Jennerosity

This month was all about Locutus moving! From his first bit of inch-worming to his attempts at assisted walking. Needless to say, I’m moving around more too! The list of achievements really belongs to both Benevolance and myself.

• Bought and installed baby gates
• Made our own baby food
• Survived the first few bumps and falls
• Began teaching ‘No’
• Survived the first tantrum when we took him away from something he wanted (hitting a mirror)
• First major heart attack moment when I realized he’s able to climb the stairs!
• Navigated the baby vs kid sunscreen decision
• Applied sunscreen to him for the first time

Now that the weather is improving, we’re looking forward to exploring a bit outside too! There’s a park close by (15-20 minutes by foot) and we’ve got a little patio/deck to clean up as well.

My month was a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Had a few days that were very frustrating and stressful. But everything seems to be getting back on track again.

The transition to solids has been bittersweet for me. Even though Locutus isn’t fully weaned, giving up some of that does make me feel a little sad. Being so fully responsible for his nutrition is an awesome responsibility and now that’s changing. And maybe I’m lazy, but breastfeeding is just easier too. No real prep or planning, just ready to go wherever we were. Very few decisions and choices. Plus, breastfeeding is much cleaner! Luckily I found a great website that is very helpful in the planning department!

Achievements this month:

• Puréed Locutus’s first foods
• Finally sorted all the piles of clothes in the nursery!

I guess as he gets older there will be far fewer major accomplishments to brag about. Things are already starting to get more complex and it’s hard to know what the impact of your decisions will be.

Not sure the best way to go about saying this, so I’ll just blurt it out. I’m giving up my weekly role playing group. Despite the fact that it’s hosted at my own house, multi-tasking between playing and being a mommy is still just not fun for me. When I try to do both things, I end up doing neither of them very well and that isn’t really fair to my fellow gamers or to Locutus.

I was hoping to stick it out at least until the end of this story arc, but finally realized there was no point since I’m not able to do much both in and out of character.

It’s disappointing for me on a couple of levels. First there’s the fact that I’m having to surrender (another) part of myself in the first place. And the sting that it’s mommy who has to do the lion’s share of sacrifice in the whole procreation deal. Second is that I’m going to really miss role playing as a fun activity. I was just hitting my stride as a role player and getting better at it. In particular, I am proud of the last few characters that I created and all the hijinks they got up to.

On the bright side, I’m not necessarily giving up ALL gaming or even ALL role playing. I would still like to arrange for some opportunities to game and such. They will just probably need to be one-off type sessions. Plus, I still get to talk shop with Benevolance and hear about how the adventures are continuing. As a kind of hidden bonus, I won’t have to worry about rolling the death die again for a long while.¹

1. Death die = a way of generating random encounters. I hate having that responsibility at the table, especially because others enjoy it way more. [↩]

The major achievement that needs to be highlighted here is that for the first six months, I survived breastfeeding. Any mom who does this seriously deserves a fucking medal. I’d love to have been on top of my game enough so that I had a little reward planned out as a celebration of this achievement, however, I really suck at doing that for myself.

Other accomplishments:

• Got my son kicked out of his first pub – hah!
• Survived our first long road trip
• Survived being bitten by sharp little baby teeth

Glad to report that everyone survived the weekend trip away. Here’s a brief rundown of how things went.

Friday:
Left early! This turned out to be the best for Locutus since it overlapped some of his normal sleeping time.

Drove down to St. Helens, Oregon. We took frequent stops but made good time. Arrived in the early afternoon and had time for a walk in the rain before dinner.

Had spaghetti for dinner and lots of chatting and catch up time. Then it was off to bed pretty early. Despite all the sleep in the car, Locutus still fell asleep around the same time.

Saturday:
I got up early again, but Locutus slept in a bit longer. We ate Grandpa Bob’s famous pancakes for breakfast.

Most of our spare time was spent getting caught up talking. Barbara brought her knitting and crochet projects to work on and Grandma was finishing up a quilt. Kim and Grandpa were each working on a different book. I kind of wish I had brought my crochet stuff down so I could have worked on finishing the hat I started. But Locutus kept me from being bored anyway.

Lunch was sandwiches with veggies and I had leftovers of both the spaghetti and the pancakes. I generally got spoiled with food the entire time.

The afternoon we went for another walk in the rain. The only other thing I wished I’d brought was better rain gear so that I could have walked longer. But it was still nice to get some fresh air and a bit of exercise.

Just after our walk more family arrived! Aunt Robin, Uncle Richard, and my cousin Chun Mei. They brought along Robin’s mother Jean as well. So we played more catch up during the afternoon and Locutus got another present with more books and a cute frog bath mitt.

Dinner was delicious pork roast. And there were lots of cookies and cake for dessert. Chun Mei plays viola and played a selection of songs for us. She stayed overnight as well because she was going to play at Grandma and Grandpa’s church on Sunday morning.

Locutus got lots of time to wiggle on the floor and showed off with a few rolls each way and lots of general cuteness. He let his Great Grandma hold him and sing him to sleep. He also loved to flirt with his Great Aunt Robin who loved holding him too.

Sunday:
Started pretty early again. Barbara made people omelets and we helped ourselves to cereal, toast, leftover pancakes and fresh fruit. Then we packed up and hit the road.

Locutus fussed a bit on the way home but thankfully we made some extra stops to get him fed and that helped a lot.

Things I learned on this trip or things to do differently next time:
-it’s important to know where/when your rest stops are! So glad to do the trip with someone familiar with the route.

-I really hate disposable diapers. Thankfully we had only 2 leaks, but I was more worried about that than I would have been with our cloth diapers. Plus something about the fake plasticky smell of the diaper (even clean ones) makes my stomach churn and my skin crawl.

-Should have switched to my travel jacket and brought the rain cover for the ergo so we could have walked more.

If I’m going to report on Locutus’s progress then it’s only fair that I report on my own.

I’m slowly gaining confidence as a new mom. Here is my list of my solo cheevos:

• take baby for walks
• shopping for groceries
• shopping at Metrotown
• fed at home
• fed at someone else’s home
• fed in a public washroom
• fed in the backseat of the car on the side of the road
• changed diapers at home
• changed diapers at someone else’s home
• changed diapers in a public restroom
• attended baby talk at the public health office
• joined an online mom’s group
• worn my baby in 3 different carriers
• survived a major diaper blowout
• been peed on
• survived a deluge of spit-up and drool
• gave him a bath