Overheard the other night:
"MommyDaddyMommyDaddy
Mommy is a girl, Daddy is a boy, all the kids are boys
Antony Joseph Antony Joseph Antony Joseph
Timofy Timofy Timofy Edward Timofy Edward that’s your name [a song I sing to them]
What a wonderful boy
Can I reach the doorknob? I can’t. Donald Donald Donald Donald can you reach the doorknob so I can open the door? Nope, can't reach.
Mommy Daddy
Cookie Monster
Want my jacket
Sami Sami are you in the cupboard?"
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
6/6/6
So this meme has been around for a while (e.g. Molly and DD) - go to your sixth picture folder, pick the sixth picture, and give the story behind it. I have my pics organized by year, then by month, so my sixth folder was 2004, sixth folder in that was December (I didn't take pictures every month back then), and this was the sixth picture:
It's of us dishing up Christmas dinner. What's funny is that when I looked at the thumbnail, I thought to myself, there's my sister and Mark... who on earth is that red-head? I then realized that it was ME, back when I dyed my hair!! And I cannot for the life of me figure out what was on the plate my sister is holding. Any guesses?
I also like Molly's idea of picking a few more sixth pictures.
Here's 1999/June/sixth pic - our wedding day:
2003/Australia-South Africa trip/sixth pic - did you know that the tiles on the Sydney Opera house are not, in fact, white? I didn't 'til we went there:
And finally, out of my Cakes folder, a cake I created in decorating class:
It's of us dishing up Christmas dinner. What's funny is that when I looked at the thumbnail, I thought to myself, there's my sister and Mark... who on earth is that red-head? I then realized that it was ME, back when I dyed my hair!! And I cannot for the life of me figure out what was on the plate my sister is holding. Any guesses?
I also like Molly's idea of picking a few more sixth pictures.
Here's 1999/June/sixth pic - our wedding day:
2003/Australia-South Africa trip/sixth pic - did you know that the tiles on the Sydney Opera house are not, in fact, white? I didn't 'til we went there:
And finally, out of my Cakes folder, a cake I created in decorating class:
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Messes, discipline, and other nasties
Ant is going through a new phase. At least I am praying to the gods every day that it's a phase. He likes to dump things. The drawers full of his kitchen toys and cars and art supplies. The boxes full of blocks. Plastic bags of letters. Pulling everything out of any available cupboard. The refrigerator. Pulling all the toilet paper off the roll, and all the tissues out of the tissue box. Dumping everything on his plate onto the high chair or booster seat tray. Scraping all the letter magnets off the fridge.
I know that this is something that lots of kids do, but what really gets my goat is when I ask / tell him to STOP, he looks right at me, gives off a manic laugh, and keeps on doing it. We have instituted time-outs for this frank disobedience, but the jury is still out on whether they're working or not.
I discussed with a friend of an older generation the other day, and she suggested that perhaps a little smack on the hand might get his attention and stop the behaviour. So I tried it when he took his milk box, said, "SQUIRT", and squirted it all over the kitchen. Well, I said "ANTONY STOP IT" and he did it again, and that's when I gave him a two-fingered smack on his arm. It didn't stop him from anything, if I hadn't been holding his wrists at the time he would absolutely have continued with the squirting, but he did say to me, "Mommy, don't hit me!". So that did nothing except make me feel horrible.
Another thing that is driving me up a wall is that along with this joy in dumping things out comes a serious lack of desire or willingness to clean anything up. I know we should have started having him clean up after himself sooner, but that's not anything I can change right now. So not only is he creating absolute disasters, it's then a 10-15 minute process to get any kind of assistance from him in tidying. Timeouts don't seem to do the trick at all, the only thing that seems to work is the threat of something "going away" - he helped Mark clean up the letters from the fridge in order to get his puppy back (well, really it's Timmy's puppy), and helped me clean up the blocks tonight after I threatened to take them away. But I'm really not sure if that's motivation that we should be using.
Since I seem to be in a complaining mood, I might as well get it all out there! The whining! The whining. Gets old SO quickly. Especially when he whines or cries for things that we A) haven't said no to, and B) wouldn't say no to. We try to say, "Ant, there's no need to whine, just ask!", but that doesn't seem to help much. And I wonder then if he's getting the idea that whining will get him what he wants, because he's using that tone of voice for things that we have no problem giving him.
And the last thing - is there supposed to be a 27 month sleep regression? For ages we were in a lovely pattern of a 1-2 hour nap in the afternoon, 7:30 bedtime, with wakeup somewhere between 6:30 to 7. Well, in the last few weeks the afternoon nap has been skipped quite a few times, and at the same time, he's not going to sleep until somewhere between 8:30 and *11*! The late bedtime is also wrapped up with turning on the overhead light in his room. I figured out the other day that I could circumvent that at least by unscrewing the light bulbs. Score 1 for me. Not that that means much. It does seem that he's more likely to go to bed closer to the normal time if the nap is skipped. But boy is it a tough choice to make - do I give up my afternoon time for a free evening, vice versa. We've been congratulating ourselves recently for NOT making the transition to a regular bed yet, as I'm sure that the freedom to get up would have made bedtimes even later. Then, of course, there was the one time he did actually climb/jump/fall out of his crib. That's only happened once, and it probably does mean that we should convert to a bed - but I so don't want to!
Any thoughts or suggestions on how to deal with any of this, books we should read, magic sprays to use, anything?
I know that this is something that lots of kids do, but what really gets my goat is when I ask / tell him to STOP, he looks right at me, gives off a manic laugh, and keeps on doing it. We have instituted time-outs for this frank disobedience, but the jury is still out on whether they're working or not.
I discussed with a friend of an older generation the other day, and she suggested that perhaps a little smack on the hand might get his attention and stop the behaviour. So I tried it when he took his milk box, said, "SQUIRT", and squirted it all over the kitchen. Well, I said "ANTONY STOP IT" and he did it again, and that's when I gave him a two-fingered smack on his arm. It didn't stop him from anything, if I hadn't been holding his wrists at the time he would absolutely have continued with the squirting, but he did say to me, "Mommy, don't hit me!". So that did nothing except make me feel horrible.
Another thing that is driving me up a wall is that along with this joy in dumping things out comes a serious lack of desire or willingness to clean anything up. I know we should have started having him clean up after himself sooner, but that's not anything I can change right now. So not only is he creating absolute disasters, it's then a 10-15 minute process to get any kind of assistance from him in tidying. Timeouts don't seem to do the trick at all, the only thing that seems to work is the threat of something "going away" - he helped Mark clean up the letters from the fridge in order to get his puppy back (well, really it's Timmy's puppy), and helped me clean up the blocks tonight after I threatened to take them away. But I'm really not sure if that's motivation that we should be using.
Since I seem to be in a complaining mood, I might as well get it all out there! The whining! The whining. Gets old SO quickly. Especially when he whines or cries for things that we A) haven't said no to, and B) wouldn't say no to. We try to say, "Ant, there's no need to whine, just ask!", but that doesn't seem to help much. And I wonder then if he's getting the idea that whining will get him what he wants, because he's using that tone of voice for things that we have no problem giving him.
