1 Mother 2 Another

I’ve been so hesitant to say anything, but it looks as if my daughter’s settling into a good, predictable nap every day.

The hesitancy is two-pronged: one, you hate to rub a consistent nap into another mommy’s face.

And two, Maddie might hear me and decide to punish me for being complacent – say, by taking the naptime away from me. 

I’ve been so hesitant to say anything, but it looks as if my daughter’s settling into a good, predictable nap every day.

The hesitancy is two-pronged: one, you hate to rub a consistent nap into another mommy’s face.

And two, Maddie might hear me and decide to punish me for being complacent – say, by taking the naptime away from me. 

This week's poll has to do with getting out of the house without the munchkin.

I want to know - when was the first time you left your baby in a substitute caregiver's charge? And I'm not talking about leaving your daughter with Grandma, or with your best friend who lives next door.

I'm interested in the first time you left your child with a paid caregiver, be it nanny, daycare, or one-time babysitter. Did you return to work and start using daycare at six weeks? Did you wait until your child was six months old? After his first birthday? Still not willing to leave your baby with a "stranger"? I want to know!

As always, the poll will be up all week on the right-hand side of this home page, below all the category tabs. You don't have to be a registered user to vote; simply click and submit to have your voice heard! 

If there’s one thing worse than being sick the same time your child is, it’s being sick when your child is not. I recently went through 24 hours that once again highlighted how nothing in your life is the same after your child is born. Be forewarned – TMI coming up.

Late one night I began to experience what I’ll call Speedy Intestinal Problems, or SIP. This got me up several times during the night, and somehow Madeleine decided to piggyback on that and get me up in the intervening half-hours. Here’s a fun activity: awake to the sound of your daughter screaming at 2:30 a.m. Check her diaper, which will turn out to be dry but will aggravate her mightily. Nurse her for a bit, then realize you need to run to the bathroom. Put her back in her crib so she can scream while you deal with your SIP. Then nurse her some more, same as before except now she’s truly ticked off by your abandonment. Good times.

After a largely sleepless night, I was exhausted and dehydrated. Maddie, however, was fine.

The SIP continued during the day, making me very leery of eating, well, anything. Which, because I’m hypoglycemic, had an unintended side effect:

SIP= dehydration=not eating=hypoglycemic migraine. 

As we strive to beat the heat this summer, we’ve broken down and gotten ourselves one of those kiddie pools for the back yard.

I’ve always been resistant to them; they kill the grass, they get dirty, they take up space, and you have to empty them after every use or it’s simply an incubator for those West Nile mosquitoes. But I found one that seemed to solve some of those problems and with the heat, the reduced family hours at our local Y, and Maddie’s love of all things aquatic, I broke down and bought it.

Listen up – if you have five feet of available outdoor space, go buy this thing. It’s probably on end-of-season sale now. 

Here's your daily reminder to check out Monday's entry entitled, "Mommy Tips Survey". Post your best mommy tip in the comments section for a chance to win a free gift! It's up all week.

Madeleine’s been getting more and more comfortable with other kids; between playing in the nursery before church, and hanging out at the park every day with other toddlers, she’s starting to understand that there exist other small beings than herself, and they get to play with stuff too.

And since I’ve been making a couple friends at our park, I thought it was time to hit another first: The Play Date. 

In yesterday’s blog I talked about practical issues you need to consider that you may not have thought of, like picking a pediatrician and installing the car seat.

But there are lots of parenting issues a couple may not be aware need discussion, that can really test the marital ties in the midst of sleep deprivation and three days in a row of Chinese takeout. So here’s my biggest piece of advice to expectant parents:

Have lots of fights with your spouse.

You’ve got many decisions to make about what sort of parent you’re going to be. Some of them are already half-made based on your upbringing and seem so obvious you assume your spouse agrees with you until it’s 3 a.m., you bring the baby in bed with you, and your husband freaks out, saying you’ll make your 2-week-old son a mama’s boy. Trust me, it’s better to at least start these fights now, when you can play the old hormone card, than after the baby comes and you’re both so sleep-deprived you can’t remember your husband’s name. Here’s a list of topics to get you started: 

Ok, listen up parents-to-be. Here’s the blog you will want to print out and put up on your refrigerator.

I’m not going to tell you all the stuff to buy for baby, or how to pick an OB, or epidural vs. natural childbirth. There are tons of books already written about that stuff, and frankly, it’s not as important as what we’re going to talk about today. Well, ok, so it is, but this is important too.

I’m going to give you a list to get you started on After Baby Comes. Yep, these fun nine months of pregnancy, preparation, and progesterone-induced puking will come to an end and when they do, you’ll be too sleep-deprived to get cracking on staying ahead of the Parent Curve. So read on, and get going.

This week’s poll we’re doing something different.

Instead of a poll, it’s more of a survey, and instead of a pre-written answer you click on and submit, you write the answer yourself, with a chance for a free gift!

Here’s my question: What’s the best mommy tip you’d like to pass on to other moms?

Do you have a tip for organizing your nursery? A trick for making homemade baby food? A secret for getting out poop stains, or soothing a screaming toddler in the middle of the mall?

I want to hear about it. So write up your tip in the comment section of this entry.

Be sure to include your email address, because here’s the added bonus –

I’ll narrow the tips down to a few favorites, and my girlfriends and stay-at-home-dad guy pal Graham  – my Mommy Focus Group that I turn to for help – will select their favorite tip. The winner will receive a FREE pressed puff from Pure Me (see my previous blog to understand its awesomeness), courtesy of the inventor of Pure Me, a fellow mom.

You don’t need to be a registered user to submit a tip; you can submit as a guest. But registered users will be much easier for me to get back in touch with, so if you submit as a guest be sure to publish your email so I can find you! And you can post as many tips as you want, but please post each one separately.

My girlfriends may publish tips of their own, but don’t worry, they know they’re exempt from winning the prize.

You’ve got until Saturday to submit here, so get to it! The winner will be chosen later next week.

