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July 1, 2004
10.5 Months
Okay, this has been an incredibly difficult two weeks. Most of the days were black, black days. I had only moments really where I was able to forget about all of everything that has happened and just enjoy the company of my babe and/or my husband. There are a few things that I want to write about first before I get into what I have been up to these past two weeks, mentally and physically.
My mum does these huge Christmas vacations, I think I have mentioned this. Well, this coming year, she was initially thinking Switzerland. How fabulous would that be? We were thinking that we would be able to take the train to France, Italy, Austria, Poland… Wherever the fancy took us when we were at the train station that day. Anyway, when she was here visiting, we brought that up and she said that she wanted to do something more ecologically sensitive, and so she was reconsidering to do Belize. How Belize is ecologically more sensitive than Switzerland is beyond me, I mean, you are invading an ecologically sensitive place by developing hotels and resorts in jungles and on reefs, instead of vacationing somewhere that has been developed for centuries and you are not putting a strain upon the whole system. But I digress.
So, she is saying Belize. Which is also totally fabulous, I would love to look tanned and great in January, who wouldn’t? The problem is that Switzerland would have been really easy to buy clothing for, given that we live in the Great White North and would be buying winter clothing for us to use at that time anyway. Buying swim trunks and tank tops for Iain in December is a giant issue. We have to do our shopping NOW! All I can say is that I am SO grateful that Iain is a slow grower and that I know he isn’t going to weigh much more than he weighs right now by the time he is 16 Months old. He is also going to be skinny, skinny, skinny, unless something really radical happens. So, he will probably be able to wear a lot of what she bought him for this summer, but there are still hats and swim trunks to consider. We went out to the mall one evening and I was able to get Simon to go into Children’s Place (I truly, truly LOVE this store). I bought him a couple more pairs of shorts and tried on four different sandals, but only one fit, and only for right now, they had no other sizes. I also got him three more hats, all with brims. What else… Oh, later that week, I bought him three swim trunks, two tanks, three more hats with brims, three pairs of sandals, and two more pairs of sunglasses, none of which I paid full price for, all at Old Navy. Perfect, we are totally set for Belize. Six months before we go, but we are set. :-) I just need to get down to weight. Right. Getting on that bandwagon is a little harder given what I am going through right now.
Father’s Day was good. Actually, we had a great day. I made breakfast of the whole nine yards. Hashbrowns, sausages, bacon, eggs, fresh juice… All hot, all at the same time! Hee hee… I managed to get everything on at just the right time for all of it to be ready at the same time, and I felt like I had conquered the world! I mean, I am a pretty good cook, able to cook just about anything and get it all ready at once, but breakfast is one of the hardest meals to make because eggs are really fast, as is bacon, but hashbrown take an enormously long time, as do sausages. So, serving Simon a plate of piping hot food really set the tone for the day. We decided to get out of the house, partially because we hadn’t been out on a drive in a few weekends, but also because the landscapers had been here for two days, and they were compacting around the house. Do you know what this means? It means that every single crystal wine glass, every single regular glass, all the dishes, all the paintings, the keys on the bar counter, everything is rattling and vibrating. It feels like your teeth are vibrating. It feels like your hair is vibrating after spending even one hour inside a house that is vibrating this much. So, we got the hell outta Dodge for the day. We went and did this kidsy touristy thing about an hour out of the city, and it was fantastic. I had been there as a teenager and was, typical of a teenager, fascinated but not able to express it because it wasn’t “cool.” Anyway, Iain had a great time checking out everything in the museum, we can’t wait to come back when he is even more enchanted with everything.
