It's time to move on. I haven't had much time to put into this blog and don't really like where it's going, so I've decided to end it. In the beginning, it was a way for me to document my new mamahood, Tessa's milestones, and updates on my life. Instead it's become something entirely else, and I don't much like it. So I'm going to move on and try to get back to my original goal.
My life is a lot different now. I want to reflect that, and I want to write about the truly important, funny, striking, or exciting things that are happening to me. Not least importantly, the new blog is much more attractive ;)
So, goodbye blogspot, hello: http://ereiforget.wordpress.com/
I hope you read on, readers :)
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
mother's day
This time last year, my mom and I had mother's day brunch on the downtown mall, and as a big old pregnant lady, I got a ton of smiles and "happy mother's day"s from strangers. It was a great day, a great memory. I loved being pregnant, but nothing beats my first mother's day.
I don't need to write anything sappy or sentimental for this post. Needless to say, my first mother's day was wonderful; my baby girl started clapping for the first time and that was just the cherry on top.
Anyway, thought I would do a little flashback.
Here I was this time last year, and here we are now:
Inside, outside, together.
I don't need to write anything sappy or sentimental for this post. Needless to say, my first mother's day was wonderful; my baby girl started clapping for the first time and that was just the cherry on top.
Anyway, thought I would do a little flashback.
Here I was this time last year, and here we are now:
Inside, outside, together.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
T time
It's been a while since I've really done a Tessa update, and here I am with a few golden moments of no homework, no baby, and no laundry to fold.
She'll be 10 months in a week and this is such a fun time. She is getting really big, I weighed her last week and she's 22.5 lbs; really close to walking- holds one or both of my hands when she walks around the room. It's just the balance that she doesn't have yet, but she definitely has the strength and clearly is loving it.
Cut her third tooth yesterday. We had a nice break of a few months of no teething, but BAM all of a sudden I have a cranky teething baby on my hands. Right in time for the huge motrin/tylenol recall, both of which I had given her before I read about the recall.... great.
She is too excited and playful at daycare to nap. Her teachers say she loves playing with the other babies and stands in her crib and talks and waves to everybody. Probably only gets an hour max of sleep while she's there, so she's miserable by the time I get her usually which sucks a lot, but on the weekends she's sleeping fine. AND has been sleeping til close to 7 some days... I don't want to jinx myself but maybe it's my dream come true!
For as little time as I get to spend with her during the week, weekends are my magical time. When everything else in this world seems completely out of control, I hold that little girl and smell her sweet face and see her looking up at me with those big blue eyes and the love, the trust, well, all the pain and suffering and testing and struggling that come from bringing a baby into this world and becoming and being a mother are so, so worth it. I gave Tessa her bottle tonight and I rocked and sang to her as I usually do, and when I paused for a moment, she stopped sucking and her eyes popped open and she looked at me and with complete recognition that I had stopped singing, cooed at me as if asking me to sing again, and when I did, the little corners of her eyes crinkled up and she went back to drowsing with her bottle. It is little moments like this that I realize she is starting to blossom into a real little person, one with her own mind and her own motives; less and less a baby every day, but no less a part of me than she was the day I saw the line on the pregnancy test or felt her move within me.
She grows and gets bigger and smarter and stronger; she learns and recognizes and comprehends more than I can know; she changes faster than I can see; she is the same bean she was at birth but yet so different. One thing doesn't change-- that tessa bean is the light of my life.
She'll be 10 months in a week and this is such a fun time. She is getting really big, I weighed her last week and she's 22.5 lbs; really close to walking- holds one or both of my hands when she walks around the room. It's just the balance that she doesn't have yet, but she definitely has the strength and clearly is loving it.
Cut her third tooth yesterday. We had a nice break of a few months of no teething, but BAM all of a sudden I have a cranky teething baby on my hands. Right in time for the huge motrin/tylenol recall, both of which I had given her before I read about the recall.... great.
She is too excited and playful at daycare to nap. Her teachers say she loves playing with the other babies and stands in her crib and talks and waves to everybody. Probably only gets an hour max of sleep while she's there, so she's miserable by the time I get her usually which sucks a lot, but on the weekends she's sleeping fine. AND has been sleeping til close to 7 some days... I don't want to jinx myself but maybe it's my dream come true!
