in sickness and in health, part 2

So I caught Aria's bronchitis and was sick for a week. Actually who am I fooling with the "was" part, I'm still sick, just not nearly as bad anymore. So in case you weren't counting, that's 1+ week of super sick baby, followed immediately by 1+ week of super sick daddy. They tell me that this is what happens to parents, that you catch all of your kids' malicious diseases. Lovely. I don't remember ever having bronchitis before. In fact I don't really remember having most of the typical kid diseases, like pneumonia or measles or mumps or chicken pox or any of that stuff. I'm in for hell on earth as an adult. It's some kind of karmic payback for all the neighbors I tortured playing the bass and/or guitar and/or drums in my twenties. And oh god the years of trumpet too. All the angry neighbors are going to plague me with disease!

But wait there's fun stuff too! Lookit all this food on her face! Now that's a yummy carrot!



Apparently, all babies make this face, whether they're enjoying the food or not. Or so we've read. Anyway, Aria's now able to eat 1/4 to 1/3 of a small jar of baby food at one sitting. She's enjoyed apples, bananas, sweet potatoes, and of course carrots. She seems to like them all equally well.

There are lots more pictures, as you might expect. To save space here on the blog I've uploaded them to snapfish.com. If you want me to send some to you then just email me.

In other news, Aria rolled over all the way from her back to her tummy on Tuesday for the first time. Also, she weighed in at 16 lbs 4 ounces a couple days ago.

From the Land of the Lost

Well, here I am. It's been quite a while since I've had the time or motivation to post anything, but I'm finally getting around to it. Having a new baby messes with my sense of time in ways that I've never expereinced before, at least not sober. When I'm with Aria, every moment seems like a snapshot of eternity. Every smile, every laugh, every tear, seems to contain the whole universe in it. Nothing else exists. And then I look up and a month has passed.

Things have been hard for me, though. I am battling some post partum depression. I realized that I am grieving many losses right now. Most prominent is the feeling that I lost a very important moment when Aria was born and had to be rushed to the hospital so quickly. I am sad that I didn't get to hold her right away. I had this image in my head of the midwife handing me my child and laying in bed with Michael as Aria nursed for the very first time. My hope is that each moment I spend with her now goes against that loss somehow, but I still grieve for that. The other thing I grieve is the seeming loss of my old identity. I miss me. I miss reading in bed with Michael. I miss going to the bathroom without worrying about a baby on the other side of the door. I miss being able to cook and eat a hot meal. I miss making love out loud. I miss being a couch-potato. I miss being able to just run into the store to grab something really quick. Or doing anything really quick.

But as much as I miss the old me, I love the new me. Aria has shown me what I am capable of. She has brought out my strength that I never knew I had. She has made me feel in ways I could never have imagined. In life, many of us are afraid to love to our fullest capacity. We may find many ways of hiding from love out of fear that we will be hurt. It can take years to really become intimate with our friends, out spouses, our families. But having a baby breaks down all the walls in one swoop. It's instantly and incredibly intimate from the first moment, and there is no way to hide from the torrent of love that spills into every moment. My cup runneth over.

-Hosanna

jeepers

official diagnosis: "baby bronchitis."

yuck.

in sickness and in health...

Turns out Aria did get sick. A really bad cold. Super stuffy nose, bad cough, slight fever. This all started on Friday. We woke up that day and we could tell that Aria wasn't feeling well. Hosie had a trip to Santa Rosa planned, and we debated all morning whether or not she should go. She finally decided to take her. I couldn't go because I had to work all day Saturday.

She was planning on staying until Sunday, but she cut their visit short because Aria got worse. She didn't sleep well while traveling - missed some naps and had a rough night sleep Friday night. When they got back home Aria was noticeably happy to be home, but she slept really badly last night too... so she's been awake off and on all night for two nights running, and tonight doesn't look like it's going to be any better. She's so tired all the time but can't sleep because she keeps snorting and coughing herself awake. And she's started moaning & whimpering, this ultra-pathetic "hmmmmmmmmmmmmm" that's nearly always at the same pitch.

Needless to say, we're all running on less than empty now... ugh.

While we're on the tragic, Aria had her first big encounter with pain a few days ago too. She was standing up on my lap (with my assistance, of course) while I was sitting on the couch, with her back to me. She executed a truly inspired lunge that caught me completely off guard, and she majorly face planted right on my bony knee. Got a little fat lip. Man did she scream and scream, definitely the loudest we've ever heard from her. Scared us a lot.

Ohhhhh yes, and did I mention the TEETHING? Oy vey, I have decided that teeth are the root of all evil and we should have been designed to eat everything through a straw from the get go. Sick baby + teething = one shitty day and that's all there is to it.