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August 15, 2004
12 Months
The list of things that has happened in these past two weeks is a paragraph in itself… so, you are all warned that this entry is PACKED with stuff. And most of the paragraph is Iain stuff, it seems like he has just decided to cross a ton of developmental levels all at once.
Firstly, stuff about me and getting out of my depression. I have been going to these Wednesday night meetings for post-partum mums for a couple months now, but for some reason, I wasn’t able to get to some for a few weeks in a row there. There was just other stuff happening on those nights or I chose to have a quiet “family” night at home instead of going out. I have started to go back to committing to going to these meetings because I really do still need to meet and talk about what has been going on that week and how I am doing, but with someone other than Simon. Because I do love talking with my best friend, but with both of us in depressions, we literally are *not* able to offer each other the unbiased support that someone needs when going through something like this. And many times, it is because of something that he has done that I am feeling so wretched and I am just unable to broach that with him and have the effect of making him feel miserable because he made me (intentionally or not) feel miserable. It is a terrible circle. So, I need to get out and talk with someone who offers unconditional support and tells me that they too have felt this way, or not, but understands where I am coming from. And it really IS helping. Which is the best part. I come away calmer and better able to help and support Simon, who doesn’t literally have the time to see someone because of the whole issue of the new job and having to appear that he is at work, working hard etc. So, that is Wednesday nights.
The other two things I am doing is going to a mum’s walking group, and a stroller exercise class. Both of these are twice a week in the mornings, so I end up only being at home for Friday’s all day. But getting out for me is literally critical to my mental health. I am not too concerned with what I am doing, but I have to almost be accountable to others, like paying for a class or saying that I am going to be at the next meeting for walking so that I get out of this damn house. Otherwise I would just not leave. So, I go to the walking group and I do my aerobics class with the other mums and it keeps me sane. Don’t know what is going to happen in the fall, but I do hope to keep on with these activities.
Okay. Now, as every mother out there knows, you take a ton of photos of your precious child. And as every mother out there knows, once those photos are taken, they rarely make it into an album but rather, sit in the envelopes that the developing company puts them in. I too am a guilty party to this style of photo keeping. Except that every once in a while I actually sit down, put all the envelopes in order and start filing those photos away. Simon had been bugging me about the increasing number of envelopes on our bookshelf and we decided, jointly, that I would really try to put them away before we headed out further west for The Trip. And I say “jointly” because there is just no way that I can do it with Iain as a little helper, someone must take care of Iain while I do this task – that is where Simon came in :-) As I was going through the massive pile of photos, I realized how long it had been since I had done it. I mean, I had photos from Halifax, the blizzard we had before we moved, for goodness sake! Six months of photos! And if you are wondering how many envelopes that actually is, I believe it was 19. Yeah, 19 rolls of film. I just hope that I didn’t forget any, because then I’d have to take out the photos to where the “missing” role went in and re-file all the ones I took out. Yes, I suppose that I could just insert the missing roll and go on with life, but every time I look at the pics, that roll would taunt me until I completely broke down and redid it all. Best just to do it right in the beginning, for everybody’s peace of mind in this household! LOL
Oh, the other thing that I do as I file photos away is take out “pages” for future scrapbooking. No, I haven’t done a stitch of scrapbooking since we moved from Victoria to Halifax for your information, but I do intend on picking it up again. And I have the pages all filed away in a photo box that I got from somebody or other at my baby shower. So, it also sits there and taunts me. Anyway, while this pile of photos is also starting to become massive, it makes me feel a little better that when I do start to scrapbook again, I know the job will be *far* easier with them already in pages rather than hundreds of photos with no idea on where to start. One thing that I have done is purchase a corner rounder punch because my previous scrapbooking was done with Creative Memories and I started with the rounding the corners of the photos – I just liked the way that it all looked better than having them as sharp. And for whatever crazy reason, I really didn’t want to start up again even on my own if the pages didn’t look similar to each other. Yeah, another little crazy quirk of mine, take it or leave it! :-)
While my mum was here back in May, she purchased a valance for Iain’s room that finally arrived and then sat in his closet for weeks. Well, we finally got our act together and hung it up – we had the rod for weeks as well – and it looks SO wonderful in his room I am quite surprised. It really finished off the window, which is huge and so a large part of the nursery. I keep walking down hall and because the nursery is at the end of the upstairs hall and I always keep the door open to it, I keep noticing it again and again and admiring it. I had this idea that valances were tacky, but after seeing this one, my mind has changed a bit. Perhaps I will consider ordering/buying… making? valances for the other windows now. We’ll see! The fabric is the same from his crib set, with the dragonflies and ladybugs on it, which I am sure helps. Really pulls the room together, and she also bought the clothes hamper which I love as well. So, that is done and both of us are glad because it looks so lovely in there now.
