Author Archives: amerrill

six months of emerson

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My sweet baby is six-months-old today. And the past month has been insane. Insane, because Emerson has become a completely different child, and is no longer a “little baby” that we can plop down where ever we please and expect her and/or her surroundings to remain safe. And insane, because this has been the most taxing month (on mama) of all six months that Em-to-the-er-to-the-son has been alive. For real. I cannot count the number of times I’ve felt myself slipping toward the edge of insanity/delirium.

Emerson started sitting up at four-months, earlier than I expected, and decided at five-months to get up on all fours and go crazy (also much earlier than I expected). I was emailing with my aunt about Emerson the day it all began, and my aunt was telling me how my cousin started pulling herself up and crawling at five-months-old. When I read that, I had a feeling in my gut this was about to happen to me. Sure enough, that afternoon, Emerson got up on all fours and started rocking back and forth. What the? And she started pulling herself up (still not a pro at this, but can do it). Not to mention her curiosity has multiplied enormously. Also, she’s started escaping from her bouncy seat (just turn to the side, push off with legs, and you are free from the harness….although, you will end up head first on the floor, but that’s okay).

All of which means our house is a disaster and mama is exhausted.

It’s amazing what an impact such a small person can have on a house. Every room she enters is left a little bit destroyed. For example, this is how the dinning room looked by the time we finished dinner last night:

  • All napkins on the ground
  • Place mats missing
  • Table runner balled up and thrown to the side
  • Nine toys littering the floor
  • Hurricane vase centerpiece removed from the table after Emerson mistook it for a giant glass and tried to drink from it
  • Three piles of tissue paper crumpled up and half-eaten after Emerson removed them from a box that came in the mail
  • Baby shoes and sweatshirt discarded on table (by Emerson)
  • You get the point, etc. etc.

Most frustrating to everyone in the household right now is the fact that Emerson can only take a few steps forward or backward crawling. Emerson yells and cries as she practices and will. not. sleep. Because she’s too obsessed with moving her body. Which means, mama isn’t sleeping. Yes, I am more sleep deprived now than I ever was when Em was a newborn. My baby was born a good sleeper, but oh, how things have changed! The past month has been one long fight to get Emerson to go to sleep, night and day.

I tried to reintroduce a little bit of coffee into my system (which means into my breast milk) to deal with the new state of affairs and girlfriend FLIPPED out. So, I’m apparently going to remain uncaffeinated for quite a while. And other than the ten months that I was pregnant, I have never been able to take naps during the day no matter how exhausted. I just lie there and never fall asleep, then end up more exhausted than before. It’s absolutely maddening. So, I’m surviving all of this with no crutches, just brut strength (and a lot of homemade baked goods).

But, I love you, dear Emerson Winter. Even when I am empty and depleted, I will find some scrap of something special to give to you. I will give until I can give no more….and then, I will take a twenty-minute break….and give some more. I have one pair of old corduroy pants and a pair of yoga pants with a hole on the left butt cheek, to my name. My two closets full of rows and rows, piles and piles, of expensive clothes from my former life, will never fit me again. Because I gave my body to you, as well. I birthed you through these hips. And while I may miss the wardrobe a tad, I do not miss those old hips, because they could not birth a baby. And so, I wear the same two pair of tattered pants, both of which always seem to be dirty because I cannot afford to put them in the wash and be without, over and over. Because, I want you to have clothes first. I want you to have everything I have to give even when I am dizzy with frustration because you won’t stop fussing and not sleeping and needing and and and. So, when you see me turn my back to you, stomp the floor and let out one loud, unintelligible noise, don’t worry. Because, I am going to turn back around, pick you up, and tell you that you’re doing a great job, that I am proud of you, that you should be patient with yourself, that you will crawl all the way across the room soon and it will be amazing.

 

You see, first I pick this block up…
and then I throw it on the floor with
the others. And I stare at them all
down there….for a while.

 

 

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an honest voice

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Yesterday, I quickly shot some words out of my brain and onto my computer screen, and hit “publish” before I could second guess any of it. Those words were thoughts….feelings, really….that I’ve been having for some time. Some part of me felt that if I made that little confession to the world, the Universe would answer. And it did. In the form of a lovely message from a lovely person that grew up in the same hometown as me. I’ve heard from this lovely lady several times since I became pregnant, and have felt so appreciative each and every time. I’m not sure we ever spoke back in our school days, but now we have something that unites us, something that makes us feel perfectly comfortable making confessions to one another: motherhood. Ah, the sisterhood of mamahood. It’s very real, and so important. Long story short, I heard the message I needed to hear from the Universe through this wonderful mama: keep going.

