pre-toddler

There has been a slight regression in Eddie's behavior lately. He is acting very needy at times - wanting to be held a lot, wanting to have "scooby snacks" (my nickname for boob sessions that occur outside of the usual pre-sleep schedule) and waking up a lot more during the night. He was sleeping through the night consistently for about two weeks, but now for the past week he has woken up once or twice a night to feed. I think he is just acting normal for his age, as he enters toddlerdom and explores with his new found sense of individuality and independence through his ability to move about and make decisions on his own. Not sure if "pre-toddler" is an actual term, but that is what I think accurately describes him right now. Sometimes he acts very independent, plays actively on his own and does not seem to need any attention, and at other times he acts still like a baby with high needs. The other day while visiting with cousin Noah he became very jealous of my holding and feeding a bottle to Noah that he literally climbed into the chair to be in my lap and stole Noah's bottle, sucking on the nipple. I had to put Noah down so that Eddie could then nurse - a little scooby snack was all he wanted. The exciting thing about this stage though is that the world is his oyster, or so I think the expression goes - he explores everything with such fervor and intensity that it never gets boring to watch his every move. He loves playing outside the most right now - he digs in the dirt with his big hands and crawls on every type of surface, even the brick and peat gravel path. He watches butterflies with wonder and hisses when the winds blow through the trees. He will love our vacation to Maine, I just know it. We leave in less than two days...so this may be the last blog entry until then...and maybe for awhile since I doubt I will have access to a computer until we are in Portland towards the end of our trip. Eddie is sure to enjoy meeting all of his cousins and relatives, and will probably love to stare at all the kids running about...maybe it will spark an urge in him to start walking...

new shoes

We had to go shopping for new shoes for Eddie. He is obviously growing because none of his shoes fit. I realized it after taking a pair off and seeing all these red indentations on his feet. So I went to two kid shoe boutiques and one baby store all in a span of a couple hours and needless to say both Eddie and I were shoed out. I felt in a panic to get something since we leave for Maine in a couple days and he needs at least one pair to where on the airplane. So I ended up getting three pairs of shoes on sale, none of which I really loved. So I had a minor breakdown that night, feeling like I made bad choices and was spending too much money on baby stuff. It's hard to be a stay home mom, have no personal income and yet also be the one making most of the household purchases. Now more than ever I feel a sense of anxiety and guilt when I spend money, even on trips to Target to get paper towel and toothpaste. Somehow the bill always adds up to over $100 and I find myself staring at the receipt as if there just may be an addition error. But how? I find myself saying. And of course baby stuff makes it so much easier to just spend spend spend. Everything seems like a necessity and you also always want "the best" for your kids, right? So what is a income-less mom with high standards of quality supposed to do? My husband has urged me to stay away from the Chicago baby boutiques and shop at the megastores - I will try, but I like to support the local businesses, the little guys, and they tend to have way better customer service and higher quality products. At one of the shoe stores they even measured Eddie's little foot - it is 19 1/2 cm, which is a size 5 in the US shoe market - and made the whole ordeal easier by just placing shoes on his feet as I held him. So I have decided that it is time to keep a baby budget - not sure why I hadn't started doing it sooner since I did keep a detailed one of all the stuff we purchased when Eddie was still in utero. I think the budget will help me feel more in control of the purchases...but as for regulating what is a necessity and what is a splurge when it comes to your own flesh and blood, I dunno, maybe nothing can really help one manage the natural instinct to nurture and ultimately spoil.

Video of the Week

Check out our guy standing up!

the thought of weaning

My breastfeeding philosophy has been and is that I will continue as long as Eddie is interested and it is conducive to our lifestyle. As a stay-home Mom there is really nothing to stop me from continuing and it still feels very natural, easy and seamless with our daily routines. But the past week Eddie has been showing signs of naturally weaning. Sometimes he just takes a few gulps and that's it, sometime he will only nurse from one breast and then leaps out of my lap to continue playing and sometimes he refuses altogether, squirming out of my arms and/or pushing me away. I don't take it personally of course - I know he just wants to play play play and has no time to take a break. The frustrating part about it though is two-fold 1) it is causing me to get painfully engorged since my milk is backing up, forcing me to pump more to relieve it, and 2) it is making me concerned about his fluid and caloric intake. I have read that he is supposed to be drinking 24-32 fluid ounces of breastmilk or formula a day, and there is no way he is getting that. I am trying to give him supplemental bottles and presenting milk in his cup with meals and in the sippy cup but he only drinks like 1-2 ounces at a time and he still cannot drink without assistance so I really can only do it during meals. He still will only suck on the nozzle of the sippy cup and bite it and play with it, but never actually gets any liquid out. I don't know what else to do. The whole transition from boob to cup or bottle to cup sounds so simple in the books, but what if your child has no interest in the cup for nutritional purposes at all? And to make matters worse, what if your child is on the slim side and he really needs those calories? The only info I have found in books discusses what to do if your child totes around the cup all day and is on the obese side.