One other thing we have done for the sanity of the house is some of the office filing. The pile had gotten so tall that it had morphed into two piles so that it wouldn’t topple over. Yeah, well, the two piles were getting so large that they were almost ready to be divided again, so we took the piles and started filing. Similarly to the mountain of photos that I filed away, we had stuff from the purchase of the house in the piles, as well as everything that happened after that, like the sale of the Halifax house, all of the bills from then to now, stuff I had collected about living in this new city, stuff for Iain… You name it? It was in those two piles. And now, the dresser top looks SO nice and clean and tidy…. Oooh, I love it. There is actually room for me to temporarily place things on it while I get something from the drawers or whatnot. Oh – I guess I should explain that the dresser in the guest room is used for office items, supplies, my thesis, wrapping paper and of course, Iain’s bottle paraphernalia because I pump at the desk. So now the only things on the dresser top are the filing drawers (which were also totally full and are now much emptier), the phone and that is it! Wooohoo!
Our puppy dawg hasn’t been acting herself really since we moved here, I think I have already talked about how she follows me around and is worried about me. Well, she has also lost a bit of weight and hasn’t been eating the same way as she did in Halifax. Part of that is that Simon just hasn’t had the energy in the mornings to get up and walk her like he did in Halifax, but I am sure that another part is that she just isn’t hungry. So, I gave her half a small can of wet food to try to get her to eat a bit more one dinner night. Later that night, I, and Simon, paid the price for it. We awoke to a smell that we have smelled before. Eerily, at almost exactly one year ago, Brook did this very same thing early one morning while we slept. Brook had diarrhea on the floor by my side of the bed. Simon jumped out of bed when he realized what the smell was and ran over to the door where the light switches were. It was literally a miracle that he didn’t step in any of it, there was so much. When he turned on the light, we saw the damage. The smell was overwhelming, beyond horrible. It was 3:14am. At least this time, I didn’t have a 9 months pregnant belly do deal with. We gathered up the supplies to clean it all, including the fan to blow the air clean again so we could theoretically go back to sleep afterwards. When Simon went to open the balcony door, what did he discover but a very large pile of regular poop on HIS side of the bed, and another turd under the bed, where Brook slept.
For a while now, when the kids are sick, like if they vomit, Simon hasn’t been physically able to clean it up without vomiting himself. So, the job has been left to me. I cleaned up all the poop, pre-treated it with pet solution and scrubbed it. The smell had dissipated somewhat, and at about 4am we went back to bed. But not until Simon had gone downstairs to get the Sears catalogue to look at steam cleaner vaccums. We had had enough of these “accidents.” The next time, and there will always be a next time with kids and children in a house (kids as in furry, children as in human). And we are thinking about getting a puppy soon too.
So, Monday I went out and bought us a steam cleaner. The purchase went well, we got the exact one that we wanted, which is great, and I think it is going to be great. There is an option to additionally heat the water, which really aids in the cleaning, and the running of it can’t be simpler. Also, we are going to be able to scotchguard any of our current and/or future furniture and carpets, because it has that option as well, using a special solution in the machine. Simon cleaned the carpet when he got home from work later that night on Monday, and all was good again. Except that Brook is never, ever going to get wet food again. Ever. :-)
Something else that happened this week was that I finally met the mum that lives down the street from us with the only other baby on the street. For whatever reason, I just haven’t gone down there an introduced myself, and she was out walking when I came home one day and I called over to her. We chatted for a bit and I invited her to check out the house as she and her husband had only seen it during construction. Her son was born early on Valentine’s Day last year and so was about 6 months old. She seemed really nice and I invited her along to the walking group that I go to on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Simon’s birthday was also this past week, and we celebrated it with a nice dinner at home, followed by playing with Iain. Nice and low-key night for us, after a couple of crazy nights. We were planning on buying him tools for his birthday, but haven’t quite decided which ones yet, so we will wait a bit before we go out and do that. Another idea we are floating is new cowboy boots for him, his old ones are really on their last legs with the leather badly damaged by winters and salt. We’ll take a couple weeks and decide which direction we are going to take with the prezzie…
