Cognosco

I’m just going to skip the part where I apologize for being late on your update…

You’ve been through a lot of changes since your last update. First of all, you weaned yourself. There are many who would say that it wasn’t “true” child-led weaning because you use binkies and sippy cups. I think babies are not so easily fooled and I am just prone to guilt-tripping myself. If the average age of weaning worldwide is between 2 and 3, then for every child who nurses to the age of 4, there should be one who weans at 1. That’s how averages usually work.

I wasn’t sure at first if it was a nursing strike, or a real weaning, but since the days kept rolling by without you nursing and I wasn’t engorged, I figured it wasn’t really all that sudden. It just seemed like it to me. You’d really only been nursing once a day, if that. Of course, I was devastated. But I’ll get over it.

On the plus side, you actually hug me more and cuddle more than you did when you were still nursing. I am more than happy to provide that comfort for you.

My favorite story from the last month is a Tale of Two Tiggers. You have had a stuffed Tigger that you absolutely adore since last September. The problem is that it’s not really washable (though we washed it anyway) and we could not find a spare. I finally found them at Target and bought about 6 of them. Just to be safe.

We presented you with a “new” Tiggy while you were holding “old” (now stashed in a sentimental box) Tiggy. You picked up one and then the other. You squeezed the paw on one, and then the other. You squeezed the beanie butt of one, and then the other. You picked each one up and tasted it. Then you cast the new Tiggy aside, rejected. I laughed so hard I almost peed myself. Toddlers are natural scientists. Luckily, we snuck the newbie into your crib while you were asleep, and without having the old one as a comparison, you were fooled.

Sometime in the last month, my sweet boy was replaced with a tantrum spewing pod person. The onset of tantrums coincided with two other events that I think are significant (recall that I am a psychology grad student). First of all, you were no longer fooled by the baby in the mirror. You know it’s you. Second, you started pointing to yourself when you wanted something. In other words, you now know that you exist. And by god, you have opinions and you will not be swayed. When I tell you no and remove you from a situation, I just go ahead and gently lay you on the floor, because if I don’t, you will fling yourself on the floor and bonk your head. So I just go ahead and help you out with that.

Other random stuff:

You love to climb. Everything. You love to dance, and have your own sign for music that looks kind of like you are conducting the song. You are pickier about your food, but still a great eater. Your favorite food is whatever is on my plate. Or peaches. You love playing hide and seek or chasing games. You love car rides. You love pushing a stroller around. You have no new teeth (still 4 on top and 2 on bottom). You love the Cosby show more than Sesame Street. All these years later, I can say that it is really a great show, but good lord, the clothes are awful. You still want to wake up at 5:30, but it’s easy to get you to lay back down until after 6. You scream when initially put down for a nap (you’re down to one per day), but then will sleep for 2 to 3 hours straight. You don’t scream when put down at night. You love your bedtime routine. You love water. You love books—all books, my books, your books, magazines, whatever. You can stack 3, sometimes 4, blocks. You are running now. You try to jump but can’t quite do it yet. You like to brush your own teeth and are fascinated by shoes. You covet electronic devices of all kinds. You reliably say Dada, Dog, and Bath. You squeal with delight when I let the dogs into the house, when your Dada gets home, and when you see a cat. You love stacking things, emptying things, and scribbling.

What don’t you love? Limits. The word “no”. Having your face wiped. That’s pretty much it. It’s the “no” thing that really pisses you off. Even your Nanna, who had eleven children and is a nanny, commented on your temper. I have no idea where you got it…

You don’t have much interest in speaking, but know soooo many signs:

More, book, ball, and shoes are all pretty much signed the same, but in different contexts. Dad and phone also really close, but one involves your thumb to your ear, and the other is your forefinger. You will also sign finished, Tiggy (which is awfully close to “sleep”), Mama, eat, drink, bath, sleep, brush teeth, cereal, milk (which you now use for anything you want really badly—I take it as a compliment), water, car, bus, music, diaper, dog, bird, bye-bye, train, baby, cat, help, wash hands, binky (your own sign—you put the back of your hand to your mouth), cracker. Some of these signs you use more reliably than others, but you have successfully used them all at some point. You will also shake your head “no” and blow kisses.

Things I have learned:

• Every day is a new adventure.
• There is no "catching up" on housework–just learn to roll with it.
• My mother told me that there are times your child will be replaced with someone you do not know, and don’t really like. She was right.
• Just like I have never gotten used to the summers in Phoenix, I will never get used to waking up before 6 a.m.
• In the dictionary, next to the definition of "toddler", there should be a picture of a tornado.
• That happiness I felt when you could start entertaining yourself? It’s been replaced with horror by the level of destruction you can accomplish in five minutes.
• You know that one tone of whining that makes you want to bang your head into the floor? Your toddler will find it. And use it. Liberally. With glee.
• If all else fails, crank the music.
• If that fails, just leave the house.

Some days, I feel like I am absolutely the wrong mother for you, and others I feel like I am THE champion at toddler motherhood. There seems to be no in between. We either have good days, or horrible ones. We’re either in the groove, or NOT. But I feel blessed to have all these days with you.

Thank you, Albie, for being YOU. I don’t always like you, but I always love you. And you have made me into a better person that I would have ever been without you.

Love,

Mama

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…I still agonize over when to be pregnant.

I still worry if I will be hired for a job if I am pregnant.

I worry about whether or not I will be able to keep a job or get tenure if I have a baby.

And I am one of the lucky ones. I had my first child while in graduate school, which is actually a great time to have a baby in my opinion. But I’m set to graduate next year with a Ph.D. and get some kind of job in academia. There are few career paths more liberal than academia. Furthermore, my area is psychology, which when combined with academia leads to so much liberalism that you can almost choke on it. I will have my own office so pumping will not be a problem. There is quite a bit of flexibility in the schedule of an academic, so long as you somehow manage to work 50 (+?) hours per week. Doing what you love. Not bad, really. I am incredibly lucky, especially given that I am the first in my family (including cousins ) to even graduate from college with a four-year degree, let alone an advanced degree.

And yet…

…the whole thing has been keeping me up at night. In order to have my kids two years apart, I’ll have to get pregnant in the next few months. Be pregnant on job talks. In academia, job talks can be a two or three day affair, packed with meetings and interviews and presentations and intensity. I wouldn’t want to fly past 34 weeks in a pregnancy. Job talks take place from about November through February for the nicest jobs. For less nice jobs, they can continue through the May. So, we reasoned that if I get pregnant in August, the due date would be in May, which is also the same month I’ll be graduating. Then I’d start a new job the following August. Granted, most programs tend to be a wee bit forgiving in the first year because you are adjusting, but compounding that adjustment with a new baby, sleep deprivation, breastfeeding…what a recipe for disaster. And, I would miss a lot of that child’s first year because I’d be focusing on so many other things.

Sound crazy? I think so too. I’ve been in a constant state of fretting.

So, I decided that I would go for the "easier" jobs. Little or no research. Smaller schools. More teaching. Familiar. Not too challenging.

And then I stopped caring about schoolwork. I couldn’t focus on anything. Writer’s block set in like someone had wrapped gauze around my brain.

Because wait a minute–I love research. I love mentoring. I love teaching too, but to only teach would be like cutting off a limb.

    "For a minute there,

    I lost myself,

    I lost myself."

        –Radiohead

I love my family. But I love my dreams too. 

So, one day, I asked myself why I wanted my kids to be two years apart. Well, my brother and I are 2 years and 3 months apart. I think I never questioned that two years was the best spacing for kids, because it was normal for me.

