July 15, 2015
Summer weather in summer months? In the Bay Area? This is confusing. We’ve had days of 80+ degree heat and it’s just not right.
In other news, LB is hir father’s child. When hot: Do Not Touch.
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On the subject of touching: toes. Ze has toes and would like you to know that ze likes them, can grab them, and will occasionally mouth them. I flip between “Talent!” / “Showoff” / “Gross”
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The developments seem to be more incremental in this month but the effect is huge. Ze suddenly managed flipping from belly to back again. Previously ze could turn hir head to follow sound but only did so selectively. Now ze is actively trying to figure out where certain sounds are coming from. Toys, or would-be toys (aka everything), are huge incentives – ze will work for ages to reach something crinkly.
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Obviously, everything still goes into the mouth for taste testing and chewing. I’ve got three bruises on my arms from where ze latched on like a (toothless) moray eel and wouldn’t stop chomping. Moms are, apparently, delicious. This has led to some rather unfortunate painful biting incidents. Clearly empathy hasn’t developed yet because Ow! just elicits a big grin and sometimes a squeal.
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I used to love the 3-month age best but 5 months is pretty awesome. Ze has opinions but they’re no longer all grouchy.
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LB thinks that hair is the best handle a human adult can come with. Woe betide this kid who tries to latch hold of someone bald! Watch out for these hands otherwise! Ze grabs hold of my hair every chance ze gets and yanks out at least three hairs a day. OW.
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Handclapping has morphed from a scary thing to a hilarious thing. If I clap a rhythm, ze will grin and waggle hir eyebrows at me!
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Seamus laid down in front of us on the rug one day, and LB decided ze wanted to try petting. They sniffed each other’s noses and then Seamus obligingly offered his head for inspection. LB was delighted with the muzzle, soft ear, and his neck, touching each inquisitively and then trying to grab on. Of course I stopped hir before ze administered the classic grab and twist, but he stayed stock still, patiently letting hir explore with hir little grubby fingers. My rule in these situations for safety and sanity is that Seamus is in charge of the interaction’s duration. Forcing him to put up with hir past his patience would be the biggest mistake. (Especially since his patience is so vast.)
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Talon trimming update: Managed a FULL set of talons in one session. Ze was wiggly and kept yanking hir hand away but did not freak out, scream, or otherwise get upset.
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This child clearly hasn’t learned empathy yet. When ze bit me while nursing, I said OW! and gave hir the “no” face. In all other things, when I give hir the no face, ze at least looks back soberly. Hir response after chomping on me? A wide gummy grin. Like I was playing. HRMPH.
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Aside from my computer and all related cords, hir favorite new toy:
The Oball ball with rattle (click picture to buy at Amazon)
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Baby Savings: Thanks to some generous gifts from family, diligent savings on our part, and not continuously paying for childcare(!), LB’s savings account has – holy crap, I didn’t even realize this – $25,000.00. That’s freakin’ amazing. Of course, that’s before we deduct the cost of hir diapers, wipes, and formula. And penalty fees for pooping on us. It’s gonna take a hit for the poop. Also the penalty for being the Mayor of Fartopolis because holy moly are hir farts stinky.
Month 4: Velociraptor Claws
Month 3: Growth Spurts
Month 2: Hates sleep
Month 1: Banshee
June 15, 2015
I can take on any dog or cat and trim their nails but holy shekels, trimming LB’s nails is … a nail biter.
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I didn’t know it was normal for babies to hate tummy time. LB spent a lot of time faceplanting for most of the first few days, crying angrily.
We don’t seem to have growth spurts at regular intervals. We have five days on and two days off, if we’re lucky, from the things that seem to indicate growth spurt: increased appetite, intermittent wakefulness through the night. Makes for interesting sleeplessness on the part of hir hapless parents but also incredibly interesting development. We could see hir cognition becoming sharper and more focused one day to the next, adding deliberate interaction and movement to the mix.
One day, ze held my hand and selectively chewed on one finger at a time, clearly testing and rejecting on the search for the perfect finger. The next day ze picked up hir pacifier and tried to put it in hir mouth.
Out of the blue, ze decided that ze was going to turn over on hir belly from hir back. I couldn’t tell you what brought this on. Over 6 days, ze started the attempts. One every other day. On the last of the 6 days, on hir third actual attempt, ze made it. Angry and crying the whole time. Once accomplished, it seemed forgotten but really ze was just gearing up for five more days of seeing what else ze could do with this skill.