And the last thing - is there supposed to be a 27 month sleep regression? For ages we were in a lovely pattern of a 1-2 hour nap in the afternoon, 7:30 bedtime, with wakeup somewhere between 6:30 to 7. Well, in the last few weeks the afternoon nap has been skipped quite a few times, and at the same time, he's not going to sleep until somewhere between 8:30 and *11*! The late bedtime is also wrapped up with turning on the overhead light in his room. I figured out the other day that I could circumvent that at least by unscrewing the light bulbs. Score 1 for me. Not that that means much. It does seem that he's more likely to go to bed closer to the normal time if the nap is skipped. But boy is it a tough choice to make - do I give up my afternoon time for a free evening, vice versa. We've been congratulating ourselves recently for NOT making the transition to a regular bed yet, as I'm sure that the freedom to get up would have made bedtimes even later. Then, of course, there was the one time he did actually climb/jump/fall out of his crib. That's only happened once, and it probably does mean that we should convert to a bed - but I so don't want to!
Any thoughts or suggestions on how to deal with any of this, books we should read, magic sprays to use, anything?
Saturday, December 13, 2008
a two-year-old's intepretations of events and motivations.
Ant and I were reading a book about trucks tonight. On the last page it says, "How many trucks have you seen?" Which I think is a really stupid question because we see trucks ALL the time. So instead, we were talking about all the different trucks on the page, and how Ant had seen them. Garbage trucks, mail trucks, fire engines, ambulances... he's seen them all, except, I thought, an ice cream truck. I asked him, and he said no he hadn't seen one. I told him that we could show him one when it was hot, in the summer time. He replied, "I'm going to make the wind come and blow and blow and blow until it's hot and I can see an ice cream truck."
The second time I put him to bed (Timmy had "woken him up" by crying), we were discussing that, and he told me, "last night Mommy fed Timmy and I helped and then he was quiet". Ant feeding Timmy (with a bottle) was just adorable. He put the boppy on, had Timmy lying on it - everything we normally do.
We subsequently read Curious George and the Firefighters, and were paying attention to the fire dog, which gets left behind by the firefighters, but chases after the truck and makes it to the fire anyway. I was asking where the dog was on one page, and Ant told me, "He's climbing up the fire truck to help George" (who was on top of the fire truck juggling some balls).
The second time I put him to bed (Timmy had "woken him up" by crying), we were discussing that, and he told me, "last night Mommy fed Timmy and I helped and then he was quiet". Ant feeding Timmy (with a bottle) was just adorable. He put the boppy on, had Timmy lying on it - everything we normally do.
We subsequently read Curious George and the Firefighters, and were paying attention to the fire dog, which gets left behind by the firefighters, but chases after the truck and makes it to the fire anyway. I was asking where the dog was on one page, and Ant told me, "He's climbing up the fire truck to help George" (who was on top of the fire truck juggling some balls).
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Photobooks
Last year, after a fair bit of looking around, I made a photo book of Ant's first year using Picaboo. It was the only photobook editing tool I found that would allow a reasonable amount of text in addition to pictures, and allow for a larg-ish number of photos on a page.
This year I figured I'd look around again and see if there was anything else that was a bit more flexible - the one drawback of the picaboo software was that although there were quite a lot of page templates to choose from, they didn't necessarily combine the elements I wanted, and there was nothing I could do. I was hoping they'd have more templates by this time, but no dice.
I didn't find any other editing software that I liked better, so I started Ant's two year book in Picaboo again. Somewhere, though, I saw an ad for My Canvas, and thought I'd check it out, as it wasn't one I'd come across in my search.
I have to say that I love, love, love it! It's less expensive than Picaboo, and has complete and total flexibility. It comes with backgrounds with placeholders for text and pictures, but you can add more, edit sizes, duplicate any elements on the page. It's perfect! If anyone else is looking to make a photobook that is a bit more complex than the standard ones lots of places do, I cannot recommend this enough!
Of course, this is with the caveat that I don't know how the printing is going to turn out - we'll have to see on that.
This year I figured I'd look around again and see if there was anything else that was a bit more flexible - the one drawback of the picaboo software was that although there were quite a lot of page templates to choose from, they didn't necessarily combine the elements I wanted, and there was nothing I could do. I was hoping they'd have more templates by this time, but no dice.
I didn't find any other editing software that I liked better, so I started Ant's two year book in Picaboo again. Somewhere, though, I saw an ad for My Canvas, and thought I'd check it out, as it wasn't one I'd come across in my search.
I have to say that I love, love, love it! It's less expensive than Picaboo, and has complete and total flexibility. It comes with backgrounds with placeholders for text and pictures, but you can add more, edit sizes, duplicate any elements on the page. It's perfect! If anyone else is looking to make a photobook that is a bit more complex than the standard ones lots of places do, I cannot recommend this enough!
Of course, this is with the caveat that I don't know how the printing is going to turn out - we'll have to see on that.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
You know you're sleep deprived when...
you're nursing your son and notice a bandaid on your arm. You think to yourself, "I wonder where that came from?"
"Maybe Ant was playing with a bandaid in our bed and it got stuck to me?"
Only to realize about fifteen minutes later, "OH YEAH, I got the flu shot yesterday".
Particularly amusing when you are unable to sleep on that side because the arm is so tender.
"Maybe Ant was playing with a bandaid in our bed and it got stuck to me?"
Only to realize about fifteen minutes later, "OH YEAH, I got the flu shot yesterday".
Particularly amusing when you are unable to sleep on that side because the arm is so tender.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Sleep
I just made an Excel macro to graph Timmy's sleep patterns (yes, I am a total nerd). Here are the results for his second month (so far).
Thursday, November 6, 2008
sleep, sleep, glorious sleep
Last night I was so tired I was having trouble keeping my eyes open as I trawled the aisles of the grocery store. I had to go to pick up a couple of prescriptions - I'm still bleeding a bit at 7 weeks post partum, and when I went for my check up yesterday it was quite painful when the doc checked my ute, so she thinks I have a minor infection. Off topic, sorry.
When I got home, I told Mark that I was going to go to bed ASAP. So I pumped at 9:45 (which was already over 3 hours since Timmy last ate), and was in bed by 10:10. I didn't get woken up by the little mister wanting to feed until.... FIVE TWENTY EIGHT!!! 7.5 hours of solid, unbroken sleep. Pure heaven if you ask me. This is in contrast to the 5-6 hours of sleep in 2-3 blocks that I have been getting for the last 7 weeks. Mark had fed him a bottle at 12:15am, but still, that's a 6 hour stretch and a 5 hour stretch between feedings, which is fantastic!
I'm *not* expecting this to happen again any time soon, but boy does it make me feel more like a human being!
When I got home, I told Mark that I was going to go to bed ASAP. So I pumped at 9:45 (which was already over 3 hours since Timmy last ate), and was in bed by 10:10. I didn't get woken up by the little mister wanting to feed until.... FIVE TWENTY EIGHT!!! 7.5 hours of solid, unbroken sleep. Pure heaven if you ask me. This is in contrast to the 5-6 hours of sleep in 2-3 blocks that I have been getting for the last 7 weeks. Mark had fed him a bottle at 12:15am, but still, that's a 6 hour stretch and a 5 hour stretch between feedings, which is fantastic!