One other major thing that happened this week was that I finally got in contact with a lawyer who will take on our case. He is a student at law still, just waiting to get called up by a judge who is on vacation right now. I met with him at the house and we talked for a couple of hours about everything that had happened so far with regards to finishing things and my depression etc. He was a very thorough man, asking the right questions and taking notes, he took photos to jog his memory for his file and looked me in the eye as we talked at the dinette table. Simon and I feel immensely relieved by his confidence, but also just the sheer fact that finally, finally, we have found someone who believes that the things we have been through in the past six months have been far beyond what we should have experienced. We feel very much better leaving the house for the 10 days of vacation now that this has been started. Oh, and it was a good thing that I had already gotten most of the packing done, because I ended up rushing around getting files, emails, other documents and notes ready for our lawyer so that he could have them before we left for vacation. We literally feel that a huge weight has been lifted from our shoulders because the pain and anguish that we have been through has been acknowledged by someone now, and furthermore, that someone has said that we are completely in the right that none of this should have happened and we are going to do something about it all. So, yeay for us! :-)
Some wonderful news is that my mum raced to a third place finish at the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta this week. To *anyone* in the know, this is a gigantic accomplishment. Henley is one of the oldest regattas in the world, and is currently the largest in the 2000m distance. I raced there with my university, UVic, back in 1998, and it was an honour to go and compete with so many top-caliber athletes from around the world. So, my mum has been going for the past couple of years now and this year has really been amazing for her. She is already the BC Champion for her age category and she came in third by *one* second. Which in Master’s rowing is almost unheard of, it is so close. In the university class, you could have up to four or five competitors within one total second of each other, but for Master’s, the pacing is a little… slower :-) So, anyway, I am SO proud of her. What is more, my sister, who has been racing at Henley for 7 years, has not been on the podium once. Part of that is that *only* the first place winners get a medal. This has been the tradition since Henley started, over 130 years ago – only the first place are the winners. Well, my sister won in the doubles (two rowers with two oars each). I am so proud of her I cried when I read the results. Then, she came in third in her single. This is after days of qualifying races and semi-finals, plus the heat and humidity of the region in general. Wow, what amazing and wonderful news this was!
I have “new” hair right now, and it feels so wonderful! Back last September, I had my hair permed because when winter and dry air descends, all the natural curl in my hair leaves and I am left with pin-straight hair. Well, the curl had really started to grow out and some of my natural curl had come in, but it was time to perm again, or chop off the old perm. I decided that I would perm again, but have a nice and tight curl so that it is more ringlets. So, went and had it done and again I forgot to take Tylenol before, so I was again in agony as my hair was rolled, then pinned, then waiting… LOL You’d think that I’d learn and remember, but no. And it isn’t just that appointment and night that my head hurts and is tender, but the following two or three days. Silly me. My stylist is great, new to me but we got along famously. Definitely will be seeing him again and he did a really wonderful job on the perm. Went back a couple of days later to get a trim and now I am all set for our trip with totally “new” hair! I really love it, and am having a ton of fun styling it and just having it so bouncy. I am not sure at this point how long I am going to keep it permed/this length, we’ll see how it grows out as well. Oh, one more thing – the deep red colour that I had before the perm has faded to a medium bright red what with all the processing that happens to the hair shaft. I am liking this colour more though, which is good. And in September I am going to go in and get another colour done, just straight-all over colour back to a more “calm” shade of brown… probably. :-)
I had a bad week last week, things just didn’t seem to work out well at all. I couldn’t get a hold of the lawyer yet, wasn’t able to work on my thesis, there was nothing going on at the house but the builder kept coming by, which gave me anxiety attacks that lasted hours after he had left… I was fighting more with Simon for whatever reason for stupid little things, and Iain was testing my limits. I was spilling things on me, on the floor, whatever. Making a mess wherever I was, and I was bumping into things as well. Something that doesn’t really bode well for me here is that I have consistently had bruises on my body, and bad bruises at that, since we have moved into this house. They have been huge, nasty, multi-coloured things that take ages and ages to go away. I have *never* bruised like this in my life, and it kinda scares me. I just hope that I stop bruising so easily soon, it really gives an inkling of actually how bad my health is right now, you know? So, anyway, last week was a bad week, fraught with tears and frustration, anxiety and worry. This week is better, thank goodness.
I have spent the past few days packing for the trip, so that almost everything was ready by Wednesday night. That way, there was very little to do on Thursday and Friday and I wasn’t going to be running around with my head cut off or something, like how it was the last time we tried to get away for a weekend. There was a LOT more to pack this time because the trip was so much longer and all the prezzies to pack too for Iain, but it was all loaded up as of Thursday night, with just our bag and the cooler for me to pack on Friday morning before I picked up Simon at lunch. I definitely think that this is the way to go in terms of getting organized for such a big trip. Otherwise it just gets too crazy the couple days before and that is no state to be in if you need to be driving for over 10 hours, you know?