For as little time as I get to spend with her during the week, weekends are my magical time. When everything else in this world seems completely out of control, I hold that little girl and smell her sweet face and see her looking up at me with those big blue eyes and the love, the trust, well, all the pain and suffering and testing and struggling that come from bringing a baby into this world and becoming and being a mother are so, so worth it. I gave Tessa her bottle tonight and I rocked and sang to her as I usually do, and when I paused for a moment, she stopped sucking and her eyes popped open and she looked at me and with complete recognition that I had stopped singing, cooed at me as if asking me to sing again, and when I did, the little corners of her eyes crinkled up and she went back to drowsing with her bottle. It is little moments like this that I realize she is starting to blossom into a real little person, one with her own mind and her own motives; less and less a baby every day, but no less a part of me than she was the day I saw the line on the pregnancy test or felt her move within me.
She grows and gets bigger and smarter and stronger; she learns and recognizes and comprehends more than I can know; she changes faster than I can see; she is the same bean she was at birth but yet so different. One thing doesn't change-- that tessa bean is the light of my life.
Monday, April 26, 2010
AND
Oh my god, and did I forget to mention I got to change adult diapers and give bed baths on friday to geriatrics in a nursing facility? and it was awesome?? no, really.. i already change diapers all the time so no big deal, but it was my first clinical and it was sweet! We did general patient care and took vitals and got familiar with patient records; really cool.
And let's not forget my awesome white clogs that I have to wear ;)
And let's not forget my awesome white clogs that I have to wear ;)
status quo
This comes as a surprise...
Everything is OKAY. As in, my life doesn't feel fucked up and I don't have a million problems and am super stressed and/or depressed and feel like I can't do anything right and it is out of control...
It's been a while. Hello, copacetic, meet Kate.
And the funny thing?
Nothing has changed. I think maybe, just maybe... I've got the hang of this and have accepted that it's going to be tough but I feel totally empowered by this, all of this, in a weird feminist liberating way. And if you know me, you know I'm not some kind of huge feminist.
But I feel like: SHIT, check me out, I got the only 100 on a test in my class and am already doing well and wrote some bangin papers and am totally into school and still manage to take care of my baby girl and wear clean clothes (almost) every day and at the end of the day, I come home and feel.... Happy. And I feel like I can do anything. And that when I get through this program, I will be able to do anything.
Maybe it's me, maybe it's just how things are happening, whatever.. I feel good.
Everything is OKAY. As in, my life doesn't feel fucked up and I don't have a million problems and am super stressed and/or depressed and feel like I can't do anything right and it is out of control...
It's been a while. Hello, copacetic, meet Kate.
And the funny thing?
Nothing has changed. I think maybe, just maybe... I've got the hang of this and have accepted that it's going to be tough but I feel totally empowered by this, all of this, in a weird feminist liberating way. And if you know me, you know I'm not some kind of huge feminist.
But I feel like: SHIT, check me out, I got the only 100 on a test in my class and am already doing well and wrote some bangin papers and am totally into school and still manage to take care of my baby girl and wear clean clothes (almost) every day and at the end of the day, I come home and feel.... Happy. And I feel like I can do anything. And that when I get through this program, I will be able to do anything.
Maybe it's me, maybe it's just how things are happening, whatever.. I feel good.
Friday, April 9, 2010
these days
Have been a little (a lot) crazy.
School is great. My teachers are fabulous, the curriculum is wonderful, my classmates, well, let's just say it's like being in a room full of you's, only you with a different background. It's great. I feel right at home. We are thrown right into it- assessing health, making nursing diagnoses, vital signs, etc etc... It really, truly feels like I am finally doing the right thing for once; like what I am doing is Important. It feels like purpose. I feel the beginnings of passion, a twinge in the beginning, something that will blossom and something that will be my fire.
But don't let me go on too long being positive for once... god forbid.