I'm *not* expecting this to happen again any time soon, but boy does it make me feel more like a human being!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Momma's new do!
I followed fellow blogger Katie's lead, and decided to cut off my tresses and donate them. I'd been thinking about doing this for a while, and Timmy grabbing onto my ponytail as I was nursing was the final impetus.
So.....Before:
And after:
It was such a strange feeling having all that hair cut off, but I didn't feel as bad about it as I thought I might. The only thing that gave me pause is that Ant loves holding onto my ponytail, "holding mommy's pony!", and it actually helps calm him down sometimes. But it was time for a haircut, and it will grow again. And I get to help a worthy cause!
So.....Before:
And after:
It was such a strange feeling having all that hair cut off, but I didn't feel as bad about it as I thought I might. The only thing that gave me pause is that Ant loves holding onto my ponytail, "holding mommy's pony!", and it actually helps calm him down sometimes. But it was time for a haircut, and it will grow again. And I get to help a worthy cause!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Three weeks!
I cannot believe that it's been over three weeks since T was born. The last few weeks of my pregnancy seemed to drag so much, then it's just been a blink of an eye since. I guess that's what happens when you are on the go about 20/7!
The other thing I couldn't believe is when I popped Timmy on the scale today, and he was 9.96 pounds after he ate (and including clothes and diaper - so probably 9.5 pounds of baby). More than two pounds up from his birthweight already.
The other thing I couldn't believe is when I popped Timmy on the scale today, and he was 9.96 pounds after he ate (and including clothes and diaper - so probably 9.5 pounds of baby). More than two pounds up from his birthweight already.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Pretend play
I have heard lots of stories of kids pretending to do "mommy" things when a new baby enters the picture. My sister regaled me with a tale of her daughter taking out the breast pump, putting it on her belly button, and saying she was pumping to feed the baby.
Tonight it was our turn. As I was getting Ant ready for bed, he ran into Timmy's room and hopped up on the bed I'm sleeping in for now. Moved over to the side where I nurse Timmy, propped up the cushions, and put the boppy around himself, "wike Mommy!".
Then he grabbed one of the nursing pads, and put it on his belly, saying "put on nursing pad". He hung onto the nursing pad as I changed his diaper, then when I pulled off his shirt, he moved it up to his nipple, "nursing pad on nipple". When I pulled on his pajamas (the sleeper kind with feet), he kept the nursing pad in place - and when it slid down inside the pj's after he was running around a bit, asked me very nicely to put it back.
The kicker was when he walked up to Timmy, who was hanging out in the swing, and said, "Timofy, I have a nursing pad on, so you can't eat!"
Tonight it was our turn. As I was getting Ant ready for bed, he ran into Timmy's room and hopped up on the bed I'm sleeping in for now. Moved over to the side where I nurse Timmy, propped up the cushions, and put the boppy around himself, "wike Mommy!".
Then he grabbed one of the nursing pads, and put it on his belly, saying "put on nursing pad". He hung onto the nursing pad as I changed his diaper, then when I pulled off his shirt, he moved it up to his nipple, "nursing pad on nipple". When I pulled on his pajamas (the sleeper kind with feet), he kept the nursing pad in place - and when it slid down inside the pj's after he was running around a bit, asked me very nicely to put it back.
The kicker was when he walked up to Timmy, who was hanging out in the swing, and said, "Timofy, I have a nursing pad on, so you can't eat!"
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Big Brother
Ant has been amazing since Timmy was born. So much better than I was expecting, and honestly, even better than I was hoping for. He has been very gentle with his brother, he’ll often pat him on the head and say, “It’s okay Timofy”. He has never been physically violent in the least. He’s quite solicitous, letting me know, “baby needs to eat”, or "Timofy needs food" when T starts crying.
And when Ant wants some time with either Mark or me, he has been incredibly good about just asking – “Can I have Mommy/Daddy?” or, “Mommy, can you take the baby from Daddy?” or vice versa.
He does like to take things away from Timmy; if I prop up a book for him to look at, or a stuffed animal. “Take aminal from Timofy.” “Take binky from Timofy” (which I’ve said is not okay, and hasn’t actually happened). This is often followed by "No No Timofy!", which I find amusing at the moment although it may not always be so. I had Timmy on the gymini the other day, and Ant said, “Take gymini away from Timofy.” When I said that he couldn’t take it right then because Timmy was using it, but he could take it away when T was done, he didn’t seem to have a problem with that – rather went and lay down on the gymini next to T, which I thought was really sweet. So it seems as long as I provide a reason, or an outlet, that it is okay if T uses things.
We’ve also had some spontaneous hugs / kisses from time to time, also quite sweet. The other thing I find quite endearing is that we're not allowed to call Timmy anything but Timothy - if we say Timmy or Tim, Ant will say quite emphatically, "TIMOFY!"
Ant has quite emphatically said that he doesn’t want to share with Timmy, which I think is only to be expected. The one thing he said he would share was the Elmo car – which happened to be at my in-laws house. They’re convinced that he was saying that just so the car would come to our house. Which it did. I think that as we get Timmy his own toys (which do happen to be ones that Ant used to have, but I don’t think he necessarily remembers them), that sharing won’t be as much of an issue.
The only problem we’ve had, which may or may not be related to the new baby (although I’m guessing it is), is full blown tantrums. I had posted before about the start of tantrums – those were *nothing*. We’ve now had 5 minute plus screaming fits, “I don’t want to go upstairs! Want to wide twicycle! Don’t want to wear hewmet! Go outside! Not upstairs! Wide twicycle!....” and on and on. Or, tonight at bedtime, “It’s not bedtime! Want to stay downstairs! Not time for pajamas! WWWwWWWWAAAAAAHHHHHH! Don’t want to wear pajamas!” It is often quite hard to stop oneself from laughing.
Actually, the other thing that has been a little hard on me is that Ant is definitely a Daddy’s boy at the moment. Two or three days after we got home, he actually called for ME first thing in the morning, and I was quite happy to jump out of bed and go to him. Only to have him scream at me, “NO Mommy. Go away! Want Daddy!!!! Daddyyyyyy!”. He also has been less happy to have Daddy hold the baby than me. It does seem to be getting a little better in recent days though, today in particular he was quite cuddly with me, and kept running up and hugging my legs while I was standing holding Timmy.
All in all, I have been pleasantly surprised and pleased by how all this is gone. And I’m really hoping that it continues in this vein!
And when Ant wants some time with either Mark or me, he has been incredibly good about just asking – “Can I have Mommy/Daddy?” or, “Mommy, can you take the baby from Daddy?” or vice versa.
