(no subject)
I cannot believe that Naia is already 3 weeks old! She's going to be a month old in 6 days... wow. I remember last time I was just excited to make it to the one month mark alive... and it felt like it had been an eternity since she was born. I guess the breastfeeding challenges, plus my physical inability to do anything due to pain, plus the fact that I hadn't been there before contributed to that...
Yesterday, I woke up with no pain whatsoever! I sat up in bed, which is usually one of the most difficult things to do, and neither my abs nor my back nor the area on my side that's been having the intense pain were hurting! It was such a great feeling, I was in such a great mood yesterday. By the end of the day, my back was hurting again and my side was intense again (I choked on my water and the coughing brought all of the intense pain on my side back...), so I really just wanted to go to sleep, but today I woke up almost as good as yesterday morning (I got a lot less sleep last night, cause Naia didn't even go to sleep until midnight and then was up at least 3 times during the night, and I always wake up at 8 to help Elena get dressed and eat breakfast...). But still, now that the pain went away for a while, I feel pretty confident that there are no complications this time, and I can just relax with that.
And, talking about milestones, I'm done my semester at the end of the day today! Then I just have exams on the 12th, 15th and 19th and I'm good to go! Thank goodness.
Oh, and I accepted the summer job with Dow Lohnes, so that's finally closed up. I have regrets about it, but I'd have had regrets either way, cause that's how I am with decisions like these. I mean, I've had a pretty good experience at HLS, and yet I'm constantly wishing I went to Georgetown or Yale, and I'm sure that if I had gone to one of those schools, I'd be wishing I was here. That's just how I work.
Oh, but, one thing I've noticed is that being here really did change me, in I think a good way. Before I came here, I was so worried about what people thought of me, being a young mother, etc. In college, when I was going to have Elena, I didn't announce it to my classes, and any classmates that even noticed figured it out on their own. I always felt bad going to the mall or anywhere when I was pregnant cause I looked like I was 16, and I was so afraid of people judging me. But between coming to law school, coming to Harvard Law School, Elena's childcare, and my friendship with Dalton, I finally stopped caring about whether I was too young to be in the role I'm in, you know? A large part of it was the childcare... many of the parents are Harvard professors, and they're all professional, and older, and yet they all treated me with respect and similarly to the other parents. And the kids certainly all get treated the same, and I constantly got compliments about Elena and her verbal ability and understanding and her friendship with some of the kids, so that really helped me to feel like.. a parent, instead of a young parent. And then being friends with Dalton, who is more than 10 years older than me and is more of an average parent, and being friends with his wife too, I never felt inferior or too young or anything... and this was this first time I knew someone who was an average parent who I could really relate with and have a friendship with, and it makes me feel like a normal parent as well. And things have been sooo different with Naia; I never once worried about being too young or anything, and was happy to tell the world about her, and.. it's a really different feeling, a feeling I should have felt with Elena, but I guess it took me a while to really understand...
By the way, Elena is growing up so much! Lol, yesterday morning, she tried to go back to sleep in my bed, and she was on Menelek's side of the bed, so he squeezed in next to her, and she started whining and kicking him, and he told her that if she wanted to go back to sleep, she'd have to let him sleep there too, and she said, with all the attitude imaginable: "FINE!" and she got up and stormed off of the bed, and when I asked her where she was going, she said: "NOWHERE!". Lol, I couldn't stop laughing. She's starting to get upset with me because whenever she acts with an attitude like that I can't help but laugh, cause I feel like she's much too young to be acting that way, and I dunno I just find it hilarious. Same thing happened last night when she had Menelek read "Where the Wild Things Are" and she accused him of not reading it right, then asked him to go to a specific page, then told him he didn't know the words. And he told her he was reading the words and I forget how she responded but it was smething to the effect of he didn't know how to read the words. And then she got frustrated with him and told him to just not read it. And, I probably should have done some parenting at the time, but I just couldn't stop laughing, and then she got upset with me for laughing and I couldn't do anything but apologize because she was just too funny. She's also requested to go to dance class and she was singing and dancing for us last night. She sat down on a box and did a pre-singing interview type-thing (I'm not sure where she got that from.. maybe American Idol from last year)?), and then did a pretty good dance... I think she's already surpassed my dancing abilities... it looked like a tap dance or the kind of dancing they do in plays or something.. pretty cool. Oh, and another thing about her growing up, she told her teachers that she can drive now because she's a big girl. And she's offerred to drive me to school.. lol. This girl is a mess.
