Category Archives: personality

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yet more words and other things

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More things that Felix says, off the top of my head (still forgetting a zillion things):

Bye bye (often said as he races down the hall when he hears Chris opening the gate to leave for work.)

He says Jenn and Denise, for our sitter and her sister, who also watches him.  Coffee when he sees our coffee mugs.  Milk.  Smoothie, as soon as he sees me break out the blender for our morning smoothies – though it sounds like moo-ey.  Chocolate, which he loves.  Water.  Swing.  Mail (he loves to go outside with us to get the mail.  Especially on rainy or busy days when we haven’t otherwise gotten outside.)  Socks. Slippers. Bird (for actual birds in the sky and my favorite red bird necklace.)  Cat.  Truck, which seems to sound more like “dot” and bus.

Bath and bath time (which sounds like “bad time”).  He often races to his bathroom, bangs on the door and says bad time bad time bad time when Chris gets home from work.

Dinner.  Outside.

More (milk, water, smoothie).

Blankie.  Ami (“ah-mee”), which has somehow come to mean all of his stuffed elephants.  Bear.

He also repeats another million words right as we say them, with perfect or near perfect clarity.  Unfortunately, this means that he occasionally walks around saying, “Sh*t sh*t sh*t”. (I’m working on that.)

Oh, and my favorite, of course – I love you, which is sometimes accompanied by a sneak attack hug.

And then there’s all the routines and habits that he knows.  Like after we change his diaper, we go to the bathroom to put his (cloth) diaper in the bucket.  Though we’ve started changing him in the bathroom and letting him sit on his toilet for a few minutes, which he actually seems to enjoy.  On one hand – it’s early for typical potty training, but we’re way late for “elimination communication” potty training.  So I figure, since there’s really no pressure now, there’s no harm in introducing the idea to him and seeing what happens.  Honestly, I suspect if I hadn’t been so lazy about the elimination communication training at a year old, he’d be potty trained by now.  So I suspect he’ll be potty trained early & easily when we really do it.  He’s smart and he picks stuff up quickly, understands concepts without much trouble.

We’ve visited one Montessori school so far, and will be checking out a few more.  Yet again, we were told that he seems incredibly (read: above average) bright, very independent and observant, and yes, yes he has MANY more words than most kids his age.  Not only that, but also that usually, only the parents can understand most of their child’s words and language at this age, but that everyone can understand Felix because he speaks so clearly.

I’m really eager to get him into Montessori school, I think it’ll be really really good for him (he’s explored about as much as he can at home – though we will be getting out more now that the weather is getting nicer again.)

I’ve also realized that he demands manners and patience.  For example, when he opens the drawer and pulls out the tv remotes – if I yell at him (as you tend to do when someone gets into something a zillion times) to put them back, all I get in return is a mocking grin.  So I sigh, change my tone and say, “Felix, please put the remotes back.”  And then, “Thank you, now please close the drawer.”  So long as I say please and am polite, he’ll do anything I ask.  Kid isn’t even a year and a half years old yet, and already keeping me in check.  Point taken, kid.

Oh, but he will also announce when he’s doing something he shouldn’t.  I might be in the bedroom and he’ll be in our room and I hear him saying, “No no no no no!”  So I go in and find him rifling through drawers or carrying a pair of my glasses around.  Let’s see if he does the same as a teenager!  ha!

He’s a delightful kid, all around.  I sometimes forget he’s just a toddler because he seems so aware and so … well, wise.

He has his first swimming lessons in June – I can’t wait.  I think he’ll do well with them because he looooooooooves water.

And then, just like that, I’ll be writing about him going off to college in Spain or some such.  Sigh.

 

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Time

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Oops.  A lot of time has passed since my last update.  The thing is, it’s a lot easier to update when they’re LITTLE and there’s not as much to say.  Then one day, you wake up and OH MY GOD, THAT’S A LOT OF MILESTONES.  I didn’t realize it’d be like this already.  By “like this” I mean, he seems so grown up.  I have to stop calling him “baby” because he’s not.  He’s a little boy.

He started full-on walking right after his 1 year birthday, as predicted (by me.)

In fact, this past week it seems he discovered that he can also walk backwards and he does it often, at completely random moments.  It’s pretty funny to watch.

