30 Years Ago – August 1990

30 years ago – in August 1990 – my daughter and her cousin were getting close to being a year old. My sister’s family traveled from Texas to Maryland so that the girls could spend time together. Both babies were cruising…but not walking yet. We planned outings that they seemed to enjoy. At the Smithsonian’s Air and Space museum the babies interacted with each other as well as their surroundings. They were wheeled around in strollers.

At Brookside, they rode in back packs – taking in the sights and sounds of the gardens.

They enjoyed homemade elephant shaped cookies for a special treat.

After our company left, it was still a busy month with me getting ready to go back to full time work. We bought a new car for me – a Honda Accord – that we owned for long enough that my daughter remembers it.

My parents in Texas were in the process of moving to a new house…trying to get it done before my mother started the school year (teaching middle school).

As I looked at the pictures and read my notes about the month – it was obvious that we were adjusting…getting more acclimated to what it was going to be like with me putting in more hours at work. It still was not easy. I was missing spending as much time with my daughter and my husband was figuring out ways he could help more. We were both experimenting with new routines…but realizing that we’d made positive changes since July.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Sweet Potato Sprout. I found a sweet potato sprouting in my pantry…and broke off the sprout before cooking the potato. The first picture is the way it looked on the day I put it in water….2 days later it has roots! I am going to wait until it has a green leaf before planting it out in a cleared place in the front flower bed. It won’t have enough time to make sweet potatoes before frost, but I should get some tender salad greens (leaves and soft stems)!

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30 Years Ago – July 1990

30 years ago, in July 1990, we made our first trip to Watkins Glen State Park in New York. Our daughter was the perfect size to enjoy the Gorge Trail in a back carrier. My husband and I traded off climbing up the stairs. She enjoyed putting her hands in the water falling from overhead ledges and was excited with the larger amount of water when the trail went behind a waterfall.

Staying in a hotel was exciting for her too. She was not walking yet but pulling up frequently. Being in a strange bed for the night made it hard for her to fall asleep…but she still woke up at her regular early time (6 AM).

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I was working three days a week and beginning to realize how hectic things were going to be working full time in the fall. I felt pulled in a lot of directions and exhausted on some days. It helped to have the house cleaners come every week rather than every other week and have my husband help clean up after dinner….but I was still somewhat anxious about the transition.

My daughter was easier and harder to feed all at the same time. She liked peanut butter and rice cake ‘sandwiches’ and finger foods….but also was being very clear about the things she didn’t like. We were trying to encourage more solid foods, but she was a baby that liked her formula/milk.

She was getting more coordinated at more than eating. She liked to drop things over the side of her play pen…and then indicate that she wanted them back.

Overlaid on everything was the evidence that my rearranging in May and June to make the house safe for the baby was paying off…even though I was still making tweaks…discovering some areas I hadn’t thought about before. She found the cat door to the basement stairs very quickly; I opted to block the opening since it appeared that she would be able to wiggle through it.

The muffin/cake pans, the skillets and plasticware were perfect height for her inspection. I hadn’t thought about the scattering of items on the kitchen floor….and having to always clean them right before use. I decided to put some baby latches on some of the cabinets but the drawer under the stove was always available for her to open.

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I padded the brick hearth with an old area run and some cushions. The cat liked the arrangement as much as the baby did.

I was preparing for my sister’s family to visit in August; her daughter is a week older than mine and they were both coming up on the 1 year mark.

My parents were in the process of buying a new house…a local move in the Dallas area. And they are still living in that house today!

Overall – a month that our family rolled with the changes of developing child and my going back to work…building our resilience to cope with the anticipated challenge of me going to full time work in the fall.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/13/2020 – 30 years ago

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Taking portraits of a Common Grackle. The grackles are little too big for our feeder but one flew to the sycamore and sat around for long enough to be photographed….picking up the nuances of color in the feathers. They are not an ordinary black bird! And the yellow eyes give an additional zip to their appearance.

