BPE

Let's get something straight; I do not read The Best Parent Ever. Someone recently sent me the link and I checked it out, only to be thoroughly disgusted for a number of reasons. I left a comment under the breastfeeding topic, expressing my desire to barf on the women bickering in there, and now I'm getting all these messages asking why I don't have Best Parent Ever in my Blogroll?? (No, I'm not going to approve your comments on my daughters blog, demanding to know why.)
The primary reason that I don't have the site in my Blogroll is because I am not a reader. I list sites that I regularly check or that my friends write. The other reason that I do not list that site is because I think it's crap. It is a rip off of a brilliant site called Stuff White People Like. SWPL is sharp, witty, smart, funny, observant, and erudite. BPE is hateful, mean-spirited, poorly-written and worst of all it's not even funny. Most of it doesn't even make sense (rescuing puppies?? Yahhoo groups??).
Anyone who knows me knows how much I despise Mommy Wars. I would never publicly criticize another mamas parenting decisions unless she was neglecting or abusing her child. I think that the culture of hyper-parenting brings out the worst of our competitive nature and it pits women against women, mother against mother when we should all be supporting one another. I don't care if you breastfeed or formula feed, let your kid watch TV or not, co-sleep or not, vaccinate or not. I do not own any parenting books. I have never read any of the trendy parenting theories or "sleep training" books. I don't trust someone just because they are a doctor or parent of fifteen or nanny for eighty years or whatever because no one knows me and no one knows Hazel like I do, and she and I are unlike anyone else. The parenting business thrives only if women question their own instincts and I'm not buying into it. Sometimes I know what I'm doing, and sometimes I don't, but I always trust my gut and I always block out the unsolicited advice.
I have made my choices that are best for me and my family, and I trust that other mothers are doing the same. I am the Best Parent for Hazel and I wont listen to anyone who wants to tell me otherwise. Hazel thinks I'm perfect, and hers is the only opinion that matters to me.

The Biggest Adventure Yet

I'm so excited! We're going to New York City with Hazel! I can't wait to bring her to the city for the first of many trips for her. We're staying in sort of a strange place, down in the Financial District which is slightly out of the way, but as long as we're downtown, I'm happy. I'm going to spend some time visiting friends, we're going to take Hazel to MoMA (of course) and maybe walk over the Brooklyn Bridge to wander around DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights. I want to take her to Chinatown and SoHo ad to the Central Park Zoo. I hope that she falls in love with New York, and if someday she moves there with stars in her eyes, then I will be so happy for her because I think that everyone should live in New York if they can, even if it's just for a year.

If anyone has any ideas about what else we sould try and do in NYC, then let me know. I've never been there with a kiddo before, so this will be a slightly different trip than the ones we've taken in the past. (Fung Wah to Chinatown, crappy hotel in Murray Hill or a friends floor in Alphabet City, dinner on East 6th and bars in Lower East Side, somehow ending up at a party in Williamsburg until dawn, brunch with friends at noon and a day of wandering around SoHo spending money. Then fondue and hair-of-the-dog in Chelsea.) This trip I think will be a bit more mellow with earlier bedtimes, unless my friend Justin has a show in which case Hazel will get to go to her first comedy club at the tender age of seven months. Anyway, this will be our first vacation together, and I simply cannot wait.

The Week in Pictures

So, Hazel turned fifteen weeks on Tuesday. We are almost at the Four Month mark and I can't believe how time has flown by. She is so big, and so silly. Last night she actually slept for nine hours, from 7:30 until 4:30, then she went back to bed until 8:30! We couldn't believe it! I really hope that this is a new pattern for her. She has learned how to screech and seems to be getting louder every day as she practices more. She also loves to stand up in my lap (obviously with support) and look down on me from above. She can bear all of her weight on her legs for several minutes and gets so proud of herself. She is definitely more of a social baby than a physical one; she has no interest in sitting up or rolling over or anything like that. She is perfectly content to lay and look. She LOVES to watch other people and just stares and giggles. When we are out-and-about all day, she never sleeps because she is too busy keeping an eye on everything. When we are driving in the car, I just listen to her in the back blowing raspberries the whole way. She cracks herself up. I'm thinking that some little teeth are starting to work their way up and out; she is drooling nonstop and rubbing her gums with her little index finger. I give her a baby washcloth to play with and she loves it! She rubs it on her gums and chews on it, and it also keeps the drool mopped up. Currently, it's the only toy she has much interest in.