So, here it is. I’m going to keep writing, and I’m going to continue to be real. Because, that’s how I roll. If I had a mission statement (for this blog), it would look something like this:

Struggle permeates life. Though the struggle makes us human, we so often attempt to evade its presence. We pretend, we keep it to ourselves, we sometimes believe that we make it easier for others to be around us by hiding it. So much of the world is a polished version of itself. How can we relate to a polished version of reality? There is a reason television has been taken over by reality shows, why we’ve become so obsessed with celebrity gossip, why we read blogs. We’re all in search of honesty, confessions, the imperfection that makes us all alike. 

I want to put an honest voice out there. That is why I write. I want to give others something to relate to, or at the very least, something that inspires others to be comfortable with their own honest truth. Specifically, right now, I feel compelled to share the truth of my journey through motherhood (and previously, pregnancy and birth). I hope that my honesty frees you, inspires you, or simply entertains you.

Thank you to all my readers! And thank you to the others who sent me nice messages yesterday.
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confessions of a blogger

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My muse

I’ve mentioned that one of the reasons I’ve been struggling to post lately is insecurity. Throughout my pregnancy and just after the birth, I felt good about this blog. I felt very inspired and was receiving a steady stream of positive feedback from readers, and felt like I was creating something. I’ve never been entirely sure what specifically I’m creating here, but it’s always felt like part of my path so I continue to write. 

However, as the high of giving birth and having a new baby wore off, so did any sense of confidence in my writing. The truth is my confidence in a lot of things has been shaky for months. I’ve been hit by the much-expected-hoped-I’d-avoid-it identity crisis that so many mothers experience. Many days I find myself questioning my goals, my daily life, my outward appearance….basically, my entire existence. Nothing is spared. I have toyed with the idea of erasing my blog altogether on several occasions. But, I can’t. At least not today. For today, I am writing this confession instead of erasing years worth of writing. I guess we’ll see what tomorrow brings….

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this is our life: on improvising

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Emerson is going through a new phase. She now fusses and cries from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. every night, making dinnertime….challenging.  Most nights I’m not even sure what I ate, because this time has become a chaotic blur of try-to-distract-Emerson tactics. Our first attempt is Emerson’s little tabletop seat with her tray piled high with toys. Emerson violently bangs said toys against the tray (and her head) and whirls them in every direction while blowing angry raspberries. Last night a rattle ended up on my plate. This situation quickly becomes unmanageable (and quite frankly, unsafe) for all involved. The next step is mama holding Emerson. Emerson digs her head into my shoulder, intermittently biting me (and occasionally giving me hickeys) and blowing slimy raspberries all over my neck. She pulls my hair. Attempts to detach my nose from my face. Grabs at my fork or smacks her hand down right in the middle of my rice. I tell Alex to eat faster, I give him looks of disbelief when he stops shoveling his food into his mouth for even a second. Emerson has had enough of sitting down. I stand up, press her cheek against mine, and ballroom dance with her (she loves this). After a few spins and dips, I toss her across the table into Alex’s lap. He pretends she’s flying, he stands her up on the table and makes her put on shows for me. I’m 3/4 of the way through my meal, but I can’t handle the fussing (or at times, all out sobbing). I put down my fork.

We all head upstairs—I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth while Alex takes Emerson into her room to change her diaper and put on her pajamas. This is the apex of the madness. Emerson wails as Alex tries to negotiate four flying limbs and somehow diaper a baby who is spinning over and over like a cyclone on the changing table. I cannot stand the tortuous cries of my baby for long so I decide to brush my teeth while standing next to her. The sight of mama calms her a bit, the fact that I’m brushing my teeth distracts her. She stares at me in silence for a moment, enormous tears painting her face, her eyelashes wet and matted together. Then she remembers she is being tortured and proceeds to sob. I cannot pick her up, because Alex is currently wiping her bum and she still has no pajamas on. And I need to brush my teeth so I can get in bed with her. She is bright red, I can see all the way down her throat as she cries a cry so mighty I wonder if she’s in some sort of physical pain. On other nights, I’ve tried picking her up, calming her down, and then resuming the diapering/pajama-ing again. It doesn’t work.
Panic. Panic. Panic.
And then. With one hand I continue to brush my teeth. With the other hand, I free my right boob from my shirt, bend over the changing table and stick it in her mouth. Silence. Happiness. Emerson looks up at me with a surprised, but pleased look on her face as to say, “genius mom, pure genius.” And there we are—a butt naked Emerson holding my boob with both hands and both her feet (yes, for real), Alex trying to get a diaper around a curled up baby body, me in some strange, downward dog type position with my boob dangling over my child’s face….while I brush my teeth. I look at Alex, and mumble with a mouth full of foamy toothpaste, “annnnd, this is our life.”

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this is our life

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I’ve been struggling to post on a regular basis for the last few months. There are two reasons for this: #1, I had a baby and need to readjust my expectations, and #2, insecurity. I won’t get into #2 in this post, but I am trying to do something about #1. 

