Away

• First, an X mas update:

I called my aunt and my sister-in-law and confirmed that they gave 0 fucks about us being in Indiana for Xmas and would be happy to attend an Xmas like event on a different day. So, I scheduled this event for December 19th and L and I are hard at work coming up with something that will be fun, meaningful, and start some good traditions. It also sounds like the Xmas day big family celebration won’t be happening in light of this new event, which is really just an unexpected benefit of the whole thing. I’m sure my parents will go over to my brother’s house on Xmas day and my mom will still have lots of feelings about us not being there, but she can’t use “the family” as some bullshit emotional weapon in her manipulation war. So, that’s good.

• Ansel Update

The dude is locomoting around the world these days, through sheer upper body muscle. It’s a very distinct army crawl than involves putting his arms out in front of him and then hefting the rest of his body forward. He’s also REALLY good at going from hands and knees to sit and back again, which is sort of unusual given that he’s not really using his knees to crawl. L’s mom (Oma) is in town, and she’s bound and determined to get the kid crawling on his hands and knees, so I think he’ll be at it in no time. In any case, our ability to sit him somewhere, go to the bathroom, and expect him not to have gotten into something is now gone.

Still no teeth, but he’s eating really well as long as things are pretty squishy. Otherwise, he mostly enjoys the flavor, but can’t really handle swallowing. I keep thinking I’m seeing something white poking out, but it inevitably ends up just being some shiny spit or a piece of teething cracker.

He’ll be 8 months on Tuesday, which just feels impossible. This past weekend we visited friends who have a 6 week old who was born the same size as Ansel, and it’s so cliche but really, how is it even possible he was ever that small?! He’s over 20lbs (not sure by how much, guessing he’s maybe 21?) and solidly in 9 month clothing, and some 12 month jammies.

He’s begun settling into some different sleep habits, which is awesome. He now pretty consistently sleeps from around 7:30/8 to between 1-2:30. He’ll have an occassional wake up before we go to bed at 11, but can be settled by rubbing his back and giving him a pacifier most nights. After I nurse him around 2, he usually goes back to sleep until 5:30ish, when I bring him into our bed until we all get up at 7:30. So, that basically equals one wake up for me, since I don’t count the zombie walk to bring him to bed. I’ve been feeling so much more rested at work, and I’m super grateful he’s beginning to settle a bit easier (the other night he even fussed for just a few minutes and then fell back asleep without crying or support, so that’s a win!) I know that teething and other new things may impact this, so I’m enjoying it while it lasts.

Finally . . .On Sunday afternoon, I’m leaving for a meeting in Washington D.C. for two days. I’ll only be gone about 50 hours, but I’m having so many feels about it. I’m super excited to go to this meeting, where I’ll meet colleagues doing similar work in other states and, hopefully, get a lot of questions about my grant answered (no promises, it’s the federal government) and I can eat good food and take a long shower and watch whatever TV I want. But, I’ll also be away from Ansel, and that makes me sad. I’ve only slept away from him one night in our lives, back in August, when I went to deliver a training in a small town in Colorado. He survived, I survived, L (barely) survived. He’s older now, and we’ll be ok. But I worry about pumping (and transporting milk through security) and how he’ll fall asleep without a boob and if he’ll still want to fall asleep with a boob when I get back. It feels quite a bit like walking away without a piece of my body, and while I know he’ll be safe and well cared for, I also worry he will miss me. And also, that he won’t miss me at all.

Fucking parenting, man. So confusing. So hard.

So, so worth it.