We live just down the street from the local Hellenic Community Centre, and our street is clogged up with Greeks at least a couple of times a month with whatever they are celebrating. They are a very exuberant bunch, that is for certain, and they do treat the neighbourhood with respect, for that much I am grateful. Anyway, they started a Greek Festival and this is it’s seventh year. They put up huge tents in the park across the street, and have been buzzing around for days. We went for dinner on Father’s Day and just to have some fun, and it was indeed fun. People watching is something that Simon and I really enjoy doing, seeing how they look around at others, how they look, how they are acting, how families interact… It’s just amusing to watch other humans interact, especially in an atmosphere like a cultural festival. So, we ate great Greek food and listened to fantastic Greek music and watched Greek families. Iain had ball, Simon wore him in the Bjorn and fed him pieces of tomato from the souvlaki. Next year we are definitely going to go again. Plus, it saved me from making dinner :-) And dishes – no dishes either. So, Father’s Day was good.
Well, except for one thing… I was cleaning my glasses at the museum during lunch and they BROKE!! Oh no! I was literally heartbroken at this because I loved these glasses so much, they were so much fun (the style). And, they were expensive too - $275. The worst thing is that they were just over the 2 year warranty, so they can’t be fixed. I had to use tape to tape the middle together in order to finish our visit and it worked for a little bit. When I had my sunglasses clipped on, it reinforced it a bit and they were a touch stronger, but as soon as I took them off? The glasses fell apart. Simon is going to crazy glue them to act as a second pair if I ever have this happen again, but in the mean time, I need glasses, because I can’t drive without them! This was really hard on me because I immediately thought myself to blame again with this event. I was going to have to have something purchased because I needed it, and it was going to be expensive. Simon tried hard to convince me that it was okay, because getting glasses really is an important thing, but I still took it hard. I managed to get an eye exam scheduled for Monday and Simon came to pick me up and drive me (and Iain) there.
My eyes haven’t changed too much, and I talked to the Doctor about contacts. That way, again, if this happens I can just pop in contacts until I get new glasses. My only problem with contacts is that I have quite dry eyes. I tried some back in ’99, but they didn’t work so great, I was so tired from blinking all day long to keep them wet that I couldn’t open my eyes after getting home from classes (I was in university at the time). However, I was certain that technology had changed since then and the doctor confirmed it. He set up my prescription for a pair and I attempted to put them in. It had been awhile since I last wore them and I had only managed to bear wearing them for two days, so… I eventually got help from one of the assistants, and she put them in a nice solution to soak up some extra moisture. I got them in fine after that. They certainly felt a little funny, and it was odd wearing my sports sunglasses (you know, the ones that you don’t care if they break while you are doing something sporty) but having everything in focus. I won’t be wearing contacts a lot, and certainly not at all if this trial doesn’t go well, but it will be nice for the option every once in a while.
We have been planning our visit out further west to visit our families. We originally thought to go over the August long weekend, but that didn’t jibe with my mum, she is competing in St. Catherines, ON and won’t be back until the 10th. So, we are going to leave on the 13th, and return on the 22nd. We will be having a huge birthday celebration for Iain, Simon and my Mum, whose birthday’s are on the 16th, 6th and 22nd, respectively. Oh, and we’ll also be celebrating our fourth wedding anniversary too, on the 13th. So, it will be a whole mish-mash of celebrations, and hopefully we’ll have a good time too. We’ll be basing out of my mum’s house, because it is the largest with lots of bedrooms, and also the largest, for the party. And, she lives just 5 minutes from the ferry terminal where all the Island folk will be coming across on. So, we’ll stay with her until Tuesday, go over to Simon’s family’s place on the Island until Thursday, and then back to my mum’s. The first part of the visit will be for my two sides of my family (my parents have been divorced for many years), then the first night we are on the Island will be for Simon’s immediate family (parents and siblings) and the following night will be for the more extended family. Then, the last part of the visit is to catch up with some of our friends from our bachelor university days. We wrote out a very detailed itinerary and have sent it out to my mum for confirmation and Simon’s parents for a heads-up. Once we heard back from my mum, we’re sending it out to every email address that we know to invite everyone. I am also going to send out Birthday Party invites, something nice and fun, for Iain’s birthday, I don’t know what ‘theme’ I am going to go with, since we aren’t really doing a theme for the party. It is just too big with almost 50 people on the invite list and most haven’t met Iain yet either. So, that is in the works as well, and should be a nice break from life here, if the families behave while we are there…
