Wednesday, April 27, 2011

It Was All Going So Well...

It was a lovely day in Mommy-land.

Button napped like a little angel this morning. I had time to clean the kitchen and throw in some laundry. I even made some pea puree as the baby's next new food. Just as he woke up from his nice long nap, my niece and nephew came over while my sister ran errands and we sat outside and played. It was perfect timing as he was itching to play and the children are way more interesting to him than boring old mom.

He didn't nap as well in the afternoon, but he played in his jumparoo happily and I had time to make dinner ahead of time. So when the witching hour came around, all I had to do was throw the meatloaf in the oven and get right back to the baby....

All beautiful.

After dinner, Daddy gave him a bath; I took him upstairs and he fell asleep pretty quickly. He even slept through my dry hacking cough...but then I shifted my weight as I tried to sneak away. Well, that was too much apparently. The hacking cough was fine...god forbid I should move slightly.

Now here he sits on his Daddy's lap, wide awake and ready for fun.

Wish me luck...I think it's time for bedtime, take 2.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Mama-ing While Sick

For the past few days, I've had a cold. I tend to go long stretches without getting a cold, then I forget how miserable they are. This leads me to think that others (ahem, my husband) are exaggerating when they complain about not feeling well.

Luckily, I tend to bounce back pretty quickly. I started feeling bad on Thursday night; I was legitimately sick by Friday and over the weekend, I dragged myself around by sheer will. If it hadn't been a holiday weekend, I would have sat on my couch in sweats the whole time. Hubby would have tended to the baby for all but nursing sessions and I'd probably be feeling pretty decent again by now.

But instead, I was forced to go and see people and pretend that I felt perfectly normal and that I wasn't going to sneeze or drip snot on anyone.

I really wish it hadn't been a holiday.

At least I woke up today feeling marginally better. I could breath through my nose when I first woke up, so that was immediately a plus. I even went and got a haircut today and cooked dinner (don't tell hubby I coughed all over the celery...and if you come for a visit, you might want to steer clear of the chili).

Anyway, the point (roundabout though it may be) of this post is to say that it's hard to be a mom while sick. I mean, try to tell the baby that mommy doesn't feel well and he's likely to giggle and pull my hair then immediately insist on having more milk. He doesn't know, and if he did, I'm not sure how much he would care...maybe those with older kids can weigh in on how sympathetic kids are when their parents are sick.

But I'm on the mend...and I've scheduled this cold to leave my system by Wednesday at the latest...if it lingers any longer, I'll have to put my foot down.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

"Let Him Cry"

So we went to an Easter dinner at my father-in-law's house last night. It's the baby's first Easter and it was the first time he met a bunch of my father-in-law's friends. This past week we had gone to Vermont to visit my brother-in-law. We were talking about this trip with a few different people. They, of course, asked about how the baby did in the car for that long. I said, "He did great, and when he fussed, I went in the backseat with him to comfort and distract him." (All right, that's not word for word what I said, but that's the gist.)

Time after time, the response I got was, "Well, it's okay if he cries a little." Okay, I get that a few tears aren't going to kill my kid, but if my presence next to him helps him feel better and assuages some of those tears, why wouldn't I hop back there and help him out?

I spent the little time he was awake on the trip in the backseat playing with him, singing to him, even nursing him in the car seat (hello, back-breaker). Yes, it was exhausting, but I didn't become a parent so that I could ignore my baby when he needs me.

It's a three and a half hour drive to Vermont for us and we asked the baby to make the sacrifice of being strapped into a car seat limiting his movement and vision for all the time. Isn't it my job to help my child with the difficult things I ask him to do?

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Baby Eats!

So I assumed that my little guy would be ambivalent about eating food. My nephews and niece were always iffy on food, and since I spend a lot of time with them, they are my closest point of reference.

But they say not to compare one kid to another and now I see why!

My little guy loves his food!

So far he's had rice cereal (boring), apples, bananas, blueberries and sweet potatoes. He also ate some white potato off my finger on Easter. He seemed to like it, but he was crabby and wanted to nurse, so he only had a couple bites. I did need to add some pumped milk to the bananas to help get those down, but other than that, he's happily eaten all of it. A particular favorite is frozen blueberries in his mesh feeder.

The goal for this week is to get more veggies into him. So I'll be making a pea puree and probably carrot puree too!

Good messy fun!

Little Mamas Make Little Babies

At my little Button's six-month checkup, I was told he hadn't gained enough weight. It wasn't that he wasn't big enough in general. He was about average for a six-month old breastfed boy. It was that he had only gained a pound between his four month and six month visits. This dropped his growth from the 25 percentile to the 5 percentile. Now, I don't put a lot of stock in percentiles. But I recognize that the drop was a bit drastic. There was talk about supplementing with formula and free samples, etc.

Now, I'm not against formula necessarily. I'm against formula for my little guy. The doctor said that I could also start giving him more solids. I had been planning on introducing solids anyway, so I politely turned down the formula and said I would start him on "real food."

But here's the thing that annoys me about this. I'm 5 feet tall. Five feet even. No extra inches there. My husband is 5'6". We are little people. If we were at our ideal weights, we'd be even littler. Do they expect me to have a giant baby?

My baby is healthy and happy. He's a ball of energy. He hasn't met every six-month milestone, but he's working on them and he's not even remotely behind on anything. He's perfect (maybe I'm a bit biased, but whatever).

Bottom line...little mamas (and papas) make little babies!