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Some day, ze will sleep in hir crib for daytime naps, right? RIGHT? Please say yes.
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The answer IS yes! We had to break all the rules but since ze is so strong, I’m not so worried anymore. Ze always rolls over onto hir face now that ze has mastered the art, so over the course of a few weeks, we added blankets and pillows and bumpers to the crib, experimenting with what seemed most comfortable.
Ze gets stuck on hir belly because apparently rolling from the back is easy but rolling from the belly is not. My child, ze is backwards. But in the process, ze often gets a limb stuck in the prison bars, so bumpers were much safer. It’s helped a lot, and once a week, ze might even sleep more than 6 hours at a stretch! And the cozier (blankes and pillows) the bed, the longer ze might sleep.
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The moment LB actually looked at us, not through us, or past us, or around us, but actually directly at us was pretty cool. But far better was the moment that ze progressed from smiles to little gurgles to full blown belly chortles. It’s intoxicating! Hir eyes just about disappear into the creased chubby cheeks, hir mouth opens wide and curves into a huge toothless grin, the laugh wells up from hir toes. Hir whole body shakes with each outburst of glee. Needless to say, once I discovered that kissing hir cheeks or tickling hir cheek with my hair accidentally produced that chortle, I did that forever. Or at least until my face hurt from laughing.
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Lots of “holy crap, this is OUR child” moments.
Ze rides in the stroller the way I ride in cars, feet kicked up, slumping down into the seat;
Crinkles hir face like I do;
Has some of PiC’s facial features;
and some of mine.
Weird.
May 13, 2015
I’m revising a friend’s advice on parenting for our family.
1. Don’t have more kids than you have hands
Don’t have more kids than you have adult bodies. Ages ago, as a child-free professional auntie, I liked a 4-1 ratio of kids to adults. I stand by that number.
2. Fight only the important battles
Also the ones about socks. Cold feeted babies are angry angry babies.
3. Always have fun
Laugh at everything that would otherwise make you angry. Bitterly, hysterically, whatever, just go with it. You’re both sleep mad.
We’re keeping hir turned away from the television but like an owl, hir head swivels around until it’s just about 180 degrees looking back to continue looking at it. The lights and movement draw hir eyes right now but it’s far too early for hir to develop a tv habit! I’m considering being a heartless mom and moving the one tv into our room when ze gets older. For now I think it’s true that ze is just looking at the lights and movements.
The growth and development ze experienced coming into hir third month was astounding. In the space of four days, ze started paying attention to mobile toys, music, rattles, and trying to intentionally use hir hands as hands a couple times:
Ze very deliberately played a game with me and hir bottle one night: open mouth, clamp down on the nipple, spit it out, grin, repeat. Ze did this four or five times, each time sipping a few drops and grinning as ze spit out the bottle. Then finally, ze was done playing so ze grabbed my hand that was holding the bottle and very firmly moved it towards hir mouth and started drinking normally.
In hir little playmat with mobile things, ze had been swinging at the hanging objects aimlessly. One day, ze reached up with a fist, punching the air and then paused. Ze gently waved it at a ring. And again. Then started whacking the ring like a piñata!
Ze isn’t breaking any records but hir pediatrician is pleased with growth and ze made it through the first round of vaccines with about the expected level of rage, followed by a good long sleep. Weirdly, ze was more infuriated by the attempt to Baby Tylenol hir later that evening.
The search for a nanny had become a bit desperate. We hadn’t found anyone that really suits. The first mother’s helper we tried seemed alright at first but her competence seemed to taper off. By the fourth day, I was still repeating basic care instructions and it was driving me nuts. [When baby cries, check hir diaper. Why does that have to be repeated??] Then it was ok. Then it was not.
Ze has opinions and is very vocal about them. Yep, that means All The Crying. But also that the chirps and squeaks that impressed me so earlier turned into full near-words and now ze will lay around talking at you for minutes at a time. You don’t even have to be in front of hir, as long as ze can hear you respond.
Ze has more patience now. Before, the very second ze was GOING to have a dirty diaper we were in hot water. Totally not fair, btw. With the graduation to size 1 diapers, ze is also a bit more mature and patient about waiting a minute for a change.