I think his vocabulary is about to explode – he’s had his repertoire of onomatopoeia words (like “Boom!”) and “Uh-oh” was his first word, months ago.  Whenever I ask him where his froggy is, he runs towards it, saying “baahdee baahdee!”  He’s recently started repeating “pee!” (and even peed when I said it, in the bathtub, a few nights in a row.  I still can’t tell if that was coincidence or not?)   A couple days ago it sounded like he said “monkey” after me, but not again.  This morning he was playing with one of his “noisy” toys and when he pushed the yellow key and the voice sang out, “yellow!”, he said, “Yoh.”

There’s so many I’m already forgetting them all. Regardless of any words that we understand, he talks a lot.

I took him to the KidsQuest something something Museum the other day, which *I* did not like, at all. No point in mincing words, there were a lot of brats there.  One kid pushed him over & away and while *I* was pissed, Felix just got up and walked away, calmly, not a care.  Anytime any other kid would get in his way or grab something he was going for, he’d just change course.  He’s rarely interested in objects and toys when we’re out, anyway.  He just walks and walks and walks and walks around and around and around and around.  I took him out of the little kids area (for crawlers and new walkers) and into the other area, where all the big kids were running around.  (Luckily, it wasn’t that crowded so I didn’t have to worry about big kids running by and slamming into him.)  He seemed to enjoy the “big kids” stuff a lot more.  More to see, more buttons to push.  And the WATER, he loved splashing his hands around in that.

But KidsQuest is an indoor area, attached to a mall, of all things – I don’t really like that atmosphere.  Yesterday it was sunny and blue, so I decided we needed to get outside and took him to the zoo.  *I* thought he’d enjoy looking at all the animals, but nope – what he loved was all the open space, so he walked and walked and walked and walked and turned around and around and walked and walked.  He just loves to look around and observe.  The one animal he was interested in was the peacock.  There was a peacock running around, loose, and Felix wanted to run right up and grab it.  I had to hold him back a few feet and Felix fought me the entire time, eyes glued to the peacock.  For the rest of this winter season, we’re sticking to outdoor stuff.  Even when we’re at home,  he walks and walks and walks and walks, stopping only occasionally to flip through a book or play with his workbench.

Oh! And yesterday, the babysitter told me that she was reading to him from a book about colors.  When she got to the “pink” page, he pointed to her fingernails – which were bright, bright pink.  He didn’t do that with any other page.  Coincidence?  I think not!

I also taught him the “monkey” gesture (one hand on head, one hand scratching armpit) and the monkey, “ooh!  ooh!  ooh!”  Now when I either make the noise or say “monkey” he makes the gesture.  We’re working on elephant, next.

He’s an excellent eater.  (I realize this can change and he could turn picky, but the thing is, I don’t care.  We’re not going to make an issue of it, he’ll eat or not – all I care about is that what he DOES eat will be healthy.  He’s not going to be one of those kids who gets picky, so we start giving him junk and processed foods just to get him to eat.  I do plan on including him in meal planning and decision making as he gets older, so I think that will help.)  He still loves his raw milk, which I am happy to let him drink a few times a day because it’s good for him.  He also loves water – whenever I fill his sippy cup, he dances around excitedly until I hand it to him.  That’s pretty much all he drinks.  In the Fall, I gave him some apple cider occasionally and in the summer, I’ll give him some fresh squeeze orange juice or some such, but he eats bananas and oranges and real fruit, so why bother with sugary juices?  He loves the bananas and orange slices.  Apples in his oatmeal, with raisins.  Pears.  Strawberries.  Blueberries.  I’ve started making baked oatmeal, so that we make it once and just heat it up every morning, he enjoys that with a little raw honey and yogurt.   He likes quiche (this morning he had some broccoli cheddar quiche with his oatmeal).  Oh my god – he does not like cheese.  This befuddles me.  How can you not like cheese? *shrug*

People have said things to us like, “Oh, just wait until he’s such and such age and he’s got personality!”  I want to ask them what’s wrong with their kid, but this one has had big personality from the get go.

We (I?) waffle back and forth about having another one.  One one hand, sure.  On the other hand – Felix has kind of set an impossibly high standard.  He is such an easy going, independent kid.  He amuses himself all day (sometimes pushing me away if I try to play with him – just like he does if I try to help him over a small obstacle when walking, “I can do it myself!!”) and he sleeps from 8-9:30 in the morning!!!!  If he didn’t nap much the previous day, he’ll sleep till around 9.  But otherwise, he averages around 8:30.  My worst nightmare, when thinking about having children, was of having to get up at 6 am every day.  UGH.  What are the odds of getting another one that sleeps until after 8am???  What are the odds of having another one that is so easy and independent as this one?