We are starting to leave the Tiny Infant Stage and moving on to really big things around here. Soon she will be starting solid food and so I'm starting to plan that next step. I got this really cool kit from my friend Jaymee that includes everything you need to make and store homemade baby food. I'm going to pull it out of the box soon and start making purees as things come into season at our farm. I'm going to be making homemade cereals instead of using the highly-processed commercial stuff, so I'll be grinding up brown rice and barley to store, as well. I'm so excited, and I can barely wait two more months to see the goof-ball look on her little face when she gets her first bite of avocado!

Other news in the Donovan Household: Jamie has been super busy at work this week, and he is missing his girl fiercely. He is going to have to go to Houston again sometime this month, so I'm hoping that after that trip he can take a few days off and reconnect with Hazel. We all certainly need some time together as a family. We are hoping to get out of town for a long weekend or two sometime soon.

I've recently made some changes in my life, a restructuring, if you will and I feel as though I've lost a good ten-thousand pounds. I really like the way things are heading for me and my family, and I've been sleeping better at night. I'm really excited for the future with Hazel, because I love being her mama so much. I feel so lucky that she chose me to be her parent, and I swear I'm going to do everything that I can to respect her and my role as her guardian. It's important work, and not something you can just change your mind about when the going gets tough. I'm honored to have the opportunity to do it, and I'm going to give it 110%. When Hazel was born, I whispered a promise to her that she could always call me Home, and that she would never feel unloved or unwanted. I'll spend the rest of my life working to fulfill that promise that I made to her when she was still slippery and new, and I'll do anything to keep it. Becoming a mama to such a cool kid gives you such perspective and clarity. She and the integrity of my family are and always will be my number one priority. Sorry to be so cryptic. Those that know me, know what I'm talking about, and those that don't know what I'm talking about, don't need to.

On with the good stuff.

We went to Cousin Oliver's First Birthday party on Saturday. Check out the birthday boy...

Oliver and his mama.

Grandpa Donovan with Hazel, discussing adorable grandchildren with Oliver's grandmother, Farrah.

Uncle Jeremy with Hazel's Cousin Owen. Clearly both are fashion icons.

Uncle Patrick, Oliver's dad, doing something that I dont really have the vocabulary to describe.

The obligatory face full o' cake shot.

And here is Hazel at her cousins party! The firehat was not initially part of her outfit that day, but once it was on, I couldn't resist. I think that these just might be the cutest pictures ever taken of any baby anywhere, no?

And here are some silly pictures of Hazel's adorable little body in her adorable little gDiapers.

Always licking. This is how Tummy Time always goes. Lick, lick, cry.
Hazel's fabulous Meatball. I want to bite the computer monitor just looking a this picture and if you don't feel the same way, then there is clearly something wrong with your brain. Magnolia's mama pointed out that Hazel's belly button is a perfect spiral. It looks just like the hurricaine evacuation sign graphic.

Some more cute.

And we were visited by the fabulous Carl and Stacey Robinson on Sunday. We all went for a walk on the beach and ate cheseburgers at Choate Bridge Pub, where Hazel is a regular.

Alert the Authorities

Hazel went down to the Ipswich Sports Bar the other night for some nachos and beer, and was seen using her parents drinking straws to air drum along to AC/DC Hells Bells. It was pretty much the most adorable thing anyone had ever seen, but alas, no one was allowed to digitally record her performance.

100 Days, 365 Days

One year ago today, at 1:00PM a sperm and an egg met for a tango and Hazel was created. Today she is one hundred days old, or three months, two weeks and two days old. Or three-hundred and sixty-five days old. However you choose to see it, today is a milestone. She is sleeping on my chest as a write this because last night she hardly slept at all. I still can't believe she is here.

