If it's not one thing....

Rachel appears to have a touch of croup. I was changing her diaper last night before feeding her and she started crying. It sounded different from her usual crying -- much deeper and more as if she was heaving from her lungs. Visions of having to rush her to the hospital flew through my head, until I realized that a humidifier may do the trick. So when Drew got back from Seattle, he set up our portable humidifier in her room. Result: She woke up once, at 3 a.m., to eat and Drew was able to get her back down by 4. Whereupon she slept until around 8.

I, of course, was so convinced that she'd wake up that I barely got any sleep the entire night.

I've decided that parenting is a lot like the stages of grief we always hear about: 1) Denial (how can she be waking up screaming in the middle of the night? She's such a good baby!)Anger (why does this have to happen to ME?) and Resignation/Acceptance (I guess I'll just be tired all the time until she's about 3).

That sounds about right.

That's my girl...

At day care yesterday, one of the ladies who works there told me that Rachel had watched a little boy, Simon, do something funny and started laughing out loud. That was quite a change from how Rachel usually acts, apparently -- "she is so serious," the woman said.

"Just like her mommy was at her age," I answered.

Looks like I'm not imagining Rachel's solemnity. Our friend Constance calls her an "old soul."

Cranky Mommy

...because Rachel, inexplicably, has been waking up at 3 a.m., screaming, for the past four nights. We are at our wits' end as to what to do. We've given her baby Tylenol, extra formula, stroked her gently, rocked her...and she refuses to go to sleep. I was up until 5 a.m. this morning. The fact that she slept in until 8 was no help, since I had to get up an hour earlier and shower.

She has been such a good sleeper until now, I hate the idea that she could be falling out of that pattern. Neither Drew nor I are coping well with the lack of sleep. And I am really scared what will happen when he leaves for Seattle Wednesday night and I'm left alone with her. I don't think I can survive on only 5 hours of shut-eye.

I know that children eventually sleep through the night. But I can't wait until Rachel is 6 years old or so before that happens.

Bad Mommy

I felt like the world's most awful mother last night. I had been working on a story about gay Portlanders' reactions to the revelations by Mayor Sam Adams that he lied about his relationship with a teenager back in 2005. I was supposed to finish up the story by 5, but just couldn't do it -- it was a difficult, nuanced story to write and the words didn't start flowing until quite late in the day. So, I raced over to St. James and picked Rachel up (Drew was in Seattle; he usually goes up Wednesday/Thursday but this week was an exception) and brought her back to the newsroom, intending to have her sit next to me in the car seat while I finished up.

I had one bottle of formula left to feed her and no diapers. But I figured I'd only be here for an hour or so, so it didn't seem like a big deal.

Fortunately, the couple (Chuck and Catherine) who had invited me over to Shabbat dinner graciously offered to baby-sit Rachel while I finished up. (She is a journalist with the O who went to college with me, so she understands the newspaper biz). They came to the paper, drove my car to their place and I was able to finish my story and edit it -- by 9, much later than I thought it would take.

Remember that I had no diapers and no food for Rachel. When Chuck came to get me, though, she was sound asleep and seemingly not the worse for wear. He said she had been a delightful baby, laughing and having a good time at his house. He and Catherine have a 2-year-old, Josie, so it was an extra-nice thing for them to take Rachel. And they even saved me two slices of pizza!

This taught me several lessons: a) People are way, way kinder to me than I deserve; b) I need to do a much better job of thinking and writing faster while Rachel is this young; and c) I really need to get better about remembering basic things about her care, like always having enough diapers in the diaper bag and carrying an extra bottle of formula (or, at least, formula mix) in case I'm stranded somewhere and need to feed her. (c) is what made me feel like a bad mommy last night.

So now I am finishing up what hopefully will be the last stakeout of Sam Adams. I and the rest of Portland really want him to decide quickly whether he's resigning or staying in office. Then we can all get back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Inauguration Day

I stayed home with Drew and The Little Girl this morning to watch Obama's speech on TV, since I had a late-morning assignment and figured I'd make it up by working until 6:30 p.m. or so. It was one of the most moving experiences I've ever had, Rachel on Drew's lap, listening to our new President. It's amazing to think that her first memory of a President will be Obama. In other words, she will never think it unusual that a black man is running the country.

