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Elanor crawled twice today…only a foot or so each time, but she’s finally figured out the whole coordinating arms and legs thing instead of flinging herself about the floor or twirling to where she wants to go.
She is also pulling up on everything and getting into everything. She is even cruising a little bit around the coffee table.
S-C-R-E-W-E-D
This is going to make getting read for travel and travel so much more FUN
At this pace she’s going to be walking when we go to the UK the last week of August.
This is the first Father’s Day I’ve ever found myself looking forward to.
I usually approach the day with what I like to call the 5 stages of Father’s Day
1-Dread–Seeing all the Dad stuff appear the second the Mother’s Day stuff is moved off the shelves reminds me of its approach. Which is fun for those of us who grew up without Dads. Because there’s nothing like being constantly reminded of that fact.
2-Resentment–This is generalized resentment. Resenting kids who have Dads in their lives, resenting my father for bailing on me, when I was a kid I resented my mom for being stupid enough to procreate with my dad…on and on. Obviously a very healthy time for one and all in my life.
3-Denial–Father’s Day? Never heard of it. Aka the week where I keep trying to make plans for that day and no one is free…I mean, wtf? WHY is everyone busy?!
4-Acceptance–Fine, Father’s Day. Whatever. Otherwise known as the part where I suck it up and go buy my grandfather a card like a big girl. In the past few years, also a card for my father in law.
5-Sobbing–This is the part where all the emotions I ignore about my father, my lack of a relationship with him (having never met him), the large role the rejection by him has played throughout my life ESPECIALLY in my dealings with men, and I fall over sobbing.
Fun times, my friends, fun times.
I usually just grit my teeth and endure it.
But this year I’m psyched. I couldn’t wait to buy R cards. I couldnt’ wait to do presents for him. And I’m doing a super elaborate meal to commemorate his first Father’s Day.
Because he’s an amazing father, and the best gift I’ll ever give Elanor is Ravi as her dad.
It’s bittersweet for me to watch them because if I let it, it reminds me of everything I never had. I wonder how my life would be different if I had had what they have. But on the other hand, it’s everything I always wanted for the children I thought about having.
Now, if only I can coach her into saying Dada in the next 24 hours, it will be perfect.
If you’re one of the two people who read me regularly, you may have noticed I’ve updated the picture and tagline at the top of the blog.
I thought that having a positive pregnancy test as my picture header was a bit out of step with what the blog has become (aka my pregnancy is now an energetic 7 and a half month old). I’m also in the trenches of motherhood, not approaching it…hence the changes.
I googled the tag line to make sure I wasn’t plagarizing…if I have, please let me know and I’ll change it.
Yes, that is Elanor in the pic. All rights reserved, blah blah blah.
While Tails Are Not For Pulling isn’t the most lyrical book in the world, it is a must-have for those of us raising children in a household with a pet.
My cat is going on 17 (I got her in high school) and I was probably more worried about her adjustment to the baby than I was about the inverse. After all, everything is new to a baby, so we bring her home and there’s a cat…voila…for her, there has always been a cat in the house. But the closest thing to a baby that my cat had ever experienced was a roommate’s overly rambunctious kitten…and they had not gotten along well. I am an only child, and for the 3.5 years previous to Elanor’s birth, she was the only small creature in our home. Neither my husband nor I have siblings, and we are among the first couples in our circle to have babies, so there haven’t been any babies over to visit our home ever. Lady has gotten fairly cantankerous in her old age, and I wasn’t sure how she would react to a squalling infant who, once mobile, would chase her and yank her fur.
We were pleasantly surprised that when Elanor came home (the second time, after her hospital stay) Lady seemed to have instantly accepted E as one of her “peoples.” When Elanor would cry, Lady would look anxiously at us as if asking “aren’t you going to do something about that?”. She would curl up near Elanor. Once the crib was sidecarred on my side of the bed, Lady took to sleeping in the opposite end from Elanor at night to be near all of us without the downfall of being kicked (my husband and I both being restless sleepers).
As Elanor has gotten older, she has noticed and taken a deep interest in the cat. To the point where, whenever the cat was nearby, Elanor tried with all her might to get nearer to Lady. So we began “teaching” Elanor how to pet Lady gently. This has gone about as well as you would expect anything you “teach” an infant to do would.