Getting pregnant was not easy for me. I never thought it would be. We began fertility treatments the same month we moved into our new house, one week before Christmas 2006. It was not easy. I lost friends who did not seem to understand what a difficult process it was. Rifts were formed in relationships after so many insensitive comments were made. I told everyone what was going on, because being infertile is nothing to be ashamed of, and its easy to feel so much shame. I had these horrible, intrusive, painful procedures and I pounded my body with carcinogenic drugs that made me bloated, aggressive, depressed, tired and it didn't work. I felt so alone because so few people understood.

My doctor wanted to move on to "the big guns" as he called it and I started to inject myself nightly with absurd doses of artificial hormones that made every muscle scream in pain, made my head pound with a migraine that wouldn't go away and made me so weak and tired that I couldn't climb the stairs. I bloated more. I cried and cried and felt sorry for myself because no one else did. Every morning I had to drive fifty miles round-trip to the clinic at 6:00am for blood draws. My arms were bruised, my belly sore from the hormone injections. After my blood draw, I would go to my office, meet with my clients, run support groups and go on with my day feeling like I just wanted to lay down and die. People said, "You just need to relax," and "A lot of women who wait as long as you did can't get pregnant," "I'm not really ready for you to have a baby anyway," "Having a baby is just like getting another dog," and I would just stare at them, wondering how they could be so rude, so ignorant, so insensitive. Worst of all, my supposed "best friend" just stopped talking to me. When you face a personal crisis, you really see peoples true colors. On the other hand, people who I never expected, totally stepped up and amazed me with their compassion, understanding and humor. Thank the gods for the people who without even trying managed to say just the right thing at just the right time and they probably didn't even know that they did it.

So in exactly 39 minutes from now is the anniversary of when I nervously staggered into the doctors office in Reading. Kevin came in to tell me that there were 1.4 million sperm loaded up in the catheter. I gave him a high-five. Dr. Weiss and four nurses performed the IUI and it was pretty uneventful. It wasn't a high point of my life. After I lay there for ten minutes, I drove home and watched daytime television with my feet up.

Two weeks later I was sitting at my office, waiting for the call with results from my pregnancy test. They were supposed to call my cell phone in the late afternoon like they usually did, so I was caught off guard when my office phone rang around 11am. Janel was there with me when I found out that I was pregnant, sitting at my desk in the North Shore Rape Crisis Center where I worked. She was the perfect mama to share the moment with. I called Jamie to tell him, and he actually dropped the phone. Thus began Ms. Donovan's Wild Ride through pregnancy. The first trimester was scary, not knowing if Hazel was going to choose to stick around or not. But she did, and we got through it. I hated being pregnant, and I would go through labor a thousand times before I had to be pregnant again, but everything was worth it when I finally got to meet my silly, perfect daughter. Plus, I can use everything I had to go through to get pregnant with her for the best guilt-trip of all time.

Hazel Meatball

I love this group of pictures! I feel like this is one of the few times that Hazel was unaware of the camera and we truly captured who she is. In particular, the group of pictures at the bottom with her smiling and laughing...that is Hazel Meatball! She has been "standing", bearing all of her weight on her legs, laughing, smiling, giggling, cooing, SCREECHING, "talking" and just oozing this silly personality. She is full of googly-eyed stares and nose-crinkling grins. And the thighs! THE THIGHS!

Blowing bubbles.

"So big!"

Drunken stagger.

Knees giving out!

The most adorable cottage-cheese thighs.

The usual look the camera gets.

Fourteen weeks and Pictures Galore

Hazel's beach romper for her first day at Crane Beach over Memorial Day weekend.

A vision in terrycloth.

More carseat. Look at the toes!

Memorial Day Parade! Very well attended.

Lots to look at.

A sleepy little chunk.

I am so thrilled by these chunky little thighs. Every night that Hazel goes to bed with her thighs intact is a miracle because it takes all my strength to not take a bite out of each one.

Another hike in the woods on a beautiful morning.

