Du Wax Loolu

Winter ONEderland

2012-01-30T07:01:00.008-07:00

Callum's birthday party was on Saturday. It was a Winter ONEderland theme, and I was really happy with how it turned out. All these people kept commenting on how creative and crafty it was, and while I appreciated that, and also it's totally true that it was a lot of work to put it together, I have to give most of the credit to the Internet. Elizabeth made the bunting. Misty suggested the photo chain. Pinterest gave me the vast majority of the other decor ideas, as well as pretty much all the recipes. Basically, the Internet means that you can execute something cool without having to come up with all the creative ideas yourself. WIN.

Here's the bunting Elizabeth made. Isn't it stunning? She did the whole thing--all I had to do was glue the triangles onto some silver rickrack and hang it up.

Decor was balloons, tissue paper pom poms, wooden snowflakes that I colored silver, tealights floating in jam jars tied with raffia bows (inspired by this), and blue stones in clear vases. Plus the bunting, the favors, and the photo chain. And one little blue bucket of foam "snowballs" with a little flag sign saying "Snowballs, 5 cents."

I was so pleased with the photo chain. I ordered it off Etsy and all I had to do was put in the photos. There were 12 slots when I had been expecting 13, so I just put the newborn to 11 month photos on the chain and then centered the one-year photo above it. This chain got tons of compliments from all the guests. It was such a cute way to see how much he's changed in a year. Here you can see it in more detail:

I didn't do much to give the food a wintry theme, but we did do a hot cocoa bar (inspired by this), complete with Bailey's, Kahlua, and amaretto, whipped cream, pirouettes, candy canes, and flavored marshmallows (peppermint, cinnamon, and gingerbread, plus regular). That was also a big hit--we went through over a gallon of hot cocoa!

The spread (plus bonus shot of Jeni and family) included some items made by me--chocolate cake, gingerbread cake, lemon pull-apart bread, peanut butter brownies, spinach pockets, and crab rangoon--plus assorted store-bought dips and appetizers.

The favors were hot cocoa cones, done based on this tutorial--I just replaced the Valentine-themed sprinkles with a mix of white, silver, and blue sprinkles to fit the winter theme. (I did puff cones for the babies.)

And then, of course, there was the birthday boy. He only napped for 40 minutes before the party, so that was less than awesome, but he seemed to have a great time. He wasn't at all overwhelmed by the crowd of people in the house, and he had fun crawling from person to person and seeing all the other babies. He looked very serious when everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to him, but he didn't cry or act shy. He was not, however, specifically interested in his birthday cake.

In fact, he wouldn't eat any of it. He did pick up a tiny crumb at one point and lifted it to his mouth, but then he put it back down without actually tasting it. He did, however, crack a smile when I blew out his candle for him:

And as soon as the party ended, he conked out completely. It must have been exhausting.

I was really happy with how the party came together--but beyond the details, the best part was just getting all our friends together in one place. I didn't plan activities or anything--only food and decor--but inviting a whole bunch of people with babies makes the socializing pretty easy, because everyone has a lot to talk about. Most of our friends hadn't met each other before, but they all got along great and seemed to have a good time. And it was so lovely to see so many people that we adore together in one place to celebrate our baby. When everyone was gathered around him singing "Happy Birthday," I was smiling but I also felt a little choked up. It was just so sweet.

I hope everyone had a great time. I definitely did. Though I can't believe that after all the planning and baking, my child STILL has never tasted cake. He has no idea what he's missing.

Twelve months

2012-01-24T10:07:00.001-07:00

Holy god, you guys.

My baby is one year old.

My tiny little newborn.

He is talking and he is close to walking and until he is really walking we can keep pretending that he isn't actually a toddler, RIGHT?

LOOK HOW TALL HE IS OMG.

I can't believe that it's been a year. It seems physically impossible. And yet the proof is undeniable.

Happy birthday, baby boy. You have made this past year the best of our lives.

Grad school

2012-01-17T07:01:00.006-07:00

When I graduated from college, most of my friends were talking about grad school. Some of them were going right away. Others were going to work for awhile while they figured out what they wanted to get an advanced degree in. But nearly all of them had a plan that involved going to grad school eventually.

And pretty much all of them have done so by now. Law school. MPA. MPP. MBA. A couple ambitious friends are even in the middle of PhD programs at the moment.

Me? I was NOT interested in grad school. I always said that the classes were my least favorite part of college. The thing I liked least about them (other than getting up early) was that even when you weren't actually DOING your work, you felt like you SHOULD be doing your work. So if you were out with friends or whatever, there was always a little niggling feeling at the back of your mind reminding you of all the work you still had to do. I HATED that.

So after college, I got a job. I was thrilled with it. It was a fantastic job in public health, and I found the work really interesting. And I loved that after you left at the end of the day, you didn't have to think about it again until the next morning and could enjoy your free time with a clear conscience. And I told everyone who asked that I was thrilled to be in a profession that didn't require a master's degree, and that I was never going to school again.

Except that by "never" I guess I really meant "for five and a half years," because guess what starts today? That's right: the first class of my graduate program.

I don't really NEED the degree for my career, per se, though it will certainly be beneficial. I'm really happy with my job and the work that I'm doing, and so far nobody has ever asked if I had a master's degree or implied that I should get one. But eventually, I think its absence would become more of an issue. And, I work with a bunch of really smart, educated people. Most of them have grad degrees, and it helps a lot. Not just for their career trajectories, but for their true and deep understanding of the science behind the work we do.

What I really want out of this degree is a theoretical foundation for my practical work experience. I've learned a ton about public health, social marketing (NOT the same as social media; see here for an explanation), and behavior change through my work in this sector. I've learned a fair amount about logic models and theoretical frameworks, too. But I've learned it piece by piece, as I've seen it in documents I've edited or discussed it in strategic meetings. And while I know a lot already, I want to connect the dots. I want to study the academic basis for these theories and gain a true, deep understanding of how and why they work. I want to be fluent in this language and instinctively know which framework we should propose for our latest project, based on the desired outcomes.

So I'm going back to school. I'm getting a master of science degree in health communication from Boston University. It's a program designed for students who are also working full-time. The other students in the program will also have demanding jobs and personal lives. So I won't be alone in my attempts to juggle work, school, and family. It will certainly be intense, but it will also be worth it. And hopefully it will be interesting, too. Health communication is the only field I've ever come across that has interested me enough to devote an entire degree to it. And I'm really excited to do it.

The program should take about 18 months. So you can all hold off on baby #2 watch until then.

Sickie

2012-01-10T08:52:00.004-07:00

Callum got a cold a little over a month ago. After a week or so, I took him to the doctor to get checked out in advance of our trip. The doctor said he had a cold but his ears and lungs were pristine so he was fine to fly, and in fact, taking him to a humid climate is the best thing you can do for the cold.

The trip did seem to help. The second we landed in Florida his nose basically turned into a faucet for the next three hours, which seemed to be the humidity softening everything and letting it flow. He remained sick for the rest of our trip, but it seemed pretty mild.

We got home and he was still sick. He was coughing and his nose was running. Then he started pulling on his ears, something he'd never done before. He did it constantly, especially on the right ear, and I noticed on the video monitor that sometimes he would put his hands on his ears in his sleep. All the articles about ear infections said that the number one indicator of an ear infection is the baby's mood, though, and he seemed as happy and energetic as usual, so I thought maybe it was just a new habit.

He was still sleeping through the night, though sometimes he'd fuss a little in his sleep. Some days his appetite seemed low but the next day it would be fine again. His naps kind of sucked, but that could be (and might still be) totally unrelated to a possible ear infection and completely related to him being, you know, a baby. I still felt like something wasn't right with him, so I called the nurse line at our pediatrician and was told, maybe it's his ears but more likely it's just an ongoing cold, up to you what to do. So I decided to hold out for his 12-month well visit at the end of January.

But you know what the weird thing was that tipped me over the edge? In the mornings he would sit up in his crib and start banging the back of his head against the railing. This seemed like a strange new habit so I googled it and found this BabyCenter article, which said that head banging is a common self-soothing technique, particularly among boys, and then mentioned that it can sometimes be an attempt to distract themselves from the pain of teething or ear infection. When I read that, somehow I just KNEW that's what was going on. It was the final straw of all these little things, I guess. I just KNEW that despite what everyone said about how all this stuff could be normal, it was just a cold, he'd be unhappy if he had an ear infection, he wouldn't be sleeping, and so on, that this wasn't typical behavior for my kid, and that something was probably up.

So yesterday morning I called the pediatrician's office at the dot of 8:00 a.m. and managed to get a same-day sick appointment with our regular doctor, which is nothing short of a miracle because she's incredibly popular and doesn't usually even take sick appointments. We went in yesterday afternoon and the nurses continued to try to convince me that he was just fine and it was all typical baby behavior. And I kept responding (and they agreed), "Yeah, maybe he's fine but I thought it was better to get him checked out just to be sure."

Then he saw the doctor. And she was awesome. And she did not make me feel like a paranoid first-time mom. And she spent ages with us. And she checked him very thoroughly. And she discussed everything with me.

And she diagnosed him with bronchiolitis, a double ear infection, and a yeast diaper rash as the cherry on top.

So! After extreme hassle with three pharmacies, one of whom tried to charge us $200 for medication that our insurance ended up covering to the tune of $14 out of pocket (THANK GOD), he is now on steroid nebulizer treatments for the bronchiolitis for two weeks, antibiotics for the ear infection for 10 days, and over-the-counter yeast cream for the rash until it clears up.

And parental instinct for the win. I KNEW something was up. I even knew the infection was worse in the right ear than the left. And now I know that I was right: my kid is the type who acts totally fine and happy even when he has to be massively uncomfortable.

Now we just hope that the treatment makes him feel better really, really soon. And that he stops thrashing like an octopus during his breathing treatments, or it's going to be a long two weeks.

Sunny days

2012-01-04T07:01:00.005-07:00

So. Christmas travel. We spent four and a half days in Miami before heading to North Carolina for a week at my parents' house, and wow, was it glorious. The whole trip was really fantastic, actually. Callum is basically a dream traveler--no fussing, naps through plane rides, rolls with the unpredictable vacation days as far as a nap schedule is concerned, sleeps fantastically at night, is generally adorable and happy as always, even 1,500 miles from home.

We didn't buy him a ticket for any of our flights, but for two out of the three flights we were able to snag an empty seat for him so he could fly in his car seat, and on both those flights he slept for many hours and was awake only for takeoff. In one case we actually had to wake him up when it was time to deplane. On our flight back to Denver from Raleigh-Durham, however, he did have to ride on our laps and it was extraordinarily unpleasant, mostly for us. 28 pounds of active, curious, thrashy baby in an already cramped seating situation is not ideal. He did sleep for an hour and a half of the flight, which was good, except that he did it sprawled across our laps, so by the time he woke up our legs were asleep and our backs were killing us and we were ready to get off the plane rightthissecond.

But! Two out of three isn't bad, and really, he was so well behaved that even having him on our laps was tolerable. Still, I think the next time we fly with him we will splash out the cash for his own seat, partly because it's safer anyway, but really because nothing beats peacefully reading your book and eating your snack from your tray table with nobody trying to pour your juice all over you or pull your shirt off so you flash the whole plane--and instead, your baby is sleeping peacefully in his car seat next to you. Given that our kid is the SIZE of your average two-year-old, I think it's about right that he should be given his own seat as is required at age two.

Anyway! The trip itself was fantastic. The ocean water was a little cold and had some jellyfish in it, so we didn't go beyond the edge, and Callum was already pretty dubious about the tiny waves that crashed on his legs. He loved the sand, though, and ate less of it than I was expecting, and he enjoyed the hotel pool, and he spent quite a bit of enjoyable time playing with his toys on the hotel balcony.

And you can only imagine how much he enjoyed a week of grandparent time. He got all the attention his little heart could desire, and many amazing, thoughtful holiday gifts. He watched a menorah lighting for the first time, and crawled around with his cousin, and had his first Christmas dinner (Yorkshire pudding, peas, and roasted root vegetables were particular favorites). He met friends and crawled around my childhood bedroom and chased after my parents' dogs and cuddled with Grandma and Grandpa and generally had the time of his life.

Oh, and he said his first word. "Doggie" ("dah-GAH!"), followed shortly thereafter by Mama and Dada, and then "meh" when he wants more. The jury is still out on whether he's trying to say "more" in English or "mehr" in German, but the meaning is clear. This kid is talking. And even when he's not saying discernible words, he is chattering and babbling constantly. He has a lot to say. And we are happy to listen.

Cousins! In matching outfits! If only they'd been willing to sit still side by side and smile at the camera. Oh well.

It was such a wonderful vacation, with the two most perfect traveling companions imaginable. What a great way to start off the new year.

Time to sum it all up again

2011-12-30T15:08:00.000-07:00

(Previous years: 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007)

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Had a baby. Paid off a car. Started working for a for-profit company.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't make any resolutions last year, and I don't intend to make any this year. Sorry.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
A ton of people (plus me, of course). My sister, and a whole bunch of friends. Including several local friends, which means play dates for Callum!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries did you visit?
For the first time since I started doing this survey, the answer is none. Damn baby.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
I honestly don't know. 2011 was a pretty perfect year. I can't think of anything we're lacking.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
January 24, when Callum was born.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Um. Is "having a baby" going to get old by the time we get to the end of this survey? I guess I'd say achieving some balance in my life in terms of raising a happy, well-adjusted baby, enjoying a thriving marriage, and working at a full-time job that I love, all without going crazy.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not working out enough. We actually canceled our gym membership because it was impossible to go. Again, damn baby. Hopefully in 2012 we can figure out some kind of home exercise routine.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Other than a hideous 24-hour stomach bug that all three of us suffered through, plus the miserable cold that I'm currently nursing, no.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Our new SUV, I guess.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Torsten's, as usual. Seeing him with Callum just reinforces how great he is, every single day.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Most politicians'.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Our mortgage and childcare.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Oh, you know, having a baby. The usual.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Hush Little Baby, since that's what I sang to Callum all the time when he was an infant.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?
b) thinner or fatter?
c) richer or poorer?
a) Happier
b) Thinner (not too difficult to achieve, considering that when I did this survey last year I was about 37 weeks pregnant)
c) Richer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Nothing specific, really. I'm pretty happy with what I did this year.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Stressing about breastfeeding. So not a big deal in the end.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
First we went to Miami Beach for four days, and then we spent a week at my parents' house in North Carolina along with my sister's family. It was great.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
With Callum, for sure.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
House is the only current show we watch. We also went through the full series of The Wire and Boston Legal on DVD this year, and they were both great.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No.

24. What was the best book you read?
I liked The Marriage Plot a lot.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Um. Did I make any musical discoveries this year? Oh dear. I don't think so.

26. What did you want and get?
A baby.

27. What did you want and not get?
New siding for our house. Yes, I know, I'm very domestic.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
I really enjoyed both Contagion and Arthur Christmas.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I can barely remember. I think we went out to dinner at our favorite sushi restaurant, with Callum. I turned 27.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I really can't think of anything. As I've said for the last two years, it was a great year exactly as it was.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
I would go so far as to say that I changed my shirt after approximately 80% of incidents involving Callum spitting up on me.

32. What kept you sane?
My husband and baby.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Stephen Colbert.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
The horrifying slate of presidential candidates presented by the GOP. Does that count as a political issue? Also the usual stuff like health care, reproductive rights, gay marriage, etc.

35. Who did you miss?
I'm going to steal my answer from the last two years here: Most of my friends and family, since pretty much all of them live far away now.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
Elizabeth (and Eric and Hannah). I mean, unless you count Callum, since we technically met him this year.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
I really can trust my instincts. They almost always lead me in the right direction.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Nope, sorry. I did this last year and I don't think I'll ever have such a strike of inspiration again.

Happy New Year, everybody!

Eleven months

2011-12-24T07:01:00.000-07:00

Dear Callum,

Today you are 11 months old. Let's not even discuss the fact that this means that next month you'll be a year old, because I still can't believe it.

This has been a huge month for you in terms of gross motor skills. Something clicked in your head about pulling up to standing, and now you do it constantly. You don't so much pull as you casually brace yourself to stand up. When I walk in the room you will crawl over to me as fast as you can, place your hand on my shin, and stand up. You've also figured out how to sit back down again by squatting, kneeling, or lowering yourself down the bars of your crib. You can bend over to pick up a toy and stand back up, and you're just on the verge of cruising--sometimes you shuffle along your play yard while holding on with both hands. You've been letting go while standing more and more recently, and can stand unassisted sometimes for 10-15 seconds. Sometimes you even clap your hands while standing up.

You are becoming more and more social, too. When we hold out our hands and ask you for the toy you're giving us, you will happily hand it to us. You love to imitate the sounds that we make, and you imitate sounds that other kids make too. We went to dinner with friends one night, and their toddler shrieked so loudly that everyone else in the restaurant turned to look. Then two seconds later you emitted a pitch-perfect version of the same shriek, so similar that at first I thought it was our friend's kid making the same noise again. Luckily the restaurant wasn't crowded at all. Your nanny takes you to the playground regularly, and you've gone from crying when other babies touched you to pushing back when you get pushed. You are definitely figuring out how socializing works.

You're incredibly chatty. You say "mama," and it seems more and more like you mean me when you say it, though I'm still not convinced enough to declare it your first official word. You babble nonstop, and it really sounds like you think you're talking. You understand a lot of words--I can think of at least 20, and I'm sure there are more that you understand that I'm not aware of. You will imitate us when we say "doggie" or "daddy," but you haven't yet said those words independently. You also try to wave, though you use both hands to do it and usually end up clapping instead.

You love toys. You're also really into lift-the-flap books at the moment, and can happily lift the flap over and over again, though we have to be careful when you do it so that you don't accidentally rip the flap right off. You also turn the pages of your books, making it hard for us to actually read them to you. You can focus on books for a very long time, though, and will deliberately and thoroughly look through your books one page at a time, examining each one thoroughly before moving on to the next. You will play with your toys for a long time, and then you will occupy yourself by tossing them all away, over the play yard or the side of your crib. You try to stack everything, and will nest your buckets in each other by size. It is amazing to see you starting to learn how to use toys as intended, rather than just banging them together. In music class you know how to use the drum, the jingle bells, and the xylophone. If I put a hat on your head you will then take it off and put it back on over and over again.

You're still growing--you gained about half a pound this month after a couple months of no gain at all, and now weigh just over 28 pounds. We are moving more and more away from purees, especially now that you try to grab the spoon when we feed you and do it yourself. You have a great talent for finger foods by now, and though quite a bit of food still ends up on the floor when you feed yourself, by now you actually manage to consume a fair amount of food when you eat. You love everything we eat and many things we don't even like. Favorites include pickles, tomatoes, cucumbers, chicken nuggets, noodles, and rice cakes.

You are still sleeping fantastically. Even on vacation, you sleep 12 hours at night and take a 2-3 hour nap during the day. We love your sleep schedule and although we've learned by now that nothing ever lasts, we are hoping that you stick with this particular routine for awhile, at least.

Speaking of vacation, we're in Florida right now, headed to North Carolina shortly, and you are a fantastic traveler. We were lucky enough to end up next to the only empty seat on the plane on the flight to Miami, so you flew in your car seat and slept for three hours on the plane. You are not incredibly impressed with the cold ocean water, but enjoy splashing in the pool, and even when you tipped off the pool steps and fell face first into the cold water, you didn't even cry. And you really like playing in the sand. Your laid-back personality lends itself well to traveling, and we really appreciate being able to mess with your schedule without getting punished for it later. I'm sure at some point that will change, but we're enjoying it while it lasts.

You are still the sweetest, mellowest, most fun baby I've ever met. You have seemingly boundless energy, which can be exhausting, but it's worth it to watch you explore and laugh and interact with your world more and more every day. 2011 has been the year of you, and certainly the best year of our lives as a result. We are looking forward to many more amazing years with you.

Love,
Mama

Holiday spirit

2011-12-19T11:18:00.002-07:00

It's the season of giving. So head over to pseudostoops and leave a comment on her annual series of Giving My Money Away Extravaganza posts. Today your comment will send money to Bundle of Joy, a diaper bank. And check back all this week because you can comment every day to donate money to different organizations.

So! Off you go! But before you leave, please enjoy this photo of Callum on Santa's lap. Am I a bad mom because I was glad he cried? It's just such a classic photo, yes?

Advent

2011-12-02T07:01:00.001-07:00

Two months ago Katie mentioned to me that she wanted to sew an Advent calendar. She grew up with a fabric one, and wanted something similar now that she has a baby of her own. I thought it was an awesome idea, and fell in love with the picture she showed me, so we decided to do it together. Katie found this pattern, we bought materials, and then we each started sewing.

I started mine on Sunday and finished it last night. It would have been quicker, except that my sewing machine is incredibly basic. It was purchased used 15 years ago and was pretty much the cheapest one my parents could find. I was able to sew the tree and, of course, the straight seams with it, but it completely butchered a snowflake and I knew not to even bother trying it on the intricate detailing of the numbers, so I ended up stitching all the numbers and snowflakes (and the star) by hand, which slowed me down.

But I finished it in the nick of time, on the first of December, and here is the finished product:

Each of those little pockets has a tiny wooden ornament in it, and every day you pin an ornament on the tree, so by Christmas the tree is completely decorated. Isn't that a cute idea? Plus, the pockets allow for so much flexibility. As Callum gets older we can stick little chocolates in there with the ornaments, or maybe slips of paper with holiday activities written on them (a la Elizabeth).

But for now, it's just the calendar, and the ornaments. And I love it. I feel so crafty! Like I've really CREATED a family holiday tradition, something that Callum will hopefully grow up adoring and looking forward to every year.

And, of course, we put up our tree. I won't put it up before Thanksgiving, but I do like to have it up for ages so we can admire it and feel happy every time we see it, so two days after Thanksgiving we bought it and decorated it. And put out our outside holiday lights. Now all we need is a wreath. But in the meantime the tree is sufficient.

The ornaments are the best part, naturally. He removed them from the tree himself. I was gratified to see that he grabbed a purple one first.

Ten months

2011-11-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

Dear Callum,

Today you are 10 months old. Today is also Thanksgiving Day. I don't think anyone needs three guesses to figure out what we are thankful for.

The big thing that happened this month is that you finally learned to crawl! You had been looking for weeks like you would do it at any time, and a couple times you crawled two or three paces, so finally one day I picked up a spare electrical cord (your very favorite thing) and put it on the other side of the rug and after a minute of looking at it and rocking back and forth, you crawled to get it. And you've been crawling ever since. It took about three days for you to get really good at it, and now you can crawl on any surface, even on hardwood, even if you're wearing slippery fleece pants. And you are FAST. A couple times we have only managed to chase you down AFTER you got your hand in the dog's water bowl. Luckily you haven't yet managed to stick your face in it.

You're also very into upward motion recently. Whenever we sit you anywhere, you pull yourself up to your knees, and often one knee and one foot. A few times you've pulled yourself to standing, but right after you did that in your crib for the first time, we lowered your mattress, thus inadvertently thwarting your progress on this front. You can thank us later, when you haven't tipped out of your crib and landed headfirst on the floor. You've also started this thing where you push up from your belly to your hands and your feet, like you're doing gymnastics. And by now you're totally stable when you sit--you never tip over anymore, ever.

This month you've displayed even more clearly that you understand words. When we ask, "Where's Mommy/Daddy/Grandma/Grandpa/Opa/Oma/the doggie/Anny (your nanny)?" you will always look at the person in question. If I say, "Where's my nose?" you touch it. If I say "high five" you hold up your hand. You continue to clap and kiss on request. Your babbling is also more varied--you say nearly every consonant sound, and you intersperse them so it sounds like you're talking. It really feels like you're on the verge of saying actual words. You have started saying "mama" in the last week or so, but since you like making the M sound in general and you haven't given us an obvious context (such as saying it right when I walk in the room), we aren't yet convinced enough to call it an actual word.

You are also very social. After our long streak of grandparent visits ended, we went back to Skype video chats with them for the first time in months. And when you saw and heard them on the screen, you smiled and reached out to touch their faces on the screen. You also try to wave, though you pretty much only succeed in flapping one arm up and down at high speed. You get upset when we use a reprimanding tone of voice, and when we take away your toys or whatever it is that you want.

You've made huge progress with finger foods this month. We've discovered that as long as you like something, you will hold it and eat it very well without dropping it. Chicken, pickles, noodles, and tomatoes are some big favorites. Whenever you eat something that you especially like, you will say "Mmmmm" after every bite. You do it so consistently that I am tempted to consider it your first word--except that "mm" isn't a word, sadly. But it's the first sound that you have clearly and consistently used in an appropriate context with a specific meaning.

Your personality continues to get stronger, and you are very clear by now about what you do and don't like. You don't throw tantrums, exactly, but if you want something or are fussy and we try to distract you with a toy, you will wait until we make eye contact and then throw the offending item on the floor as hard as you can. At restaurants when we put food on the table in front of you, more often than not you will deliberately pick it up and drop it right on the floor. You still love music and singing and games like peekaboo, and you think it's hilarious whenever someone sneezes. You are also really into toys, and whenever you pick one up, you will inspect it very thoroughly, turning it over to see all its angles and shaking it extensively to see what it can do.