Ze hasn’t quite doubled birth weight but ze is HUGE compared to birth size. Looking at pictures from the first week is a startling contrast. Luckily I am an obsessive photographer so we have chronicled the whole way here.
April 8, 2015
Sleep: the old saw “sleep when the baby sleeps” rarely applies here. Either I couldn’t fall asleep or the sleep cycles were so short I only had time to drop into sleep before being shaken awake by the need to change a diaper or feed hir. Naps felt amazing though, and for a few weeks, every 30 mins of sleep felt like half a night’s rest. After that, it just felt like punishment.
There are moments when ze has been nursing for more than an hour and I haven’t slept in weeks, and my body is beyond the point of crying out in fatigue because it’s too tired to do that even. I look down at hir and ze is just … cute. This is what keeps infants alive, I’m convinced of it.
Babywearing is great. Not for my back but definitely for morale when a distraught LB just needs to be held and my arms simply cannot anymore or I desperately need arms free to do things. It’s strangely comforting and I like being the Kanga to my now detachable Roo. Name change? LB–> Roo?
My first moments of despair thanks to pain and fatigue preventing me from picking up Little Bean struck in week 3, but the second month is when it really came home. I dodged the expected baby blues, but fear of a crippled future just around the corner instead of on the horizon was cause for some serious introspection and a few frustrated tears. PiC and I stayed up a few late nights talking through my worries and his reassurances meant the world to me. It also made me wish even harder that I’d figured out a way we could afford for him to stay home with us on just my earnings because he’s an amazing hands-on dad and genuinely enjoys taking care of LB morning, noon and night.
Ze started smiling at us this month. Ze wasn’t interested in making eye contact with anyone except PiC before. Now, ze will look around, see me, and grin. It’s awesome. Also ze smirks in hir sleep and I love it. It’s like there are good dreams going on in that bitty human brain. Sometimes it’s just because ze just had a great poo though.
Also awesome: baby babble. Ze isn’t forming sounds that are remotely like words but ze is making sounds on purpose and the range has increased to include a variety of tones, volume and interest. We started doing call and response. I leave hir laying on a playmat and holler random noises as I dash around the house trying to wash a bottle or get the laundry going or grab some food. The ones that please hir best get a delighted squeal, the OK sounds get a chirp. After a week of this, ze moved on to just babbling away on hir own at the ceiling, the window or the TV. We do lots of wide range vocabulary talking to hir regularly but when ze is participating, ze is most responsive to fun combinations of sounds so we go with it. Plenty of time to learn words and languages and all that.
March 18, 2015
I don’t unequivocally love the newborn phase, it’s so much work and exhaustion it’s hard to remember your own name. But this is an amazingly cuddly period, punctuated by the squeaks, peeps, squawks, whirs and chirps that are precursors to speech. There’s almost nothing so simultaneously heartwarming and terrifying as looking down into those almond shaped grey-black eyes of your own child. Who is clearly, by that unblinking stare, awake again.
Some things are universal
They come with teeny fingers and toes, and correspondingly bitty nails which are terrifying to cut.
Some help is essential if you’re anything like me and need 7-8 solid hours of sleep but are lucky to string together 4 hours in one-hour increments. It revives your ability to gaze at the microface with compassion and amusement as you rock the warm bundlet back to sleep at 3 am, again.
The world seems cold and cruel after the 16th diaper change and 10th hour of feeding in 23 hours.
In a month you go from having a bread loaf sized critter to a tiny person whose actual tears express astonishment and dismay at your lack of mental acuity, you heartless and negligent parent! Feed me, dammit! (How did ze turn into a teenager so quickly?)
Breast is best, the hospital chants. And they’re quite good at supporting with lactation consultants but it also supplying formula upon request if you hit a tough patch and eating hasn’t happened in too many hours. It’s a bit surprising when the delivery method (breastfeeding) gets prioritized over the actual eating. In my book: feed the baby! Worry about “how” only when you have the luxury to, not if the kid’s wasting away, 2 days old and five hours since the last feed.
