This is the end.

Bill and I have separated, and we will be getting a divorce. Most of you know by now, but there’s no way to avoid telling the world, at some point. So now you know. I’m not going into any kind of detail here (You’re welcome. Darling.) but suffice it to say that the “Pav-u-lous” family that once was is holding its collective head high and moving on with its life.

The one untouchable, of course, is Xavier, who stands strong among the destruction left to the Z and P families. And so, we (me, obviously) will be transitioning this site to xaviershea.wordpress.com, where we can focus solely on Xavier Shea.

Please pardon our dust, and thank you for all of your support as we make this change (these many, many changes) — without some of you … well. You should know who you are are, and how grateful we are to you for everything you’ve done for us.

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Pediatric Food Allergies on the Rise in US

I'm not sure if this means Xavier is screwed because he's, well, a middle-class American child, or if he'll be fine because I rarely clean my house.

AOL Health: Pediatric Food Allergies on the Rise in US

Note: I definitely owe more than a short post about Xavier's current allergy situation. It's coming soon, I swear.

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It's a hard-knock life

I love hate when people ask if life is hard with a baby. Xavier is not hard -- he's mushy and lovey and his skin is soft and even his lemon face is so sweet it hurts my molars. It's life that's hard. Why doesn't anybody tell you that?

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Like father, like son

Today was the last day of a long weekend, and also the last day of an even longer week off from work. So Bill and I both have been walking around all day with the knowledge that tomorrow is going to suck, which means some unnecessary bickering was inevitable.

I went out to run some errands early this afternoon, leaving Bill home with the laundry and a napping baby. When I came home, about 2 hours later, the laundry was almost done ... but the baby was still sleeping. But of course, the baby began to stir as soon as Mama walked through the door, bags in hand. So I took over while Bill left to get a haircut.

I saved Xavier from his baby prison, changed his diaper and brought him downstairs, where I fed him some soy yogurt and rice crackers. Then I chased him around the living room -- for a baby with a broken arm, he moves pretty fast. Bill returned a little while later and grilled up some burgers for the two of us.

Since he had made lunch, I told him to leave the dishes; I would do them if he watched the baby. He asked me what time I had changed his diaper and they went upstairs. Bill came down, alone, 5 minutes later.

I turned around from the dishes and asked, "Where's the baby?"

"He's upstairs," he said. "It's nap time."

I had known that's what he was going to say before I even asked, so then I yelled. "He just woke up! Why would you put him to bed again?"

He went back upstairs and brought Xavier down with him. When I finished the dishes, Xavier was crawling around, this close to trouble on one side of the living room, and Bill was sitting on the couch on the other side of the living room, looking at his phone. I probably yelled something, or maybe I just thought it, but either way, Bill knew I was mad and we started the spiral where I get mad at him and he gets madder.

Jenny called me just then, so I went upstairs to hang up some clothes while hearing about her weekend. When I came down, Xavier was still trying hard to get into trouble, and Bill had switched to a different couch.

I began the argument I'd been having in my head for a half hour. "Listen. I know I'm lazy, and I try really, really hard not to be lazy with him. We don't read to him, we don't sing to him and we don't take him for walks. All he does while he's awake is play around on the floor with his toys, and I make a conscious effort to play with him and not just sit and watch. And I still feel bad about not doing enough. I have had to pee since I walked in the house and I still haven't because I was playing with him, but as soon as I handed him over to you, you tried to put him down for a nap! And he's sitting around in his diaper!"

"I took off his shorts when I brought him up for his nap."

"Well I know you think it would be great to hang out with no pants on, but I don't think he likes it as much as you do."

"Xavier -- are you having fun hanging out with Dada?"

Clear as day, Xavier said, "Yeah!"

[You have to understand, the only words he says at this point are "Mama," "Dada" and a whole lot of "ba, ba, ba, ba, ba."]

And just like that, Xavier ended the potential fight. How could I argue with that?

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Is left not right?

Don't be confused by my title. No, Xavier hasn't chosen a political party yet, though Papa Z has already started working on it.

Instead, this post is about Xavier's developmental milestones. My baby books have been collecting dust somewhere, and I've all but given up reading my weekly BabyCenter updates. But today I looked at Parents.com's "Growth & Development Milestones: 8-12 Months" list to see if X is keeping up with where he's supposed to be. He seems to be just starting to catch up to other kids his age on "pulling to standing," and he definitely hasn't started "pointing" yet, so I made a mental note to work on that one. However, he talks (yells) a lot (constantly), and his precision when feeding himself is spot on.

But that's where my question comes in: he definitely appears to be left-handed, especially when feeding himself.