It would be "inadvisable" to have a baby during the first year or two of a new job. While most universities will stop the tenure clock during that time, you may still be judged negatively for having a child during that time. And really, it would be nice to be settled in first anyway for my own sanity. So, if I have my next child after two years on a job, Albert would be four years old.

I began to contemplate this, and took the same approach to this question that I do most things. I researched it ad nauseum. Turns out that if you ask people what the best spacing is, everyone gives a different answer. There are good things and bad things about any age difference. And it seems that the most important factor in how your kids get along isn’t their age (up to about a 5 year difference), but their personalities. Good luck planning that.

When I let myself accept the possibility that this might be a better choice for our family, a tremendous disappeared from my shoulders. The brain fog lifted. I wanted to do school work again. I felt motivated. My writer’s block disappeared. I felt calm.

The down side is that my future job is not likely to be in the Phoenix area. Even if there was a job here, I don’t want to stay here. Which means that I will not have Connie as my midwife, or Leigh as my doula. And that kind of sucks.

But to be honest, I’ve always had trouble envisioning Connie at my next birth. Maybe it’s because she’s just not meant to be.

And I can accept that Leigh will likely not be there because I can entice her to visit me with the promise of chocolate and the scent of a newborn. And then we can bask in new babyness while we watch the birth video, eat brownies, and laugh.

I think MB can be coerced with chocolate too… 

Nonetheless, I still think it’s bullshit that this whole process has been agonizing. It’s bullshit that I can’t just think about what’s best for our family without worrying about damaging my career. And I am one of the lucky ones.

We have come so far, and yet have so much further to go. 

 

 

Here’s a snapshot from a few days ago…

when you woke up this morning (at 5:15), the first thing I did (after swearing) was change your diaper. While I was changing it, you repeatedly signed "diaper". Then you signed "milk" and so I nursed you. We came out to the kitchen, and as I was getting your cereal ready, you signed "eat". Once I was done mixing up some fruity slop, I said, "okay, let’s go get you into your high chair" and so you walked towards your high chair and waited for me to lift you up. When you looked sleepy this afternoon, I asked if you wanted to go to your crib and take a nap. You started walking towards the bedroom and when I put you into your crib with your Tiggy and binky, you went to sleep with no problems (which is certainly not always the case). When you woke up, you looked up at the shelves in the bedroom and signed "book" to let me know that you wanted to look at your favorite book.

You are communicating and it’s wonderful. To be fair, you have always communicated, but I just didn’t know how to translate a lot of your language. Now, I don’t know how we would survive around here without sign language. In the last month, you have had a signing explosion, and now you sign words unprompted rather than only producing a sign when I say the word first. You’ll come up to me in a tizzy and I’ll ask what you want, and if you are able, you tell me.

That’s the good stuff.

The bad stuff is that you are once again waking at 5:30 in the morning. Regardless of when you go to bed. Regardless of how sleep deprived you may be, you will not agree to staying in your crib past 6 a.m. at the latest. I am soooooo getting revenge when you are a teenager. You had a few bad nights of repeated wakings a few weeks ago, after which you started signing about 10 new words. And then you started sleeping through again. You’ve gone back to mostly napping twice a day, except for the days that I have made plans around that schedule. On those days, you’ll lay down in the morning and really, you try to sleep, but after about a half an hour you demand to be let out of your bed cage.

Other random stuff…

Your favorite toys are your stacking cups, your blocks, and a small broom. Your favorite activity is putting things into containers and taking things out of containers. That keeps you busy most of the day. You also love pushing buttons–VCR, remote control, air purifier, etc. You also have a couple of books that have little squeaky animals in them, and when you couldn’t figure out how to make it squeak with your hand, you improvised–you put the books on the ground and step on them. I thought that was pretty brilliant.

Your favorite food was pears, until one day you started throwing them on the floor after only one bite. You like bananas most of the time and your breakfast is usually a mashed banana with rice cereal (either made with goat milk or goat milk yogurt). You like beans and peas and pasta and grapes and raisins–most of the time. In fact, you pretty much like everything on some days and I can always find something you are excited to eat. You’ll be crazy about something for a few days, and then won’t touch it. I can’t blame you. I’m the same way.

We finally turned your car seat around so that it’s forward facing and you were so amazed at the new view. I would have left you rear-facing longer (it’s safer) but your feet had to bend at the knees for you to fit in the seat.

I dropped your dream feed when you started nursing a little more in the day. I had agonized about "phasing it out" but just stopped one day and you never noticed. You will now usually get a 5 to 10 minute feed in once a day, either first thing in the morning or after one of your naps, with maybe a few little nursings throughout the day.  

I have been doing Dance Dance Revolution as a cardio workout, and you just love to "dance" like mama. We have an extra pad, so sometimes we’ll put "your" pad next to mine and you will just go to town. More and more you’ll dance to pretty much anything and I so love that about you.

I’m so glad we get to spend a lot of time together. It is so fascinating to watch you morph back and forth between monkey and baby human. You love to climb things, and it’s not like this is a behavior that has been modeled to you. Your dad and I don’t go around climbing things all day. But you just have this drive to do it. Apparently, so do most kids–go look at the toys on a playground. They’re built for monkeys.

I would like to write more to you, but honestly little dude, I’m tired, and if I keep putting off posting this, we’re going to miss a monthly update and I am too obsessive to let that happen.

I love you and am so glad that you are my little boy. You bring me so much joy every day.

Love,

Mama 

I was already a huge fan of this comic strip, but this one made me get all weepy because it was totally Albie & his Tiggy…

I can’t wait until Albie is old enough to read comic books.

 

He’s been boogeying down to music lately.

Apparently, he and H watched a Jimi Hendrix DVD tonight.

Albie was totally cutting loose, flinging a piece of fabric around, shaking his head back and forth, totally rocking out.

A clumsy toddler, intoxicated by tunes. Jamming out to Jimi.

That makes every thing he’s ever done that’s pissed me off worth it. 

I, for one, could not survive motherhood without music.

It may be the one thing that helps us all survive toddlerhood.

 

 

 

The good:

Albie is having a sign language explosion. He can sign finished, more, bath, drink, dog, milk, eat, and ’signing time’ because it is the name of the DVD that has helped foster such an explosion.

The bad:

His sleep has gone to shit. I’m pretty sure it’s connected to the language thing, but it still sucks.

The ugly:

My mood. Bleh.

Dear Albie,

This update will probably not be eloquent or funny, but by golly, I’m going to get it done. At least I will someday be able to point to your monthly updates as evidence of some sort of consistency in your life.

You started walking last month, and have now developed great balance. We live in an old house with some uneven flooring and bizarrely placed steps (that I had not realized were "steps" until I watched a toddler repeatedly trip over them). It didn’t take long for you to catch on and grab a nearby wall or door when you reached those points. Now, you don’t even need to do that. You are like a 4 wheel drive machine. Your favorite toy right now is one of those pushable poppers. You’ve been fascinated with it for quite some time, but now you really enjoy it because you can walk while pushing it. In the last few days, it’s obvious you’re trying to learn how to run. I do hope that it takes some time for you to figure that out. I’m not ready for you to run away from me! In the last week, you’ve now started standing up by yourself without need of something steady yourself with. You are also thinking vertically, and I will often look over to see that you are now standing on something so that you are up off of the ground. It freaks me out. But through a fuzzy lens, it becomes so obvious that you are, after all, a little monkey. And by god, you want to climb like one. It’s too bad you don’t have a prehensile tail. I have been lamenting my lack of one for several years now.