Formula is expensive, running 50¢ to $1+ per ounce, depending on the sort you get. When you need at least 2oz per feeding every 2-3 hours, you’re pretty DARN motivated to breastfeed. Plus it’s good for hir. I didn’t work this hard at having hir to give up now. (Give up= quit without trying. I know plenty of people who can’t/couldn’t BF and I have all the empathy: that could have been me. But I have to give it a real try before stopping.) As with most things, it’s an exercise in loving bonding and serious pain. LB is a vengeance angry nurser. Sure, take your time figuring out that’s a hungry cry, go on. Ze will clamp down in a punishment latch like a terrier capturing prey and shaking it to death for a minute before settling into a proper one. “Well,” you’d gasp through clenched teeth “I deserved that.”
PiC is supportive, of course, buying armloads of lactation teas (confusing the hell out of the cashier at Sprouts), brewing a cuppa nonstop, refilling the water bottle, making sure I’m eating. Grimacing with empathy when Angry Latch happens.
Costs
Formula, $35
Bottles (we like glass, used for both formula and pumped milk), $22
Breast pump, covered by insurance
Recovery and healing
I don’t know how one does this but surely it should involve less pain?? At some point? But not without loads of pain meds so far.
It was a rather traumatic delivery and my body didn’t cope well with it. On that note, f*ck episiotomies and scar tissue.
PiC literally did all the heavy lifting as I’m not allowed to lift more than LB. We were incredibly grateful to dear friends and family who came to the rescue, covering baby butt patting shifts so PiC could leave us for more than four consecutive minutes. Just born and the kid was already attached to him. Poor guy. He had a newborn and basically invalid wife and we didn’t know up from down from right or left.
My will is strong but my core is weak. No wonder my back hurts so much. I’m not allowed to work out yet but strengthening the core and my arm muscles lest all the fingers in my hands dislocate are priorities one and two. I need those squeezy ball things you use for hand exercises. (Any recommendations?)
Favorite moments
Waking up to chirps rather than crying for the first time. I was so confused I thought ze had to have been crying.
Sneak attack diaper changes- when LB is in deep enough sleep to overlook the wet diaper (almost never) I try to change the diaper without waking hir. Then do a victory jig when it works.
When I think ze is done eating: eyes are closed, all movement seems to have stopped, breathing is slow and steady. Then ze opens hir eyes and looks directly at me like FOOLED YOU.
We don’t lullaby
We can’t remember the lyrics to kid’s songs so we just improvise unless an old song crops up.
Edelweiss
The Halls of Montezuma
The Heart of Texas
Once Upon a Time in China
March 11, 2015
As might be expected, the first week post-birth was a blur of sleep deprivation, oddly defined shifts of baby coverage where at least one of us would be found asleep with a happy sleeping baby snoozing away on top of us, and really strange conversations.
Bonus points if you catch all the references.
Precarious Road to Recovery
How’s your new pillow? Is it big enough? I’m not calling you fat!!
Uh. It’s fine? I think… ?
My body is broken.
Dirty diapers
Here, let me help you with that.
Jayne, this is something the Captain has to do for himself.
No, no it’s not!
No, it’s not.
[trying to fend off a screaming fit] You look SO relaxed, baby, you look SOOO relaxed.
BATGIRL!
[Me, waking from a dead sleep with baby on lap] MASSIVE POO WE HAVE A MASSIVE POO INCOMING
Crying Infants
It’s like Defcon 5. I’m not even sure if that’s how it works. The more serious Defcon.
Oh just set her down. With any luck…
Our luck? You notice anything particular about our luck these past few days? Any kind of pattern?
[frustrated] I wish I had breasts!
Oh honey, you sound like your heart is breaking. Did you pee?
Seamus, we didn’t break the baby.
Seamus, the chair isn’t ALWAYS the answer to LB’s crying.
Seamus, stop herding more responsible adults to the room to fix it. This cannot be fixed.
Nursing
You have TWO choices. Right or left. There is no other option.
Hey is the Milk Bar open yet?
The Milk Bar is open.
Child, there is no sustenance to be had from your hand. Stop eating it.
Child, Auntie isn’t lactating. You’ll get no satisfaction there.
Recordkeeping
I’m seeing a lot of poo here.
Well, you’re not wrong.
Family Integration
Mmmm… I love the smell of fresh baby in the morning.
Seamus, your sibling is fine. (Did you read the letters? READ THE LETTERS)
Seamus: *sniffs the baby’s head.*points at the rocker*
Seamus, LB doesn’t need the –
Seamus: *points at the rocker emphatically*