We had our very first date in our new city also this past week. My cousin, who LOVES Iain and has been wanting to meet him from the moment that I told her that she has a nephew back last August, has met him several times now and fallen more and more in love with him. I had mentioned to her about maybe having her look after Iain one night and she just glowed with the possibility. She is such a sweetheart, maybe 5’2”, and quite shy, if you aren’t a horse. She is an incredible equestrian and these giant (16 hand plus) horses just follow her around with a softly spoken word here and there. Simon and I had originally made plans for dinner and a movie, but the date night was the night after I had broken my glasses, so we opted to look for new glasses, have dinner in the food court and still go to the movie, with me wearing contacts to see. We had a good time, picked some great glasses and also sprung for sunglasses so I can drive in the beating sun that we have here. Dinner was A&W, one of our favourite burger joints because of their onion rings, and the movie we went to was the new Vin Diesel one, the Chronicles of Riddick. A perfect summer date night movie, lots of fights and explosions, a couple scary moments for me, it was great. I checked in on my cousin just before the movie started and everything was going fine, and I phoned again when the movie was out, again, everything was fine. Iain didn’t want to go down to sleep with her, something that I didn’t really expect him to do because I am the only one who feeds him his last bottle with which he goes to sleep, so we sorted ourselves out for the night and let Iain wear himself down a bit more. She was really interested in doing it again, and is going to bring her cat over to socialize with Miss Scarlett and Brook, and her laptop to copy our CD’s, so we might just have a regular babysitter! How spectacular is that? :-)
I had posted on my board that I needed some help in buying some pump parts, because I couldn’t find a company that shipped to Canada. Well, I found a company with the help of my pump boards that I belong to and ordered some parts. It was a good thing too, because my pump had been acting up and I wasn’t sure if it was the horns or the pump that was not working right. Also, Scarlett, the little minx that she is, loves to play with and each the little white valves and membranes, because they taste like milk, because they are chewy… who knows. Anyway, somehow she had chewed up or put holes into my last spare set of valves AND membranes, so I only had one set left. UPS was supposed to deliver the package and left a notice on my door on Monday because I was pumping late and couldn’t get to the door. Well, I was out at a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday, and missed him, but didn’t know it because no notice was left. I phoned in to ask where the package was and to request that I pick it up on Wednesday morning. I was told that the driver was told that the homeowners (me) were on vacation… gee, could the stuccoer’s have told him that? They have been very threatening to me and say things as I exit and enter my home and they see me. Anyway, I told her that I was indeed here, and asked if I could pick it up tomorrow. She put me on hold, talked to my local centre and when she came back she instructed me to phone in the morning to confirm that it was there.
I made a deal with Simon that I could go and pick it up and come straight back home (he didn’t want me driving, more on that later) and when I phoned I was told that it had been pre-loaded at 5:30 the night before, a full 2.5 hours after I had been told that it would indeed be waiting for me to pick it up. I was told that there was nothing I could do, I had another day that I had to wait to get my pump parts. So, I waited, all day. I tried to keep occupied, but admit that it was really hard, I was still very much under the blackest of clouds at that point in the week.
I phoned at 5:00 to find out why the delivery had not come yet and was told that residential deliveries can occur up until 8pm. I phoned again at 7:40 and was told that the package was at the local centre, after I had phoned the last time the driver went back to drop it off. Well, the local centre closed at 7:00, there was no way for me to get my pump parts now! I was clinging on to the shred of a normal person by that point, and asked to speak to a manager after the fellow I was talking to apologized for the umpteenth time and said there was nothing he could do. I explained that I exclusively pumped for my son, and that these were pump parts and that I had waited ALL day today and didn’t have a vehicle for the next day so I could not go and pick it up and that I needed to have these parts first thing the next morning and he put me on hold to see if he could reach the local centre. He came back online and said that he got someone to set it aside for 8:30am delivery. He then said that he had a 2.5 year old and a 9 month old and that while he could really appreciate what I was going though, he could understand it a bit better than a regular person. Just hearing him say that made me feel so much better, and the next morning, the doorbell rung and I had my parts… Oh, happy day!
