Sentimental Seadragon

Sayings: 2 years 11 months

Although I haven't had the time to blog lately, I've been keeping track of a few of the things Squeakles has said lately.

Some of them are silly.

• I found an arm pasta! (referring to a piece of elbow macaroni)
• (when he misplaced something) I thought it was here, but I couldn't think where it might be!
• They drinked a little bit of that water, remember that, when Mommy was there lasternight?

And then there are the ones about crying. Sometimes Squeakles tells us in advance that he's going to cry, and other times he simply says he's going to cry but doesn't actually do it...

• J: Furikake is not for fingers. And now I have to put it away.
  Squeakles: And now... I have ... (face crumpling) ... to cry.
• Squeakles was put in a time out in his crib for biting me (it wasn't hard, but it was the gesture). He screamed and yelled for us to come back and get him. Eventually J went back to tell him that he could get out when he stopped screaming at us.
  J: You can get up when you stop yelling.
  Squeakles: PLEASE CAN I JUST YELL?!!!
• Yesterday Squeakles locked the pantry door, which for some reason has the lock on the inside of the door, so once it's locked you can't open it unless you happen to be inside the pantry. Although I didn't yell at Squeakles for doing it, my frustration was obvious on my face. I don't think Squeakles was mocking me by what he said next, but I do think he was channeling what I was feeling and was trying to figure out how he should act in response to the locked door. He stopped still and said, in a very sad sounding voice, "I'm so sad. I have a tear. A tear is coming out of my eye and going down my face. I'm crying." Then he turned and stood right in front of the locked door and said in a particularly woeful voice, "I'm so sad."
  (Eventually I managed to get the door open by sliding my arm up through the space between the wooden slats which I'd thought were barely wide enough to stick a finger in but which J noticed had enough give to fit my entire forearm.)

And what is the Weeble saying lately? Some "da", some "tha", and lots and lots of raspberries. She stands up in the exersaucer, balls up her little fists, takes a deep breath, and then turns red in the face as she spits and makes raspberry noises for as long as she can. It's really hilarious.

Little Chef

I'm training Squeakles to be a chef. I figure if I start now, by the time he's able to use the cutlery and the oven by himself that he'll be fully equipped to cook us full course gourmet meals.

Most of the time I make dinner without his help. It's a lot faster that way. But sometimes he sees what I'm doing and asks to help, so I come up with various ways that he can be involved. Tonight it started with the asparagus - he handed me each stalk of asparagus from the container so that I could slice off the leaves. (Those spiky things are leaves, right?)

He was clearly interested in doing more, so we pulled the stool up to the counter so he could get to work. He broke off the tough ends of each asparagus stalk, brushed them with olive oil, and sprinkled salt and pepper over them. (As he pinched the salt I'd poured into his palm and sprinkled it over the asparagus he commented, "just like snow!")

I put the asparagus in the broiler, and we moved onto the salmon (this recipe). We started with the same method - Squeakles brushed them with olive oil and sprinkled them with salt and pepper. We then sprinkled on some ground rosemary (which, by the way, I highly recommend buying cut up in a jar - it's just as fresh tasting as fresh rosemary, doesn't go bad, and is so much easier), placed lemon slices over the fish, sprinkled freshly squeezed lemon juice and white wine (with a bit on the side for Mommy to drink), and then finally sprinkled some capers on the top.

While the salmon cooked, we ate the asparagus fresh out of the broiler while standing at the counter. Squeakles devoured at least six stalks and only stopped when there was no more to eat. The salmon only took ten minutes to cook (and actually, should have been cooked for slightly less time because the fillets were somewhat thin) and were ready the moment we finished with the asparagus. I moved Squeakles to his high chair and brought him the salmon cut up over a bowl of leftover basmati rice from the weekend. He took one bite and said "I looooove it!"

My job is done.

Not Sleeping

We hope to pass on our good traits to our children, and when we see the not so good traits we work hard to help them conquer them. Unfortunately, I seem to have passed on the terrible-sleep-gene to Squeakles who spent over two hours last night lying in his crib trying to go to sleep. Some nights he does a better job than others at actually lying there the whole time, staying quiet and trying to go to sleep, calling out every 20 minutes or so for a sip of water or a trip to the potty, or when he realizes that we won't keep getting him up for these things, then at the very least he wants a hug. When he whines and yells, as he sometimes does, we make a big point of not capitulating to his demands, knowing that both the whining and the things he wants are not going to help him sleep. But on the nights like last night, when he lays there quietly, trying his best to sleep for over two hours, I definitely sympathize.

Not being able to sleep is a tough spot to be in, and it only gets worse as you get older and not only have more things to worry about, but earlier and earlier times that you have to wake up in the morning. All my life I've been a night owl and have trouble sleeping when I do finally go to bed. I have memories of trying to convince my parents to let me stay up as late as possible, and when that failed, sneaking a book under the covers. You'd think that being tired would be enough to make falling asleep a natural outcome, but this just wasn't always the case.