The first time I saw Elanor reach out, get a fistfull of Lady’s fur, and yank Lady a good three inches closer to her (Elanor) I braced for the cat to turn around and scratch the baby. Which, honestly, I wouldn’t have blamed her for doing. Lady, to my shock, just shot me a long suffering look that said “little help here?!”
It was a few days later that I was at my yuppie mommy store, purusing their books that I happened upon a rather santimonious series of books called the “Best Behavoirs Series”. It’s just chock full of titles like “hands are not for hitting”, “diapers are not forever”, “words are not for hurting”, etc. Santicmonious and slightly preachy? HELL yes they are.
BUT….
With any luck, my cat will be around for at least a few more years. And I want those last years of her life to be as good as the previous 16, pre-Elanor. It’s bad enough that I forget to give her soft food every day (she always has hard food out).
So I bought it.
And we incorporated it into our bedtime routine. It is one of the books we read each night, along with “The Going to Bed Book”, but we read it to Elanor ONLY if Lady is in the room. We use the cat as a demo as we read “fur is for petting” and other lines.
Has it helped? Well, she’s seven and a half months old, so go ahead and guess how much has sunk in. BUT, she does generally try to move her hand down lady’s back as she yanks the fur, so maybe we can call that progress?
At any rate, if you’ve got a pet and a small child, I definitely recommend Tails Are Not For Pulling.
So next week is some kind of Baby Week, at least according to a bunch of momblogs I read.
To celebrate, most of them are reposting birth stories of their kids, and what surprises me the most is how many of them are actually funny. We had so much drama with Elanor’s birth and her coming down with septicemia a week later and the subsequent near death experience/2 weeks in the PICU/stroke/1 more week on the pedi floor stuff that I’ve never looked back and thought about anything in a funny light.
I wish I could…and so I will try.
Hopefully there will be a post forthcoming…god knows I’d like to be able to laugh about something instead of being filled with panic and tears when I look back to that first month.
In what I hope to make a regular feature, I want to talk about some of favorite read aloud books.
I would be remiss if the first book I featured WASN’T “The Going to Bed Book” by Sandra Boyton.
We were given a copy by a co-worker of my husband, as a book they had loved reading with their kids when they were little. I wasn’t overly familiar with Sandra Boyton, but I’m always happy to accept a new book for Elanor.
When we decided to do a going to bed routine with Elanor, we arbitrarily decided that we would end the night with this book. We always read 3-4 books at bedtime, but we make sure to ALWAYS end with this one. After doing this for months at this point, Elanor calms down as we begin to read (or recite if we’re out and about) it. She knows that it means it’s time for bed.
What makes it great going to bed book is the rhyming, and the cadence. It’s easy to make it a slow and gentle story to lull your child to bed. The illustrations are adorable, and will make it fun for you.
I also have grown to love all of Boynton’s books. We have our favorites, but they are all great, whether you’re reading it to a three month old, or a 3 year old.
This week has been tough.
On Thursday Elanor spiked a fever of 101.5…at 11 at night. Why does this shit always happen at 11/12 at night or 2/3 in the morning? Is there some sort of cosmic force at work?
Baby Tylenol was administered to Elanor, who was doing a good impression of a monkey (in that she would NOT let go of me). She slept, and we went in to the doc on Friday. It was either a kidney infection (which scares me as she only has one functional kidney–I know she’ll eventually get one, but I find the idea scary as hell), or a virus…complicated by the fact that she has started teething.
We have a bottom tooth coming in ladies and gentlemen.
She seems like such a big girl these days…enough that I’ll admit I didn’t REALLY mind when all she wanted was to be cuddled and held and never put down.
Dear Elanor Athena
You are 7 months old today. How did that happen?
This month you had seven doctor’s appointments, luckily all with fairly good results. You are down to seeing your nephrologist once a year. Your MRI showed normal progression and your neurologist will not see you again until you are one year of age. You had a nice well baby visit, and will not need shots again until you’re a year old. You’ll be seeing your gastroenterologist again at 9 months, and the pedi stroke team as well (although that’s more about your mild to moderate Von Willebrandts disease than any other reason). We are very proud of your medical progress, and look forward to seeing you continue to improve in the months ahead.
Developmentally speaking, you are
- rolling in both directions (although you still don’t enjoy it)
- sitting very solidly and catching yourself so that you don’t tip over very much anymore
- starting to pull up on things
- starting to scootch…you want to go forward, but are only successful at moving backwards…which makes you very angry.
