Poison Control and other fun stories

Well, I got to call poison control for the first time yesterday. Sadly, I don't think it will be my last call to them, but one can hope. Finn woke up early from his nap and caught me working on a craft project. As I tried to clean up my mess (while fending off his grabby little hands), the glue stick I had been using must have rolled under a couch pillow. As I continued to clean, Finn stopped trying to grab everything out of my hands and became quiet. This is a lesson that I am still learning...When your toddler becomes quiet and stops annoying you it does not mean, breathe a sigh of relief because you can now finish your work in peace. No, it means, Drop everything, there is some serious mischief afoot. But in my naivete, I did the former and when I looked up from finishing my work in peace, I saw Finn holding the uncapped glue stick and making his I-just-tasted-something-yucky face.

I managed to fish about 1/8 of a teaspoon of purple glue out of his mouth. That amount seemed consistent with the bite marks in the glue stick, so I felt he didn't swallow much, if any. I gave him some water and set him back down to play.

And that is the crazy part. I didn't freak out. My initial reaction was actually, "Meh, kids eat glue all the time. He'll be fine." I didn't think to call poison control until about an hour after the incident. And the very nice gentleman that I spoke with just told me, "Clean all the glue out of his mouth, give him some water and wait an hour to see if he gets sick." Done, done, and done!

I feel this is a sign that I am gaining some ground in mastering the art of motherhood. I have long been envious of that blissful nonchalance, that "he'll be fine" attitude that second time mothers have. Maybe I am starting to hit my stride as a mother. Maybe I have learned that age old wisdom - There is a time for everything - A time to freak out and a time to say "Meh, he'll be fine."

In other news, we have been going to the park a lot lately. I read in one blog on sleep, that if your child is having sleep issues, you should make sure they get enough outdoor time. The example she gave was that if your child is only playing outside for 2 hours a day, then try to see that they get 4 hours outdoors to see if that helps the them sleep. 4 hours? Most days Finn's only outdoor time is the walk from the house to the car and back again. So I felt that I needed to kick it up a notch. After all, I live in San Diego and I really have no excuse to forgo outdoor playtime. (Actually, I have a lot of excuses, not the least of which is that putting sunscreen on a wiggling 15 month old is one of the worst chores ever.) Fortunately, we have a park near our house with a nice play structure, sand and swings. Finn likes the swings, but he never seems to laugh-out-loud enjoy himself. That is until I started pretending that he was kicking me in the face with each swing. This he finds hilarious and actually throws his head back with laughter. Should I be worried that he finds violence so funny?  Or is this just further evidence that he is all boy?

Although, it is not evident to everyone that he is a boy. He has been called a girl by some stranger every day this week. And for once, it wasn't just old people. The only colors he wears are blue, green, orange and brown. There really should be no question. Maybe I need to cut his hair. But, he still has so little of it, I don't think I could bring myself to do it yet.

Lately, Finn has been pulling my broom out from behind the fridge and dragging it all over the house. So today I got him his own little broom. He LOVES it. He literally spent hours today just pushing it around the kitchen floor. He even managed to push some crumbs under the stove. Works for me. He gets mad and screams when he gets the broom on the carpet and it doesn't move as smoothly. Now, if only I could find him a little vacuum that actually worked, I'd be set!

Our silly little boy

I don't know how it is possible that Ben and I, who are generally pretty serious, no-nonsense people, could have a little boy who is all about the silliness. 

So, we have been fake sneezing at Finn for pretty much his entire life since he finds it so consistently hilarious. [Wow, that was a dreadful sentence, but since I can't figure out how to punctuate it or make it better and still say what I want, I'm going to leave it.] Anyway, our fake sneezing routines have gotten quite elaborate as Finn's sense of humor has evolved. Well, a couple days ago at breakfast, Finn started noisily sucking in air through his vocal chords and then making a soft, whispery "shufflebubble" sound. It took us a while, but we figured out that he was fake sneezing at us! The sucking in air noise was the "ahh" part and the whisper noise was the "choo." It was just too funny and it felt so good to laugh that hard. I really need to get a video of it the next time he does it.

For some reason, when Finn was first born, I decided that I was going to need A LOT of Q-tips in my day-to-day care of him. So I went out and bought a big tub of them and to date, I have used 2. Its mostly been used as a distraction for Finn while he's on the changing table. But yesterday he brought it out of the bathroom and started playing with it and managed to get the top off. At first he would just pull out one at at time, which I thought was pretty cute, but apparently he was just making enough room so he could get his entire fist in there and pull them out by the handful and throw them in the air. Yes, it was a lot less cute when I had 298 Q-tips strewn across my living room floor. So I thought I'd try to make a teachable moment out of the situation and show him how to put the Q-tips back in the tub. And I succeeded, sort of. He did actually start putting Q-tips back in the tub, but apparently 2 was the maximum number that could occupy the tub before the urge to throw them in the air overtook him again.

Ben and I took Finn to a new park this weekend. It's small park but it has lots of green space and trees and a nice children's playground. Once we got into the park we put Finn down and he just took off. Ben wanted to wait and see how long it took him to notice that we weren't with him. He never did. Didn't even give us a backward glance. Finally, we decided we'd better catch up with us before someone called Child Protective Services about the baby wandering around the park alone! I think it's safe to say that he's an independent little guy (in the daylight, at least).