Which is awesome! Left-handedness is so cool, and I've always wished I was, so I would be excited if X took after his daddy and grew up as a south paw (Which still doesn't make sense to me? What is that phrase supposed to mean anyway? South is down, not left).

But this list of milestones clearly states that he shouldn't be showing any hand preference yet. And that worries me.

Now, it's not that he doesn't use his right hand at all, because he does. And his ability to pick up a small piece of food and get it right in his mouth with either hand is impressive. I think I might miss my mouth more than he misses his. But he definitely seems to use his left hand more than his right, and I want to make sure that doesn't mean that the left side of his brain (because that controls his right hand, right?) is lagging or not functioning properly.

Also, of course I'm not going to take Parents.com's word for it, and I'm going to ask our pediatrician before I start assuming he has some kind of brain misfiring.

So, no, I'm not a crazy new-mommy. And I don't run to the doctor every time he cries or bumps his head (although our pediatrician's office has seen us more than some of our close friends since Xavier was born, but his ear infections and not my paranoia are the reason for our weekly visits).

But I still worry. He's my baby.

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Food discoveries

Food is a huge, huge (huge) part of my life. I spend quite a bit of time each day deciding what I'm going to eat, and getting really excited about it. That's just how I roll. With this whole new trying-to-be-healthy thing, it's sometimes more difficult to get excited about food, but still, I'm trying to make changes that I know will stick -- it doesn't make sense for me to resign myself to eating food I hate, because I will wind up falling back into old habits eventually.

Last night, I went to ShopRite armed with a list for Xavier and determined to find food that he will love and that won't make him break out in hives. I started with fruits and vegetables (no, I don't know what kind of pear that is, Checkout Guy. I don't eat pears, so just pick one on your little ring-up computer) and noticed the "organic" section right next to it. I pointed my cart in that direction and walked up and down the four aisles and just started throwing healthiness into my cart. Like Vans wheat-free frozen pancakes. Yum.

This morning, I opened a new purchase for myself -- Cascadian Farms Honey Nut O's -- and tasted one: not bad. I had hope for the O's in milk, fat free though it might be. I was wrong. The O's began to mush-i-fy as soon as the milk hit them, and there's nothing worse that soggy cereal. Soggy cereal is too close to oatmeal, and oatmeal is flavored vomit in a bowl. So the Honey Nut O's went to a coworker for her hubby, and I moved on to Plan B: Fiber One Chocolate Fudge Toaster Pastries. Well, one toaster pastry, which is 3 points.

I toasted (warmed, really) it up a bit and took a bite: not decadent by any means, and not quite the S'mores PopTart of my younger years, but definitely edible. Mmm.

Now I wish I hadn't wasted all of my milk on that cereal...

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Focusing on the fly

As someone with a communication degree, I can't help but feel inadequate when I watch sports. The knowledge and excitement those announcers bring to each game amazes me every time.

I decided to go into the field of communication -- that means that, at some point, I had the potential to enter broadcasting. If I had begun liking sports a few years earlier, perhaps, or if I had taken that TV class in high school, I might have liked it, and I might have decided to give it a go. I could have taken that entry-level class in college. I could have become a member of WGLS or RTN.

But just as quickly as I think it could've been me, I think that it never could've been me. I don't have that silver voice. I can't focus my brain that quickly on the fly. Probably most important, I don't know anything about sports. I can't imagine the level of embarrassment I might have felt if I had tried it.

Probably a level similar to the level of embarrassment I felt every year I enrolled in art classes I wasn't good enough for, my awkward pencil scratching no match for my classmates' fluid charcoal sketching. I (barely) held my own for a few years, and gave up as soon as I got to college.

That being said, I'm glad the Devils tied up the Series tonight. Devils!

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Keeping hunger at bay

Aside from our new adventures in baby food (which I’ll be talking about soon), I have decided to make a change and joined Weight Watchers online. So while I’m teaching my son to eat (and eat and eat and eat), I’ll be trying to influence him to eat well. And maybe I’ll be learning a little bit about eating well myself.

I’ve made it through day one. Aside from this glass of wine I’m drinking now — that, for some reason, doesn’t have a place on my charting site (or rather, I can’t figure out how to chart it) — I stayed right on target with my allotted points. I’m starving, but proud of myself.

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Oh, the guilt!

I never thought I would be one of those parents who drop their kids off at daycare when they’re home for the day. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but why wouldn’t I want to spend as much time as I could with my little man?!

Well, I just did it. I desperately needed to go to the gym and I have to get some work done that I can’t do with him in tow.

But I feel terrible about it. I want to go hang out at the daycare with him until I go to class. It’s amazing how just being a parent can make you feel so many different things at once.

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Doctor my eyes...