We left on Friday at noon and made the almost last-moment decision to drive straight through till we reached my Mum’s home instead of overnighting it at her ranch property. The ranch is about 45 minutes away, we’d have to get settled there, then pack up in the morning and drive back to the main highway – way too much to deal with. So, we stopped twice in total really, once halfway to grab something to eat and fuel for the van, and then to trade drivers when Iain was no longer being soothed by dad. We had hoped that Iain would sleep, but it was a bust for most of the drive unfortunately. He was pretty happy for most of it, did a couple of naps, but not the solid nap that we were hoping for. We arrived about 10.5 hours after initially heading out, so we made good time. All told, we were all in bed by about 11:00 that night, completely reasonable albeit later than normal for us. We took a couple hours the next morning to get unpacked and settled in more fully before heading out to meet up with most of my family for a boat ride and lunch.
The day was great. I met my brother-in-law for the first time, and he was everything that I thought he was – caring, funny, intelligent, witty, considerate… I could go on, but instead I will just say that I am so glad that he has married my sister. They make a wonderful couple. I saw both of my brothers – one came and one just dropped by before we left. Brook got to meet her “sister,” my sis’s golden lab named Wong-wong and the dogs had a great time too. All of us had a fantastic time on the boat… we eventually had lunch after some debate (absolutely par for the course with my family) and then headed back for the berth. Iain wore his Lifejacket on the way there but wasn’t too happy in it, I have to say. On the way back, we left it off, as it was a pretty big boat and we were nowhere near any of the “edges.” Besides, if we had an accident, Simon is a non-certified lifeguard and the jacket was kept close at hand all day.
I had briefly talked to my dad on my brother’s cell phone as we left after lunch, and invited him down to meet us as we came back to the berth. Keep in mind that I haven’t really talked to my dad since I got married, four years ago. I was quite nervous about meeting him again, to say the least. We got into the berth and I waved to him at the top of the dock. Somehow he got into the docks because the next thing I knew he was there, saying hi to everyone. It was so good to see him again. We were best friends, really, when I was growing up, and it has been hard not having him in my life. He had tears in his eyes when we greeted each other, which made me feel so much better about inviting him down. Unfortunately, the combo of the long drive into the sun the day before, not much sleep and the marine fuel and sun that day had resulted in a pretty good headache for me and I wasn’t really able to be as present in myself as I wanted to be. I said to him that we had to talk, but I wasn’t able to at that point and said we could talk tomorrow, when we were having Iain’s birthday party.
One other thing from that day – we misplaced Bunny on the boat. Try as I could, I couldn’t find him with my head screaming at me and my Mum’s partner being an ass as usual and trying to clean up the boat and generally getting in my way and my dad waiting to see me again. I know that Bunny is on the boat somewhere, just don’t know where… hopefully we will get the opportunity before we go to head down and give another look. Thinking ahead, I brought one of Bunny’s replacements with us on the trip, Bear, which we call Bunny as well for Iain’s sake. And I also brought Floppy, a Bunny-like rug for lack of better description… So we should be okay. But twice in two weeks is really getting to me – see further down for more info…
Last thing about me. I have such a large freezer stash of milk that Simon has threatened me that I may not make any more. Uhm, yeah, like that is possible, my sweet? I can’t just adjust a dial and turn these babies down, ya know? Anyway, I have lowered my dom down to 40mg a day, and been at that level for a bit now, but it takes a little while for my body to level out. We’ll just use the extra milk for cereal or something, I guess. I am not willing to drop another pump session to 2 a day, my supply would not be enough to sustain Iain on that few pump sessions. So, I’ll keep to three sessions a day and just reduce my dom until I am okay in terms of producing what Iain needs and not much more. In case you were curious how much milk it takes to get my husband to say this to me, I have over 1000oz in the freezer. Yeah, 1000oz. But do keep in mind that I have been exclusively pumping for 11.5 months now, and that my supply is good. I know lots, and I mean lots, of women who have low-supply either truly (even breastfeeding) or pump related (don’t let down to the pump). I also know other women who EP for their twins, with no supplementation. You can guestimate how much milk THAT takes :-) So, anyway, 1000+oz is actually NOT that much milk to someone who EP’s. You see, at Iain’s current consumption, that is only 32 days of milk. He drinks 32oz a day still as he only eats dinner, no other solids really to compliment his diet. My milk is the primary source of nutrition for him. And damn proud of that I am! He is healthy, growing, thriving, lively, not a pinch of fat on him, giggly, smart, strong as a strongman, and LOVES his milk. After his birthday, I will start giving him some breakfast too, which may or may not decrease his milk intake, we’ll have to see!