And CUTE?  I know his cuteness is because of his genes, but c’mon – I think we used up every ounce of cute available on this one.

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9 months

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Wow, really lagging here – too busy livin’ it to write it, I say.

It’s a week past, but Nugget had his 9 month check up.  I’m so grateful to have found a naturopath pediatrician.  I get 110% support for the raw goat milk, an easier & modified vaccination schedule and just an overall sense that she matches my own beliefs about health & what’s good for us.

felix2She took some blood and tested him for anemia & his vitamin D levels today.  She does this with all babies, since so many people, including babies are vitamin D deficient these days and she likes to catch it early.  I’m pretty sure he’s far from being vitamin D deficient – I make a point to get him outside & into the sunshine almost every day.  On particularly hot & sunny days, if we get out between 10 and 2 and we’ll be out for awhile, I wait about 15-20 minutes to put sunscreen on him, so that he can get the most potent amount of vitamin D & sunshine possible.  (Myself, as well.)  Since we live in the Pacific Northwest now, getting enough sun is definitely something at the forefront of my mind.  I also asked her about giving him some of our fermented cod liver oil in the winter (another thing that’s good for combatting vitamin D deficiency) and she was all for it.  I’ll have to figure out how to get it to him, though, seeing as the capsules are too big and I doubt he’ll want to taste that in his milk.  Blech.

He’s grown another inch and a quarter in the past 3 months – he’s now at 29 and some odd inches.  He’s a little over 20 p0unds.

He wasn’t happy about having blood drawn from his finger, nor happy about his 2nd DTAP vaccination, but he was a champ.  I don’t think he cried once .  I was surprised, as I thought he’d be pretty miserable since his top two teeth are starting to come in now, also, and I suspect that’s the reason he had kind of a crappy night of sleep last night.

felix7His top two teeth!  His bottom ones came in completely last month.  (I think it was last month?  I’m losing time already.)  We took him to the Ricicli photo shoot (you know, cause HE’S A MODEL, NOW!) and it made me nervous, for a moment, to see a 7 month old who was already crawling & could get herself up to a sitting position.  Only for a moment – I remember when I was worried that he didn’t roll over much before and then suddenly one day, BAM! he’s all over the place with the rolling.  He sits, but doesn’t get into a sitting position by himself yet and he scoots around from one end of the room to the other, without crawling.  Within the past couple weeks, he’s started to get up on his hands & knees and rock back and forth – which means in the next couple weeks, I’ll just wake up one morning and BAM! he’ll be crawling all over the place and driving me mad.  I watched him with the other babies at the Ricicli photo shoot and he’s definitely an observer.  While the other ones rolled around, smiling indiscriminately and grabbing at everything, he just sat there, watching watching watching and taking it all in.  He did occasionally reach out and touch others, but only when their backs were turned.  (Typical boy.)  They say that easy going babies tend to take longer to do things like crawl, walk, etc – while he is incredibly easygoing, I think he’s also so busy thinking that he tends to forget to move.  He gets that from me, for sure.

(And pssst… I have it on good authority that he’s showing signs of being a “gifted” child.  Just confirming what I already knew…!)

650He is also quite the little piggy.  I see how much other kids eat, then I see how much we give him.  I asked the pediatrician, and she waved me off.  “He’s growing beautifully.”  In other words, don’t compare.  He loves peaches, apples, pears, cherries, yams, peas, green beans, carrots (orange AND purple), avocado and… I’m sure I’m forgetting something.  He’s very interested in food and seems to get a little angry when we’re eating stuff that he doesn’t get.  This weekend, I think I’m going to add oatmeal (to go with his peaches or blueberries) and maybe a little spice like cinnamon.  I had asked the pediatrician about food and she made a good point – there are so many different things done across so many different cultures.  Who’s to say which is right?  He’s hungry, he loves to eat… so we’ll just keep going.

