Merry Christmas

such a boy

I was reading an article about the differences in fetal hormones in boys vs girls and how some of the residue from the plastics used to process foods (phthalates) that we are all ingesting are screwing them up (they essentially mimic estrogen) so that baby/toddler boys with high levels of phthalates are not engaging in as much "masculine" play (using sticks as toy guns, etc) as those with low levels. But so far Jonathan is all boy for example.

A few days ago he started really going to town on the lobster WWF style.


In the video below he is just dealing his victory body slams (I didn't get the camera out quite in time to catch the hard core wholoping). But he has really taken the drooling to a new level- notice the foaming spittle dripping off his chin and the snot bubble caught on camera.

pooping and sippy cups

Jonathan has been having a problem with his pooping. I guess he hasn't really been bothered by it, but I am concerned that he has suddenly transitioned from pooping 1-2x a day to pooping once every 7-10 days. I called the pediatrician last week when we realized that it had been 10 days since his last poop and the pediatric nurse who called me back to discuss the problem didn't really believe me that there had been no significant change to his diet and seemed to think that I must be slipping something in with that breast milk. Anyway her suggestions were to "stimulate him rectally" with rectal thermometer for 10-15 minutes or give him some apple juice. Well it wasn't super hard to decide which to try first.

Anyway, something about drinking juice from a bottle just seems wrong to me. So I decided to put a few ounces of apple juice in a sippy-cup for him. Mistake. While he is super interested in trying to drink from a regular cup, he thought the sippy-cup was just a fun toy. I held it while he drank the first few sips and then let him hold it while I turned away ever so briefly. And in the miliseconds I had my head turned Jonathan started shaking the cup upside-down over his head. Juice was pouring out of it all over everything. Awesome.

another worry

babies drink milk; children eat food

The trouble is that babies miraculously transition into children, but I have no idea how to transition from milk and mashed-smashed-pureed mush into cheerios and chunks of banana without Jonathan choking and dying. Several of my "baby's first year guides" have all suggested that about now babies are ready to begin "experimenting" with finger food and list "well ripened pears" as a potential starting point. So this morning as I was eating slices of a "well ripened pear" and holding Jonathan, I let him hold onto a slice and mush on it with his gums and mini-tooth. He loved it and was vigorously gumming at the pear when I noticed that he had actually scraped a good bit off and had a mouthful of mushy pear goo. He wasn't choking or caughing or distressed in any way. I panicked. I turned him on his tummy, whacked on his back and frantically dug all of the pear mush out of his mouth with my forefinger- just as I'd learned in infant CPR. And that made him distressed. But it occured to me that "experimenting" implies there will be some trial and error- but here error could be fatal. I guess now that the serious risk of SIDs has somewhat diminished, I can focus on choking to death as my new obsessive worry.

worse to better

Aaahh, sweet relief!  Last night Jonathan slept from 7-11:30 and then until 3am and then until 6am.   And this without me having a plan yet.  Getting up 2x a night obviously still isn't ideal, but it sure beats getting up 6x a night!

from bad to worse

I know most babies sleep better than Jonathan, and we are going from bad to worse over here. At his best he sleeps for 12-14 hours and wakes up every 4-5 hours to eat. At his wost we have last night. He woke up crying 6 times between 7pm and 8am: 10pm, 12:30am, 2am, 2:30am, 4am, and 6am. And I don't mean that he woke up whimpering and fussing a little bit. I am talking all out, full-blown, shreak-sobbing. Over the weekend he woke like this 1hour after nursing and since it had been such a short time and was the middle of the night and we were trying to discourage this sort of pattern we decided to grin and bear it and wait it out- and he wailed for a full hour before I broke down and nursed him again.

I am working on a plan- I don't know what it is, but there has to be something!!

milestones

We lowered the mattress in Jonathan's crib yesterday. In my naive mind there are three makers that distinguish between a "little" baby and a "big" baby: sitting up on own, sleeping in a crib at the lower setting, and crawling. So, along with his 7 month birthday this past week, lowering the matress is freaking me out. I guess I thought we would never get to this point. All summer I would read about/talk to mothers who had 7, 8 or 9 month old babies and I would think "I have nothing in common with this woman- Jonathan is a little baby and 7-9 month olds are big" Sort of the way poodles are little dogs and great danes are big dogs. And now that my little baby is becoming a big baby it is dawning on me that he will, in fact, become a toddler and then a little boy and then a boy and then a teenager..... And that I probably have a lot more in common with mothers of 5 year olds than I think!!

heart

One of the many hard things about loosing someone you love is how it makes you close off your heart. I find myself consciously thinking things like "no, don't call that person, you don't want to get too close- it'll only hurt more when you inevitably have to say good-bye" or starting to make mental lists of friendships I could jettison to guard my heart against future loss. I am shocked that I consciously think these things! (I am scared to think about what is going on subconsciously). I think it would be really easy for me to start to wall myself off to guard my heart. It would feel good. It would feel safe. I would enjoy nestling into my pain and letting it poison my heart.

Every time I catch myself I have to talk me back from the edge and remember that all of those things that make it hard when you say goodbye are all of the exact same things that make life worth living in the first place. And that I believe life is worth living and that somehow, mysteriously, the joy outweighs the pain.