The worst part about all of this is that my pump, despite the new parts, is still making the same problem. I have literally changed out every single part that can be changed out, including the new horns that I ordered and it is still ‘leaking’ air. That means that the suction power on one of the horns is not as strong because it is leaking air somewhere along the line. I need to phone Ameda about this, it has been four weeks now of trying to figure out what the heck is going on. By leaking this way, it really extends my pumping sessions because I am not able to pump as quickly without the same amount of suction. Such a pain in the behind, dealing with this all. I had taken all of my parts, scrubbed them all down, sanitized them and dishwashed them to get rid of the hard water spots again, and still having this problem. It’s beyond me right now, but I will get it fixed…eventually.
Lastly, we have been hit by a very, very, very bad computer virus or worm. We have active subscriptions to Norton, but this is irrelevant, because the worm that got us targets ports that are not monitored by Norton. It happened on a Wednesday afternoon and we took it into a computer repair shop, but the fellow couldn’t do anything with the computer, nothing. Nada, zip, zilch. He tried to slave drive it with no results, it kept crashing on him. Simon and I were thinking the worst, that all the work that I had done on my thesis since I arrived here was gone. We had a back-up copy of everything from website favourites to thesis from when we left Halifax, but that was 6 weeks of work gone for my thesis. Six weeks of carved out time in which I had worked so diligently. We picked up the hard drive over a week after we dropped it off, and Simon worked all day on it. The reason why he was able to work all day on it was that it was Canada Day – that’s right, he worked all day on a holiday, just to try to get the computer back up so I could use the internet again and work on my thesis again. He finally managed to get it up without crashing by slave driving it to our second computer and when he did that, the first file that he opened up was my thesis. He was able to open it, but better yet, was able to save it onto the main hard drive…I had my thesis back!! Woohooo!
We still need to copy over all of the other files, like our emails, house documents, diary entries… those are just random examples. But it feels great to be able to go online now and just check things out. Don’t have email yet, nor any Office programs, but at least the hurdle of starting up the computer without it crashing is surpassed. We also bought a physical firewall that will stop anything trying to get to our computer. I have to press a button to connect to the internet and press it again when I am done, but that is such a small thing to save our computer. Next week I should be able to get some work done on the “unspeakable thing.” (If you recall, that is what Simon and I refer to as my thesis.)
Okay, that is everything I wanted to talk about, now for the depression stuff.
As I have alluded to already, these past two weeks have been very dark indeed. There were moments when I didn’t know if I would be able to function later that day. I was desperately trying to reach out and get help, but for the first week, no one was there. What I mean is, I tried to reach my Halifax doctor, but she wasn’t there. I tried to make an appointment with my doctor, but she was on vacation. I tried to get the name of a post-partum help line or office to go to, and got the phone number, but when I phoned to talk, the volunteer was busy, could I phone back? Do you know the amount of courage it took to phone in the first place? No, I can’t phone back, it takes too much. I finally made an appointment at my doctor’s office with another doctor and that was the start of the turning around. I broke down while talking to her, but it was beneficial, she was able to see how close to the edge I really was. We talked about medication, but she was hesitant before I went and was seen by a psychiatrist first. I finally was able to connect with my Halifax doctor, over a week after the first phone call, but my conversation with her made me feel wretched. She kept saying (I had a terrible morning already at that point), that many couples have miscommunication and that this was quite normal, but that wasn’t the point! The point is that anything, EVERYTHING sets me off to these huge wailing fits. And after so long of trying to reach out and being shut down per se it was making me worse at that point.