Good luck, and speak up!

Last week’s poll certainly revealed to me that I’m not alone in the “Less Ain’t So Bad” school of grooming these days.

The poll focused on how your grooming habits have changed since becoming a mommy, and almost half of you said you try to look presentable and shower daily, but don’t spend as much time in front of the mirror as you used to. Most of the rest of you admitted to showering a couple times a week and combing when necessary, while one brave mommy (God bless your honesty!) said she’s happy to get out of the house without her breast pads showing, and with the spit-up blending into her fabric.

This topic came to me a couple weeks ago while I was showering one evening. I was hacking away at nearly a week’s growth of leg hair and thinking how different my standards are now than they were a year plus ago; I’m happy to shower twice a week and find time to shave maybe once in those seven days. As I realized how embarrassed I’d be to admit that to a lot of people (ironic, since I’m confessing it in cyberspace), I became defensive in my inner monologue, reasoning that there’s just no time with the baby! 

Maddie and I are in the habit of hitting the park every morning as part of our routine. She’s made a couple friends (so have I!) and is starting to look forward to seeing familiar faces on the playground.

Since it’s been so hot here – six days of around 100 degrees – Maddie only makes a cursory nod at the swings before heading off to the sprinkler rainbow. One of her friends, Naomi, is always amply stocked with water balloons, and the things fascinate my daughter. She loves to squish them in her hands, drop them and watch them roll, chew on them; you name it, she’s done it. And when she drops it or squeezes it too hard and it breaks, she stares at the ground in honest bewilderment, uncertain where the thing mysteriously disappeared.  

It seems my daughter’s been shopping for a personality recently, and I’m not sure but I think she’s been just haphazardly throwing whatever’s on sale in the cart.

Is it just Maddie, or is this a phase everyone goes through? These random things start emerging that make you scratch your head and wonder: is she watching German t.v. behind your back and not understanding the subtitles? Are you walking in your sleep and doing really weird things she’s trying to emulate?

For there seems to be no rhyme or reason to these idiosyncrasies popping up every few days. Here’s just a smattering of the Greatest Hits she’s collecting:

This week is World
Breastfeeding Week  and the subject seems to be everywhere. The
morning shows, the evening news, nighttime newsmagazines, all seem to be
talking about breastfeeding.

Granted, there are a few hot items
to cover right now. Babytalk, a magazine for parents, ran a
picture on the cover of a mother nursing and had 25% of its readers,
mostly parents, complain and call the cover offensive. CNN ran an article 
about it, if you’re interested, or you can simply hit pretty much any
parenting blog – try Dot
Moms or Daddytypes 
to read a couple takes on it – and get a good summary. One magazine
subscriber was so offended she ran the cover through a shredder, lest
her 12-year-old son see it and be inflamed with lust.

This, of
course, is coming hard on the heels of the national ad campaign that
likened not nursing to riding a mechanical bull while pregnant, so
harmful is formula for your baby. And it’s in the midst, too, of some
pretty high-profile protests by self-styled “Lactivists” staging
nurse-ins to promote breast-feeding in public. There's a great article
profiling the whole "nursing in public" thing; click here to
read more.

And as the battle of the boob heats up, I can’t help
but feel sorry for the people caught in the cross-fire: the new mommies.
On the one hand you’ve got moms telling you it’s going to cause your
child irreparable harm if you don’t nurse, and that you should be proud
of nursing and willing to flaunt it in public; on the other, you’ve got
people with the legitimate complaint that the recent baby boom in major
metropolitan areas like New York has resulted in the takeover of, well,
everywhere by new families; it’s not enough now to have a kid-friendly
space – it has to be kid-centered. (Click here 
to read a good article on that tangent). Stroller Manifestos banning
babies from bars at 2 a.m. are being posted in local clubs (well, duh, I
say) while defiant mommies are sitting down in the middle of Victoria’s
Secret to protest the removal a couple months ago of a nursing mother
from a store. 

I’ve had a couple mommies ask about baby-friendly bug repellant, so here ya go.

When summer came and we began hitting the park twice a day, I didn’t think much about insect repellant. After all, I’d never been one to get a lot of bites myself, so how bad could it be? Still, being the over-researched mommy that I am, I asked our pediatrician about it at our 12-month visit as a “just in case” scenario.

She told me we need to stay away from any chemical bug repellant for a few years still. Anything with Deet or pesticides in it is off-limits, since the chemicals are absorbed through the skin. The best solutions she offered were to either buy a “natural” bug spray, or stay indoors from dawn to dusk and avoid things like camping. Because of where we live, the West Nile Virus is a real possibility and she urged us to not look on mosquito bites as a rite of passage for kids.

I dutifully tucked the information away at the back of my brain, not really thinking I’d ever need to use it. Three nights later we returned from our evening park trip, only to discover four huge new welts on the back of Maddie’s legs. The next day, another one appeared after our morning play time!

Obviously, the mosquitos had discovered Madeleine’s delicious sweetness and declared it Open Season. 

. . . is Maddie’s two front teeth.

Heck, I’m not even that picky. Any teeth will do at this point.

Last week’s poll results are in, and I’m trying not to take it personally but it seems every vote you mommies cast on when your child got her first tooth was a smug (ok, to my jealous mind) reminder that my daughter’s smile is still gummy.

Most mommies said their child got a first tooth right around six months, which is textbook teething time. The rest of you were evenly spread out over the next six months right up to one year old, except for one poor mommy whose child was an early bloomer at four months. I say poor mommy since I can’t imagine nursing for so many months with a mouth full of teeth chomping down on you.

And out of everyone who voted, no one said her child got a tooth after one year old! Meanwhile, here I am with the close-to-fourteen-month Toothless Wonder. 

Ok moms, it’s time to ‘fess up.

We all know that life right after the baby comes is crazy, and we’ve all told the horror stories about not getting a shower for 12 days straight, or only getting one leg shaved before a baby meltdown.