Okay… Iain time now. I still have a whole paragraph of notes for things that Iain has done or have happened to him for these two weeks, so if you thought I was close to being done, hang on as there is much more to come yet!
Iain has this really adorable little trait when he is getting tired, but still has some energy to burn before going to sleep. We’ll be hanging out on our bed and he will crawl up to one of us and full-force head butt us, snuggling in. He will lie there quietly for a few moments, then he is up and crawling again. We call this “aggressive snuggling.” It is about as close as we can get to actually snuggling with Iain, as he is really not a ‘sit still and just lie in your arms’ baby by any means. There is just WAY too much stuff to do, apparently, to just sit still for a moment. Even when he is about to drop from exhaustion at the end of the day, he will not be held. So, he does his aggressive snuggling, and it just melts my heart. He will often crawl straight into the pile of pillows, too, looking back at you on the way. When he does this, Simon or I will say “I’m gonna get you” and we’ll either tickle him at the top of his legs, or pull his legs so that he is pulled across the bed, with him laughing the whole way. It is almost like he is consciously trying to burn the energy because he knows he has to go to bed soon, but not quite yet. :-)
Speaking of bed, Iain has, of late, started banging on the wall at his crib when he has woken up from his nap. It is really the funniest thing, because that angled wall is one of the walls in the office/guestroom, where I usually am when he wakes up because I am pumping or working on my thesis. So, like I had written before about him “knowing” when I am done pumping, he is trying to tell me in the MOST obvious way that he is awake now, and needs to get doing stuff, so come and get me for goodness sake! LOL Simon just laughed when I told him he was doing this, then one weekend day he was in the office when Iain woke up and started banging and he just laughed and laughed.
Iain’s nap schedule has been slightly modified of late. He hasn’t been dropping dead tired at noon like he was most of July, and instead is staying up until even 2:00 some days. This of course has an impact on my pumping schedule, so I was eager to try to get him back to some sort a routine. I started giving him a 6oz bottle of milk (more on that later) before his nap to get him down and that worked really well of course, because he falls asleep quite well with a bottle of nice warm milk. This allowed me to know that I could get him down anywhere between 12:30 and 1:30, thus keeping my pump schedule on time too. One thing that has happened as a repercussion of staying up later on his naps is that he is much more wasted in the later evening than he was before. He has started to have meltdowns, where he crawls around after us, collapses on the floor and just cries his heart out, because we keep moving and he can’t “catch” us. It is so sweet and endearing, albeit loud. And when I gather him up in my arms and he looks at me with tears in his eyes, how can a mama resist from just kissing those tears away? :-)
When Iain wakes up in the morning, I have usually started his bottle, gone in and given it to him to drink in the crib. This gives me a touch more time to get some stuff done in the morning and he happily drinks his milk down, while playing with his stuffed animals and such in his crib. Well, he had finished his bottle by the noise he was making and wanted out of the crib and I walked in to behold a disturbing sight. He had almost gotten his diaper off (it had been hot and so was just sleeping in a diaper), it was literally just hanging on his body, held on by two, tiny little sections of the tabs. For those of you confused because I cloth diaper, recall that Iain is a Master Pee-er at night, so we do disposable to contain the vast quantity of fluid that he extrudes as he sleeps. Anyway, he had a huge grin on his face as he saw me, had one thumb in his dipe, pulling it even further down. Had I given him perhaps even two minutes more, it would have been off! What is worse, is that although when he woke up it was just a wet diaper, sometime during drinking his milk he decided to have a stinky as we call it, and I literally can NOT imagine what disaster it really would have been if he did manage to get it off. Oh Lord, that would not have been good at all. However, I did manage to get there *just* in time, changed him into his cloth diaper, which he has, so far, not been able to get off. Yet. :-)
Iain has really started to do certain movements now reliably enough to write about them. When he is really excited and happy, he will move his hands and arms up and down, quite rapidly. I guess that an extension of this movement would be to start “slapping” his legs with his hands, but he doesn’t quite get down that far yet. So, when Brook comes up to him with a Kong in her mouth, he will start doing it, or if he sees Simon when he’s just gotten home from work, or if I grab a book to read to him… all of these things trigger this happy movement.