He does like to take things away from Timmy; if I prop up a book for him to look at, or a stuffed animal. “Take aminal from Timofy.” “Take binky from Timofy” (which I’ve said is not okay, and hasn’t actually happened). This is often followed by "No No Timofy!", which I find amusing at the moment although it may not always be so. I had Timmy on the gymini the other day, and Ant said, “Take gymini away from Timofy.” When I said that he couldn’t take it right then because Timmy was using it, but he could take it away when T was done, he didn’t seem to have a problem with that – rather went and lay down on the gymini next to T, which I thought was really sweet. So it seems as long as I provide a reason, or an outlet, that it is okay if T uses things.
We’ve also had some spontaneous hugs / kisses from time to time, also quite sweet. The other thing I find quite endearing is that we're not allowed to call Timmy anything but Timothy - if we say Timmy or Tim, Ant will say quite emphatically, "TIMOFY!"
Ant has quite emphatically said that he doesn’t want to share with Timmy, which I think is only to be expected. The one thing he said he would share was the Elmo car – which happened to be at my in-laws house. They’re convinced that he was saying that just so the car would come to our house. Which it did. I think that as we get Timmy his own toys (which do happen to be ones that Ant used to have, but I don’t think he necessarily remembers them), that sharing won’t be as much of an issue.
The only problem we’ve had, which may or may not be related to the new baby (although I’m guessing it is), is full blown tantrums. I had posted before about the start of tantrums – those were *nothing*. We’ve now had 5 minute plus screaming fits, “I don’t want to go upstairs! Want to wide twicycle! Don’t want to wear hewmet! Go outside! Not upstairs! Wide twicycle!....” and on and on. Or, tonight at bedtime, “It’s not bedtime! Want to stay downstairs! Not time for pajamas! WWWwWWWWAAAAAAHHHHHH! Don’t want to wear pajamas!” It is often quite hard to stop oneself from laughing.
Actually, the other thing that has been a little hard on me is that Ant is definitely a Daddy’s boy at the moment. Two or three days after we got home, he actually called for ME first thing in the morning, and I was quite happy to jump out of bed and go to him. Only to have him scream at me, “NO Mommy. Go away! Want Daddy!!!! Daddyyyyyy!”. He also has been less happy to have Daddy hold the baby than me. It does seem to be getting a little better in recent days though, today in particular he was quite cuddly with me, and kept running up and hugging my legs while I was standing holding Timmy.
All in all, I have been pleasantly surprised and pleased by how all this is gone. And I’m really hoping that it continues in this vein!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
The birth of TER - medium
When I sat down (in multiple sessions) to write Timmy's birth story, I wanted to capture everything, so it ended up being quite a tome (8 pages in word!), which I'm not sure anyone but me cares about. So that's below if you're interested. Here's a somewhat shortened version:
I first noticed contractions that felt different from the BH I’d had all along in the pg when Ant woke me up at 4am. They were about 3-5 minutes apart, lasting 15-20 sec. After a while when I couldn’t go back to sleep, I got up to finish up some last minute work stuff, and have something to eat. The contractions spaced out quite a bit, to about 10-15 minutes apart, so I figured we were either in for the long haul, or it was false labor. Until I went to the bathroom and there was some bloody mucus on the TP… I got a big smile on my face and thought that we probably would be having the baby that day. More than a week sooner than I had been anticipating (I was 39w6d).
By the time I finished up the work stuff at around 10am, I was having contractions that were 4-5 min apart, but only about 30 sec long. I hopped in the bath for an hour and only had 3-4 more, so in my mind more evidence that we were in for a long day. When I got out, they were 2-3 min apart but only 30 sec or so, so I thought they would space out... they also weren't that uncomfortable, I was just stopping and leaning on something through them, then getting on with what I was doing (which did include a little bit of packing, turned out to be a good thing). I started having to lie down for them at around 12:15 - and then my water broke at 12:20. Called the doctor, and they said, "come in RIGHT now". I still wasn't convinced because although the contractions were coming pretty quickly they were still fairly short, and I wasn't finding the pain unmanageable in the least. But I decided they were probably right.
We ended up leaving the house at 12:48. Got stuck in traffic on Storrow Drive (figures!), at which point Mark asked if he needed to flash his lights etc and try and get through. I said no, but did have him call smartraveller to find out how long we were likely to be stuck for. Fortunately it was just a short jam due to some road work, so we were on our way in about 5 or 6 minutes. We also discussed how we should handle the car – should we both go and park it, should Mark drop me off, or should we leave it out front? I said I didn’t think I could make it from the garage, so either he should drop me off or we should bring the car right out front. By the time we got there Mark decided on the latter based on his assessment of how I was doing. (I had started pushing out more gushes of amniotic fluid just as we were getting through the traffic jam).
We were actually treated as a medical emergency when we did get to the hospital; there were a couple of guys out front who helped me into a wheelchair, and got us an express elevator up to the L&D floor. The receptionist there didn’t seem to have quite the urgency that Mark and I were feeling, she was asking for our insurance info! I told her my contractions were 1-2 min apart, and finally she seemed to get it and got someone to take me into triage. Once I was up on the bed in triage after discarding my amniotic fluid (and meconium – the fluid was definitely greenish) soaked towel, I climbed onto the bed. Almost immediately, I felt my uterus starting to contract from the top and push down – without my doing a thing! I told the nurse that I had to push. A midwife came in, checked me, “yup, fully dilated +2 station” and rushed me to a delivery room. The pushing phase was nothing like what I had imagined, where I would get a break in between pushes to recoup, and wonder at what was happening. Even the pushing contractions were right on top of each other. At one point they had me try and push more slowly, until the baby’s heartrate started dropping, which for me was the best motivation EVER to push as hard as I could and get him out. He did come out, just one or two pushes later, and only 13 minutes after we’d entered the room. Mark said, “It’s a BOY!”. So Timothy Edward had made his appearance.
Because he came out so quickly I had a lot of tearing, so they spent about 3 hours stiching me up and trying to stop the bleeding (all of which was honestly way more painful and uncomfortable than the delivery itself), which was unsuccessful and I ended up in the OR for about 45 minutes at 7pm to finally get everything back together. Turned out I had a second degree perineal tear, labial tears, and a vaginal tear which was what had been oozing and they couldn't find until in the OR.
It’s funny how so few birth experiences seem to go as expected. I got to experience the natural delivery I was hoping / planning for – yet at the same time because it all happened so fast, in some ways I didn’t get to experience it. I had a Nora Jones CD I was planning on listening to while laboring in the hospital, to help me relax through the contractions. That never even made it out of the bag! As I mentioned, there was no time for me to think about, marvel or wonder at what my body was doing during the delivery because the contractions were so incredibly intense. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining – in fact I’m rather in awe of how it all happened. It just happened so differently from what I had imagined, since I started contemplating a natural birth when pregnant with Ant.
I first noticed contractions that felt different from the BH I’d had all along in the pg when Ant woke me up at 4am. They were about 3-5 minutes apart, lasting 15-20 sec. After a while when I couldn’t go back to sleep, I got up to finish up some last minute work stuff, and have something to eat. The contractions spaced out quite a bit, to about 10-15 minutes apart, so I figured we were either in for the long haul, or it was false labor. Until I went to the bathroom and there was some bloody mucus on the TP… I got a big smile on my face and thought that we probably would be having the baby that day. More than a week sooner than I had been anticipating (I was 39w6d).