Once those first few weeks (ok, first few months) are over, though, most of us still would prefer to do more important stuff – like sleep – than blow dry our hair to picture-perfect straightness any more; our meticulous grooming becomes a thing of the distant past.

So where do you fall? Are you still carving out time from those four hours a night of sleep to get up and get a full face of makeup on? Are you happy to aim for “neat”? Is a once-a-week shower now standard? Or are your sites set even lower?

Be honest – it’s an anonymous poll, after all. As always, the poll will be up all week on the right-hand side of the home page, under all the content tabs. You don’t need to be a registered user to vote; simply click and submit to have your voice heard! 

I’ve always been a big Egyptology buff, and I’m lucky that I can indulge my fetish at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; their collection is amazing and I’ll happily walk through it and lecture (completely incorrectly, I’m sure, but my friends know even less than I do) for hours.

The Met recently had a lovely exhibit come through on Queen Hatshepsut, and when I saw the ads early this spring my pulse quickened and I made a mental note in my daytimer not to miss it.

Until reality came back, and I realized oh, yes, I have a kid now.

Unfortunately for Maddie, I really like Egyptology, so in the last days of the exhibit the Madster and I carefully packed a diaper bag and hopped into the car. I spent the drive excitedly talking about the 18th Dynasty and politics of the day; Maddie spent the drive excitedly talking about her plastic keys.

We recently had a couple of excruciatingly hot days here in New York City. And believe me, I know from hot; I’m a Texas girl. The difference between Texas heat and New York heat? Everything in Texas is air-conditioned, and the power company assumes you’ll actually use it.

In New York, however, you’ve got mass transit with its stiflingly hot subway platforms, a preponderance of small stores and homes without air-conditioning, and a power company that seems so surprised when power usage goes up during a heat wave that you almost feel sorry for them.

We spent several days in a brownout, making being out and about actually attractive in comparison to the sweaty, still air of our home. So we hit the park several times a day, and came up with lots of reasons to run stroller errands.

Even with the park being cooler than our home, Maddie still worked up a sweat running around. She’s always been a bit prone to heat rash, especially on her neck and back of her shoulders from snuggling while nursing. I’ve always thought it’d be something we simply lived with, but I recently found a product that’s helped us out a lot.

Maddie’s whole current separation anxiety thing seems to be a part of a larger issue these days: transitions.

We’ve spent a lot of time working on transitions from a parenting point of view (see previous blog), but Madeleine’s hitting an age of awareness where she needs a little help going from A to B.

Any change in her activity can set her off. And I don’t mean a change in her daily schedule; we’ve got a routine going and it helps her feel confident about what’s coming next, but we mix up our life enough that she’s not stressed if we skip the park one evening or don’t have Music Time one afternoon.

I mean smaller transitions: going from playing an instrument to having a diaper changed. Or leaving the swing set to get on the slide. It’s like she enters this timeless period where she’s content to do the same thing – be it playing with duckie while I brush my hair in the morning, or pushing her push toy up and down the hallway – ad infinitum. She enters a “task zone” and is startled and discomfited when that zone is interrupted. 

Last week we were in the midst of a so-dark-of-a-brown-it-may-as-well-be-black out from Monday night to Thursday afternoon, with a little reprise this Sunday and Monday. That means our fridge was barely hanging in there – the light comes on so dimly you think it must be nighttime in Refrigeratorland – but we had no microwave, no toaster oven, no computer or internet access (note the paucity of postings as I went through blogging withdrawal), no air conditioning, no air conditioning, no air conditioning.

Did I mention no air conditioning? 

This week’s poll is up and running, and if you’ve read my blog recently
the topic should come as no surprise:

When did your baby get his
first tooth?

Was he an early popper? Did they come in right
around six months? Nine months? One year? I’m dying to know if I’m the
only mother of a toothless toddler.

The poll will be up all
week on the right-hand side of this home page, below the content tabs.
Remember, you don’t have to be a registered user to vote; simply click
and submit!

Last week’s poll was all about the enforced isolation that comes with a sick kid. Most of you said you keep your child isolated until the fever’s broken and the mucous runs clear, while a few admitted to the “if baby feels up to it, baby’s out and about – it’s good for other kids to be exposed to germs” attitude. A couple also said they’re the “lockdown until it’s all gone” type of parent, and wish more people returned the favor.

The poll topic was fresh on my mind the past couple of weeks as Maddie went through her first illness. I’ve always been grateful for girlfriends who stay home from church when a little one’s sick, or who keep their baby turned away from me while we talk because he’s got a cold. I’ve watched my girlfriend Abby spend week after week with her two boys passing a cold back and forth between them as Abby slowly goes stir crazy. And I always assumed I’d repay the favor; that when Maddie got sick, I’d keep us politely at a distance until she was no longer contagious.

(Please note – this is the fourth in a four-part series on c-sections. If you’ve missed out, please read Deciding On A C-Section  Having A C-Section  and Recovering From A C-Section to catch up.)

It’s time to leave the hospital and head out into the world: just you, your husband, your new baby, and a neat incision.

The staff will talk through a sheet of instructions for you that you’ll only half hear because it’s dawning on you that you’re leaving the safe womb of the hospital and its 24/7 room service and care. You’ll set up a 2-week appointment to visit your OB and check on your scar’s healing, either before you leave or soon after you get home. You will –with great foresight – insist that your husband fill your Tylenol with codeine prescription before you leave the hospital, so there’s no lag time in your doses. You will take a Tylenol-codeine soon before you leave. Your doctor will instruct you to spend the next two weeks holding nothing heavier than the baby.

Ten minutes later, if you’re anything like me, you’ll pick up your baby.

In her car seat.

Let’s just say that’s a mistake and move on.

We’ve seen a return of separation anxiety in Maddie’s life over the past month or so, and let me tell you, I didn’t miss it.