He has also started to show that he comprehends certain things like “Hi” and “Bye.” He will open and close his hand if we say hi or bye to him, mimicking us as we open and close our hands. This is really showing us how old he is now, because a younger baby would not have the mental comprehension of understanding what these words mean necessarily. My baby is growing up…
Also, we have talked and debated about this and come to the conclusion that Iain is left handed. My youngest brother was left handed but was pushed to be right handed, unfortunately. We are going to try our hardest to maintain Iain’s left handedness, I believe it is a sign of intelligence and uniqueness and is much more recognized now and when in school is supported more than it once was. Anyway, the reason why we know this is that Iain will consistently use this hand more than his right, for any and all actions. He will hold his bottle in the left hand, for example, and always has really (his hands are so big that he can “palm” the big Avent bottles, even the 9oz ones, in one hand). He will play with toys using his left hand, then his right, and so on. I feel quite blessed to have a left handed child for some reason – I can’t quite explain it. :-)
Another further sign that Iain is growing up and rapidly reaching developmental milestones is his ability to listen and furthermore, understand commands now. We have been teaching him “close it” for him to close cupboard doors and drawers and he is really starting to follow those instructions reliably the past couple weeks. Other instructions are “sit down” while standing in his high-chair, or in the grocery buggy. A very handy “command” if I may say so. :-) When he follows these instructions, we praise him by saying “good boy” as he is doing it, then exclaiming “yeay!” after the task is done. We clap our hands as well, and smile at him, and if he is upset at first at not being allowed into the cupboard or drawer, for example, he will quickly grin at us.
Iain has also been listening to when Simon says “no” to him. This is a marked improvement from before, when he would just look at us as we were saying no and continue what he was doing. We don’t honestly try to say this a lot, as I know from experience that many toddler’s first word is “no,” but there ARE times when you do need to say it. We try to say “dirty,” “danger” and “ouch” as alternatives when Iain is into something that he shouldn’t be, but it is great to see that he is learning what “no” actually means. He doesn’t quite listen to me consistently, oddly enough, but I suppose that that will come in time. I think it is because Simon’s voice is so booming and deep when he says it that you can’t help BUT pay attention to it.
In addition to starting to listen to “no,” Iain is also learning “soft.” We had been trying to teach him “gentle” but it really wasn’t working. I tried “soft” one afternoon and he almost immediately got it to my surprise. It is primarily when he is… uhm… attacking Brook that we have been trying to teach him, although Brook really doesn’t seem to mind. One night that we really knew he was learning this was when he was ferociously pulling on Brook’s ears as Brook was gnawing on her Kong. Again, Brook didn’t mind in the slightest but when we told Iain “soft,” he stopped yanking and petted her “nicely” for lack of a better term. It was quite cute. Then he promptly went back to yanking her ears. We repeated soft to him and again, he petted her nicely. Yeay! The boy listens! I have absolutely no doubt that there will be setbacks in this regard, that is what learning is all about after all, but I feel just as confident that Brook is soon to have the best playmate that she could ever want for in the coming months! :-)
Iain has been putting things “away.” Another development milestone here, do you sense a trend in this entry so far? :-) He will take things from his toy container and place them into the seat of his Megasaucer. He will put Bunny into his laundry hamper. He will put little pieces of Tupperware or Rubbermaids into larger containers. He will put wooden blocks into a drawer. He will put his soother just about anywhere. It is really incredible to think about actually. He is recognizing that if he takes something, he can put it somewhere else, come back to it and it will still be there. Or that one thing can “hold” something else, if the second item is small enough. Another example of this with a slight twist to it is when I found Iain putting a small toy of Scarlett’s through a cardboard tube. He would carefully pick up the toy, put it at the top of the tube, let go, lift up the tube and there was the toy again. Amazing, mum! I can’t for the life of me know what possessed him to try this, as he really hadn’t tried anything like this before, and I found him sitting quietly doing this for almost five minutes. A lifetime in baby-hood!