Cooking barbeque chicken slowly. I decided to cook chicken breasts loaded up with barbeque sauce and a little extra olive oil…for 6 hours. I used two forks to pull apart the meat about 30 minutes before we ate to let the sauce get to every bite. Very yummy…and we have plenty leftover for another meal too. 

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

I started posting about what was happening to me 30 years ago beginning last November. And I’m continuing the monthly post now, looking back to April 1990….

My baby was old enough to be crawling, enjoying looking out the window at birds and her dad washing the car, intrigued watching herself be dressed in front of a mirror, sometimes cranky as her teeth appeared, and playing pat-a-cake. Her increased mobility gave her more opportunity to explore on her own – biting the play pen to see if it tasted good (or helped her gums feel better), checking out the cat’s favorite box (the cat looking on placidly), and striking a pose to rest or just look about.

We had company from out of town and visited some sights around Maryland and DC with her for the first time. Of course, she was too young to remember any of them: Mount Vernon, Catoctin, Arlington Cemetery, Jefferson Memorial, National Zoo, Brookside Gardens and the Aquarium in Baltimore.

The Aquarium was her first time in a backpack (since they don’t allow strollers); it was an experience for me too.

I was getting ready go back to work part time in May – having a few interviews for the assignment I would have until I started back full time in the fall. While I was preparing myself, I was doing things to make the change for my daughter easy too. We transitioned from cloth to disposable diapers, dropping the diaper service. She had her first days in family day care during the last week of the month…and seemed to enjoy the interaction with the other young children. We were very fortunate to find a wonderful the provider right away; my daughter was with the same family day care until she started Montessori pre-school.

I was off from work from mid-August 1989 to early May 1990….the longest time period I was not working in my career. It was a time of huge transition and I realized at the time that I was extremely fortunate to not have to rush back to work juggling the changes at home with a career immediately after my daughter was born. The company I worked for was ahead of the times in terms of medical leave and then unpaid leave with a job to come back to.

30 Years Ago – March 1990

30 years ago this month – my husband and I took our daughter on her first overnight trip. We went to Blackwater and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuges on the eastern shore of Maryland/Virginia. At Blackwater we saw our first Bald Eagle in the wild while the baby was working on a bottle (i.e. she was weaned from breast milk). We used our new umbrella stroller on some grassy paths at Chincoteague; by the end of the trip, it was somewhat scuffed…no longer ‘new’ looking.

I was making plans to go back to work in May…had sent a note off to my manager about wanting a part time assignment for 4 months and then would go back to full time after that.

My parents came from Texas for a visit – being with us for my Dad’s birthday. We bought some soft balls for our daughter to give to him for his birthday and I remember taking this picture. She has a pillow behind her because she wasn’t yet adept at sitting on her own. My dad’s arm is in the picture and the red ball he is getting ready to roll to her is in his hand. He moved it several times before he let it go…training her to keep her eye on the ball!

Previous 30 years ago posts can be found here.

30 Years Ago – February 1990

30 years ago this month - Our household was beginning to make changes to sustain itself with a baby that was increasingly active. In February she became even more adept at rolling, got two baby teeth and began eating in the highchair (colorful food like carrots seemed to be favorites). About the time the first teeth came in, her tongue thrust became much less pronounced. She managed to hold things in her hands for longer periods….and we managed to capture the first picture of her with a book. She was awake and interacting much more during the day…and sleeping through the night most of the time.

My husband and I were planning our first mini-vacation with the baby before family visits to our house started in March. It was going to be tacked onto a trip he needed to make for work. I was already beginning to wean the baby and plan what I needed to do before I started back to work part-time in May. I didn’t want her to associate weaning with me suddenly being gone.

At the same time, my husband and I were finally acknowledging the stress we both were experiencing after being a couple for over 15 years…and adding a baby in the mix. The transition was harder than we anticipated but it was beginning to improve by the end of February because we were finally acknowledged that we needed to actively work on it.

Previous 30 years ago posts can be found here.