Maybe I have done a disservice by always breastfeeding him before naps and bedtime; so now he associates boob with sleep. And since he always wants to be up and playing, he tends to get a little pissy when it is bedtime, hence he refuses the boob too. So I am trying to feed him more when he gets up from naps and throughout the day and not always in the same chair in his room, since, again, being in that chair must signal to him that it is time to go to bed. I guess only time will tell if he is truly weaning or if this is a nursing strike or what, but I feel a little lost in the woods about it all...

out the window

The whole introducing only one food at a time thing has gone out the window. Eddie has been wanting to eat whatever I am eating more and more. This week while out for lunch twice he took my sandwich and bit into it full on, eating turkey, tomato, lettuce, bread and mustard. Of course I look and the bread is full of various seeds, sunflower, flax...whatever, I say, and let him proceed to devour my lunch.

In general I find myself being a pretty lax parent when it comes to letting Eddie do what he wants, even if it seems socially unacceptable or downright dirty. He has a hard time sitting still and just wants to crawl everywhere. When carrying him, he motions to be put down all the time, even if just to examine a manhole cover (ok, of course I don't put him down in the street). But I have let him crawl around in restaurants, stores and parks. You'd be amazed how dirty the floors are in public places! His hands are black after only a few minutes of exploring. He loves it though. Crawls around so fast, with the biggest smile on his face - how could I deny him of such experience? It is getting to be more of a challenge to take him out and about though, since he wants to explore so much. In a way I cannot wait until he can walk and he can trot around on two feet instead of all fours, mostly so I am not constantly washing his hands but also because I will cease to feel the judgemental stares of onlookers.

my totie

11 months. The gap between newborn and toddler seems to have escaped us; I cannot recall a moment or day in which I felt like Eddie was no longer a baby because it seems to happen suddenly and yet your logic tells you it obviously occurred over the course of months. From pulling himself up onto objects and surfaces that appear out of his reach to opening and closing every drawer and door to climbing stairs and emptying contents out of buckets and baskets, Eddie is officially into everything. He is so active that he doesn't seem interested in eating or nursing and often squirms out of the chair to just play play play. Today we had a major scare and simultaneous realization that Eddie is no longer a baby - he climbed out of his highchair and fell. I am still sort of in shock that it happened right before my eyes - I was on the other side of our kitchen island and so I didn't see the full trajectory of his fall. It happened so fast. He was on the floor sort of on his side but it was obvious the front of his head hit because it was red. Of course he cried but not for long; the minute I picked him up he stopped. He seemed a little in shock and a little like the wind got knocked out of him. I held him as I called the doctor, whom advised that we just monitor him for signs of concussion and if he shows any then go to the emergency room of the childrens' hospital. This happened around 11 a.m. and it is now 2:45 and he is acting totally normal. He is napping now and they said to check on him every half hour and try to arouse him lightly but touching his arm or something to see if he moves. Of course I already have gone in to check on him and totally awoke him, having to re-initiate our bedtime ritual to put him back down.

My totie (short for toddler) is strong; this month amongst the usual bruises and scrapes he has sustained two split lips, a big scratch from Marty on his head and numerous tumbles. I know there will be more. He is acquiring new skills all the time now - clapping, dancing to music, raising his arms, attempts at waving and pointing. He can hand an object back to me if I ask for it. He has started throwing things. He feeds himself finger foods and grabs items from bowls to eat; loves to make a mess out of things like yogurt and oatmeal. Although he has been able to drink from a cup assisted for while now, he still hasn't mastered drinking on his own and prefers to spill the water everywhere and splash. He really likes every food I put on his tray, but especially likes his fruits (new ones include strawberries, watermelon, blueberries, peaches) and his pasta, in particular macaroni (whole wheat of course!) and his cheeses. I worry that he is not eating enough though for how active he is; and especially am concerned that he is not getting enough breast milk since he tends to just take a few gulps and then detach and want to play. I am trying to give supplementary bottles and milk in a cup, but he isn't very interested in actually drinking it. He is a skinny baby, long skinny arms and a wiry frame. I know I shouldn't compare but I feel like other babies his age are plumper and have true baby fat; Eddie doesn't have much fat reserves.

He is either sleeping through the night or only waking once. And regularly takes two naps a day; no signs that he will be moving to only one nap soon. Well, I take that back. If it was up to him, he would take no naps whatsoever because he just wants to stay awake and play. I think we have to revise his sleeptime ritual because our routine of books then boob then beddy or bath then book then beddy is no longer working. Now in the evening after his bath he wants to play again for another half hour to an hour and it is hard to not allow it because he seems to have so much energy that needs to be expelled before he will actually fall asleep.