Whenever I brag about how much he eats & what he loves, people inevitably tell me that “yes, he likes it now, just wait…”  Well, I’ve read many an article that said kids are far less likely to be picky eaters when they see where the food comes from and are connected to it.  Felix has been to farms, farmer’s markets… we’ll get chickens sooner than later… he watches me cook every night (and will help me cook, as well as help us decide what we all eat, as well.)  So, I feel pretty confident about how picky he’ll be -or not be.

Yes, he is in the phase of being suspicious of strangers.  He especially doesn’t like people getting in his face, or several people at once and as far as I’m concerned, that’s normal.  I STILL hate people getting in my face or groups of people.

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6 months

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Dear Felix,

HOLY CRAP, you’re 6 months old.  And… Wow, really, it’s only been 6 months?

015Today, you had your 6 month check up, one day after the fact, and you’re still growing like a week and a picture of good health.  So when you’re older, and you hear people say  that goat milk isn’t good enough for babies, you can tell them that YOU were raised on it – raw, no less – and just look at you.

(Because I’m sure this is the type of conversation you’ll have as an adult, right?)

You are 17 pounds – which is now right smack in the middle of average, which is more than fine.  And you’re over 28 inches tall which is way above average.  How’d you get to be so tall?

So far, you like every fruit that’s passed your lips.  But you have not like broccoli nor lunged for avocado like you do bananas.  I’m kind of surprised at this.  I had it in my head that you’d be all about the vegetables.  You do, however, have a very “if you want me to eat it, I will” attitude about it – but you make sure I know that you’re doing me a favor.  Yup.  You’re my kid.  Oh, are those faces supposed to make me decide to stop giving you broccoli?  Not going to work.  But hold on to that, you can guilt me for it later.  When you’re 5, you can complain about how you let me feed you broccoli even though you didn’t want it, so I should let you x, y, z.

Today, we’ll try cauliflower, because it can’t be all about fruits, Nugget.  I can’t possibly see how you could have a problem with cauliflower – it tastes like potato and how could you not like potato?

Yesterday, I saw a video on that stupid “Momversation” thing about “Do you have to play with your kids?”  I feel sorry for other mothers who say “Do I have to play with my kids?”  We like to play with you.  We can’t wait to play with you more.  When you’re bigger, we’ll do things like go to the zoo, the waterfront, etc AT LEAST every other day.

031Anyway.  The people in the “don’t play with your kids” camp claimed that playing with your kids too much would make them “too dependent” on you and not imaginative enough.  Not self-sufficient enough.  I think this is bullshit.  There’s so many other factors and quite frankly, that attitude doesn’t give enough credit to each child’s individual personality.  But I guess I say that because you already show quite a lot of independence and seem pretty good at amusing yourself already.  If you want us to play with you, and to show us things & talk to us about stuff & share whatever it is that seems to be going on inside your head all the time, we’ll be more than happy to oblige.

(I do think, though, that people who claim to not want to play with their kids because they want them to be self-sufficient, etc are making that up as a cover for the fact that they just don’t want to spend a lot of time with and energy on their kids.  Period.)

But there I go on my high horse again, and I fear you’re going to be that kid that annoys everyone by telling them, “Well, MY mom said…”  You’ll probably often end that sentence with something about how I said that if their moms really cared about them, they’d do x, y, z.  Or how one of their teachers is an idiot.

Ahem.  Yes, I’ll be THAT mom.

Your dad?  Well.  He seems to be the reasonable one, but he named your giraffe “Jihad.”  I’ll get called into school about things like that, too.

You & me are going to have to have a talk about this sleeping thing soon – we’d like a little after 7am consistency, please?  But other than that, you’re incredibly easy.  It feels like it was really hard the first few months but I don’t know if YOU were all that hard.  We were just terrified of you.  On your very second day here, we had to drive you to the pediatrician – ON THE FREAKIN’ LA FREEWAY.  It was awful.  I’m surprised I didn’t have a heart attack right then and there.  LA sucked.  LA still sucks and I hope you don’t ever have urges to go spend a few years in the city where you were born.  All I wanted was to get you out of there.

I was afraid to drive with you, afraid to let you cry, afraid of going out in public with you because I didn’t want to bother everyone or be completely frazzled out in public.  DUDE.  That was the stupidest fear because you’re really quite good when we’re out.  Dazzlingly so.  Especially when you & I flew to Pennsylvania alone – oh, I saw the looks on people’s faces when they saw me sit down in the boarding area with you, and you were cranky because I’d woken you up at 3 am.  People went out of their way to talk to me & compliment you at the end of the flight.  You were born to travel & be on the move.