We’re getting the new, expanded Separation Anxiety 2.0 version this time around, too.   Last time it was “merely” mommy being out of the room or out of sight, and constantly talking to her or coming back for her to see me seemed to help.  Of course, that didn’t work when I’d be gone for long stretches of time – say, at work – but those didn’t seem to be an issue once she got past the first few minutes and forgot I existed.

This time around we’re having trouble with her seeing me, Brian, or Gamma leave.  If Maddie’s in my room helping me get dressed in the morning and Daddy wanders in, grabs his watch, and wanders out, she sobs and throws herself at the door.  If Gamma’s over for the night and it comes time to go home, Maddie will cheerfully hug her and say “bye bye”, waving calmly, but once Gamma walks out the door and Maddie sees her walking away AND NOT COMING BACK, it’s as if she finally realizes what “bye bye” means and she begins pounding on the glass:  “No!  Come back!  I didn’t mean it!  That was just a game!  COME BACK!!!!”  She then collapses, inconsolable for a few moments.

Maddie’s been wrestling with a cold since last Monday, and we spent last week learning all about the varieties of snot, how little a toddler enjoys having her nose wiped, and that fun game of multiple personalities called “I’m Not Sick! I Feel Fine! I Feel Awful! Time To Have A Meltdown!”

I’ve been amazed at how long it’s taken to get out of her system; when my girlfriend Abby told me a week ago that it takes about seven days for a baby’s cold to run its course I remember being shocked, and certain my kid would be ahead of the curve. Alas, ‘twas not so, and the Snot Factory really didn’t shut down until Sunday.

Interlaced with the whole cold issue, though, seems to be a round of teething. Towards the end of last week Maddie became a new kind of cranky, looking for lots of cuddling and snuggles, bursting into tears, and hitting herself on the head. This was different from the playing furiously then stopping and dropping in her tracks to suck her thumb and roll wanly on the floor she’d been doing earlier in the week, and frankly, not nearly as fun.

She spent the whole weekend on an incredibly short fuse, clearly unhappy and needing a lot of pampering. Then Monday it went to a whole different level.

Last week’s poll was about food allergies and your infant. Did your baby show any signs of a having food allergy, either to something in your breastmilk or formula, or in solid foods?

The only two infant allergies reported were evenly split – soy and dairy. Not surprisingly, these are two of the most common allergies in babies and toddlers. Unfortunately, these two foods are in everything, under a variety of disguises, making them almost impossible to avoid.

The good news about food allergies in infants is that it’s almost always outgrown: the vast majority of infants with allergies will go on to be food allergy-free as adults, usually outgrowing their allergy by 2 or 3 years old. The exceptions to that, unfortunately, are peanuts, tree nuts, shell fish, and fish: those are rarely outgrown.

This week’s poll is up and running and should come as no surprise to you. Since Maddie was laid low with her first cold last week (and consequently Mommy was kept hopping as the in-house entertainment, but that’s a different blog), I’m incredibly interested to hear how you handle the whole quarantine situation.

Does your house go into lockdown when the nose starts running? Are you of the “if the snot’s clear the kids are free” school of thought? Or do you think kids get germs, it’s a fact of life, deal with it? I want to know what you think!

As always, the poll will be up all week, on the right hand side below all the category buttons. You don’t need to be a registered user to vote; simply click and submit to have your voice heard!  

(Please note – this is the third in a four-part Friday series on c-sections. Read Deciding On A C-Section and Having A C-Section to catch up.)

You’ve had a c-section. The spinal anesthesia has worn off and your new best friend, the morphine drip, is happily running. You’ve been cleared to head to your new home for the next few days, your recovery room. Your OB smiles and waves bye-bye, promising to check up on you in the next day or so. Your baby is wandering around making new friends in the nursery.

Now what?

Here comes some of the icky stuff. 

Madeleine’s first cold seems to be a mercifully short one; a sort of starter cold, if you will, breaking us in gently.  She slept through her first full night of sickness as she normally does, which told me she’s not hugely congested to begin with.  I woke up the second morning hoping she was all better, but alas, ‘twas not the case.

Her eating was still off, and her mood swings still erratic, but I could see that Maddie was beginning to feel better on her second day of sickness.  Unlike her mother.

The one problem?  The kid wouldn’t nap.

Ok, as much as I’ve prevaricated and stretched the definition of “sick” to put off Maddie’s first illness as long as possible, my luck has finally run out.

This isn’t teething, it’s not a reaction to a vaccine, and it’s not a food allergy.

This is good, old-fashioned, bona fide snot-running-out-the-nose, congested-little-cough sick.

Maddie started a delicate, ladylike cough a few days ago and I naively chalked it up to teething.  What can I say; my kid’s 13 months old and has no teeth, so what do I know?  Other than the little cough, which troubled her not one whit, she had no symptoms, so it seemed as good a guess as any.

Yesterday, however, I woke up with a cold and judging from the sad little sneezes and Camille-like coughs coming from the moniter, I wasn’t the only one.  When I walked into the room to get Maddie up she was standing smilingly in her usual corner of the crib, anticipating Mommy’s Big Arrival.  I walked over to her and, as if she suddenly realized she didn’t feel good, she crumpled into a little heap and began sobbing.

Is there anything more painful, more knife-piercingly hard to take than your baby’s sad little eyes looking up at you as if to say, “Mommy, why don’t you fix this?”

Last week’s poll results are in, and wow, we’re a bunch of self-sufficient mommies.

I asked how often you were in phone contact with your pediatrician during Pumpkin’s first six months. I expected it to be a bit more all over the map, but you overwhelmingly responded that you spoke with your doctor only at well-baby visits. A few said you talked somewhere between 2 and 6 times in those first six months, while only one mommy bravely admitted to being practically on a first name basis with her pediatrician!

I have to admit, I thought I’d be on the high end of this poll, but since we talked to our doctor twice outside of well-baby visits during Maddie’s first six months, it puts us at the lower end. No martyr’s crown for me, dang it.

This week’s poll is up and running and I’m interested to see the results.