The whole end of all of this trying to talk and get help but not receiving anything literally made me feel like I was SUPPOSED to feel this way, as a punishment for something I have done. I wasn’t as good a mother as I am supposed to be, a partner as I am supposed to be, a best friend as I am supposed to be, a PERSON as I am supposed to be. I am still very angry. I am still incredibly sad. I am still remarkably lonely. It still hurts, so much, deep inside. I still cry at the drop of a hat, at the littlest things going wrong. I tried to get out for a walk, but had literally no energy to even push Iain along. I finally arrived at a little park with a bench and sat there and cried for 45 minutes. I had to be back at the house by then so I trudged home. Iain wouldn’t go to sleep one day for his nap, so I laid down on his floor and cried while he played around me. Two hours later he went down for his nap, I went and pumped and cried. Another morning it was more than I could handle, Simon and I were really miscommunicating and when I arrived home I made up Iain’s bottle, put him in his crib and closed his door. I turned on all the fans in the house and closed our door, so that I could lie in bed and cry, and not hear him cry. I just lay there, sobbing for an hour, finally, I slept.
Simon and I talked about trying to get someone to come out for a couple of days to keep me company and drive me around, because the other thing is that Simon doesn’t want me to drive right now. I am not paying attention like I should, I am getting incredibly angry at the other drivers for no reason and it is just too dangerous. The only person I could think of who would be able to come out was my sister, so I phoned her that night, a Wednesday and left a message. She wasn’t able to return my call until the following Tuesday. For the days that I was left waiting, I again felt like there was no one there for me, no one wanted to help me, not even my own family. Her husband, my BIL phoned and left a message first, that Tuesday afternoon. Then my mum phoned, apparently they were talking on another issue and he asked if she had talked to me recently. When she said yes and he asked how I was, she asked what he meant and instead of telling her, he just suggested that she phone me. I haven’t met my BIL yet, they were married two weeks after Iain was born and we weren’t going to fly 12 hours for a wedding two weeks post-partum. But he was really caring and sensitive in his message, and gave me his cell phone number and instructions to phone, regardless of hour, when I got his message to make sure I was okay. He said that my sister had been out of town and he didn’t know when I left the message but that he hoped I was okay, and then left the instructions to phone him, again. I talked to my mum as well and she shared her tips for dealing with depression. You see, I have known that she has had depressions, and know that I get it from her side of the family.
While I was on the phone with her, my sister phoned and I switched lines. We had a really good conversation in which I told her what was going on in our lives and asked if she could come out for a couple days. She said she needed to get some stuff organized with her training (she is a rower as well – it’s a family thing) but that she could indeed do that. I also learned that she is on medication because she also suffers from depression. Unfortunately, she has a chemical inbalance in her brain and needs to take the meds every day. She said that this winter she tried to go off of them and it was really bad. It was no wonder my BIL was so concerned about me when he heard my message, he knew first hand what it was like to live with a person who feels the way that I do. So, we’ll see if my sister can come out. Hopefully, she will be able to, but she also has committed to races for the next few weekends and may not be able to with the training she has to do to get ready for them.
I am not writing this all to gain sympathy or have a pity party; rather, I am writing to remember and to remind myself if this happens again, how I felt this time. That I felt as bad as this and managed to get better. And also, I am writing this for the other mums out there who have perhaps felt this way, are feeling this way right now, that there are more of us suffering these very same things and that we are not alone in our misery.
I have found a support group for post partum mums here in the city. It is on Wednesday nights and I found out about it on Thursday, so that first week was a loss, but I have gone once and it was really good. We were allowed to talk about whatever we wanted to, although there was a woman there to guide us into certain areas. All we had to do was to listen and respect each others feelings. I left Iain with Simon because I didn’t know if I would be able to ‘handle’ my little rambunctious boy while I was there and listen as well, and as it turns out, Wednesday nights are going to be Simon and Iain nights, there is just no way I can take him and really pay attention :-) I am looking forward to the next meetings over the summer.
I am doing better now. I don’t want to crawl under the covers and cry every morning, although I do have moments that I feel like doing that. I have talked to two psychiatrists and had two appointments with a doctor at the medical clinic I go to. I have hit the bottom and am on the way up, but like ascending after diving, it is a long and slow process and if you don’t pause on the way up to acclimatize, you run the risk of endangering yourself. The days are not great yet, they are not even good yet, but they aren’t horrible as they were two weeks ago. And that is the good part. I have a long way to go before I can honestly say that I am happy, but I can see the light and I am working my way towards it, albeit stumbling sometimes.
