The Love of A Cat

This cat.

To say it lightly: he isn't a "people cat".
He isn't sociable.
He isn't a lap cat.
He doesn't like being petted or snuggled.
He turns his nose up at canned food and is very set in his ways.
Stubborn. Grouchy.
Sometimes hilarious to watch, as he chases a milk ring or paper ball around the house.

Anyway, on with today's story.

A few months back, I joked that it seemed like we found something he might not hate..  "his" baby.

Ever since Thatcher was born, Atticus has remained "close but not close enough to touch". What was once a genuine curiosity has blossomed into a 'big brother' role. As Thatcher gets older, Atticus lurks just around the corner, watching.

Always watching. I have countless photos of him lurking a few steps away. Observing.

Before Thatcher decided that baths are actually ok, he would SCREAM the entire time he was in the bathtub being washed. Atticus would run into the bathroom, panicked, and bite me. Because clearly, I was causing the baby to cry.

Atticus sleeps at the foot of the bed, on my side, closest to the half-size crib that Thatcher currently sleeps in.

During daytime naptime, he has to be in our room with him. If I dare to shut the door before he gets in there, he will sit at the door and paw it until I get mad and let him in.

Currently:

We are trying to transition Thatcher to sleeping in his big crib because the small one he has been sleeping in won't hold him much longer and he can't seem to get comfortable at night. So during the day, I will put Thatcher in the crib and give him some toys to play with so that he can get acquainted/comfortable with this new surrounding.

Poor Atticus doesn't understand what's going on and thinks I'm putting the baby in an impenetrable box or vortex.

He sits by the crib the entire time that Thatcher is in there. I have tried to shoo him away a few times with my foot and he come straight back. If Thatcher fusses or cries, Atticus will turn around and get my attention, even running out of the room if I'm not in there and finding me (like I don't already know the baby's upset..he isn't exactly a quiet crier).

He stands up on his hind legs and watches Thatcher play with toys, even sometimes sticking his paw between the bars to let him know that he is still there.

While he has never been the type of cat to sit and snuggle, watching him adjust and  change to the baby over the last 7 & 1/2 months has been THE MOST adorable, precious thing I've seen.

I've never been one to call pets a 'big brother/sister', but in this context:

Thatcher, it looks like your 'big brother' has stepped up to the plate.

Bonus photos:

One of these toys is not like the other..

Oh, Ellie.

Just look at it. This. This adorable face.

This face that I have never seen intentionally hurt any other living thing. This face that has an intense excitement for the world around her and who has so much love to give that she knocks you down in the midst of that excitement.

A face that gets along with every other dog she has ever met. To her, everyone is a new friend.

If entered into a tournament for best personality, she'd win unanimously. Everyone that meets her, loves her.

Well...ALMOST everyone.

HOWEVER


This. This is our not so adorable back yard.

Little miss personality has dug herself escape routes, killed the rose bush (I mean, come on, who chews on a rose bush?!), broke the fence so that she has a 'window to the front yard', and made herself a bed in the rocks. (Despite having a perfectly good DOG HOUSE and a nice bed inside.

But that wasn't enough for miss Eleanore. May I present to you, her newest piece of art:

the trench.

Perhaps she wants to see the world and is working on an Express lane to China.

Or maybe she wants to kick-start her career as the first dogg-o landscapist.

Maybe she is an old soul and is reliving her days in the trenches of World Wars 1 and 2.

Perhaps she is drawing a literal line to separate her pooping corner from the rest of the yard.

Maybe there's a dinosaur buried in the backyard that only she knows about.

I don't know. But what I do know: she has destroyed our backyard. I know it's winter so there's no grass to be had in the pictures but the thing is, there is no dead grass left. The yard is solid sod. She has somehow managed to kill the grass too!
(Guess we don't need to mow now)

The main issue: we don't know what to do. Clearly she needs an outlet, but we can never catch her digging these monstrosities to try and correct the behavior. And we can't fix the yard until she stops making new holes, so it's kind of like: welcome to our home, don't look at our back yard.