We drove aimlessly for 3 hours one weekend – well, 3 hours away and 3 hours back.  You just sat in the car seat & stared out the window or slept.  You got a little cranky, momentarily, which was understandable because you were all wet & hungry.  But once that got taken care of, you were fine.

Anyway.  That drive on the LA freeway.  The midwife & one of her assistants made a huge fuss about how small you were and they got me all worked up and worried about it.  I’m kind of annoyed at that.  I’m kind of annoyed at some people’s handlings of us back then.  Had you weighed one more pound, no one would have worried much, and I can’t see that one pound makes much of a difference.  Plus, you were small but there was nothing weak & or unhealthy about you.  I’d say you were better off than most babies who weighed more at the get go.  There also seems to be a lot of “small babies” on both our sides of the family, so perhaps it just runs in the family and they should have stopped getting on my case about “how I ate while pregnant” after the fact.  (I did not eat a lot, because I, strangely, had no appetite.  But I tried to make it count, what I ate, plus I drank lots of raw milk & used lots of butter… plenty of fatty things.  Including me! hahahaha  I gained a lot, but little of it seemed to go to you.  So.  In hindsight, I’d have snapped at them to get off my case.)  Which is also why I feel a little smug, now, because you are above average in everything.  Including personality.

You don’t feel so fragile anymore – though, you never were, really.  WE were the ones that were fragile.

You have a slightly nerve-wracking habit of liking to pull a blanket over your face to fall asleep.  Sometimes it’s the ONLY way you’ll fall asleep.  It’s fine during the afternoon when I let you fall asleep, then immediately move the blanket off your face.  But often at night, I feel a need to keep checking or have to be yanking it off your face throughout the morning.  This is a habit we need to start breaking.  Though you have a thing about rubbing your face on anything soft.

We’re taking hours of video of you just making faces & blowing spit bubbles, etc.  You have a vast repertoire of noises.  You do have one noise that almost sounds like you’re saying, “Momomomomomomom,” but we’ll see.

YESTERDAY! Your actual 6 month birthday!  I put you in the stroller “like a big boy” for the first time.  I think you were a little dazzled by the new view.

You’re starting to sit up now, and you try REALLY hard to get yourself up to a sitting position while laying down, but you’re not quite there yet.  You’re grabby grabby grabby and I think if I need to make this many adjustments just because of your grabby little hands, dear god… the crawling…

We had our first encounter with a large group of people and I feel like I let you down there.  You were tired & cranky and I absolutely do not support the passing around of babies and the fact that I just stood there and let it happen is… strange.  Very unlike me.  But you can be sure I’ll back you up, at all times, in the future.  If you ever say no to someone and they don’t respect that, you tell them, “Don’t MAKE me call my mom over here.”  I’ll open a can of verbal whoop ass on anyone who doesn’t treat you like the individual that you are.

I think some people are kind of surprised that I’m good at this parenting thing.   My favorite compliment & thing to hear is when people say things about what a strong bond I seem to have with you.  People actually say that to me all the time, and it makes my day.  We like to speculate and make jokes about “he gets this from me, he gets that from you,”  but at the end of the day,  it’s all you.

And if you never learn to like broccoli, I promise not to make you eat it too often.

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This weekend, Felix & Chris begin their “Musical Expressions for Babies” class.  I’d gotten a catalog of classes offered by our county community center and when I saw this, I knew it would be the perfect thing for him to do with Nugget.  Get all that noise out of their system and all.  (Huh.  Wishful thinking, on my part, that they’ll “get it out of their system.”  I know darn well that they’ll probably only be inspired to make even more noise.) :

Ages 1 month to 15 months with parent. Play musically with your baby through bouncing and rocking songs, wiggle and peek-a-boo games, and dancing, moving, and singing! The foundation is laid for beat awareness, vocal production, and aural discrimination. A 45-minute class for parent and infant.