I think that is about all I want to talk about this time, so it is on to the part that you all really enjoy, news about my baby boy, Iain!
I have found these fantastic soups for Iain to eat, called Gardenney soups. They are made by Campbells but come in tetra packs, ready to serve. There are two varieties of tomato and one buttercorn squash, Iain loves all of them. We have been having a heck of a time trying to feed him veggies of late, I think because he has been eating so much of our food, which is seasoned with onions and garlic and good things like that, that the little jars of baby food are a touch too bland now. But the soups… I tried it one night and he GULPED it down, eager for the next bite and the next… the next night, I put in some baby food squash into the soup and he ate it all again, no hesitation. So, I cut in green beans or wax beans or squash or sweet potato into the soup and he just loves it. Yeay for mummy for figuring out a way to get those veggies into Iain! LOL Another great thing about the soups is that it is three meals in one. Iain still only gets one solid food meal a day, the rest of his nutrition comes from 100% breastmilk. When he turns a year old, I will start giving him breakfast as well as dinner, and then at 18 months maybe three meals a day. I really do want the majority of his caloric and nutritional intake to be breastmilk for as long as possible.
Along with the soups, we have changed his feeding schedule again. It seemed like even after the giant amount of food that he has at dinner, when we are eating our own dinner, he was still REALLY interested in what we were eating. And I mean, he was eating a full jar of baby food usually, sometimes more. So, we gave him the equivalent of another little jar of food, and still he was hungry! We decided then to increase his milk, from a 6oz bottle to an 8oz bottle at dinner time. He seems more satisfied now, which is good, but Simon and I have taken to joking that he is hollow. I still haven’t found the seams, but there is no other explanation for being able to consume that much food at one sitting for such a tiny little body. :-)
Another food thing… We have no worries that Iain may choke and not be able to breath because of food lodged in his wind tube. One two consecutive nights we fed Iain some of our food, cut up into Iain sized bites. The problem is that he really doesn’t like to chew, or mush things around in his mouth with his tongue and gums, many times we put the food in his mouth and he just swallows it. Whole. So, anyway, this is not a problem with fruit, but he was eating chicken pieces and had to cough a couple times because he wasn’t chewing the food. Well, you can guess what happened. He tried to get down a piece, it wouldn’t go, and so it came up. His gag reflex is apparently working just fine. He had a nice sized vomit, managing to get his shirt, pants and high chair cover both nights. Talent, eh? We just had to laugh, because he looked so perplexed as we rushed around trying to clean up the mess that he just created!
One last food related item. I was feeding Iain his last bottle for the night last week and noticed a little smell. When I feed him I hold him very close to me, it is our time to snuggle and he usually drifts off just a couple slurps into the bottle, so that he is sleeping throughout the rest of the bottle. Anyway, I was leaning down a bit to kiss him while he was drinking and noticed this little smell. Like a bad breath smell. Except, it was only coming when Iain was exhaling… It was his breath! The sweetest part about it was that it wasn’t bad smelling really, just different from the breastmilk-breath that he usually has, so I noticed it. I think it is so cute that he is eating enough solid food that he has a little smelly breath from it. I have to say that when he exhaled a couple of times I leaned in closer to breath it in – it was like breathing in a little boy, not a baby boy. When did time pass so quickly that this happened? My baby is growing up, big time.
