Here's To Silly!

Conclusion:  You never know.  You just never know. 

Comments (0) Full article

Bean has recently had her first experience sitting outside.  We don't have a lawn, but there is moss on the sidewalk, so it's pretty much the same thing.
I took her outside with me while I put laundry on the line.  She wasn't too sure of it at first, but seemed ok when I distracted her with a leaf from the ground nearby.
Conclusion:  Outside time is golden, but we look forward to lawn.

Comments (1) Full article

You probably guessed that Bean is eating solid foods by now.  What you may not know is the journey she has taken to get here.  LONG ago (ok, so in the past year, but it feels like forever), I read a blog post about a woman who, instead of going through the "rice cereal, then purees, then finger foods" process, just gave her baby a piece of green pepper when he wanted it and went from there, with the baby eating real food along with the family the whole time.  "I'm totally going to do that," I said to me.  I still bought some spoons and purees of foods not available here on the island (which I know doesn't make sense if my plan was to avoid purees), but I was fully intending to go with her philosophy, because it made sense to me.  She mentioned a book "Baby-Led Weaning," but books are hard to come by here and it seemed silly to send it when we're only here for such a short while, so I was sure I could go it alone.  I was wrong. 

The first food I offered Bean was mango, which seemed a delightful option to me.  It was very slippery and, while she seemed to enjoy the flavor, she could not get a hold of it to eat it no matter what she tried.  It was a mess.  So I mashed it and fed it to her with a spoon.  Then I did the same with bananas.  And then I blended up some green beans (Bean eating beans - classic, right?) and some spinach with pumpkin.  And all of a sudden, I was all caught up in spoon-feeding my baby all kinds of purees - exactly what I didn't want to do.  I even fed her a jar of store-bought sweet potatoes.  Sigh.  ;)  We tried rice cereal, but for some reason she was zero interested in its blandness. 

Enter my birthday.  My sweet mom sent me the book.  I devoured it.  I ceased and desisted with the purees.  I gave her finger-shaped and sized bits of food and watched her go for it.  She LOVED it. 

Here's a video of her, just a couple weeks into her "learning to eat solid food" process:
She now eats all kinds of food, and she's getting all kinds of fast and efficient.  She has also made some glorious messes.  I love watching her explore food this way.  She has become a first-rate beggar, too.  Anytime there is food being eaten anywhere in the house, she gets very quiet and alert, like a predator sneaking up on an innocent . . . small helpless thing.  She watches us every moment there is any kind of food in our hands.  She smacks her lips.  And if the food is not offered to her in a prompt manner, she gets the most sad/demanding look on her face that you can imagine.  It awesome/frustrating.  It has cut down on my open cookie intake (of course the hidden cookie intake remains intact). 

Even without teeth (still, not a single one), she is a force of nature.  Bananas?  Easy.  Gone in mere moments.  Melon?  That's a snap.  Broccoli?  A little more challenging, but still delicious and worth the effort.  Star fruit is a new favorite.  Crackers and cheese and ham and chicken and pasta and all kinds of delicious things are all a part of this new life.  It has definitely made me more aware of my own dietary habits, this sharing with a tiny person.  It's friggin' awesome.  Here, I'll show you:

We are pretty excited to see how much she will enjoy teeth.  Just think of the things she'll be able to do.  I mean, if she can eat pizza now (yes, yes she can), steak isn't that far off, right?  Also, we look forward to getting to Utah in the season of corn on the cob - oh, how I'm sure she'll love it. 

Conclusion:  Independence begins early in this house.  Happy Independence Day, all.

Comments (1) Full article

When a battery in a smoke detector is low, it just goes off every ten seconds or so.  You know, smoke detector loud.  And shrill.  And scary.  I may have known that.  I probably knew that.  It's a good idea.  Unless The Universe decides the battery is low an hour after the baby goes to bed.  In her room.  Right above her crib. And the ceiling the detector is attached to is so high that your 6'6" husband can't reach it standing on a chair (And, let's be honest, every pillow in the room, which is many.  Safe, right?).  Then it's a terrible idea.  Just sayin'.

Conclusion:  Whoever said to change the batteries every six months may have had a point.  And/or a once sleeping baby.

Comments (1) Full article

So, here's the low-down on the ho-down (I really feel like putting a "w" after "ho," just to make it match, but then it would spell "how" and that wouldn't make any sense).  Apparently I'm sort of an attachment-parenting type.  This is not something I planned on.  I remember discussing birth plans with a friend of mine, waaaaay before Bean was twinkling in my eye, and being completely flummoxed when she asked me what parenting methods I planned to use.  Um, how should I know?  That was, like, light years away.  I had spent years deciding just how I wanted my birth experience to be (sort of like little girls who plan their weddings for decades but fail to consider the realities of a real-life marriage).  Turns out, it was just as important, if not more so, as considering choices like epidural? hypnobirthing? midwife? hospital? and t'ings o' dat sort.