This shit is HARD. Right now I am taking 21 credits in a span of 12 weeks. After that, each quarter is something like 21 to 23 credits. In a year, I will have earned nearly 90 credits!? That is, if I make it. Since we started, not a professor has failed to mention that we very well might not make it, and that many of us will drop out before second and third quarter even begin. It is intense. In college, I never took more than 15 credits in a semester, and that was a 3.5 month semester, and THAT was a lot of work. THIS, this, is really going to shake the earth beneath my feet. It is one of the hardest, most intense accelerated nursing program in the country. When people find out I have a 9 month old, they look at me like I am nuts. I feel like I am nuts. I really don't know how I'm going to do this except one day at a time. Some days are so fucking hard and I wake up at 5 and have to get myself and tessa ready and fed, diapers changed, bags packed, homework ready, and she screams because I'm rushing and I feel like the worst mother in the world because at the end of the day, I just want to put her to bed because she's miserable from daycare. And the fucked up thing? It's going to be like this for a year. A year of waking up at 5 (sometimes earlier on clinical days) rushing out, rushing home, feeding tessa, bathing her, putting her down, barely able to play with her before her bedtime, and in my spare time what do I do? Homework, tons of it, dishes, laundry, cleaning.. cleaning changing table, cleaning the kitchen, cleaning bottles, cleaning diapers, cleaning the crust out of the creases of the highchair, I feel like fucking cinderella sometimes... And try to go to bed by 9 so I can not fall asleep in class or at clinical the next day. No social life, no friends, no fun. But that's not what I'm bitching about here... I am sad to willfully neglect my child, to be putting something else before her, to spend more energy on something other than her. I am sad that sometimes, sometimes I would just rather do homework than struggle to feed, change, and bathe my daughter when she is a miserable wreck after a long, stimulating day. I am sad that I have to do everything myself.
My first clinical today was at a nursing home in PA. My instructor gave us our orientation, showed us around, told us what we would be doing there. And we all talked for quite a while, about nursing, its importance, and the ethics.. how you have to remember that the person you are dealing with is somebody's daughter, son, mother, father, brother, whatever... you have to have perspective. She told us a story of the relationship between patients, their families, and the nurses and doctors caring for them-- how when she was 29 weeks pregnant, they found out there was too much amniotic fluid and the baby's lung had collapsed. She had to have a c-section 11 weeks early. The baby, named Liz, had a valve in her heart that was too narrow and the muscle wall became too thick and her lungs were filled with fluid... The baby couldn't thrive, she couldn't gain weight but she couldn't lose the extra fluid in her lungs at the same time, she had blood transfusions, she was pumped with drugs, she had the flu, she had heart surgery, she had sepsis and was pounded with antibiotics most adults couldn't handle, and the doctors at CHOP, one of the best fucking children's hospitals in the world, just could not figure out what was wrong and why she wasn't thriving, and eventually, she died. All in three months. This tiny, innocent baby, tabula rasa, just never had a chance.
And god mother fucking damn it, if that was me, I wouldn't be on this earth anymore. I would not be able to go on living. And that woman got pregnant again and had two more babies and is extraordinarily successful as a Nurse Practitioner, a nurse manager, a teacher, a mother, a wife... That is strength. That is courage, and if she could get through that and still walk this earth, what I struggle with is like comparing allergies to cancer. The things that we take for granted in life-- so many of us don't even deserve.
I have so much love in my life, I am such a lucky person, and yet I struggle to find happiness and accept my life and its terms, and I struggle with being strong enough to be a single mom and do this program... where is my perspective? Where is my gratitude? Do any of us really know how good we have it? There is so much pain, so much spontaneous tragedy in this world. Every second of every day, we should remember this and be thankful for what we have, and where we are; and concern ourselves less with the trivial: how do I look, what kind of jeans am I wearing, what kind of haircut should I get, does that boy like me, will I miss my favorite tv show, i can't believe he didn't call me my life fucking sucks. Look at yourself, look at me, look at the rest of the world, and how much harder and more awful and painful your life could be.
I don't know how to wrap this up. I don't know if I should keep writing this blog, it's theme has been much too depressing, at a time when I'm finally realizing how to find and to make my own happiness, how to be grateful, and how to live in the moment. Life is what you make of it, and it can be a self fulfilling prophecy. hold every moment in your hands and try to imagine it's weight in gold, realize it's value.