You had a few firsts this month. You got your first cold and your first stomach bug, thankfully both mild. Also, your nanny started this month, the first time that you've had anyone other than family providing child care for you. After a few days of struggling at nap time with her, you seem to have adjusted nicely. You learned her name fast, and you smile and laugh whenever she comes in the room.

You continue to sleep great--about 12 hours at night. Your naps have much improved this month, and though every day is different, you will usually take one long nap of about 2-3 hours. This seems to be enough to prevent you from being cranky in the evenings, which we are all thankful for, especially as the evenings are now our main bonding time with you. You are also still growing upward--I think you are about 32.5" by now, which would mean you grew another 3/4 of an inch this month--but you actually LOST two ounces in the last month. You now weigh 27 pounds 5 ounces, which is exactly what you weighed at eight months. I think we can definitively say that you've tapered off, and we're all grateful for that--though it was definitely a little weird to hear your doctor say that we will now keep an eye on your weight to make sure you don't drop too far off your curve.

Most of all, you continue to be a delightful, happy, laid-back baby. You are happy almost all the time, and you continue to go with the flow no matter what we throw at you in terms of new people or schedule changes. You have also shown us more and more that while you don't have a whole lot of stranger anxiety, you are specifically attached to us. While you like other people, nothing makes you happier than seeing your dad or me--and when you are upset, we are the ones who can get you to stop crying. Of course we've always known that you must be attached to us--but since you're so mellow all the time, it can be easy to forget that you don't treat all things equal. We appreciate that you are attached to us--because we are very attached to you as well. We are so thankful to have you in our lives.

Love,
Mama

Four wins and no answers

2011-11-18T12:24:00.001-07:00

OK. I know a lot of you don't care about sports, or Tim Tebow, and if that's the case I suggest that you skip over this post. Because I have a lot to say about Tim Tebow.

Context: For those of you who don't follow the Denver Broncos (our local football team), they drafted Tim Tebow in the first round last year. This was because the coach at the time, Josh McDaniels, bonded with him at camp or whatever and decided he was worth the risk. Tebow was a huge star at the University of Florida, but a lot of people believed (and still believe) that his success wouldn't translate to the NFL. He is also known for being incredibly, zealously religious. In college he wrote the names and numbers of Bible verses on his face paint during games (which, thankfully, the NFL prohibits). He did a commercial for Focus on the Family that aired during the Super Bowl. He is very, very religious and very, very conservative. And very, very controversial as a football player.

Last year the Broncos went 4-12. Toward the end of the season their starting quarterback, Kyle Orton, was benched (supposedly due to a minor injury) and Tebow was allowed to start three games. He went 1-2. Then in training camp before this season, they competed for the starting spot and Orton won it. He started the first five games and went 1-4. Halfway through the fifth game, when they were losing hopelessly against the Chargers, he was benched in favor of Tebow. Tebow came in and led a comeback that fell short of a huge upset win by a two-point conversion. He then became the starter (though when asked about the starter, the current Broncos coach refers to "Tebow... or whoever"). He is 4-1 when starting this season, meaning that the Broncos are now 5-5.

I can't stand Tim Tebow as a person. Nothing against religious people in general, or conservative people in general, but I find him specifically to be incredibly sanctimonious. Bible verses on his face aren't necessary. Talking about God all the time, in every single interview, isn't necessary. Advertising for Focus on the Family, a group that I find disgusting, bigoted, and deceptive, certainly isn't necessary. And I'm not completely convinced that he's skilled as a quarterback either.

Because here's the weird thing. Even though he's won four out his five games, every single win was close, and weird. He has never conclusively had a great game, the kind where he'd be considered the MVP. He had 3.5 terrible quarters before leading a charge to come back from a 14-point deficit with three minutes left against Miami. He led another comeback win against the Raiders. Even against the Chiefs, who are terrible, the game was way too close for comfort. And against the Jets last night, the defense won the game. They scored one of the touchdowns on an interception, and they limited the Jets to 13 points. Tebow didn't do a whole lot.

But beyond that, since McDaniels is gone, there's nobody in the Broncos management who believes in Tebow as a quarterback. And as a result they engage in the most conservative play calling I've ever seen. They call almost exclusively running plays. In the game against the Chiefs Tebow threw the ball, I believe, eight times all game. They only let him throw downfield late in the game when it's do or die. As a result, he's developing a reputation as a fourth-quarter quarterback. If the defense can just keep the Broncos in the game for the first three quarters, they seem to be able to pull out a win right at the end.

But it's frustrating. They traded their best receiver, Brandon Lloyd, for a fifth- or sixth-round draft pick because they didn't want to pay his salary for the next three years, during which time they expect to be in rebuilding mode and not win anything. So why are they being so conservative with Tebow? I just don't understand, if there's nothing on the line this year and it's all about the team's future, why they wouldn't test him. Why they wouldn't work on letting him throw the ball and seeing if he's any good and/or has any chance at becoming good. Why is it that after he's started five games and won four of them, nobody knows if he's any good or if he has a shot in hell at becoming the team's long-term quarterback? How is that helpful in any way?

I just can't get inside the heads of the coaches and play callers. I don't understand what they're doing. I think Tebow could potentially be good, or it could be like an anonymous Lions player said to the media after Detroit blew out the Broncos 45-10 a few weeks ago:

“Come on – that’s embarrassing. I mean, it’s a joke. We knew all week that if we brought any kind of defensive pressure, he couldn’t do anything. In the second half it got boring out there. We were like, ‘Come on – that’s your quarterback? Seriously?’ ”

As far as I can tell, that's what most of the NFL thinks of him. So the Lions must be wondering what the hell happened to the Chargers, Dolphins, Raiders, Chiefs, and especially the Jets, who are actually a pretty good team. How did the Lions blow the Broncos out so spectacularly and everyone else falls apart against them? How is Tebow winning all these games and yet nobody knows if he can even throw the ball?

(As an aside, last night after the Broncos beat the Jets the camera showed a group of players, mostly Broncos but also some Jets, led by Tebow, in what appeared to be a prayer circle, where they were all "Tebowing," i.e., kneeling on one knee with their heads bowed in prayer. I get why some of his religious teammates might be joining him in this activity after a game, but why would any players from the Jets, who were just beaten by this guy who is being mocked the world over with this exact pose, and who is considered a total loser by most NFL teams, possibly be interested in joining his prayer circle? I don't care how religious they are--I would think they'd rather pray on their own, not on camera, after a loss. But I guess we should consider this a beautiful show of unity and togetherness. Or something.)

Apparently he's starting to gain respect within the Broncos organization (certainly his teammates believe in him; unclear what management thinks) now that he's won so many games, but we still have no answers about his future. Or the Broncos' future, which is what I actually care about.

Basically, I want the Broncos to get it together. Figure out if Tebow will be their quarterback for a long time or not. And if not, start figuring out who his replacement will be, and send him to a team where he does have an advocate and will get a chance to play, and will get play calls that actually allow him to thrive. Plus, it's really incredibly boring to watch a game where every single play involves a running back plowing into defensive traffic. And every game we watch involves us yelling at the TV as the opponent makes adjustments for the play calling, and the play calling continues as though nothing has changed. Great runs in the first quarter, and then every run gets stopped at the line of scrimmage as the defense adjusts--and yet the Broncos continue running as though the defense will suddenly forget what they're doing and start expecting them to pass. Like the coaches think the running game is still as fresh and surprising as it was at first.

It isn't. It's boring. It's predictable. And somehow it feels like four wins in five games (and three wins in a row) were a fluke. That is a waste of time and money. I don't like Tebow as a person, but he plays for my team and I want to know if he has a chance to be a good quarterback or not. I wish the Broncos would do something to finally start looking for an answer to that question.

More about holiday cards

2011-11-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

This is a sponsored post. Tiny Prints is giving me 50 free holiday cards to write a post about holiday cards. If you want to do the same, fill out this form.

We've been doing holiday cards for the last few years, but we've never done a photo card before--unless you count Callum's birth announcement, which, since he was born in January, we sent out in place of a regular holiday card with the line "Celebrating the new year with our new addition." So, I guess I should say we've never done a photo card with ourselves on it. But as you might have guessed from my previous post, that's about to change.

I've been perusing the Tiny Prints holiday card selection for a few weeks now, and had a whole bunch saved to my projects using a stand-in photo while I waited to get the images from our professional photo session. Here's a tip: it's REALLY HARD to even try to pick a holiday card when you don't yet have the photo you'll be using. Yes, really. You're welcome. Nonetheless, I'm excited about holiday cards and I came up with quite the list of potential designs.

Dotted Cheer. I HEART this one so much. But it requires juuuuuust the right photo to make it work, in terms of color (black and white is pretty much necessary), positioning (to the right, obviously) and white space (need lots of it, on the left). But if you can make it work? LOVE.

Magic Behind Windows. I think this is such a cool design. Yes, it's technically supposed to be from newlyweds. But all the text is customizable, so you could easily come up with something else to say in order to make it work even if you aren't newlyweds. You also have to find just the right photo so that crucial parts of people's faces don't get cut off.

Charmed Tab. This one is simple and lovely. But I'm not totally sure how I feel about square cards.

Stylishly Striped. Sweet and classic. But again with the square thing, and also you'd need a really top-heavy photo to make it work.

All Things Sparkle. I think this is lovely. But is the sentiment too hokey? And also, you need the photo to be in a very gray color scheme in order for this not to look jarring.

And which one of these did we choose? (Or was it even one of these?) Well, honestly? Too many of my real-life friends and family read my blog. So I'm not revealing it here. I'm also not revealing which photo it featured. Sorry! But half the fun of receiving a holiday card is not knowing what to expect until you open the envelope, and I will not be ruining that. Because ruining other people's fun isn't holiday-ish at all.

Family portraits and holiday card help

2011-11-08T07:01:00.005-07:00

A few weeks ago we headed out to the foothills to have family photos taken by the same amazing photographer who did our maternity photos back in December. It was chilly and gray, sadly, but we had a great time and the photos still turned out amazing. Seriously, Kristy is my favorite photographer ever. I have never liked so many photos of myself, ever. She is just that talented. And super nice and really affordable too. I cannot recommend her highly enough for anyone in Colorado looking to get pictures taken, no matter the occasion. I am thinking maybe we'll make pictures with her an annual thing? Which would be an awesome way to document our family and also get some holiday card-worthy pictures in the bargain.

So, a few days ago she posted some teaser pictures on her blog, and then yesterday the disc with all the high-res images arrived in the mail, so now! Now we have so many to choose from! And by "choose from" I mean "for our holiday card."

Here are some (OK, a lot) of my favorites (some holiday card contenders, some not at all right for that):

And then the full set is here (and when I say full, I mean full).

So, what do you think? Do any of the photos stand out to you as particularly excellent holiday card candidates?

Three years in

2011-11-01T17:44:00.001-06:00

Three years ago today, this happened:

Three years doesn't sound like a ton, but it also doesn't sound like newlyweds anymore. And I don't feel like a newlywed anymore. We have really built a life together, complete with a growing family. I've always wanted to have a baby, even before I knew Torsten--but getting to have a baby with him, particularly him, has been such a special and amazing thing. Of course I would love any baby--but having Torsten's baby, having the incredible experience of creating a brand new person who shares your genes and the genes of the person you love--it's just so COOL. Not to mention how fantastic it is to see the man you married become an amazing father.

Lots of people worry about how having kids will affect their marriage. I didn't really worry about it, per se, but I did wonder. And so far... well, on the one hand everything has changed, but on the other hand, nothing has. Our lives are totally different, our focus has changed, and we can no longer go to the movies whenever we want. But having a kid together has made us even more connected and deepened our relationship. And at the same time, we are still just us. We love each other as much as we ever did, or possibly even more, if such a thing can even be quantified.

I've always been happy with Torsten, but lately I've also just been really, really content. I love the hum and rhythm of our everyday life. Every day just feels peaceful and right.

This is our family now, three years in. I am so happy with where we are now. I can't wait to see where we go.

(Year One, Year Two)

Baby gear we would do differently

2011-10-26T07:01:00.008-06:00

When I was pregnant and trying to figure out what baby stuff to get, it felt like the big trend was for people to say, "Only first-time moms buy stuff ahead of time. You don't need anything! Don't waste your money!" And while I appreciate the sentiment behind that (wipe warmer? Not necessary), I didn't find it helpful. Because despite the people chirping, "You don't need a crib! The baby will sleep with you! You don't need a stroller! That's what your arms are for!" I DID want a crib and a stroller. And a swing. And a glider. And a bunch of other stuff. And you know what? When the baby came, I was GLAD I had the stuff.

(The swing, by the way, was the number one thing that people said not to buy ahead of time. The baby might hate it! It costs so much! Just get one later if you need it! But I decided to take the risk on the swing, figuring that even if Callum hated it, the next baby might like it, and if not, since I bought it used on Craigslist, I could probably resell it and make most of my money back. And you know what? Callum DID like the swing, and we used it SO MUCH, and you know what I'm really glad I wasn't doing two days postpartum on one hour of sleep? Rushing out to Target to pay full price for an inferior quality swing because I was desperate.)

Anyway. My point is, I carefully researched baby products and purchased only what I thought we would actually need and use. And we made the executive decision to only buy things that we thought we would need right away. High chair? Bouncy seat? Jumperoo? All things that could (and did) wait. But Callum slept in his crib from his first day home. He napped in his swing. He bathed in his tub. And so on. All that stuff that we bought ahead of time? We used every single item. And I was really glad we had it.

All this is just a really long intro to say, if you're an expecting parent thinking you don't need all that junk? Great. Don't buy it. I'm sure you're right. But if you're thinking you DO need all that junk, and you WOULD like to have it, and now you're wondering if you're just being silly and naive to buy it? I don't think so. I mean, make careful choices, do your research, and only buy what you think will make sense for you, while of course understanding that some things might work better than others for your particular baby. But don't feel like you're being a ridiculous first-timer by getting stuff ahead of time. People's instincts are usually pretty accurate as far as what they think will fit into their lives and what won't be necessary. So if you think something will be useful and you want to have it? Buy it. We did, and I'm so glad.

Now. All that said, there ARE a few things that we learned from experience were not perfectly suited to us. Things that we actually ended up doing changing after a few months of experimenting. This still doesn't mean that the way we originally did things wouldn't work for a lot of people. But the lessons we learned are, I think, worth sharing.

1. Stroller.
We started with the Chicco Cortina stroller, which was purchased in a travel system along with the Chicco Keyfit 30 car seat. The travel system was so steeply discounted that it was almost the same price as the car seat alone. Since car seats should not be purchased used anyway, we were going to have to pay full price for it, so the sale price of the travel system made the stroller nearly free. And we used it for ages. And we liked it a lot. We still do, actually. It has great suspension. The car seat fits into it. It has a regular seat that reclines fully. It has an adjustable handle. It has a giant, accessible storage basket and lots of cup holders. It's awesome.

And it's also HUGE. It fills the entire trunk of our car. Even our SUV. It is FANTASTIC for around the neighborhood, but it is not so great for around town. So then we purchased an umbrella stroller to keep in the trunk (well, we put it on our registry and received it as a gift). It's the First Years Ignite, and I think of it as a compromise stroller. It's lighter and folds down relatively small, but it's still not super tiny and weightless. It has a sunshade, but not a huge one. It has decently high handles but Torsten (at 6'4") still has to bend a bit to push it. It's pretty sturdy but it's not great on dirt trails and hikes. It has a basket, but it's not very accessible. The seat reclines, but not all the way. So, it does a lot and as an umbrella stroller it's great. But we still prefer the Chicco, if only it didn't take up our entire trunk.

Enter the CityMini. We actually decided to get this when we got our SUV, because Montana rides in the back of the SUV, and there wasn't room for both her and the Chicco stroller back there, which meant that the umbrella stroller was our only option, which wasn't very helpful when we wanted to go on a hike. So I did a bunch of research and decided to splash out on a more expensive stroller that does everything at once. It's lightweight. It folds up small (and with one hand). It has big wheels and good suspension. The handle is high. The sunshade is huge. It's incredibly maneuverable. The seat reclines very far. And, for our next kid (since Callum has already outgrown his infant seat, rendering this a moot point for him), we can get a converter that allows us to fit the car seat into it.

Basically, I love this stroller. It is totally worth the money to me to have one stroller that does everything and fits in our car. We leave it in our trunk and we keep the Chicco set up in our garage for neighborhood walks. But it would also be great as a one-and-only stroller, as long as you don't mind taking it in and out of the car. And I think we'll donate our umbrella stroller to a battered women's shelter or something.

2. Dresser.
Sadly, when I was pregnant our Ikea hadn't opened yet. So we selected a simple dresser from Land of Nod, which my parents gave to us as a Christmas gift. We got a (fantastic) non-skid changing pad to put on top of it and ta-da! Changing table. And for a long time it worked great. The changing pad took up nearly the entire dresser, but we squished wipes and lotion on the end of it, and we keep our diapers in a basket next to the dresser anyway, so it was fine. But then Callum got bigger. And squirmier. And suddenly every diaper change involved wrestling toiletries away from him while listening to constant crashes as he knocked whatever he hadn't grabbed on the floor.

Conveniently, our Ikea finally opened at just around that time. So we purchased this dresser. See how long it is? It is GLORIOUS. Callum can kick and roll and grab to his heart's content, and nothing gets knocked over. Plus there's room for everything we want to keep on there, even a lamp! And bonus: more drawers for clothing. So, the old dresser is in the bedroom that currently serves as my office, and will be put back into service once Callum is potty trained and graduates to a big-kid bedroom.

3. Diaper bag.
When I was pregnant, I read a bunch of diaper bag reviews and selected the Skip Hop Duo. A sale and a coupon allowed me to buy it for cheap at Macy's, which is convenient because we don't use it anymore. There isn't really anything wrong with it--though it's a bit narrow, which can make it hard to find things in the main compartment--but it was a pain to carry. It does have nice stroller clips, but when you just want to grab the bag and the baby? It was a little unwieldy. I probably would have stuck with it, but Torsten really hated it. So I bought him an Eddie Bauer backpack-style diaper bag for Father's Day, and now we both always use that one. It's just so nice to be able to put it on your back instead of having it weigh you down on one side and swing around clunkily while you're trying to wrangle a baby. The Skip Hop has been retired (though I did transfer its changing pad into the Eddie Bauer, since I found the Eddie Bauer changing pad inferior). Maybe I'll donate the Skip Hop to a shelter with the stroller, now that I think about it.

4. High chair.
Originally we purchased a Fisher Price high chair/booster seat combo instead of a more traditional seat. And I still think it's a great concept. So cheap! So easy! So compact! Straps right onto your dining room chair! And the reasons that this didn't work out for us are very specific to our particular baby and furniture. We have nice microsuede dining chairs that we did not want the baby eating (and spilling) on. So we put the seat on one of our old wooden Ikea dining chairs that was very compact and lightweight, with straight up and down legs. And our child is very large, and very squirmy. And the combination of these factors meant that Callum would bounce around during meals and rock his chair right off two of its legs in a terrifying manner. It seemed like it was only a matter of time before he managed to tip the chair over entirely and land on his head with a chair and booster seat on top of him. So we splashed out for a more traditional high chair, the Graco Contempo. And it works great. It's comfortable. It's nice. It's easy to clean. And best of all, it's sturdy. Callum can bounce in there with all his might, but that thing is not going anywhere.

So, those are the main things we've learned and changed as we've dealt with a real baby instead of just a theoretical one over the past nine months. (And by the way, Amazon Affiliates isn't allowed in Colorado so I don't benefit from people clicking those links--they're there purely for reference.)

So now it's your turn. What are some things that seemed great at first, but wound up just not working for you and your baby? And what did you end up doing (or what would you do next time) instead?

Nine months

2011-10-24T07:01:00.012-06:00

Dear Callum,

Today you are nine months old. That, coupled with the fact that it is nearly November and they are calling for snow this week which means winter is coming, means that I cannot escape the reality that your first birthday is approaching alarmingly fast. At which point you will really be a toddler instead of a baby. Which is only appropriate, really, given that you've been the size of a typical toddler for the past five months or so.

This month has been all about movement with you. You are no longer specifically interested in your jumperoo, and you will only occasionally tolerate being placed in your playpen with several hundred of your very favorite toys. What you want is to be placed on the floor. Anywhere on the floor. In any position. Stomach, back, kneeling, seated, standing (while holding on)--it doesn't matter. As long as you're on the floor, you will eventually get where you want to go. For a child who does not yet employ any of the conventional human methods of locomotion such as walking or crawling, you are surprisingly good at moving, and moving fast. Rolling is still your primary method of transportation--and I hadn't realized how unusual it was until both sets of grandparents arrived in short succession and were blown away watching you fly across the room via rolling, without even bumping your head once--but you also scoot, rotate, flail, squirm, and go on and off your knees in order to get from Point A to Point B. All you want is freedom. And we give it to you as much as we can while still keeping in mind that we have done nothing, literally, not one thing, to babyproof this house and as such we must chase after you with alarming perseverance to prevent you from offing yourself on an electrical outlet, sharp corner, staircase, or other such dangerous object.

We keep thinking that you're going to start crawling any day now. You get on your knees and rock back and forth. Sometimes you crawl backward, but only for a few paces before you wind up in a sitting position. I am fairly certain that you do this on purpose but it drives me nuts because I keep thinking this is it, the hands and knees are moving, he's finally going to crawl, dammit where is the video camera, oh look, there he is sitting on his butt again. You are no longer singularly focused on the knees and sitting thing, though, because this past month you added standing to the mix. You haven't yet pulled to standing on your own (though you regularly pull upright to your knees, just not your feet) but you will lock your legs when we try to sit you down so that you wind up in a standing position, and you will happily stand and hold on with one hand indefinitely.

You display zero interest in walking or letting go while standing, and sometimes you will cautiously try to bend down to pick up a toy from the floor, but you absolutely will not bend far enough to actually grab it. In fact, you have learned that the easiest way to get something from the floor while standing is to simply let go with your hands and plop down on your butt. I blame the cloth diapers for this; they create too much padding and therefore make it all too painless for you to simply throw yourself to the ground when you want something instead of figuring out more complicated solutions. It's clear that you have inherited my tendency toward both efficiency and laziness.

I actually did start to wonder if you were a bit slow on the whole gross motor skills thing because on the 10-month checklist provided by our pediatrician (which they use at 9 months as well, since there is no 9-month checklist) you have mastered most of the skills in question in all the other areas: communication, problem solving, fine motor skills, personal/social. But you're about 50/50 on the gross motor, so in relative terms I was wondering if you were a little behind. I asked the pediatrician about this at your 9-month appointment last week and she said that now that we're at the age where gross motor questions are all about standing and walking, the checklists may start to make you seem like you're delayed. However, you aren't delayed so much as you are tall. With a high center of gravity you are more wobbly than most babies and therefore also more reluctant to attempt to walk, let go, or do anything else challenging while standing. She said she fully expects you to walk on the late side but that there is no reason to worry that this is indicative of any sort of underlying issue. I found this immensely reassuring, particularly as it spoke to my own personal wonderings of whether your size acted as a hindrance to your movement.

Because yes, you continue to be huge. But you know what's awesome? You only gained 2 ounces this last month. Two OUNCES. In previous months you had been gaining well over two POUNDS. You started tapering off last month, but this month the weight gain was essentially nonexistent. And that is fantastic, because my dear little (big) boy, you are HEAVY. And you're outgrowing all your baby equipment. And I'm afraid you're going to outgrow your cloth diapers. And all the bigger clothes assume older kids without baby bellies, meaning that pants squeeze you in the waist and still need to be rolled up in the ankles, DESPITE the fact that you are actually very tall. In fact, even though you only gained 2 ounces this month, you grew another 3/4 of an inch. That baby belly is receding fast, giving me hope that we WILL be able to continue to find clothing that fits you. Your current stats (as of last Thursday) are 27 pounds 7 ounces, 31.75 inches long, and 19 inches in head circumference. Under "percentile" on the little handout, the nurse just wrote ">100" for all three measurements. So. You might be tapering off but you continue to be positively enormous. Much to your father's delight.

You've made great strides with food in this past month as well. You hold your own bottle about 90% of the time, although you still require some assistance when it pops out of your mouth because you haven't totally copped on to the part where you have to tilt the bottle to get the milk to flow. You grab the spoon when we feed you yogurt or cereal or purees, and try to feed yourself. (Or try to throw the whole thing on the floor, but close enough.) And you're much more into finger foods. The pediatrician gave us the go-ahead to feed you everything except citrus, nuts, shellfish, and honey, and so we've been trying all sorts of new things. Pickles. Mac and cheese. Pancakes. Chicken. And you have just eaten it all up. It's so NICE that now during dinnertime we can put you in your high chair at the table, give you some of what we're eating, and all have a nice family meal. Of course most of what we feed you ends up on the floor, stuck to your butt, or in your hair, but you are definitely improving in terms of how much of what you feed yourself actually gets ingested. You've developed a good pincer grasp, so now you can actually pick food up and maneuver it into your mouth. Plus, one of your top teeth came in this month, and I'm assuming the other isn't far behind, so that may be helping with taking bites of food too. I'm hoping we'll be totally done with purees very soon.