By the time I finished up the work stuff at around 10am, I was having contractions that were 4-5 min apart, but only about 30 sec long. I hopped in the bath for an hour and only had 3-4 more, so in my mind more evidence that we were in for a long day. When I got out, they were 2-3 min apart but only 30 sec or so, so I thought they would space out... they also weren't that uncomfortable, I was just stopping and leaning on something through them, then getting on with what I was doing (which did include a little bit of packing, turned out to be a good thing). I started having to lie down for them at around 12:15 - and then my water broke at 12:20. Called the doctor, and they said, "come in RIGHT now". I still wasn't convinced because although the contractions were coming pretty quickly they were still fairly short, and I wasn't finding the pain unmanageable in the least. But I decided they were probably right.
We ended up leaving the house at 12:48. Got stuck in traffic on Storrow Drive (figures!), at which point Mark asked if he needed to flash his lights etc and try and get through. I said no, but did have him call smartraveller to find out how long we were likely to be stuck for. Fortunately it was just a short jam due to some road work, so we were on our way in about 5 or 6 minutes. We also discussed how we should handle the car – should we both go and park it, should Mark drop me off, or should we leave it out front? I said I didn’t think I could make it from the garage, so either he should drop me off or we should bring the car right out front. By the time we got there Mark decided on the latter based on his assessment of how I was doing. (I had started pushing out more gushes of amniotic fluid just as we were getting through the traffic jam).
We were actually treated as a medical emergency when we did get to the hospital; there were a couple of guys out front who helped me into a wheelchair, and got us an express elevator up to the L&D floor. The receptionist there didn’t seem to have quite the urgency that Mark and I were feeling, she was asking for our insurance info! I told her my contractions were 1-2 min apart, and finally she seemed to get it and got someone to take me into triage. Once I was up on the bed in triage after discarding my amniotic fluid (and meconium – the fluid was definitely greenish) soaked towel, I climbed onto the bed. Almost immediately, I felt my uterus starting to contract from the top and push down – without my doing a thing! I told the nurse that I had to push. A midwife came in, checked me, “yup, fully dilated +2 station” and rushed me to a delivery room. The pushing phase was nothing like what I had imagined, where I would get a break in between pushes to recoup, and wonder at what was happening. Even the pushing contractions were right on top of each other. At one point they had me try and push more slowly, until the baby’s heartrate started dropping, which for me was the best motivation EVER to push as hard as I could and get him out. He did come out, just one or two pushes later, and only 13 minutes after we’d entered the room. Mark said, “It’s a BOY!”. So Timothy Edward had made his appearance.
Because he came out so quickly I had a lot of tearing, so they spent about 3 hours stiching me up and trying to stop the bleeding (all of which was honestly way more painful and uncomfortable than the delivery itself), which was unsuccessful and I ended up in the OR for about 45 minutes at 7pm to finally get everything back together. Turned out I had a second degree perineal tear, labial tears, and a vaginal tear which was what had been oozing and they couldn't find until in the OR.
It’s funny how so few birth experiences seem to go as expected. I got to experience the natural delivery I was hoping / planning for – yet at the same time because it all happened so fast, in some ways I didn’t get to experience it. I had a Nora Jones CD I was planning on listening to while laboring in the hospital, to help me relax through the contractions. That never even made it out of the bag! As I mentioned, there was no time for me to think about, marvel or wonder at what my body was doing during the delivery because the contractions were so incredibly intense. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining – in fact I’m rather in awe of how it all happened. It just happened so differently from what I had imagined, since I started contemplating a natural birth when pregnant with Ant.
The birth of TER - LONG version
Right around 4 in the morning, Ant let out a few cries that woke me up. I wasn’t able to get back to sleep again because I was having contractions – the first time that they really felt different from the Braxton Hicks contractions I’d been having since 12 weeks. I timed a few of them and they were 3-5 minutes apart, and lasting around 15-20 sec. So, I figured I’d get up, finish off a last few things for work, have something to eat, and see what happened.
Similarly to what happened when I woke up with fairly close contractions at 35 weeks, once I was up and about they slowed down and spaced out, to about 10-15 minutes apart. I still wasn’t sure if this was really it, but I was thinking it might be – and at 39w6d, to boot. So much for my predictions of 1-2 weeks late! It seemed even more like it might be the day when I went to the bathroom, and had some blood-tinged mucus on the TP when I wiped. Big smile on my face!
Mark came down not too long after that to ask what was going on, I told him that I thought we might be having a baby that day. He inquired as to whether he should go to work, I said probably not. Good thing, too, given how the rest of the day played out!!
I was supposed to have my routine 40-week checkup that morning at 9:45, I figured since I was most likely in early labor that there wasn’t much point in going in, so tried to call the doctor’s office – of course that was the day that they don’t open until 9:30.
I then spent a couple of hours doing some last minute stuff for work, as well as sharing taking care of Ant with Mark until the Rinaldis showed up to look after him, and trotted him off to a farm for the morning, after he’d had his breakfast. The contractions during this time were still nothing terribly painful, although more crampy feeling than my BH had ever been. I was feeling them low in my uterus, sort of down around my hips and below.
At 9:30, I called my doctor’s office to say that I was in early labor so I didn’t think I needed to come in. The nurse said I should come anyway, but backtracked a little when I said I wouldn’t be able to make my apt time because I live 25 min or so away. The plan we came up with was that I would come in at around 1:30 (I think she was thinking that I may be in false labor as my contractions had spaced out, and that I should be checked if that were the case), but call at around noon to confirm if I was actually in labor or not.
I finished with all my work stuff at around 10am; at this point the contractions were closer together, around 4-5 minutes apart, but still not lasting that long, about 40 seconds. And I could definitely talk through them with no problem; maybe a little more concentrating on my breathing but that was it. I figured it was time to start thinking about getting ready, so I headed off to take a shower – which then turned into a bath, because that sounded like a nice way to relax for a bit.
I hopped into the bath at around 10:15, and relaxed and lounged in it for quite a while. I only had three or four contractions while I was in there, so I thought for sure we’d be around for a while yet. It took me a bit by surprise when I stood up to rinse off that the contractions were quite close together and more uncomfortable than they had been, to the point where I started using the technique recommended by the Bradley method in early-mid labor of leaning against something and letting your tummy muscles relax as much as possible, so that your uterus can do its work. I had to lean against the back of the shower 3-4 times during the time it took me to wash my hair and finish rinsing off.
When I got out and dried off, I told Mark that he should probably shower too, as we might be going in a bit sooner than I had thought. Although I was really thinking that the contractions were just so close together because I’d been lying down and relaxing for a while, and that they’d surely space out soon. Especially because they were only 20-30 seconds long by my “one little second two little second” count. I should actually try doing that now and see if my estimate was off!
I picked out some clothes, undies, etc, going to the chair in our room every 2-3 minutes to bend over and relax through each contraction. I would bend, hold on to the seat of the chair, let my tummy sag, and think about taking deep breaths, just as the Bradley method taught.