We have plans to put in chain link fence in the lot behind our backyard (which is also our property) and give her a bigger space to run around, as well as give her a sandbox area to encourage her digging. We also would like to knock down our falling-down barn/shed and in it's place put a basic garage to park our cars under. And a driveway would be nice, too.

Then, we would knock down the wooden privacy fence that is the current backyard and put up a white plastic privacy fence that won't rot like our current one is, and use the space as a firepit/ grilling /outdoor entertaining area.

But....until we know if we are staying and putting down roots in this area, we don't want to do any of that. I would hate to start an expansive project and then two weeks later, my husband get a job in California or New York and us have to try and sell our house with all that going on.

All in all, I guess that even though it's an eyesore and makes me frustrated to look at, the trench stays. For now.

Old Salem, North Carolina

I've been asked to blog more. Thank you for the compliment! I've been meaning to make it a point to do things that I used to enjoy, but I guess I'm still surprised that someone wants to read my ramblings.

I think the sleep regression has caught up with little man, as he is already in bed for the night (almost 2 hours earlier than he normally goes to bed), so while Micah watches his nerdy technology review videos on YouTube, I have been pondering what to write about tonight.

I glanced through old posts and saw that I never talked about our adventure in Old Salem, NC! So, here it is.

Back in December, Micah and I road-tripped out to South Carolina to see my parents. For a 12 hour trek across half the country, the baby did fantastic. Anyways, our last day visiting, we drove two hours Northeast into North Carolina to visit historic Old Salem.

Let me give you a brief (because I don't remember everything that they told us) history of the city. Salem was founded in 1766 by the Moravians–a Protestant church that began in what is now known as the Czech Republic. They basically came over here seeking religious freedom.

See, how brief was that?! I'll just link the town's website and if you'd like to read more about it, feel free. (Some of it is pretty interesting)

http://www.oldsalem.org/learn/the-town-of-salem/history/

I didn't do any research beforehand, so upon our arrival, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. We parked at the visitors center and went inside to buy tickets. We then walked out of the visitors center and across the wooden bridge, pictured above, and straight into colonial America.

 Ok, well minus the paved road that goes through the middle. But this is still an actual town with real residents.

**Note: this is an outside walking/on your own tour. If it's July- you'll get hot. If it's December- you'll be cold. Dress accordingly.

We were there on the off season, so there weren't very many people. I think that added to our experience because we didn't have to wait in line for any of the buildings.

 (Inside one of the barns)

 My favorite part was getting to see the architecture of these old homes! Many of them you could go inside, and several of them had volunteers doing trade-work. For instance, we spent time in the blacksmith's shop, the carpenter, the bakery, the doctor's house/apothecary, the cobbler, several churches, and we got to tour several residences and the tavern.

 This is the back of the tavern, I believe. I remember taking this picture because the windows fascinated me for some reason.

 The Moravian Christmas decorations were gorgeous. They were simple and elegant. The entire town was decorated in like manner with garland on the street signs and wreaths on most of the doors. We were told that children in Salem would receive 3 gifts for Christmas: a piece of fruit, a bible verse (written in German and English) for them to memorize for the church, and a new candle. SOMETIMES they would get small toys like wooden tops, but to many residents, Christmas presents were considered vain.

This is the sugar cake from the bakery. It tasted like a doughnut. We ate the entire thing in 10 minutes.

I wish I had taken more pictures of the little details around the town. It was a little chilly the day we were there, with the high being mid 40's, but we still spent upwards of half a day here. It was very cool to sit and listen to the volunteers talk about the history of the particular building they were in, and watching the tradesmen do their work- also fascinating.

They might be historical volunteers, but they are actual skilled artisans legitimately working. The blacksmith was working on a replica musket and we got to watch him work. (Plus, that was the warmest building because he had his forge going)

The woman speaking in the gentleman's boarding house actually played the old church organ for us. The carpenter was working on a window to replace one of the windows in his shop. The bakery was a working bakery where you could buy their goods. (and we did!)