Iain has this sweet little habit that he does when he needs to comfort himself. He tugs on his ears, either ear, but it is more like fingering them I guess than tugging. He will do this when he is tired particularly, but if he has had a fall, he will do it to comfort himself and it is the sweetest little thing. When he is having his last bottle, the hand that is not tucked in between us will finger his ear or hold onto Bunny (I wrote about his affliction for Bunny a couple entries ago, it has only grown stronger since then). We know when he is really getting tired if he just sits and starts fingering his ears while we are out or watching TV at night. I love that he has found a way to comfort himself, but I wonder, where did he get this trait from, or did he just make it up for himself? When I lay him down after finishing his last bottle and he is not completely in slumberland, he will reach up and finger his ear, while holding onto Bunny in the other hand. My sweet, delectable baby boy…
Iain is now a master at sliding down the stairs. Or the sofa. Or our bed, which is fully four feet off the ground. Or our laps if we are holding him on the sofa or another chair. Or the ottoman. Two weeks ago, this was not a skill in his repertoire. Simon had showed him a couple of times how to move his legs to go down the stairs, but he was a little freaked out by it and wasn’t interested. Well, one night Simon showed him how to get down from the ottoman, and low and behold, when he was put upon it again, he slid off, all by himself! The first few days were a little shaky on the landing, but he has so quickly figured out how to get his balance after sliding off, it is astonishing. So, now he just pushes off of us or the sofas easily, confident that there is the floor there, waiting for him. Now, the stairs took him one more day to figure out. Soon enough though, he was sliding down the whole case, like a professional stair slider. The only problem? He wasn’t interested in going UP the stairs anymore, he just wanted to slide DOWN them! We had just started calling up to him, encouraging him to come up and join us if we were upstairs, and then he just wanted to slide down them… anyway, by the end of the two weeks, he was going up and down, thank goodness!
Oh, the other funny thing, for a couple days, he couldn’t figure out how to START to go down the stairs. He was fine if we put him on them and he slid down, but I was rushing around downstairs doing things and he was just wailing, sitting at the top of the stairs, unable to come to me. Really sweet. It wasn’t long though before even that was figured out, he just had to turn around and slide backwards until he felt the stairs. One time, he turned around so far from the stairs that he had to turn around again to figure out where the heck those things were, and he was STILL a long way from the first one. Too funny. I have noticed, though, that he will only turn one way around to start the process of going down. He always turns so that his feet and legs are towards the left side first, then finishes by turning all the way around, feeling constantly for that edge of the first stair. Amazing how we get into these little habits, even as young as Iain is now. :-)
Iain now roams comfortably around the house, exploring all sort of very interesting things. Particularly of interest of late are the kitchen cupboards, and the one with the Tupperware and Rubbermaid containers is a favourite. While the concept of being able to open cupboards and play with what is inside can be dangerous, Simon and I have always felt that we shouldn’t really child-proof the house, after all, we have to live here too, and so we have chosen to teach Iain that some cupboards and places are not for play, but are dangerous. This way, if we are at someone else’s house, I know that he is pretty much safe if I tell him that he isn’t to go into that cupboard etc. So, now he will crawl into the kitchen, make a royal mess of all the Tupperware, crawl over to the stairs, play there, crawl over to us, cruise around the sofa and ottoman, go chase the cat… it is endless, and so much fun to watch and comforting to know that he is having a good time as well. Also, now I can work in the kitchen and he just sits, crawls and stands and plays there with me. So handy! LOL
Iain is fascinated by older children. Whenever we are waiting somewhere, or at a meeting and there are older children, say from 2-6 years old, he just watches them, and tries to mimic them. We were at a LLL meeting and there were two other older children there and he happily played with them for the entire two hours that I was there. Again, at the doctor’s office when we were waiting, he was playing with one of those wire and bead toys where you move the beads along the wires. Well, a little boy came up and started playing and Iain just watched him and then tried to do the same things that he was doing with the beads. Amazing to watch really, he is so fascinated by these older children!
I started guiding Iain to walking, holding his hands in mine and at first it was more like dragging, but in only a couple days, he was walking himself, I was just holding his hands. Since then, he has been using anything and everything to help him walk: his Fisher-Price ladder toy, the ottoman, his high-chair, boxes. He has also taken one step between the ottoman and sofa unaided, although I think it was unconscious for him, and another step from me to the Tupperware cupboard, again unconscious. I phoned Simon right away after the Tupperware one, so excited that he had done it! LOL Proud mama, I am! I think because he has been crawling so long, and therefore mobile, that I am now used to it (I mean, it HAS been over 4 months now since he started crawling). So, I am ready now for the next progression in movement: walking. And Iain just needs a touch of encouragement, and he will get it, we are certain. He was so quick to figure things out already, that I don’t think walking is far behind!