You are still an incredibly delightful and social baby. You love peekaboo and you laugh hysterically when we play it. You search for hidden objects and you have started holding up a cloth or napkin in our faces to try to play peekaboo. You clearly know your name and look up and smile when we say it. You give kisses now, both upon request AND of your own volition--sometimes I'll be holding you and suddenly you'll say "AHHHH" and slam your open mouth against my cheek. You clap your hands constantly. You're showing us that you understand more and more words: you will often look around when I ask where Daddy or doggie is, you open your mouth when I say "more," and when we tell you "no" you will usually pause what you're doing, at least momentarily.

Oh, and you know what "night-night" means. I know this because I can put you in your crib and you'll be fine, but the second I say "night-night," even if I haven't so much as flinched toward the door of your room, you begin to scream. You do NOT wish to be abandoned, no matter how tired you are, and as a result bedtime and naptime have become a bit of a struggle. The thing is, though, that at least with bedtime the struggle is very short-lived. You will scream for a couple minutes and then conk out, usually for 11-12 hours straight. But naptime this month has been harder. Sometimes you resist the nap for ages. More often you go to sleep pretty quickly. But no matter how long it takes you to fall asleep, you've been waking up too early for my liking. You still refuse (REFUSE) to take more than one nap per day, which was fine when the naps were 3-4 hours each, but now you've streamlined, so to speak, down to 1-1.5 hours, and that is just not OK. By 5 or 6 p.m. you're exhausted, and since that is too early for bedtime we end up dealing with a cranky, fussy baby for a couple hours. And if you just add one extra hour to your nap--just one!--that buys us three happy evening hours. So let's get on that, shall we?

Still, even when you're overtired, you remain one of the happiest babies I've ever seen. Your Oma and Opa are here visiting this month and though they've been with us for more than a week already, they can't stop marveling at how happy you are, all the time. You're smiling and laughing constantly, and you tolerate nearly any situation. You don't mind your schedule being disrupted, you don't mind four people constantly wanting to hold you and play with you and tickle you, you don't mind being taken for two-hour walks in the freezing cold with near strangers. You are the epitome of the go-with-the-flow mindset and we are so, so appreciative.

You just always seem to be having a great time. You scream with laughter at the playground (swings and slides are your favorite). You crack up when your Oma puts a toy on her head. You shriek with delight when the dog so much as walks by. You babble and laugh and coo and smile and find absolutely everything fascinating. And it's infectious. You're always having a good time and thus we are always having a good time when we're with you. You are just so precious, and we just love you so much.

Love,
Mama

Accent vlog

2011-10-14T17:41:00.000-06:00

I'm not going to The Blathering (SADLY) but everyone's doing this accent vlog, so, you know, me too! Here we go. Notes: 1. I highlighted my hair, and yes I do show that off in the video. Do you like it? 2. I don't usually hold my head quite so still when talking, but I was trying to keep my face in the frame. 3. In the video I keep talking about needing to finish before my in-laws arrive, and they totally walked in two seconds after I finished. I win! 4. I should totally get Torsten to do one of these, because he has the best accent of all.

For the record, here are the prompts:

Say these words:
Aunt, route, wash, oil, theatre, iron, salmon, caramel, fire, water, sure, data, ruin, crayon, toilet, New Orleans, pecan, both, again, probably, spitting image, Alabama, lawyer, coupon, mayonnaise, syrup, pajamas, caught

And answer these questions:
What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that curls into a ball when you touch it?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you use to change the TV channel?

Pumpkin patch!

2011-10-12T07:01:00.004-06:00

It's October, the weather is lovely, my parents are in town, and we have a baby. So we did like families the world over (well, maybe not the WORLD, but anywhere where they celebrate Halloween, and do so with pumpkins, and grow pumpkins in that country, and so on, ANYWAY YOU GET MY POINT) and took Callum to a pumpkin patch. A real one where you actually go into the field and cut the pumpkins off the vine yourself.

Eight and a half months is pretty much juuuuust on the cusp of being able to enjoy a pumpkin patch. Obviously he wasn't about to start picking out his favorite pumpkin and demanding to buy it. But when we sat him in the pumpkin field he was interested in the textures and the pumpkins, and reached out to grab some of the vines, only to discover that they are covered with sharp little spikes and pull his hand back quickly.

He was too young for the bouncy house, of course, and the corn maze and so forth. But he liked the petting zoo and he didn't seem to mind being seated on a bale of hay, or on an actual pumpkin. And we enjoyed the patch, and we didn't stay too long. Next year he'll be much more into it and it will probably be a more involved trip, but this year actually exceeded our expectations for the baby-pumpkin patch experience.

And, much to Torsten's delight, he really seemed to like petting his first goat. There were many delighted shrieks and big smiles.

So. A good first visit. And a good start to what will hopefully become an annual photo series. And a good start to October. Happy fall to everyone.

Dear Torsten, volume 5

2011-10-08T18:01:00.001-06:00

Dear Torsten,

Five years and one day ago, you and I went on our very first date, the first time we'd met in person after a week and a half of emailing back and forth daily. Despite the fact that I was half an hour late, it seems pretty clear by now that the date went pretty well.

This last year has been fantastic and wonderful in ways that have involved a lot of change and therefore also a fair amount of stress. We've been through a start-up, two new jobs, a pregnancy, and, you know, eight months of babyhood. And through it all you have been amazing. Strong, motivated, caring, and you've never lost your sense of humor.

Recently we decided to finally have an electrician come and install outside lights on our house. You were trying to describe your vision to me. You were saying how we'd have three lights over the driveway on the things between the garage doors. I said, "The posts?" envisioning the columns we have in front of our garage. You said yes. I was very puzzled about why anyone would mount lights on columns, but we went gamely off to Lowe's, where you suggested a decorative iron lantern style light that would have looked ridiculous on a column. I stared at you like you were crazy and suggested plain, unobtrusive white floodlights. You stared at me like I was crazy, but agreed to buy them. When we got home you changed your mind so I threw my hands up and told you to get whatever lights you wanted. You bought the decorative lanterns and when the electrician finished installing them, you told me to come outside and take a look. I came out and the damn lights weren't mounted on the columns at all. They were mounted on the three sections of brick wall that separate our garage doors, and they looked fantastic. The whole thing struck me as really funny, because we spent so long talking past each other in Lowe's and the entire time you knew exactly what you were talking about and I was the one who was totally confused. It just goes to show--when I trust you, things come out right. Although I still maintain that sections of brick wall are not "posts."

By far the best thing about this past year has been seeing you as a father. You are so completely head-over-heels for our baby, and it's so amazing to see you together. The two of you are so very bonded and he just lights up when he sees you--and you light up when you see him too. You are such a happy and confident father, carting Callum around on one hip and getting up in his face to laugh and shriek with him. It is such a cool thing to have made a whole new person who is the combination of our two sets of genes, and yet also his own person entirely.

This whole last year we were on a pretty tight budget and as a result we didn't take a single vacation together until we finally did a long weekend in Santa Fe this last July. And while we both missed the vacations we would have liked to take, missed having time to get away and just enjoy each other without any of the usual everyday stressors, the constant wear of the day-to-day life didn't change anything about our relationship. We didn't get sick of each other; we didn't snipe at each other; we didn't feel like we needed any time apart. Such a thing never crossed our minds. The best part of a vacation is getting away with you, but the best part of not being on vacation and just living our regular lives is also getting to be with you. Really, it's a win-win.

The thing about being married to you is that it's just really nice. I don't know a better way to phrase it. It's just really enjoyable to see you every day, chat with you about everything from politics to people to travel to our baby and the daily minutiae of our lives. It's great to wake up to you every morning and go to sleep next to you every night. And I like seeing you during the day, too. And I hope we never lose the habit of gchatting each other even when we're just on different floors in the same house. It might sound weird, but I love that we have each other at our fingertips for anything we want to discuss, big or small.

Sometimes when I think about the life we've built together I just can't even believe how lovely and amazing it is. How lucky we both are to have found someone we connect with so perfectly, someone we match with on those big important "ideal mate checklist" levels and also on the little day-to-day things-you-don't-think-about-until-you're-married levels. And how lucky we are to have expanded our love to a whole family, complete with baby and even dog. I can't imagine any other life I'd rather have, any other place I'd rather be. Because you are here, and I will always want to be with you.

Love,
Jess

Fresh start just in time for fall

2011-09-29T07:01:00.005-06:00

Oh, you guys. I really haven't meant to go so long without posting anything other than a letter to my baby. Seriously. I actually really miss blogging regularly and eventually will get back into it. And not just about my kid. (Although, a lot about my kid. Because he's a pretty big part of my life. Just a heads up.)

Anyway! I have a kind-of excuse for my absence, which is that things have been cee-razy around here, primarily because Torsten now has a job. Like, he is employed by someone else. Which means no more start-up for him, which is a whole complicated story that isn't really mine to tell, so I won't get into the details here, but I do want to say that what he did with that company was amazing and I'm so proud of him for doing it, and I'm also really proud of him for finding this job and making the decision to accept it. It's a really fantastic job and he's really happy about it. So, there we are.

Anyway, the drastic change in our lifestyle has meant quite a few details had to be taken care of. Torsten now has a commute, and I also sometimes have a commute, as my new job has an office down the road that I work from sometimes, and that means we needed a second car. So we did some car shopping and that was half fun because yay new car! and half not fun because many thousands of dollars!

And then Torsten took a couple weeks off between jobs and used the time to get a bunch of stuff done around the house that we've been putting off for ages. We got a dead tree removed and another tree majorly pruned. We had our sewer line scoped and then rootered when the scope showed that it was blocked by a ton of roots.

(Side note to homeowners: I seriously recommend doing this regularly. I never would have thought of it except that our neighbors had their sewer line back up due to roots in their pipe and it flooded their basement with sewage and it turned out it wasn't covered by homeowners' insurance and it cost them something like $6,000 or $7,000 out of pocket. The guys who scoped our sewer said that with all the roots in there we would have been headed for a similar situation very soon if we hadn't had the rootering done. $100 in maintenance saves you thousands of dollars in sewage damage in your basement. So worth it! And so ends my PSA of the day.)

Other stuff: we got our car's dented bumper fixed, finally, so we can stop being the embarrassment of the neighborhood. Since Torsten will be commuting in that car to work regularly, we had an iPod jack installed in it. Torsten replanted our barrel with fall flowers after the summer flowers all died. We got around to having an electrician come and wire our house for outside lights so you can actually see the driveway and front lawn at night. And so on. All those little things that have been on our to-do list for ages but that we didn't have the time, energy, or budget to deal with, you know? Now they've been dealt with and it's been exhausting.

Also, this means that we now need childcare for Callum. Torsten's hours were very flexible before and therefore he was doing the majority of the childcare with me filling in the gaps since my hours are also a tiny bit flexible (though nothing like his), and now that he has a more traditional schedule that will not be a possibility anymore.

So, we're looking for a nanny. And really, it's pretty much non-negotiable that it be a German-speaking nanny. With Torsten out of the house most days, Callum won't get a ton of German-language exposure, which means that we're going to need some assistance on that front if we want any hope whatsoever of him growing up bilingual. We found a fantastic German nanny and came to an agreement with her--and then her circumstances changed and she had to back out. Then we found another great nanny and were on the verge of an agreement with her--and then she decided she wanted to be part-time instead of full-time. And so now we're back on the hunt.

A lot of people have asked us if we'd consider an au pair, so let me go ahead and answer that question now: yes, we would, but only as a last resort. We don't specifically want another person living in our house--we really like our family just the way it is and having time with just the three of us and, when Callum's asleep, just the two of us. Neither of us is super enthused about the idea of another person in the house with us all the time. Also, from what I understand most au pairs come to the US because they want to learn English. It's not just a job, it's a cultural exchange, and that means that as a host family we would be trying to help the au pair learn English. My thought is that given Callum's age, if we got a German au pair it would probably be OK to ask her to speak to him in German during the day when we aren't there, since it's not like he'd be able to help her improve her English anyway, and then we could speak English with her at night. But we'd need the right kind of person to agree to such a set-up, and that still wouldn't address the issue of having someone new living with us.

So: yes, we'll consider it, but only if every other German-speaking nanny option falls through. We are about to start five straight weeks of grandparent visits (one week from my parents followed immediately by four straight weeks from Torsten's parents and yes I know what you're thinking and believe me I'm thinking the same thing) so that gives us some flexibility in terms of when we'd need someone to start. So we have some time to figure out our options. And in the meantime if you know of a fluent German speaker looking for a nanny position in the Denver area, please send them our way. Thank you.

So! Yes! Things are changing, things are busy, but things are also very, very good. Torsten and I are both happy with our new jobs and Callum continues to be his easygoing, mellow self and shows no problems so far with adjusting to any of these changes. And we even found some time to go driving in the mountains and admire the changing aspen leaves, but that's a post for another day, because this one is already getting awfully long. So I will end it with just a quick photo of Callum on his knees... he still only gets up on his knees on his own very occasionally but when he does it he can stay up for quite awhile and has only recently started rocking back and forth on all fours. So I foresee crawling sometime in the not-too-distant future...

Eight months

2011-09-24T12:59:00.000-06:00

Dear Callum,

Today you are eight months old. As far as I can tell, this is the start of the most awesome age yet. You've always been pretty much the most adorable thing ever, but somehow in the last month you've taken on a whole new dimension of cuteness. You laugh hysterically, you smile, you're incredibly social, and every time I look at you I just want to grab you and squeeze you and cover you with kisses.

I know I've said this before, but this past month really has felt like one long developmental explosion. You are just doing so many new things and it feels like it's just one after the next. All of a sudden this month, truly overnight, you went from just making a couple consonant sounds (ba and ma) to making pretty much all of them. We hear everything from you: ka, ga, da, la, na, ta, pa, though you will still only imitate us when we say "ba."

Speaking of language, this month you had a breakthrough that your dad and I found very exciting: we discovered that you will do things when we ask you to, even if we don't demonstrate. So not only did you learn to clap this month, but just a couple days later you had learned what "clap your hands" meant. AND you do this in two languages. So if I say "clap your hands" or your dad says "klatschen die Hände," you look at us, smile, and deliberately clap your hands. And when I say "kiss" you yell "AHHH!" and then open your mouth and slam your face against my cheek, usually with your tongue out. It's delightful. But beyond the cuteness, it is awesome to see that you a) understand that sounds can mean something and b) understand the concept that two different sounds can mean the same thing.

You are also concentrating really hard on mobility recently. You have become a highly proficient roller. You can lie on your stomach and rotate to face in any direction, and then roll exactly where you want to go at a very high speed. So you will roll toward the dog, the vacuum cleaner, any electrical cord you can see, and so on. Whenever you're on the floor your dad and I get plenty of exercise chasing after you. And now you're also working on getting up on your knees. When you're sitting up you rock forward, attempting to get on your knees, but this hasn't been a successful strategy for you as more often than not you end up landing on your face. Just in the last couple days you have learned that if you rock back and upward while on your belly, you'll wind up on your knees. You can only do it sometimes, and only for a few seconds at a time, but we can see that it's coming. And in the meantime all these attempts at getting up on your knees have resulted in what appears to be inadvertent backward scooting. There is no such thing as getting you to stay in one place anymore.

Maybe because of all this moving, your weight gain FINALLY seems to be tapering off, though you are still off the charts. We weighed you this morning and you came in at 27 pounds, 5 ounces, which is almost exactly a pound (actually just 14 ounces) more than you weighed last month. Considering that up til now you had gained 2.5 pounds every single month since birth, this is quite a change--and it gives me hope that your cloth diapers may actually fit until you are potty trained. You also appear to be about 31 inches long, which means you're still growing close to an inch a month--which might explain why your round baby belly, while still quite prominent, appears to be just a smidge thinner than before. You have just started fitting into your 18-24 month clothing, and we've had to retire most of the 12-18 month stuff.

You're also eating more and more solid foods. You still get your main nutrition from formula, but you eat three solid meals a day, and you're getting good at self-feeding. In addition to cereal, yogurt, and pureed fruits and veggies, you will happily self-feed fruit and puffs. Strawberries are a big favorite, and I am somewhat convinced that it's because they aren't slippery so you can actually get a good grip on them. It also seems like you are already asserting your independence--when we try to feed you something that's not on a spoon, you will close your mouth and turn away, but when we set it on your high chair tray and leave it alone, you will happily grab it and stuff it in your mouth yourself. You also love water and will happily take a sippy cup, though you haven't quite figured out the mechanics of tilting it yourself yet. And you are holding your own bottle more and more often.

You've also started with the separation anxiety this month. Especially in the evenings, if one of us walks out of the room, you start screaming immediately. You can be happily sitting and playing and looking the other way, but if you hear a rustle of movement your head snaps up right away and the second one of us heads toward the door, the yelling begins. You were doing the same thing at night, and after a couple miserable nights of us breaking our backs bending over your crib and rubbing your back for ages until you fell asleep, we finally ended up doing a bit of cry-it-out, where we visited you in your room every few minutes to reassure you that we were still there, without picking you up or staying for long. We did this for 25 minutes the first night and after that you seemed to pretty much get the picture. You still often fuss for a minute or two when we leave the room at night, but then you peacefully roll on your side and put yourself to sleep.

You continue to be absolutely obsessed with the dog, and she's not sure what she thinks of you. Sometimes she lets you pet her and she definitely likes to hover around your high chair during mealtimes--but other times when you start rolling toward her she gets up abruptly and walks out of the room to avoid you. I always feel kind of sad for you when this happens--you get so excited and smiley when you see her and then she gives you the cold shoulder--but it doesn't seem to bother you at all.

The dog isn't the only thing that makes you happy. Your dad and I are rewarded by grins, shrieking or babbling, and happy arm-waving whenever you catch sight of us. You like some strangers but not others for reasons that are clear to nobody but you. Pretty much everything amuses you, from rollicking games of peekaboo to us tearing paper in front of you.

You are very happy almost all the time, and you continue to be laid back and have no problem going with the flow. And I swear, you get cuter every day. You are just so smiley and engaged and hilarious, and we love watching you figure out the world a little more every day. And you make us smile more every day too.

Love,
Mama

Farmers' markets

2011-09-06T07:01:00.003-06:00

So. Labor Day. The end of summer, etc. Seems like the perfect time to start writing about farmers' markets, yes? Now that they're on their way out and all?

Honestly, I'm not sad about summer ending at all. Out here in Colorado we haven't had quite the misery that the East Coast experienced, but we did have the highest-ever August temperatures on record for Denver, and we smashed the previous streak of consecutive days above 80 degrees to smithereens, and, you know, our house doesn't have air conditioning. Thank god Colorado doesn't have humidity. (And there are many things I love about Colorado, but the lack of humidity? It might be the number one thing. It's definitely in the top five, at least.)

Anyway! Yes, fall. Cool weather, jeans, boots, sweaters, warm drinks, pumpkins, pretty leaves, etc. Also I am looking forward to a fall wardrobe not just for myself but also for Callum. Nothing is as cute as a little footed one-piece on a baby, and baby jeans are a very close second. So yes, I'm looking forward to fall.

But one thing I am not looking forward to is the lack of fresh local produce that fall brings. Except that you know where we have found to be the best place for really good local produce? Whole Foods. Isn't that sad? This is Colorado. It's an agricultural state. The whole state is full of farms. A lot of them are really close to Denver. I mean, when we replaced our fence we sold the old fencing to a nearby farmer for $150 (thank you, Craigslist). And when I decided I wanted to take Torsten to a goat farm for his birthday, I found one quite easily less than an hour away. You get my drift.

So why is it that all the local farmers' markets seem to totally suck? I mean, maybe we're looking in all the wrong places. But we've been to the huge popular farmers' market downtown, the tiny one near our house, and a couple other local ones in various suburbs. And we have never encountered more than two produce stalls at any of them, even the huge one. And all this year we haven't come across a single stall selling local jams. It seems to be mostly specialized stuff--salsas, pasta sauces, cheeses, sausage. I mean, that stuff is nice but sometimes I just want to go find some nice fresh local produce that isn't marked up to Whole Foods prices, you know?

And even the produce stalls that we do encounter aren't that impressive. They might have one or two nice-looking things, but as a whole it's nothing special. And whatever is especially good always sells out fast. Like we still haven't been able to buy any freaking fresh cherries at a farmers' market all summer because apparently they fly off the shelves.

And the big market, the really popular one where it's wall to wall people and drivers risk their lives to beat others to a parking spot? It's almost like a street fair. The vast majority of the booths seem to be selling prepared food. If it weren't so crowded it would be a great place just to go for lunch. But for local farmed products? Not so much.

I don't know what we're missing! It seems like here in Colorado there should be much better farmers' markets, but I am at a loss as to where we could possibly find them. I guess we have all winter to research and try to figure out what we're missing. And if it turns out that this is just how farmers' markets are around here, then maybe I have an idea for a new business come next summer.

What about where you live? Are there farmers' markets? Are they any good?

Seven months

2011-08-24T07:01:00.009-06:00

Dear Callum,

Today you are seven months old. That means you're closer to being a year than you are to being brand new. Let's not even discuss this, because I haven't wrapped my head around it yet.

You had lots of new experiences this month, chief among them finally getting to meet your cousin Morgan, and then taking your first plane trip and seeing her again at her house. You two weren't super aware of each other, though you did spend some time grabbing at each other, rolling over each other, and making each other cry. They were good first meetings.

By now you are absolutely full-on obsessed with the dog. You stare at her whenever she comes into your line of vision, and track her as she walks across the room. You try to grab her whenever she's anywhere near you, and you laugh loudly when you see her. Once she wagged her tail right in your face--hard--and you laughed hysterically the whole time. She is by far your favorite thing in the world and at this point your dad and I are only debating whether your first word will be "doggie" or "hund."

Physically you are looking more and more like a little kid instead of a baby. You sit fully on your own, and while you do occasionally get bored and tip over, or throw yourself backward, for the most part you can sit for indefinite periods of time with no support. You can spend ages just sitting on the floor happily playing with toys. You've also started banging toys together, and getting more and more enjoyment out of any kind of toy that makes a sound. You had a little "music lesson" this month when we visited a friend who does children's lessons, just things like bouncing rhythmically, singing, clapping, opening and closing your hands, and so forth. You were so into it that you were practically panting, and now you spend a lot of time opening and closing your hands while staring at your fingers, so we signed you up for a casual little baby music class that starts next month. We'll see if you like it as much!

By now you are an expert roller. As soon as we put you on the floor you zoom across the room and are at the other side before we've even processed what was happening. You also rotate in circles on your belly like the hands on a clock, and while you did that before inadvertently, now it's clearly purposeful, as you do it to reach for the dog or a toy that's out of your reach. You've tried to get up on your knees a few times, but not with any regularity, and given your extraordinary size I'm thinking it might be awhile before you start to crawl, though you do occasionally scoot backward. Which is totally OK with me--chasing you down as you roll is hard enough!

You've also developed a more noticeable object permanence this month, which has been really cool to see. Now if you're sitting in your high chair and you drop something on the floor, you lean over the side of the chair to peer after it and see where it's gone. And when someone walks through a room, you turn your head to watch them until they walk out of your line of vision--and then you turn your head the other way to keep watching them. It sounds like such a small thing but the amount of mental processing required for you to understand that if you turn your head the other way, the person will still be there is kind of astounding.

Now that you've passed the six-month mark we've been given permission to move into the world of yogurt and non-pureed food. Yogurt went over great but you are still working on your gag reflex, so solid chunks of fruit, Cheerios, etc. cause you to throw up as often as not. We've actually taken a break from the bite-size food for a couple weeks to see if you just needed some time, and we'll start trying them again soon. You do like to grab the food on your tray but you still have trouble maneuvering it into your mouth from your hand.

You continue to be very social and talkative. You babble constantly, still sticking to your two favorite consonants, ba and ma, and you've started combining them into fast-sounding talk, so instead of slow, deliberate, "beh... beh... beh..." it's more of a strung-together "bababa." A couple weeks ago I watched you have the cutest "conversation" with your dad--you would babble a few syllables, then pause and look at him expectantly, he would babble back at you, then when he stopped you would start again, and so on. I am still trying to get this behavior on video, but it was one of the sweetest things I've ever seen. You do a lot of spitting recently too, and sticking out your tongue--it seems like you're having fun experimenting with what you can do with your mouth. You've also started laughing socially, just because someone else is laughing, even though nothing funny (at least to you) has happened. That's another behavior that just melts my heart.

You continue to sleep great at night, and when we're not on vacation you also nap like a champ during the day. You vary between one long nap or two shorter naps each day, and both schedules are totally fine with us. You are still a happy, calm, laid-back baby whenever you're awake. Almost every compliment we get from a stranger involves some form of "What a happy baby!" (And a comment on the size of your thighs, but that's a different story.) You even got two teeth this month, and they are entirely through, though not entirely up. Teething seemed to bother you very little, if at all, but I've heard that bottom teeth can be easier, so we'll see what happens once some top teeth show up.

You are still positively enormous. You haven't been to the pediatrician for a weigh-in in awhile, but when I did some amateurish measurements at home, I came up with about 30 inches long and 26.5 pounds. If I'm in the ballpark, that's another 2.5 pounds you've gained this past month. In other words, you still show no signs of tapering off. You continue to show that you do things your way and that I do not need to bother looking at growth charts or milestone tables, because all that stuff really has very little to do with you.

You're completely unlike any other baby that I've ever met, in terms of both size and personality. You are so much fun and already, even at this young age, incredibly individual. It is just an amazing joy to be able to spend time with you. You fit so perfectly into our family and into our lives, and we are so privileged to get to spend every day with you.