Eventually I learned that I can usually get past it by counting and I find that I rarely make it to 100 before falling asleep. (My rule is usually that if I get to 100 then I can get out of bed and do something else for a little while.) So clearly my problem is in my head. It's a matter of putting my thoughts to rest, and if I can't, then lulling them out of consciousness.

If only Squeakles could count past 20. And in numerical order, rather than bits and pieces of ordered strings and numbers, such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 3, 17! (The exclamation point there is meant to indicate Squeakles' final shriek as he reaches what he thinks is the final number in the sequence.) Or maybe it doesn't matter if they're actually in order as long as he thinks they are.

The Last Seven Months

It's almost 11:30 pm as I start writing* and I am up because the Weeble has recently decided to abandon her early-to-bed routine that we so loved in place of a night-owl schedule that is probably closer to our own tendencies but which we are trying very, very hard to avoid because we have to, you know, get up early and work! I get up every morning at 6:30 am and I have to say, staying up until midnight or later every night means that by the end of the week I am seriously dragging.

We've been placing Weeble on her belly when she's up late in the hopes that it will wear her out. During the day, she doesn't last long on her belly before complaining. But at night she revels in it - laughing whenever she makes eye contact with us and trying to drag herself around the floor. (Last night she dragged herself at least three feet over to one side and clung on to the bottom of the exersaucer - not bad for a baby who cannot crawl at all.)

So while I wait for her to become tired, I thought I'd go through a summary of the past seven months with Weeble:

Sleeping

From the beginning, Weeble has been a fantastic sleeper. In fact, she slept so much the first couple of months that I kept asking the doctor if she was ok. He reassured me that she was fine and that babies can vary a lot. Well, my memory of Squeakles is that he hardly slept from the moment he was born, and getting him to sleep (and to stay asleep) was always a struggle (and often still is). But Weeble seems to love to go to sleep and from the moment we let her sleep uninterrupted (without waking her up to feed her) she regularly sleeps for 10-12 hours straight. I still can't believe it.

The only "trouble" she gives us is that we have to bounce her in our arms until she falls asleep, rather than just putting her in her bed and walking away. But this is not much of a hardship since it takes ten minutes tops for her to fall asleep, and it's often under five minutes. I've never seen anyone fall asleep so quickly on a regular basis. (Well, except J. So I suppose that's where she gets it. In contrast, I need at least 20 minutes to ruminate and worry before I finally get too tired to keep thinking of new things to stress about.)

Breastfeeding

After a really difficult time breastfeeding Squeakles, I thought I was prepared to go in fighting to make this time successful from the beginning. I believed the key to avoiding supplmenting was a better latch from the beginning, fighting off any advice to supplement, and breastfeeding as often as possible (but at the same time, not waking the baby up any more than necessary). But it turns out, I might really just have a low milk supply.

I fought at this for two months straight, feeding Weeble 10-12 times a day (in spite of the fact that she slept around the clock). But by her third week, she was still losing weight! I did start supplementing her, but continued the pace of breastfeeding as if there was no supplement. Then she started gaining weight, so I was hopeful that eventually I could pull back the supplement, just as I had done with Squeakles (it had taken a few months for that to be possible, and as soon as I did it, I went back to work and couldn't keep up through pumping). Once Weeble started gaining weight, I was no longer instructed to wake her every 2-3 hours to feed and soon enough she started having about ten hours of awake time (noon to 5 pm, and midnight to 5 am). I tried to work in feedings during these times, but I suspect that the long periods without breastfeeding did not help my supply.

Through all of this, I worked to maintain a good latch, but something just wasn't quite right. It started to get painful - so painful that I thought it was thrush. My doctor, over the phone, doubted me and started me on antibiotics for mastitis. But I didn't have a fever (except when I coincidentally got sick, but that fever came and went), and when I finally went into the doctor he agreed it wasn't mastitis. But he also said it wasn't thrush. No, I had breast trauma! My nipples were extremely sore and there were blisters. That is truly as gross and uncomfortable as it sounds - no, worse, because I had to breastfeed anyway.

And yet, I fought and fought... until I lost. I went back to work right after my 8 week maternity leave was up and with pumping I simply couldn't keep up the pace I'd been doing breastfeeding. At the end of six months, I stopped breastfeeding completely because my supply had dropped to almost nothing and Weeble was resisting trying to breastfeed under those conditions.

I would say more about what a major disappointment this was for me, but I don't really want to delve into it right now, especially since there's nothing I can do about it. Instead I try to focus on the fact that we have an incredibly healthy and wonderful baby, and all the time I save being able to share feedings with other people, not having to pump at work, not having to cover myself up in order to feed the baby while I'm out, and getting to wear shirts and dresses that don't have elaborate clasps and holes to give easy access to my boobs.

Eating

We've recently started giving "solids" - so far sweet potato, carrots, and broccoli. All of these have gone down very easily. When I regain my perspective on the "lost" breastfeeding, I remember how much I enoyed (and still enjoy) making baby foods. I am hopeful that Weeble will be as willing to eat everything as Squeakles is, but could I really be so lucky?

