Mommy Monday: Is Spit Up The New Black?

I'm baaaack. Did you miss me? ;)

It feels good to step out of the "baby cave" for a minute. To be doing something other than debating the merits of sensitive baby wipes vs. regular baby wipes or trying to figure out how to keep a burp cloth clean for longer than five seconds.

Since giving birth to my daughter thirty days ago, I've come to a very important realization. It doesn't matter how many books you read or bad eighties videos you watch in your birthing class, until you actually become a mother, there is no way you can fully comprehend two words.

Sleep. Deprivation.

Sure, everyone tried to warn me while I was still pregnant. Get your sleep now. While you still can. And of course I didn't listen because I was unnaturally obsessed with things like reorganizing the kitchen and cleaning out heating vents.

And now- a month later- although I'm basically running on fumes from the aforementioned lack of shut eye and all of the following things were written in a varying state of delirium (as this post is now), I've recorded some of my other observations from my first month of motherhood:

Day 1- Water breaks at 10:00 p.m. while watching Top Chef. Think I peed my pants. Ask hubs to help me figure it out (I'll let you fill in the blanks on how we did this). Decide this is okay because if I truly am in labor, he's going to potentially see a lot worse once we are at the hospital.

Day 2- If I could do it all over again, I'd skip the Five Guys Burgers and Fries cheeseburger with jalapenos. No fun to have the burger sitting in my stomach while in labor. Tell this story to everyone and anyone who will listen after I've been given my epidural.

Day 3- Nurses keep coming in and marveling at the fact that I'm not 300 lbs with all the Oxycotin I've been taking for my post c-section pain. Can you say Lisa Limbaugh?

Day 4- Totally, deeply and madly in love with my little girl. She is the best thing I have ever done in my life. Hoping when she's old enough to weigh in on that, she'll agree.

Day 5- We're home. Talking to Matt. He says something about Maria. Who's Maria?, I ask. The nurse who helped us every day at the hospital! he exclaims. Oops. Realizing that I don't remember much of my hospital stay. See Day #3- Oxycotin.

Day 6- Up all night. Haven't done this since pulling an all-nighter in college. But at least that involved lots of coffee and sugar and, er, I was only twenty!

Day 7- Check on the baby for the millionth time to make sure she's breathing. Will I ever stop doing this?

Day 8- Decide I have the most beautiful baby in the world. Me and every other mother.

Day 9- Major accomplishment. Can Facebook and breastfeed at the same time. I feel 1/16 human again.

Day 10- Need to remind myself to stop bragging about how good Baby D is. Every time I do this, she decides to throw the schedule we've been keeping out the window as if to say, Don't forget who runs this show, mommy!

Day 11- Discovered I can hide in the shower- if only for a few fleeting moments. Who knew a three minute hot shower could change my life?

Day 12- Thinking about the woman from Africa who's in the documentary, Babies. She gives birth in a hut without medication and minutes later is breast feeding her baby in one arm and hauling water in the other. Remind myself not to get frustrated that my hospital grade breast pump doesn't work perfectly and/or I can't hear my Real Housewives of Beverly Hills episode over the pumping sound.

Day 13- Decide the hubs and I should have our own middle of the night reality show. We make absolutely no sense when we talk to each other because we are never fully awake. I think we're hilarious but not sure anyone else would laugh. Might be worth taping ourselves to find out.

Day 14- Wake up in the middle of the night and frantically search the bed for my baby. This keeps happening. Baby is always safe and sound in crib. Has never slept in our bed. Not sure where this is coming from.

Day 15- Pediatrician called me Mom. I looked over my shoulder for the mom he was talking to. Guess it's going to take a while for this new title to sink in.

Day 16- Is spit up the new black? I'm beginning to think so as it's my main accessory with every outfit.

Day 17- Lying in a pillow covered in spit up. Too tired to care.

Day 18- Silently cried listening to the baby cry after I put her down for a nap. With tears streaming down my face, I sneaked into her room for the umpteenth time and peered into her crib without letting her see me. Feel like weird baby stalker.

Day 19- My poor mother is on the receiving end of a major sleep deprivation meltdown. After the hubs intervened and forced me to nap, I wake with no memory of the content of the meltdown. Scary.

Day 20- Liz arrives. She becomes my breastfeeding coach- determined to help me stock up on milk supply so I can sleep and someone else can feed the baby. Friendship taken to a whole new level when I attach pumps and pump with abandon right next to her on the living room sofa. Matters more to me to have milk for the hubs to feed baby than Liz seeing my areolas. But I do believe Liz was traumatized. Very traumatized.

Day 21- I was "that wife" today. Called the hubs at work to talk about poop. And formula. And nipples. Had to hang up mid-talk as I rose about my body and realized what I was doing.

Day 22- The baby smiled at me. I don't care what anyone says, she didn't smile because she had gas. She was really smiling!

Day 23- The baby burped a nice, deep, truck driver belch. Am more excited about this than when I was nominated for an Emmy.

Day 25- Baby asleep. Have the house to myself. Drinking coffee (shh...). Watching You're Cut Off marathon (another gift Liz gave me while here- turning me on to such a bad TV show). Feel like I've won the lottery.

Day 26- Another major accomplishment. Played Angry Birds- with my left hand- while feeding the baby!

Day 30- Baby had to get a shot. Decide that if I were to get shot with a double barrel shot gun in the face, it would hurt me less. Welcome to motherhood.

xoxo,

Lisa, a.k.a. "Mom"?!?!

