Lately I’ve been going through major music/concert withdrawal. One of my best friends who moved away temporarily, will be going to a Jimmy Gnecco show next week in Austin, Texas and I wish I was with her. I’m dying for some live Jimmy right now. I’ve read his most recent diary post on his website (www.jimmygnecco.com) and he said he’s been dealing with a lot of stuff recently, and listed one of those items as his mom passing away. I knew about it already, but him saying it out loud made me think of how I’ve been really thinking about my dad a lot lately also. I really wish he could have seen my daughter (”The Diva”) crawl, cruise, & babble away like she does now. Both my dad and Jimmy’s mom died from lung cancer in November 2009. He did a benefit show awhile back to raise money for her health bills, and at a show before that, we talked a little about dealing with seeing our parents with cancer, and how much is sucks. Anyway, all that makes me feel closer to his music right now, so I’ve been listening to a lot of his solo music and Ours. I also have been addicted to a song from Lukas Rossi’s “Unreleased Demos” album, “Wherever You’re Going.” That song hits me like a brick wall and feels like he wrote it through my eyes, or hand rather. It deals with cancer, so don’t listen to it unless you want to bawl or are into that sort of thing. I’m drawn to dark, depressing stuff, so I love it. I’d love to know who inspired that song for him.

I can’t believe my daughter is already 13 months old. Craziness. At 12 months she started cruising, and can now walk “along the wall” by pressing up against it, kind of like a cop in a movie who goes outside the window of a 20-story building to try and talk a “jumper” out of jumping. You know how he presses against the wall for dear life? Yeah, that’s what she does. As for feeding, I was nursing her 3x a day, and planned to stop breastfeeding when she turned 12 months, but we’re a little delayed, which is fine. The trouble was that she would not drink cow’s milk. She spit it out and refused to open her mouth for the cup. Finally this week, after a suggestion from a friend, I mixed in some yogurt or Gerber Yogurt-Juice with the whole milk and now she drinks it. I’m thrilled because I was able to cut out her mid-day nursing and replace it with cow’s milk. So now I just nurse her when she wakes up, and right before bed. I hear these last 2 can be a pain to wean children from, so we’ll see how that goes. Once she’s off of breast milk/nursing for good, I can’t wait to drop her off at her grandma’s house to spend the night! Haha..does that sound horrible? I can’t imagine being able to sleep in, but it sounds wonderful. Today I was playing the piano and she cruised right over and started hitting the keys, so I put her on my lap and we played together. She lasted a good 5 minutes before she kept trying to tear down my sheet music. Oh well. She has a longer attention span for guitar. She loves to pluck the strings and she hasn’t broke any yet, so that’s a plus. I still think she’ll wind up a drummer though. It’s always hard to find a drummer, so we’d be thrilled.

My daughter “the diva” is now 11 months old, but she’ll be turning 1 in three days. About a week after she turned 11 months, she started to do a real crawl! I was thrilled because most of the other babies I’ve seen were crawling at like 8 months old. She can’t pull herself fully up to a standing position, but she goes to the tippy tops of her knees and then she get frustrated since she can’t get up any further. Sometimes I give her a little boost and she can pull herself up from that point. She now opens & closes her hands, and can also put her hands on her head. Today I looked in her mouth and the poor thing has 4 molars coming in, and 2 incisor teeth. No wonder she’s been super cranky this week. We go to the doctor for her 1-year checkup/shots ON her birthday. Good thing she won’t know it’s her birthday because I feel bad about her having to get shots then.

As for music, she still loves to sway and sing along when her dad plays guitar for her. It’s funny because my husband and I will harmonize on a song and hold the note, and she will belt out a flat note REALLY loudly and makes us crack up. A few weeks ago I was cleaning the floor, so I decided to play some music to help me deal with the chore. I was playing Nine Inch Nails (NIN) and the song “Hurt” came on. “The Diva” was playing with her toys on a mat, and about 10 seconds after Trent Reznor stars singing, she started humming and then singing really loudly. I was surprised because “Hurt” isn’t the kind of song with a strong beat or rhythm, at least in the beginning, and the vocals aren’t high pitched or upbeat. Then I remembered that this child has been hearing the band Ours and other melancholy music her entire life, so why wouldn’t she respond to that sort of music. Haha.