Love,
Mama

Baby in flight

2011-08-22T07:01:00.004-06:00

We returned on Saturday evening from a week in DC. I went there for orientation for my new job, and since I wasn't quite prepared to leave Callum for a whole week, Torsten and Callum came with me. We were really lucky that all the details just kind of fell into place and it turned out to be a pretty straightforward process to get it all booked and scheduled.

I was a little worried about how it would go, not just with the baby on the plane (although definitely also with the baby on the plane... my child is very loud in an exuberant, happy, but still definitely LOUD manner) but with Torsten staying with him in the hotel all day while I went off to work for the first time since he was born (as opposed to staying home to work), the intensive schedule we had planned, the humidity, etc. But it actually all came together quite seamlessly.

Callum slept big chunks of the flight, and was minimally fussy for the rest of it. He continued to rack up the compliments on his thighs, per usual. He waited patiently in his stroller in the late-night humidity while we spent over an hour picking up the rental car and wrestling with the unfamiliar car seat installation. He didn't nap much during the day, but he slept great at night and wasn't fussy despite the lack of naps, so we weren't complaining. He was a great sport about the back-to-back visits, dinners, and meetings that we set up. He was even better behaved on the flight home, sleeping for most of it and contentedly looking around and smiling at the other passengers for the rest of the time.

And we had fun too. My training was great and exceptionally useful, and I met a whole bunch of really interesting, smart coworkers. We spent a couple days with my sister and her family. Callum and Morgan got some more bonding time in, including their favorite activity, tag team crying:

We saw lots of friends, some of whom we hadn't seen since we moved away from DC two and a half years ago. We got in some business meetings with former and/or potential future coworkers. We stayed in a lovely hotel, and went swimming in the hotel pool. We added to the list of states Callum has visited. We did not sleep much, but it was totally worth it.

As with our trip to Santa Fe, it was different than our pre-baby trips, but not in a bad way. In fact, I would go so far as to say it was better. I continue to be impressed with how easily Callum fits into our lifestyle. He's just so easygoing, and it's so much fun to be with him. I know a lot of it has to do with his particular personality, but he never stops surprising me with how easily he adapts to everything we do with him.

Oh, and he has two teeth now. They aren't all the way up yet, but they are there, distinctly visible and startlingly white as soon as he opens his mouth. And those suckers are sharp! If I had been the one growing them, you can bet I would have been VERY grumpy about it. But Callum hardly seemed to notice, and was still a great travel companion.

And completely adorable, naturally. But that really goes without saying.

Career step forward

2011-08-10T07:01:00.003-06:00

I started my current job almost exactly four years ago. I do public health communication, currently and previously in a nonprofit setting. I love what I do. And I love my current job. I know that some parents feel like they never want to return to work after they have a baby. I don't feel that way. I definitely had moments when Callum was younger of feeling like I could happily stay home with him forever and never work again. But as he got older those feelings dissipated, and when my five-month maternity leave ended I was feeling more or less ready to return to work.

It helps that I work from home. My current job is what made that possible for me, by offering me the opportunity to stay on and work remotely when I announced we were moving to Denver. I've been working remotely for two and a half years, and loving it.

Four years at this company, and for the first three and a half of them I felt like I'd found my home. Like this was the place I was going to stay for my entire career. Like I was going to be one of those people at the all-staff meetings receiving a plaque for 25 years of service.

Then... well, then a lot of things changed. My company went through a merger. A lot of my coworkers left. Some of the projects that I worked on ended, meaning my work shifted focus slightly. The atmosphere and work environment altered. I didn't write about it here, because, you know, work + blog = bad idea, but it wasn't an awesome time. I was on maternity leave for most of it, which was good in that I was sort of removed from some of the day-to-day complications, but difficult in that I was out of the loop while my coworkers relied on each other during a series of transitions.

The long and short of it is, my perspective changed, and I realized that it was a good time to explore other opportunities. So I did. And recently accepted an amazing job offer from a new firm. So even though now the merger is complete and it looks like my current company is moving in a good direction, my last day with them will be this Friday.

I'll still be doing public health communication, but the new firm is different. They're for-profit, for one thing, which will be a big change for me. They have a very different corporate culture. And I'm really excited about it. The new firm is also based in DC, and I will continue to work remotely, which I'm also really happy about.

The thing is that ultimately this feels like the right next step in my career. And my career is still really important to me. In fact, having a baby and experiencing this merger in my current job made me realize how important it is. There are a lot of things I'm good at, and I want to make a strong, lifelong career out of doing them. And I feel very lucky to have found a field in which my skill set is relevant and useful AND in which I can do work that feels meaningful and important to me. This new firm will allow me a lot of exciting professional opportunities, chances to do really interesting new work with an incredibly talented group of coworkers. Although the field is similar, a lot of the work will be very different. But in the best possible way.

So. Four years down the line, here's to the next big step.

The biggest baby on the block. Any block.

2011-08-08T07:01:00.006-06:00

Callum is a large baby. A very large baby. He wasn't always that way, but he certainly is now.

When he was born he weighed 8 pounds, 12 ounces. When we were discharged two days later he he had lost 5 ounces, only 3% of his birth weight. But when he went to the pediatrician the next day, he'd lost another 5 ounces. The pediatrician's brow furrowed. We left with instructions to supplement with formula and come back for another weigh-in the next day. We did. 8 pounds, 10 ounces. Half a pound overnight! We thought oh, he's gaining! Now we can wean him off the formula.

Nice try. The following week, at his well-child visit at 10 days old? 8 pounds, 5 ounces. Again we saw the pediatrician's concerned face. She told us that they wanted him back at birth weight by two weeks old, and suggested that we switch from the syringe to the bottle for his formula supplements. We did. At two weeks old, he weighed 8 pounds, 11 ounces. Close enough, said the pediatrician. Now just keep bringing him in for regular weight checks. As long as he's gaining, I'm happy. Is it possible to gain too much or too little, we asked. No. Any gain is fine, we were told.

And his pediatrician has stuck by that statement. She has zero concerns about how big he's gotten. It's just weird, now, to think back on those times, those looks of concern on the doctors' faces as our baby's weight dropped, as they worried that he wasn't growing enough. It's hard to remember how worried we were about getting him to grow, given how his growth just took off after that.

The usual growth curve for a baby is that they gain a ton of weight in the first few months and then taper off considerably. By 4-6 months, they're usually gaining less. Not Callum. He's gained approximately 2.5 pounds in each of the last three months. There may be a vague pattern of gaining an ounce or two less each subsequent month. But that's it.

It's not a problem, from a health perspective. For one thing, some people say that formula-fed babies taper off later than breastfed babies (though our pediatrician thinks he would be just as big if he were exclusively breastfed). For another, all of his other growth measurements are on pace with his weight. At 23 pounds, 13 ounces, he is off the charts for weight. He's also off the charts for height, at 29.5 inches. And his head circumference is in the 99th percentile too. He's a completely proportionate baby. He's just very large. According to the pediatrician, at six months old he is the size of an average 15-month-old.

I did ask if there were any reason to be concerned about how much he has grown. If he could have some kind of hormonal imbalance or pituitary issue. The pediatrician said no. She said he's just a big baby. And it's no surprise, really. Torsten and I are far from tiny. We're both tall (Torsten especially at 6'4" but I'm also above average at 5'8"). We have big frames, big solid bones with big wrists. And neither of us is exactly skinny. So we knew we'd have a big baby. But we weren't expecting him to be QUITE this big.

People seem to equate "big" with "healthy." We get comments, not just from strangers but also from doctors and nurses, upon first glance, before they know anything about him, "What a healthy baby!" "What a big healthy boy!" "You can see that HE'S healthy!" and so on. And he IS healthy, though I think he'd be just as healthy if he were in, say, the 75th percentile, or even the 25th. I do occasionally worry a little bit about why he's SO very big, but the pediatrician's utter lack of concern helps. And the fact that he's completely proportional reassures me that we aren't inadvertently overfeeding him. I guess SOMEONE has to have the biggest baby, and it might as well be us.

It's just... he's SO big. I mean, he is just very, very large. The pediatrician warned us at our last visit that we may start getting comments from confused strangers who think that he's much older than he is and developmentally delayed. They see a child the size of a 15-month-old who can barely sit up on his own and says bababababababa round the clock and they think that he's an older, delayed child. And then they say something about it.

We haven't gotten any such comments just yet, thank goodness. But I do get the feeling that as he gets older we will start getting more subtle comments. Not so much along the lines of "does he have a delay?" and more along the lines of "he's too old for XYZ." Like strangers who will think he's four when he's actually only two and scold us for letting him ride in a stroller/suck his thumb/generally act his age.

The other thing I wonder about is when the medical conversation about his size will flip from "big = healthy" to "childhood obesity." Given his proportionality, he isn't obese. But at some point will the commentary change from "What a healthy boy!" to "Hm, are you SURE you aren't giving him too much juice?"

The thing about a child of this size is that it's really hard to contemplate just how truly enormous he is unless you've experienced it in person. I kept telling my sister, he's SO big, you won't be able to believe it, but until she saw him herself and held him herself, I don't think she could totally wrap her mind around it. Here we have Callum (~24 pounds) and Morgan (~11 pounds) together, to help you get a better size perspective:

I'm happy with his size, other than the occasional irrational worry that he might somehow be growing too much. And I'm happy that he is a completely healthy baby. I know that there are a lot of people whose babies are growing much more slowly who would be thrilled to have a 24-pound six-month-old. And believe me, I wouldn't trade. I love everything about him, including his giant thighs.

I think the thing is that he's just SO big that it feels like nobody really GETS quite how big he is. Other people say, "Oh, my baby was the same way!" and I think, "Oh! Someone who has been there!" so I say, "Oh, how big was your baby?" and it turns out that it's not even in the same ballpark. Not even close. Callum is literally off the charts. That means that MORE than 99% of babies his age are smaller than he is. He is THE BIGGEST ONE.

And sometimes it's a pain in the ass. He's outgrown his swing. He outgrew his swaddle before we were ready to give it up. He's too heavy to carry around in his car seat, and in fact even though the car seat claims it goes up to 30 pounds, he already fills it out so completely that we will certainly have to invest in a convertible seat well before he hits 30 pounds, because there is clearly NOT room for a 25% bigger baby in that thing. He can't go in his bouncy seat because when he lies in it it goes so far down that it actually touches the floor. The back of his head is flat because he sleeps on his back and the sheer weight of his head is enough to flatten his skull. When my sister was here we watched how she cheerfully carried Morgan around in the crook of her arm with no trouble at all. We can't do that with Callum. You can only carry him for a finite (and short) amount of time before your arm starts to feel like it's about to fall off. So he spends a lot of time on our laps, but not so much being carried around in our arms. Luckily, he's not the type of baby who wants to be held all the time, because at his size, it simply would not be possible. As it is, Torsten and I both have sore arms constantly.

But mostly, it's great. He's sturdy. He grows through each size of clothing so fast that it feels like we are always getting to put him in exciting new outfits we've never seen before. He's growing, he's developmentally on target, and I love his solidity. Plus, he has the cutest baby belly and thigh rolls that I've ever seen.

I guess it's just not what I was expecting. And it's the kind of expectation-flouting where you get a reminder every time you emit an involuntary grunt just from attempting to pick up your baby. And I guess the thing is that I STILL don't know what to expect. I mean, looking at the standard curves on the growth charts, it feels like he HAS to taper off by nine months. It's not possible that he will continue to gain 2.5 pounds per month and weigh 31 pounds by nine months old. But I almost can't believe that he will suddenly only gain one pound per month from here on out. And I find it hard to believe others when they say that their baby was also big and then tapered off, because so far I haven't come across anyone whose baby was as big as ours.

So this is a lesson in expectations. And the futility of having them, at least when it comes to babies. Callum is healthy, and he is growing, and his growth will taper off when his body is ready, and not when the chart says that it will. And that's fine. And in the meantime, we get to enjoy the best chunky thighs I have ever seen:

Bitty and Giant finally meet

2011-07-27T07:01:00.004-06:00

Look who's here for a visit!

I'd met Morgan before, but Torsten hadn't, and my sister hadn't met Callum, and the babies hadn't met each other. It was a very sad state of affairs given that they are already many months old (Morgan is one month younger than Callum). But now that's all been remedied, and the cousins are together at last.

THANK GOODNESS.

(Also, these two are still at opposite ends of the growth chart. Morgan is just over 11 pounds at 5 months, and Callum is almost 24 pounds at six months. We are all waiting curiously to find out if they veer toward each other, size-wise, as they get older. And in the meantime we are all vastly enjoying holding them side by side and marveling at the difference.)

Six months

2011-07-24T17:01:00.000-06:00

Dear Callum,

Today you are six months old. That still hasn't really sunk in. I keep thinking about when you were a newborn, with scrawny (!) legs, and we were waiting for you to do things like smile and grasp a toy if we put it in your hands. And now you're so BIG, and not just physically.

This whole month has felt like one long developmental explosion for you. It started when you figured out how to say some consonants--specifically ba and ma but sometimes also la and pa--and also began noticing and getting upset when you lost a toy or your dad or I left the room. You love toys, or really anything you can grab on your own and then alternately stuff in your mouth or bang on the nearest surface, and if we hold one in front of you we are rewarded with a giant grin and an attempted grab. The flip side is that when you drop the toy out of reach, there is a moment of stunned silence followed by total dissolving into tears. We are constantly impressed by your fine motor skills--many times we've observed you reaching for a far-away toy that we're sure you won't be able to pick up, only to see you carefully pull it closer and then wrap your fingers around it and put it straight into your mouth.

You've also gotten much better at sitting up on your own this month. You can do it for several minutes at a time, or sometimes indefinitely, until we pick you up. You've started to figure out how to not just sit until you lose your balance, but also maintain your balance if you start to lean. We've watched you catch yourself if you start to fall, and also lean very far forward to pick something up and then straighten back up on your own. Of course sometimes you still tip over, or occasionally pitch yourself backward, but not nearly as much as before.

You've become much more interactive this month. You have a real grown-up-sounding chuckle and screech of laughter and you do it all the time. You've started enjoying peekaboo--you stare intently at our hands when we cover our faces, and when we pull them aside and say "peekaboo!" you blink in surprise and then give us a huge smile or occasionally even a laugh. You like to grab our faces and sometimes you pull us toward you and press your mouth against our faces in a way that seems very much like you are trying to give us a kiss. You laugh hysterically when we kiss you, and you also like to pat and stare at other babies. One day we walked by someone with a seven-month-old when we were out in the neighborhood, and when you caught sight of the other baby you just started laughing. You also smile at yourself in the mirror and reach out to pat your reflection.

We tried out solid foods with you again this month, and it went much better than the previous attempt. You have tried and clearly enjoyed oat cereal, carrots, squash, peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, and pears. I'm pretty sure you would eat nothing but pears ever again if we let you, but overall you don't seem to be too picky, at least not yet. However, you made it clear that you were not a fan of avocado by retching and then actually making yourself throw up, and you don't seem to like zucchini, either. We also aren't sure of your opinion on brown rice quite yet. But we'll keep trying. So far you've only eaten cereal and purees, but I'm planning to talk to your pediatrician at your appointment this week about starting some finger foods and seeing how you do.

By far your biggest development this month has been your rolling. You've been rolling front to back for a few months now, but this month you figured out how to roll back to front, and with the combination of those two things, you're suddenly mobile. You will happily spend an hour or more rolling from one side of the living room to the other. You roll over to grab for things that are out of reach, you try to roll over during diaper changes, and you roll over in your crib. We still put you to sleep on your back but in the last week or so we've come in to check on you several times only to discover you sleeping peacefully on your belly.

Just in the last week or so, you've started imitating sounds. So far the only one you can do successfully is "ba." Your dad or I will say "baba" to you and you will stare at our mouths for a second before saying softly, "Beh. Beh." You have such a loud voice most of the time but when you're "talking" in response to us you have this sweet little baby voice that just slays me with cuteness. You also try to imitate other sounds but so far they either come out as spitting, sticking out your tongue, or a "ba" sound.

You are still growing like nuts. We won't get your official measurements until your pediatrician appointment later this week, but our unofficial home measurements have you at well over 28 inches long and close to 24 pounds. You're the size of an average one-year-old, fully in size 12-18 month clothing, and your dad and I are developing sore arms from hauling you around. I wonder if now that you're rolling so much, and getting relatively close to crawling, your growth will finally taper off the way people have been telling me it will for months now. You also continue to sleep well. You seemed to regress slightly last month, but you've been back to sleeping through the night (knock on wood) for a few weeks now. Your latest thing is to take just one massive, 2.5- or 3-hour nap in the middle of the day, then go down for the night around 8 and sleep for 12 hours or so. This is a pretty big change from your previous schedule, but if you decide to stick with it, we certainly will not be complaining. You've more or less outgrown your swing at this point, but luckily the transition to napping in the crib has been relatively painless for all of us.

You had a lot of firsts this month. First baseball game. First fireworks. First vacation, and first road trip. First hike and first swim. And you've adapted great to all of it. You are just such an easygoing baby; as long as your basic needs are met, you are more than willing to go with the flow. We can take you to new places with tons of stimulation, keep you out late, and you will just roll with it. You exude a sense of confidence that I find surprising for a six-month-old. I wouldn't think of "self-confident" as a term to describe babies, usually, but it's one of the first words that comes to mind when I look at you.

You are still absolutely obsessed with your daddy. You love to sit on his lap and have a conversation with him, where he talks to you in German and you shriek and babble back at him. You also display a surprising fascination with books--you will happily let us read to you for ages, and look right at the book and grab at the pages as we read the words.

You've also started displaying much more of an interest in Montana this month. With the advent of solid foods, she's become more interested in you too, and will come near you when you're eating and even try to lick your hands when she sees the chance. You watch her all the time, whenever she's in the room. When you hear her you turn around to get a better look, and wherever she goes, your eyes follow her. When she comes near, you twist in all directions to try to get your hand on her. I know you're just touching her the way you like to touch everything, but I like to think of it as petting. And it really does look like you're petting her when you bury your fingers in her fur or stroke her ears.

The first half-year of your life has been an absolutely amazing, wonderful experience. I'm one of those very verbal people who is hardly ever at a loss for words--but when I look at you and think about everything you do and are, I am just overwhelmed in a way that can't be articulated. You're only six months old but you are already so very YOU, and we feel so very lucky that we get to be the ones to raise you. We love living with you and getting to know you. And we love getting to know the family that the three of us have become.

Love,
Mama

Baby's first road trip

2011-07-22T07:01:00.007-06:00

Earlier this week we spent four nights in Santa Fe. It was the baby's first vacation and his first car ride of more than 30 minutes. It was also the first vacation Torsten and I taken in almost two years. And it was awesome. (Full photo set here.)

First of all, Callum was an amazing traveler. An absolute dream. It's about a six-hour drive from Denver to Santa Fe, and on the way down he hardly made a peep. He slept or stared quietly out the window the whole way. The whole time we were in Santa Fe he was totally relaxed and not fussy. He slept beautifully in his Pack N Play--he slept through the night every night we were there, and on the last morning he actually slept until 9:30. On the ride home he fussed for a few minutes and otherwise was entirely peaceful. He didn't nap on any specific schedule, and I think it helps that he doesn't have a strict schedule at home: he naps when he's tired, usually in his crib, sometimes in his swing. Because he sleeps so well at night, we have the luxury of not having to worry about when or how often he naps during the day. And that was our saving grace on this vacation. We had only one difficult hour on the whole vacation, and it was our own fault: he seemed tired so we tried to make him nap even though he didn't want to, and so he screamed. When we finally gave up and just took him outside, he was immediately fine again, and stayed that way for the rest of the trip.

I'm still just so amazed at how well it went. Our expectations were low and we were prepared for the worst--screaming during the entire drive, not sleeping at all, extreme fussiness preventing us from eating in restaurants or doing anything fun or relaxing--and it wasn't like that at all. In fact, it wasn't even all THAT different from a pre-baby vacation. It helped a lot that we didn't have any sort of schedule or plans. After we all had breakfast, we would go somewhere out of town where the landscape was lovely. After it got too hot, we'd return to the hotel to rest in our room. Once we had our energy back, we'd hang out in the hotel pool for awhile. Then when it cooled down for the evening, we'd walk into town and find somewhere to eat dinner. It was just lots of walking, lounging, swimming, and driving. It was fantastic.

I will say that Santa Fe is not the most stroller-friendly town I've ever been to--the sidewalks are incredibly uneven and often narrow--but the people are incredibly friendly. Luckily it doesn't bother us when strangers touch our baby--as long as they don't stick their fingers in his mouth, which nobody ever has--because he got incredible amounts of compliments and caresses from total strangers on the street. The most often-heard compliment was "look at those THIGHS!" which I must say, he definitely deserves.

(Baby sunglasses are surprisingly useful. Seriously. The UV index in New Mexico is very high.)

The landscape in New Mexico is just stunning. We tried to go to Bandelier National Monument, but 99% of the park is closed due to 30,000 of its 70,000 acres being burned by the Las Conchas Fire, and what trails were open were not baby-friendly, so we just drove around the nearby Jemez Mountains instead, admired the landscape, and felt really sad about all the burned trees we saw.

We also wanted to go to Tent Rocks National Monument, but it was closed, again because of the fire, so instead we picked Plaza Blanca, and it did not disappoint.

The baby had a lot of firsts on this trip. First time sitting in a restaurant high chair. First time swimming in a pool. First hike. First trip to Trader Joe's (and first time riding in a shopping cart). And he seemed to enjoy all of it.

And we enjoyed it too. It was a real family trip, better than we possibly could have envisioned. I know he won't always be such an easy traveler, but I have to say that it was really amazing to get to go on a vacation with our baby. Just as we enjoy vacations for the chance to spend stress-free time with each other, it was wonderful to get to spend all this beautiful quality time with him. And the fabulous setting didn't hurt either. We will definitely be back to Santa Fe. Hopefully soon.

Why eating contests bother me

2011-07-11T07:01:00.003-06:00

I like summer. It stays light really late. We grill on the patio for dinner several times per week. Everything is lush and green and blooming, and everyone has a relaxed vibe. It's like even though most of us are working full-time just like the rest of the year, we still have somewhat of a summer break attitude. Plus it's the time for beach vacations, hikes in the mountains, and BBQ parties.

But it seems like it's also always summertime when I hear about something that really grosses me out--eating contests. Pie-eating and hot dog-eating seem to be the two most prevalent kinds. Maybe it's because these things often happen at county fairs, which tend to be a summertime event? Or maybe it's because of that relaxed, "hey, we're on vacation!" summer attitude I was describing. Either way, eating contests seem to happen in the summer. And I think they're gross.

I partly think they're gross because the physical act of stuffing as much food as possible down your throat in the shortest possible amount of time seems inherently icky. I have never observed an eating contest, and I have no desire to change that, but from what I hear from people who have seen them, it's gag-inducing to watch. And I'm not surprised. It sounds sickening, and not just for the participants.

But that's not actually what bothers me about eating contests, really. I mean, lots of people do things that I find boring or unappealing, so I don't partake, they do, and we all move on with our lives, you know? But I guess what bothers me most is the wastefulness involved.

Let me be clear: I'm not a member of the clean plate club. I'll never tell Callum that he has to finish his dinner because children in Ethiopia are starving. Him being more full than he wants to be, or choking down something he's not interested in, won't change the plight of starving children anywhere. To me, they're separate things.

But I draw the line between someone not finishing the food on their plate, food which presumably was a reasonable portion to begin with, and people making a game out of wasting food on a massive scale. Eating more than 60 hot dogs within 10 minutes? That's excessive. It's not healthy. It's not nutritious. It's not even an enjoyable indulgence. It's a miserable, gross, vomit-inducing experience done only for bragging rights. And I think it's horrifying.

I know we waste food on a massive scale in a million other ways. And those bother me too. Food supply issues are fascinating and complex, and I know very little about them, really. But something about eating contests in particular really highlights this issue for me. Leaving aside the fact that competitive eating can actually be dangerous for participants, I guess it's the way it's a pure media spectacle. It almost feels like mockery--that we have such an abundance of food that people can jam 62 hot dogs down their throat for sport--while other people, right in this country and all around the world, don't even have one hot dog, or anything else, to eat for dinner. And we're showing that off for news outlets to share with the entire country as though this were just a silly, harmless little tradition.

It just feels disrespectful. And I don't think it's harmless at all.

Five months

2011-06-24T07:01:00.004-06:00

Dear Callum,

Today you are five months old. That is getting awfully close to half a year.

In the past month you have become very strong. You roll over when you want to, but more often during tummy time you are interested in doing push-ups. You lift your entire torso off the ground, all the way up to your diaper, using just your arms, and hold yourself like that for a long time. It looks terrifyingly close to the army-crawling position, but I think you're still a ways away from that in terms of coordination. You hold your head up independently when lying on your back, which makes it harder to convince you to go to sleep in your swing. You're learning how to sit up, and can sit unsupported for a minute or sometimes even more at a time. You're not stable enough yet that we can just sit you somewhere and walk away, but you get closer to that point every day. And when you lie down, on your back or your belly, you kick and thrash enough to rotate in circles, and sometimes you accidentally scoot forward. All of these are warning signs that we should probably start thinking about some basic baby-proofing sooner rather than later.