School is great. My teachers are fabulous, the curriculum is wonderful, my classmates, well, let's just say it's like being in a room full of you's, only you with a different background. It's great. I feel right at home. We are thrown right into it- assessing health, making nursing diagnoses, vital signs, etc etc... It really, truly feels like I am finally doing the right thing for once; like what I am doing is Important. It feels like purpose. I feel the beginnings of passion, a twinge in the beginning, something that will blossom and something that will be my fire.
But don't let me go on too long being positive for once... god forbid.
This shit is HARD. Right now I am taking 21 credits in a span of 12 weeks. After that, each quarter is something like 21 to 23 credits. In a year, I will have earned nearly 90 credits!? That is, if I make it. Since we started, not a professor has failed to mention that we very well might not make it, and that many of us will drop out before second and third quarter even begin. It is intense. In college, I never took more than 15 credits in a semester, and that was a 3.5 month semester, and THAT was a lot of work. THIS, this, is really going to shake the earth beneath my feet. It is one of the hardest, most intense accelerated nursing program in the country. When people find out I have a 9 month old, they look at me like I am nuts. I feel like I am nuts. I really don't know how I'm going to do this except one day at a time. Some days are so fucking hard and I wake up at 5 and have to get myself and tessa ready and fed, diapers changed, bags packed, homework ready, and she screams because I'm rushing and I feel like the worst mother in the world because at the end of the day, I just want to put her to bed because she's miserable from daycare. And the fucked up thing? It's going to be like this for a year. A year of waking up at 5 (sometimes earlier on clinical days) rushing out, rushing home, feeding tessa, bathing her, putting her down, barely able to play with her before her bedtime, and in my spare time what do I do? Homework, tons of it, dishes, laundry, cleaning.. cleaning changing table, cleaning the kitchen, cleaning bottles, cleaning diapers, cleaning the crust out of the creases of the highchair, I feel like fucking cinderella sometimes... And try to go to bed by 9 so I can not fall asleep in class or at clinical the next day. No social life, no friends, no fun. But that's not what I'm bitching about here... I am sad to willfully neglect my child, to be putting something else before her, to spend more energy on something other than her. I am sad that sometimes, sometimes I would just rather do homework than struggle to feed, change, and bathe my daughter when she is a miserable wreck after a long, stimulating day. I am sad that I have to do everything myself.
My first clinical today was at a nursing home in PA. My instructor gave us our orientation, showed us around, told us what we would be doing there. And we all talked for quite a while, about nursing, its importance, and the ethics.. how you have to remember that the person you are dealing with is somebody's daughter, son, mother, father, brother, whatever... you have to have perspective. She told us a story of the relationship between patients, their families, and the nurses and doctors caring for them-- how when she was 29 weeks pregnant, they found out there was too much amniotic fluid and the baby's lung had collapsed. She had to have a c-section 11 weeks early. The baby, named Liz, had a valve in her heart that was too narrow and the muscle wall became too thick and her lungs were filled with fluid... The baby couldn't thrive, she couldn't gain weight but she couldn't lose the extra fluid in her lungs at the same time, she had blood transfusions, she was pumped with drugs, she had the flu, she had heart surgery, she had sepsis and was pounded with antibiotics most adults couldn't handle, and the doctors at CHOP, one of the best fucking children's hospitals in the world, just could not figure out what was wrong and why she wasn't thriving, and eventually, she died. All in three months. This tiny, innocent baby, tabula rasa, just never had a chance.
And god mother fucking damn it, if that was me, I wouldn't be on this earth anymore. I would not be able to go on living. And that woman got pregnant again and had two more babies and is extraordinarily successful as a Nurse Practitioner, a nurse manager, a teacher, a mother, a wife... That is strength. That is courage, and if she could get through that and still walk this earth, what I struggle with is like comparing allergies to cancer. The things that we take for granted in life-- so many of us don't even deserve.
I have so much love in my life, I am such a lucky person, and yet I struggle to find happiness and accept my life and its terms, and I struggle with being strong enough to be a single mom and do this program... where is my perspective? Where is my gratitude? Do any of us really know how good we have it? There is so much pain, so much spontaneous tragedy in this world. Every second of every day, we should remember this and be thankful for what we have, and where we are; and concern ourselves less with the trivial: how do I look, what kind of jeans am I wearing, what kind of haircut should I get, does that boy like me, will I miss my favorite tv show, i can't believe he didn't call me my life fucking sucks. Look at yourself, look at me, look at the rest of the world, and how much harder and more awful and painful your life could be.