That feeling was tempered by later events. Portland's mayor, Sam Adams, has admitted to lying about a relationship he had with a legislative intern years ago. I was one of several reporters deputized to uncover the unfolding scandal. How things will end up -- whether he resigns, stays in office or is recalled -- I don't know. But that's what I'll be busy writing about the next couple of days, I'm sure.

Nationwide elation and localized deflation, all in one day. That's politics for you.

Rachel, by the numbers

Drew took The Little Girl to the pediatrician yesterday morning, as I was too sick to go. Too sick to do much, actually, except lie on my side, clutch my tummy and groan "I want my mommy." Apparently I do not have Mommy Immunity after all, The Tummy Bug From Hell got me too. (Cue the mournful klezmer music and the bubbe shaking her finger at me and clucking, "And what makes YOU think you're so special that you'd escape getting sick?"). I am feeling better today -- better enough to go into work, at least, and help out with covering the latest sex scandal in Oregon -- but am now starting to cough and feel as though I'm getting post-nasal drip. Which can mean only one thing: I've caught Drew's cold! But this time I've got a sure cure: Sudafed and Zantac. I'll beat this in the incubation stage if it's the last thing I do. I'm tired of living in a sick house.

But I digress. You wanted to know Rachel's latest stats, right? Well, here they are:
Head size: 17 inches
Weight: 16 pounds, 14 ounces
and..drumroll please...
lengh: 29 INCHES

Yes, folks, our Rachel is off the charts when it comes to length. Meaning: Fewer than 5 percent of babies are as long as she is at her age. I am already dreaming of a basketball scholarship to Stanford or Chapel Hill. Maybe a modeling contract to help pay for college. I am being told, gently of course, that she will probably end up of average height, that it's too early to say she's going to be tall (which, to me, means taller than her 5 foot, 4 and 3/4 inches mom). But I refuse to listen.

Hi and welcome to the DeSilver family in Oregon blog!

Hi folks,

Well, we've officially joined the blogosphere! (When I say "we," I really mean "me," Lisa, since Drew has an oft-expressed contempt for social networking technology). So many of you have been so kind to us through Rachel's first months of life that I thought you'd like regular updates on her progress from an in-utero pollywog to an actual human being. I will try to update this as often as possible and, someday soon, will figure out how to post photos AND video. (Yes, Mom and Dad, we will be getting a Webcam this year:)).

You may remember from our holiday card that Rachel was chewing on her fingers, smiling, giggling occasionally and babbling to herself in a language only she understands. Since then she has made major developmental leaps, sometimes one every, oh, three hours. She regularly tries to knock her bottle out of my hand and grab it to feed herself, although she hasn't quite figured out how to do anything with the nipple except roll it around in her mouth. Also, she grabs for things and tries to stuff them in her mouth -- my plastic ID card from The Oregonian, a silver locket, a necklace with miniature wooden elephants I bought in South Africa years ago. She blows raspberries all the time, especially when we're trying to feed her rice cereal (I hope this means she'll become a gourmand because, frankly, rice cereal tastes yucky. How can I blame her for turning up her nose at it?). AND, today, she grabbed the remote control, pushed a button and changed the channel. Before you all congratulate us on her brilliance, rest assured that it's probably due to Drew's innate guy tendency to channel flip. (Drew's opinion, anyway).

She's quite social at daycare and it looks as if she'll be a reliable breeding ground for all the illnesses that come with the territory. This weekend she had The Tummy Bug From Hell, resulting in projectile vomiting (and I thought projectile vomiting was a movie myth! Ha ha ha ha ha...) and diarrhea. Otherwise she was playful and happy, so much so that she generously shared her illness with Drew, who looked like Death Warmed Over yesterday in between frequent trips to the bathroom. Wish him well on his recovery; he is still weak but functioning. I, of course, remain ridiculously healthy, running between her bedroom and ours, changing diapers and forcing Drew to drink ginger ale and stop trying to be "helpful."

So now I am monitoring the police radio as I work a weekend shift, looking forward to Rachel's face light up as I walk through the door tonight.