You are also really LOUD. You don't cry nearly as much as you used to, but you've replaced the crying with piercing shrieks, and I'm not sure if that's an upgrade or not. You chatter and babble constantly. You are still working on consonants, and we hear them occasionally, especially the B and L sounds, but for the most part you shriek strings of vowels along the lines of AWEH, over and over again. You also make a high-pitched squealing sound that sounds to me like a large, angry bird of prey. You "talk" to your Dad and me, to your toys, to your jumperoo, to your activity mat, to your mobile, and to the dog. Pretty much anything other than thin air elicits shrieks of joy or anger, depending on your mood.

This month you started laughing, and it is so incredible. You giggled before, but now you have a full-on shriek/chuckle that pretty much kills us with cuteness. And it doesn't take much to make you laugh. You laugh when we tickle you or blow on your belly. You laugh when we hand you a new toy. You laugh when we make new sounds or silly faces. And sometimes you laugh just when we walk in the room.

You started on solid foods this month, with mixed success. At first it seemed like it was going well, but then you became really fussy, and while at first I wondered if you were teething, now I'm thinking it may have been digestive discomfort. We gave you a break from solid foods for a couple weeks, and within a day or two you were back to your old, happy self. I think we'll try oatmeal again soon and see if it takes any better, but for now you are on a purely liquid diet.

Not eating solids certainly doesn't seem to be affecting your growth. I haven't weighed you in awhile, but I'm guessing that you are close to 21 pounds and 28 inches, which would put you pretty much off the charts for both weight and height. You are close to the size of a one-year-old, and already we've had to stop carrying you around in your carseat, lest we dislocate our shoulders.

You aren't sleeping quite as well as you were, but considering some of the horror stories we've heard about the four-month sleep regression, we aren't complaining. You usually wake up sometime between 5 and 6 a.m. to eat, and then go back to sleep until 8 or 8:30. This isn't quite as awesome as when you were sleeping straight through to 8:30 without that extra wakeup, but it is more than manageable. You still love putting everything in your mouth, especially your hands, and often when we come to get you in the morning we find you lying in your crib trying desperately to stuff your entire fist into your mouth.

You still absolutely love your dad. The way you look at him is just the sweetest thing I've ever seen. You stare at him with pure adoration, and he stares back at you just the same way. The beautiful relationship between the two of you is so gratifying to see, and I know that you two will only get closer as you get older.

Once we stopped feeding you solid foods, you morphed back into the happy, laid-back baby you've been all your life, and have stayed that way ever since. We've noticed, however, that it takes more to entertain you--ever since we got you your jumperoo, you like being upright, and putting you on your activity mat almost always leads to indignant shrieks within minutes. Gone are the days where you would peacefully play on that mat for 45 minutes or more--and I think we are all looking forward to when you can reliably sit up on your own, because I'm pretty sure that will be your preferred playing position.

You continue to have quite the personality. You always want to be looking around, and it's a rare moment that I can get you to cuddle with me. Sometimes when I pick you up, you will rest your head briefly against my shoulder, but within seconds you'll be up and looking around again, turning your head from side to side so as not to miss anything. You remind me of a koala when I carry you, the way you cling to me with your arms and legs, but that's pretty much as close to snuggling as you'll let me get these days. You are also very clear about your preferences. You continue to prefer to be at home, and when we take you to friends' houses or out and about you will start to express your displeasure after an hour or two. We're planning for you to be quite the well-traveled child eventually, so hopefully this preference for our house will turn out to be a short-lived phase.

The first few months of your life seemed to pass by incredibly fast, and now that we've settled into more of a routine it feels like things have slowed down a bit. It feels like ages since you turned four months and we started you on solid foods--and I can barely remember what it was like before you were here--and yet I can't believe that you're already five months old. We had planned on having a baby for years before you were born, and we always knew that having a baby, any baby, would be great, but what we didn't know was that having YOU specifically would be even greater than we possibly could have imagined.

Love,
Mama

The end of breastfeeding

2011-06-21T07:01:00.004-06:00

About a month ago I mentioned that Callum had more or less started refusing to nurse. I kept trying, but it never got better. He would latch on, suckle once, and immediately pull off and start screaming. My supply hadn't changed--there was as much as there ever had been, which is to say not much--so I can only assume that he got sick of working so hard for such little reward and preferred the faster, fuller gratification of the bottle.

So, I switched to exclusively pumping. And if I pumped many, many times a day, I would get MAYBE an ounce of breastmilk. Combined. All day long. As in, a few ML per pumping session. As in, basically nothing at all.

My goal had always been to make it to four months with the nursing, and so when Callum turned four months old, I was pumping less than an ounce most days, and he wasn't nursing at all, I made the executive decision to stop. It wasn't worth the time, effort, and frustration of pumping. If I'd been getting enough to make a meaningful contribution to his food intake each day? Sure, I'd have kept it up. But all that time spent harnessed to a pump and washing pump parts, only to pull a few ML? Not worth it. So the day after his four-month birthday, I stopped.

After three days my breasts started to feel slightly tender and sore. I couldn't lie on my belly without feeling pain. It was the closest I've ever come to feeling engorged. So I pumped one more time. I got 10 ML, the most I'd gotten in a single pumping session, ever. I haven't pumped since, or tried to nurse. Callum is exclusively bottle-fed. This also meant that we were able to switch to the faster-flowing, level 2 nipples, because we didn't have to worry about matching the milk flow to the nursing experience as closely as possible.

The funny thing is, it's been almost a month since the last time I pumped, and I still have milk. I even leaked a little bit just the other day. And my breasts still feel kind of sore and engorged. Not horribly, not enough for me to feel the need to pump, but enough to notice and enough to feel a little bit uncomfortable.

It's so weird. It's like, no matter what I did, I couldn't increase my supply, and now, with zero stimulation whatsoever, I don't appear to be able to decrease my supply either. I would have thought that within a week or two I wouldn't be producing any more milk--but that's not the case. Rationally, I know that at some point my supply will dry up entirely--but I feel like there's this thought at the back of my mind that my body will just go on vaguely producing a few ML of breastmilk every day for the rest of my life.

And you know what? Even though I'm pretty much over the disappointment of not being able to exclusively breastfeed, a small part of me is GLAD I'm still producing milk. I knew it was the right choice to stop pumping, but I felt really sad about it too. I felt like it was wasteful to give up what little supply I had--even though it made up maybe 3% of what Callum was eating each day--it felt like I should be taking advantage of what I had and that it was somehow shameful or wrong to let it go.

So even though I'm not doing anything with my supply, and I could really do without the vague engorged feeling and occasional leaking, there's a little part of me that's glad it's still there. Even though I KNOW it's useless, and I KNOW it's just a silly irrational part of my brain that wishes that breastfeeding had worked out better for us.

Over the last few months I've truly accepted our feeding situation. The feelings of shame and guilt that I wasn't able to produce the food needed to nourish my child are fully gone. It would have been nice if it had worked out differently, but it didn't, and that's fine. I've had my moments when I've really wished that I could have breastfed exclusively--such as when we went out to dinner and didn't realize until we got to the restaurant that we'd forgotten his bottle and had to go home to get it--and when he was nearing the upper limit of how much formula his pediatrician wanted him to eat and we had to carefully track his intake and worry about overfeeding him, and it would have been so nice to just pop him on the boob when he was hungry and not worry about it--but for the most part it doesn't cross my mind. That's not our life and I don't spend any time or energy thinking about it.

And I don't miss the bonding time--breastfeeding was always such a struggle for us, always always always, that it was never that peaceful simple moment of bonding. It was a two-handed experience, always, even once we both knew what we were doing, that involved continuously re-shaping my breast and re-latching the baby, over and over again. It's actually much simpler and more peaceful to hold Callum on my lap and feed him with a bottle. So I don't miss that part of it either.

I do still hope that if/when we have another baby someday, my body will know what to do and will get it right the second time around. I would like to exclusively breastfeed, if possible. But, at this point I've learned enough about the silver lining of bottle-feeding that if it doesn't work out, I think I'll be OK. I'll be a little more prepared, and I'll know from the beginning that formula isn't the end of the world. I'll know that there are actually some benefits to bottle-feeding, and if it turns out that we have to go that route in the future, I'll try to look straight to those. And I think I'll probably do a pretty good job at it.

It's just funny--I'm so totally OK with the way things have worked out, on every rational level. I don't feel the need to justify to anyone, and when people find out that I'm not breastfeeding and try to say supportive things like how formula-fed babies are just as smart and healthy as breastfed babies, I just smile and nod, because I know that, KNOW it, have fully internalized it and don't need to hear it or get validation from any external sources--and yet, I'm still glad that my supply hasn't dried up entirely. Even though it serves no purpose whatsoever at this point.

I guess I'm just contradictory. And I guess that's OK.

Bumper sticker war

2011-06-16T07:01:00.007-06:00

Torsten and I have been living in Colorado for about two and a half years. We love it, and we're planning on staying here for the rest of our lives. But there's no denying that we aren't Colorado natives. Callum is, though. And now that I have a kid who's considered a Colorado native, does that mean I have more of a right to live here myself?

Because the thing is, Torsten and I aren't the only people who've noticed how awesome Colorado is. According to the Census bureau, Colorado's population grew by 16.9% from 2000 to 2010 (9.7% is the national average). According to the Denver Post, the state had the fourth highest growth rate in the country in 2008, and the seventh highest growth rate in the country over the past decade. The Post estimates that more than 50% of that growth came from people moving here from other states and countries.

And really, you can hardly blame them. Colorado is awesome. The weather is fantastic (we are known for our cold winters, and while we definitely have our cold moments, what some people don't realize is that we also have lots of mild snaps in the winter, with sunny days in the 60s, which more than makes up for some sub-zero snowy days, in my opinion). There's no humidity. The mountains are absolutely gorgeous, and so great for exploring in both summer and winter. The people are nice. We have a major airport. It's very dog-friendly. Denver is a good-size city and Boulder is a lovely smaller town. We have an excellent public university system. The cost of living is reasonable. And so on and so forth. Basically, there are a ton of reasons why we decided to move here when we could have moved anywhere--and obviously we weren't the only ones to come to that conclusion.

So, there are a lot of people living in Colorado who aren't from Colorado. Which is fine! Yay for an interconnected world where we don't all just set up house on our parents' property, or marry into the family on the next farm over, right?

Except that all these Colorado natives like to complain about the transplants. They complain that they're a drag on resources, that they're leading to urban sprawl, that they don't care about Colorado's heritage or its beauty, that they place undue pressure on fragile ecosystems, that they contribute to pollution and development and destruction. Some of the more conservative people also complain that the transplants, who for the most part tend to be more politically liberal and drawn to the Denver-Boulder corridor, are making this once-conservative place into a swing state.

Personally, as you can guess, I don't agree with most of these complaints. I love Colorado in a way that I've never loved anywhere that I lived before. I care about it. I take advantage of what it has to offer. And I boost its economy by living here, spending money here, and paying taxes here. I don't mind the tourists, either (and there are lots of tourists because of Colorado's great skiing), because they are a huge part of Colorado's economy as well.

I also don't see what being born and raised here has to do with how much you appreciate this state and how well you care for it. In fact, I think the argument could be reversed to say that the transplants moved here because they wanted to be here, whereas people who were born here might take it for granted. But that wouldn't make much sense either. Really, we are all given the opportunity to be responsible stewards of our homes, whether we've lived in the same place all our lives or not, you know?

But I do think it's pretty amusing that this clash has led to what I personally consider to be snooty bumper stickers. They are a play on the Colorado license plate, which looks like this:

Except they say NATIVE, like this, as though that's something transplants should be jealous of:

And of course, now there are the counter-stickers, which say TRANSPLANT, like this:

And I recently saw one that was in the same format but simply said BITE ME. Unclear if this was a big eff you to the entire back and forth, or simply a nod to Colorado's fly fishing opportunities. Either way, it made me laugh. My Google searching for these images also led me to variations that say things like XENOPHOBE and NO VACANCY. Strong feelings on both sides, apparently, as expressed through bumper stickers.

Even the state of Colorado has jumped on the bandwagon, offering a Pioneers license plate that, until recently, was only available to people who could prove that they were the descendant of someone who lived in Colorado 100 years ago (and the only reason the state stopped requiring this and started making the design available to everyone was because they found out that asking for this information was illegal):

What about where you live? Are there lots of people moving in? Or moving out? Are there tensions between people who've lived there forever and people who have newly arrived? Do you think it matters?

Teething?

2011-06-09T07:01:00.004-06:00

I lost my first tooth when I was four years old. I lost my last tooth only a few years later. I got my 12-year molars when I was nine. I got my wisdom teeth when I was 13 or 14.

My point is, I was ahead of schedule with my teeth. And now it appears that Callum may be following in my footsteps. I'm still not totally convinced... especially because as far as I can tell from the articles I've read on teething, pretty much every parent seems to become convinced that their child is teething the day they hit four months old... but it really does seem that way. Even though apparently teething doesn't usually start before six months.

Here's what we're dealing with at the moment:

Many consecutive days of exceptional amounts of fussiness. Our mellow, easygoing, laid-back baby has started shrieking unhappily for no apparent reason. He's not hungry. He's not tired. His diaper is dry. He's not sick. He's just not happy. All day long.
Bottle refusal. Callum has always been good at self-regulating his food intake, so we've never pressed the issue if he's refused the bottle in the past. But now he gives clear hunger signs but still fusses and turns his head away from the bottle. If we try a few times, he'll usually take it eventually--and then eat a full meal. His overall daily food intake hasn't changed--it just takes a lot more work on our parts to get him to eat.
Chewing. Hands, toys, our fingers, his clothing, his car seat straps, whatever. If it's near enough for him to grab, it goes straight into his mouth. This is normal four-month-old behavior, so it might or might not be an indicator of teething.
Drooling. Same as above--this usually starts in earnest around four months anyway. It only seems to be excessive when he sleeps, during which time it collects on his shirt.
Lip sucking. Just in the past couple days, he's started pulling his lips inward and pressing them against his gums. I can only assume that this relieves pressure? I've never seen him do that before.
Ear-pulling. This happens only occasionally. I did some reading on whether this was a sign of an ear infection, and pretty much everything says that if they seem otherwise happy when they're doing it, and they aren't congested or feverish, it's more likely a teething sign. That description applies to him--I've only noticed him doing it when he was totally fine otherwise, and not fussy, plus he has no symptoms of sickness--so it seems like it's probably teething-related.
Trouble sleeping. He's still sleeping fine, but not as well as he was. For awhile he was sleeping through the night until 8 a.m. or later on a consistent basis. He still does that occasionally, but more often he'll wake up sometime between 4 and 6 a.m. Luckily when he does this he pretty much just eats and goes back to sleep, so I recognize that we're still pretty well off in this department. But it definitely signals a change from his earlier sleeping habits. He also has more trouble falling asleep at night--when we put him to bed, instead of just peacefully going off to sleep on his own as he did for the first four months of his life, he fusses for awhile and sometimes needs extra soothing before he falls asleep.

So. It sounds like teething to me. Does it sound that way to you? Because the thing is that what we aren't dealing with is actual teeth. His gums look and feel totally normal to me. And I'm a little bit terrified that if this is the start of teething, it's going to be a long time before any teeth actually show up. And I would really rather not deal with this for months on end. Plus, I would really rather my baby not have to go through this for months on end. It doesn't look like much fun! I miss my non-fussy baby. And I bet he misses not having a reason to be fussy, too.

Oatmeal and bananas

2011-06-01T07:01:00.006-06:00

Last week, on the advice of our pediatrician, we started Callum on solid foods. He won't be eating much for now--just oatmeal and one or two types of not-too-sweet produce--and only once a day until he's six months old. This is more about introducing him to food and getting him excited about it than about feeding him enough to provide real nutrients--that's what formula is for at this point.

My parents were in town to witness the first feeding, which was nice for everyone, particularly Callum since he got extra cameras flashing in his face during the big event. There are plenty of photos on Flickr, but here are a couple videos that are a pretty good overview of how it went. Please excuse my ridiculous baby voice, thank you.

First he didn't know what was going on:

Then he caught on and actually opened his mouth:

So, I'd say it went pretty well, with no issues with the tongue thrust reflex and over a tablespoon of oatmeal consumed. The next day went even better: he ate the whole bowl (not that it was full), and learned very quickly to open his mouth when the spoon came near, so that was nice.

We gave it a couple days and then introduced mashed banana, again following the suggestion of the pediatrician. And... well, he ate it. Grudgingly. A few bites. And then he started crying and turning his head away. I'd fed him oatmeal first, so I thought maybe he was just full. We tried again the next day and I did manage to feed him the whole quarter-banana that I'd mashed up for him, but not without much fussing and a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

Here he is after his first bite of banana. He does not look too impressed.

The day after that, I tried feeding him the banana before the oatmeal, when I knew he was hungry, in hopes that it had just been a coincidence. Again, he took a few bites without any apparent enthusiasm, and then kept his mouth firmly closed and turned his head away from the spoon. After that, he didn't even want his oatmeal, which on previous days he had happily devoured. He didn't spit the bananas out, so I thought that was encouraging, but maybe he just didn't know how?

Anyway. Apparently I have one of the only babies in the world who doesn't like bananas? I might try just plain oatmeal for a couple days, and then give the bananas another shot later in the week. Maybe he just needs some time to get used to them? After all, it's definitely the strongest flavor he's ever encountered.

Oatmeal is a huge hit, though. So that's good. And next we get to try one more type of produce. I'm thinking maybe sweet potatoes, but I'm not totally sure. Our only restrictions are no citrus and no berries. For those of you with kids, what have been popular food items with your babies?

Four months

2011-05-24T07:01:00.007-06:00

Dear Callum,

Today you are four months old. That hardly sounds newborn-ish anymore. And you really aren't so newborn-ish anymore yourself. It's a little terrifying, but mostly awesome.

This month you took a break from rolling over for a few weeks, and when you started doing it again you had a whole new technique. Whereas before you just pushed with your arms until you rolled, now you lift your entire head and chest and twist them until they flop around the lower half of your body and you wind up on your back. It's very acrobatic.

You're also really into your arms and legs recently. You do quite a bit of arm-waving and leg-thrashing. You're just starting to notice your feet--just this past weekend I noticed you grabbing your toes with your hands for the first time ever. I imagine it won't be long before those toes find their way into your mouth. You also sit up with just a little bit of support, but you don't display a whole lot of interest in that position, so it may be awhile before you find the motivation to sit up on your own.

You love to talk. You babble and shriek constantly. Sometimes I'll call your grandma while you're hanging out on my lap, and when she picks up the phone, before I can even say hi you start chattering loudly in the background. When this happens, she always starts the conversation by saying, "Hi, Callum!" She and your grandpa are arriving later today for a visit, and I know they're very much looking forward to witnessing your baby talk in person. You're very social in general. You like to be held and you smile at pretty much everyone. But you reserve your most enthusiastic gestures for your dad and me--every time we come into your range of vision we are treated to a full-on display of laughing, squealing, and delighted arm-waving. It's a nice self-esteem boost, for sure.

The dog still ignores you, but by now the feeling is not mutual. When she walks by you turn your head to watch her, and we find you staring at her quite often. I'm sure it's nothing personal that she ignores you--but even if it were, it's likely to change soon, because we'll probably start giving you solid food sometime this month, and I'm pretty sure Montana will want to be present for feeding time as soon as she realizes what's happening. I personally still can't quite wrap my mind around the idea of you eating solid food, but I know your pediatrician recommends starting at 4 months. I've been researching the topic and plan to have a detailed discussion with her about this at your appointment later today.

You're still growing like a champ--90th percentile and above for everything, and wearing exclusively size 6-12 month clothing--and sleeping great. We weaned you off the swaddle last week, first by swaddling you with one arm out and then by giving it up altogether. At each step you woke up the first couple days at 6:30 a.m. before going back to your normal 8:30 wakeup. It was a surprisingly painless process, much better than when we tried this two months ago and you woke up at 1:30 a.m. three nights in a row until we went back to swaddling you.

You have sensitive skin, which according to your pediatrician is common in redheads like you, and so we are still lotioning you up twice a day, which seems to help. You get rashes and dry spots on your elbows, belly, and thighs. Your cradle cap is mostly gone, so that's nice, but we've noticed that if we ever put a disposable diaper on you, you develop diaper rash almost instantaneously. I had sensitive skin as a kid too, with a tendency toward eczema, so it looks like this is something we're going to have to be vigilant about with you.

You remain one of the most laid back babies I've ever encountered, but you do get a little bit fussy when things are out of the ordinary. We had dinner at a few different friends' houses this month, and each time you were a bit fussier than usual. You weren't sobbing inconsolably, but there were some angry shrieks and annoyed cries for no discernible reason. It seems like you've developed a sense of your surroundings and as a result we're seeing a preference for the familiar. And it seems to be specific to the environment, not the people--we left you with a babysitter for the first time this month so we could go to the U2 concert, and you were totally fine and not fussy at all. I guess you just like your own house! Nothing wrong with that... although we'd like to get you used to traveling sooner rather than later, if at all possible. I guess we should have you sleep in your Pack N Play at our own house a few times before we take you on the road, huh?

Things you're into lately include stuffing things into your mouth, toys that squeak or otherwise make noise, laughing when we kiss you, grabbing the blinds on the window over your changing table, sucking your thumb, your activity mat, and your dad. You love your dad so much. You squeal and laugh and wave your arms when you see him, and when he's moving around the room your eyes follow him everywhere he goes. You still look just alike, and seeing you together just kills me with sweetness, every time.

You already have so much personality, it's amazing. You just exude mellow happiness, and it doesn't take much to make you excited. I guess that makes sense when everything is still so new to you. You already seem kind of independent to me--you like to be held, especially when you're in a new place, but for the most part it almost seems like rather than specifically liking to be held, it's more that you don't mind it. I hold you as much as I can, but I envision that by the time you're a toddler you might not be the type of kid who's super into snuggling. Already when I cuddle you, most of the time you would rather look all around and flail than just snuggle with me. Even when I sing to you at bedtime, I've had to start lying you on my lap instead of holding you on my chest, because otherwise you look all around and bend over backward and generally get yourself totally stimulated and wide awake and not at all bed-ready.

You are still the cutest baby I've ever seen, and I say that with a complete lack of bias, as you can imagine. It doesn't hurt that you look like your dad and I think he's pretty cute too, but it's more than that--it's also the you-ness that radiates from your face and your mannerisms. You're already starting to grow up, and I'm totally OK with that because as you get bigger you make it clearer and clearer that your personality is just what this family needed. You fit right in, and we are so very happy to have you here with us.

Love,
Mama

Chub and pie (not related, though one might think otherwise)

2011-05-16T07:01:00.007-06:00

First of all, I have an 18-pound baby. He is not even four months old yet, and he is 18 pounds and 26.5 inches long. As in, over 90th percentile for a four-month-old, an age that he is still eight days away from attaining. He is solidly in size 6-12 month clothing, and you guys, we own so much clothing for this child. His entire dresser is stuffed with 6-12 month clothing. The whole thing. I mean, the drawers barely open, they're crammed so full. And we paid for almost none of it; we have been so plied with lovely, generous gifts and hand-me-downs. I'm pretty sure this kid could wear a different outfit every single day for the first year of his life. And that seems to be my goal--he has a few outfits that I love and use regularly, but for the most part I try to make sure all the different items get a turn. Yes, I do care about fairness to inanimate objects, why do you ask?

Secondly, we had dinner with friends this weekend, and for it I made a lemon meringue pie. I used this recipe, except with milk instead of water, and I improved upon the last one by making my own crust this time (this one), and it turned out delicious. I always thought of lemon meringue as a fancy pie, but it's really not, and it's also one of the only non-chocolate pies that I like, and I think it will be one of my go-to desserts in the future, because yum. And also, it's not as greasy and unhealthy as some desserts. And the lemon filling is so tasty, and it looks so satisfying. See?

It's actually the egg yolk that makes it so yellow, not the lemon. And doesn't it look even better with the meringue on top? I like the contrast of the yellow and the white, so I took a photo break before I sealed the meringue up to the crust line for baking.

And the finished product was nicely golden and still fluffy:

Thirdly, we've done a ton of yard work, and things are starting to look really kind of lovely around here. My hands are not so lovely--scratched to crap from some bushes I pruned a little too zealously, with a couple of nasty blisters on my fingers--but I suppose that's just a sacrifice you have to make, right? And I should mention right here that Torsten was able to get our sprinkler system functioning by replacing heads and digging up pipes and whatnot all by himself, and we should really all note how incredibly handy he is, because he did awesome work and would probably like everybody to know about it.

Lastly, Callum has become increasingly annoyed about the concept of nursing recently, and at this point I'm more or less exclusively pumping. I can maybe get him to nurse for a couple minutes once every day or two, but that's it. I suppose I should be glad he hasn't decided to do this with his bottle instead of with the boob, given that if he gave up the bottle he would starve, but it's a little annoying to be pumping all the time when I only produce a couple ml, if that, at every session. My plan is to keep trying the nursing until his four-month birthday. After that, if he's still screaming every time I try, I think I'll be done. I'll stop trying to nurse him, and just pump a couple times a day for as long as I pull a few ml, and I presume my supply will dwindle pretty quickly, and then this breastfeeding adventure will be over, and that will be fine too. But we'll hope it goes a little better with the next kid, shall we?