Yesterday, I woke up with no pain whatsoever! I sat up in bed, which is usually one of the most difficult things to do, and neither my abs nor my back nor the area on my side that's been having the intense pain were hurting! It was such a great feeling, I was in such a great mood yesterday. By the end of the day, my back was hurting again and my side was intense again (I choked on my water and the coughing brought all of the intense pain on my side back...), so I really just wanted to go to sleep, but today I woke up almost as good as yesterday morning (I got a lot less sleep last night, cause Naia didn't even go to sleep until midnight and then was up at least 3 times during the night, and I always wake up at 8 to help Elena get dressed and eat breakfast...). But still, now that the pain went away for a while, I feel pretty confident that there are no complications this time, and I can just relax with that.
And, talking about milestones, I'm done my semester at the end of the day today! Then I just have exams on the 12th, 15th and 19th and I'm good to go! Thank goodness.
Oh, and I accepted the summer job with Dow Lohnes, so that's finally closed up. I have regrets about it, but I'd have had regrets either way, cause that's how I am with decisions like these. I mean, I've had a pretty good experience at HLS, and yet I'm constantly wishing I went to Georgetown or Yale, and I'm sure that if I had gone to one of those schools, I'd be wishing I was here. That's just how I work.
Oh, but, one thing I've noticed is that being here really did change me, in I think a good way. Before I came here, I was so worried about what people thought of me, being a young mother, etc. In college, when I was going to have Elena, I didn't announce it to my classes, and any classmates that even noticed figured it out on their own. I always felt bad going to the mall or anywhere when I was pregnant cause I looked like I was 16, and I was so afraid of people judging me. But between coming to law school, coming to Harvard Law School, Elena's childcare, and my friendship with Dalton, I finally stopped caring about whether I was too young to be in the role I'm in, you know? A large part of it was the childcare... many of the parents are Harvard professors, and they're all professional, and older, and yet they all treated me with respect and similarly to the other parents. And the kids certainly all get treated the same, and I constantly got compliments about Elena and her verbal ability and understanding and her friendship with some of the kids, so that really helped me to feel like.. a parent, instead of a young parent. And then being friends with Dalton, who is more than 10 years older than me and is more of an average parent, and being friends with his wife too, I never felt inferior or too young or anything... and this was this first time I knew someone who was an average parent who I could really relate with and have a friendship with, and it makes me feel like a normal parent as well. And things have been sooo different with Naia; I never once worried about being too young or anything, and was happy to tell the world about her, and.. it's a really different feeling, a feeling I should have felt with Elena, but I guess it took me a while to really understand...
By the way, Elena is growing up so much! Lol, yesterday morning, she tried to go back to sleep in my bed, and she was on Menelek's side of the bed, so he squeezed in next to her, and she started whining and kicking him, and he told her that if she wanted to go back to sleep, she'd have to let him sleep there too, and she said, with all the attitude imaginable: "FINE!" and she got up and stormed off of the bed, and when I asked her where she was going, she said: "NOWHERE!". Lol, I couldn't stop laughing. She's starting to get upset with me because whenever she acts with an attitude like that I can't help but laugh, cause I feel like she's much too young to be acting that way, and I dunno I just find it hilarious. Same thing happened last night when she had Menelek read "Where the Wild Things Are" and she accused him of not reading it right, then asked him to go to a specific page, then told him he didn't know the words. And he told her he was reading the words and I forget how she responded but it was smething to the effect of he didn't know how to read the words. And then she got frustrated with him and told him to just not read it. And, I probably should have done some parenting at the time, but I just couldn't stop laughing, and then she got upset with me for laughing and I couldn't do anything but apologize because she was just too funny. She's also requested to go to dance class and she was singing and dancing for us last night. She sat down on a box and did a pre-singing interview type-thing (I'm not sure where she got that from.. maybe American Idol from last year)?), and then did a pretty good dance... I think she's already surpassed my dancing abilities... it looked like a tap dance or the kind of dancing they do in plays or something.. pretty cool. Oh, and another thing about her growing up, she told her teachers that she can drive now because she's a big girl. And she's offerred to drive me to school.. lol. This girl is a mess.