Since her 1st birthday is on February 8th, we were going to have her very first party this Saturday, the 6th. We never throw parties so this is a big deal. I bought all kinds of decorations, I bought lots of food for cooking & baking, I was going to order a pretzel tray, an ice cream cake, and we were going to have just family over, so we were expecting 17 people. Well, as any of you who live in the North East know, it’s freakin’ snowing out as I type this. Let me rephrase that. It’s a blizzard outside! We’re expecting about 12 inches of snow, and all of the people who were supposed to come to the party live about an hour away, and many of them won’t drive even if it’s only 5 inches of snow. I was going back and forth like crazy yesterday trying to decide if I should cancel it or not, because I never trust the forecasts. But it looks like this is definitely going to be a bad one, so I had to cancel it. I rescheduled it for the following Saturday instead, but because it’s last minute and Valentine’s Day weekend, 4 or 5 of the people can’t come to the party now. I’m annoyed with Mother Nature because I bought all this food to make like 2 big ziti’s among other things, and now I don’t need that much. Plus I’ll probably have to buy new produce since that stuff goes bad so quickly. I also heard that we might get snow next wknd also. If that happens, I’m just going to have her party anyway, and whoever shows up, shows up. Even if it’s just us three and maybe I’ll invite the neighbors to help eat the food. I’m not good with change and love consistency, so whenever this last minute stuff comes up it drives me insane. I feel bad for my little girl, but I know that 1 year olds have no clue what’s going on anyway. Hopefully having snow on her birthday doesn’t become a pattern, like that one little girl I saw in the news who is 3 or 4 years old and has never had a birthday party because EVERY one of them has been canceled due to snow. Poor kid.

At nine months old, my daughter developed very strong stranger/separation anxiety from me. It wasn’t bad when I put her down for naps or bedtime, but it was impossible to deal with if I wanted to hand her off to someone else, like either of her grandmothers (and she liked both grandmothers). If I wasn’t in the room and they held her, she was fine. But if she saw me in the corner of her eye or if I just came home from being out, she would suddenly scream and reach for me, with full tears and pure hysteria. This made it really hard at Thanksgiving because relatives wanted to hold her, but she just wasn’t having any of it. I didn’t feel like dealing with the screaming, so I just held her the entire time..and my girl weighs just about 24 pounds. (This is why I weigh less now than before I was pregnant.)

She still isn’t crawling or pulling herself up, but she can drag herself on her belly, using just her arms. Good thing we have hardwood floors in the entire house. Maybe that’s why she isn’t crawling? Hurts her knees? Who knows. She started to clap, which is so adorable to see. Along with her nursery songs, I like to sing and clap to modern rock/alternative rock songs, and she follows my lead and claps also. Nothing like seeing a 9 month old baby girl with pudgy cheeks clapping to Muse’s “Hysteria” from the Absolution album. Priceless.

I’m still nursing her 4 times a day, and after 9 1/2 months of breastfeeding, my period came back. Lucky me. I was wondering when it was gonna show up again. When I first had my daughter, my intention was to become a Stay-At-Home-Mom (SAHM) for a year, and then look for a job again. Now that she’s almost a year old, I’m not ready to put her into daycare with people I don’t know, and miss all her 1st milestones, especially because she’s a little late with a few. If I had a family member that could watch her all the time, I’d happily go get a job, but I don’t want to leave her with strangers, at least not quite yet. I have to sit down and look at the financial issues also and weigh the costs of daycare,  not working, and paying for private health insurance (which is what I do now). Sometimes I feel like I do want to work again because I miss having the extra money, and I miss having a life. Yes, I’m a mom now, which is a life, but I miss parts of my old life, like feeling successful and productive, and going out with the girls after work for a margarita every now and then. Maybe that day will come again, like when my daughter is older and I don’t have to be home right away, but when that time comes I might have another baby at home by then. -SIGH- Do you ever wish that sometimes someone would just make up your mind for you because making decisions can be so stressful.

Even though I was given the ‘ok’ from the pediatrician to start my daughter on rice cereal at 4 months old, I didn’t start her on it until she was 5 1/2 months old. I didn’t want to rush things and I read a lot of information that said you should actually wait until they’re 6 months old. I knew she was ready because whenever I ate my own cereal in the morning she would stare me down and open & close her mouth like a fish. I’ve heard that the first time you try to give your baby solids, expect it to go bad, so I braced myself for the tight lips, the crying, and the pushing away. Surprisingly, she LOVED it. She gave me a big smile on the very first spoonful, and she ate the entire serving. Finally, something that went nice and easy for me. She’s definitely a good eater, just like her mama. Only instead of cheesecake, chocolate, and ice cream, she likes to dive into sweet potatoes, peas, even prunes. I still haven’t found anything she doesn’t like. Actually, I once tried to give her a spoonful of the jarred Beef & Broth, and she made the biggest grimace ever. I tasted the stuff and I didn’t blame her. It looked and tasted like cat food so I threw it out. She prefers my homemade Turkey Sloppy Joe’s anyway (I have a great recipe btw..if you ever want it just email/leave me a comment).

At the end of 5 months she finally started to roll over from belly to back, to the right. Other kids were rolling in both directions and their parents loved to tell me about it and ask about my daughter’s progress. As a first time mom, it really is hard not to compare your kids to other kids because you want to know what “normal” is, whatever that means, so I did my best to fight the urge. I think my favorite part about 5 months old was that she finally started to sleep longer stretches at night, and I only had to nurse her once through the night, usually around 2:00 a.m. This gave her a 5 hour stretch of sleeping since she usually went to bed at 9:00 p.m., and I’m told that 5 hours is considered “sleeping through the night” (STTN) for a baby. It is amazing what sleep can do for you when you haven’t had it in sooo long.