Speaking of the chunkster, here he is, for your viewing pleasure. Clearly, his refusal to nurse isn't hurting him in the slightest.

Note the thigh rolls.

Baby keepsakes

2011-05-11T18:56:00.001-06:00

I put together a box of keepsakes from Callum's babyhood. I will add anything else to it as I think of it, but for now it contains:

My positive pregnancy tests (yes, I know, gross, pee, etc., but they're in a ziploc bag and they're meaningful so I kept them).
My pregnancy journal (which includes photos of me throughout my pregnancy, as well as hospital bracelets and a birth announcement).
A printout of the playlist we listened to on repeat during my labor.
The newspaper (Denver Post) from the day he was born.
All the cards people sent before and after he was born.
The purple foam "goggles" he had to wear while he was on the biliblanket for his jaundice.
A baby hat from the hospital.
The "welcome to the world" card signed by President and First Lady Obama.

Is there anything else memorable or significant that should go in there that I'm not thinking of? For you parents out there, what keepsakes have you saved from when your kids were very little?

Cousins

2011-05-10T10:50:00.001-06:00

Callum and my sister's baby, Morgan, haven't met yet, and I'm dying for it to happen, mostly because they're cousins and they should know each other but also partly because they're on opposite ends of the growth chart and I am just dying picturing the cuteness of Giant and Bitty side by side. In the meantime, I have to be content with photos of them in their Bumbos for comparative purposes. These were taken on the same day.

These babies are 1 month, 3.5 inches, and 8 pounds apart. It doesn't sound like that much (except maybe the poundage) but the difference in how far their heads and legs protrude from the Bumbo is pretty striking, at least in my opinion.

Can't wait for these two to meet in person! Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Springtime in the yard

2011-05-05T07:01:00.007-06:00

First of all, I have to say, I don't know if it's because I've been living in some sort of new baby parallel universe, but while everyone else has been lamenting the weather, I've actually been feeling like this winter was... not so bad. I mean, yes, there have definitely been cold days and we did have one miserable snap when Callum was a week old (and of course exactly when my parents were here visiting) where the temperature was below zero and it was gray and snowy for days on end.

But overall it's been mild, I think. I'm pretty sure our average annual snowfall is around 60 inches, and I don't think we've gotten anywhere near that this year. We've had lots of sunny warm days, even shortly after Callum was born in January, where we were able to take him out in the stroller for walks. I've had a standing date with a woman from my childbirth class to go for a walk in the park once a week for over a month now, and we've had lovely weather for every single walk. We've even gotten some rain, which is a rare treasure here in semi-arid Colorado.

Anyway, with things feeling springlike for awhile now, we've taken the opportunity to do some work in our yard. Like homeowners. Adults. Isn't that weird?

It started with a few things: a gift, a Groupon, a gift card, and a windstorm. And now we are thinking of all sorts of things we'd like to do, and assessing which of those things could be feasible on our budget.

First, a very dear friend gave Callum a redbud tree as a baby gift. Actually, since she lives far away, she gave him a gift certificate to a fabulous local nursery with a request that we use it to purchase a redbud tree, which of course we did. It's now planted in the yard. It's still teeny, and just starting to bloom. Once all the blossoms open, we'll take a picture of Callum next to it, and turn that into an annual tradition so that we can watch him and the tree grow together. The same friend gave the same gift to my sister's baby, so Callum and Morgan can have matching redbud photos throughout their childhood.

Here's the tree currently:

Of course, while we were at the nursery we discovered all sorts of wondrous other plants and yard things that we'd love to have. So we had some discussion and decided that since someday when budget and time allow, we'd like to relandscape our yard completely, rather than planting a whole bunch of stuff in the meantime we would do one barrel of flowers on our front porch. So we did:

Then along came a Groupon for another local nursery. And once the redbud tree was planted, we thought wow, we should really put a couple more trees on the lawn so it doesn't look so bare. But not giant ones, because we don't want it to be overwhelmed. So maybe shrubs would work well. And the nursery just so happened to have lovely small lilac trees and snowball bushes for almost exactly the price of the Groupon:

Conveniently, some lights Torsten's parents bought us at Lowe's last year turned out not to be what we were looking for, so we returned them for a merchandise credit and used that gift card to buy some mulch and tree edging, as well as some fertilizer and grass seed so that we can reseed our yard, which as you can see is very much in need of it. We also finally got around to calling an irrigation company to check out the built-in sprinkler system in our yard, and learned that it seems to be nearly functional and should (knock on wood) be fully functional, or close to it, with just some minor repairs, which will hopefully be happening tomorrow.

We also pruned down our rosebushes and put new mulch in the front flower bed where the tulips grow (still waiting on them to bloom, but when they do, they'll be red and yellow):

And in the backyard, we had an awesome wildflower garden last year. Some of them are perennials but others are not, so we put down some fresh seed on top just to make sure it'll grow back nicely. Most of it still has a ways to go, but some lovely purplish blue flowers have already bloomed:

Oh, and the windstorm. Well, that sucked. We had a fence that looked like this (and still have this fence on one side of our yard):

But then it was super windy one night and when we woke up a giant panel from the fence on the other side of the yard had blown over and was lying in the grass. The whole fence was rickety and nearly 50 years old to begin with, so we knew it really just had to be replaced. Luckily our neighbor agreed, and there was no fighting or anything about who had to pay. We split the cost 50-50 for the side fence, and Torsten and I of course paid the full cost for the front part of the fence with the new gate, since that is on our property only, and just a few days later our fence looked like this:

Of course there are still a lot of other projects. Most of them we're holding off on because wow, this stuff is so expensive and time-consuming. But, Denver does an annual mulch giveaway for residents, all created from the Christmas tree pickup, and it's this weekend, so we're borrowing a neighbor's pickup truck and going to get as much mulch as we can carry, so we can mulch the treebeds by the driveway (and also maybe prune the bushes?)...

...and the treebeds where the aspens grow in the backyard:

Of course, there's one staple that we absolutely love and have no intention of changing, ever, and that's our willow tree:

Isn't it lovely?

What are you guys doing in your yards this spring? Or what would you like to be doing, if time and money were no object?

Listening

2011-05-03T07:01:00.003-06:00

I need to blog more. I do. I miss it. And I don't want this blog to just be monthly letters to my baby. It would be nice if we also had some record of the stuff going on between the 24th of one month and the 24th of the next month, you know?

And there is stuff going on, but a lot of it is stuff that I can't really talk about here, and that pisses me off, and also I hate it when people go on about Unbloggable Things, and really, everything is fine, Callum is great and Torsten and I are great and things are good. But some of the non-baby details of our lives are things I don't really want to get into at the moment, but those are the same things that are on my mind a lot of the time, and therefore... silence.

Plus there are things going on in the world, and I don't really want to discuss my reaction to the Osama bin Laden thing in part because everyone's reactions seem to have turned into finger-pointing about everyone else's reactions, and I feel like we have now reached a point where if I say that my reaction was X, it will feel to people whose reactions were more like Y or Z like I am saying that X is the right reaction and Y and Z are the wrong reactions. And I don't feel that way. And I also don't fully know what my own reaction is. Suffice it to say that I have mixed feelings on a lot of counts. And I imagine that most other people do too.

You know, on September 11 I was in France. I had just moved there two weeks prior, I didn't really speak French yet, and because of the time difference the events of that day unfolded at three o'clock in the afternoon for me instead of first thing in the morning the way they did for most Americans, and really, the time of day isn't important but in my mind it seems important because that afternoon, the amount of the day that had already gone by, the classes I'd already gone through at school, the amount of sunlight that was shining when one of my French classmates came up to me in the school courtyard and tried to explain to me what had happened, with limited success because I didn't really speak French yet... all of those things are very intertwined with my memories of that day. Afternoon. Sun. Late in the daytime. A whole day of not knowing, already gone by, while in the US the day had barely started.

Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent but my point is, it happened when I was in France and I didn't get home after that for another nine months and when I got home things had changed drastically and I was startled at what felt like a very sudden change to me. And I sort of missed the more laid-back attitude of the French people I'd been surrounded with during the initial aftermath. I guess it felt, somehow, like there was more listening happening in France, and more talking happening in the US, and it was weird to go from one to the other. I liked the listening. I was there, listening. We were all listening, in France. Talking too, of course. But also listening.

And now, it's almost 10 years later and the President of the United States addresses the nation, the world really, to say that Osama bin Laden has been killed, and the reactions everywhere are varied in style but all quite intense. Torsten and I watched the news for awhile on Sunday night, I read some reactions on Twitter, and then we went to bed. Then yesterday morning I logged onto Facebook and at the top of my news feed was a comment from my French host brother which, loosely translated, read, "Obama says justice has been done. But is death really justice?"

A valid question, not too far off from some of my own thoughts on the topic... but the comments on the question, oh my. Nobody actually answered the question, or tried to. Instead, it turned into a discussion about whether bin Laden has actually been killed. The consensus was that he has not, that he continues to elude everyone's grasp, that this was a stunt for Obama's reelection campaign, that the burial at sea was nothing more than tossing the body into the ocean before anyone has a chance to notice that it isn't actually bin Laden's body, that Americans are a bunch of liars and always have been.

I know, I know, everyone posts ridiculous things on Facebook, we're all exposed to it, we should just block the wackos from our news feed and move on with our lives. But these weren't the wackos. These were the listeners from 10 years ago, now making absurd and cruel statements without any real awareness of what they're talking about.

I guess right now they aren't listeners anymore. They've morphed into talkers. But I'm still here, I'm still listening. I might be their lone American Facebook friend, but I am still there, reading what they have to say and cringing over it. The words aren't falling on a void. At least... not completely.

I'm here. I'm listening. And I don't love everything I'm hearing. But I don't necessarily want to respond to it, either. Sometimes it's easier to just choose not to engage. And therefore... silence.

Three months

2011-04-24T13:26:00.000-06:00

Dear Callum,

Today, you are three months old. A quarter of a year has gone by already. I'm sure if you were aware of it, you'd be very proud of this achievement.

When I look back at photos of you from when you were just a couple weeks old, sometimes I can hardly see a difference and other times I can't believe how much has changed. Some things can be captured in a photo--like the fact that you are almost double your birth weight, at close to 16 pounds, and fully into 3-6 month size clothing. In fact, I had to clear out a bunch of the smaller 3-6 stuff because you've already outgrown it. The bottom two drawers of your dresser are now full of 6-12 month size clothing, still too big for you but only by a hair. I imagine you'll be wearing some of it within the next month.

But a lot of what's changed isn't the kind of thing that you can see in a snapshot. The day after your two-month birthday, you figured out how to roll over from your belly to your back. You've been doing it on and off the entire month since. Some days you do it every time we put you on your tummy, other times you try and can't quite manage it, and some days you don't even try. But when you really want to do it, you do.

You've also started laughing. We aren't quite at the full-on belly laugh stage just yet, but when you get excited and happy there is a definitive laugh that accompanies your smile and wriggle. And you smile and laugh quite frequently--pretty much all day long. You smile at strangers still, but this month you've learned to recognize your parents, and whenever you see us we are rewarded with a full-on excited grin, accompanied by gurgling and arm-waving. You are becoming very social, and if we leave you in your crib or bouncy seat for too long, you will sometimes fuss because you want us to come hang out with you. Which we always do, because you are totally irresistible.

This month you've discovered your hands in earnest, and you can now get them in your mouth, which you do as often as possible. You've figured out how to suck your thumb, and make adorable loud slurping noises as you do it. You still haven't quite figured out how to tuck the rest of your fingers away when you do it, though, so when you suck your thumb you end up with your whole hand in front of your face.

This has also been the month when you've learned that things other than your hands can go in your mouth, too. You've figured out how to grasp toys, and can transfer them back and forth from one hand to the other, but your favorite thing to do with them is grab them with both hands and stuff them in your mouth as quickly as possible. We've had a lot of fun introducing some of your toys to you for the first time, and though you seem to enjoy everything, you do seem to display a preference for a couple of them over all the rest. Who knows--maybe they taste better.

You've still been growing like nuts, but you've actually tapered off a bit on how much formula you eat, so I'm wondering if maybe your growth will slow down accordingly. You hover around the 90th percentile for both weight and length, and you have adorable chubby cheeks and thighs. When you are hungry, you let us know. Your differentiated crying started this month, and your hunger cry is a furious, high-decibel roar that would probably make a stranger think we were torturing you with needles and acid.

You continue to be a relaxed, mellow baby, and a great sleeper. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop on the sleep thing, since I've heard so many horror stories of babies who were champion sleepers for the first few months and then one day started waking up every hour and continued that behavior for at least a year. But for now, you are sleeping through the night pretty regularly, and we are very grateful.

The dog still spends most of her time ignoring you, and you do the same to her. But you definitely don't ignore anything else. You are totally aware of and absorbed in your surroundings, and you absolutely love seeing people. Your dad and I can often soothe you just by picking you up, and one of my favorite things is to lift you against my chest when you're sleepy and feel you snuggle your head against my shoulder. One of my other favorite things is seeing you with your dad, because you are as enamored of him as ever, and the two of you together (also known as "Me" and "Mini-Me") are beyond adorable.

I sometimes feel vaguely wistful when I see photos of you when you were tiny, but for the most part I just love watching you grow. This parenting thing gets better and better, and in addition to loving where you are now, I am so excited to keep watching you grow and change. Each phase is simultaneously perfect and better than the last. Just like our family. We are perfect now, and we will keep being perfect as you grow, and we all grow. Our family will always feel perfect to us, because you will always be a part of it.

Love,
Mama

Assorted

2011-04-20T09:08:00.006-06:00

A friend of ours who has been trying to get pregnant for over 2.5 years found out a few weeks ago that she is pregnant via IVF. Needless to say, she and her husband are over the moon. They have their first ultrasound today to look for cardiac activity. I am keeping everything crossed that they see a nice strong heartbeat, but I figured I'd put it out there so you guys could add some extra good vibes, if you are so inclined.
I had no idea that Donald Trump was so crazy and also so dumb. Maybe I've been deliberately keeping myself in the dark, but the things he's said publicly in the last few weeks? Beyond horrifying. And let's not even get started on the whole sending-detectives-to-Hawaii thing. I have so much to say about that but my head explodes every time I start to think about it.
Callum will be three months old in a few days, and he's started getting a lot more interactive and interested in his toys. I said to Torsten that I wondered if we should find more varied ways of entertaining him, and he responded, "Like what? Hire a clown?" I guess it's a valid point. He spends a lot of time in his activity mat, and he also has a bouncy seat and a swing, and we read to him and sing to him and play with toys with him, and I guess that's already a lot. Maybe we should at least switch out the toys on his activity mat occasionally?
We had friends in town a couple weeks ago, and it was so lovely. I'm glad that some things haven't changed: we still enjoy being social and hosting friends at our house. It was so lovely to have lots of time to catch up and introduce them to the baby. And it was a good excuse to get out and do some local exploring (Red Rocks and Boulder). And, they gave me an awesome birthday present. Fantastic time all around.
Twice in the past week we've gone out and forgotten the diaper bag. Once we had to go back and get it because we knew Callum would be hungry before we were done. The other time I managed to get him to fall asleep in the Ergo and it ended up not being a big deal. Both times I wished very bitterly that I didn't have such a useless low milk supply.
I still don't fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans. I know, nine months on, nine months off, but it's pissing me off. I lost a bunch of weight right at the start and then I plateaued completely. I'm getting a fill in my lap-band tomorrow, though, so hopefully that will kick-start things. I can only hope, because in the meantime I'm wearing jeans in a size up, and they're too big, and I'm sick of that.
Callum is still really, really cute.

Chopped

2011-04-14T07:01:00.004-06:00

As soon as I wrote that post, I knew I wanted to cut my hair. Luckily, the vast majority of you agreed with me, so on Tuesday I went to my hair stylist and came out with eleven inches of hair in a bag to donate.

(As an aside, can anyone explain to me why hair is cute when it's on you, but as soon as it's no longer attached to your head it becomes totally gross?)

Anyway, my hair is shorter, it's curlier, it's lighter, and it's so much easier to deal with. I am so happy I did this, and with the warmer weather coming, I'm pretty sure my newly exposed neck agrees.

And Callum seems to agree as well, if his face is any indicator. It would seem that this kid has learned to smile for the camera--even when there isn't anyone standing behind it.

Fresh from the salon, hair straightened by the stylist:

And yesterday, after I'd washed it and returned it to its normal curly state:

To chop or not to chop

2011-04-11T07:01:00.006-06:00

I have come to a crossroads. And it involves my hair. I don't know whether to keep growing it out or cut it all off. And by "cut it all off" I mean not short-short, but somewhere between chin and shoulder length.

I've been growing it out for a couple of years now, I guess since my wedding? With the thought that it would be nice to have long hair for awhile, but not necessarily as a permanent state. I like the long hair--it's pretty and fun, and in some ways it's easy because I can just toss it back in a ponytail and be done with it.

But I like short hair too. My hair curls better when it's short, and it's faster to wash, and if I skip a shower one day it doesn't look quite as messy. Also, Callum has started pulling my hair regularly, particularly when he's nursing, and that's quite painful. I wouldn't mind having it out of his way.

People seem to have strong opinions about whether I look better with short hair or long, and unfortunately there's no consensus, so it's hard to decide on that count, too.

Here's my hair currently (or at least recently-ish):

And here's how I wear it most of the time, because it's a mess when it's not freshly washed and also because I want to keep it out of Callum's reach:

And here's how it looked when I wore it short:

And here it is partly grown out, so somewhere in the middle:

So what do you think? Should I keep it as it is, or cut it all off? Or something in between?

Breastfeeding and cloth diapers and pediatricians

2011-04-01T07:01:00.004-06:00

It's a new month, so it seems like a good time for updates all around, yes?

On the breastfeeding thing: We've pretty much settled into a routine on this one. When Callum is hungry, I nurse him, then I give him a bottle. He eats a ton of formula every day, meaning that he likely isn't getting a whole lot from nursing--but I do see breast milk in his diapers, so I know he's getting something. I have no idea how long this will last--I kind of wonder if at some point my supply will just dwindle down to nothing--but for now, this is working for us, and I'm at peace with it.

On the cloth diaper thing: Per all of your excellent advice way back when, we used disposables for the first month for the sake of our own sanity. Then we discussed it and tried to give cloth a try. We ordered one FuzziBunz one-size to try out, and liked it, so decided to take the plunge and order a full set of 24. (Actually a lovely and very generous birthday gift from my parents. Is it sad that I was actually really excited to get cloth diapers for my birthday?) We also replaced the microfiber inserts that come with the FuzziBunz with Joey-Bunz hemp inserts, which are more absorbent than microfiber.

So far they've worked out great. We had a couple of blips as we tried to get used to them, mostly leaking as we tried to figure out the best size settings for Callum's body. At first we only thought about the leg sizing and then they started leaking because the waist was too loose, but once we figured out that issue--and switched to the hemp inserts--we've had very few leaking issues. We change his diaper about once every three hours during the day and less often at night. He's slept up to 7-8 hours at night in these diapers with either no leak at all or just a very tiny wet spot on the flap of his onesie. Maybe as he gets older and starts peeing bigger amounts, we'll have to switch to disposables at night--but for now, this is working great for us and Torsten and I are both really happy we switched. It hasn't been a hassle at all, and the diapers are easy to use, and we feel good about having fabric next to his skin instead of plastic and chemicals, and not creating tons of waste. Plus, it's great that we pretty much never have to buy diapers again.

On the pediatrician: We love her. Callum's two-month appointment was on Wednesday, and it was great. He weighed in at 14 pounds, 1.5 ounces (which they said was 91st percentile, though looking at the CDC/WHO chart, I think it's actually more like 80-something), and he is exactly 24 inches long, which is the 81st percentile. So, basically, this is a fast-growing baby, who has finally gotten back to percentiles similar to where he was at birth. Though I try not to place too much stock in the percentiles... I'm mostly just glad that his weight and length aren't wildly disproportionate to one another.

The pediatrician told us we don't need to swaddle him anymore if it doesn't seem like he's getting anything out of it--so we tried a swaddle-free night and it went fine. He slept for seven hours without waking up. So, we'll see if he continues with that pattern, but I'm going to go ahead and tentatively say that he does not need the swaddle, and now can just sleep in a regular sleep sack.

The pediatrician also told us that his skin is dry, and she is now OK with us using lotion on him (unlike the last visit where she told us not to put anything on his skin just yet other than soap). So, we've started a new routine of moisturizing the baby twice a day, and you guys, this is quickly becoming one of my favorite moments of the entire day. Callum LOVES having lotion put on. He gets really happy and smiley and starts gurgling and babbling and kicking his legs, and it is just the sweetest thing ever. I could seriously listen to him all day with the adorable noises that he makes.

So! I'd say overall things are going pretty well over here. Other than the part where a giant section of the fence that separates our backyard from our neighbor's backyard blew over in yesterday's windstorm. That was less than awesome. But hey, it created a good opportunity to catch up with our neighbor, so that was nice. It's all about looking on the bright side, right?

Two months

2011-03-24T07:01:00.010-06:00

Dear Callum,

Today you are two months old. When I sat down to write this letter and started sorting through photos, I realized how incredibly glad I am that I have a blog to document this stuff--because it's only been two months and yet you've changed so much already that I have trouble remembering parts of what it was like when you were completely brand-new.

When I sat down to write your one-month letter I wondered how, in the future, I would know what to write about each month. How I would know what had changed from month, where you had been and where you were going. But now I know that you will always change from month to month, and I will always be able to follow along. It doesn't make me sad that you change, because even though we lose pieces of who you were, we gain so much more. You just get better and better, and we know it's going to continue like that.

This past month you really started smiling. You smile when I come in to get you out of your crib in the morning. You smile when we pick you up. You smile on the changing table, in your car seat, on your activity mat, in our laps. You smile at us pretty much whenever we smile at you. And, for the first time, just the other day, you smiled at a stranger because she smiled at you first.

You've also become incredibly chatty this month. You coo and gurgle and babble and shriek. You make noise whenever you see something exciting or interesting, which at this point is pretty much everything, including the ceiling. Sometimes you make these noises in response to us talking to you, and I swear it sounds like you're trying to answer, like you think you're talking.

In the past few weeks you've gotten really into your activity mat. You absolutely love lying there, batting at the toys with your hands and feet. Sometimes you get so excited that you wave all four of your limbs at once, and from across the room it looks like the entire activity mat is rocking. You can stay that way for close to an hour, vastly entertained and not at all bored. I keep thinking we need to switch out the toys on that thing to change it up for you--and we will--but for now you seem more than satisfied with the same old toy rotation every day.

You desperately want to roll over. You did it once, at 5 weeks, but that was just a fluke, and I'm pretty sure you weren't even trying when you did it. You were just on your belly and then a second later, on your back. Now, however, you WANT it... but you can't quite seem to recreate it. When we put you down on your belly, the flailing and grunting begins immediately. You wave your legs desperately in the air and push with your arms until you're stuck on your side. Then you grunt and shriek desperately, but you still aren't quite to the point of pushing yourself over to the other side. My guess is that it's coming very soon, though.

You're still growing like a weed. I took you for a quick self-weigh earlier this week and you came in at exactly 13 pounds, putting you in the 70th percentile. You are also very long. It seems like we just retired your newborn-size sleep sacks because you no longer had room to stretch out your legs in them, and now your feet are coming very close to the bottom of the small-size sleep sacks as well. We have retired a good chunk of your 0-3 month clothing, and find ourselves digging into the 3-6 month drawer more and more. Your growth is no surprise, though, given how much you eat. You're taking upwards of 30 ounces of formula per day, in addition to nursing. The beautiful thing is that you've started taking more food at each feeding, and eating fewer times per day. This is especially awesome at night, when you often (though not always) give us 5- or 6-hour uninterrupted stretches of sleep, and one glorious night, you slept straight through from 11 to 7.

By now it's undeniable that you are infatuated with your dad. Whenever he gives you a bottle, you stare up into his face the whole time. His voice soothes you and you stop fussing when he picks you up. When he holds you, you smile and coo, and though you can sleep anywhere, you never look as peaceful as when you're sleeping in his arms. You're a dead ringer for him, too--and by now I'm almost positive your hair is red, like his when he was a kid.

You are still an incredibly laid back baby. You truly never fuss unless you're hungry or covered in bodily fluids. Even a massively wet or dirty diaper isn't enough to bother you--only if it leaks all over your clothing, or you spit up all over yourself, will you get annoyed enough to fuss. In generally you are one of the happiest, calmest babies I've ever seen. And have I mentioned how adorable you are? Because you are also most definitely one of the cutest babies I've ever seen.

When I look at you I sometimes have trouble believing that you are the baby I was pregnant with all that time. You are the baby we dreamed about and planned for and couldn't wait to meet. And now that we've met, you are this real little person, with feelings and opinions and personality. You are a person all your own, and we are so lucky that we get to know you and love you and be with you every day.

Love,
Mama

Newborn attachment

2011-03-16T07:01:00.004-06:00

So it turns out, I love having a baby. LOVE it.

It helps that we've been incredibly lucky with Callum so far, and he is generally calm and laid-back. So far he's been sleeping like a dream and eating like a champ, and fussing pretty much only when he's hungry. I know at some point this will change, but we are loving it while it lasts.