We made a purchase in the last month that has been one of the best baby-oriented investements thus far. We bought a couple of “Signing times” DVDs. You had seen some signs on the Baby Einstein DVDs, but I sometimes get the feeling that those DVDs were really created by people who just wanted their kids out of their hair. I feel like the Signing Times DVDs were created by people who really love children. You are fascinated by them. The songs are catchy and fun. And, the best part is that because they show several kids your age signing, I better understand the range of forms a baby sign can take. I think you may have been signing at least a little bit for awhile now, and I was missing it. Your most common sign is “finished”, and you have also signed more, milk, and horse. I don’t think you actually understand the horse sign, but that you were just copying what the other kids were doing. I could be wrong. You also wave “bye-bye” now, will give high-fives, will head-butt one of your parents on command, and will play along (when you feel like it) to pat-a-cake.

In terms of spoken language, other than attempts at “dog”, I don’t think you have much interest. Which doesn’t mean you are quiet. It just means that you prefer a wide range of goofy sounds. I’m okay with that. I often prefer them myself.

You try to brush your hair. You try to brush your teeth. You will babble on a phone or anything resembling a phone. You help with getting dressed by pushing your arms and legs into the appropriate holes. You help with getting undressed by lifting your arms over your head. You can grab your foot when I ask “where is your footie?”, and will pat your belly when I ask where your belly is. You know where my nose is, but seem perplexed about the whereabouts of your own. You know the names of many objects and will grab them and bring them to me when I ask (if you feel like it).

You still have four top teeth and two bottom teeth and you are cutting your first upper molars. You are in the 90th percentile of height, and 75th for weight. Which is funny, because the exact opposite was true at 6 months.

You are self-feeding now, and are really pretty good at it. You still have a great appetite and wide palette, and I feel very fortunate in that respect. In general, you have great table manners. I’m sure this will not always be the case, but I can dream. You have really decreased your nursing, and the only big session you get in each day is the dream feed. At this point, I could let it go and it probably wouldn’t affect your sleep, but I like knowing that you are getting a big dose of mama goodness during that time. You will randomly take very short little nips during the day, but I’m not really sure if you consume much milk then or just like to know it’s still available. You’ve even shortened your first-thing-in-the-morning-feed to almost nothing, but will not tolerate actually skipping it. In truth, I probably hold onto the dream feed because it is the only time you are really settled down and nursing, and I’m not willing to let it go yet.

You sleep 10 to 11 hours each night with a solid 6 to 8 hour stretch most nights. Sure, you wake, and may even grumble, but then put yourself back to sleep. You went through a short period of screaming some time within the first 2 hours of sleep and needing to be momentarily consoled. I don’t know what was going on, but it didn’t last long. Every once in awhile you’ll have a bad night with repeated waking. I figure it’s some kind of developmental spurt and try not to get too upset about it. And suddenly, inexplicably, you started sleeping in later. I almost don’t want to mention it, for fear of jinxing this new development. Once upon a time, you used to sleep until about 7:30, and around the time of your surgery, it moved back to about 5:30. It was infuriating. I don’t know if you were traumatized, or if that time period also corresponded to trying to learn mobility skills. Now, after learning to walk, you wake between 6:30 and 7:30. Maybe you just wear yourself out during the day I never thought I would rejoice at sleeping until 7:30. That, my little friend, is the power of a baby. The power of you. And I don’t even hold it against you. Much.

You are also slowly starting the transition to one nap a day. About once a week, you just take one nap a day. The other days, you still take two, but there’s more variation in how long they last than there had been previously. As you are getting older, you can handle longer stretches of wake time without complete melt-downs.

With regards to elimination communication/potty training….well, you don’t want to poop on the toilet. You used to do it, but now just don’t. I can’t blame you. I think it must be a lot easier to stand up and squat a little than to sit on the toilet, especially when your feet don’t even touch the ground. If I realize you’re pooping, I’ll try to get you there for at least part of the experience, but I miss it most of the time. You pee on the toilet a lot, and it’s easiest after a nap. So, at this point, I figure if you’re not afraid of the toilet, we’re on the right track.

You still love your Tiggy more than just about anything. You love your binkies and love your fuzzy blanket. You love spending time in your crib to just hang out. You love car rides, and I will often think you are asleep, but no…you’re just checking it all out, taking it all in, grooving to some tunes. You love food, especially your greens. I’m not kidding. You love to laugh. You love hitting inanimate objects. You love it when we sniff or blow on your footies. And you have recently grown to love dolls—any kind of doll with a human face. You love bath time and books, especially your Chirpy Chick book with the fun tractor sounds. You love mangos with sticky rice and garlic noodles (gotta start the Thai food early). You love garlic, period. And water. And pears. You really love pears. You love visiting Dada at work. Everyone he works with lights up when I bring you in. Even the assholes. You love seeing what kinds of objects will fit into other objects. You love carrying shoes around the house. Your Dada just told me that he got up early to go to work the other morning, and as he was putting on his shoes he found one of your stacking cups inside. As if you had left him a present. You also love to carry all sorts of other random things, like the slide-in cover of the dog door. You adore the dogs and have a very particular squeal that only emerges in their presence. You love Signing Time, Sesame Street, and Dan Zanes. You have recently started dancing. I cannot possibly convey to you the emotion that flows through me when you dance. I hope you are never afraid to just boogie on down. And oh yeah. You still love Radiohead and Thom Yorke. I love that about you.

You hate being told no. You hate people in your space when you need your Albie-time. You hate diaper changes, except when you don’t hate them. You hate someone else feeding you or even attempting to feed you. You hate having your face wiped off. Perhaps some will think hate is a strong word, but I assure you, it is accurate. You are a passionate kid, and you have strong preferences about many things. You also hate having to stay in a shopping cart. Thus, you are back in the baby carrier for excursions. I don’t really mind, as I know that I have precious few months left of you wanting to be carried.

I’ve really enjoyed your company in the last month. You have been a complete joy. I hope I can remember that when you are…not.

Love,

Mama

Dear Albie,

 

I’m not sure when it happened. It seemed like I looked up one moment, and there you were. A little person. A little boy. With needs and preferences and tantrums and opinions and a one-track mind when it suits you. Oh, sure, I know in so many ways you are still a baby. But you are also, now, something else. And it startled me.

 

 

This was a big month for you. For starters, you finally figured out how to use a sippy cup. But it had to be the old-school Tupperware kind. All of that leak-proof valve stuff just baffles you. But you finally figured it out and you tip it straight up in the air, chugging your beverage, as if you were some melodramatic drunkard consuming a bottle of bourbon.

 

You have started eating with a spoon. And you do a pretty good job. You still have a hard time scooping food up, but no problem getting it into your mouth (and up your nose). We walk a fine line between me letting you figure it out and watching in horror as all of the furniture and curtains are covered in apple sauce. I don’t have the patience for that. If you want to use food as body paints, I’m okay with that. But please spare the curtains. What have they ever done to you?

 

We introduced raw goat milk into your diet in the last few weeks. I have had more and more trouble pumping, and so it’s really nice to have an alternative when I’m not around. You seem to be doing well with it, which is a relief. I tried to cut out your dream feed, but you weren’t having it. You’re down to two really big nursing sessions a day (first thing in the morning and the dream feed), and a few little nips throughout the day.

 

Speaking of milk, there is a certain sound that you make when you are about to nurse that is something like a chipmunk making a Butthead (as in, Beavis and Butthead) laugh. It’s really cute, and in the last month, you have started to use it for other things you are really excited about. Sometimes this is a food item, but it is often also a new toy, or one of your stuffed Tiggers (we bought several online, none of which turned out to actually be the same as your FAVORITE Tigger). It is that sound that I will probably miss the most as you develop more language skills to express your desires.

