Nicole Tasker Woods

I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster for the past 10 days. Last Saturday I heard from my nanny that she wanted more money and less hours. As much as I loved her and how she cared for Aidan, after much debate and number crunching, Ryan & I agreed that we couldn’t give her what she was asking for and we had to let her go.

Making that phone call was one of the hardest things I had to do. As I play it back in my head now, I am confident that my voice was steady, but when I hung up I broke down and cried. Finding this nanny was difficult when I was only a few months pregnant–but that’s why I started looking for childcare so early. I did not want to do the nanny search when my son was 3 months old and I was back at work full-time–I wanted it all in place before even returning to work. But you can’t always get what you want. Not only am I sad to not be able to work with our first nanny ever again, but the thought of going through the nanny search a second time is stressful and overwhelming.

As a mom, I have learned that there will be stressful moments and even emotional ones when it comes to my child. I think it is important to allow myself the brief moment to be stressed and sad, but then I have to find a solution to the problem at hand.

I immediately re-posted the live-out nanny position on care.com (which is how we found the first nanny) and within an hour, we started getting email submissions from women in our area who were interested in the job. The good thing about this website is that you can screen the applicants prior to returning their emails. You can see their picture, review their job experience and get a background check and references from their online profiles.

We interviewed 2 people, but the first woman we met with was the first one who inquired about the job and she’s the one we ended up hiring. I am smarter the second time around and have learned some valuable lessons about employing a live-out nanny. The most important being the realization that this won’t be the last nanny we hire.

My bosoms are billowy
Like pillows for your sleepy head

My mammaries are abundant
Giving warm food for your grumbly tummy

My knockers are aloft
Creating a tepid valley for your baby face

My funbags are squishy
Like balloons, cushioning your fall

My gazongas are engorged
Reminding me they are really yours

Copyright © 2011 N.E. Tasker

My lovely baby boy slept from 9pm until 5:30am–what a good boy!

And as another day goes by and Aidan grows bigger and bigger, we pass yet another milestone…

…he now has to lie lengthwise in his crib. We can no longer swaddle him width-wise because his head touches one side while his feet touch the other. What a big boy!

It is crazy how well you can function on little-to-no sleep.

Two weeks ago, Aidan was sleeping from 8:30pm until 4am and then back to sleep around 4:30am until 7:30am. This is a rock-star schedule because we can still get back to sleep and function at about 90% the following day at work.

But when I woke up Monday morning this week and sleepily counted the number of hours of sleep I got the night before, I came to a whopping 3. Yikes! I was really worried that I would not be able to function that day at work. With Mondays being our busiest day and my boss being out of the office the entire week, I was certain that I would hit the wall mid-morning and disaster would ensue. However, it wasn’t bad at all.

Then Tuesday morning came and I got about 5 hours of sleep. Better than the night before, but my body slowly started to shut down by 3pm that day. I rallied in the late afternoon, but anxiously laid my head on my pillow that night.

Wednesday was the worst! I got roughly 5 hours, maybe 6–which is more than I had gotten in the past two nights, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t totally gassed by 10am on Wednesday. I barely made it to lunchtime without nodding off for a split second at my desk. Then Ryan and I met up for lunch where we tried to eat in silence, but couldn’t stop complaining about how damn tired we were!

We got into the silly-tired-state-of-mind and started joking about selling our baby. Aidan had woken up the night before at midnight, then 4am, then 6am. It was no fun. No fun at all.

Last night, however, the little A man woke up at 1am and then proceeded to sleep soundly until 7am. I left the house at 6:45am so I was able to take Cali pee, pump, shower, dress & make-up myself all before he woke up. Which is the most ideal situation–if he HAS to wake up during the nighttime hours, then it might as well be only once–and in the middle of the night so we can still get ready for work in the morning. As a result, I felt refreshed for the first time in 3 days.

Hopefully this is the first of many nights like this. But with a little boy who will do as he pleases, I know I can’t hold my breath.

Aidan’s new thing is to shove his entire fist into his mouth. The first time we watched him do it while he was in his bath. Here we are, washing this filthy boy, removing dirt balls from the folds of his neck–and what is he doing? He has artfully put his entire hand – up to his writs – inside his mouth. Freak!

And whenever we pause halfway through a bottle feeding for a burp session, his hand moves to his mouth lightning fast–too fast to stop it before his fingers reach his lips–and lately, he’s been gagging himself until he spits up. Awesome.

I tried to talk to him about body image, explain that we love him just the way he is, and that he doesn’t have to worry what he looks like in swim trunks. But I fear this fell on deaf ears.

Now I am constantly blocking his hand from going into his mouth and shoving a bottle in there as quickly as possible. He did not like that tactic last night and was angrily screaming at me. He was VERY mad that I wouldn’t let him suck on his hand, but once he realized there was a bottle of milk in his mouth, he started to vigorously suck as if he was starving to death. Drama King.