I don't know how to wrap this up. I don't know if I should keep writing this blog, it's theme has been much too depressing, at a time when I'm finally realizing how to find and to make my own happiness, how to be grateful, and how to live in the moment. Life is what you make of it, and it can be a self fulfilling prophecy. hold every moment in your hands and try to imagine it's weight in gold, realize it's value.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
on the move!
I wrote this a few weeks ago and just noticed I never posted it:
So because my daughter is a genius and very advanced for her age and will probably graduate from Princeton when she's ten, it wasn't a surprise when she started sitting up at 5 months, scooting around shortly thereafter, and pulling herself up at 7 and a half months. She didn't crawl, but I figured she was just gearing up to start walking at a very early age, skipping the crawling altogether.
Well. Newsflash. Tessa tried crawling yesterday. She did it a couple times, put a few feet under her belt before packing up and heading to bed. This morning, she is crawling all over the place, and quick. Crawling anywhere she sees. It's like a whole new world of experiences has opened up for her. It's great! She crawls to the shelf and pulls the books off, crawls to the couch, pulls herself up, and pulls my files onto the floor, yanks my computer cord and pulls it out of the computer, crawls to the fireplace and pulls up on the sharp stone ledge, grabbing handfuls of wood and ash in the process. She crawls to the trash and pulls it over. The laundry bin. The stool. The printer.
Good lord. I was so enjoying sitting and playing with her. Now it's going to be chasing her while she plays. It means constant cleaning so she doesn't eat every little speck in sight, it means covering all sharp edges, it means never letting her out of my sight. I was so, so content with the stationary baby. But the stationary baby has little left to explore, and will eventually branch out. Such is life. Now, what ELSE this means is that the more she moves, the more tired out she'll get. I guess each stage has its challenges and its benefits.
Regardless, having a baby is so much fun, and the most wonderful fulfilling thing in the world. I love watching the excitement and wonder with which she sees everything. We could learn a lot of lessons from babies. Everything can be looked at in a new light, change is constant, life is exciting, meeting new people is a good thing, be content with what you have, smile all the time and other people will smile too... It is cheezy but it's true. This child has turned my life around. Her wonder is my wonder. When life is good, I have Tessa. When all else fails, I have Tessa.
So because my daughter is a genius and very advanced for her age and will probably graduate from Princeton when she's ten, it wasn't a surprise when she started sitting up at 5 months, scooting around shortly thereafter, and pulling herself up at 7 and a half months. She didn't crawl, but I figured she was just gearing up to start walking at a very early age, skipping the crawling altogether.
Well. Newsflash. Tessa tried crawling yesterday. She did it a couple times, put a few feet under her belt before packing up and heading to bed. This morning, she is crawling all over the place, and quick. Crawling anywhere she sees. It's like a whole new world of experiences has opened up for her. It's great! She crawls to the shelf and pulls the books off, crawls to the couch, pulls herself up, and pulls my files onto the floor, yanks my computer cord and pulls it out of the computer, crawls to the fireplace and pulls up on the sharp stone ledge, grabbing handfuls of wood and ash in the process. She crawls to the trash and pulls it over. The laundry bin. The stool. The printer.
Good lord. I was so enjoying sitting and playing with her. Now it's going to be chasing her while she plays. It means constant cleaning so she doesn't eat every little speck in sight, it means covering all sharp edges, it means never letting her out of my sight. I was so, so content with the stationary baby. But the stationary baby has little left to explore, and will eventually branch out. Such is life. Now, what ELSE this means is that the more she moves, the more tired out she'll get. I guess each stage has its challenges and its benefits.
Regardless, having a baby is so much fun, and the most wonderful fulfilling thing in the world. I love watching the excitement and wonder with which she sees everything. We could learn a lot of lessons from babies. Everything can be looked at in a new light, change is constant, life is exciting, meeting new people is a good thing, be content with what you have, smile all the time and other people will smile too... It is cheezy but it's true. This child has turned my life around. Her wonder is my wonder. When life is good, I have Tessa. When all else fails, I have Tessa.
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