 

You have yet to sprout any new teeth. You’ve got four on top, and still just two on the bottom. It seems as if you are starting to cut your upper molars. I have no idea where the rest of your bottom teeth are or when they will make an appearance.

 

You also had your first haircut this month, just a few days before your birthday party. The very top patch of your hair never fell out and regrew like the rest of your hair. So, technically it was still the same hair you had at birth, which is why it took me so long to cut it even though it reached your nose and was always in your eyes. Cutting your hair changed your entire countenance. You look like a radically different person. You look like a little boy. That might be part of the reason I was so startled to look at you and see suddenly see someone else.

 

You have developed a real fondness for Dan Zanes. Watching a video of a Dan Zanes song elicits about the same response from you as watching Muppets perform. It must be the hair. You are still a big fan of all things Thom Yorke, and seem to also really like The Flaming Lips. I am quite impressed with your impeccable taste for music. Lately, you will sometimes bounce or sway when you hear music, and it seems you are trying to dance. Once you are a little more steady on your newly walking feet, I’m gonna encourage that as much as I can.

 

Oh yeah, you started walking in the last 10 days or so, and also trying to scale the furniture. It had been a long time since you had taken your first steps, and then you really didn’t seem to be interested in going any further. Then BAM, you took, like, twelve steps. I don’t know where that came from, but you just put it all together and took off. And are now setting your sights on vertical challenges. I find myself on the verge of a panic attack just thinking about how many things there are to climb in this house.

 

You had your first sugar overdose at your birthday party—orange cupcakes with lemon buttercream frosting (made with goat milk and goat butter—so, so, sooooo good). You love citrus, but are still too young to have much of it, so I made you a tangy cake. You loved it and so did I. You exhibited far more self-control than I did with the leftovers. That’s probably just because you can’t reach the counter yet. You could also call your birthday party, technically, your first kegger. Because there was keg there for all of your adult friends, of which there were many. I think you have more friends than I do. Must be your great conversation skills…

 

Speaking of keggers, you also puked for the first time this month. We were at one of your daddy’s coworker’s birthday parties. It was Kelly’s birthday—she loves you to death and buys you lots of stuff and we were really only invited to come along as your chaperones. I don’t know if it was the introduction to goat milk, too many unpureed greens, cilantro in the rice, or just the fact that I was turning you upside down and jiggling you. But you puked. Now I know exactly how different vomit and spit-up really are. And for a moment, I thought to myself, ‘oh man, someone has to deal with this‘. And then I realized,’oh shit, it’s me‘. I had to deal with it. I was covered in vomit. And in that moment I felt so much like a mother.

 

On the actual day of your birthday (also known as Valentine’s Day), I had to go to school for the afternoon. I was walking back from lunch around the actual time you were born. I looked down at the time on my cell phone, and it was 3:21, and I thought to myself, wow, this is about the time that we realized he was stuck. And as I walked, I realized just how long 3 minutes is. You can cover quite a distance on foot in three minutes. And I was thinking about your birth and the events leading up to your birth in a very cerebral, detached sort of way. But when the clock changed to 3:24, I had luckily just stepped inside my office, because I spontaneously burst into tears. I was acutely aware of how easily we could have lost you that day, and what a miracle the beginning of a life truly is. I was so happy you were born exactly a year ago, and I could remember what you smelled like and what you felt like and I was overwhelmed with joy. I am so lucky to know you and to have the privilege to hang out with you and watch you grow.

 

And as I watched you play a few days ago, it suddenly occurred to me that you will, hopefully, live beyond me, and that I won’t get to see you as an old man as your life comes to an end. I was filled with a great sense of sadness because I realized that we usually only get to see a life begin, or watch it end, but not usually both. And when we do see both, it is an even greater tragedy. I can’t explain exactly how this realization made me feel, but it is a feeling I haven’t been able to shake. A feeling of being cheated because I won’t get to see how it all turns out. A feeling of being swallowed by things much greater than I. A feeling of powerlessness. A feeling of sorrow. A feeling of appreciation for all things precious. A feeling of restlessness. A feeling of peace. The feeling I have is all of these things. And I realize that these same feeling sum up my feelings as a mother. It is these feelings that I have stumbled through and grappled with in the last year, which are slowly being replaced with more and more moments of joy and laughter and fun without concern for what “else” I should be doing. I may not get to see how it all turns out, but what I get to see now is simply amazing.

 

Things that make you giggle wildly:

• Belly kisses
• Blowing on your toes or feet (he-he)
• Making fake sneeze noises (“ah-choo”)
• Making random animal noises (dog, chicken, turkey–the goofier the better)
• Chasing you around the house
• Just about anything if you’re tired enough…

Things that piss you off:

• Sometimes, the belly kisses
• Pretty much anything involving boundaries or the word ‘no’
• Having your face wiped off
• Diaper changes
• Just about anything if you’re tired enough…

Things I have learned:

• Life is short. Period.
• A year takes on a completely different meaning when it is a year of your child’s life.
• And yet, three minutes is a really long time.
• It is much easier to give your child a few drawers of stuff in the kitchen to play with rather than keep him out of the kitchen entirely.

• Thinking about what you "should" be doing all the time is a great big waste of time. If you have one "should" to pick, it "should" be playing with the baby.
• The housework really can wait.
• Out of sight out of mind is perfectly acceptable as a cleaning strategy.
• The number one advantage of exclsive breastfeeding–virtually smell-free poop for the first 6 months.
• It really is a whole new ballgame once your child is mobile.
• There is little or no correlation between your older baby’s favorite food today, and the favorite food tomorrow.
• Made-from-scratch cupcakes are actually more expensive than mixes or bakery purchases. Oh, wait, they also have way less crap in them (unless you consider butter and sugar crap–I consider them indulgences). And even though they are more expensive, they are so freaking worth it. I wanted to take a flipping bath in the buttercream frosting.
• I really should remember what my mom taught me and always add an extra egg to baked goods. She claims it makes them more moist. I’m pretty sure she’s right.
• When making potato salad, DON’T FORGET ABOUT YOUR BOILING POTATOES. We know have a freezer bag full of essentially, mashed potatoes and carrots. We call it "potato soup base", also known as "way overboiled potatoes". Damn potatoes.
• It’s okay to ask for help.
• It’s more than okay to ask for help–it’s downright admirable.
• Things are much easier once you stop trying to impose your before-baby schedule, habits, routines, and standards on your post-baby life.
• Take your vitamins. Really. Just do it.
• Some days, you just have to say fuck it. About everything. Except keeping the baby fed, changed, and alive.
• Sleep deprivation really makes people crazy. C-R-A-Z-Y Crazy.
• All the crazy is worth it.

 If you had some choice in the matter, thank you so much for picking me as your mama.

I love you so much, little Gondas.

Happy, happy birthday! 

Love,

Mama 

 

 

 

Feb 14, 2007

May 18, 2007

June 22, 2007

July 18, 2007

 

 

Aug 6, 2007

Sept 11, 2007

Sept 16, 2007

Oct 13, 2007

Oct 27, 2007

nov 22

nov 23, 2007

Dec 4, 2007

Dec 14, 2007

Jan 2, 2008

Magical child.

Boy with the devious smile.

Baby love who is older,

so much older

than he appears.

 

Magical child.

My blessing.

Such a challenge

to be your mother

and your guide.

 

Magical child.

Euphoria.

Up and down,

you keep me

never waiting

for a new direction.

 

Magical child.

Boy with the sweet

sweet smile

and solid stance,

determination personified.

 

Magical child.