We've been trying to teach Finn to play "Where's your nose?" for a long time now. I actually read in a magazine that babies can/should be able to do this by 5 months. At the time I took that as gospel and promptly set about teaching my son this simple game. Here I am 10 months later and I now wonder in what alternate universe are 5 month old babies able to do this?! So, I decided to switch things up a bit and play "Where's your belly button?" instead, since we were going nowhere fast with the nose. Just like with "Where's your nose?" I would ask the question, point out his belly button, ask the question again, wait, when nothing happened (no surprise there) I decided to ask where Mommy's belly button was and show him. This he finds hilarious, so when I ask him where his belly button is, he lifts up my shirt and sticks his finger in my belly button. Success, sort of. I still can't get him to acknowledge that he has any body parts to point to, but its a start.

I don't know if I've written about Finn's breastfeeding acrobatics before, but he's has recently taken them to new heights...literally. For a long time he enjoyed nursing in a position best described as downward facing dog - head pressed into the bed, butt up in the air, legs straight. He had to carefully coordinate his breathing while he nursed in this position, because if he didn't, milk would come shooting out his nose. You would think this would deter him, but it didn't. From there he tried to progress to nursing in that same position, but with only one leg supporting him on the bed and the other leg and one arm raised straight up in the air, however he wasn't able to maintain the latch in that position and he gave up.  But he has apparently started feeling creative again and somehow got his feet up on top of me while he was nursing so that he was essentially in a head stand position with his torso straight up in the air. I do not know how it is even possible that he could stay latched, much less swallow in this position, but he managed it quite nicely for some time.

15 Month Doctor's Appointment

Oh, how I hate Finn's doctor's appointments anymore. Before 6 months, they were great. His doctor would tell me how smart, how beautiful, how perfect he was and how I was doing a wonderful job. It was an all around ego boost. Then we started having issues with his weight (well, actually the issue was with the weight chart, but the result was that I felt like I was somehow inadvertently starving my child), and somehow I always managed to schedule his appointments in the middle of nap-time (granted its pretty difficult to guess when he is going to be napping 3 months in advance), so he would be completely falling apart.

This appointment we finally didn't have any troubles with his weight. According to their 2000 CDC chart he has finally settled on the 20th percentile (according to my 2009 WHO chart he is, and has always been, in the 35th percentile), so for once I didn't get "the talk" about his weight. No, this time, even though I got lucky and we were between naps, he fell apart as I laid him down on the baby scale. That's the first thing we do. He wailed, screamed and shrieked for the entire rest of the appointment (which took an hour because he was so uncooperative).

It was such a disaster, it was almost comical. Since he wouldn't lay down on the baby scale, the nurse decided to weigh me holding him and then just weigh me and subtract. This was fine until I had to be weighed alone. He wouldn't let the nurse hold him so I had to put him down on the floor, stark naked, while I stepped on the scale. Sadly, there was no denying that the screaming, naked little boy running around the main hallway of the doctor's office was mine.

The nurse was never able to get his head circumference or check his pulse and the doctor was never able to listen to his heart and I had to hold him down in order for her to perform just a cursory exam. So, hopefully nothing's wrong with him, because there was no way that anyone was going to be able to find it. The doctor and I could barely hear each other over his wails. I ended up nursing him 3 times in my attempt to calm him down.

This was all before the shots! The nurse and I could barely restrain him. We probably could have used a third person. Its amazing how incredibly strong little toddlers can be when they're upset.  I half wonder if Finn didn't remember the shots he had the last time he was at the doctors office and that's why he got so upset so early on in the appointment.

But there were good things too! Apparently, by 15 months they are supposed to be able to say at least 3 words. Since Finn can say Mama, Dada (Daddy), baby, no, and hi, we were good there. Its even more impressive since Ben speaks so much Norwegian to him. His doctor told me that speaking 2 languages in the home can delay language milestones by as much as 6 months. She recommended that to get the most benefit from the second language that I should try speaking it as much as possible as well. So today I got out my old Norwegian 101 book and began reading it to Finn and getting a refresher course on grammar and vocabulary in the process. At dinner Ben and I tried to speak only in Norwegian. I did pretty well, considering its been nearly 10 years since I last took a class!

I discovered that Finn is a very confident walker, because according to his doctor, toddlers don't usually start walking backward until 18 months, and he just started walking backward this week. He looks like he's doing a Michael Jackson dance move and it is just one of the cutest things to watch. Its nice to know his gross motor skills are ahead of the curve!

I, of course, told the doctor that we were still breastfeeding a lot. For some reason, I expected to get chewed out and told that I needed to get him weaned, but I didn't. In fact, she complimented me on doing such an amazing job with breastfeeding. It was nice to hear, since I have doubts all the time about whether or not I'm doing the right thing by continuing. Maybe "right" isn't what I mean. I wonder whether I'm doing the appropriate thing. At some point breasts in the presence of a little boy becomes unacceptable. I just don't know what that point is. I wonder if I would be this worried about the appropriateness of long-term breastfeeding if I had a daughter?

And finally, when I told her about our new sleeping arrangement, she complimented me and Ben on our gentle approach to transitions with Finn.  This was also appreciated since I am sure some people (our friends included) think us crazy - at best - for how we have chosen to parent Finn.

So, even though I am still not looking forward to his 18 month appointment and no one said he was smart, beautiful or perfect, I think we got enough positive feedback to make it worth all the drama of the day!

"No!"

It has arrived. Finn has started to say "no." He and I went out to lunch just the two of us yesterday. He's not a very attentive date. I was trying to pop food into his mouth as his head was whipping around every which way, trying to look at all the other diners simultaneously. I was trying to get one more bite in him and his mouth was evading me. I said, "Do you want one more bite?" He shook his head "no." "No?" I asked. He continued to shake his head and said, "No!" <sigh> I can't say as I'm looking forward to this phase.