At about ten past noon I remembered that I was supposed to call my doctor. I spoke to a receptionist at 12:15, and had a bit of difficulty making her understand what I was trying to say – which was that I was definitely in labor, so wouldn’t be making it to my 1:30 appointment, I’d just go to labor and delivery when I was ready to come in.
My doc had said that I should come when the contractions were 5 minutes apart and 60 seconds long, according to the Bradley book one should go to the hospital for a first baby (which I was thinking this was since my first had been a C-section, so this was the first for my cervix) when they’re 3-4 min apart and 60 seconds, and you’ve reached the “serious” emotional signpost. As mine still weren’t approaching anything like 60 seconds, I definitely didn’t feel like I was serious about working through the contractions yet, I was still thinking we had a while to go.
Eventually, I just asked the receptionist if I could speak to the nurse, and was told she would call me back in a few minutes.
At that point, I finally started feeling like I did need to lie down for the contractions, so I lay down on our waterbed where I had been putting my things to take to the hospital. The second contraction after I lay down, I felt a distinct POP, and a big gush of fluid. I actually started giggling it was such an odd sensation. I called out to Mark that my water just broke and to bring a towel so that I hopefully wouldn’t wet the bed. He ran in with a towel and stuffed it underneath me.
The nurse called back (12:31) while I was lying on the bed. I told her that my water just broke, and she said that we should come in right away. I was still waffling, because I didn’t feel like the contractions were long enough yet, but she was quite firm, and I decided that she was probably right. So I let Mark know, and we went into high gear. Well he did – I was still lying on the bed.
Another couple of contractions later when I felt like most of the water was out of me, I went into the bathroom to change my bottoms and put a pad in. I did already have a light-days pad in my undies because of the bloody show – when I pulled my pants down, there was a big glob of brown on that, and the pad itself was saturated with a yellow-greenish fluid, so I thought there might be meconium in there. I held onto the pad to show the nurses, and went back to lie down on the bed again. The contractions were feeling quite a bit stronger at this point, and coming pretty much on top of one another
Mark had everything together about ten minutes later, so we headed down to the car. I reclined the seat, got in, and tried to close the door. Of course, it got jammed on something over on the side of the garage – I started trying to get out again to lighten the load so I could close the door, but Mark said to stay put and he’d take care of it. I laugh now that I was still trying to act as if everything was perfectly normal!
We left the house at 12:48, after Mark had to get out of the car and fix the garage door so it would close properly; it’s been acting up recently. Not the most opportune time! I told him not to drive too fast, still thinking that we had plenty of time.
We made a couple of calls on the way in, to the Rinaldis who were watching Ant, to my mom to let her know we were heading in to the hospital. The contractions were about 2 minutes apart (another place where the Bradley method was wrong – they were supposed to slow down when we were en route because of the adrenaline!), and I was doing quite a bit of panting through them, I think, rather than taking normal natural breaths. Mark kept reminding me to breathe normally, which was a big help, although I found it hard to do in a not terribly relaxing position!
We got onto Storrow Drive, at which point we should have been less than ten minutes away – but hit bumper to bumper traffic! At this point Mark was getting a little worried that we wouldn’t make it to the hospital based on his assessment of how I was doing – he asked if he should beep the horn and flash lights to try and get through. I said I didn’t think we needed to, but perhaps we should call smartraveller to see what was going on. Fortunately it was just a work crew at the BU bridge, so we did get through pretty quickly.
While we were waiting in the traffic, the contractions felt a bit different again, and I started spewing more amniotic fluid. Fortunately Mark had thought ahead and brought some towels (although we should have been more forethoughtful and put one underneath me), so handed me one which I kinda shoved between my legs. Mark and I were debating which garage at MGH we should park in, or if he should drop me off out front. By the time we got there, we had determined that we should probably just leave the car if we could – I was definitely feeling like the contractions were pushing more, and really right on top of each other. I didn’t think I could walk, and I didn’t want Mark to be away from me for that long!
We arrived at the hospital at around 1:20, Mark pulled up right in front and said to the guy waiting there, “We’re having a baby!”. He actually sounded relatively calm to me, although I’m not sure he was feeling exactly that. The guys there were great, pulled up a wheelchair and opened the door for me. I couldn’t get out right away as I was having a contraction, but once it was over I managed to get out and sit on the wheelchair, keeping the towel between my legs. He wheeled me quite fast, Mark right behind him, and had actually radioed ahead so there was someone waiting at the elevator to whisk us right up to the labor and delivery floor. Which turned out to be 14, not 9 as Mark and I had thought! He had a medical emergency card, so the elevator bypassed anyone who was waiting, and they had told everyone at the first floor that we needed the elevator, so we headed right up.
They wheeled me in to L&D, where the receptionist started asking us if we had my blue card and insurance card. I had thought we didn’t need that stuff as I’d filled out all the paperwork in advance, so I hadn’t brought it with me. I had to tell Mark my number through a contraction! She was not feeling nearly the urgency I thought she should, taking her sweet time, so I said that my contractions were only 1-2 minutes apart. After a couple of minutes she said she would go and get someone; I felt like we waited much longer than we should have – a nurse even came by to take someone else in first! At this point I knew that I was much closer to delivering than I had thought even at home, so I was feeling a bit neglected!
In a few minutes more, we where wheeled into triage, and the nurse had me put on a Johnny. I had two contractions right on top of each other, barely time to breathe in between, then got up to change. I dropped the towel, and she said that “we definitely passed the towel test” – it was quite soaked. It was definitely greenish, so I said that I thought it might be meconium. I stripped then and there – modesty totally out of the window I just wanted to lie down again!
I hopped up on the table, and almost immediately felt my uterus pushing. I said, “I need to push!” The nurse said that they needed to check me first. I had no idea that it would be so blindingly obvious when the pushing stage came – my uterus was doing it whether I was going along with it or not. A midwife ran in, checked my cervix and said, “fully dilated, +2 station”. At which point they raced me down the hallway to the delivery room, and said that I should start pushing. After a few of the docs introduced themselves. I was in no state to pay any attention to that!
They were all very helpful, they did have me use the sitting squat position that is recommended by the Bradley method as well. I think I was holding my legs up, but there was a nurse on one side and Mark on the other, I think they were helping too. The contractions were still right on top of each other – no time for the one breath two breaths, three breaths and PUSH that I had practiced! It was pretty much breath and push push push push, breath push push push, okay legs down for a few seconds next one is coming breath push push push. I was definitely panting; the nurse was very helpful telling me to breathe more deeply. The pushes hurt, I could feel stretching burning in my perineal area, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. That may just be because there wasn’t time for me to even think about being in pain. I wasn’t screaming, nor grunting, maybe a combination of the two that was all about the exertion of the pushing. After a little while, they told me to try and push gently and then relax, push and relax – I guess this was the point when the baby was crowning and they were trying to avoid too much tearing. They asked me if I wanted to feel the head, so I did – but I think what I was feeling was actually my parts and not the baby’s head, not sure. Felt too squishy to me to be the head. They also asked if I wanted to look, but I couldn’t even think about opening my eyes I was too far immersed in just trying to control my breathing and the pushing. I thought I was doing okay with the gentle pushes, but then they started saying that the baby’s heartrate was dropping and we had to get it out NOW which was by far the best motivation I’d had. The next contraction came, I took a deep breath, and PUSHED. I remember saying “OH MY GOD”, I’m not sure if it was this push or one before, there were a couple that were quite intense. The feeling when the baby came out was so strange – all of a sudden I felt the head come out, and then the body just slipped out right behind. I have to say, the idea of finding out whether Fwed was a boy or girl did not enter my head for even one second during this process.