Scientist.

Inventor.

Experimenter.

Catalyst.

Window

into the mind.

 

Magical child.

I am so glad

to know you,

so glad I waited

to know you

until I was strong enough

to be kind to you.

 

Magical child.

My little one.

Boy made of squeals

and screams

and giggles

and storms.

 

Magical child.

You speak a language

of monkeys,

coyotes,

a dolphin,

a spirit beam.

 

Magical child.

Loki child.

Musical child.

Aquarian child,

I love you.

 

 

 

 

Dear Albie,

It’s been really hard for me to sit down and write this update, because I feel like so much has happened in the last month. I was off from school for holiday break, so I got to spend every day with you from about mid-December to mid-January. I’ll admit, I got a little stir crazy, but then we found a really nice groove. Which is when I had to return to school, of course. The plus side of that month together is that you really have a routine that suits you now. Your sleep and naps are pretty much like clockwork, except when you’re sick. Which you have been off and on (more on than off) since Christmas. It’s the first time you’ve been sick enough to actually have a real fever that I monitored. This makes me realize that I have been so lucky in that your first year has been surprisingly uneventful in the health department. Except for the jaundice. And your penis. The way I see it, the whole penis thing was like a voucher from the universe for you to skip at least a few colds. That’s only fair.

You experienced your first Christmas this year. It was awesome. All of your cousins were here, and so there were fourteen little people under the age of ten at the Christmas eve and Christmas. You were the youngest—but that won’t last. You already have two cousins on the way for next year. All of the kids put on a little Christmas story pageant for Christmas eve. It was total mayhem with towels for gowns and such, but very fun. Since you are the youngest, you were baby Jesus. I’m not religious. I’m not Christian. But I will say that I much enjoyed your acting debut as baby Jesus. Especially when you kept crawling away from your cousins Joseph and Mary.

We went through a REALLY fussy phase about two weeks ago. I could not, for the life of me, figure out what the heck was wrong. I’d feed you, you’d eat, you’d seem to be done, I’d let you out of your chair. You’d be happy, and a half an hour later turn into a nightmare. Turns out, you were hungry. I had mistaken your “being done” for “being bored”. So, if I went ahead and just fed you every half an hour, you were happy. I think it’s called a growth spurt. I was feeding you about half of what you were capable of eating. Sorry about that.

A few quick notes about the last month: you’ve almost mastered a sippy cup, your second set of top teeth are poking through, you’ve started pointing to things, you say “ma” and “da” and it’s obvious who you mean, I think you’re trying to say “dog” as well, you are showing signs of wanting to feed yourself (be afraid…), you very often find your binky and pop it back in yourself to go back to sleep.

I could go on and on about different things that have happened, but I’m going to steal a little formatting from my friend Leigh, and just sum up your likes and dislikes (and such)…

You like:

Cherries, pasta, green veggies, yogurt, most food, opening drawers and cabinets, emptying drawers and cabinets, playing in your crib (except when you don’t), power cords, your Tiggy, Radiohead, jazz, Prince (post- Darling Nikki), banging things together, throwing things, playing with my Tibetan singing bowl, baths and showers, sitting on the toilet, Sesame Street, books

You are fascinated by:

My saxophone (you sing or scream along), animals, other children, computers, cell phones

You dislike:

apples and blueberries if mixed together (though they are okay when separated), peaches, strange textures, being bored, having your nose wiped, diaper changes, being bored, being told no, being hungry, being bored

You are frustrated by:

not being taller, not being able to communicate your desires more effectively, boundaries 

I love you, little Dude,

Love,
Mama

 

 

Dear Albie,

This month has been just one big fun month for us. I’m not really sure where to start. For the sake of documentation, I’ll talk about your teeth. As you’ll recall from your last update, your first tooth poked through in early November. Then, there was about a three week pause with no more teeth. On November 25th, you sprouted your top right tooth, followed the next day by your top left tooth. Your second bottom tooth didn’t push through until about a week ago. I’m not exactly sure on the date there, but we’ll just say Dec 13th because it sounds about right. Your top teeth are big teeth with a large gap between them, and it has changed your whole smile. It’s damn cute, but I kind of miss the gummies.

Your main focus this month seems to be on mobility. Early in the month, you spent a lot of time on just getting the hang of standing without holding on to anything. It is amazing that you little baby creatures just have this drive to push yourselves and challenge yourselves to the next step. You would stand at the gate between the dining room and kitchen while I cooked and let go, balance, grab the gate to steady, and repeat. Over and over. Now, you are steady enough on your feet that when I put you down, I put you down standing. Sometimes you just let yourself drop, and sometimes you squat down quite gracefully. More gracefully than I can, actually.

We have an industrial size mop bucket that’s on wheels (though it’s really overkill for this tiny house), and you decided to start playing with it one day. Never fear, I only use vinegar on the floors, so I wasn’t concerned about the chemical hazards of your new toy. I was more worried that when you try to pull up on it, it moves, and that it would surely result in a couple of head bonks. But you were actually quite cautious with it, and so enthralled that I just let it go. A few days into this new obsession, your daddy and I were in the kitchen, and you had pulled up on the mop bucket and were just standing there. Your dad was impressed, and I told him you’d been doing that all the time lately. But then, you took off, using it as a walker, squealing with glee. That thing doesn’t even naturally go in a straight line, so it took some major talent on your part to use it as such. But you did. For the next half an hour, you’d use it to walk until you ran into something, then you’d scream for us to turn you around and you’d take off again. We grabbed the video camera, and I’m so glad we did. You are giggling hysterically and squealing like crazy and it is by far the best footage of you so far. Since then, you’ll use pretty much anything that will roll or that you can push (there have been some really torturous scraping sounds in this house lately) as a walker.

On Dec 9th, you took your first steps—three in a row, even! Since then, you seem to have lost the drive to walk, knowing that crawling gets you where you want to go without falling down. I am fine with this, because it means that there will be less head bonks in the immediate future until you decide you MUST work on walking again.

Let’s talk about food. Because I love food and you love food and I find the whole process of introducing foods and avoiding allergies fascinating. We switched doctors this month, and I started taking you to a naturopath. After speaking with him about diet and allergies and all manner of food things, we’ve really been trying to avoid giving you meat and wheat, both of which you were getting quite a bit of. We’re basically avoiding the “big seven” common allergens (cow dairy, soy, corn, egg whites, wheat, nuts, and fish) in addition to meat and citrus. I asked him what kind of protein to give you, and he suggested goat milk cheese and yogurt. Wow. You love it. You’ll even eat plain yogurt, which is pretty bold for a little dude. And you love lentils and split peas, which is great because I make soup for all of us, and then just puree yours a little bit to make it a little easier on your tummy. You love it. We tried giving you a little citrus, and although you loved it (we can’t peel an orange anywhere near you without you going nuts), it gave you a really red bottom. So, we’ll wait on that a little longer. You like pretty much everything you try (you even love greens!), so there’s no shortage of other foods to feed you.

You’re still nursing, and there’s five predictable sessions per day, with an occasional little sip in between. You nurse when you first wake up, you nurse before your two naps, you nurse before bed (now before your bath so that you go to sleep on your own at night), and then I dream feed you around 10 p.m. I don’t intend to wean you anytime soon, so I expect these sessions will remain pretty predictable for quite some time.

You, as always, have a new range of bizarre sounds this month. Many of them are derivations on gagging or hissing sounds, broken up with a liberal seasoning of inventive squeaks and squeals and screeches. You babble all sorts of things, and I think you might be saying mama and dada, but it’s really hard to tell. You know many signs for things when I use them (milk, more, food, finished), but don’t yet use them yourself. You recently discovered the fun in patting your mouth (or letting me pat it) and making a “wah” sound, like the “Indian” sounds I used to make when I was a kid. You are a joy to listen to, and even when you scream or babble in protest tosome injustice (like getting dressed), I can’t help but laugh.