It also helps that he's pretty much the cutest thing ever. He's smiling up a storm. He coos when you talk to him. He's captivated by toys. He likes to lie on his activity mat and wave his hands and legs so they bump into the toys. He can do that for upwards of 45 minutes at a time without getting bored. He's rolled over once (tummy to back), and now he's trying really hard to recreate it. Every day during tummy time, he grunts and tries to heave himself over. He's getting really close. I imagine in a couple weeks he'll be doing it regularly... and that will be the end of tummy time.

I love this baby so, so much, to the point where it almost hurts. I love him so much that it almost makes me wistful because it's just so MUCH, if that makes any sense. I love him so much that sometimes I miss him while I'm holding him.

And it has been so awesome to read the blogs of other new moms, and see what's the same and what's different for each of us. I'm constantly impressed by how we all adapt, how we all figure out what works for us and our own individual babies, and how things that aren't right for me or Torsten or Callum at all can be totally, utterly right for other people.

One area in which I notice that I am different from a lot of new moms is in terms of how I express my attachment to Callum. I love holding him, for sure. But I also love being able to put him down. I love that he is entertained on his activity mat and in his bouncy seat, that he sleeps peacefully in his swing and on his boppy. I have no problem putting him down and taking a break so I can eat, shower, work, call family or friends, blog, sleep, spend time with Torsten, or just relax.

I also have no problem letting other people hold him. This never bothered me even when he was just two days old. For me, there's enough baby to go around, and I'll have plenty of time to enjoy him when other friends and family members are done loving on him. I don't feel compelled to take him back when he's in someone else's arms. And I love how much he loves his dad, and how much time they spend together. I enjoy that Torsten can give Callum his bottle, and that they can snuggle together happily for hours.

And, I don't mind leaving the house briefly without him. I can spend an hour running errands, or go to a meeting with our accountant, knowing that he's safe at home with his dad, and that's totally fine. Of course I'm happy to see his adorable little face when I get back... but sometimes it's nice to be out and about on my own, just me. (Though I will say that I am not yet ready to leave him for an extended period of time, or with anyone but Torsten. Maybe in a few more weeks.)

I've been struck by how other new moms feel differently. How it feels off for them when they aren't holding their baby, how it feels totally unnatural for their baby to sleep in his crib in his own room because they want him right there next to them all the time.

I can totally understand why they would feel that way... but I personally do not. I love my baby, I love having him with me, I love holding him, and believe me, I shower tons and tons of affection on him (as does his dad), but I am also happy and relaxed when he's not in my arms, or even if he's in a different room.

And the great thing is... all these ways of being, of feeling, of attaching to your newborn? They're all fine. All of us have happy, loved, well-adjusted babies. All of us are meeting their needs and our own, and enjoying the process. It's just a very early example of how, as parents, we all have to figure out what works for us. And if we can do that without judging people who have found that different things work for them? So much the better.

Two years of dog

2011-03-08T07:01:00.005-07:00

Dear Montana,

I'm a few days late blogging about it, but I promise we didn't forget the actual event: this past Saturday was the two-year anniversary of the day we adopted you.

Last year when I wrote you a letter I had a lot to say about how you'd evolved: you'd gone from a timid, shaky, bony, classic rescue dog to a confident, healthy, active, happy, beloved pet. And this year? Well, you're still a happy beloved pet. There hasn't been a whole lot of evolution. And that's a good thing, because you're pretty close to perfect exactly the way you are.

Things that have changed for you this year have mostly had to do with the environment surrounding you. When I got pregnant you had to cut way back on your trips to the dog park, because I was too sick to take you, and even once the morning sickness had passed, the trips stayed a lot more sporadic than they had been. Now there's a baby and as a result you've been pushed lower on the totem pole. But I will say that I was mentally prepared to not be able to deal with you when I had a baby, but I haven't felt that way at all. Thank goodness, because I can't imagine the guilt if I stopped thinking you were wonderful and adorable.

Our neighbors also got a cat this year, and as a result I'm surprised our front window is still intact; that cat likes to walk in front of it and sometimes even sit on the sill, like he's taunting you, and you have thrown yourself into the window trying to get at the cat so many times that I'm surprised you haven't sustained brain damage by now. But I'm pretty sure if you and the cat ever actually got into the same room, the cat would end up being the one in charge. Because you just aren't an alpha dog, and I'm pretty sure that cat is an alpha cat.

I know you're still undecided about this whole baby thing at the moment, but I promise you, in a few short months you will be totally on board with his presence here. Because in a few short months the kid will start eating solid foods, and you know what I hear about babies? I hear they're messy when they eat, and I'm pretty sure you'll be reaping the benefits of those messes. So if I were you I'd start sucking up to him now so that down the line, he'll let you stand directly underneath him while he eats.

You still have your own spots and your own little routines. You like to lie in your bed in the living room, and you love your crate in our bedroom. Every night when we go to bed, you follow us up the stairs and go straight into your crate, where you lie and wait for me to give you your bedtime treat. Then you lie down on your side and go straight to sleep. You're still great in the mornings, too; your bladder must truly be made of steel, because you can sleep all morning and not need to go out. We thank you for that, and hope that Callum learns from your example sooner rather than later.

You love rugs and towels and blankets, and if we aren't paying attention you will manage to take over a tummy time blanket before we actually get the baby onto it. You think all blankets are for you, and even though it's annoying when you get another clean baby blanket dirty, you are so cute and blankets make you so happy that we can't be mad at you for it; we just let you stay on the blanket and go get another one for the baby. See, you aren't our last priority in everything. Right?

I would really love to get inside your head and know what you're thinking most of the time. I'd like to know how you see the world, the way you understand things. I'm curious if you wonder, for example, why we don't turn the heat down when it's boiling hot in the summer, or if you think the automatic windows in the back seat of the car are like magic. I know your brain is tiny, but I really want to know how it functions.

But most of all if I could get inside your head, I'd make sure you know that you are a crucial part of our family. You are sweet and loving and adorable, and we are so glad you're here. And for our end of the bargain, we promise not to let the baby torture you as he gets older. You will be his first lesson in the proper way to treat animals. Because you are a lovely and delicate dog, and you deserve to be treated accordingly.

Love,
Mom

About his name

2011-02-28T07:01:00.001-07:00

We've gotten a lot of questions about Callum's name. We know it's not the most common name in the US, and that a lot of people here haven't heard of it. But the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, so that's nice. And who knows? Maybe people hate it and just aren't telling us. But that's fine. It's his name, and I have no need to know if people dislike it. That's the whole point of not sharing the name until the baby is actually born.

Edited to add: His name is pronounced CAL-um. Same Cal sound as Calvin, or calorie. Just for those who were wondering! (Though the automated appointment reminder we got from the children's hospital for our lactation consultation a couple weeks ago pronounced it kah-LOOM, which was a new one.)

We picked the name by process of elimination, really. There wasn't a lightning bolt moment for us. It wasn't that we hit upon the name and knew instantly that it was THE name. It was a contender for a long time, but there were other contenders too, and nothing that was far outpacing the others.

But it was one of the only names that neither of us vetoed. One of the only names that stuck as we kept thinking about it. And when we finally decided at 30-something weeks that it was the name we were going to use, we both felt really good about it. And now that he's here, I LOVE his name. It's such a great name. And it suits him so perfectly. I love the way it sounds, the way it fits with our last name, the feeling it conveys. Everything about it is exactly right.

Our naming philosophy was basically this: there is no name that everyone will like, so let's pick something that we ourselves like. We wanted something that was at least two syllables to balance out our shorter last name. We wanted something that had nickname potential. We wanted something that sounded pleasing. We wanted something that worked on a baby or an adult. We wanted something that was a real name, not made up, but had a fresh sound to it. We wanted something that would work in both English and German.

Callum is actually a Scottish name. It is relatively uncommon in the US, but it's very popular in the UK. According to the UK government's name statistics website, Callum was the 28th most popular boy name in the UK in 2009. And in the '90s, it was even more popular in the UK: number 8 for boys overall in 1998.

In the US, on the other hand, Callum was the 864th most popular boy name in 2009. It was number 967 in 2008, and never in the top 1,000 boy names before that. So it still has a ways to go. But its popularity is definitely climbing. In fact, if you look at the Social Security Administration's non-top 1,000 forms (which I found via Swistle), which lists every name that was given to at least five babies in a given year, you can trace it back to 1983 in the US. Based on that data, I made a little chart in Excel to show how the name has changed in popularity in the US from 1983, when five babies were named Callum, to 2009, when 239 babies were named Callum.

So you can see that his name is on its way up. We don't expect it to rise quite as fast or as far as Isabella, for example, which hit the top 1,000 in the US for the first time in 1990 as number 895 and shot all the way up to number 1 less than 20 years later, in 2009. But we do expect it to become more popular, and therefore we also expect that people will become more familiar with it over time.

So hopefully he won't spend his life having people ask how to spell his name when he introduces himself. But if he does, so be it. Torsten has that issue and it doesn't bother him at all. But if it bothers Callum, he can introduce himself as Cal and be done with it. That's what's nice about a name with nickname options.

Also, you'll notice one criterion that was not on our list: meaning. In general I couldn't care less about name meanings. It seems they all mean something like "light" or "gift from god" or whatever, and I just don't care about that. But somewhere along the way I discovered that Callum means "dove," and I just LOVE that meaning. I think it is beautiful and unusual and perfect.

Just like him. And his name.

One month

2011-02-24T07:01:00.014-07:00

Dear Callum,

Today you are one month old. It has been a fantastic month. As every new parent says, it is simultaneously shocking that it's already been a month and amazing to think we ever had a life without you. Though I will say that I very much can remember what life was like before you. It just feels like it was a long time ago.

You are an incredibly calm and laid-back baby. You have slept well from the start, waking up only every four hours at night to eat. You sleep peacefully in your crib, in the car, in your stroller, in your swing, in the Moby, and in our arms. We have tried really hard not to get complacent about this, and keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and you to stop sleeping entirely and become fussy. So far, this hasn't happened. Your dad especially has been waiting for this day, because he asked the pediatrician in the hospital when we would know if you were going to turn out to be a fussy baby, and she said that if you weren't fussy by a month, you likely never would be. God, I hope she's right.

In the past month you have become very alert. By now you stay awake for long stretches, not because you're hungry or uncomfortable but just because you are checking things out. You are captivated by your toys, and in the past week or so you have started being interested in not just black and white things, but colorful toys as well. You can spend 45 minutes or more just watching a toy as we shake it, squeak it, and move it around in front of you.

When we smile at you, sometimes you smile back, though not consistently. This may just be a reflex, since sometimes you also copy our faces when we raise our eyebrows or stick out our tongues at you, but that doesn't make it any less adorable. We still haven't managed to get a photo of your full-on smile, but last night I did manage to snap the tail end of a grin.

You are incredibly strong. Doctors and nurses have been commenting on this since day 1, and it's only become more and more apparent over time. Your arm strength is particularly striking, especially when we are getting you dressed and trying to maneuver the sleeves. Your neck strength is also quite noticeable, and not just during tummy time--whenever we hold you on our chests, you lift your head and look around for many seconds at a time.

I know you're only a month old and therefore it's a little early to tell, but it seems like you are just head over heels for your dad already. Everyone says you look like him, and it looks like you're a huge fan of him as well. You are totally captivated by him and can stare at him for ages. When you're crying he can calm you down just by picking you up or talking to you. You respond instantaneously to the sound of his voice, and you can sleep peacefully on his chest for hours. I could just die of combined happiness and cuteness whenever I watch the two of you together.

You are a champion eater, and you're growing accordingly. We last weighed you at the pediatrician's office last week, on your three-week birthday. At the time you were 9 pounds, 3.5 ounces, which put you in the 52nd percentile for weight. By now I'm guessing that you're over nine and a half pounds, which would keep you in a similar percentile. At this point you are finally starting to grow into your 0-3 month outfits. I have been waiting for this, because you have a whole drawer of adorable 0-3 clothing, and I am very much looking forward to dressing you in all of it. You are going to be one very well-dressed child.

Montana is the only one of us who is still undecided about you. Recently she has started acting a little concerned when you cry, and she sniffs you occasionally, but for the most part she just ignores you. Or when she hears us talking to you, she noses herself in the way and starts pawing at us to pay attention to her instead of you. But I'm pretty sure her main thought process at this point is something along the lines of, "If I lie near the baby but face the other way, then I can guard him while also pretending he isn't there."

We, on the other hand, are the very opposite of undecided about you. You are pretty much the best thing to ever happen to us. We can't get over how amazing and adorable we find you, no matter what you're doing. I'm incredibly glad to be sharing this experience with someone who's as invested as I am, because I don't think anyone else would be as interested in talking about every little thing that you do. To us, you are the most fascinating thing in existence.

We are so glad to have you in our family.

Love,
Mama

Postpartum modesty

2011-02-22T07:01:00.003-07:00

You know, before I gave birth everyone told me that when you're in labor you lose all modesty. That made sense to me, and I was expecting it. And it definitely happened.

But what I didn't realize is that after the labor, your modesty doesn't come back, exactly.

I mean, it's back now, for the most part. I'm not about to whip off my shirt entirely when I nurse in public. I don't have any photos of my placenta or anything, and if I did I certainly wouldn't be showing them in public. I wouldn't answer the door naked or anything like that.

But we were in the hospital for two days after Callum was born, and during that time, I did not get dressed.

Maybe this is just me? I honestly don't know because I haven't heard anyone else discuss this. But when I was in the hospital with Callum I pretty much spent the whole time just wearing those awesome mesh panties they give you. I also had a hospital gown, which I wore from time to time, for photos, and certainly whenever I had to leave my room. But we were having nursing issues, and also focused on bonding, and one of the ways to address both of those is skin on skin time, and you know what gets in the way of skin on skin time? A hospital gown.

So for the vast majority of those two days, I was in the my hospital bed, sitting on a disposable protective sheet, wearing only mesh underwear, as people came in and out of the room.

Not visitors. I mean, if friends or family had come to visit us in the hospital, I would have gotten dressed, or at least put on my hospital gown. I didn't lose my modesty to THAT extent.

But I also didn't realize how many non-visitor people would come into the room during those two days. There were the nurses, of course. There were also the other people who would come in regularly to check my vital signs or Callum's. (These were checked at separate times by separate people. I don't know if they were nurses or medical assistants or residents or what. But since the baby and I did not get checked at the same time, it felt like they were there a lot.)

Then there was the pediatric resident who came in a couple times to get Callum for his routine exams. And the pediatrician who came in several times to discuss his jaundice treatment. And the med student who came in offering a free massage. And the different lactation consultants who came in to help us at several different points. And the volunteer who came to do Callum's hearing test. And the room service people who brought us our meals. And the housekeeping staff who cleaned the room. And the maintenance guy who fixed our broken clock. And so on and so forth.

Other than the maintenance guy (for whom I did cover up... because he knocked!), all of these people saw me in my mesh-undied glory. And none of them blinked an eye about it. And what can I say? If they had blinked an eye, I would have blamed them... because they didn't knock before they came in the room. So I can only assume that they were expecting to see me in a state of near-undress.

Of course nothing was quite as awesome as the nurses who would stroll into the room and casually pull aside the mesh undies to check on my bleeding level. Is this normal? Again, I don't know, because I haven't heard anyone discuss this situation in much detail. Maybe they did it more often in my case because I passed a very large blood clot a few hours after delivery and they wanted to make sure I wasn't having bleeding issues after that. Or maybe it's standard for all postpartum women. But either way, I definitely got used to having people I'd never seen before, or only seen once or twice, look in my underwear. And then push really hard on my uterus for good measure, to make sure it was tight and small the way it was supposed to be. (It always was. But that didn't stop them from checking again the next time.)

And the thing is... writing this is making me cringe a little bit. Like maybe I really am the only one who had this experience? Maybe all the nurses were sitting at the nurses' station being like, "Oh my god have you seen the woman in room 506? The naked one? What is she thinking?" and playing rock, paper, scissors on who had to come check on me and who got to go take care of all the other post-partum women who were fully dressed and beautifully made up.

I'm guessing not, somehow (and when I mentioned this to one friend from our Bradley class she told me that she also hung out in her room in just the mesh undies til she was discharged, so at least I know I'm not TOTALLY alone), but my point is that while in retrospect this makes me cringe? At the time, it didn't. It just felt normal. Everyone acted like it was normal, I got used to people poking around in my underwear, it was fine. I guess I took my cue from the nurses, and they very much acted like it was normal.

Also, you know, I HAD just pushed a baby out while squatting on the floor and grunting in front of a midwife, a nurse, and a med student while wearing only a sports bra. Then several other nurses had shown up and cleaned the blood off the floor and watched me have a very private area stitched back together. Then ANOTHER nurse had shown me how to use the peri bottle to avoid wanting to die every time I had to pee. So, you know, before I even got to the recovery room there were already quite a few people who had seen me quite intimately, and I guess that changes your standards a little bit.

So yeah. I'm glad to be home now, wearing clothes and not having people barge in on me naked all the time and grab my underwear to see what's going on down there.

I tend to get sick of people saying that nobody ever told them X or Y about pregnancy, because I feel like in general, and especially online, people really do talk about most pregnancy things, including the very un-glamorous stuff, and thanks to that openness, I didn't encounter many surprises in labor and delivery. But this one genuinely caught me off guard, I really had never heard people talk about this before, and therefore I'm writing about it even though it's making me cringe.

So please, please, please: tell me I'm not alone.

Two years in Denver

2011-02-17T07:01:00.006-07:00

Yesterday marked the two-year anniversary of the day Torsten and I drove into Denver for the first time, in our newly purchased Honda Civic packed with our more fragile and valuable belongings. Neither of us had ever been to Colorado before that day.

When we got here it was just the two of us. Our car was our biggest shared asset. There was nothing tying us down. We had both kept our jobs in DC, so we could have moved anywhere. But we picked Denver sight unseen because we knew that it had what we were looking for.

When we got here we had been married for a couple of months. We didn't have a dog, or a house. We had talked about kids but we knew that we wanted to be married for at least a year, possibly a year and a half, before I got pregnant. I hadn't had my lap-band yet. Owning his own company was just a vague half-thought for Torsten.

All of that stuff... our lack of mortgage, kids, anything tying us down... that's what allowed us to move to Denver. That's what allowed us to pick a town based solely on internet research, purchase a used car, pack up our stuff, and go.

Not that it was a straightforward process. We decided we wanted to move away from DC over a year before we made it happen, and we picked Denver at least six months before we moved. Getting the details straightened out was a slow, painful process, but only because we weren't aware that we'd be able to keep our jobs and were desperately looking for new ones. That was our only concern.

Now things are different. Now we have a mortgage, a dog, a baby. We have a house and quite a bit of furniture. Torsten has a company that is very focused on the Colorado market. We have friends here. We're putting down roots. Roots that have been demonstrated to us so clearly over the past few weeks by the incredible number of amazing local friends who have called, texted, emailed, brought over food, and generally been wonderful and helpful and supportive.

It would be a lot harder to pick up and move now. Luckily, we don't want to. Denver is as perfect for us as we were hoping it would be. And we're planning to stay here for the rest of our lives. Preferably in this house, even. Because this is exactly where we want to be.

And now we're raising our very own native Coloradan:

My experience with breastfeeding (so far)

2011-02-14T07:01:00.005-07:00

Before I get into the details of this, I have to say that I'm a little wary about posting about this topic. The last three weeks have involved an onslaught of information from a ton of different people, many of them experts in the field, and much of it conflicting or at the very least involving incompatible suggestions and approaches. This is one of the very few topics where I feel that Google has failed me; every website contains such different information that it is impossible to get any clear understanding of best practices, and instead research becomes overwhelming. At this point I feel totally maxed out on suggestions, resources, and new approaches. I have hit the limit of new websites I'm willing to check out and new people I'm willing to turn to for advice.

However, I'm posting about it anyway for several reasons: a) we now have a lactation consultant we trust and a plan that is working for us and that seems to be sustainable in the long term; b) when I first posted on Twitter about our breastfeeding issues, the outpouring of support was so helpful and encouraging, and I think that this supportive blogging community is the one place that I am not yet maxed out on discussing this issue with, even if this post does generate a few comments that I'm not prepared to deal with; and c) this has been a very important, if challenging, experience for me and I want to record it and share it in hopes that others can relate.

So! That giant disclaimer out of the way, let's talk about my breastfeeding experience.

At one day old Callum was diagnosed with a mild case of jaundice. The way to get rid of jaundice is for the baby to pee and poop out the excess bilirubin in his system. The newborn has 24 hours to pee before the doctors start getting concerned, and Callum didn't pee for the first time until more like 36 hours. And, even when he did start peeing, it wasn't very much or very often, and his bilirubin levels stayed elevated. Meanwhile, I was producing only a couple drops of colostrum at a time. I thought this was totally normal; everything I'd read said that you only produce a bit of colostrum until your milk comes in, but that it's all the baby needs. But the hospital seemed to feel otherwise. One nurse told me that I should be producing multiple teaspoons of colostrum at a time. The lactation consultant came in and pronounced that there were several "red flags" about my ability to breastfeed: the low colostrum production; the fact that I have a thyroid issue (though it is well-controlled); the fact that my breasts are "widely spaced"; the fact that my breasts didn't grow during pregnancy, although my nipples did. (Others have since told me that all of this information was actually inaccurate.)

There were also some positive signs: when I nursed, we could hear Callum swallowing, though not that often; his glucose levels remained stable; he only lost 3% of his birth weight before discharge. But nobody focused on those. Because of his jaundice, the baby needed to eat; I wasn't producing food to give to him, so we started him on formula supplements. I refused to give him a bottle because of everything I'd read about subsequent latch issues and nipple confusion, so first we tried a supplemental nursing system (SNS).

The SNS seemed like a great idea--basically it's a bottle of formula with a very small tube that is taped to the mother's breast so that when the baby suckles at the nipple, he also pulls in formula from the bottle. That way he is still stimulating the mom's milk supply and getting the nursing experience, but also getting the extra nourishment that he needs. But in practice, it was a huge pain in the ass. We only had the disposable one, which required two people to work: me to nurse with the tubes taped to my breasts, and Torsten to hold the bottle upright and pinch off the flow to the tubes whenever Callum stopped suckling so that milk wouldn't keep pouring into his mouth and all over his face. It was really hard to attach the tubes correctly so that they ended up in the right part of Callum's mouth when he latched. The tubes were also incredibly narrow so that the formula passed through them very slowly, meaning that every feeding took an hour or more. Plus, as we discovered later, Callum wasn't getting enough food through them, so he kept waking up hungry even shortly after being fed. You can imagine how fun it was for both of us to get up every hour or two all night long our first night home and spend an hour trying to feed our baby together.

The day after our first night at home, Callum had a pediatrician appointment at which we discovered that he had lost another 5 ounces since his discharge the previous day. The pediatrician was not happy about this, even though he had still lost less than 10% of his birth weight overall, and started talking about switching to a bottle. This was after Callum had been screaming in the waiting room because he was hungry, and I had been trying to nurse him and he kept latching and pulling off because there was no milk yet. We did this over and over again while he screamed and eventually he was crying and I was crying and then the pediatrician was talking about bottles and that just sent me over the edge.

So, on the way home from the pediatrician I called our Bradley childbirth class instructor, who is also a lactation consultant, and she totally saved my life. She talked me off the ledge and gave me a workable plan. She suggested that we dump the stupid SNS and switch to syringes, which would allow us to feed him more efficiently without worrying about nipple confusion. So we did that, he ate great, and when we went back to the pediatrician for a follow-up appointment the next day he had gained 5 ounces, so that was good news.

Then we started the process of trying to nurse him as often as possible to get my supply to come in, and cut down on his formula in hopes of weaning him off it entirely. At this point my milk seemed to be in, sort of: there was definitely something, but it was hard to tell how much. I wasn't engorged, I wasn't leaking, I never felt let-down, I didn't feel pain or fullness. We rented a Medela Symphony from the hospital, but when I pump, almost nothing comes out. I could hear Callum swallowing when he nursed, but not that much. And he hadn't pooped in several days, though he was peeing regularly. It was also hard with the syringe because it felt kind of like we were fattening up a goose--we were basically shooting formula directly down his throat, and while he happily took all that we gave him, it was really hard to tell how much he actually needed and how much he was eating just because we were pumping it into his mouth.

At 10 days old, with my milk supply still in the same questionable state, we went back to the pediatrician for Callum's two-week visit. Having not loved the first provider we'd seen, we switched to someone else, who we liked much better. She was great and very supportive and spent over an hour with us, discussing the situation. Callum had lost two ounces since his previous appointment, so that wasn't good, and she suggested a new feeding plan: nurse him every 2-3 hours, and not more often, because if he snacks all the time he will never fully drain my breasts and they won't be fully stimulated to refill, and give him a bottle after every other feeding. At that point he seemed to have a good enough latch that there was no concern about nipple confusion.

So, we went home and started this plan, and it worked pretty well. By the beginning of last week, he was back to his birth weight, which made the pediatrician happy. He had no latch confusion issues, but his nursing still wasn't awesome. Sometimes he would happily latch and suckle for 15 minutes each side. Sometimes he would be really sleepy and not willing to latch. And sometimes (and these were the worst times) he would scream and scream and scream and be in total hysterics and it would take me 45 minutes to an hour to calm him down enough to latch. And no matter which of the three it was, I always had milk left after he was done, and he would always drink several ounces of formula afterward, which was very disheartening. But at least he was eating.