Or even after, until Mark said, “It’s a BOY!” – none of the medical personnel did, unlike what you see on TV. Thought that was amusing. They whisked Timmy away because of the meconium; the pediatricians intubated him and aspirated his lungs. That seemed like it took a couple of minutes although it may have been less than that – when they were finally done they gave him some oxygen, slapped him around, and he started yelling at them. Ironically I was so wrapped up in what was going on with me and the docs that I didn’t even notice that he hadn’t cried until he did. Which I’m glad of because I would have been really worried had it occurred to me that he wasn’t making any noises. In any case his Apgars were 8 and 9, so everything was looking good!
In the meantime, the docs pushed and pulled to deliver the placenta. I asked if we could just wait until it came out on its own; they said that there tends to be more bleeding that way, so they prefer to help it out. The happy clappy natural birth books all say that you should deliver it on your own – but I really have no idea what the truth there is, so I just went with what the docs said. They also gave me a shot of pitocin to help my uterus contract – I had been planning on having a hep-loc, but obviously there hadn’t been time for that!
I did get to look at the placenta after it came out, I thought it was really neat. Apparently when they pull it out it is inside out, so the doc showed me the back side, flipped it back right side round, and showed me the membrane that was also attached to it. The best comparison to something I’ve seen before is that it looked like a piece of liver.
The next order of business was stitching me up. I had a second degree perineal tear that required a few stitches, and some labial tears as well. A number of shots of lidocaine were needed to desensitize me – all the poking and prodding at that point was honestly worse than the delivery itself. The pains were much more sharp, as opposed to the crampiness of the labor and work of delivery. At the same time they were mashing my uterus. I’m not sure if that was to get it to contract more quickly, or just to feel and make sure that it was doing the appropriate thing. Quite astonishing how rapidly it got smaller – even just a few minutes after the delivery it had gone from watermelon to maybe canteloupe sized. After they were theoretically done with the stitching, the doc was still looking concerned, and said that there was still more bleeding than she was happy with. Nothing serious, I wasn’t hemorrhaging, but there was still blood coming from somewhere not normal. So I got another shot, this time of methergen, in my other thigh. Lovely. They’d also put in an IV by this point and were dripping in pitocin as well.
The doc found a couple more places on my labia that were “oozing”, so she put a few more stiches in to try and close those up. STILL oozing. More stitches. After those still didn’t stop the bleeding she said we’d try applying pressure, and also get a consult from another OB to see what he thought and maybe get another pair of hands in there. At this point, I *finally* got to hold Timmy – I think by this stage it was almost an hour and a half after he was born. So much for immediate contact after a natural delivery.
Unfortunately the application of pressure didn’t work to stop the bleeding. The second doc came in and took a look, thought maybe we could try a small vaginal pack to see if that did anything, and if not, they were recommending that I have a spinal and go into the OR so that they could use retractors to see what was actually bleeding, and stitch me up without me feeling every little tug and pull. I agreed in a second; as I said, the aftermath was so much worse for me pain-wise than either the contractions or the pushing. Having the vaginal pack put in was no walk in the park either, the doc really stuffed the gauze in there; I had to give Timmy back to Mark while they were doing it because I didn’t trust myself to hold onto him and not squeeze too hard.
Vaginal pack didn’t work either, so off to the OR we went. Although it took about three hours to get in there as there was an emergency C section that bumped us. (Which I don’t have any problem with at all.) At least during this time I got to hold Timmy, nurse him, call a few people and generally be a happy new mother!
So finally at about 7:30 I was wheeled into the OR for round 2. The anesthesiologists were really fun, we were doing lots of chatting and laughing, which was nice. The main doc had introduced himself to me as I got into labor and delivery, which of course I didn’t remember. I know someone had but I wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a two person lineup. He was joking with the nurses that I had the baby at home – which isn’t too far off! The spinal didn’t go as smoothly as I remember it doing with my C section – he apparently hit a nerve so I felt a sharp pain shooting down my leg. It took about 30 seconds to dissipate, and I was quite worried, but the anesthesiologists didn’t’ seem to think it was a big deal. A few minutes later they did get the spinal in in the right place, and laid me out on the table. There were two poles, one on either side of the bed, that had loops hanging from them for my ankles to go into. They looked more like medieval torture devices!
Forty minutes later, they were finally done. It turns out I had a vaginal tear in addition to the perineal and labial tears they had already repaired, so that’s where the bleeding was coming from. I asked if it was normal to have tearing there, and what it might come from. The docs said that it does happen from time to time, most likely just some part of the baby that got caught a little and ripped me open. They were saying that because I didn’t have an epidural the pushes are harder to control, so there tends to be somewhat more damage after a natural birth than one with pain meds. I felt like saying, you folks are the ones who told me he needed to come out NOW, so that’s what I did!
So at about 8:30 pm I was finally all fixed up. Finally got to really relax and enjoy Timmy as I waited for the spinal to wear off and be allowed to go down to recovery.
Now for some editorializing! I was really taken by surprise by this labor and delivery – I thought I was well prepared having read and practiced the Bradley method, as well as umpteen other books, both about natural birth and standard deliveries. The ‘emotional signposts’ that the Bradley method discusses made so much sense to me, I was really planning on using that as a mark of when we should be heading to the hospital. According to them, the initial response to early labor is excitement, followed by getting serious when the contractions are more intense and have to be worked through, followed by self-doubt when you’re about to transition into the pushing phase. Well. I definitely felt the excitement. But I was still fairly calm and relaxed even when the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart – in fact, just before I called the doc and subsequently had my water break, I was telling Mark I wanted to take some last pictures of my belly. (Which did not end up happening). But that is not something I would think someone ‘serious’ about working through the contractions would be saying. The other thing that totally threw me was that both the Bradley book and my doctor were saying that I should come in when the contractions were 60 seconds long. Which mine never were, at least not until we were in the car and on our way. So that was another reason I thought we still had a while to go. Finally, the Bradley book said that if you’re a “speedster”, delivering after just a few hours, you’ll typically find that the pain of the contractions is a very hard one to work through. So because I was not finding the contractions unmanageable, again, I thought that I still had a long time to go.
The other thing that really took me by surprise was how fast the pushing stage went. Again based on the Bradley book, I was imagining that I’d have time to think about what position I wanted to push in, what felt comfortable and what didn’t, that I’d have a few minutes in between contractions to relax and take in the wonder of it all. Not so much. I had to be so focused because the pushes were so close together that I really didn’t experience any wonder at all. It was just my body doing it’s thing, and my mind trying desparately to keep up! I almost might consider having an epidural if we end up having a third child – experience yet another aspect of labor.