Your favorite toys right now are your tigger that you sleep with, the rolling popper toy, the rolling chime toy (vintage–$3 at Goodwill), your blocks (the better to throw with), and any kitchen related tools I give you. You also fell in love with the “Bobby” doll that was mine, then my brother’s, then given to you by Mamma. It’s a cloth washable doll with a plastic face and plastic hands and is surprisingly not creepy. It’s now your car traveling buddy.

Your favorite games are peek-a-boo games with cloth, knocking down block structures I’ve built, and falling games on the bed. You will sit yourself up really straight or we’ll stand you up, and you will fling yourself forward onto the bed in face down in what we call an “Albie slam”. Then you giggle hysterically. You especially like to do these after a bath. I know some kids cry to wind down to go to sleep. I think you fling yourself around and giggle hysterically to wind down. As long as it works for you, it works for me. You are also catching on to mimicry games, and I have so much fun playing with you.

We have entered the phase of separation anxiety and stranger anxiety. The separation anxiety was really bad for about a week, but seems to have toned down somewhat. The stranger anxiety is really cute and funny. You are so gregarious, that you can’t help but smile at people…and then you have to quickly bury your head in my shoulder. It is the prototypical “shy baby” routine, and I find it simply darling. Your aunt Amanda and I went shopping last weekend for a gift for your Nanna and Grandpa, and she was holding you. You would smile at her, and when she would smile back, you would bury your head in her shoulder. Which was really cute because she was the one holding you. You have a newfound cuddly streak, and so once you get used to someone, you are more than happy to let them hold you and hug them back. Just ask Leigh.
 

In short, I really enjoy your company, Little Dude. You are, for the most part, a total hoot. And when you’re not, you’re still  awesome.

Things I have learned this month:

• There is no need to buy special toys to assist in mobility development.
• Babies are resourceful little creatures.
• Just when you get used to any phase, it will change.
• Even the most gregarious baby will experience stranger anxiety. He’ll just be damn cute about it.
• Breastfeeding is so much easier and so much more fun with an older baby.
• Pumping is not. My boobs are no longer fooled by that device.
• Babies all develop so differently. Even their tooth order is only moderately predictable.
• There is a world of difference between cow milk and goat milk. Just ask Albie’s tummy.
• Just because your child  was willing to poop on the toilet doesn’t mean it will last (though he’ll still pee there)
• Breastmilk poop = not so smelly; food poop = disgustingly smelly (which leads us to…)
• My next child will be breastfed until s/he is potty trained. I swear it.
• Although having a child is much more challenging than I anticipated, it is also way more fun. 

I love you so much, Albert. I hope you always know.

Love, Mama

I’ve been thinking about holiday traditions a lot this year, probably because I now have someone to pass them along to. When I was growing up, our big holiday tradition was begging our parents to open presents early. We usually succeeded, and got to pick out a couple of different gifts on different nights within the week prior to Christmas that we were allowed to open. It was kind of fun, and I guess most people don’t do that. That’s a tradition that would be kind of fun to pass on, and my parents were crafty enough to not put the good stuff out until Christmas morning (even after we outgrew Santa). We put up the tree every weekend after Thanksgiving. Mom would let us blare the Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas music (still love it). We went to my Grandma Mickey’s (a nickname from when she was in high school) house for Christmas dinner every year. My grandpa Judd (who she married after my father’s father died) would give us "weird" gifts like National Geographic magazines. My parents called them "used". I would now call them "recycled". And dammit, I wish I had all those National Geographics now. Another tradition was that my parents would inevitably end up in a fight on Christmas morning. This was really nothing out of the ordinary. They fought all the time, but it just stood out more on Christmas. That’s a tradition I don’t intend to pass on.

None of those traditions were "official" traditions that anyone talked about. I just recognize them now as I look back. My husband’s family, however, has several "official" traditions. He comes from a big family of eleven–six boys and five girls. Apparently, every Christmas eve, they would get to open one present–new pajamas to lounge around in on Christmas morning. My mother-in-law used to make the pajamas, but eventually started buying them . After all, that’s a lot of handmade pajamas! She continues to buy pajamas for all "unmarried or uncohabitating" offspring. This tradition has continued so that her kids now do the same thing for their kids. I’ve already bought Albie’s for this year, and Hyrum and I also buy each other something pajama-related. He bought me a robe last year so I could use it during labor (didn’t happen–I never got in the tub). His family also tells the Christmas story on Christmas eve–they either read it, watch it, or act it out (it varies). I have a hard time keeping a straight face if it’s read or we watch a video about it, but I do enjoy it when the kids act it out. It’s just damn cute.

Another cool tradition they have is that on Christmas morning, everybody lines up outside the living room in order of their age, so that the littlest get to come into the room with the presents first. It makes for great pictures. Many of the kids come home for Christmas, with their kids in tow, so there are A LOT of people there for Christmas. This stands in stark contrast to my family, where the maximum number of people we ever had at grandma’s house for Christmas was ten. With occasional pop-ins from a few others. One year, there were thirty people at my in-laws’ house because all the kids and grandkids were there. Since then, five more grandkids have been born, and there’s another due this February. Being around that many kids on Christmas morning is way too much fun. I’m not Christian, and have struggled for years about the whole Christmas thing. I’ve finally just given in and accepted it as a great time to celebrate family. And nobody celebrates family better than Mormons! This year, almost all (if not all) of the grandkids will be there. I can’t wait to see Albie with his cousins. I only grew up with one, and she was kind of lame…

Somewhere along the way when my husband was a kid they had a family meeting about other traditions they’d like to have for Christmas. So, on Christmas eve, they make pizza. They get premade crusts and lots of different toppings, and then everyone gets to create the pizza they want.  And on Christmas day, rather than having a big dinner, they have a big breakfast. It’s huge. And it works out so well for Hyrum and I because we have breakfast there and then drive up to Prescott Valley to my grandma’s house for dinner.

As for the traditions Hyrum and I would like to start for our family, I’m uncertain. I really want to celebrate Solstice, so that may turn out to be a day that we exchange gifts among ourselves and then go celebrate Christmas with the extended family. The Santa thing complicates everything…Maybe we’ll celebrate all the December holidays! More cheer for everyone.

We do have one tradition so far. Every year, on an unspecified date close to Christmas, we watch "It’s a Wonderful Life". Maybe this will be a movie that we eventually watch on Solistice, even though it’s sort of Christmas themed. Hyrum was talking with his coworkers the other day about favorite Christmas movies, and he was the only one who mentioned this movie. I think that’s so sad. His coworkers are all pretty much in their early twenties, and they thought the movie was "cliche". They failed to realize that all of the "cliche" movies were modeled after that one! But to be honest, I don’t know that I would have appreciated it in my early twenties either. It’s the kind of movie you learn to appreciate after life has kicked you in the crotch a few times and you’ve had to give up on dreams and learn to appreciate new ones. I look forward to seeing it every year. And I cry like a baby during the scene between the pharmacist and young George. And then of course I cry at the end. If you haven’t seen it in years, watch it again. I doubt you will be disappointed.

So, what are the holiday traditions in your family? If you write about them, please comment and leave a link. If you aren’t Christian, do you still celebrate Christmas? If you celebrate Solstice, do you still celebrate Christmas too? Do you do the whole Santa thing? I love hearing about families and their traditions.