There is something that Iain does only in the van. He will make this distinctive sound and for the longest time, I thought he was just being chatty. Well, I was wrong. I looked behind me one day to smile at him while he was being chatty and he was actually blowing ‘spit’ bubbles. He stopped and grinned back at me, then continued to blow bubbles. I have confirmed over several occasions that when he is making this distinctive sound he is indeed always blowing bubbles and enlightened Simon one drive home. He too, turned around and looked only to discover what I had already done so. And Iain only does this in the van. I have never heard him make this sound anywhere else, and I would hear it as I am with him every moment of the day practically. I just grin and laugh when I hear him start up now. :-)
I now have a story that almost any mother will find herself identifying with at some point in her life as a mother. We were at a downtown department store and Simon was buckling Iain into his car seat. He gave Bunny to him and started the door closing, as our van’s side doors close automatically. Well, Iain has taken to dropping things of late and he dropped Bunny – I heard the rattle as it fell and landed. We continued on for our errands that night. Our next stop was Home Depot and I took Iain out of his seat. I did a quick check for Bunny, but didn’t really think much of it when I couldn’t find him. There were lots of places that he could have landed where I wouldn’t have seen him from that vantage point. Simon bucked Iain in and we returned home. I again took Iain out, didn’t think to look for Bunny and went inside. Later that night I went out to look, remembering that we had taken with us when we went out that day. I searched the entire area where he even, on a remote chance, could have gotten stuck or lodged. No Bunny. Anywhere. I started to get a really sick feeling in my heart. :-(
I went inside again and tried to think of what might have happened to Bunny. The only conclusion I came to was that it must have fallen out when we left Sears. I was literally almost sick at the fact that we had left Bunny behind in a dirty underground car garage. What if someone didn’t notice or care and just drove over Bunny? What if they picked it up and tossed it? All the what if’s in the world were going through my brain. I talked with Simon about it to the point where he was starting to get pissed at me. :-) But I couldn’t STOP thinking and talking about it. It was almost a compulsion. The next morning, I drove Simon in as a treat, and went to try to get into the car garage but low and behold it wasn’t open yet. I go to Walmart to do some shopping to distract myself from the fact that we had purposely left the sole item of comfort to Iain, our first child, behind in a dirty car garage. Can you feel the intensity of the guilt I was feeling at the time? I go back to the garage and talk to the attendant. She is clueless as to what the hell I am talking about and lets me go in to look, myself, without paying. I drive in, looking, craning my neck. I don’t see it, I don’t see it… I go around the corner and see garbage on the ground… Still don’t see a Bunny-like form. Just as I pull up parallel with the next row over from where we parked, I see Bunny, leaning against the pillar that we had parked beside. My heart literally LEAPS with joy and relief. I raced to the pillar, jumped out of the van (there were some people in the garage and they looked at me strangely – I can only imagine what a lunatic I looked like), ran over to Bunny and just hugged him. Someone had recognized that this was a special creature to some child out there and carefully place it leaning up against the pillar. Bless that stranger! I gave Bunny to Iain, who just hugged him and we drove out. I hope to never loose Bunny again. I just couldn’t handle it again! :-)
We have delayed getting Iain’s vaccinations. I firmly do not believe that it can be right to shoot a 8 week old baby up with so much crap. They are so small and at a maturation that I just *don’t* think it is necessary. Notice that I have not said that we are not getting vaccines, so don’t even think to harp on me on that topic. I have only said that we have delayed it. With us potentially traveling out of the country for Christmas, however, and with the first location not even letting children into the country without proof of vaccination, we knew Iain had to get vaccinated. So, I made the appointment and we went in. I brought a huge 8oz bottle for him to drink during it in the hopes that he would be distracted from it all. We weighed him and he weighed 19lbs 3oz at 11.5 months old. Yup, he’s a little string bean, my boy. :-) I got him as dressed as I could again and we went into the office. The nurse then just talked, and talked, and talked… My stress level started to creep up because Iain was getting fussy, he hadn’t had his breakfast bottle for goodness sake, and it was getting colder and colder. I said that I only wanted the DtaP-IPV, Prevnar and Meningococcal and talked to her extensively it seemed on what each were and why they were recommended and she was already having a problem with the fact that he was so old getting his first shots.
Finally, she is all set up and I give Iain the bottle so that he is somewhat sated. She gives him the first shot and he looks at me in shock at the prick. I smile down at him and tell him it is okay. We have to switch positions so she can get his other leg for the other two shots. When she gives him the second one, he looks again at me and starts to cry. My heart just breaks, logically. It is for this reason that I refuse to give shots earlier, when babies are really not able to understand that everything is okay, in addition to all that stuff in such a small child and an immune system that hasn’t sorted itself out yet. His cry, too, wasn’t a “normal” cry either. It was a ‘I’m confused and this hurts, what is happening, this is scary’ cry. I manage to get him settled down again and drinking again and she gives him the third and (thankfully) final shot. He really gets upset with this one, crying almost uncontrollably. I just hold and rock him, making soothing noises and sending out calm vibes, hoping he will pick them up. He is oblivious to the bottle in his mouth, so I take it out. I try to give him his soother, and after a bit, he takes it. That soothes him some, but he still whimpers some. He grows calmer as we go out to the waiting room and in a few minutes is fine again, if a little whimpery. He did finish his bottle out there, though, so at least he had a full belly. They want us back in at the start of September, though, for the next round. Because, for some reason, the two months spacing for shots is ramped up to only four weeks of space for “older” babies. Yeah, as if I am going to do that. I did the first shots on my time-line, and we’ll do the boosters on my time-line too. I will bring Iain in probably in October for the second round. Oh, and at 12 months, they also get the MMR, so I need to think about when I want to bring him in for that, too. As usual when you have a baby, it is a lot to think about. :-)
One last thing. Why couldn’t they just give it all in one shot? I mean, they are giving three medications, two in one leg in very close proximity to each other, why couldn’t they literally combine the liquids and give one shot? I suppose that there is some worry on the amount of fluid being injected, as I *distinctly* remember my own Hep vac’s just recently and how that felt. But is that an option at all? Just something I was thinking. I mean, you could at least twin the second ones that are given together, so that it is just one prick… anyone out there know the answer to this?