Excited for the next couple of months, for our first vacation together, for more developments, for new classes and new baby friends.

standing and dancing

Eddie's latest skills which have blossomed this week are free standing and dancing to music. When he pulls himself up onto an object he now can let go stand holding onto nothing for several seconds. He then lowers himself down into a squat or onto all fours. His other new skill is that he sort of dances to music. For now this only happens while he is sitting down, usually while in his high chair. When an upbeat song comes on he will sort of sway back and forth from front to back. He also did it the other day as I was humming a song that I play on the piano, a Kuhlau Sonatina, which I think is hilarious and so smart - that he knows that music comes from various sources: the tv, radio, piano and from our mouths.

cousin noah

Yesterday, July 14 at 12:09 p.m. Eddie's cousin Noah Michael Wilson entered this world. I was honored to be a part of the process, aiding my sister in an all-natural, drug-free birth. I got the call at 12:30 a.m. that the contractions were becoming stronger and she had to breath through them. Luckily the call was no surprise because she had been having pre-labor signs for the past week and we had just had her "last supper" together just a few hours before. I got over to her house just after 1 a.m. and we labored at home until 6 a.m., mostly in her bathtub amidst candlelight and the sounds of Miles Davis. Her labor was arduous, emotionally charged and draining...different from mine with Eddie as even she recalled I seemed to labor "with grace." I likened Noah's birth to a Greek epic, whereas Eddie's was more like a fairy tale; both have their place on bookshelves, but of course the epic tales are those that have been deemed "classics" for a reason. Noah was born on a birthing stool, a sort of bar-like apparatus that is like a chair with no back and no seat. He hardly crowned in the traditional sense, only presenting a small portion of his head before he literally slipped out; the head slightly appeared and the nurse said to me "go get another nurse." I ran to the nurses station and said "my sister is crowning and we need another nurse" and by the time I got back into the room, there was Noah out on the floor, luckily on the soft surface of a pillow. The midwife didn't even have a chance to "deliver" him. Wow. On the homefront, my Eddies had a bonding day and little Eddie took crazy long naps, 3 hours apiece, which is unheard of normally. Maybe he missed his Mama. Or it is because he is still feeling under the weather - actually both Eddies are sick. E3 has had a sore throat for over a week and E4 had a fever Friday night and now has a cough and runny nose. So it will be awhile before the two cousins get to meet but I have already shown Eddie pictures of Noah and he smiles.

fever

We had a long sleepless night. Eddie woke up at 11:30 p.m. after having been put down at 8 and I went to feed him like always. I noticed he seemed unusually hot, but thought maybe it was just the temperature in his room and turned the fan on. He also seemed a bit restless on the boob, sort of whimpering. After feeding, although he seemed tired, he couldn't fall back asleep. I let him work through it for about 45 minutes because he wasn't crying - he was just sort of talking and yelling. Shockingly Daddy Eddie was sleeping right through it. But around 1 a.m. I woke big Eddie up to have him feel the baby and see if my assumptions of a fever were right. We fumbled through the medical kit that we have barely even touched beyond the nasal aspirator to find the thermometer and contemplated, do we do it rectally? Our squirmy guy and a thermometer up the butt isn't something I really want to embark upon. So I put the standard one beneath the armpit and it quickly shot up to 101. Then we busted open the temporal thermometer and that one read 100.7. Note to new/soon to be parents: get 2 thermometers; in the middle of the night you will be questioning whether they are working properly and it helps to have a second verification. So we tried some cold compresses and a small dose of infant Tylenol (another note: yes, buy this stuff and have it on hand because you never know when a fever will come in the middle of the night and you won't want to have to run to the store.). And then I just breastfed him almost non-stop between the hours 2 - 5 a.m. He would fall asleep in my arms but then the minute I would go to put him in his crib he would wake up. So then I devised a method where I would lay him in his crib and lay next to him on the floor and wait until he was truly asleep and not struggling anymore and then crawled out of the room. It sucked. My guy just seemed so uncomfortable and so tired yet unable to sleep. At 5 a.m. Daddy Eddie brought him downstairs and gave him a lukewarm bath. Then we put him back to bed and once again, he only slept for 30 minutes or so. He was in a better mood around 8 a.m. and so we fed him his Cheerios and banana and he played for awhile. Now, back in bed...but he just woke up after only having slept 30 minutes. My poor guy!

first fourth

Eddie's first fourth of july was full of firsts: first time on a golf course, first taste of watermelon, first encounter with a clown (he didn't cry) and first mosquito bite (on the upper rim of his ear; he doesn't seem bothered by it). I'd like to say that he also saw his first parade and fireworks, but there didn't seem to be a local parade in my parents town of Elm Grove this year, and as for the fireworks luckily he slept through them. He woke up 20 minutes after they ended with a pee leak, probably from all that watermelon. Nanni babysat as Eddie III, Gramps and I went to see Huey Lewis perform at Summerfest. We got to be right up front in the "mosh pit" because of a connection my Dad had. We danced the night away to childhood favorites "Heart of Rock n Roll" and "Hip to Be Square." I felt like I was seven years old again.