As for music, my husband and I constantly would make up songs for her. He would write his own songs and play them on the guitar for her, usually acoustic, and I would usually make up little jingles on the spot. She really loved to hear “her” songs, as in the songs we made up that have her name in the song. Whenever she would hear them she’d get really excited and if she was in her bouncy chair she’d start rocking it like crazy. She was now in a period where she was crying less so I didn’t have to resort to singing constantly to calm her, but I still did anyway. I tried out some Jeff Buckley on her for the first time, by starting with “Hallelujah” (of course). She got really quiet and stared at me during most of the song. Then I played “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” and sang along with it to her (Damn, I love this song). I actually got a smile out of her during it; can you blame her? Haha. Beautiful song. Ah, Jeff. R.I.P. Whenever I would drive anywhere with her I would carefully select a cd to play for her. I usually stuck with softer, “art rock,” but every now and then I’d throw in some Rage Against The Machine. She didn’t seem to react to that either way. I’m curious to see what her music preferences will be as a toddler and if she really will like alternative rock as much as nursery rhymes. I shall have to wait and see.

We didn’t waste any time introducing our daughter to live music. On her 2ndday home from the hospital, my husband treated her to her first living room concert, which consisted of him playing acoustic guitar and singing, with me harmonizing. He played a variety of alternative rock covers and a few originals, and I think it was the most captive audience he ever had. While in her bouncy seat, she didn’t take her little eyes off of him or the guitar. She seemed to enjoy the show, which for an infant basically meant that she didn’t cry. Haha. That evening I played her cds which included some of the same songs I used to play her on my mp3 player when she was in my belly. I figured it would be calming to her since it would be something familiar. Yes, who knew that Nine Inch Nails could be associated with calming a baby.  “The Frail” off of “The Fragile” album, anyone?

Over the next few weeks, my husband continued to perform little concerts for our daughter and she actually seemed to develop preferences. Besides liking the songs she was familiar with from hearing them in utero, she liked Guns N Roses’ “Sweet Child of Mine,” which is kind of funny because I hate that song. I have no respect for Axl Rose or his behavior, I don’t like his voice, his dancing, or his songs. So it’s a little amusing, and annoying, that my “musically groomed” child not only likes “Sweet Child of Mine”, but also “Patience,” and”November Rain” by GNR. My husband likes those songs, so he continues to play them for her. I think the only reason she likes “Sweet Child of Mine” is because of the guitar intro in the song. I guess it kind of resembles the sound of a nursery lullaby. Speaking of lullabies, she absolutely LOVES the song “Meet Me in the Tower,” off the album “Distorted Lullabies,” by the band Ours. Because of that, I haven’t lost faith that she will develop a good taste in music, like her mom. In a future blog post I’ll explain more in how that song saved my sanity for the first 3 months of her life.

The outcome of having two musical parents is that they tend to write a lot of songs about their life, which includes their children. So my daughter already has about 5 songs about her. But they aren’t real songs. They are jingles. Really corny, kid-friendly jingles. The kind that you don’t really want other people to hear you sing, but you know that it makes your child smile or laugh, so you sing them anyway.  I’ll embarrass myself by singing to her in public about her belly button or her Love Bug toy just to get a squeal. Maybe the true test of being a parent is being willing to make a fool out of yourself to make your baby happy. If so, I passed with flying colors.

I’m a 31 year old married woman who recently became a mom. When I was in my early 20’s I swore that I never wanted to have kids, even though I was dating my current husband and knew I would marry him. I was going to be that hot, young career woman who is independent and self-sufficient, and would spend my free time doing what I love most: going to concerts. Music is not just an interest of mine–it’s a passion. Specifically, I love alternative rock music, if that term is even still around. Whereas most people leave a show feeling pretty happy that they got their money’s worth and start thinking about their drive home, traffic, work the next day…I feel a great sense of sadness, even if the show was amazing. It’s a feeling of loss because what I love most has now ended. For those 2 hours or so it’s like I’m put in a different world and become part of something huge, and everyone in the crowd is along for the ride with me. Being a Scorpio, when I find something I like I become very loyal to it (ahem-obsessed), and that goes for bands also. No, I’m not a groupie, but people like to call me that when they want to annoy me. I guess you can say I’ve formed a few acquaintances with some of the musicians I admire, but that’s it, and that’s how it’s gonna stay. It’s honestly all about the music and nothing else. People who aren’t music lovers can’t understand that. I could do a whole separate blog about my experiences backstage, but for now I’m going to try to focus more on how the music and bands I love have influenced my pregnancy and my daughter, who is now 3 months old.