So, apparently, Tuesday was my very first blog-o-versary. I discovered the blog world when I was looking for info on homebirths. I was led to Jeanette’s blog, and then Leigh’s blog, and MB’s blog. Then I followed their links. And then those folks’ links. That was back when I could stay up until three in the morning without someone being up for the day two hours later.  And then I had the makings of an addiction. So I decided to start one myself. I don’t know how many readers I have. My stats say lots of people come here, but only a handful leave comments, and I don’t understand all of the stats anyway. But at the very least I have a nice record of the last year of my life.

I went back to read the first few posts, and I find it hard to believe that I had ever thought I would willingly have a hospital birth. I look at the belly pictures, and am amazed that that bump is now the monster pulling up on my chair, grabbing at my computer cord, and conducting all sorts of physics experiments (a.k.a. throwing, dropping, and banging things).

I find it hard to believe that there was a time in my life when I didn’t know M and C, my sweet and loving midwife team. It’s even harder to believe that I didn’t know the wonderful mama friends I have made in the last several months as a result of this blog. That alone has made any time I have put into this so worth it.

The lovely midwife who attended Albert’s birth wrote a really funny post over at Earth Hearth about what she carries for birth "emergencies".

The post made me laugh because number one, I remember being fanned during labor, and seriously, I don’t know if I could have held out without that relief. We had turned the heat high when I started pushing, because we all assumed the the baby would arrive soon. Sooner became later, and so I had some serious work to do while being seriously HOT. Between the fan, icy washcloths, and gatorade, I survived. I hate being hot. Hate it.

Number two, I remember asking a similar question at one of my prenatal appointments. I switched care around 32 weeks, and this was particular appointment was probably the third time I had seen M. I asked whether or not she had a "neonatal transport unit" in case of emergencies. I’m not really sure what that is, but someone had asked me that question, so I asked it of her. She didn’t know what it was either (I don’t think such a thing exists) and then said that her neonatal transport unit was *this* and formed her arms into a cradle shape as if she was holding a baby. She laughed really hard after that. She did go on to tell me about some of the equipment they carried like oxygen, a "space blanket" (which she had not had to use in a very long time), etc. But every once in awhile, she would giggle, make the cradle sign, and say "neonatal transport unit".

It cracks me up every time I think about it.

What does she really carry for emergencies? What is the most important thing a midwife has for emergencies (in my opinion)?

Her hands. It was her hands that helped me push. It was her hands that pushed hair out of my face. It was her hands that gave me strength. It was her hands that brought me gatorade. Her hands that helped me wash up afterwards when I was too weak to stand in the shower.

And what was it that she used to help free Albert from shoulder dystocia?

Not forceps. Not a vacuum. Not a caesarean section.

Her hands.

Period.

I think those hands might just rival the fan for #1. 

 

 

Dear Mr. Scientist,

You are becoming quite the little experimenter around the house. You have learned to turn toys (or whatever) in your hands so that you can inspect a given object from all angles, as well as make sure to taste all of its surfaces. You have been conducting all sorts of experiments with any object you can get your hands on.

If I bang it on this surface, will it make noise?

If I bang it together with this other thing, is the noise different?

If I drop it, what happens?

What happens if I throw it?

What happens if I smash it?

Does it roll or slide?

Will it fit through the bars of my crib?

Will it fit through the bars of the gate?

Will it fit inside this other thing?

     And most importantly…

Can I eat it?

 

On day, you were playing with your tigger, and you were particularly fascinated with his tag. This is nothing new—you’ve been fascinated with tags for about 6 weeks. You were sitting on the bed while I was getting dressed from a shower. I put the towel on the bed, and the tag happened to be near you. You picked up the towel by the tag, and holding that tag in your left hand and the tiggy tag in the right hand, you inspected an compared them simultaneously for quite some time. You seemed perplexed that the tags were the same, but what they were connected to was so different. It was a really fantastic moment for me to witness. It just highlighted how amazing the human brain really is.

It has really been a joy to watch you over the last few weeks since your last developmental leap, so accurately predicted by the Wonder Weeks. Gearing up for that leap, you were kind of a pain. You wanted to be picked up, no not picked up. Carried. No, not carried. Inside. No, outside. In short, nothing made you happy for about 10 days. You were fussy about everything and so clingy. No, not clingy.

And then, just like with the other leaps, it seemed like overnight, you were a whole new baby. You’ve been content to play by yourself for longer stretches of time as you try to figure out the what and how of pretty much everything. This includes playing by yourself in your crib in the middle of the night, which is a new thing completely. One day, when you didn’t know I was watching you (I was pretending to be asleep), I watched you fit every toy from your crib through the slats, wave it up and down, and pull it back through. Then you dropped every toy over the top bar and watched it fall. Of course, once they were all out, you cried. But I was proud of your experimentation and didn’t mind getting them all together for you again.

A few days ago, you were sitting on your little toilet seat naked. You discovered your penis. You had started to discover it right before the surgery, and then stopped touching it altogether afterwards. I had begun to be afraid that we had totally scarred you for life. Apparently, it doesn’t hurt at all anymore, because you discovered it for quite some time that day. We were elated.  Then you touched your bellybutton hernia, and then your penis, and then your hernia. You realized that the hernia wasn’t as entertaining fairly quickly. A very productive experiment.

You also recently disovered that you can put your foot in your mouth, and for about two days, this is all you wanted to do in your car seat. Which is quite the feat since you can’t lean forward to meet it. You would bring your foot to your mouth with two hands and put it in your mouth as if it were a footie hamburger. Your daddy and I laughed hysterically at that.

With regards to your musical and auditory world, you have been fascinated with our Tibetan singing bowls. You don’t have the dexterity to actually use them as they are intended, but enjoy banging them or hearing me bang them. The harmonics that result from just hitting the bowl are pretty cool, so I don’t mind. You are also fascinated by the sounds the wooden blocks you were recently gifted make when banged together. Or banged on the Tibetan bowl. And you will sit, riveted, through a “Wheels on the Bus” song on the Baby Einstein On the Go DVD, while it plays over and over. It’s actually quite cute, because it’s a little segment where all the puppets are grooving on a cartoon bus, and I was riveted myself. I can set the DVD on loop, and you will watch and listen to that for about 10 times before you tire of it. The rest of the DVD hasn’t particularly captured your interest (fine by me), but that particular segment has proved useful for the times that I really need to get a shower and get dressed so we can get out of the house.

Oh, and your first tooth FINALLY started to poke through on November 6. I had really started to think that you just didn’t have any teeth in there, and then pop! there it was. You have started to actually chew (or rather, gum) your food in the last few weeks rather than just swallowing it whole. I’m pretty excited about this because it opens up your food options considerably.

You got to play with your first balloon this month when Mamma came through town. We tied a helium balloon to your wrist while we were at a restaurant. That was a really awesome to watch. You also discovered bubbles, which didn’t impress you the first time, but totally captured your attention the second time.

  

You also finally met your Grandma-Great Klein at the end of last month. I forgot to mention that in your last update. You are named after her husband, Albert, who passed away a few years ago (as well as your Uncle Frank, whose middle name was Albert, because he was named after his grandpa…).

I got a little lazy about our morning walks, but then I discovered a few really great parks that have water and a lot of birds. You love birds and I love water, and so we’ve gone walking every morning 8 out of the last 10 days. It’s a really nice, calming part of our day now. 