Look at Hazel sitting in her Bumbo seat that Corleigh gave her! She can sit up for a good five minutes or so before she slums to one side and lets out a wail.

"Focus......focus....."

What a nice dress to chew on.

More koi hat.

I had to sneak this one in. I love my dogs.

Our new sunhat. The same facial expression we got with the snowsuit.

Doing yardwork in our jammies, early in the morning with dad.

Snapdragons!

Friends Adventures

My friend Jaymee, and her husband Matt (called Kenya by me) have been friends of mine since I was sixteen. They are incredible, loving people and Jaymee in particular has been so supportive of me over the years. She has simply got to be one of the most big-hearted people I have ever known.
Jaymee has the same issues with infertility that I had, but was not fortunate to have all of the ART (assisted reproductive technology) work for her the way it worked for me. I was lucky, as most of it seems to be a total crap shoot and has more to do with factors that no one understands than it has to do with Medical Science. Anyway, no one deserves to be a mama more than Jaymee. I know that she is going to be the most cuddly, loving, responsive, happy mama there is. It's just a matter of time.
So Jaymee and Kenya are travelling a new road: Surrogacy! It's exciting and scary and certainly New Frontier for her and the thousands of other parents out there who choose this route. Because she has found such a lack of information out there, and even some agencies that are all too willing to take advantage of people aching for a baby of their own, she has started a blog about her process. I know that it will prove to be enlightening and interesting reading, and I also know that anyone that gets to know Jaymee and Kenya (even if it's just through their blog) will fall in love with them, too. You can read about their experience here. Check in often, and I hope that you feel as honored to be a part of their lives as I do.

Aching Heart

Please keep mama Summer in your heart. She is mourning the loss of her beautiful son, Lincoln Ozias who was born on February 6th 2008. He passed away on Wednesday morning at 3:30am with his parents by his side. Please send your love and comfort to Summer and her husband, who loved Lincoln well.

If anyone would like to donate to a fund that we have started in Lincoln's name, there is an account at Paypal that we opened for that purpose. You can donate to the email address summerandlincoln AT gmail DOT com when you are prompted. Thank you.

UPDATE: We have stopped collecting donations and sent the money to Summer. I am so proud to say that we raised over $1,900 for the Rider family. Go, Mamas go! It's a small comfort I know, but it's all we knew how to do. Lincoln Rider will always be remembered by us all, and we were honored that he was a part of our lives.

A Civic Minded Baby

Hazel had her first Ipswich Town Meeting on Tuesday, and it was quite an affair. We stayed until about 11:30pm and there were still several more points of business to attend to. Hazel voted in favor of the Prop 2 1/2 Override and in favor of the new Wind Turbine that will be built at the end of Town Farm Road. This town is going to be the first in the region to harness wind power. "Cut Carbon Emissions, Not Schools!" She fits right in in this tiny, beautiful, progressive, rural town. I'm so thrilled that she gets to grow up in such an amazingly gorgeous little place with the best quality of life in the state. The community here is so tight and it really feels like Mayberry USA but with a phenomenal beach. Lucky kid.

So it looks like the override is going to pass, which is an awesome thing. Almost no one is opposed to it because the high quality if the schools in Ipswich are such a priority in the culture here. I'm so glad that Hazel is going to be in a district that values the arts as much as test scores, and I'm glad that most of the town seems to be on the same page. We're also so excited about our new wind turbine!!! How cool is that?

Anyway, Hazel had her first playdate with her new BFF Magnolia on Wednesday. Noli is three weeks younger than Hazel, but despite the age difference, they already have a lot in common; they both like to fuss and eat. We mostly sat around Laurie and Noli's house, had lunch, talked about stuff and took breaks from eating to poop. We attepted to go out for a walk because it was such a beautiful day and all the flowers and horses were out in peoples yards, but Noli was verry fussy for some reason and as soon as she relaxed, Hazel decided that it as her turn to be a pill box. Overall, we had a wonderful time! It was so nice to get out and about, to see other human beings, and to pass the time with a couple of cool women instead of Oprah and "Dr." Phil. Here are a couple of pictures Laurie sent of the BFF's whooping it up together.