There would be times when Nugget would look so big, and then moments later, he’d look little again.  Usually while naked.  But now, even naked (which he looooooooooves to be), he looks big.  Little man is GROWIN’.  He’s a full 16 pounds now.  I suspect he had a small growth spurt because this past week, for 3 nights in a row he woke up at 3, 4 and 5:30 am.  (YAWN.)  And he was cranky & taking 3 hour naps during the afternoon.  But then, just like that it stopped.  Well… maybe.  He woke up at 6:30 this morning, so I can’t really tell just yet.  Really, Chris & I would be THRILLED at a 7 am schedule.  7am is nothing to sneeze at.  And, funny, that’s what parenthood does to you.  Once upone a time, we relished in sleeping till 11 am on weekends.  Now I’m ready to do somersaults about sleeping until 7.

He loves being held up in the air, like an airplane.  He giggles & squeals and he does this thing where he scrunches up his nose and opens his mouth real wide when he’s having a blast.

He’s got a million expressions & faces, as evidenced by the photos.  A million and one.  And, hey! He even flipped me the bird last week!  Did you see that picture?  He may look like his Daddy (it’s the eyebrows), but he’s got my personality (flipping the bird.)  Or not.  He’s awfully cheerful, and he definitely doesn’t get that from me.

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Week 11: Sunny Skies Are Here Again

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Just like that, as quickly as he turned into a miserable little demon, he went right back to being his old, cheery self.  Behold:

I stand by my original assessment that the lack of sleep had caught up to him.  That chamomile water worked WONDERS.  Every since those two days where I had given him some, he’s gone from barely ever sleeping to sleeping A LOT.  He’s consistently slept 6-7 hour stretches at night, for the past week, and he takes a few long naps during the day.  When he’s not sleeping, he’s happy, cheerful & alert (unless he’s hungry/wet/tired).

His routine now is that he falls asleep around 10-11pm (unless there are grandparents around to exhaust him, in which case he falls asleep as early as 9-9:30). He’ll wake up around sometime from 5:30-6:30, fall back asleep until 7-8 during which time I’ll feed him and then take him back to bed just for us to lie together.  For about an hour, he’ll lay there and coo and smile (and I’ll either coo & smile back or just try not to fall asleep, depending how tired I am) and then about an hour or two later, he’ll sleep again, until about 10-11am.

Then during the afternoon, he’ll sleep a couple times.

I have to say, we’re damn lucky.  I hear horror stories about babies that wake up at 5:30am and stay up.  Our kid sleeps from 10-10, for the most part.  Weekends are great.  I’ve (hopefully) started a nice little weekend routine – some family time of just laying in bed, awake for an hour playing with him.  I think that might be my favorite time, ever – the three of us, waking up together.

I’ve also gotten far more adept at recognizing his cries & his mood.  I can tell when he’s cranky & tired and usually a few minutes in the swing will be enough to knock him out.

A couple things I keep forgetting to mention – he loves when you rub something soft over his face (especially my hair.)  I discovered the hair thing by accident one day – I was leaning over him on the floor and my hair was in his face.  I suddenly heard noises of ecstasy like I’ve never heard before!  His eyes were closed and he rolled his head back & forth, rubbing his face in my hair.  He’ll do something similar if you drape a piece of cloth over his face, but my hair gets the biggest reaction.

If you put cloth over his face – he LOVES to eat soft things, as well.  Or just lick & gum them, I suppose.  You can set him down & put fabric over his mouth and he’ll lay there for ages just licking & smiling away.

He also started to eat his hand a couple weeks ago – or try to.  At times it seems he’s trying to suck his thumb, but but often he’ll just make a fist & slobber all over it, or try to shove his whole fist in his mouth.

Then there’s his eyes.  Straight on, they’re bluer than blue.  But from the side, they look green.  There’s definitely a ring of green around his pupil, some days it’s bigger than others.

We’re starting on the 11th week now – it’s hard to believe he’s about to turn 3 months.  Again, I think “that’s it?” and “wow, it’s been a long 3 months” at the same time.  There’s certainly been a lot of ups & downs, but I suppose anyone will tell you that that’s all part of having a baby.  The ups far outweigh & make up for the downs.

Now that we’re moving into the new house, I’m SO excited to finally make up a room for him.  Not that he’ll be using it much (they say co-sleeping should be done for up to a year, and I fully intend to – if not only because I can’t bear to sleep away from him.)  Though I will try to use his crib for afternoon naps.