I'm writing about this because, although I haven't blogged in forever, this is the kind of stuff that I'm going to want to remember and won't, because I have a horrible memory. It's also not the kind of thing I'd write in Xavier's baby book. This seems like a better place for it.

He's been having a pretty good day today overall, but what good day is complete without periods of fussiness? Of course, the most recent period of fussiness came when Bill ran to Walmart to get another crib sheet for the new daycare X is starting tomorrow (the story for another blog post). I picked him up and held him on my lap to comfort him and try to get him interested in my Journalistic Writing textbook. He was more interested in my highlighter, so I let him play with it. He grabbed it (with his right hand, I might add, so Bill might be S-O-L with that whole southpaw thing) and started flailing his arms back and forth. And almost poking himself in the eye. So I, like the good parent I was trying to be, tried to grab it from his hands. Instead, I managed to grab the cap of it, and he flailed again and stuck the highlighter point RIGHT INTO HIS EYE!

He did the infant-face-scrunch and let out a short little cry, and went right back to trying to grab the highlighter. I grabbed him, put him on the dining room table under the bright light and dabbed at his yellow tears with a tissue.

I called Jenny and she said to flush the eye with water and that he'd be fine without a trip to the emergency room. Thanks, Jenny, for your calm-ness.

I stuck his head in the bathroom sink and rang out a washcloth into his eye. He wasn't crazy about that, but it looks like the yellow tears are gone.

So that's my story for today. It's always an adventure!
















The eye (his right) after the incident.

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Family first

Inside our wedding bands, Bill and I inscribed "my favorite thing" (well actually, the old immigrant in the back of the jewelry store did it) to always remind us how much we mean to each other, even when life got hard.

We've learned that life is hard, and it's gotten exponentially harder since our little bundle of joy came into this world. It still amazes me how much chaos a tiny little ball of miracles can create. From the moment I learned he was in my belly, I loved him for the rest of my life. And now ... how could you not love him? Look at him. He's perfect.




















But he makes it so much harder to do everything else. Convenience is gone, and all of our efforts elsewhere have been redistributed. Work is more painful than usual, sharing our precious home time with others is touch-and-go, and all conversation centers around the baby, making our family dynamic a bit one-sided. Bill and I have felt the stress. As much as people tell you it's going to be hard, and you don't think it'll be that hard for you because you're different ... well, it is hard, and you aren't any different. We're all human.

A colleague of mine died this week. I didn't know him well -- just from saying hi around the office -- but in the way he touched so many people here, it's obvious what a good person he was. We had a memorial today and several of the people who spoke touched on how fragile life is. He was only 41, with a young son, and he was healthy -- his death was sudden and tragic. The office has become a different place in just a few days.

I've been thinking about this a lot this week -- how could you not -- and looking at my own family and the people I care about. I've been thinking about my grandmother, and what an effect her death continues to have on our family, years later. One friend, who lost his father way too early, said that something of that magnitude numbs you to any kind of surprise related to death. That statement latched onto something inside me. If it's no surprise that any one of us could be taken at any time, then what keeps us from appreciating every moment we have with each other?

It's easy to get caught up with the everyday. It's easy to pass Xavier to Bill as soon as he walks in the door, as I run to the kitchen to make a bottle, or to switch the laundry; it's just as easy for Bill to pass him back to go outside and clean up dog poop or take out the garbage. I get Xavier dressed in the morning and hand him off to Bill, who straps him in the carrier and drops him off at daycare before we both rush off to work. In all that time of running seconds (or half-hours) late, do we stop for a kiss? Do we even look at each other? Sometimes.

But sometimes isn't good enough. Those two guys -- one big and one little -- encompass my whole life. And while there definitely isn't enough time in the day to work and sleep and cook and clean and blog (sorry, ex-loyal followers) and relax, what does any of that mean if I don't connect with the people who mean everything to me?

It means nothing. My family -- related by blood, marriage or heart -- is my life. I want to make sure I raise my own young son to realize that too.

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Taking Stock

It's been two months since Xavier came into our lives and I've been thinking about how it's all going. I'll do me first, so we can build up to the big story that everybody really wants to hear about (the baby, obviously).

I'm 28 years old and I'm a mother and I'm responsible for another person. That person is my son, who is not a girl, although I always thought I'd follow my mother and grandmother's path and have only daughters. We can even go back a whole three years (to Oct. 21) and marvel that I'm married to Bill Pavlou (like, who's that guy anyway, he's short and Greek and I don't even like him).

And those two little men have made my life perfect.

Well, I should clarify. I've just had a baby, so I still have this lovely, stereotypical flub around my waist. I'm trying to tell myself I want to eat right and exercise and get rid of it, but wouldn't it just be easier to get pregnant again? I looked so cute pregnant, and didn't at all feel self-conscious about not fitting into my clothes.