I think he is understanding more and more of what we say, but that only means that he is becoming increasingly frustrated when he can't communicate what he wants. This evening he was pointing straight at me while he was in his highchair. I offered him several things, each of which was met with a shake of his head and a frustrated whine. Finally I said, "I don't understand what you want." To which Finn responded with violent head shakes and a scream. This boy needs to learn to speak in full sentences quickly!

I was giving him a bath this evening. Usually, Ben prepares the bath while I prepare the boy, but this evening it was just me, so I started the water, got the boy naked and then let him run around the bathroom while I made sure the water was an even temperature.  Then suddenly, SPLASH! Finn threw the bathroom scale into the tub from behind me. He thought that was great fun, despite my stern admonishment. Just wait, soon I will be fishing things out of the toilet!

We have been trying to get Finn to clap for months. He likes to watch us clap, have us clap his hands, even clap our hands for us, but he will not clap his own hands. Of course this is one of those major developmental milestones that, even though I know there is nothing wrong with him, annoys me that he hasn't done it "on time."  This evening, Ben was sliding packages of diapers across the floor to smack into other packages of diapers, which Finn was finding truly exciting. I was sitting on the couch and clapping and Finn started waving both hands at me and then brought them together once. I got all excited and started clapping for everything. Finn would wave at me every time I clapped (kind of like the had wave that deaf people use as the sign for applause). And one time during all that clapping and hand waving I saw him bring his hands together several times. Finally! I think I'm going to call it good and say that he now can clap. Nothing to worry about now until the 18-24 month milestones!

Seasons

A friend and I were talking about how our marriages were different now that we had babies - not bad-different, just different. She called it a "season." I really liked that idea - its much better than "this-thing-we're-going-through-right-now," which is how I usually thought of it.

This got me thinking about my life and my marriage in terms of seasons and it has given me some perspective.

Ben and I definitely started out with a long, lovely summer, living in a beautiful Rocky Mountain community, both of us enjoying our work, traveling internationally nearly every year, spending time with friends and family and engaging in plenty of activities that brought us joy and satisfaction.

Then came a time of change when we decided we were ready to have a baby. What should have been a peaceful autumn, quickly turned into a long winter as we dealt with infertility, a pregnancy that ended with a miscarriage, a move to a large city where we knew no one and had to work long hours at stressful - and in my case, miserable - jobs just to make ends meet, followed by more infertility.

Then we had new life in our home and I thought the long winter was finally over and spring had arrived at last. I had this beautiful baby boy, who was the realization of years of longing, and I felt that I should have been basking in the warmth and beauty of this new season, but I wasn't. It still felt like winter to me and every day was a struggle.

But I think I had forgotten what spring in the Rocky Mountains really means. Its nothing like spring in children's story books. In Montana, spring is just winter in its death throes. It is piles of old dirty snow and naked, lifeless trees. It means snow and rain and hail and sun all in the same day. There are 60 degree temperature swings within a few hours. And when you are coming out of a long winter, spring can feel like it will never end.  But then one day you wake up and the snow and the mud have been replaced by a shimmering veil of green. And you realize that all through that seemingly endless picture of desolation, beneath the snow and the decaying leaves, life was struggling and fighting its way back to the surface.

Somehow, seeing this time in my life from this perspective makes me feel better. Spring isn't always sunshine and flowers and bunnies and rainbows. Sometimes its the slow casting off of a long winter.  Layer by layer, the cold and the ugliness melt away and life and beauty patiently struggle up through the heavy burden of winter. And in the end, it is worth it. 
 
Summer is coming, I can feel it. But for now, I'm going to be present for this season of my life and take it for what it is. I will likely have more summers, autumns, and even winters, but spring may never come again. If all goes well, I will only have one more baby in my lifetime. After that all the challenging and wonderful things about spring will come to an end. And I expect I shall be a jumble of happy and sad. Which is seems appropriate. Spring is warm and cold, gentle and fierce, happy and sad.

All kinds of randomness

Today Finn went into the spare bedroom and started growling at the vacuum cleaner. He still gives it a wide berth, but he's getting more comfortable with it, so long as its not on. I'm not sure if he was growling to intimidate the vacuum, or mimicking the noise the vacuum makes, but it was really cute either way.  Too bad he didn't growl last night when he had his Monster costume on.

He is jabbering more and more these days.  I think some words are just around the corner. Today as I was changing his diaper, I commented that he was a "messy boy." Finn thought this was funny, so I repeated myself several times. A couple times while I was saying "messy boy" I heard him putting "m" and "s" sounds together. This is going to get fun!

After the diaper change, he spotted the IPad. He was looking at it very intently, but it was off, so I think what he saw was his reflection.  Then all of the sudden he went in for a kiss. Yes, that's right, he started repeatedly kissing his reflection in the IPad screen. Since he seems to have the kiss down, I'll have to start trying to get him to kiss Mommy and Daddy, so that by Christmas it will be one big Kiss-fest for Grandma and Grandpa!

Later he accomplished the feat of climbing onto the couch unassisted by starting in his toy box, climbing on to the piano bench and then crawling onto the couch. There he sat, quite pleased with himself for 10 minutes while playing with the remotes. This would have been just fine, but then he decided to take his climbing skills to the next level and tried to climb onto the piano and since it is a short trip from there to falling out the window, I had to holler at him, remove him from the situation, and deal with the temper tantrum that followed.