His room, as with all the upstairs rooms, is white.  I want to get a brightly colored color block throw rug, and I got these vinyl decals for the walls:

Chris wondered if they might not be too scary, but a 3 month old doesn’t understand “scary” yet.  I thought about dinosaurs, but they’re too cliche.  Me being me, I wanted something unique.  I’d have liked to have gotten vintage robots, but the only ones I could find on short notice were black & white, and I wanted color.  By the time he’s old enough to think they’re scary (which I doubt, if he’s been looking at them since he was a baby), he’ll be able to choose his own motif.

Photos from the past week here.

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8 weeks

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Here’s the “weekly newsletter” as we begin the 8th week.  Two months.  To which I say, “Wow, two months already?” and “Really?  Has it only been two months?”

Last week I confirmed my suspicions about him needing/wanting his space when he sleeps.  This week, I’ve determined that it has something to do with his arms.  I need to get more photos of this, but when you spend some time with him, you notice that he’s always throwing his arms out wide.  He loves to have those arms out.  Maybe he’s just showing that he’s ready to embrace the world.

When I set him down on the couch, next to me, to doze – if he’s against the back of the couch & can’t have both arms out, he won’t sleep.  But if I move him diagonally across the cushion, so that he can, he’ll sleep.  He’s not a big fan of being cradled against you – he prefers over the shoulder ( to look around) or up and down on your knees – where he will throw those arms out.

I’ve also realized that it’s best for me to keep my hair pulled up at all times.  He’s begun clutching at everything – if you hold him, he’ll clutch at your arms & shoulders or, in my case – my hair.  Ouch.

Since determining that Little Mr Independent wants his space & letting him sleep in the basinette (next to our bed), he’s been sleeping 4 + 3 intervals at night, on average.  After Chris leaves for work, he’ll generally go another hour and a half or so.

We got a digital baby/toddler scale last week and he was up to 11.9 pounds.  Probably about 11.12 or thereabouts by today.  Inititally, he gained a lot of weight, fast – which was a good thing.  Now it’s slow & steady.  Also a good thing.

I know that eventually, I’ll miss these days and wish he were a baby again, but I’m really looking forward to interacting with him more.  I want to read to him and take him to kids’ museums and the zoo.

felix-148But I know what my mom would say – he’ll grow up too quickly, enjoy every moment without looking ahead so soon!

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7+ weeks

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7bI’m going to try to write a weekly update, especially because I still haven’t gotten out to buy a proper baby book & we want to remember all his quirks & milestones.

So we’ve made it to almost 2 months – it’s absolutely flown by.  During those first few weeks when you’re frazzled & exhausted & feel like you’re about to lose your mind, people continuously tell you, “It’ll get easier,” and it does.  I also kept in mind what my mom had told me, “It doesn’t last forever.”

He was so easy and wonderful during the big move last week.  He slept through the ride to the airport, the 3 hour wait at the airport and during the flight.  He woke only when he was hungry or desperately in need of a diaper change.  He really isn’t much of a crier, at all, only crying when he needs something and settling as soon as he gets it.

The past week or two, his personality has really started to come through.  Just as we’d arrived in Seattle, I noticed that he’d begun to coo.  When my parents came to visit last week, all the attention & urging and has made him one chatty little fellow.  Even now, as I type, he’s laying on the floor making all sorts of happy little racket.

We aren’t sure how much he weighs now, but we guess it’s at least 10 lbs, if not a pound or two more.  He eats like a little monster.  (He also, today, has gas like a little monster.  WHEW!  How something so little & cute gives off a scent so powerful…)

He’s an independent fellow & already breaking his mother’s heart.  We’ve been co-sleeping with him since the day he was born.  I noticed, lately, that everytime I moved at night, he’d wake up.  I suspected he wanted his own sleeping space, so we experimented by putting him in the basinette, next to the bed, last night.  He slept soundly, for two full 4 hour stretches.  Sigh.  Already I miss seeing his face first thing when I open my eyes.  I even miss his flailing and his little hand smacking me in the face.  Yes, I do.

(He eats, a lot, and I think it’s because of something my mom pointed out.  He never stops moving. Hardly ever.  Always flailing, swinging his arms about, kicking his legs.  He’s an active, active boy.  (I have many pictures of him where his arms and legs are a blur.)

He showed an incredible amount of strength almost from the moment he was born by lifting his head and looking around whenever you’d hold him.  Already I remember the days when I called him Bobblehead.  But he’s gotten stronger and steadier & can hold his head much longer & higher, without quite so much waving about.  (We still call him Wrecking Ball, though, as he occasionally just let’s his head drop and WHAM! right into the side of your head.)  We put him down on his belly a couple times a day and he’s about *this close* to flipping himself over onto his back.