We started sleep training a week ago, and it has really gone well. You now go to sleep within about 10 minutes with no crying. You are waking less at night, and the few times that you have been awake for long periods of time in the middle of the night, you have been reasonably content to play in your crib until you settle back down to sleep. You will occasionally fuss, and I will get up and lay you down and tell you it’s not time to get up yet, but you don’t throw a fit and it’s fun to listen to you play while I’m half asleep. You are also sleeping later. We have decided that you may not get up before 6, but we won’t let you sleep past 7. So if you wake up at 5:20, we tell you it’s time to go back to sleep. This presents a challenge, because if you are still awake at 6, and now it’s suddenly time to get up, this could be confusing. So, when that time comes, we say cheerfully “it’s time to get up” and turn on the light. The light is what’s known as a discriminative stimulus. If the light is off, you can’t get up yet. If the light is on, you can. Other people use alarm clocks for the same purpose, but I hate alarm clocks so that’s not happening. If you fall back to sleep before 6 rolls around, we let you sleep until the next time you wake, or 7 a.m. Whichever comes first. It’s a little harder to get you down for naps, but still fairly easy compared to our prior "system" (or lack thereof). In short, we have had success thus far. 

You are incredibly communicative, and play with the whole range of consonants and syllables. I expect you to just bust out with words at any time. There have been several times when you have crawled towards me and said something resembling “mama”, but I’m really not sure if it’s a coincidence. I love to hear you babble, and you still smile and laugh easily, even on your cranky days. 

You are cruising a lot now, and took one or two stumbling steps today between your Nanna and Daddy. You are now able to stand for seconds at a time before you fall over. I can’t believe it.

So, my little magical child, today marks 9 months since you were born. You have now been on the outside of me for as long as you were on the inside of me. This is another one of those math and time things that kind of freaks me out. You are growing so fast…

Things I have learned this month:

• Time is relentless.
• Everyone has boundaries and limits. You may not know where they are, but you will know when they have been crossed.
• Being a good mother is dependent on acknowledging these limits.
• Behaviorism principles really work. I already knew this, but it’s always nice to learn again.
• Sometimes it’s hard to do the right thing. But it is still worth it.
• Any "method" used for anything with your child can (and should) be tweaked to suit your child.
• Piaget was right. Humans are driven to learn and explore.
• Sleep is a priority. Period.
• If teething drool could be harnessed as an energy source, the oil companies would be bankrupt.
• Chewing does not require teeth.
• There is a significant difference between the pain level associated with toothless gums chomping down on your nipple and a new tooth chomping down your nipple.
• Without motherhood amnesia, we would have never survived as a species.
• It’s all worth it. Really.

Love, 

Mama 

 

 

 

…or shall we say, schizophrenia?

 When I was taking prenatal yoga, I remember the instructor talked about "motherhood amnesia". You know, that thing that sets in eventually after each difficult child-related event, such as pregnancy and varicose veins, labor, birth, sleep deprivation, baby blues, endless newborn screaming, etc. The night that Albert was born, I remarked to H that at that point in time, I didn’t think I ever wanted to go through childbirth again and that one child might really be enough. I had a hard time sleeping that night because I couldn’t stop having the sensation of pushing and pushing and pushin. I thought about the amnesia thing then, and couldn’t imagine I could forget the intensity of childbirth that easily. I thought it would take months.

How long did it take for amnesia to set in?

About 24 hours.

The length of time between each difficult period and its subsequent amnesia has only decreased over time. To the point where now, I can utter a statement such as, “what was I thinking having a kid?” or “I am so tired I could die,” only to casually mention within the next 60 seconds I can’t wait to have another child and that it is so much more fun than I thought it would be.

Because when I look at him and he is smiling, it is really hard to focus on any of the negatives.

I was prepared to experience this amnesia thing. I just didn’t think that it would occur simultaneously with the challenging times. It makes me dizzy just thinking about it.

We have started sleep training.

And night weaning.

Or as I prefer to call it, “behavior shaping”.

Last Wednesday morning, I was so tired and frustrated. And I was mean to Albert. I won’t go into details, but I was snarly enough that it makes me feel ashamed. And it made me realize that something had to change because I was way too tired and the frequent waking (every 2 to 3 hours) and the early waking (sometimes earlier than 5 a.m.) had finally pushed me past a line I didn’t even know was there.

While I admire people who can just wait these things out or mold themselves to fit their baby’s tendencies, it was the choice between doing that and being too sleep deprived and mean, or finding a compromise and being an otherwise joyful mother.

Aside from my being too tired and too mentally taxed, he was also getting so. damn. tired. He kept getting up earlier, and so I kept putting him to bed earlier so he would get enough sleep, and I was starting to contemplate a 6 p.m. bedtime just for him to get enough sleep. I was getting really resentful.

Once upon a time, he slept for seven or eight hours at a stretch. Then, around five and a half months, he started working on crawling, and things changed. I couldn’t swaddle him anymore because he would get halfway unswaddled and roll over on his belly and then be all tangled up in his blanket. That wasn’t safe. So I’d lay down with him until he fell asleep and then put him in the cosleeper. He was still sleeping for at least a 6 hour stretch to start the night, and then I’d nurse him and he’d sleep a few more hours in the cosleeper. He usually spent the last hour or two in bed with me.

Then he had surgery. He was so upset after the surgery. He was so in need of comfort, and so we had to do a lot of “stuff” to get him to sleep. A lot of rocking and singing and comforting. Our own guilt probably factored into the equation as well. We also transitioned to a crib around that time because he just needed more space (we only had a mini co-sleeper). During all of this we kept getting further and further away from the baby who could be put down awake, fall asleep alone, and sleep most of the night.

After those few weeks post-surgery, I though maybe he was just still going through some kind of phase. Teething? Mobility issues? A developmental leap? But it appears that the “phase” became a “habit” and after 10 weeks of increasingly elaborate sleep rituals mainly involving carrying all 25 pounds of him around while doing some kind of funky movement, I couldn’t do it anymore.

I found my boundary.

Crying it out was not an option. I think there is something about that method that really flies in the face of everything we know about attachment theory. Even controlled crying with the frequent check-ins wasn’t something I was willing to do, given that he’s currently entered into a separation anxiety phase. It just didn’t feel right, even when I only did it in my head.

I happened to have checked out “The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems” a few weeks ago, but hadn’t really looked at it. I read it voraciously that day. I don’t agree with everything she says, but the “Pick Up-Put Down” method for older babies resonated with me.  Basically, you’re there to calm him (pick up) but as soon as he’s calm he has to get to sleep on his own (put down). You stay there the whole time; you offer an occasional hand on the back, words of encouragement, etc. I spent a lot of time lying on my bed (his crib is in our room) just waiting for him to wind down. At his age, it’s really alot more laying him down when he stands up rather than picking him all the way up. I liked this method because it makes so much sense from both an Attachment theory perspective and a Behaviorism perspective. This message board is very helpful for anyone else who wants or needs to give it a try. I don’t agree with everything about the method–every mother has to figure out what works for her baby. But it is a really useful starting point, and the general idea of being there for comfort but allowing the baby to find his or her own way to soothe to sleep makes sense to me.

So I decided that we were starting this thing right then. That day. With his morning nap. So I tried it.

It took an hour, but he fell asleep laying by himself in the crib with my hand on his stomach. He only really cried (as opposed to a goofy bitching babbling thing he does) once or twice. The thoughts that kept me going were (1) that he would sleep eventually, and (2) that if I gave in, I would have wasted his and my time and put him through angst for nothing.

I won’t go into the gory details of the next few days, but the maximum time to get him down was two hours for one nap. But on that particular occasion, he was just playing in his crib for the first hour, so he wasn’t upset the whole time. I just had to wait it out. I did all of the “training” the first few days, and H took th