This week I’m asking about infant allergies – specifically food allergies. Food allergies seem to be on the rise in the U.S. and I’d like to know how you’re faring. Did your child react to dairy in your breast milk? Did soy formula produce a rash, or worse? Any wheat problems?

If you’ve got older kids, please respond only about allergies from the first two years, since most infants outgrow these allergies during toddlerhood and lifetime allergies are something else entirely.

As always, the poll will be up all week on the right-hand side of the front page, underneath all the category buttons. You do not need to be a registered user to vote; simply click and submit to have your voice heard! 

(This is part two of a four-part Friday series on c-sections; click here  for the first installment.)

When my daughter was discovered to be stubbornly breech, my OB talked through our options with us. Many doctors will automatically schedule a c-section for a breech baby; they worry about he head and neck being damaged during delivery; the chin can get hung up on your pelvis, the doctor can pull too hard . . . and brain damage results.

My doctor was willing to allow me to try a vaginal delivery if I went into labor naturally, provided the baby didn’t get too big and nothing seemed to be wrong with the situation. After much discussion and research, we decided to try it. My OB warned that she would have final veto power, and if I went into labor and anything even “smelled funny”, she’d whisk me into the operating room for a c-section. She also said she reserved the right to insist on a c-section if it got too close to my due date and I didn’t go into labor.

Baby girl didn’t turn, and I didn’t go into labor, and the c-section was scheduled. I was very nervous – not about the surgery itself, since I implicitly trusted my doctor and her track record. This just wasn’t how I’d envisioned the birth experience, and I didn’t want to spend my first important bonding weeks with my daughter on pain medication and distracted by the whole recovery process. I couldn’t find anyone who had had a c-section to tell me what to expect, how much it hurt, what “they” don’t tell you.

So in the event you need a c-section, here’s what to expect, how much it hurts, and what “they” don’t tell you. 

With so much free time to kill –er, enjoy – over the past holiday weekend, we hit the park a good twice a day, maybe more. Madeleine loves the park, and if you add up the time it takes to do the sunscreen “massage”, pack the stroller, walk to the park, play, cry about leaving, get home, and unpack, you’ve got a good hour you can tick off the timesheet.

Madeleine’s first love at the park was the swings, and it’s where we start our park adventure every time, creature of habit that she is. She then discovered the slide and quickly conquered that apparatus. Transitioning to Advanced Park Play, she’s moved on to the stairs.

My recent blog on the whole birth experience started me thinking back on the recovery part a bit more. These days, someone says to me, “Oh, you had a c-section? How was it?”

And I smile and say, “Oh, it wasn’t so bad, really. Not bad at all.”

And my husband looks at me as if to say, “Woman, are you CRAZY? Do you not REMEMBER???”

And the truth is, no, I don’t, fully. I’ve blocked the bad bits out.

But when I dig deep and force myself to go back through those memories, I have to admit, yes, it was bad. And at the same time, not so bad. C-sections are terrifying; you’re having major surgery and then are immediately expected to care for a newborn! And the whole recovery thing is often glossed over by the doctor; they’ll go into graphic detail on the fantastic method they use of closing your incision, but talking about recovery will simply say, “The first week will be bad.”

Bad as in how? Bad as in 80’s hairstyle-bad? Or bad as in repeatedly run over by a truck bad?

First off, I have to say that somewhere out there a guy googled those keywords in the title and was vastly disappointed to arrive at my website.

Now to the blog –

As I mentioned before, Maddie spent the weekend running around in just a diaper while Mommy and Daddy watched her spots spread. It was good times for everyone, I say with only a slight bit of sarcasm, and Madeleine especially enjoyed the freedom and undivided attention.

So the first night Maddie had a fever (see previous blog) she woke up a couple times in the night.

And may I just say, getting up at night is way harder once you’ve experienced an uninterrupted night’s sleep.

Maddie’s sleep problems (I’m pretty sure I spent a good month talking about them) seemed to resolve around 11 months, and we’ve had almost a couple months of luxurious nights with Madeleine not getting up until at least 6 a.m. Let me tell you, I could get used to it. In fact, I did.

Going to bed the first night Maddie had a fever I knew she’d probably get up and I vowed not to be angry. I promised my husband I’d try very hard not to take it out on him, to which he responded with a skeptical and jaded roll of the eyes. I was prepared to forgive everyone for an interrupted night.

Everyone, that is, except the cat.

Madeleine’s achieved another milestone –

Her first
illness.

I’m shamefacedly admitting that Madeleine is over a year
old and has never been sick. Not because it makes us bad parents or
anything, but because I know all you folks out there who have
experienced the trauma of a sick child don't want to hear any bragging
like that. We’re pretty happy with her health record- not looking
forward to vomiting and diarrhea and sleepless nights – and were hoping
to continue the streak a bit longer.

And we sort of can, but sort
of can’t.

 This week’s poll is up and running! I want to know: how often did you
call your pediatrician in the early days? Did you talk only at
well-baby visits? Call around once a month with a new parent question?
Are you on a first-name basis by now? I want to know! And FYI –
there’s no right answer. Pediatricians are used to hearing from anxious
new parents, so don't be embarrassed.

As always, you don’t need
to be a registered user to vote; simply click and submit to have your
voice heard! The poll’s up all week on the right-hand side of the page,
just below my navigation buttons.

The results of last week’s poll are in, and this has to be the most evenly-voted poll yet!

I was interested in hearing how you all dealt with that newborn fussiness, and every item I listed was voted for pretty consistently; there was no clear winner.

What does this mean?

It means when you’re desperate, you’ll try anything, and no amount of baby gear is too much if it buys you five minutes of peace.

“American Baby” recently published a good
article summarizing three different “methods” of parenting and
dealing with the sleep issue: co-sleeping, scheduling, and
self-soothing. It’s up on their website now, and is a decent look at all
three ideas.

My girlfriend Bev was interviewed for the
co-sleeping part of the article. Her family is a fantastic example of
how attachment parenting works for some people. And for the record, her
son Danny is almost 2 years old now, and moved to his own bed recently
with no problem.