I'm feeling particularly ambitious and want to try Brussels sprouts next.

Diapering

We've switched to disposible diapers. I debated with myself for a long time over this and eventually concluded that I did not have the time to be washing out poopy diapers and covers right now. Anyway, Weeble's bum wasn't dealing well with the wetness of cloth diapers. I am also pretty sure that our babysitters are relieved not to have to clean out cloth diapers either!

Sitting

Weeble certainly sits up, but needs support or nearby hands because within a few minutes she usually tips over or faceplants. (Thus her nickname.)

Talking

About three weeks ago, Weeble starting babbling, saying ba, ga, da, ta, ka, ma, fa, va, and that same weird syllable that Squeakles said - boeuv. (Rhymes with oeuf, the French word for egg.) Then a week later she stopped saying almost all of them, though ba and ma slip out from time to time. Now da is starting to come back.

Playing the Piano

We have one of those little four-key plastic pianos and when we place it on Weeble's lap, she looooooves to bang on it. Sometimes what comes out is actually almost melodic, kind of like how you get Shakespearean poetry when you have 100 monkeys typing, or something like that.

Personality

So far so good! She smiles (a lot). She's fairly easy going. (Unless you take away a toy she was really enjoying, like my old baby rattle that she was gagging herself with, then she screams with real frustration.) She enjoys watching Squeakles play, and it's very easy to get her to laugh.

Siblings

Since Weeble didn't come with a set of wheels, Squeakles was pretty uninterested in her for the first few months. He didn't show any obvious jealousy either, but we do think he suffered a bit from the undivided attention he was used to. He definitely went through a whiny period which is now finally starting to get better. (At the very least, he knows he's not "supposed" to whine and he usually can stop on demand, especially if he's confident that he'll get what he's asking for if only he uses his "normal" voice.)

More recently Squeakles has started to show a little more interest in Weeble. He likes to let her pull his hair - he goes over to her and rests his head in her lap, and then says "ouchie" when she pulls it. He also imitates our baby talk to her and will gently point out her eyes, cooing "l'il baby eyes" in a high pitched voice. I absolutely need to get this on video because it's so cute.

 

* And of course it ended up taking me almost a week more to finish the post!

A Lesson Learned

Last night, just before bed, Squeakles was wandering around the living room when he noticed a little crumb on the floor just by his feet. In a swift coordinated movement, pacifier was removed and little crumb injested. Just as quickly, I jumped to my feet crying "Spit it out, spit it out" and shoved my fingers in his mouth trying to find whatever he'd just put in his mouth. J jumped up to help as well, and as I removed a tiny, tiny piece of something now unidentifiable, I said I thought it might have been cat throw up.

It's not like we always have cat throw up on our floors, but we'd been away for several days and when we'd gotten home the previous night, there was cat throw up on Squeakles' play mat. I'd cleaned it right away and vacuumed the whole living room, but I hadn't done the most thorough job around the edges so I worried that what Squeakles had done was unearth something that I'd missed.

Squeakles had thought he'd just picked up a piece of animal cracker that he might have dropped earlier, but the thought of it being cat throw up made him burst in tears. "Get it out of my mouf!" he cried.

In the meantime, J and I considered what the crumb might have been: cat vomit, an errant animal cracker, or maybe even a piece of tracked-in cat litter. At that latter suggestion, Squeakles cried even harder. J commented that maybe Squeakles would have to throw it up, and Squeakles wailed at the thought.

At this point I thought we needed to tone down the drama, but J was seriously concerned it would make Squeakles sick, and he also thought that the more Squeakles was freaked out by what he'd eaten that he'd be that much less likely to eat things off the floor again in the future. But Squeakles was getting a little hysterical by now so I tried to comfort him and tell him he'd be just fine. I think he thought he was on the verge of death - or at least, the verge of having to throw up. (Coincidentally, he'd thrown up the day before, so the memory of throwing up was very recent in his mind.)

We got out a bowl in case Squeakles did throw up, but it never happened. I offered to brush his teeth to get any little bits out of his teeth, and I've never seen him quite so willing to have his mouth scrubbed out. He drank a little bit of water and it was declared time for bed.

While J changed him into a nighttime diaper (he's potty trained for the most part, but not necessarily when he's in a deep sleep), Squeakles cried and cried. "Daddy's gonna read you a story and then I'm gonna go to bed and CRY!!" J told him that the best thing he could do right now is sleep because when you sleep your body fights off germs.

So Squeakles and J cuddled together in a chair while J told him a happy bedtime story (unrelated to cat vomit) and then put him in bed.

Squeakles had the usual nighttime wakings - a request to go to the potty and several wakings between 10 pm and 2 am due to a very congested nose. But he slept for about 11 hours in total and woke up much recovered. I would have expected Squeakles to have forgotten the whole incident from the previous night, but when J went in his room to get him, the first thing Squeakles said was "Did I fight off the germs last night?"

J reassured him that indeed he did, and hopefully from this point forward he will never touch another crumb on the ground again.