- Holding your own bottle (laying down) and feeding yourself
- Begun to babble “mamama”
Eating-wise…you have made your hatred of peas (that I mentioned in your six month letter) even more clear. I tried them again a few weeks ago and you threw them back up. We won’t be trying those again for a while. You also hated the tomato carrot baby food I tried you on. I’ve done some reading and it may be that the acidity of the tomato was a bit much for you. However, you LOVE mango. Can’t get enough of it. Apple is also a big deal. Most fruit has been a hit, although you aren’t the biggest fan of the apple/blueberry mix.
Now that you’re old enough for teething cookies and things in that vein, I’m starting to realize exactly how hard I’m going to have to work this year to keep your food free from your allergens. It’s fairly easy with baby food as it basically just rules out any of the yogurt mixes. But many teething cookies have soy (or dairy or egg) and I’ve had to be very vigilant about labels. I found a cake mix that’s free of all of your potential allergens and mean to do a dry run to see how the cake actually tastes when cooked. If it’s any good, then we’ll use that for your first birthday. Hopefully you’ll outgrow the food allergies, but if you don’t, I want to give you as many options as possible. Luckily the selection is a lot better these days than in the past…I regret ever rolling my eyes at the existence of Whole Foods. For you, they are pretty much my go-to grocery store.
When it comes to eating, you have learned how to hold the bottle yourself when you’re laying down. You sometimes need a little help (in supporting the end of the bottle, raising it a bit, etc) but in general are doing great. And if you’re awake (as compared to the sleepy first feed of the day and any overnight) you get angry if we don’t let you do it yourself. However, I am a bit concerned as your volume seems to be decreasing. Something to call your GI doc about.
You are also getting very cranky if you don’t get solids at least once a day. You will refuse the bottle and cry until we give them to you. Generally you get very grabby with the spoon. We’ve tried to give you your own spoon in the past, but you’re too smart for us! You figured out which spoon had the food and discarded the other spoon, reaching for the one with the good stuff. Your GI doc did warn us about this, saying babies who had trouble with bottles and formula often go crazy for solids. Which is great on one hand because eventually it means you’ll be eating just fine, but on the other, I worry about how many calories you’re taking in. Baby food has significantly fewer calories than your formula, but it’s clear that you prefer the former to the latter.
Still no teeth…I was sure you’d have some by now. CJ, my good friend Aimee’s son, who is two days younger than you, has two. Which is not to say I think you’re behind…it’s just funny how all of you develop in your own ways.
Speaking of developing, can I tell you how thrilled I am that your first “word” is Mama? You say “mamama” and sometimes “mama.” Obviously you haven’t connected me and that word, as it’s just something you babble, but every time I hear you say it, I get a big dopey grin on my face. I need to get it on camera…I want you (when you’re older) to know what your adorable baby voice sounded like. We’re working on Dada, since Father’s Day is in just a few weeks, but so far there is no progress on that front. C’mon, Turtle–throw your Daddy a bone, why don’t you?
May marked our first Mother’s Day together. We went out for a lovely lunch (you’re so teeny that in the picture, all you can see is your little head peeking over the table cloth in your high chair), visited the Museum of Fine Arts, walked to my alma mater, drove off without your stroller (thanks, Daddy), arrived at the Public Garden and realized we didn’t have your stroller, drove back to the Museum and breathed a HUGE sigh of relief to see it was still there (it’s a Bugaboo, which will probably not mean anything to you, but it’s a very expensive and recognizable stroller and could easily have been stolen), drove back to the Public Garden, fed you by the Swan Boats and then took you to meet the “Make Way for Ducklings” statue there. We drove home, and put you to bed for what I think was only the second or third time without a swaddle and watched you sleep while Daddy and I enjoyed a movie in bed.
Your sleep is a bittersweet thing. You have finally outgrown your swaddle, as you tried to roll in bed, worrying us that you would get trapped on your stomach without your hands free to help you flip over again. We have graduated you to a Halo sleep sack, and against all of the warnings of every SIDS site, have also allowed you to sleep with a small blanket that your Grandma crocheted for you (we’re totally renegades that way). Apparently we were worried for good reason–you rolled and got caught between your mattress and mine several times. After the third or fourth time, we decided it was time to put the drop side of your crib back on, and to move your crib away from my side of the bed. You’re still in our room, only six or ten inches further away than you were before, but it feels like a million miles for me. When you wake up at 7 am for a bottle, I often keep you in bed with me for those last few hours of sleep because I miss having you there with me. To be fair, you also enjoy it, and fall asleep most easily when cuddled next to me–it’s a trick I’ll employ if you’re having trouble going down for a nap.