I wouldn’t be, well, me if I didn’t weigh in on
the article’s three methods, so here goes. 

Summer is officially here, and Madeleine’s discovering the joy of water.

I’ve been wanting to get her into swim classes at the YMCA (might as well put that monthly membership fee to good use!) for a while now, but it occurred to me that I might simply take her into the pool on my own, and save myself a bit of embarrassment if she screamed like a banshee when entering the water for the first time.

So I planned carefully (shocking, I know) the day I would take her to the pool for the first time.  Baby swim cap (required by the gym) purchased?  Check.  Baby swim suit, and swim diaper purchased?  Check.  Swimsuit for mommy tried on to make sure mommy won’t weep in the locker room?  Check.  I picked a day when I wasn’t working later, in case it was traumatic.  I knew it’d be a tight fit, getting to the gym for Family Swim Time (the only time they allow people under 18 into the pool outside of a class) because Maddie’s nap runs pretty close to it, and then comes lunch.  So while she napped I had her lunch all made, swimsuit laid out, bag packed, ready to go.

Well, life happens, and one super-long nap, ill-fitting diaper, parking-spot-stealer, and line-to-check-into-the-gym jumper later, we were in the locker room with a mere five minutes left on Family Swim Time.  I crammed our gear into the locker and raced to the obligatory pre-swim shower.

Mistake number one:  not introducing Madeleine to a shower before this point.

Ok, remember how I said I had a weaning
plan ?

New plan, for a couple of reasons.

On
the introducing cow’s milk front, I was having no luck last week. I was
offering it before, during and after a meal, either in a straw cup or a
“grown-up” cup. I offered it cold, not wanting her to expect Mommy to be
heating her milk every day for the next seven years. She’d take a few
sips, grimace, and that was it for the rest of the time period.

I
then tried offering it cold, in a bottle, right before a traditional
nursing time. I thought she’d be sleepy, used to drinking white stuff
from a bottle . . . and just putting it in a bottle was a compromise for
me, let me tell you. I’m reluctant to get her associating cow’s milk
with a bottle – she only takes two bottles a week as it is, and I’m not
too keen on keeping her on a bottle at this age anyway. But I thought it
was worth a shot.

Alas, it was not. 

Brian received a bittersweet gift on Father’s Day.

Madeleine
started walking.

She began cruising – walking around holding on
to furniture or people – since she was 8 ½ months old. And at the end
of May she began taking tentative steps on her own – two or three at a
time – and standing without holding on to anything. We counted that as
her first step, but not as walking. See, she’d only walk unassisted if
she didn’t realize she was doing it; it was more of a cutting-corners
sort of thing than a deliberate attempt to get somewhere unaided.

Sunday,
though, she kicked it into high gear.

This week’s poll is in honor of all my girlfriends who are expecting
their first this year.

Not their first baby.

Their first
experience with colic.

I know, I know, it’s not a medical term.
And I know that many kids who seem to have colic actually have acid
reflux or an allergy to something in mom’s milk. But for the moms who
had the good ole fussy-for-two-hours-a-day baby, fill us in on what
worked for you.

Did you drive around endlessly? Run a white
noise machine, or hair dryer, or shower? Wear the baby? If you had
more than one thing that worked for you, please vote more than once.
And if I don’t list your particular magic bullet, PLEASE write to me and
let me know so I can pass it on to everyone!

And if you click
“My baby never had colic”, please know that we’ll all hate you. Just a
little.

Remember, you don’t need to be a registered user to vote;
simply click and submit to have your voice heard! The poll’s up all
week, listed underneath all my menu buttons on the right. 

Last week’s poll was all about your birth story: did you have a
c-section? Was it scheduled? Did you go natural, or have an epidural?

Exactly
50% of you had an epidural; the other 50% was almost evenly divided
between natural childbirth, a planned c-section, and an emergency
c-section. None of you wrote to me with your birth stories, which
disappointed me: believe it or not, I love to hear that stuff. I’m also
a nut for wedding stories, by the way – and I cry at both.

I’ve
been thinking about birth stories recently for a couple of reasons.
First, as I believe I’ve mentioned only about a gazillion times,
Madeleine just turned one and since I woke up on her birthday I’ve been
thinking, “This time last year I was – climbing up on the operating
table – in recovery – checking into my room – coming home from the
hospital – spending our first night without medical staff on hand –“ and
so on. Reviewing my birth story in my mind brought all the memories and
feelings back full force. 

As part of the big Weaning Plan (see yesterday’s entry) we’ve started
introducing Madeleine to cow’s milk. Being the Paranoid New Mommy that
I am, I sent out a focus group poll to my girlfriends to find out how
they did it. I mean, it seems like there are so many variables involved!

For
instance, do you mix it with breast milk or formula to get them used to
the taste? Do you serve it room temperature, to seem more like breast
milk, or do you serve it cold so you don’t spend the next three years
heating up your child’s dinner drink? Do you offer it in a bottle, to
seem more familiar, or do you offer it in a sippy cup? Before meals,
when they’re hungry and more likely to drink? After meals, so they
don’t fill up on it and have room for solids? At a nursing time? 

I realize that experienced mommies everywhere are laughing simply at the
title of this entry – as if I can make a plan for this sort of thing and
stick to it. And more importantly, make Maddie stick to it.

But
she’s a year old now (I can almost say that without stuttering) and
we’re at the date we planned to begin weaning, way back when we were
young and innocent and thought babies cared about plans.

Our
pediatrician said at her one-year visit that we want her to be getting
most of her nutrition now from solids, not liquids, and gave her
blessing to both introduce cow’s milk and wean Maddie off breast milk.
She cautioned us against giving her too much milk, not wanting her to
fill up so much on cow’s milk that she didn’t eat a balanced meal. But
otherwise, we’re good to go. 