After lunch we went to Mission Bay for a walk (I even ran full out 4 times for a minute or less, which was actually pretty exhilarating for me and I'm pretty sure Finn thought he was flying at warp speed) and then when were were all done, we went and played on the playground. For Finn this means walking around on the pavement and completely ignoring the play equipment, but he'll figure it out eventually. I did finally take him over to one set-up that was just his size with no stairs but a ramp instead that he could run up and down. I think he enjoyed it because when I tried to take him back to the car, he threw a fit.

Since he wasn't too tired out after our playtime, we went to Costco and there he got called a girl and a snob by the old man who walks up and down Moraga Ave with his wife 12 times a day.  I'm not sure why he thought Finn was a girl, but apparently, because Finn was trying to hide from the old man and not looking at him, that made Finn a snob. I'm discovering that old people and babies are an awkward combination.

Today's shenanigans

Finn has figured out how to get past his toy box so he can play behind the piano and with the air conditioner. There is little I can do now to prevent this. In addition, he has figured out that if he stands up in his toy box, he can reach the piano keys and bang on them with gusto. And since I want to promote a love of music, I am not entirely against this new activity, except that I can foresee him falling out of his toy box and hitting his head on any number of hard corners.

And then, while I was showering today, Finn mastered the art of removing the new toilet paper rolls from the plastic wrapping. He then proceeded to gleefully throw them into the shower with me, rendering them soggy and useless. He is now carrying one around the house, pulling off small pieces and throwing them on the floor.

Band aids

Today Finn opened a bathroom drawer and dumped out the Costco sized box of band aides that he found in there. He then spent the next 15 minutes taking them out of the drawer one at a time and inspecting each one carefully. Those that didn't pass muster were unceremoniously dropped on the floor. Those of superior quality were handed to Mommy with a big smile.

The vacuum monster attacks Finn's mommy

Finn is terrified of the vacuum. That's my excuse for having such dirty floors. But the other day I thought we had made an amazing breakthrough. Ben was vacuuming (this isn't even the amazing part) and instead of screaming and crying, Finn was following him around, watching curiously. When Ben was all done, he left the vacuum out and Finn circled it about a dozen times, squatted down to view it from different angles and even went so far as to touch it a couple times!

So a couple days later I thought I would give it a try. All I wanted to do was evacuate the air from some vacuum-seal storage bags. So I sat on the floor and told Finn that I was going to turn the vacuum on now and it was going to be loud. Because I was sitting on the floor, the vacuum promptly fell over on me. Finn screamed bloody-murder, turned and tried to run away, but turned the wrong direction and ran into the side of his crib which knocked him over. I was just shaking with laughter; poor Finn was shaking with fear. I think its safe to say that my floors will remain dirty for a while longer.

I am probably a terrible mother for finding it so funny, but Finn gave me the opportunity to redeem myself. I had to nurse and rock him for 30 minutes before he would calm down, even then he clung to me for another 15-20 minutes. Later we went back in the room to look at the vacuum. Finn circled it a few times, squatted down to look at it, but could not be convinced that it was safe to touch it.

Yes, I have a boy

Today, while nursing Finn before his nap, he swallowed some milk down the wrong pipe and started to cough. For whatever reason, each cough also produced some very loud farts. After the first few cough/fart combinations, Finn started to realize he was making these noises and started to chuckle, at which point I lost it and we both started all out belly laughing. Needless to say, nap time was delayed by about an hour after all that silliness!

Rainy day

We're having our first rainy day in months. Finn is being the model rainy day child today. He's been playing quietly on the floor with his books and puzzles. It is just too cute! Quite the contrast from the little maniac I usually have running around here. It almost makes me wonder if he's sick. Haha, now he's "dancing" in little circles in the living room to "A Holly Jolly Christmas" (yes, I realize its only October, but there's something about rain in San Diego that puts one in the holiday spirit. It also doesn't help that I lit candles and baked pumpkin bread today).

The fun and not so fun of today...

Here it is only 11 am and already I have stories to tell.

We have been trying to teach some baby signs to Finn. We started when I realized that he was started to communicate with us by his actions and although they were effective, ("All done" was signified by throwing all his remaining food off his tray) we decided we would like to teach him some more polite ways of expressing himself. We started with the sign for "All Done" and he did eventually stop throwing his food off his tray, but has never attempted the sign. This morning we went through our usual routine of saying the words "All Done" while making the sign and Finn was watching us intently, as he usually does when we make a big deal out of something, and instead of doing anything with his hands he said "Ah Dah," which, being the newbie parents we are, we took to mean he was trying to say "All Done." We made a big deal out of it and praised him, so we'll see where this goes. I am okay if he decides to skip signing and go straight to talking. I'm sure all parents wonder what their children are thinking about long before their communication skills develop into language and so this small sign that we will soon be hearing Finn's thoughts from his own lips is pretty exciting (I think).

Then after we dropped Ben off at work this morning, Finn and I headed to Sharp Hospital to get his 1 year blood work done. I had hoped they would do a heal prick, since it matter less if they wiggle, but they needed to draw blood from a vein. So I asked if they had anyone that specialized in babies and children. I had been given that advice by a good friend of mine who is a nurse at a children's hospital. She often gets patients brought to her from other hospitals, where the staff there has spent an hour trying to draw blood from a small child (how traumatic would that be?!), and she is able to do it in minutes. So they did give me their specialist and she was very good, in that she got the blood draw done quickly. However, her technique for making children feel at ease (she was very loud and animated while making animal noises for Finn from the moment she walked into the room) didn't work well for my child (who prefers to take in new people and experiences quietly and at his own pace). At her first loud "Meow, Meow, Where's the kitty?" he immediately burst into tears and when she touched his arm with one finger to feel a vein, he started to struggle and fight so hard, she had to call for backup. I held him on my lap and it took both my arms to hold his right arm down and the other nurse held his left arm straight while the procedure took place. He stopped crying as soon as we were all done restricting his movements and he and I went outside and I nursed him for a little while. As usual, a little time on the breast makes everything better. By the time we got back in the car, he had recovered from his experience and had begun the work of investigating the cotton ball taped to his arm.

