makes for a good ole time and a soaking wet mommy. he also likes to throw things down. he will climb up on the side of the tub to get his toys and toss them one by one into the bathwater. when he's full at mealtimes he leans over the side of his highchair and drops bits of food on the floor or else feeds it to belle. he especially likes to do this with cheese because of his dislike for the stuff. what a funny boy.

and that's about all i can muster right now. at least it ended up being longer than i thought it would!