We’ve survived Madeleine’s one-year doctor’s visit. I went in with my
shortest list of questions to date, which made me feel like a pro now at
the mothering thing. I’ve got a one-year-old! I know what I’m doing!

Well,
sort of anyway.

I’ve really been looking forward to this visit,
odd as that may sound. For one thing, she’s got her chicken pox vaccine
now. It still boggles my mind that my daughter will never have to
experience chicken pox – with its sleepless, itchy nights and stinky
baths, its humiliating (and useless) pink calamine patches, and its
potentially life-threatening implications. I was maybe four when I had
the chicken pox, and the best part about it was being allowed to watch
way more t.v. than ever before. Other than that, it sucked. 

I’ve survived it. And the good news is, I’ll never have to go through it again.

The bad news is, I’ll never get to go through it again.

I’m talking about Madeleine’s first birthday, of course. I’ve been moping (vocally, and at great length) about it for a while now, and it’s happened. Over. Finito.

She’s now officially into the been-there-done-that part of her life. Maddie can look back and think to herself, “Now, let’s see, what was I doing this time last year? Oh, yes, pooping and sleeping. Man, I was such a baby.” And as for me, I now get to compare her today to where she was a year ago, and stare in disbelief for a few minutes every new morning.

This week’s poll is up and running so check it out. In honor of
Maddie’s first birthday and my tendency these days to wallow in memories
and watch her hospital videos, I’m asking about your birth experience.
Did you go the natural route? Grab an orderly and start your own IV
line for an epidural? Have a c-section? Or maybe you had a crazy birth
– the middle of a traffic jam, perhaps.

So speak up – I
want to know! Remember you don’t have to be a registered user to vote;
simply click to have your voice heard! The poll will be up all week, on
the right hand side of the website under the category buttons. 

Last week’s poll focused on breastfeeding: how long you did or didn’t
breastfeed your child. Most moms answered in the “12-18 months”
category, while the rest were all over the map. This was one of the
least-voted polls so far, and I’m guessing it’s a combination of two
things: first, many of us (myself included) are still in the early
stages and haven’t weaned yet. And second, a lot of women feel exposed
talking about how long they breastfed; they fear judgment and lectures.

I’m
not here to lecture anyone on her breastfeeding choices. It’s no secret
from my website that I support breastfeeding and believe it’s superior
to formula in terms of physical benefits, ease of access, and financial
cost. Doctors strongly urge you to nurse your child for at least six
months to give your baby the most benefits as far as allergy resistance,
a strong immune system, the list goes on. Since doctors also say that
baby’s primary nutrition for the first year should come from either
breastmilk or formula, my goal with Madeleine was to never need to
supplement with formula; I’d nurse her until she didn’t need it for
nutritional reasons, and assumed I’d be weaning around one year.

We’re inches away from Madeleine’s first birthday: it’ll be here before I know it and I’m digging in my heels, being dragged kicking and screaming towards that invisible line where my baby becomes a toddler and toddles off away from me.

I’m finding that most companies make an arbitrary delineation for kids: under one year and you’re an infant, over one year and you’re a toddler. I have to tell you, I’m not ready for her to be a toddler. I’m still getting used to the fact that she does more than sleep and poop, that she has opinions and preferences, favorite toys and sleeping positions.

This automatic reclassification of my child feels so abrupt for me; one day, she’s a cuddly newborn, next day she’s pondering pre-school choices and having playdates. For some reason, though I know that it’s been in the works and I’ve seen the date circled in red on the calendar, this has sneaked up on me. I need an easing into it, a gradual transition if you will. 

When I mentioned all the babyproofing we did throughout the house a few
months ago (see this
blog and this
blog), I forgot to talk about one room – our family room. We’ve
got one space that is multi-purpose in the extreme: it’s Brian’s 9-5
office, my desk area, our “guest room”, the wrapping paper/craft area,
and the party room replete with disco ball, twinkle lights, a
Playstation 2 and multiple remote controls. I took one look at its
plethora of extension cords, surge protectors, and exposed bulbs and
knew babyproofing the area would be hopeless.

I wanted to be able
to bring her in there, though, since I use the computer regularly and
need to be able to be hands-free in that room. So I came up with the
only solution I could think of – corral the kiddo. 

You’re pregnant. You are in the beginning of your third trimester.
You’ve narrowed down your list of potential pediatricians to two or
three. What’s next?

Believe it or not, job interviews.

Most
pediatricians will offer some sort of pre-natal consultation or
get-to-know you appointment. They fully expect new parents to want to
meet with them and, well, put them through their paces a bit. Such
appointments used to be always free; some doctors now charge a
small(ish) fee for them. Our doctor’s practice offers a third
alternative: a group interview. Some offices will offer “open houses”
of some kind a few times a month. It’s a way to see a lot of people in
a short amount of time. 

Madeleine’s coming up on her one-year check-up soon and I’ve been
working on my list of questions to ask the pediatrician. See, I write
down all the things I’d like to ask her so that I 1) don’t forget and
sit there panicking saying, “I know I had a question but can’t remember
what it is!”; and 2) I don’t feel the need to call the doctor once a
week: I write the question down and if finding out whether or not she
needs sunscreen specifically formulated for babies seems urgent I’ll
send it out to my focus group. I’m sure my pediatrician appreciates the
lack of calls she gets from us between visits, though I’m guessing she
inwardly rolls her eyes when I pull out my list every appointment.

She’s
incredibly patient, though, and I realized how lucky we are to have
found her. I know many people who go through two or three doctors
before finding one they are comfortable with. And with so many friends
anticipating a new arrival this year, I thought this might be a good
time to talk about how you go about finding a great pediatrician.

All
that, and because my brother point-blank asked me to write a blog on the
topic. Someone’s wife gets pregnant and all of a sudden Sister’s
website gets a lot more interesting . . .

At any rate, here we go.

This week’s poll takes a look at how long you breastfed. A few weeks?
A few months? A few years? Never? I’d like to hear how it worked out
for you. And don’t worry – this is a safe place, and no one will jump
down your throat for choosing not to nurse until your child went to
kindergarten. With Maddie approaching one year I’ve got an eye on
weaning and wondered where everyone else fell, that’s all.