First Steps

Finn took his first 2 steps on August 8th, 2013. Just like when he started crawling, he had had a well baby exam earlier in the day in which I had to report to his doctor that he wasn't walking yet.  I mentioned to her that after his 9 month appointment he had started crawling, so she joked that Finn would probably take his first steps that evening.  Sure enough, that is exactly what happened.  I had placed him in the middle of the living room and I was sitting on the couch urging him to walk towards me.  He wouldn't budge until he spotted the TV remote, at which point he took his first 2 baby steps to get at it.

And since I mention his 1 year check-up, I might as well report on that too. It was disappointing, to say the least.  His weight was recorded at 20.2 pounds (although I think it was actually a little higher, and the nurse took the low mark...why is it no one ever does that for me when I step on the damn thing at the doctor's office?) and his height 30.25 inches. So the weight put him down in the 15th percentile, which caused both his doctor and me some concern. He just keeps falling through the percentiles despite the fact that I am still breastfeeding him every 2-3 hours during the day and on demand all night long, as well as offering him the most nutritional and calorie dense solid foods I can. We went over his diet and all his doctor could say was "You're doing everything right, but..." So she wants me to give him Pediasure. It just kills me to have to do it. There are 17 grams of sugar in one bottle. Sugar is the second ingredient, after water. I feel like I've spent the last six months working hard to give him whole, unprocessed foods and limiting his salt and sugar intake for nothing. I know that's not true and that I have given Finn the best start that I could and that we couldn't avoid sugar forever. I know this. I'm still disappointed. So as a compromise, I've begun adding a little Pediasure to his whole milk, to sweeten it up a bit and make it more palatable for him. If he seemed to like his first taste of whole milk, then he LOVED his first taste of whole milk/Pediasure. And why wouldn't he? It tastes just like a milkshake.

The rest of his appointment went well. We didn't do shots, since he had been sick last week (another thing that probably affected his weight) and she checked carefully to make sure he didn't get an ear infection after his cold.  Its incredible to me that we made it to a year without Finn ever getting sick. His good health is a real blessing, one that hopefully continues a long, long time. When we got to the part about sleep, I felt I couldn't take any more "tsk tsk" from the doctor, so I lied and said how impressed I was by the improvement and that he was sleeping most of the night in his crib and rarely waking up to eat. Its more of a half truth than a lie. Sometimes those things do happen, just not as consistently as one might expect at his age. But since it doesn't really bother me and I would now gladly nurse him all night long if it would fatten him up, I'm not going to worry about it!

Crawling and standing milestones

I am happy with recording that Finn reached certain milestones at such and such age, but Ben likes to have the actual dates on which these events took place, so I'd better write them down before I forget!

Crawling: May 7, 2013-- I had been working on a craft project on the floor, when I set the scissors down on the floor next to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Finn crawl straight for them. I wasn't certain however, so when Ben came home that night we put Finn on the floor and turned on his remote controlled car and sure enough, he crawled straight to it!

Pulling himself up to standing: May, 19, 2013-- We were skyping with Ben's family, when Finn used Ben's legs to pull himself up into standing position. By the following week, after some tremendous falls, he could pull himself up using just about any object.

Standing solo: June 1, 2013-- I was working at the computer while Finn was pounding his pacifier on a plastic box file box on the floor. The pounding stopped and I looked down and he was standing for the briefest moment with the pacifier in both hands. He promptly fell right over and needed quite the mommy cuddle to recover!

First steps holding onto furniture: June 3, 2013-- While talking with Lisa via FaceTime, Finn took several steps to move himself from the plastic file box to his toy bin ( all while holding onto those objects). Miraculously he did not fall over during this endeavor but rather did a controlled sit when he was done standing.

First initiated peek-a-boo: June 4, 2013-- while I was cleaning up after breakfast, I left a towel within Finn's reach. He grabbed it and started hiding behind it and peeking out at Ben.

Baby-led Weaning

As we approached Finn's 6 month birthday, I started putting a lot of thought into how to go about feeding him his first solid foods. I had read about Baby-led Weaning in my breast feeding book and it intrigued me from the very start. So, as is usually the case when I don't know what I'm doing, I ordered a couple of books on the subject of feeding baby; Wholesome Baby Foods (which is a book promoting purees) and Baby-led Weaning.

After reading both, I decided that I wanted to try Baby-led weaning, however, I was glad that I had purchased the other book as well, since the author of Baby-led Weaning didn't offer much in the way of what foods were appropriate for each age group and Wholesome Baby foods provided a lot more detailed instruction on that front.

Finn seemed to be very interested in watching us eat so I was confident that when we gave him his first foods, he would dive right in and be a great eater from the start. As usual, things did not go as I had hoped. Finn would barely touch the food at first and when he did bring some of it to his mouth, he would get the most disgusted look on his face. When he did manage to take a bite of something, there was usually a lot of choking and gagging, which was hard enough to watch, but what was worse was that there was once again blood in his diaper (even though I hadn't had coffee in months). So after some intestinal distress and an intense bout of crying that prompted me to call his doctor, we decided to put a hold on solid foods for a couple of weeks and give his little digestive system a chance to recover and mature a little more.