So, last Wednesday I took the pediatrician's referral and went to see a new lactation consultant, who is also an MD, at the local children's hospital. And it was like FINALLY there was someone who listened, who paid attention, who saw what was happening, who was encouraging and helpful and suggested a truly sustainable plan of action. And things have been SO MUCH BETTER since then.

First, she took one look at Callum's latch and said it was way too shallow. He wasn't latching on deep enough to pull down a lot of milk, which is why I always had milk left even when he was nursing for 15 minutes per side. She was very surprised to hear that I hadn't experienced any pain while he was nursing, given how shallow his latch was. She checked in his mouth and said that his lingual frenulum was too tight, preventing him from opening his mouth wide enough to latch properly, and also from sticking his tongue out far enough to suckle properly. The convenient thing about having her be in the hospital is that she was able to page the ear-nose-throat doctor on call and he came down and cut the frenulum that same day. She also had us start using a nipple shield to teach him to open his mouth wider when nursing.

She also said that in general he is a very laid-back baby, which is great in a lot of ways but not when he's nursing. He is very lackadaisical about nursing, and will often stop nursing entirely and every effort I make to stimulate him to start again won't work. Lactation consultants, nurses, and doctors had suggested all different ways of stimulating him: his face, his ear, his clavicle, his hands, his belly, his feet--but this lactation consultant suggested pulling gently on his arm and moving it back and forth, and that is the only thing of all these suggestions that has actually worked.

She did say that I have a somewhat compromised supply--and we may never get to an exclusive breastfeeding relationship--but that I definitely have enough milk to make it worthwhile for both him and me, and that even if we always have to supplement with formula, I should definitely keep nursing too. And it was so encouraging to hear that. By the time I met with her, I was mentally preparing myself to be told that I had no milk to speak of and should just give up on the nursing thing altogether. And it was really nice to be told that I do have milk, even if it's not a ton.

AND she told me that if he screams, it is absolutely not worth trying to get him to nurse. She said if he is hysterical we should give him a bit of formula and see if that takes the edge off and makes him willing to nurse. If not, just try again later. So far since then he has only had one screaming fit, and after half an ounce of formula he was perfectly happy to settle in and nurse for half an hour.

She told me something that has really stuck with me: the first rule of feeding is that the baby needs to be fed, and the second rule is that the parents need to enjoy feeding him. This principle is so helpful to refer back to whenever we are struggling with the feeding. Callum is fed, he is gaining weight and he is healthy, and after that the goal is to find an approach to feeding him that we are all comfortable with.

So since then things have been so much better. His latch is much wider and with the arm thing I have consistently been able to motivate him to be a much more efficient eater. He pretty much always nurses for half an hour, and I know that he's getting milk, even if it's not a ton. He's still eating plenty of formula, but that's totally OK.

The thing about these struggles is that I wasn't expecting the emotions that would come along with them. When I was pregnant I read this great article about breastfeeding vs. formula feeding, and I thought after reading it that if breastfeeding ended up not working for us, I would be OK with that. I didn't realize how emotionally attached I was to the idea of breastfeeding, or how much of a failure I would feel when I thought that it wasn't going to work for us.

But the thing is that when I sat down and tried to work through my feelings about the whole thing, I realized that the vast majority of reasons I wanted to breastfeed had a lot more to do with me than with Callum. Breastfeeding is great, and it's good for the baby--but formula provides everything that he needs. I do want him to breastfeed so that he can get my antibodies, especially while he's too young to be vaccinated. But most of the other reasons are really about me. I like the convenience of it, and the fact that it's free. I like the relationship that comes from it--but I think that same relationship, or a very similar one, can be built through bottle-feeding. And honestly, I wanted the weight-loss benefits of the extra calories burned.

I had a conversation with Nilsa (who's been through something similar) last week about this whole experience and she pointed something out that really resonated with me: this is just the first of many times as parents that we will need to take a step back and ask if our concerns are actually about our child's health and well-being or if they have more to do with our own expectations. It's a lesson that we all have to learn, as parents, and while I certainly would have been thrilled if we'd been able to have a straightforward exclusive breastfeeding setup, and would not have minded learning this lesson just a little bit later, I do think the experience has been good for me. Though I still wouldn't choose it.

I'm still hopeful that now that Callum can open his mouth fully, and now that he's nursing more efficiently, my milk supply will increase. But an exclusive breastfeeding relationship doesn't seem to be in the cards for us at the moment, and I'm OK with that. I still feel a pang every now and then when I hear another mom say that her baby has never eaten anything but her breast milk, but that's just not how it's going to be for us. And that's fine too.

And lastly, some more photos, because I hear that it's a prosecutable crime to write a post about a baby and not include pictures:

Callum's birth story

2011-02-07T07:01:00.008-07:00

Depending on how you count it, my labor was either very long or very short. If you include pre-labor (the less intense contractions that got me to 4 cm), I was in labor for a total of 33.5 hours. But if you only count active labor (from 4 cm to delivery), it was only 5.5 hours.

It's weird because the time kind of blurs, and so does the memory of it all. My memory of what happened during his birth isn't chronological. Like, I know at one point I cried, but I can't remember when. And I know that I was at 4 cm, and then I was at 6.5 cm, and logically I know how much time passed between those two things, but in my memory it doesn't feel that way.

Anyway, let's start at the beginning. At around 8 a.m. on Sunday, January 23, I woke up and felt a pop low-down in my abdomen. It was in the vicinity of the baby, but I could tell it wasn't a baby kick. I thought to myself, "I wonder if my water just broke." Then I stood up and fluid gushed down my legs all over the floor. So that pretty much confirmed it.

I wasn't really in labor at that point--I had been vaguely crampy all night, and had woken up a few times wondering if something was on its way to getting started--but soon after, the contractions started. At first they just felt like period cramps, and were very irregular and mild. Over the course of the day they got progressively stronger and closer together. I spoke to my midwife, who said that she wanted me to check into the hospital 12 hours after my water had broken, but that we wouldn't even discuss induction until the next morning--she just wanted to keep an eye on things.

So, I labored at home for most of Sunday. I took a shower, Torsten and I went for a walk, I ate some lunch, and I spent most of the day on my yoga mat and birthing ball. We watched the Packers-Bears playoff game and timed my contractions. By around 4 p.m. they met the criteria for going to the hospital--less than four minutes apart, lasting at least a minute, and had been that way for an hour. I still wasn't sure that I was in active labor, per se, but since we had to go to the hospital in a few hours anyway, the midwife said we might as well just come in now.

When we got to the hospital, since my water was broken they did not do an internal exam to check how dilated I was. I was also able to skip triage and check directly into labor and delivery. My contractions had slowed down somewhat in both frequency and intensity ever since I'd gotten off the birthing ball and into the car, so we waited for them to pick back up. Torsten and I walked and walked around the hospital halls, and I spent a lot of time on the birthing ball. Both of those things caused the contractions to pick back up, but whenever I would stop doing that and just lie in bed, the contractions would slow down again. The midwife said this was not a good sign as far as labor progressing on its own--in true active labor, nothing would be able to stop the contractions. But the contractions that I was having were definitely quite painful--every time I had one, everything else would just kind of stop, and I would lean into Torsten and groan through it and try to breathe, and he would hold me and rub my lower back until it ended.

We continued like this for most of the evening and then the midwife suggested that I take a sleeping pill so that I could get some rest. She was concerned that I was going to use up all my energy in early labor and then the next day would come, I wouldn't have progressed much, and I would already be so exhausted that I wouldn't have the energy to get through active labor and delivery. So, we agreed, I took a sleeping pill, and I managed to get about five hours of sleep.

In the morning a different midwife was on duty and she came in to discuss the options with me. My contractions were still only about 6-8 minutes apart at that point and while they were painful, they weren't incredibly intense (especially in retrospect now that I can compare them to the much more intense contractions I felt later on). They still had not done a cervical check at this point and did not want to because of the infection risk with the broken water.

The midwife said that since it had been 24 hours since my water had broken, and I still wasn't in active labor, we needed to discuss options for augmenting the labor, such as Cytotec or Pitocin. I asked if I could have another hour to walk, spend more time on the birthing ball, and so on, and hope that those things would naturally kick my body into active labor. She said that was fine, and one way or another I would soon be on my way and then we could set up the birthing tub. However, before I started walking and all that again, she wanted to check on the baby with the external monitor.

When we put on the monitor, we discovered that the baby's heart rate was dropping during every contraction, and not coming up fast enough after they ended. The midwife wasn't overly concerned about this because between contractions his heart rate was nice and strong, with lots of accelerations and variation, which is what they look for. But they weren't happy about how low it was dipping during the contractions or how long it was taking to speed back up afterward.

They decided to keep him on the monitor for a bit longer to see if anything changed. But we had a lot of trouble with the external monitor--I needed to change positions during each contraction, and whenever I moved we would lose his heartbeat, and they would struggle to find it again. It was also hard to time his heart rate against my contractions to figure out exactly how long it was staying low after the contractions ended.

After awhile of the extended external monitoring and ensuing confusion, the midwife said that we needed a new plan of action. Since his heart rate was not improving, she really wanted to get the labor started--and Cytotec was not an option since once it's taken, it can't be controlled, and she didn't want to risk having it cause strong contractions that put the baby into distress and couldn't be stopped. So, she recommended Pitocin, since that can be turned on and off instantaneously. And with the Pitocin, she wanted to use an internal monitor (the kind that screws into the baby's scalp) so that we could have a better, more consistent understanding of what the baby's heart rate was doing during and after each contraction.

I think this is where I cried--I was terrified. (But I'm not sure... because I have a vague memory that the crying was at nighttime, and this was in the morning.) I'd heard all sorts of terrible things about Pitocin and the really strong contractions that it causes. The internal monitor meant that not only would I not be able to do the water birth that I had planned (and that was my main plan for pain management), but that my range of motion in general would be severely limited for the rest of the birth. I was also scared that the baby would respond poorly to the Pitocin, which would have left a c-section as the only option.

Luckily, everyone who was there supporting me was so great. I love love love my midwives--and I loved that I was able to know without a doubt that her recommendation for next steps was the right choice. I loved that I could absolutely trust her opinion and that I knew she was doing what she felt was best for the baby and for me. And Torsten was wonderful--not just in supporting me and making me feel better about the change in plans, but in general throughout the entire birth. Our nurse was also awesome... incredibly supportive and encouraging, and stayed with us during the entire birth.

They hooked up the internal monitor late in the morning, at maybe around 11? And since they had to go internal to do it, they were able to finally do a cervical check, and they found that I was dilated to 4 cm and 90% effaced. The internal monitor was a great idea in theory--not only did it provide continuous monitoring of the baby's heart rate, but it also monitored my contractions, so it was able to tell us exactly how the contractions were affecting his heart rate.

However, in practice they had major issues with the internal monitor. Something about the connection to the machine wasn't working right, so it kept losing his heart rate for many-second periods of time. They tried everything to fix it, including reconnecting it to his scalp (so he came out with two little cuts on his scalp instead of one), but they weren't able to solve the issue. It worked well enough, however, for us to see that while his heart rate was still dropping during contractions, it wasn't yet far enough to be an issue--just something to keep an eye on. And it monitored the contractions perfectly, so that helped us see the timing of his heart rate against the contractions.

At noon on Monday, when I was at 4 cm, they hooked up the IV and started the Pitocin. They put it on the very lowest dose--1 milliunit per hour (apparently it can go as high as 20)--and kept a careful eye on the baby's heart rate. At first he didn't seem to be responding very well to the Pitocin contractions, so they briefly turned it off, but since Pitocin was the only option left other than a c-section, they decided to turn it back on for a little while longer to see how he would handle it.

And, miraculously, his heart rate actually started to get better, and not drop so much during the contractions. So, they cautiously turned the Pitocin dose up to 2, the baby's heart was still handling it fine, and it turned out that I didn't need any more than that--the small dose I was receiving was enough to kick my body into active labor. The contractions started coming closer together and they were much more intense.

At this point it wasn't possible to get comfortable, even between contractions--I would try to sit on the bed and then a contraction would start and I would HAVE to get off the bed, the contraction was compelling me to stand up, and I would yell, "Ball! Ball!" and Torsten would get the birthing ball and put it on the bed and I would lean on the birthing ball and sort of sway with the contraction and the nurse would remind me to breathe slowly, try to breathe the pain away, and Torsten would massage my lower back and tell me I was doing great and remind me that the contraction was almost over and I would feel better in a second. Sometimes the midwife or the nurse would try to rub my back but I shooed them off--the only person whose touch felt good was Torsten's.

Then the contraction would end and I would need to sit down, so Torsten would take the birthing ball back off the bed so I could sit, but it felt like as soon as I managed to sit down the next contraction was already coming and I would have to get up and do it all over again. Sometimes I would have a double contraction, like a double wave in the ocean where just when you think you've crested it and you're on your way out, there it comes rising up again, and those were especially excruciating because there was no recovery time between them.

After a couple hours the pressure low down was so intense that I started to feel like I might need to push, so the nurse called the midwife to check me and I was at 6.5 cm. This was apparently actually a good thing--they only expect you to dilate 1 cm every two hours--but to me it felt so daunting, like I'd only gotten 2.5 cm in all that time and it was going to be hours and hours before I got to 10, and it was already so intense and painful, and the pushing pressure was so much and how could it not be time to push? Because it really FELT like it was time to push.

At that point I moved into transition, which I guess took a couple more hours? But it actually felt like time moved very fast during that part. The contractions felt like they were coming nonstop, like even when they broke and I was between them, there was still so much pressure that I couldn't get a break. There was definitely some announcing that I couldn't do this anymore and that I was going to die. I reminded myself at this point that our Bradley instructor had taught us that when you get to the point where you think you can't do it anymore, you're actually very close to the end--but I was convinced that for me it would really be several more hours before I was ready to push, because I had only been at 6.5 cm during the previous check, and I was really not sure I was going to be able to make it.

I was also a little worried that the baby might be in the wrong position, because I was feeling the contractions not just in my belly but also in my lower back, and that can be a sign that the baby is facing the wrong way. The contractions were so strong in both the front and the back that it felt like my entire pelvis was being crushed between boulders during every contraction. I couldn't escape from the pain no matter which way I went. I couldn't imagine taking contractions at that level for another several hours, and then still having to push for possibly several hours after that.

But then I started REALLY feeling the urge to push. Like, I couldn't NOT push. With every contraction I was pushing and moaning and I couldn't stop it. The nurse called the midwife and she checked me and said that I was at 10, that there was just one tiny bit of cervix left that she was moving out of the way, and then I could push. Since I was on the bed for her to check me, she asked if I wanted to try pushing on the bed, and I said NO, absolutely NOT, that sounded like the worst possible idea I could imagine. So she said OK, get out of bed and just do whatever feels right, and she asked the nurse to get a squat bar but there was no time for that.

I squatted down on the floor and held onto the bed and just pushed and pushed. I could tell people were doing things behind me, putting a mat on the floor and moving monitors and my IV pole around, and Torsten was there rubbing my back and the nurse was coaching me on breathing, and then the midwife was behind me and the baby was crowning and I was pushing and pushing and the midwife told me to reach down and feel the baby's head and I did and it was soft and downy and she told me to just keep pushing, that I was doing great.

I could feel him in the birth canal and it was incredibly painful and all I wanted was to have him out, have the pressure end and the baby born, and the midwife was telling me I needed to keep pushing, I needed to get him out, she told me his head was out and all I needed to do was push his shoulders out and I would be done, and I held onto the bed and pushed as hard as I could and I felt the strangest sensation, almost like a tiny wet tornado, a huge flopping fish kind of feeling, and I couldn't tell if the baby was coming out or moving back up and the feeling went on and on and I pushed and pushed and then suddenly he was out and Torsten and the midwife sort of caught him together and handed him through between my legs to me and they had trouble getting him to my arms and I could hear the midwife say, "Short cord, short cord," and suddenly I was holding Callum in my arms. I had pushed for 10 minutes total.

He was tiny and dark and bloody and his head was soft and elongated from being pushed through the birth canal so fast and his nose was all mashed and he was grunting but he wasn't crying and the midwife and the nurse were trying to get him to cry and then another nurse was there also trying to get him to cry. And then he did cry, only for a second, and then the cord stopped pulsing and the midwife had Torsten cut it, and then they took Callum away from me because he was still struggling to breathe.

I got back in the bed and birthed the placenta, and then it turned out that I had two second-degree tears so they stitched me up while Torsten was with Callum across the room while they checked his oxygen saturation and tried to help him breathe. The pediatric nurse who was dealing with him really overreacted a bit--she gave him a 5 on his Apgar at one minute and a 7 at five minutes, and the midwife and the delivery nurse both told me later that those scores were way too low for his condition--and she said his oxygen saturation was 90 even though it was actually 94--and the midwife told me she wasn't concerned because even though he didn't pink up right away, his lips were pink from the start and that's a sign that he is just fine.

I could hear Torsten from across the room, constantly pestering the pediatric nurse to bring me the baby. It was like a broken record: "Can my wife hold the baby now? Can we please bring the baby to her?" and I'm sure he was pissing the nurse off but I felt such an overwhelming wave of love and gratitude to him for being so insistent and demanding, and eventually it worked and after a few minutes they brought him to me and I held him on my chest and nursed him and cuddled him, and it was perfect, and the few minutes that he'd been across the room from me didn't even matter.

He looked like the tiniest baby in the world to me, but everyone kept saying that he was huge, and guessing that he was over 9 pounds. I knew that he wasn't over 9 pounds--I knew that he would be 8 pounds something, and when they did take him away to weigh him he came in at 8 pounds 12 ounces. Everyone kept going on about how I did such a good job in labor, and they couldn't believe that I'd pushed such a big baby out in only 10 minutes.

After it was over I felt such a huge sense of relief that it was done. And I feel so, so happy with how it went. It wasn't exactly according to plan--I had hoped to avoid Pitocin and internal monitors, and I had wanted to do a water birth--but part of the plan was knowing that you can't plan for everything, and I feel really comfortable with the decisions that we made and the way everything turned out. And I'm really happy that I was able to have the natural birth that I wanted despite some of the unexpected snags along the way. And I still can't get over what an incredible coach Torsten was--how great and loving and supportive he was. During the labor he was all that I wanted, and he was everything that I needed. I know he was worried beforehand that he wouldn't know what to do, but he was perfect.

And Callum is perfect too. I know some people say that you forget about the pain after the labor is over--and for me that's definitely not true--but what is true is that it doesn't matter anymore. It was by far the most painful experience of my life, but now Callum is here and that is more important than any amount of pain. All that waiting and all that work--and now he's here, and we are a whole different type of family. And it is wonderful.

We're all alive. Thriving, even.

2011-02-01T07:01:00.005-07:00

You guys. I have so many posts I want to write: Callum's birth story, my experience with breastfeeding, maybe some more details about his name. And general updates about our first week with a newborn.

But. Well, I'm tired. I'm actually getting a decent amount of sleep, so it's not exactly that--it's more just a general feeling of being worn out. Which also goes back to the breastfeeding thing: we are working on my supply, and that means spending as much time as possible skin on skin with Callum, and when you are holding a baby round the clock, it becomes harder to do things like write blog posts.

So, I don't have a lot of details to share right now. Suffice it to say that while it's exhausting, it's not exhausting in the way I was expecting, and the good parts are so, so good. I imagine that I'll love it even more as he gets older and develops new ways of interacting and expressing his personality, but it turns out that I love the newborn stage too.

Because seriously, who wouldn't love spending all day with this little guy?

He's here!

2011-01-25T17:35:00.000-07:00

And he is wonderful.

Callum Michael
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 5:29 p.m.
8 pounds, 12 ounces - 20.5 inches long

The waiting game

2011-01-21T07:01:00.005-07:00

It's weird to go from wanting the baby to stay right where he is, please don't go anywhere, to suddenly getting to the point where you would actively like him to come out. I'm doing well with the whole patience thing, helped by the fact that I am still not uncomfortable physically. But I'm starting to really look forward to the part where we actually have a baby.

It's weird, how it changes. This entire pregnancy my goal has been for Piglet's birthday to be January 20-anything, and, well, today is January 21. We've hit our goal and so suddenly I've gone from assuming that I will not be in labor anytime soon to realizing that it could start at any point. Suddenly the idea that it could still be a week and a half before he's born makes me feel like a week and a half is a very long time.

And, once you've given yourself carte blanche to go into labor? You start noticing things like contractions, nausea, twinges. Things that have been going on during the entire pregnancy take on a whole new meaning once you're past your due date. So far, I've had no major labor signs, and the stuff that people say could or could not mean that labor will start soon? Well, for me that stuff has definitely fallen into the category of "not so much."

I am also THRILLED that I am past my due date. I've been wanting to go late, hoping to go late, wondering if I'd go late... and now I've gone late. This baby is officially overdue, as planned. And now it's all up to him when he's going to stop cooking and come on out.

(Plus, Torsten has an important business meeting this morning, and we've been wondering all week if he'd have to cancel it or not. Dear Piglet, thanks for letting your dad make it to this one. You are already showing yourself to be a very considerate little kid, and you aren't even here yet.)

This is a good exercise in patience for me. Sometimes I start thinking about what it will be like to finally meet this baby, hold him, see him, smell him, cuddle him, BE with him, and I feel overwhelmed with a surge of love and excitement and NOW NOW NOW I want this to happen NOW.

But for the most part I am doing well reminding myself that he will come when he's good and ready. There's no rush. I will NOT be pregnant forever, and in the grand scheme of things a few days more or less won't make a difference. So he can come when he wants.

And it seems that "when he wants" isn't "now." So just as a PSA, everyone can hold off on refreshing my Twitter stream and Facebook profile for at least another few hours. Just saying.

On my due date*

2011-01-19T07:01:00.003-07:00

*Since people keep asking: Technically I hit 40 weeks yesterday. But my midwives have my due date listed as today. So let's just call it a 48-hour due date, shall we?

There seems to be a Friends episode to fit every occasion, right? And until I got pregnant, I would have thought that the one exception to this would be pregnancy. Because everyone knows that sitcoms absolutely fail at portraying a realistic pregnancy. And that's true! It totally is! Sitcom pregnancies are not realistic AT ALL.

For example, sitcom characters suddenly feel the baby kicking one day, yell out, "The baby just kicked for the first time!" and everyone gathers around and they can all feel it and it's magical and wonderful. Whereas in reality, at least for me, it was weeks of wait, was that a kick? Or a gas bubble? I think that was a kick. Oh god I haven't felt anything for days. Maybe that wasn't a kick last week after all. OK I'm almost positive that was a kick. OK now it's four weeks later, I'm sure these are kicks, Torsten put your hand here so you can feel it. Oh wait it stopped. OK try again. Damn, it stopped again. OK it's another four weeks later just PUT YOUR DAMN HAND ON MY BELLY AND LEAVE IT THERE UNTIL THE BABY KICKS I DON'T CARE IF IT TAKES ALL DAY.

And let's not even start on how every sitcom character's water breaks all of a sudden in a very inconvenient place, and then they rush off to the hospital and have a baby. I don't think I even need to bother describing how infrequently THAT particular scenario occurs.

The point is, I think you'll probably all be able to relate to the eye-rolling I've always done during the episode of Friends where Rachel gets to her due date and gives the little speech about how she's just loved being pregnant, and she's really going to miss it.

And I still roll my eyes, just a little, when I see that scene because again, I know how rare it is to feel that way by the time you're 40 weeks pregnant. Most women are wildly uncomfortable and impatient at that point and just want the baby OUT OUT OUT.

So, all of this is just a giant preamble, the point of which is: I will totally forgive you if you roll your eyes during the next part of this post. Because I know my experience is rare, and I'm incredibly lucky.

But I genuinely have loved being pregnant. Not every bit of it--morning sickness specifically comes to mind--and certainly there have been inconveniences and discomforts. And I'm looking forward to being able to sleep on my back again, and to not waking up five times per night to pee, and to being able to eat sashimi.

But I have had an easy, uncomplicated pregnancy, at least so far. I'm still sleeping fine. I don't feel impatient. My discomforts have been mild--and I've been so thrilled about being pregnant that for the most part (other than the few weeks early on when I felt seasick round the clock) I haven't really minded them. They were expected--in fact, I was expecting far worse--but what I wasn't expecting was how much I would like the good parts. Like how very, incredibly great the good parts would actually be.

I LOVE baby kicks. (Though I will say, I decidedly DO NOT love baby hiccups.) I love knowing that I'm growing a person. I love that everywhere I go, Piglet comes along for the ride. I love being asked about my pregnancy and talking about it. I love preparing for a baby and dreaming about a baby and knowing that soon there will actually BE a baby. And I feel such a bond with this baby. Every time he kicks I feel like we're having a private little communication. I love that I get the privilege of having him with me all the time.

I know that a future pregnancy of mine will probably not be like this, because no two pregnancies are alike, not to mention that I won't have all this time to sleep and relax and get ready, because there will be another child to take care of. And that's OK too. I'm just really grateful that I got to experience this first pregnancy the way that I did, that I got so lucky, that it's been such a positive experience for me.

Now let's hope that whenever Piglet decides to make his appearance, parenting a newborn will turn out to be similarly, surprisingly great.