As
always, you don’t need to be a registered user to vote; simply click to
have your voice heard. And if you’ve got an interesting story about
this week’s topic I’d love to hear it, so drop me an email.

Last week’s poll was about what sort of labels we use for ourselves as mothers: stay-at-home mom, work-outside-the-home mom, work-at-home mom, primary caregiver with part-time job, and so forth.

Almost half of you called yourself a 24/7, stay-at-home mom. Everyone else weighed in as working outside by necessity, work-from-home but around kids’ schedules, or primary caregiver with some other sort of time commitment outside the home. I think the primary caregiver one is the label I’d most easily choose for myself, but I’m not real thrilled with any of the options.

This topic has been on my mind a lot recently, partly because I’ve been reading a bit on the subject. Mommy Wars is a collection of essays in which working moms and stay-at-homes square off in the ring and defend their positions. I was drawn to some essays more than others, partly because of writing quality and partly because of the point of view. One of the sections that stuck with me most, actually, was the introduction; the editor dissected our apparent need as mothers to pick apart the people on the “other” side of the fence. Why do we feel the need to make the other moms out there feel bad if their situation’s not the same as ours? Why do all working moms seem to look at stay-at-homes and think, “What does she do all day? Is she really that lazy?” while stay-at-homes regard working moms and think, “My gosh, how guilty she must feel at leaving her kids all day. Why have them if she isn’t going to raise them herself?” These attitudes are bound to come through in our interactions and conversations, making both sides feel horrible.

We’ve moved in our daily life, Mad and I, to the audience participation
part of the show.

Madeleine’s spent much of her life being the
infant royalty carried around from production to production; she enjoys
her days watching a “show” unfold before her. She’s interested and
entertained, but doesn’t really see that it requires much back from her.

In
the past couple of months, though, our activities have become a
partnership.

It’s happened; my daughter’s perfect body has been marred. She’s been injured, and I did not prevent it. Worse, even – I was standing there when it happened and could not stop it.

My daughter cut her lip.

On the back of a photo of her and my husband waving bye bye at the camera was written, “Mommy:  You deserve a day off.  I’ll watch Daddy.  He’ll be ok, I promise.”  So a couple Saturdays ago I had a whole day to myself for the first time in almost 12 months.

And it’s not that I even needed a lot of time to do something; it’s more that I needed time from being constantly “on”.  I’ve never been more than one nursing away from my daughter; for the past six months I’ve been planning her solid meals as well, and for the past three months that’s included dicing fruits and vegetables thrice daily, coming up with a variety of nutritious starches for each meal, and rotating a medley of healthy protein for her.  I spend half my day moving her towards or getting her up from a nap, arranging walks around crabby times and snack breaks, and in general always thinking three steps ahead.  

I’m away from the house regularly for work – I’m not saying I’m never separate from her.  But even when I’m out I’m on a short leash.  As soon as work is over I’m rushing home to nurse her and put her to sleep.  If I get to work 15 minutes early I run through Buy Buy Baby to buy the babyproofing gadget/sunhat/sippy cup we need and never have time to get.  When my mom watches her and we’re at a movie (twice so far in the past twelve months), it’s racing home in time for lunch/snack/not imposing too much on mom.

My life revolves around her.

So for one brief day, the world stopped turning, and I walked away.

My daughter’s becoming quite the nature lover.  She’s always enjoyed heading outside – no temperature too cold for her – and we’ve been taking daily morning walks since she was maybe four weeks old.  As the weather’s warmed up we’ve frequently added a second walk for the day, and eat lunch out in our back garden a few times a week.  She can’t get enough of the outdoors, and is turning her considerable attention to the flora and fauna of the area.

Madeleine can identify several words by sound, even if she can’t say them.  “Tree” is one of the first she learned: she loves to lie on the couch and look up at the tree outside our big picture window.  She’ll point at it over and over, asking what it is.  Now if I say, “tree”, she’ll point out the window to her favorite sycamore.  Unless, that is, we’re reading a book, in which case she’ll point to whatever tree is on the page.

During breakfast or lunch she’ll gaze longingly out the window and occasionally point imperiously out the window – “Gah!”.  When she gets strapped into her stroller she kicks and screams until it begins to move out, at which point she settles serenely and anticipatorily in for the ride.

We cruise up and down the streets checking out all the neighbors’ front flower gardens.  We chat about what’s in season – azaleas – and what’s soon to come into season – roses.  We make note of which streets have the best (stroller) eye-level views, what lanes have buds about to open.  When the cherry blossoms were in full swing we’d stop under a huge tree and gaze in respectful silence, and the dogwood a block away from us still has a few simple but lovely blooms on it.  And whenever possible, of course, we stop so Maddie can smell the flowers.

Madeleine’s been sleeping much better at night recently.  I’ve been promising the mother of all sleep blogs and it’s coming; now that I’ve gotten some distance (and sleep) from the past couple of months I can find patterns and sort it all out and get it written.

Soon.

But first, I’ve got a new spin on the sleep problem that just cropped up two nights ago, and I’m stumped.  So been-there-done-that moms, I’d appreciate it if you’d speak up if you’ve got any ideas.

Maddie and I have ventured into new territory – the neighborhood playground.

We’ve had several days over the past week or so with incredibly heavy rain, and one morning after a particularly heavy overnight storm I decided it was the perfect time to take a crack at the swing set.

I should point out that Madeleine’s mere weeks away from her first birthday, and we’ve never gone to the playground.  We daily walk past the park and see mommies and daddies clustered around the swings and slides, chatting away, with babies younger than Maddie.  But showing up at the playground the first time is sort of like jumping into a double-dutch jumprope game; you kind of sway with it for a bit, looking for an opening and hoping your feet don’t get tangled up.

It’s official – the new American Idol winner has been selected.