30 Years Ago – January 1990

30 years ago this month – my daughter was 4 months old and I was still taking unpaid leave from my career at IBM. We visited the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History on the first day of the year. My husband took pictures of me and the baby near the elephant in the rotunda! She probably couldn’t really see the whole elephant clearly, but she was wide awake for most of the museum (napping in the car on and from).

That January had enough snow and ice that we didn’t get out very much. I had a scary fall on an icy driveway early in the month. It was icy. I thought it was just wet when I headed out to get the mail. My feet slid forward; I fell backward and hit my head. I lay on the driveway for a few seconds assessing….then crawled back up/to the side to the grass…kept to the grass to get the mail before I went back inside.

The view from the front of our house shows a newly planted Bradford Pear near the street (still has stakes on both sides). The neighborhood had organized to plant the trees along the street, and we went along with the idea. Now Bradford Pears have become invasive in our area – coming up everywhere as Callery Pear. Aargh!

In the back of the house we had some larger evergreens. One leaned way over the woodpile. We were using our fireplace more that January than before or since.

Our one PC and keyboards were in the basement. We had a full house upstairs with a bedroom and sitting room for my mother-in-law, a room for the baby, and the master bedroom.

There were two baby milestones during the month: she started eating baby cereals and rolling over. At the beginning of the month the rolling over was occasional and took a lot of extreme effort on her part. By the end of the month it was so easy for her that she rolled until something stopped her…and then figured out that she could roll away in the other direction.  

30 years ago – December 1989

30 years ago – I did my first airplane travel with my daughter. She was 3 months old and I flew from Maryland to Dallas to introduce her to my family in early December. My husband went off to a conference in San Francisco the same week. We had two suitcases to check --- or maybe I checked three. I know I carried the diaper bag on the plane and the baby was in a denim carrier on the front of me….so that I could use my coat to keep her warm and have both hands relatively free. Note the old style suitcases; one had wheels but they were tiny for the size of the suitcase. At least the security at the airport was not as strict as it is now – no taking off shoes and all outerwear and all liquids in 3 ounce sizes in a quart sized Ziploc.

I had barely gotten the baby to enjoy formula from a bottle before the big travel day….making it easier to feed her on the plane. I’d taken the bottle with water in it and used powdered formula so that it didn’t spoil. The plane was not full for the trip to Dallas. My sister and her husband met us as at the airport and wondered where the baby was (in the front carrier almost completely hidden)!

3 months is a time of more baby smiles and interactions with others. She had a growth spurt will we were in Dallas and wanted to nurse all the time…and then sleep. My father snapped a picture of us both getting a quick nap between feedings.

When she was awake, the baby was holding toys and trying to roll over.

Once we were all home again – there was more snow and Christmas cards. It was a very family and friends focused month. I was still on leave from work; a few of my colleagues came by to see the baby. I was still adjusting to motherhood…my husband was feeling a little neglected!

30 years ago – November 1989

30 years ago – I was still a ‘new’ mother…very aware that a pivot point had occurred in my life. I was still learning to use diaper wraps and how to take a baby into a restaurant or on a short road trip. I stopped wearing contact lenses; my sleep deprived eyes were better with glasses.  An adventure: I took the baby in a front carrier to a used book sale; I bought a few books but decided that even with her in the front carrier, being in a tight, crowded place was not comfortable for her or me.

There were some unexpected things too…like getting a pay raise that started the day after I had my daughter…while I was on paid maternity leave. I was sticking to my plan of not going back to work until she was 6 months old and then staying part time for another 6 months before being full time again.

The Berlin wall came down and I remember thinking that the world was making a turn for the better just as by daughter’s life was beginning…that maybe fears of global annihilation during her growing up would be less than in my early life.

It snowed in Maryland on Thanksgiving in 1989…about 5 inches at our house. We took the baby out in the snow for some pictures after the big meal. At first, she seemed very calm (maybe she was a little sleepy); she was well bundled in a snow suit, so we put her on the snow and made a baby snow angel.

Then she opened her eyes and decided it was way too bright (and maybe a little cold). That was the end of her first snow experience.