So after a couple weeks of just breast milk, some probiotic and water, we started again, except this time I tried doing purees and spoon feeding him. What a disaster! Not only was preparing purees tremendously time consuming, I couldn't get Finn to eat much more than a spoonful. After a couple of weeks it had gotten to the point where just putting him in the high chair caused him to purse his lips and turn his head away!

Then one night after failing to feed him, yet again, Ben came into the kitchen and started eating some of the green beans that were still left in the steamer after dinner. Finn was watching him intently and Ben asked if he could give him one. I saw no reason why not, so Ben gave Finn a green bean and to our surprise, he devoured it. We gave him another and another with the same result.

Well that settled it. I wasn't going to bust my buns any longer on purees that he wouldn't eat if I could just give him the same foods we were eating, so back to baby-led weaning we went and it has been amazing. I am constantly in awe of how well he handles his food and how much of it he actually eats. He seems to like just about everything we put in front of him. The only two exceptions seem to be rice and broccoli. For some reason he won't even touch those foods with his hands, much less bring them to his mouth for a taste.

I'm so glad we gave it another shot. It has been so much more fun for both of us and I'm so proud that he is such capable and confidant eater!

Football in the face

In our attempt to get out of the house and do something fun on Sundays (as opposed to just doing chores), we took a picnic to Coronado to listen to the live big band music that they offer at the ferry landing on Sunday afternoons. We picked out a quiet spot on the grass between two groups of older people and settled down. Finn was too cute as he ate his sandwich and then he just played by himself while Ben and I enjoyed the music (which was not a big band, but rather a jazz trio). Then a large group of people came and sat near us. They had a bunch of kids and balls galore. Right away I felt that this was too crowded a place to let kids throw balls around. But unfortunately, none of the adults with this group seemed to think so. One of the dads and his kid started throwing a football back and forth right behind us. I turned to Ben and said "If they aren't careful they're going to hit Finn right in the face!" The words were no sooner out of my mouth, than the dad missed catching the football and it came bouncing toward us and hit Finn square in the face. Finn didn't cry at all, so I can only assume that he wasn't hurt. I think he would have cried even if he had been overly startled, so I really think there was no damage done. The adult came over and apologized repeatedly (almost too much) and asked if Finn was OK. They stopped playing catch, but soon several more of the children in their party started throwing more balls and frisbees around so that Ben and I decided we had to get up and leave or risk Finn being injured by a stray ball. It really is a shame because all three of us were really enjoying the lovely day and music. Those people should have been very embarrassed, but sadly I don't think they cared. Hopefully, when Finn is older and wants to throw a ball around in a crowded area, I remember this story and tell him "no".

Mother's Day

I celebrated my first official Mother's Day last weekend. It went surprisingly well, considering we have a nine month old with an unpredictable napping schedule! I got a bouquet of flowers and a lovely card, which Ben had Finn sign as well. Apparently, this was a courageous endeavor because Finn started wielding the pen like a spear as soon as he grabbed it. Finn napped beautifully (which is my measure of a good day) and we had a lovely outing to Balboa Park, where we rode on the carousel. I wouldn't say Finn loved it, but he didn't hate it either. It also happened to be the day Norway House was open in the international village. They had good food and music. However, when someone asked his name and we replied "Finnleif" they didn't understand it. If his name isn't recognized at Norway house, what's the point! Clearly we need to move to a place with more Scandinavians.

9 month check-up

To begin, I have to report that Finn started crawling last night (5/7/13). I thought I saw him do it out of the corner of my eye in the afternoon. I was working on a project on the floor and Finn was coming over to investigate, but wasn't making much progress. But then as I turned to pick up my scissors off the floor next to me, there he was at my elbow, reaching for the scissors. How in the world do babies seem to know what the most dangerous objects around them are and then have an all-consuming desire to play with them! But I wasn't certain he had crawled to me since I hadn't really seen it. So when Ben came home, we put him down on the floor and put his remote control car just out of reach, and sure enough he crawled right to it without stopping to rest his belly on the floor or even sit down. Heaven help me!

He had his 9 month check-up yesterday as well. It went ok. He weighed 18 pounds, 12 ounces, which I thought was pretty good, but apparently moves him down into the 20th percentile for weight. His doctor didn't seem worried about it, but I felt frustrated because for the last 3 months I've been working really hard on trying to make sure he gets enough breast milk. He's nursing every 2 hours or so during the day and then all night long! And on top of that, he's been eating pretty nutritionally dense solid foods. Really the only for me to do is not to worry about it. Ha! That's funny!

Sleeping has been a real challenge lately with all this crawling practice. It's as though some unseen force is compelling him to practice crawling at all times. So it has become increasingly difficult to get him down for naps and at night not only is it difficult to get him to go to sleep, it's hard to get him to stay asleep. He just keeps popping up on all fours or sitting up and then crying because he is so tired, but he just can't seem to relax enough to sleep!

So, of course, we had this happen during nap time before his doctor appointment and by the time he was just about to go to sleep, we had to get ready to leave, so he was crying while we got ready to go, he feel asleep in the car, then I had to wake him to take him out, which made him cry some more. Then at the doctor's office, he would cry if anyone but me got near him, which made examining him that much more difficult. Thank goodness he didn't have to get any shots!

