Sunday 17 March 2013

island life

when we first found out i was pregnant, we had to decide if we wanted to stay here or move back to the states for a more comfortable, "normal" life with her. we knew it would be a challenge, but we decided to stay here and trade easy for awesome. now that we're a few months into this adventure, i've been thinking about all the ways that we do things differently here.

the thing that really got me thinking about this is how we get diapers. originally we wanted to cloth diaper. unlike most stj residents, we do have our own washer and dryer in our apartment (well, on the patio, but still...) however it doesn't have hot water connected to it. we decided to go with disposables for the first few weeks/months until we got the hang of parenthood in general and then switch to cloth, but i'm still on the fence because of the extra effort to do cold water. in the meantime, we have to order diapers online from walmart.com far enough in advance that we don't run out. i ordered some last week and they finally arrived yesterday, but we receive our mail at a place called connections that has a community PO box. because this is an island and you can do whatever the hell you want here, connections is closed today. kitten only has enough diapers for the rest of today and connections is also closed tomorrow! the grocery store here doesn't carry newborn or size 1 diapers and no pampers, just huggies, which kitten blows out of every time she poops. they sell small packs of diapers at about twice as much as they cost at walmart.

if we lived in the real world, we could just run out to any 24 hour kroger, walmart, walgreens, whatever any time of the day or night and get her anything we need. here, the pharmacy closes at 6:30 and the grocery store at 9, so if you need anything at night you're SOL. before she was born, i made sure to stock up on anything we might need just in case, but now that she's getting older we need to stay ahead of her changing needs. she could be teething soon, so i'll have to be prepared for that, for example.

another unique thing about life here is that we only own one car and it's really all we need. colby usually walks to work, and if we need anything in town, i just put kitten in the ergo and walk. it would take me longer and be more of a hassle to put her in the car seat, drive to cruz bay, find a parking spot, take her out of the car seat, etc. etc. instead i pop her in the ergo and we're there in 5 minutes. we can get to the clinic in 10 minutes tops! any time we feel like it, we can walk up to the resort to see colby at work, and he can come home to see us for lunch every day. we don't own one of those car seats with the carrier part that comes out because we can wear her everywhere so she just has the cheapest basic car seat we could find and she's been in the car maybe 5 times total. we also don't own a stroller. the terrain here is not very stroller friendly, and again it's so much easier to wear her.

as she gets older i'll have to remember to post about the different island challenges. for example, i haven't yet figured out how to bathe a toddler without a bath tub!

Wednesday 6 March 2013

recently a blog post was making the rounds on my birth board and facebook, "i became a mother and died to live." it came highly recommended, with comments about how dead on it was and it brought many women to tears. i read it a few times and just couldn't see what the big deal was. it contains such dramatic lines as "a heart mourning the woman that once was, and a soul shaking under the weight of a new giant world." meh. for me, there is no mourning, no shaking. i realized that the reason for my lack of reaction is that i didn't recently become a mother; i've always been one. i was born to do this and it's all i've ever wanted. this is who i was all along and all i needed was the baby to make it complete.

i hear a lot of women say they weren't ready, and then they comfort themselves by saying that no one is ever ready. excuse me! please do not project your insecurities on the rest of us. i couldn't have been more ready. i was 31, going on 32. i had spent the previous 8 years believing that i had infertility issues and that my dream of having children was going to be difficult to achieve, if not impossible. i partied. i dated. i had a career. i left it behind. i lived in new york city. i moved to a new city on a greyhound bus. at the age of 30, i sold all my belongings and moved to a caribbean island with one suitcase, my dog and a man i'd known for a month. i've done it all and once i found colby, my absolute perfect partner, the only thing that was missing in my life was my amazing daughter. our amazing daughter.

before sweet catherine, we were already homebodies, so there is no social life to mourn. i've never loved my body, so i can't say i'm that upset about it being a little saggy these days. i don't feel lonely or isolated, in fact i feel more loved and supported by my friends and family than ever before. even though our baby girl was a surprise and we aren't financially well off, i've never questioned if this was a mistake. sometimes it doesn't even feel real, but this is exactly how it was meant to be.

as far as i'm concerned, i was not a different person this time last year. and if i was, i don't miss her at all.


3 months

sweet baby cat is 3 months old today! yesterday was the first time she held a rattle for an extended period of time and seemed to understand that shaking it was fun. she's been staring at her hands and shoving her entire fists in her mouth for the past few days. this morning she found her thumb and sucked on it for 30 seconds, saw me looking at her, gave me a huge smile and lost the thumb. i'd rather she not develop a thumb sucking habit, but it's adorable watching her figure it out. she doesn't take pacifiers, so we're trying to find a balance between letting her explore the oral stage and picking up a bad habit that will be hard to stop.


she still hates tummy time, and can't lie on her back for very long because of her spit up problems, so we have no idea if she's capable of rolling over yet, but she sits up very well for her age. she still loves the butterflies in her play gym, the musical flower, and she'll even stare at her pink blanket from aunt grace for long periods of time, studying the texture. she's very independent when she wants to be, but you better pick her up when she's ready for some cuddles or she will have a meltdown in a hurry! i posted recently that she wasn't interested in mirrors and later that day i took her to the mirror to try again and she loved it. she smiles and acts shy when she sees herself. we try to do a little bit of mirror time every diaper change.

we finally received the ergo carrier last week and i've been wearing her quite a bit. we walked down to cruz bay and sat on the beach to enjoy a few happy hour beverages. she was so sweet and only got a little fussy for a minute, but once she was back in the carrier she went to sleep for the hike home. yesterday we walked back into town to get her birth certificate and again she was so good! we were out for 3 hours and she got a tiny bit fussy at the bank before falling asleep for the entire walk home in the rain. she only poops once or twice a day, so it's making outings with her a lot easier than they once were.

in other news, we are thinking she might be big enough finally for cloth diapers. the cover that came with the econobum trial was way too big for her tiny little tushy when she was in newborn size and the prefolds are still looking too bulky for her skinny size 1 butt. i did some research and it looks like if we use vinegar and sunlight, we can still cloth diaper without access to hot water. it seems like a lot of work so i'm not sure it's right for us, but we should at least give it a fair shot.

Friday 1 March 2013

sweet catherine is 12 weeks old and already has so many nicknames. there's no way i could list them all, but i can try!

kitten, cat, catten, kitten-cat, kitty, kiki, kitty-kate, kitton, petite chaton, bebe cat, baby girl, baby doll, catamaran, sweet girl, tiny cat, hello kitten, smelly cat, chunky cheesy, chatty cathy, wiggle worm, sqwerm... and a million more.