While pregnant, I did start to sort of investigate stuff like that.  One website had a particularly strong impact - Hathor certainly has a forceful way of putting things.  Most certainly an attachment-parenting advocate, she renders all other ideas as essentially ridiculous, at the very least disdainable.  I specifically remember her pointing out all kinds of "detachment-parenting," which included strollers.  Well, when you put it like that, of course I don't want any part of it.  She did get to be a little much for me and I had to unsubscribe to her feed before Bean came on the scene, if only to save us both from the intense scrutiny I felt like it put me under (Sure, sure, it's just a website so the scrutiny was self-inflicted.  No matter, it had to stop).  Still, the phrase "detachment-parenting" has stuck with me.  I didn't start out looking to use a sling to make a statement or to fulfill any hippie fantasy.  It just made more sense to me and fit in with my style and ideals.  And I have loved it.  So has Bean.

Then I got the heat-rash-from-hell and had to reconsider.  After some to-do, we gratefully received a stroller two weeks ago from Wonderman's ever-generous sister.  I thought that I was being so pragmatic and was neatly eating my humble pie, when I realized that I had actually been quite selfish.  I got the stroller just for me and assumed Bean would love it since she used to love the car - same concept, sort of, right?  I honestly barely considered how she would feel about it.  It just seemed like an alternative mode of transport.  No biggie.

Alas, turns out that after six-plus months of this attachment-parenting mumbo-jumbo, it actually works and babies get attached.  Also, it seems that right around six months is when many babies begin to deal with separation anxiety, even babies who have been "detachment" parented all along.  Needless to say, there were many, many tears when we introduced the stroller, only partially abated when Wonderman danced in front of the stroller making silly noises and pulling funny faces (Have I told you what awesome buddies they are?  I love it).

So, my fear of blending in with all the other mommies with strollers?  Not a concern.  I became the mommy wearing my baby in a sling, pushing an empty stroller.  You know how I love to embrace the ridiculous, right?  Yup, nothing like a crazy white woman to make the Dominicans stare.  So, we've tried to break Bean in slowly.  Some trips in the stroller, some in the sling.  Sometimes managing half a trip in the stroller and coming home in the sling (Um, how grateful am I for a sling that packs small?  Uber for sure).  Every day Bean gets a little bit better about the concept of strolling.  Today she did A-MA-ZING.  She was so calm the whole way.  Two trips to campus and back.  Instead of crying, she just made that little extended "uh" sound that so nicely exhibits the bumps in the road (of which there are many around these parts).  When she did get a little tired and hungry (do I have to confess to my negligence here and tell you how I kept her out way longer than I should have and naps weren't really on the radar, nor was nursing for quite a bit of the time we were out [for all my rantings about public nursing, you'd think I'd make it a point to do it when I had the chance!]?), she just whimpered lightly and then fell fast asleep.  It was glorious.  I gave thanks for the relatively quick adjustment period and began to make all kinds of future strolling plans.

And then tonight I realized a few things about heat rash (Well, the realizations have been building, but the final and most important was tonight at bath time).  1 - Mine did not even come close to disappearing with the introduction of the stroller.  2 - Now that Bean can sit up and so I sling her on my hip, instead of belly-to-belly, none of her body-heat is touching where my gross rash even is.  3 - The heat rash that I've been noticing on her back (right above her diaper so it kinda looks like diaper rash but it actually stops where the diaper begins so I've been pretty confused by it), IS CAUSED BY THE GOSH-DARN STROLLER.  Seriously, on what planet is this fair?  She gets warm in there, but I didn't think it was that warm.  But that is the only thing that has changed within the time frame of her rash development.  So, now I'm torn.  Do I sling it despite the heat, except for when I want to go grocery shopping or to the pool?  Or do I just try to pack an ice back wrapped in a blanket behind her and maintain our strolling success?  Will the rash that I have (Which is only dissipating a bit now with loads of steroid cream) re-rear it's horrendous head?  Whose rash takes precedence?

Conclusion:  There is no "Easy-Parenting" style.

Comments (1) Full article

Last night as I got into bed, I noticed the moon glowing so-brightly-it-was-almost-eery through our window, and I commented on said glowing to Wonderman.  His response:

"Yeah, I was just thinking that tonight we'll find out if Bean is really a werewolf."

A pause of bemused silence lay pregnant between us.

"It would be cute, but terrifying," he said.

It would indeed.

Conclusion:   She's probably not a monster, but she's bound to be funny with genes like his.
It's true, I totally put in a gratuitous Bean-shot.  It's to show off her good genes and to celebrate that we now have a camera and to show that she has enough hair for little clips (they are mine from back in the day right after I was bald, remember?).  Hooray!

The end.

Comments (1) Full article

Well, there are probably lots of things to say in some long post that I'll write later, but tonight I am just going to say that right at 6.5 months, when Bean is really starting up on her separation anxiety, is maybe not the best time to switch from a sling to a stroller.  It's been a long day.

The end.

Comments (1) Full article