Crawling

Here we are. Finn is days (maybe hours) away from being mobile. It's fun to watch him learn this new skill, but scary at the same time. As usual, just when I start to feel comfortable with our daily life, Finn starts changing and growing up again. Back in the difficult days of new motherhood, I sometimes found myself wishing time would speed up, and now I wish it would slow down! It really is the "longest shortest time".

Finn is just too cute. He can either move his arms or his legs, but not both. And when he does move his legs, he tends to move them both together in a little bunny hop move. He's actually getting around really well, even without officially crawling. He does a sit, stretch, wiggle, sit maneuver that gets him across the room. I was working on paying the bills the other day and taking a peek at him every few minutes, when all of the sudden he wasn't there! He had wiggled himself around the jumperoo. I thought he had taken off down the hall. Nearly gave me a heart attack!

Ben was walking by this age, but I am so thankful that my genes are holding him back a little bit! We've been baby proofing like crazy, but we still have a long way to go. And I'm sure that as soon as we think we've made the house safe, Finn will prove us wrong!

I feel such a mix of emotions about Finn crawling. I'm both looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time!

It's been a while...

I had been wondering why I stopped blogging for a little while and after reading a few entries that I made but never posted, I think I understand why!!  Sleep had me incredibly frustrated.  I wish I could say that we miraculously worked things out and that he now sleeps through the night in his crib, but I can't.  However, I can say that bedtime and naptime are no longer fraught with such angst and frustration. 

Finn sleeps in our bed now full time for both naps and at night and our routine is simple and relaxing for both of us generally.  There are downsides of course, but I think I have made my peace with our situation for the present and have finally surrendered to being the mother that I am of the child that I have. 

I know that last statement makes it sound like I am somehow disappointed with myself and my son and am just settling for the best I can get, but nothing could be further from the truth.  I know that I am a good mom, however, if you had asked me while I was pregnant what kind of parent I wanted to be the answer would have been totally different from the parent I became once I was a mother. But for my first 4 months of being a mom, I clung to that old picture of motherhood and fought my natural instincts.  But once I let go and surrendered myself to my son and to my new role as mother, things got better on their own.  Sleeping with my baby became the most natural thing in the world, my fear that I would somehow smother him in my sleep became almost laughable, and my body stopped aching even though I still didn't experience much freedom of movement during the night.

And as for Finn, even though I knew that he was one of the best babies I had ever seen, I put too much stock in what my books said my baby should be like because they were written by doctors and I wore myself out trying to conform Finn to that picture.  I foolishly believed these authors when they said I should put my baby down sleepy but awake and that he should fall asleep without complaint and that he should sleep through the night by the age of 4 months and that the most dangerous place for my baby to sleep is next to me in my bed.  Now I wonder if any of these doctors are even actually parents. Or perhaps they can afford 24/7 childcare and don't really know what's going on in their own nurseries.  Or they may possibly be in the pocket of crib manufacturers.  Either way, I did myself a disservice by heeding such advice and believing that my son's desire to sleep close to his parents was a reflection of some failing of mine as a mother.

Now to recap Finn's developmental milestones over the past few months.  He rolled over from tummy to back for the first time in early December while Daphne Buren was visiting.  I joked that he just needed a pretty lady to show off for.  By Christmas he was starting to get his elbows and knees under him and was able to sit up by propping himself up on his hands. 

In mid-January, I developed Mastitis.  I had thought that was something that breastfeeding newbies got, not an old pro like me, but sadly I was mistaken.  It was a rough 10 days.  Mastitis is every bit as painful a condition as people say it is and the fact that you feel all-over lousy, doesn't help matters.  My mom came out to help me get back on my feet.  We discovered then that Finn wasn't too sure about strangers all of the sudden.  He would cry loudly with big, fat tears every time my mom tried to hold him and it took 2 days for him to get used to her.  Hopefully he gets over this quickly, since his other grandma is coming out to visit in April, but she is only staying 3 days and it won't do to have him screaming and crying every time she tries to hold him!

At the end of January we started Finn on solid foods.  I'll try to post more on this later, but suffice it to say, he is not the biggest fan of solids and his little digestive system really dislikes them too.  We had to stop for a few weeks to get his gut back on track. 

He had his 6 month well-baby check at the beginning of February and although he is now in the 75 percentile for height, he has dropped down into the 25 percentile for weight.  This was of concern both to me and his doctor.  She suggested I try to feed him more breast milk and more solid foods.  I am wondering how I am supposed to do either, since I already nurse him every couple hours during the day (I don't even put a bra on until Ben calls and needs to be picked up most days) and 2-4 times a night and he rejects most attempts to feed him solids to the point where I'm lucky if I get a couple teaspoons of food in him per day!  Oh well, its just another one of those problems that I will frantically seek to solve and in the end, Finn will take care of it in his own way and on his own time.

Today is Finn's 7 month birthday and he can now roll tummy to back with ease and enjoyment.  He can roll from back to tummy while in bed (which means he often likes to sleep on his tummy) but he won't do it on the floor yet.  He will get up on his side and, as Ben observes, a breath of wind could knock him over, but he won't go the rest of the way yet.  Perhaps the trauma of early tummy time still lingers in his subconscious.  He sits up without help from us or his own hands for longer and longer stretches every day.  I have taken to putting a pillow behind him when he's practicing sitting because he also finds it hilarious to pitch himself backwards every now and then.  He says Ma-Ma and Mommy all the time.  We keep trying to get him to say Da-Da but have not had any luck so far.  He has developed an affinity for his parents faces and spends a great deal of time grabbing our glasses, pinching our cheeks and trying to bite our noses.  He loves playing peek-a-boo in the bathroom mirror and with the sheets in our bed.  Ben and I spend most of our time with him playing silly games and making exaggerated faces and he rewards us with his adorable laugh.