I am not skilled in the ways of being brief. My husband likes to say that I “talk in essays.” This is true. Also true, I write in essays, and that is more than I can do most days of the week nowadays. So, I’m trying to learn the art of cutting to the chase. To that end, I’ve come up with one solution to my posting problem and it is called: This is Our Life. “And, this is our life” is something Alex and I started saying in the middle of crazy parenting moments that sometimes seem totally bizarre objectively speaking, but feel totally normal to us (or sometimes, don’t, but it’s still our life). As I was saying this very phrase to my husband last night, a lightbulb went on and this idea was born.

So, I will post very real, very small (and hopefully very entertaining!) unfiltered morsels of our life—sort of the blog equivalent of Twitter updates. This will be a series, stuck in amongst the other series pieces I’ve been working. I hope you like it! The first will be posted on Monday….as long as I don’t lose power courtesy of frankenstorm/moonapocalypse. Oh, please. No, we will not lose power. In fact, we’ll be totally fine and untouched by disaster. Just putting that out into the Universe.


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give me the first taste

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I’ve been stressing about when to start Emerson on solid foods. Like every other decision regarding my child (or life in general), I have probably been putting too much time into weighing my options, reading and researching. Let’s just say, I don’t take decision-making lightly (both a blessing and a curse). 

Breastfeeding did not start out well for me—there were cracked and bloody nipples, there was pain, there was a lot to learn. But, once I got past those first few hurdles, I have enjoyed being my child’s life source. Being pregnant and breastfeeding are two incredible experiences in life, because of that fact. Growing and nourishing another human being is just miraculous and satisfying. So, naturally I’ve been content to fill my baby’s belly with breast milk….and hesitant to introduce anything else. Emerson, however, is very interested in food and the sight of a person eating will stop her dead in her tracks.


Last Sunday, I decided to make a batch of baby food to freeze. We have been hauling home quite the bountiful fall harvest every week from our farm share and I wanted to put some of those fresh, local, organic veggies to good use. My in-laws also recently sent us this amazing baby food maker, which I’ve been dying to try out. Despite all my hesitation, I got excited about Emerson’s first taste of food, as I was heaping pureed butternut squash into tiny mason jars. I decided we’d give her a few bites, just for fun. I imagined tasting nothing but breast milk her whole life and then tasting and feeling food on her tongue would be a huge moment. So, I gave her some butternut squash (to hold her over until we actually start solids). In the end, it was more of a big deal for me and nothing good or bad came of it (there may be a life lesson somewhere in there). My always serious child, for the most part, acted as if she’d eaten a thousand things, a thousand times before. Like, no big deal. Oh, Emerson.

My husband documented the experience…

Getting ready…
Super excited that the food seems to be going
in her direction for once.
Yes! Give that to me!
Oh…wait…I don’t know about this.
What just happened to me?
I’m stunned.
Wait, let me try again.
Um…
Hmm…
I don’t know, mommy.
Why are you so excited about this, mama? I won’t
lie to you, you look kind of insane.
Ok, I like it.
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feeling inspired

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In the past year, I have only painted three paintings, all of which were for Emerson’s nursery. And, if I hadn’t felt the desperate (hormonal) need to fully decorate her room, I would have had a completely art-free year. This may not seem like a big deal, but for me it is. I cannot live without creating. I must create or there is a big old empty hole in me, less color and liveliness in my spirit, and the feeling that I am without a purpose. Such is the life of an artist. 

Since I had absolutely ZERO energy for the entirety of my pregnancy, I poured all my creative energy into writing this blog (which, coincidentally made it what it is today). But, over the past week or so I have had a giant burst of inspiration and creative excitement. I’m not exactly sure what the catalyst for this new wave of creative energy was, but I am generating ideas left and right (god, it’s been so long since I could say that!) and have been devoting as much time as I can manage, in my crazy life as the mother to a rambunctious 5-month-old baby, to working on my fine art photography, painting, writing, and (at a very slow pace) my portraiture business. Of course, in the past that would have meant spending every moment from the time I got out of bed until the time I went to sleep at night totally focused and working….but, alas, times have changed. I do what I can during nap times (with the baby sleeping ON ME) and have been able to sneak in a half hour of painting here and there (sigh, I used to paint in five-hour stretches). 

I have a big piece of canvas that I have been lugging around from place to place for years, and at one time started a painting of birch bark on it that went totally awry….hated it. Now, it will tell the story of our family with little bits of nostalgia all over it. It might just take me forever to finish with the mini-sessions I’ve been putting in on it. But, it feels SO good to paint! Creating reminds me of the woman, the individual, I am underneath the conjoined super being: EmersonMama (sidenote-we really need a uni-name/portmanteau like Brangelina).