We are starting to wean Iain from his soother, we don’t really want him to have to use it past one year old. So, we have started to find out whether he gets really upset if he doesn’t get it or if he is okay. Generally, he is okay. He was really using it a lot, like almost all day, but again, I was more okay with this than Simon, because I think I am more accepting that he is a mouthy baby and literally really NEEDS to have something in his mouth. Anyway, there were a couple of days where he was fussier than usual, but for the most part, he was fine. We still give it to him after he bonks himself really bad, and for naps and sleeping, but otherwise try to keep it away. One funny thing is if he sees it, he starts to do his “throw his head back, arch his body and make the whining moan noise.” Are we in for anything in the future?? :-) So, I have no worries about getting him to be fine without his soother by the time his first birthday rolls around. We may still have to give it to him to sleep, but I think that is fine. So long as he doesn’t have it all day AND all night, it is fine by me. I think Simon is more worried, but we’ll see how it goes.
Iain has this little thing that he does when he is happy: he blows through his mouth, but with his lips close together to make this whisping sound. It’s really cute because he usually does it while his is smiling as well, this big ol’ grin spread across his face, making the whispy noise. He’ll do it if he sees his Bunny, or if he sees Brook chasing something around, like Scarlett, or if he sees us smiling at him… literally warms my heart when he does that and I just wanted to remember it!
Iain’s first teeth are FINALLY coming through. I literally can’t believe it. We had gotten so used to that little toothless grin of his, now he has one itty-bitty tooth coming through. I find it odd, because I have mixed emotions about this new development. It means that my baby really is growing up, and while for some, a new tooth may not be as symbolic, for me, because Iain is so old for the first tooth to be appearing, it has hit me rather hard that my baby boy is turning into a little boy. Oh my! I noticed it on a Friday, the buds were really close to the surface and the first edge was just about to pop through. On Tuesday, it was really, really close to popping through and on Wednesday the first edge was out. By next week the full top of the tooth should be clear of the gum! So, looking at his face, it is the left bottom tooth that has come through now, although the right one also looks close to coming out. The bud is definitely present, I wonder when it is going to come? It’s funny though, now that I see what a budding tooth looks like, I can see why we didn’t see anything in his teething incidences back in December, January and February. The oddest thing about this tooth coming through now, is that Iain hasn’t been teething in the slightest lately, so we had no ‘notice’ that something was happening! Iain appears to not be in any discomfort at all now, which is just wonderful. I hope that other teething incidences occur in just the same way. :-)
Lastly, my boy is a genius. Okay, I am biased. But, he is still really smart. I brought my commuter coffee mug into the shower with me (yeah, I needed coffee that badly that day) and Iain started to play with it. I smelled coffee and realized that he had managed to pour it out (darn it, darn it, darn it!). I took the lid off then and poured the rest out. I put the lid down on the shower floor and Iain picked it up and tried to put it on the top of the mug! I had to shake my head at that sight – he knew that those two items went together! Is that not absolutely incredible, that first time one of your children puts those two thought processes together? I encouraged him, saying he was a very smart boy and clapping my hands, and he looked up at me and smiled his big ol’ grin that melts my heart. He continued to play with the mug and lid for the rest of the shower, along with his other shower toys, but again, I was so proud of him for figuring that out! Wow. Parenthood is incredible.
**Talk to Me**
What exotic vacation have you ever gone on, where did you go, did you have children with you or not?
When was the first time that your whole family was able to meet the newest addition, and if it was long after the birth, how did you schedule or arrange it?
What was the first moment that you were utterly amazed by your baby discovering something?
Namaste, Laura and Iain
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