Sleep

Here's another one I never published about sleep...

My son is healthy and happy.  He rarely fusses or cries, and all day long he offers me big beautiful smiles and adorable coos and giggles.  So why do I feel like I am a complete failure as a mother?  Because he won't sleep, at least not in the way I think he should.

During the day I can only get a 20-30 minute nap out of him and that's only if I spend 40 minutes or more soothing him to sleep....However, if I put him in his swing, he will be asleep within minutes and will sleep for hours.  Yet I beat myself up every day that I give up trying to get him to nap in his crib and put him in the swing.  I feel like a horrible parent for letting a mechanical motor do my mothering for me.  I wonder constantly what will happen to us in the not too distant future when he is too big for his swing and I no longer have a sure-fire napping resource at my disposal.   

At night I can spend up to 2 hours soothing him to sleep for bed.  At best these days he will sleep for 2 hours in his crib.  At worst he wakes up after 30-60 minutes.  It's getting to the point where I absolutely dread the end of the day.  Trying to get him to go to sleep and stay asleep has become the worst most stressful part of my life.  Usually by about 2 am when I have had 1 hours sleep total for the night, I give up and bring him into bed with me to nurse him because I don't feel I can stay vertical any longer.  My intention is always to take him back to his crib, once he's back asleep, but I always end up falling asleep as well and I wake up 2 hours later with my baby nestled up next to me, sound asleep.  This terrifies me.  I'm so scared that our family bed is not a safe place for my baby to sleep. Most attempts to return him to his crib after bringing him into bed with me fail and I end up with him in bed with us for the rest of the night.  I tend to not get much sleep at that point due to the discomfort of being stuck in an awkward position for hours at a time (Baby constantly scooting closer to me, me constantly scooting away from baby until he nearly pushes me out of bed) and my worry that if I don't stay awake, something will happen to him in the night.

The guilt, frustration and anger I am beginning to feel over this issue of sleep is really starting to wear on me.  I want to give my son the best care I can, but in this matter of sleep, I don't know what that is.  Does sleep still count as sleep if it takes place outside of the crib?  

Finn's Newest Trick

Found this one in the archive that I never published...

Over the weekend Finn had a major breakthrough during Tummy Time.  On Friday whenever we did Tummy Time he would do his usual routine of smushing his face into the floor and crying the whole time, but on Saturday morning (after a particularly good night's sleep thanks in part to the swing, but more on that later) I was playing for him and heaving a sigh because it was time to put him on his tummy -- "play" that was feeling more and more like a chore for both of us -- and when I put him down, he just picked his head up and looked around smiling at me.  I was amazed and thought it must just be a fluke, but we did lots of tummy time for the rest of the day and every time he kept his head up the entire time.  Now he won't put it down! One of my friends, who has a baby 2 months older than Finn, said that for her baby, it was like something just clicked one day.  I didn't really believe her.  I thought it had to be a gradual process that babies worked up to, but clearly I was wrong.  In just 12 hours Finn went from not being able or willing to pick his head up to only holding his head up high.  In just the couple days that has passed since Saturday, Finn has also started reaching for things while on his tummy and trying very hard to roll over -- the fact that he can't quite yet is the only thing that now upsets him about tummy time!

As thrilled as I am that Finn has reached this huge milestone, I'm finding myself still feeling like a failure in the Mom department because of all the sleep struggles that we're having.  And maybe its not as bad as I think, but the lack of sleep I'm experiencing has warped my perspective a bit.  On a good night, he'll fall asleep at the breast sometime between 7 and 8 pm and Ben and I are able to transfer him into his bassinet without waking him and he'll stay asleep for 5 hours.  After that first waking though, anything can happen.  Sometimes he's awake every hour or two and needs help falling back asleep.  Rarely he wakes up every couple hours and soothes himself back to sleep.  Even more rarely he will sleep an additional 3-4 hours without waking.

Last night for example, he was awake at 8:30, I fed him and put him back to sleep in his bassinet.  Then he was awake at 10:30, I fed him in bed because I was too tired to be vertical and at 11:30 attempted to put him back in his bassinet.  He immediately woke up.  I let him roll around for a while, hoping he would self soothe, but it escalated to crying so I picked him up and rocked him for a few minutes and he went right back to sleep.  I attempted another transfer and he woke up again.  I tried feeding him again and he nursed a little bit before falling asleep.  I tried to put him in his bassinet again and he stayed asleep for a few minutes before waking crying.  At this point is was 12:30 and I had to wake Ben.  I needed a break for a few minutes.  Ben rocked Finn back to sleep while I got myself a piece of toast and a cup of tea.  Ben put him down and Finn awoke crying again.  We went through the checklist of things that could be bothering him and tried to address them all.  I ended up nursing him again at which point he filled his diaper and promptly went to sleep.  That meant that I had to change him and when I did so, he woke up.  I tried to nurse and rock him back to sleep, but he wouldn't have it and I was too worn out to go on much longer, so I put him in his bassinet and wheeled it out into the living room and brought his swing into our room and placed in next to the bed.  I put him in it and turned it on and he was asleep withing 10 minutes.  I turned the swing off and he slept without making a peep from 1:30 am to 6:30 am.

This is the second time we have resorted to using the swing for nighttime sleeping when all else has failed and each time he has slept amazingly well. Frustrated doesn't even begin to describe what I'm feeling.