But you’d think with all that moving, he’d exhaust himself & sleep a lot, right?  Nope.   He’s inherited my inability – or rather, refusal – to sleep.  I laugh when I read “babies sleep about 16 hours a day.”  NOT THIS BABY.  He might finally be on his way to a nighttime sleep pattern of about 8-9 hours.  However, daytime naps?  HA HA HA HA  Once in a while he’ll sleep for an hour or two in the afternoon, but typically he’ll only take a couple of 20 minute cat naps.  Weeks ago it seemed he was grumpy because he was overtired, so I’d do everything possible to get him to sleep.  Now, though, he seems just fine with as little sleep as he’s getting.  He doesn’t want to miss anything.

7Back to the independence, though.  He also loves to have his space by being laid down on a blanket on the floor to flail and talk and look around.  Super alert and getting noisier every day.  He makes lots and lots of beautiful happy noises.  Based on all the cooing and squealing, I think he has a mighty lot to say, once he figures out just how to say it.

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dirty hippies

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We have a fabulous birth story that we never tire of telling – but I’ll spare you from hearing me say “vagina,” ten times.  So you can get the censored version from Chris or I.

Mere days before he was born, I decided I had to have a home birth.  I’d wanted all natural, but was slowly learning that “nurse midwives” (the ones that work at a hospital) are a far cry from traditional, proper midwives.  I absolutely wanted nothing to do with induction (pitocin), epidurals, heart monitors, or any of the crap that’s become common place in American births.  (Crap that causes all the problems it was designed to prevent.  Being induced – getting pitocin, hugely increases the odds that you’ll wind up getting a c-section.)

In any case, I’ve become a loud advocate for home & natural births – if you’ve talked to me for more than 10 minutes, you’ve heard my ranting.  For those who haven’t – let me just reassure you that it’s absolutely safe, and there are actually FEWER complications and far greater need for medical interventions with home births than with hospital births.  Home birthing is how birth was meant to be – birth is not a problem that needs to be solved, something that “happens” to women.  It’s something that we do & that our bodies are quite capable of handling.

Ok.  //end rant.  However, if you’re interested in the whole topic, a couple documentaries & books I highly recommend:

Pushed: The Painful Truth about Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care by Jennifer Block

Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin (the most famous midwife in the States)

Orgasmic Birth (dvd/documentary)

The Business of Being Born (dvd/documentary)

We – well, I – have officially become dirty hippies.  Thankfully, Chris is happy to let us be so.  Well, minus the “dirty” part.  We had a 100% natural home birth (and we would have used a birthing tub, except Nugget wanted out too quickly for that to be set up); I’ve been working harder than I’ve ever worked on anything to make breastfeeding a successful venture (you’d think something so natural & good should be easy, right?);  we co-sleep (the benefits of co-sleeping are immense and honestly, I can’t imagine abandoning him in a completely separate room from us to sleep); and as soon as the sling that I ordered arrives, I’ll be “wearing” him throughout the day.  Oh, and then there’s the vaccination issue – but I’ll not get into that here, because I’m not in the mood to argue it at the moment.

One of the biggest benefits of co-sleeping?  The very first thing I see when I wake up and open my eyes in the morning is this:

sleep

He’s such a little man.  When we put him in bed, next to us, we lay him on his back & he immediately rolls over onto his side to face us.

Having him in the comfort of our own home was such an amazing experience – all of pregnancy, really – that I’ve decided on a career change.  I haven’t decided what, exactly – originally I wanted to go to the midwifery school in Seattle, but I’m not sure that’s the exact path I want to take.  My Doula gave me a great idea & suggested I think about childbirth education.  I think that might be it.

In any case.  This is Nugget’s blog, so let’s get back to him!  He had a wonderful birth, was in perfect health, just a little low in weight.  We had a short struggle over feeding, but now that we’re on track, he’s gaining weight in record time.  Our little Monster is thriving, for sure.

He’s bright-eyed & alert, sleeps wonderfully at night, has a huge range of faces (there will be video) and lately, he’s taken to lots of gesturing with his arms.  Sometimes I think he’s orchestrating something in his head.  (A budding music/sound man, like his dad?)