So, as a result of this visit, we have been talking about Iain’s weight. Or, lack thereof. He is SO skinny! And we feed him so much! Where on earth does it all go?? Simon and I have decided to try to feed him more. I am slightly outproducing him for milk so that little bit of extra could be used in another bottle, and I could start to feed him breakfast too. Well, I tried this one morning and he ate up a ton of rice cereal made with juice and applesauce and some fruit. I went to unclip him from the high chair and the *tiny* bit of pressure that I had to press against his belly to unclip the restraints made him have the biggest spit up he has had since he was 6 weeks old. I’m not joking – everything that I had just fed him spilled all down him and into the chair. So – he is happy to eat, but his belly is literally not big enough to contain the food. So, that plan went out the window. Well, we did end up giving him one more bottle a day, a 6oz just when he is about to go down for his nap as per the discussion already. Before adding in that bottle, he had an 8oz for breakfast then nothing until after his nap at 4:00 – 5:00 that afternoon. No, I wasn’t starving him it was at his lead that that afternoon bottle moved so far ahead in the day. He started to go down to sleep earlier in the afternoon and started sleeping through that bottle so I gave it to him after his nap. Then his nap started going longer too, and the whole thing escalated to him not eating for most of the day. Granted, at night he was a little piggie, having a 6oz with dinner, which was a large jar of food, and then another 8oz at bedtime. We have come to terms with him not weighing much because we offer him food all the time and he eats all the time, he just burns those calories too quickly for him to have them start to stick to his ribs, is all. :-)
Iain has, finally, gotten his second bottom tooth. It has been budding now since he got the first one, but has taken its merry little time coming through. Thankfully, he still hasn’t really had any teething to speak of. We were beginning to wonder if that second bottom tooth would ever arrive, and were hoping that it would before his birthday so his wide grin could showcase these little beauties. These first four have really taken us by surprise, so it leads to the logical conclusion of wondering when and how the other teeth are going to come in. No sign of any further teeth in the slightest, as of right now… but at least I know what I am looking for in the future!
Iain has, of late, been crawling over to me particularly when I am in the kitchen and using me to stand up, and then just holds on to one of my legs. He then looks up at me and grins. I usually have to get him off of my leg as there is a reason why I am in the kitchen and it is not to be attacked by my son, but it is a cute little thing nonetheless and I wanted to remember it. It usually happens around dinner time, but also on the weekends. He doesn’t really do it to Simon at all, even when he is in the kitchen and not me, so there must be something to it when he consistently crawls over to only me, right? :-)
The other thing that Iain has been doing is standing up alone a TON. He will use something like a wall or sofa or toy to stand himself up, but then will just let go and stand there. The change was remarkable and quite discernable as one day he was holding on, the next day he really wasn’t. Then, he took one step, by himself, from his toy push-car to the Tupperware cabinet. We think that a lot of this confidence in standing up is not really related to anything new, however, because he has been cruising for so long (using furniture and walls to walk along). It was just an extension of what he has been doing literally for the past six months. But, the step, well, the step is new. I mean, I am with him all day and haven’t ever seen him do something like this. Then as almost a gift to his dad, he did a couple steps to me after my prodding (holding my arms open and saying come here) on his dad’s birthday. So, clearly this is all adding up, but since then we haven’t really seen him do any more steps. So, we will see. They say that babies usually learn to walk within 10 days of doing the first steps, so counting from Simon’s birthday, that would put Iain walking on his own birthday. We’ll have to wait and see, just like so much in life…
**Talk to Me**
What were your and your partner’s birthday celebrations like in the couple of years after you had kids – low-key or did you go all out and out to dinner?
What concerns did you have, if any, about how your baby was gaining weight (keeping in mind that breastmilk babies do tend to grow more slowly etc) and did you do anything about it?
How long did it take your little baby to turn to a toddler, are the experts right at 10 days or was it later/shorter?
Namaste, Laura and Iain
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