Lit IT Girl: Debut Author Aidan Donnelley Rowley

Okay, so this is Lisa talking. I have a MAJOR girl crush/writer crush/mom-to-be crush on Aidan Donnelley Rowley. It was when I discovered her website and started reading her intelligent, humorous and very candid blogs, that the girl crush began. Then her debut novel,  Life After Yes was published. And that was it. There was no turning back. I was head over heels. (Aidan, I promise you that I am in no way a stalker type-I blame my pregnancy!) And then she started sharing stories on her blog of being pregnant with her third baby. And being the total first time prego sap that I am, have loved following along with her journey. Hence the the mom-to-be crush. Not surprisingly, when I shared Life After Yes with Liz, she also felt mad love for this incredibly talented author. And we knew we had to ask her to be our guest here at Chick Lit Is Not Dead. And she said yes.  She's here today telling us everything from how she got her first agent to her GNO drink of choice...

But first, Life After Yes begins: "I'm choking. I can't breath. The air's as thick as cream and smells like peanut oil. Everything is White. I begin to see shapes: the smooth surface under my elbows, the big box in front of me with the soft blog, my own trembling hands. I'm in my office but there are no windows or doors. Just walls." (Talk about a first page that draws you in!) Life After Yes is the story of Quinn O'Malley, a  young attorney, who, after losing her father, finds herself at a crossroads in her life. Her boyfriend wants to get married and whisks her off to Paris to propose. But Quinn's not so sure. It's a fabulous story of life and love in chaos. 

And five of you will get the chance to win a copy! Just leave a comment and we'll randomly select the winners on Thursday.

CHICK LIT IS NOT DEAD PRESENTS: LIT IT GIRL AIDAN DONNELLEY ROWLEY:

1. How many agents did you query before you found "the one"? I queried fifteen (maybe twenty?) agents before securing representation for Life After Yes. After weathering several rejections, I was preparing to send out a second wave of letters when I received a request for a partial submission. Soon after, I submitted the entirety of the manuscript. And then, shortly after, an offer! Just recently, after much thought and soul-searching, I signed with a wonderful new agent, Brettne Bloom of Kneerim & Williams. I am thrilled to be working with her now on my second novel.

2. What was your rock bottom moment during the process? Just a few months after polishing Life After Yes and sending out my first slew of queries, my father died of cancer. This also happened to be a time when I was receiving several rejections from agents I’d approached. Needless to say, it was a rotten period of my life. I decided to put my writing dreams on hold to take time to grieve and to take care of myself (I was five months pregnant with my second daughter). Two weeks after I lost Dad, I got an offer for representation for Life After Yes.

3. How long did it take to write your book? I wrote my book on and off for more than three years. There were large chunks of time in which I did no writing at all (my first pregnancy is a prime example; I think I spent twenty hours per day sleeping and/or ordering obscure and ultimately useless baby items online!), but I always came back to my pages, often with a fresh eye and focus.

4. What did you do to celebrate your book deal? This might sound odd, but I don’t remember many details! It was right before Christmas and I had a newborn at home and I think I was still struggling from sleeplessness and postnatal mental mush. I am sure I had a few celebratory cocktails that evening!

5. Knowing what you know now about publishing your first novel, what would you have done differently? I would have stressed a bit less and enjoyed a bit more. I look back at certain stages – the title search, the cover search, the quest for blurbs – and I can literally taste the anxiety I felt then. I realize now that so much of the publishing process is out of the author’s control and we should surrender a bit to its ebbs and flows. Publishing a book is in its own right an immense and incomparable privilege; I wish I had been able to keep this critical bit of perspective throughout.

6. Who is your writer crush? This is a tricky one because there are so many fabulous writers out there these days. Among many others though, I love Claire Messud, Elizabeth Strout, and Jhumpa Lahiri. I adore reading and swooning over the words and worlds of fellow authors.

7. What's your biggest distraction or vice while writing? My two little girls are by far by biggest (and best) distraction. I feel so lucky to have the flexibility to write when I want, but the problem is that it is very hard for me to not spend time with my girls given the choice. I do not stick to a fixed writing schedule, and I’m trying to be better about self-discipline, but it’s tough. Now that I am pregnant with number three (another girl!), I fear that my ambitions for increased productivity are a bit laughable.

8. GNO drink of choice? Easy! Pinot Grigio. This was one purely autobiographical element of Life After Yes. Quinn, my protagonist, loves her Pinot Grigio. I like to think I have my consumption habits better under control than my fictional friend, but I do like to indulge. I have not had a sip of Pinot in twenty-two weeks and I miss it. Just a little.

9. Favorite trashy TV show? Recently, I have been craving trashy television and watching it every single night before bed. My poor husband is not thrilled with this. I blame my current viewing habits on the pregnancy and tell myself that there must be something redeeming about these programs (some kind of existential protein or iron?) that I am missing in my life. Lately, I have been quite loyal to the Kardashians and our nation’s sundry Real Housewives. I do worry that I am exposing my unborn child to a symphony of utter junk, but I try to make up for it by blasting classical music while writing.

10. What celeb would you love to have a Twitter war with? Perhaps inconsistent with my above answer, but I do not even know what celebs are on Twitter! I have no problem savoring the celebrity weeklies (religiously) and checking various gossip blogs, but I have not (yet) explored the celebrity angles and avenues on Twitter. I am not even sure what a “Twitter war” is, but it sounds intriguing!

Thanks, Aidan! xoxo, L&L

For more information about the lovely and talented Aidan Donnelley Rowley, check out her website, find her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.