Speaking of which, I have gone shopping three times for jeans and now have ONE PAIR of jeans that fit me, and they are "ultra low-rise" Levi's from the junior's section of Kohl's. Levi's. I never thought I'd go there, but after trying on a few pairs of mom jeans (note: "comfort waist" means "elastic"), I settled for what worked. They're two sizes larger than the stack of jeans sitting in my armoire, but again, I found one pair of jeans that fit me. I'm trying to be happy with that.

And I'll find one pair of dress pants that fit me, and I'll be happy. (And then, God willing, I'll get pregnant again, and get to go back to my stretchy panel pants.)

While we're on the subject of my stomach, I also managed to defy Mother Nature and get the stretch marks that my mother avoided, despite the fact that the all-knowing "they" say "if your mother got them, you'll get them, so don't worry about what you can't help." They don't tell you how to feel if you are the one to start the familial trend; here's a big S-O-R-R-Y to my future potential daughters. But I'll try to use some lotions that are sworn to work and take solace in the fact that I never wear a bathing suit anyway, and do I really care what Bill thinks of my stomach? (And I'll pretend that the answer to that question is no.)

But enough about me. (Although how can you look at this face and not see me?)






























Xavier is just perfect. He's got these adorable little fingers and toes, and he's such a handsome little guy, and he coos at you just when you don't think he's paying attention.

Perfect. And it scares me sometimes. Nothing is ever that perfect. What if something is wrong with him that we find out about later, or what if something happens to him? I can't even stand those thoughts.

But then I think that he's not perfect. He's my son, after all, so he'll probably have trouble finding a date for the junior prom, or friends to hang out with on the weekends, and we'll have to tell him that the kids are just jealous because he's so smart, and the girls are mean to him because they like him. And he's Bill's son, so when he does find that wonderful woman who marries him and joins our family, she'll probably call him a jackass. And I'll probably agree with her, because he'll probably have said something stupid, and I'll say, "You're just like your father," and Bill will smile and say, "That's my boy."

He's our boy. And he's perfect. And he's made me perfect -- regardless of any of the extra flub in my middle that he caused me on his way into this world -- because I get to be his mother.

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Motherhood is...

...having spit up all over your clothes, and realizing you might as well wait to change them, because it's almost time for him to eat. Again.

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Xavier Shea A Day: Day 42

September 11, 2009

Some quality time with Daddy after a long day/week of work. Daddy's work, not Xavier's.

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Remembering the City

It is raining today, and I can't help but think it's fitting, given the mood we all feel each year on this day. But I don't feel it perhaps the way I should. Most of my 9/11 sadness is selfish.

I didn't lose anyone close to me on that day, or in the following days, and I thank God that my father, a Port Authority police officer, had come home from work that morning and wasn't in the City when it came crashing down around everyone. Despite his long hours over the next year, and the lasting effects on his lungs and psyche, he made it out safely. I know how blessed my family is, and my heart goes out to those who weren't as lucky.

But I've always felt that the City was part of life that my father had given me. We had a backstage pass to the action -- cop car rides from Weehawken through the Lincoln Tunnel and to the front door of our destination. I sat in the back of that car each time with my face pressed up against the window, in awe of my proximity to all that magic.

The City isn't the same now, and neither am I. In September 2001, I was just beginning my sophomore year of college as far away from that City as New Jersey would allow, and I'm still stuck in this place. Most of the people I've encountered here have little appreciation for the City I love, and Philadelphia is the third-rate replacement they offer me. As much as I thank God that I wasn't personally affected by that September day eight years ago, I'm still bitter that I'm not there. As close as I felt to New York after that day, why am I still so far away?

Today, I am sad that my son will never see the most beautiful skyline as it once was. That he will never peer down from the observation deck of the public Tower -- or from the other Tower, the one with the antenna, where my father brought me when I was young. I'm sad that he'll never know the New York I have -- the magical place less than a half-hour from home. Because it's a lot more than a half-hour from his home. I want to be sure I can still give him that experience.





















Photo of Ground Zero, taken on a day in New York, 08/11/07.

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Xavier Shea A Day: Day 41

September 10, 2009

We have officially dubbed this his first real smile, offered to Mommy before the family trip to the doctor's office.

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Xavier Shea A Day: Day 40

September 9, 2009

Relaxing.

Look at his perfect little fingers and toes. It's just amazing.

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Xavier Shea A Day: Day 39

September 8, 2009

Just realized that rubber doesn't taste so good?

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Xavier Shea A Day: Day 38

September 7, 2009

Forcing tummy time over Mommy's shoulder.

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Xavier Shea A Day: Day 37

September 6, 2009

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