In one of the places, (I don't remember if it was the tavern or the boarding house) you could sit on one of the beds to see what it was like to sleep in a bed stuffed with hay and held with a rope base. 

All in all, if you have the chance, go check Old Salem. But fair warning, it is a popular destination for school field trips. Even being on the 'off season' there were 3 different schools there on the day we were there. Luckily, they were ahead of us by quite a bit and it's a large enough route that there was only one or two buildings where it felt crowded. The shop making pottery was backed up because they let the kids play with the clay, and one of the residences was backed up because the particular school group that was in there had to go in 3 different shifts because they were so large.

I think we ended up walking between 2 and 3 miles in the roughly 4 hours we spent there. If you like history (and I DO!) certainly make a stop at Old Salem.

Exhaustion.

Well, I've hit THAT side of motherhood.
Previously when others would ask how I was doing, with bags under my eyes and a little chuckle, I would describe myself as being exhausted.

But now, I realize I was wrong. So wrong. Exhausted doesn't begin to cover where I am right now. And this is only the beginning.

All day he screams.
All night he screams.
And I'm left feeling helpless. I'm left feeling like I'm failing.

In my current sleep-deprived state I find myself thinking:

Why can't I figure out how to make it better?

Am I hurting him somehow?

What's causing this?
Natural Sleep regression?
Teething?
Acid reflux/gas/stomach problems?
A combination of them all?

I know he is tired and frustrated too. Sometimes I cry with him.

We took him to the doctor earlier this week to get checked out because for the last week he has gone from sleeping 6-7 (even 8 or 9 on some nights) hours straight to waking up every hour and a half. And when he wakes up, he SCREAMS like he is scared, or hurt. It jolts Micah and me awake instantly and fills us with panic.

While I'm happy to report that he is medically just fine (no ear infections, no signs of infection or flu or RSV or anything nasty that's going around right now) we are still left back where we started.

The doctor upped his acid reflux medicine, but I don't think that's the problem. I've been reading that many babies go through a sleep regression at 4, 6, 9, and 12 months. He never went through regression at 4 months, but now at almost 7 months, I'm thinking that is probably what we are going through.

I hope this is the cause. It's encouraging! It gives me something to hold onto. He is developing and learning so many new things right now. (He learned to clap earlier this week, but hasn't quite figured out when it's appropriate. For instance, he was clapping while he was crying earlier and it made me laugh a little bit)

I guess for the time being I will just continue looking like a druggie/someone coming down off of a night of drinking and partying.

• Not a trace of makeup on my face
• Eyes red, bloodshot, and swollen
• A headache that has lasted for a month
• Knowing I didn't shower yesterday or today, and desperately trying to remember if I showered the day before or not...
• Frustrated that I can't get motivated to lose my baby weight
• Feeling horrible about myself because I can't get motivated to lose the baby weight.

I think this might be my first real attempt at writing down a real thought in the last 7 months. I'm sure I'll look back and realize I didn't make any sense, but for now, I'll be happy to maybe create a window into how I'm really doing.

Everyone says "it gets better", and I absolutely believe you. I have already experienced the joy of hearing 'mama', his laughter, seeing his eyes light up when he sees me, and I look on with pride as he throws his toys across the room and screams a scream of excitement.

I've never done this before. And I wouldn't be doing this now if God hadn't decided it was time for a little surprise in our lives.

I'm making 'mistakes' already.
I know I'm not the only new mom feeling this way.
I know that the years are short, even when the days are long.
I know I'm supposed to cherish each moment. Even that lip that's been busted 3 times now because he throws a tantrum in the middle of rocking/being put to sleep and flings his head into my jaw.
I'm doing my best.

And at the end of the 1,289 hour long day, I remind myself of this:

I have the best, God-given, blessing.
He is healthy.
He is adorable.
He teaches me new things every day.
...And I have the privilege of being his momma.

At the end of the day, I'm grateful to be exhausted.