Do you ever feel like a reboot?

This summer was crazy for me. I went on maternity leave in early June, had 2 weeks off while very pregnant and then on Friday June 17th (the last day of my 2 weeks off from work–thank you Aidan for letting mommy soak it up) I gave birth to my son. From that day, I had a total of 10 weeks off from work and it was full of dirty diapers, breast feeding, visits from friends & relatives, doctor’s visits & check-ups, breast pumping, sunning pool-side, long stroller walks, short bjorn walks, alcohol whenever I wanted it, a Taylor Swift concert, a chili cook-off and two sushi lunches.

The visits with family and friends were probably the most exhausting. Although everyone was helpful when at the house (which was my favorite part about the visitors) and overjoyed to see Aidan, it was a lot of work entertaining so many people in such a short amount of time. And everyone wanted to take advantage of me being off from work in an effort to see me AND the baby, so when one person’s visit ended another one began the next week or even the next day.

Even outings to see friends locally for lunch with the little boy were hard because this summer was WICKED hot. The car rides felt long, the lunches felt long and there was lots of sweaty baby-holding. Sometimes he slept through the meal and then woke up just as we finished eating, in time to hand him around the table in a very serene squishy mood, perfect for hand-offs. But other times he was wide awake from the minute we parked the car until we paid the check.

Needless to say, I was anxious to get back to work and dive into a normal daily routine. So far, Aidan has shown signs of thoroughly enjoying our routine. He just adores his nanny and is always happy when we come home from work–what more could you ask for?

Today marks the end of my first two weeks back at work. Ryan, Carolyn, Aidan & I are rewarding ourselves with a weekend in Palm Springs. We rented a house in La Quinta with 3 bedrooms and private pool. We also booked spa treatments in Indian Wells for Saturday and plan on doing dinner at Ruth’s Chris Saturday night. So while Cali plays at Camp Woods with Clark and 3 dogs this weekend, we will be getting some much needed R&R–which doubles as Aidan’s very first vacation trip. Not sure if babies really need vacations, but I know I do!

When Ryan and I are at work all day long, the PM schedule is pretty abbreviated for the baby boy. Every night Aidan takes his bath at 8pm, eats his dinner bottle and then drifts off to dreamland. This schedule gives us a good amount of time to ourselves in the evening after Aidan goes to sleep, but it also gives us time to spend with the little man between 5:45-8pm. We try to plan dinner at 7:30pm for us (with Aidan watching from his bouncy chair on the kitchen table) so that we have that time to ourselves afterwards.

We are still rocking him to sleep after he finishes eating so he ends up swaddled in his crib sometime between 8:30 – 9:15pm, all depending on how difficult he is being. I dread the day we have to put him in his crib still awake and let him get himself to sleep. Eek!

After eating sometimes Aidan falls asleep with the tip of the bottle’s nipple in his mouth (I love those nights). And other times, his eyes are wide open as he sucks the bottle dry and he can’t help but look around while smiling, drooling, talking and his favorite–thrashing and jerking his entire body back and forth, up and down, left and right.

These days, Aidan sleeps from about 8:30pm until 5am, wakes up for a diaper change and an early morning bottle and then is back in bed by 6am until 9-10am. This works out great with our morning routine because I need to be in the shower by 6am in order to be ready for work and leave the house by 7am. And Ryan doesn’t leave the house until 7:30am when the nanny arrives.

However, he doesn’t always follow this schedule to the letter. Sometimes I have to hand over a wide-awake baby to Ryan so I can get ready for work. Obviously it is ideal for Aidan to be fast asleep while we get ready in the morning, but the A man will do whatever he wants!

One time in the wee hours of the morning, I walked in on Ryan holding Aidan up in front of him saying, “Please stop thrashing. No, this isn’t a game. It isn’t funny. Stop laughing. Go to sleep.”

Yesterday, Aidan had a very good Grammy day. He spends Wednesdays every week with his Grammy Carolyn and yesterday was his first time at Camp Woods.

He was already awake and super happy when I went in his room to get him ready to go in the morning.  We did the usual morning ritual of saying good morning, smiling and laughing–then we changed his diaper. After that, we went into the bathroom to wipe his face, neck and hands–then back to his bedroom to put on his clothes for the day.

It is so chilly in the mornings when I leave for work that I couldn’t resist dressing him in a long sleeve onesie with socks and matching pants. I knew it would be about 90 degrees by noontime, but I already gave Grammy Carolyn a bunch of clothes of various sizes for her to keep at her house. And I thought she might enjoy dressing him–who doesn’t love dressing a baby!

He ate half of his breakfast bottle with out a poop or spit up (yay!) and when he paused for a burp, we made our way downstairs. Aidan was completely content the entire drive in the backseat and so was Cali in the front seat!

I handed the little man off to his Grammy, grabbed some coffee in a to-go cup (my new favorite thing about dropping him off on Wednesdays) and then headed to work.

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