A Perfect Snow Day

We accidentally had a perfect day yesterday!  I know, I know, I just pledged to document all my mess-ups, but this wasn't my fault.  Blame mother nature and the 8 inches of snow she dumped on Milwaukee.

At 6 AM I tiptoed upstairs to tell Nick (who was in the shower) to come back to bed.  I was too excited to sleep (I'm really like an 8-year old when it comes to snow days) so we read in bed until Callah woke up.  Bam! Reading on a weekday morning, already totally awesome.

After brewing coffee in my french press and making breakfast for the family, I walked Zadora before Nick had to leave for work.  Then Callah and I promptly made the most of our day!

The old stand-by: noodles and beans. 

I introduced shaving cream to Callah's world.  At first she just kept putting gobs of it into her mouth, but after trial and error she figured out that it was super fun to squish between her fingers.

The start of our adventure.  

No snow day is complete without baking cookies.  Here's the link to the recipe for these yummy snickerdoodles: http://lovintheoven.com/2010/03/even-better-snickerdoodle.html 

By 6 Callah and I were totally exhausted, so we had an early bath, lots of stories and snuggled in bed.  She was asleep before 7:30 and Nick and I had some TV time before ending our day much like we started it.

Words of Wisdom from Callah and Winnie-the-Pooh

Snow Day

Snow Day! Picture by Nick Woods 

My Blog's New Focus- the Imperfect Life

 You may have noticed my blog has a new tag line, "Perfectly Imperfect."  The other day as I was stumbleupon-ing my way through the Internet I came across a website that detailed, across pages and pages of text, how to clean your house each week.  My first thought as I read it was, "ooooh I should do this."  My second thought was, "what the hell?"  I relish my role as wife, mother and keeper of the home above all other things in my life, but come on! Weekly toothbrush scrubbing between tiles in the bathroom?  I'm not doing that.  Probably ever, most certainly not weekly.

It's a common theme across the web; blog after blog of home baked goodies, intricate meals, hand knit sweaters, decoupaged end tables and mobiles made out of paint samples (5 of them, yo).  And I'm not knocking them, I admire these people whole-heartily, I just can't do it.

My hope for this blog is a place where you can find meal plans, parenting and working mom stories, something to think about or if nothing else a sense of superiority to my woeful attempts to knit Callah a sweater or make dinner every night.

Eventually I'd like to have horizontal tabs organized by cooking posts or mommy posts, but true to the nature of my blog, I'm not there yet.  In the meantime, stick with me as I embark on a blogging adventure fraught with mistakes and imperfections!

High Needs Baby (Read: Colic!!!)

We were blessed with a high needs baby, a baby stuck in the "fourth trimester," a fussy baby, OK fine, a screamer!  From about 2 weeks to 10 weeks, if she was awake she was fussing, if she was asleep she was on me. If we stopped moving she started crying. She hated her car seat, her crib, her bassinet, and her bottle.  For about 10 of the 24 hours in a day she was swaddled in a sling and bouncing on an exercise ball.

I'm writing this post because as a mom with a new baby who seemed to be never content, I was desperate for support.  I gave up dairy and sugar in hopes that it would calm her tummy.  I gave up the notion of setting her down or sleeping for more than 2 hours at a time.  I accepted that we could not take her places after 5 pm.  I stopped going to my mommy-baby group because the happy babies who slept through the night caused me anguish.  I trolled the Internet for stories similar to mine and relished the ones that were worse.  Thank God for the mom who spent all night for a month driving on the freeways of Los Angeles.

The strain of having a baby that cries all the time was felt in our marriage and in my friendship with others.  I didn't want to talk about my baby with other moms because I felt insecure in my own mothering ability.  My neighbor Patti was my saviour, she would hold Callah so I could go to the bathroom or put away clothes, but most importantly she listened to me and hung out with me.  It was a lonely time being away from colleagues, friends and my family.  I felt isolated by a baby that I loved so fiercely that no one else (even her daddy) could say a negative word about her.

The funny thing is, as I write these words it seems like another person another lifetime ago that had those experiences.  Even though most evenings after 6 were spent with a pacifier, a bouncy ball, and a CD that played a hair drier; I still cherish those memories of the days (and nights) I spent with Callah as an infant.  In retrospect, what didn't I love about watching Netflix for 20 hours a day?  I couldn't push her in a stroller because she hated the stroller (I forgot to mention that before) but I got to wear her in a Bjorn as we walked around the neighborhood on sunny fall afternoons.  I loved that!  Yes, it was unpleasant to listen to fuzz blasting on the car radio to attempt to drown out the screams (which worked by the way), but compared to all the tiny little wonders of her new life it was a small price to pay.

From Baby to Little Girl- the birth of a person

Today I twisted Callah's thin hair into a teensy pony tail on top of her head.  That and her jeans, sneakers and sweater morphed her from baby to little girl.  It's hard not become nostalgic for the sleepy infant born almost a year and a half ago.  

Once you have a child your life quickly becomes separated into two parts--after kid and before kid.  Suddenly things that seemed important before she was born drop into oblivion.

My husband is writing a blog about photography and his last post talked about the feeling he wants a photograph to convey (http://wphotographicdesign.blogspot.com/).  In this picture taken immediately after Callah's birth I am brought back to the moment the doctor held her up to me and said, "do you see what you had?"  In the emotion of the moment I felt a rush of panic.  This is a test!! Don't fail.  Ok, it's ok, this is a girl.  Right, a girl?  I looked at my husband and he nodded his head.  Phew, passed.

Just a few hours before she was placed into my arms for the first time, I was sitting at home on the couch watching family members read the names of loved ones who died in the World Trade Center.  It was September 11, 2011 the ten year anniversary of 9-11.

Since Callah's due date was still a week away, my brain, novice in the ways of childbirth didn't recognize what was going on in my body as early labor.  I sat on the sofa and sobbed--for the victims and for their families.  By eleven that morning we were on our way to the hospital.  After a terrifying few minutes in which my room suddenly filled with five people talking anxiously about heart rates, I had an oxygen mask on my face and was wheeled through the hallway to a birthing room.

As seems to be the theme with most birth stories I read, the day didn't go how I planned it in my head.  I had made a carefully researched play list, intended to labor on the exercise ball and in the bath.  Nick and I thought we'd play Scrabble (ha) as we waited to go to the hospital.  Our classes told us labor could last days and we would most likely be at home in the early stages of labor for 8 hours.  As it happened we left our bag in the car and Nick was afraid he wouldn't have time to run and get the camera before our baby was born!  Needless to say the ipod and exercise ball were completely forgotten.

I don't want to ever forget the amazing day Callah Mackenzie Woods was born.  Although she shares her birthday with an infamous and sad anniversary, I hope that she, like the meaning of her beautiful first name will bring peace into the world.

All grown up.

6 Word Memoir

A professor interviewed on npr today mentioned that her first assignment for her students each semester is to write a 6-word memoir to present to the class.   I thought it was a cool idea, and it got me thinking about what 6 words I would use to describe myself and my life thus far.  

Here goes:

thankful

mother

wife

thinker

creator

teacher

I gave my husband the assignment tonight at dinner (see number 6 on my list).  I don't like to be bossy, buuuuut... everyone should do this and post me your list.  GO!