You are sleeping for much longer stretches now at night…sometimes as much as 8 hours before needing a bottle and going back to sleep. Naps are a bit of a mess, mostly because we’re out and about so much that you sleep in short stretches in the car and then don’t want the long nap (or rest of the nap you need) when we get home. It doesn’t seem to be making you cranky so I’m just going to go with it.
What takes us out and about this month? Swim class continues to be fun, although we had a two weekend hiatus. At Aimees suggestion, I’ve also started taking you to a local pool for “Tiny Tot Swim” in between lessons to get more time in the water. It’s a special time where kids in the 0-4 range only get a lap lane or two to themselves (and their parents of course). We also are taking a developmental class called Caterpillars at Isis and just started a Kindermusik class as well. We also occasionally hang out with auntie Aimee and CJ.
I know this is shocking, but occasionally we go out to do stuff related to me–what a concept! I’m down to one allergy shot a month until my season is over, but then we’ll go back for weekly shots again (for me).
Early intervention continues to go well, but since we started Caterpillars, it’s been a challenge to get a time that works for everyone. That is one positive of Caterpillars ending mid-June–we’ll have a good slot for EI on a regular basis.
You are a lovely little girl, and not just physically. You are a joy to be around…all laughs and babbles of MAMAMA. You’ve also learned how to turn up the volume and occasionally screech for the pleasure of hearing yourself screech and the reaction it brings from us.
Of course you have your cranky moments, too. You get cranky when you’re tired, and you babble and cry to try and keep yourself awake. You go from zero to sixty with the cranky when you figure out that you’re hungry, leaving me at least two steps behind. You get irritated when you try to crawl forwards only to move backwards instead. Being laid down horizontally is also not something you find enjoyable…you want to sit or stand, damn it! Why can’t we just learn to change your diaper while you’re sitting or standing?! But in general, everyone is also remarking what a happy wonderful baby you are…and they’re right.
Love
Mommy
Elanor seems like such a big kid to me these days. She’s sitting by herself, she’s babbling “mamama”, she rolls, she’s trying to crawl.
Imagine my level of shock, then, during our first Kindermusik class, where the average age was about 1 year. There was one other baby, age 5 months, but the rest were crawling (and one was walking!) all over the place.
Suddennly my “big girl” seemed very young and teeny.
Elanor had an accident yesterday. The three of us are doing the AIDS walk here in Boston as a team, and yesterday we were at a grocery store manning a table to raise money for our team. Elanor was sitting on the table, Ravi was making a bottle, and wind kicked up so papers went flying. I took my hand off Elanor to grab them thinking what a sturdy sitter she is.
Ravi and I both glance up at the same time and see Elanor laying down and dissappearing over the edge of the table…onto the concrete pavement.
My heart just stopped…
We both ran around the table, and of course Elanor was screaming. I picked her up and tried to calm her down, while Ravi got immediately on the phone and had the pedi neurologist on call at the hospital paged. (Because of her stroke and her mild bleeding disorder, that’s what we’re under instructions to do anytime Elanor has a fall and hits her head…we didn’t see how she landed, but had to assume her head hit the pavement).
An old woman walked by, having seen it all, and just gave me a horrible look and shook her head. I was already beating myself up and that sent me into tears right along with Elanor.
I fed her the bottle Ravi had been making as we waiting for the neurologist on call to call us back. Ironically the neurologist on call is a mom in my mommy and me group…great. She offered to have me speak to someone else, but I was more worried about E than looking bad to a mom in my group so I talked to her.
We had to take Elanor to the ER to get a head CT scan.
Luckily it came back negative for head trauma or injury, and Elanor was acting normally the whole time. But Ravi and I had to wake her every two hours last night. We took shifts with her, just like we did when she was a newborn.
She’s totally herself…not even a scratch on her…but I’m still shaking inside. I know I have to forgive myself, and that accidents happen, but I still feel like shit and still furious with myself.