The very beginning…

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five months of emerson

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Emerson turned five-months-old on Friday and she seems more like a person and less like a baby to me every day. She decided to start sitting up at four and a half months, which I was not at all expecting. Alex and I were literally discussing this milestone and how it wouldn’t happen for a little while and an hour later, while I was reading her a book, Emerson sat up. Pow. I felt so excited and proud of her in that moment, but also a little terrified, because sister is growing up (and becoming mobile) so fast. In the past month her repertoire for moving herself around has grown enormously—scooting, wiggling like a worm, sitting up, reaching, arching her back to free herself, jumping, rolling, pulling herself from place to place. She is On. The. Move. And I’m so not ready for it.


It’s incredible to watch a child development, and incredible to watch them behave exactly as a book tells you they will behave. The good old Dr. Sears Baby Book warned me that Emerson would become excessively clingy and fussy just before hitting major milestones, and that she’d have to come back in (to me) a little more as she goes out into the world (in exploration) a little more. And right on cue, so it was. I had the most horrendous week with baby girl (the week before last), so much so that I took her to the doctor’s office sure that something was truly bothering her. I got the you-are-such-a-first-time-mom half-smile from her doctor and was sent home with my baby still whimpering non-stop all day and waking up sobbing at night. But, the next day, she sat up. At the same time she seemed more aware, made new sounds, became much more independent and just seemed “grown up” in some new way I can’t put into words. At that point, the (maddening) all day fussing stopped just a day shy of me completely losing my mind. 

Now I have this new grown-up baby who currently needs to cuddle extra close at night, sometimes sleep on my chest like she hasn’t done since the first few weeks of her life, and wants to nurse connnnnstantly. And you know what? I will let her have all those things. It’s exhausting to be “on” for someone else all day (and night), to give more than I thought was possible to give, to try to fill as many needs and wants as possible (not my own, of course). But, I cherish the exhaustion, cherish the opportunity to do all those things, because Emerson won’t always need me. She’s already growing more independent at five months and I know it will continue to infinity (it may seem contradictory that she is newly independent and desperately clingy, but that’s how it goes). I’m not saying that I don’t break down at times or get frustrated, because I do. Oh, do I. But, I always return to a place of enjoying this closeness I have with my baby right now. This phase of her life is so short in comparison with any other. Even when I’m overwhelmed by the needs of my child, and motherhood in general, I still never feel like I want things to be any other way…..I still know with every bit of my heart, that I will cry when she’s not a baby anymore. I will miss these (exhausting/stressful/chaotic/messy/confusing/long) days. Always. And forever. I will miss the enormous give-a-thon that is my life right now.

Other new developments: Emerson has quite a few obsessions. One is turning the pages in books. If she sees anything resembling a book she will launch herself in its direction and sit there until she has turned every last page. We read to her all day so it only makes sense that she wanted to become more involved in the process. The only problem is she obviously has no idea when to turn the page so we either have to be able to recite the book from memory or continue to tell it with large chunks of the plot missing. Emerson doesn’t seem to mind. She has a job to do, and takes it very seriously. 

One of Emerson’s other obsessions is teeth brushing. She loves to watch mama brush her teeth and will break out in giggles at the sight of it. Then she will reach for the brush, which I let her hold onto so she can “help” me brush. She loves it. I don’t get it. She is, however, very upset by Alex brushing his teeth (perhaps because he doesn’t let her help?). This girl continues to crack me up. Children are so curious and engaged in life and love to help, even at five months! 

This is the nightgown Emerson wore home from
the hospital. I put her in it the other night and
was hit with nostalgia….
and how incredibly different she looks today.
Action shot. She’s mid-roll.
Look at the concentration of that face.
Annnnd, she’s over.
A ruffled bum is just the cutest thing ever.

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showers are a luxury

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Conversation between Alex and I:

Me: I really need to take a shower now.

Alex: You and your showers!

Me: It’s the only thing I do that makes me feel like a normal human being!

Alex: You’re not a normal human being, you’re a mother.

That pretty much sums things up.

P.S. I’ve taken to eating coconut ice cream in the middle of the day. After being pregnant for 10 months and now exclusively breastfeeding my baby, self deprivation has become my middle name. It turns out I’ve had to give up even more as a breastfeeding mom than as a pregnant lady. My daughter quickly reacted to even the tiniest amount of coffee when I attempted to add it back to my morning routine again after she was born (think horrendous colicky fits and a complete crack addict lying next to me wide awake all night, thrashing about). And, she also voiced her disgust for dairy in her breast milk. So…..non-dairy coconut ice cream in the middle of the day, because every mama needs something (that, and if I leave it as an after dinner snack I never get to eat it, because someone suddenly needs me desperately).


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