The last thing I wanted to mention is that despite all the tearing and stitching, and “piles”, my recovery really has been so much easier than after my C section. I was bounding up and down stairs the first day I was home, versus taking quite a few minutes to walk up the stairs into the house when I arrived home after Ant was born. I went for a half hour walk yesterday during which my quads and glutes felt a bit tired going up hills, but it was much longer than I could manage after the C. I can pick Ant up with no problem, jump up in the middle of the night to check on Timmy when I hear a funny noise, and manage nursing him and changing diapers without Mark’s assistance at night. “They” say that recovery is easier after a vaginal birth, but it was just hard for me to imagine until I experienced both myself. Which I am so incredibly glad and grateful that I did.
Similarly to what happened when I woke up with fairly close contractions at 35 weeks, once I was up and about they slowed down and spaced out, to about 10-15 minutes apart. I still wasn’t sure if this was really it, but I was thinking it might be – and at 39w6d, to boot. So much for my predictions of 1-2 weeks late! It seemed even more like it might be the day when I went to the bathroom, and had some blood-tinged mucus on the TP when I wiped. Big smile on my face!
Mark came down not too long after that to ask what was going on, I told him that I thought we might be having a baby that day. He inquired as to whether he should go to work, I said probably not. Good thing, too, given how the rest of the day played out!!
I was supposed to have my routine 40-week checkup that morning at 9:45, I figured since I was most likely in early labor that there wasn’t much point in going in, so tried to call the doctor’s office – of course that was the day that they don’t open until 9:30.
I then spent a couple of hours doing some last minute stuff for work, as well as sharing taking care of Ant with Mark until the Rinaldis showed up to look after him, and trotted him off to a farm for the morning, after he’d had his breakfast. The contractions during this time were still nothing terribly painful, although more crampy feeling than my BH had ever been. I was feeling them low in my uterus, sort of down around my hips and below.
At 9:30, I called my doctor’s office to say that I was in early labor so I didn’t think I needed to come in. The nurse said I should come anyway, but backtracked a little when I said I wouldn’t be able to make my apt time because I live 25 min or so away. The plan we came up with was that I would come in at around 1:30 (I think she was thinking that I may be in false labor as my contractions had spaced out, and that I should be checked if that were the case), but call at around noon to confirm if I was actually in labor or not.
I finished with all my work stuff at around 10am; at this point the contractions were closer together, around 4-5 minutes apart, but still not lasting that long, about 40 seconds. And I could definitely talk through them with no problem; maybe a little more concentrating on my breathing but that was it. I figured it was time to start thinking about getting ready, so I headed off to take a shower – which then turned into a bath, because that sounded like a nice way to relax for a bit.
I hopped into the bath at around 10:15, and relaxed and lounged in it for quite a while. I only had three or four contractions while I was in there, so I thought for sure we’d be around for a while yet. It took me a bit by surprise when I stood up to rinse off that the contractions were quite close together and more uncomfortable than they had been, to the point where I started using the technique recommended by the Bradley method in early-mid labor of leaning against something and letting your tummy muscles relax as much as possible, so that your uterus can do its work. I had to lean against the back of the shower 3-4 times during the time it took me to wash my hair and finish rinsing off.
When I got out and dried off, I told Mark that he should probably shower too, as we might be going in a bit sooner than I had thought. Although I was really thinking that the contractions were just so close together because I’d been lying down and relaxing for a while, and that they’d surely space out soon. Especially because they were only 20-30 seconds long by my “one little second two little second” count. I should actually try doing that now and see if my estimate was off!
I picked out some clothes, undies, etc, going to the chair in our room every 2-3 minutes to bend over and relax through each contraction. I would bend, hold on to the seat of the chair, let my tummy sag, and think about taking deep breaths, just as the Bradley method taught.
At about ten past noon I remembered that I was supposed to call my doctor. I spoke to a receptionist at 12:15, and had a bit of difficulty making her understand what I was trying to say – which was that I was definitely in labor, so wouldn’t be making it to my 1:30 appointment, I’d just go to labor and delivery when I was ready to come in.
My doc had said that I should come when the contractions were 5 minutes apart and 60 seconds long, according to the Bradley book one should go to the hospital for a first baby (which I was thinking this was since my first had been a C-section, so this was the first for my cervix) when they’re 3-4 min apart and 60 seconds, and you’ve reached the “serious” emotional signpost. As mine still weren’t approaching anything like 60 seconds, I definitely didn’t feel like I was serious about working through the contractions yet, I was still thinking we had a while to go.
Eventually, I just asked the receptionist if I could speak to the nurse, and was told she would call me back in a few minutes.
At that point, I finally started feeling like I did need to lie down for the contractions, so I lay down on our waterbed where I had been putting my things to take to the hospital. The second contraction after I lay down, I felt a distinct POP, and a big gush of fluid. I actually started giggling it was such an odd sensation. I called out to Mark that my water just broke and to bring a towel so that I hopefully wouldn’t wet the bed. He ran in with a towel and stuffed it underneath me.
The nurse called back (12:31) while I was lying on the bed. I told her that my water just broke, and she said that we should come in right away. I was still waffling, because I didn’t feel like the contractions were long enough yet, but she was quite firm, and I decided that she was probably right. So I let Mark know, and we went into high gear. Well he did – I was still lying on the bed.
Another couple of contractions later when I felt like most of the water was out of me, I went into the bathroom to change my bottoms and put a pad in. I did already have a light-days pad in my undies because of the bloody show – when I pulled my pants down, there was a big glob of brown on that, and the pad itself was saturated with a yellow-greenish fluid, so I thought there might be meconium in there. I held onto the pad to show the nurses, and went back to lie down on the bed again. The contractions were feeling quite a bit stronger at this point, and coming pretty much on top of one another
Mark had everything together about ten minutes later, so we headed down to the car. I reclined the seat, got in, and tried to close the door. Of course, it got jammed on something over on the side of the garage – I started trying to get out again to lighten the load so I could close the door, but Mark said to stay put and he’d take care of it. I laugh now that I was still trying to act as if everything was perfectly normal!
We left the house at 12:48, after Mark had to get out of the car and fix the garage door so it would close properly; it’s been acting up recently. Not the most opportune time! I told him not to drive too fast, still thinking that we had plenty of time.
We made a couple of calls on the way in, to the Rinaldis who were watching Ant, to my mom to let her know we were heading in to the hospital. The contractions were about 2 minutes apart (another place where the Bradley method was wrong – they were supposed to slow down when we were en route because of the adrenaline!), and I was doing quite a bit of panting through them, I think, rather than taking normal natural breaths. Mark kept reminding me to breathe normally, which was a big help, although I found it hard to do in a not terribly relaxing position!
We got onto Storrow Drive, at which point we should have been less than ten minutes away – but hit bumper to bumper traffic! At this point Mark was getting a little worried that we wouldn’t make it to the hospital based on his assessment of how I was doing – he asked if he should beep the horn and flash lights to try and get through. I said I didn’t think we needed to, but perhaps we should call smartraveller to see what was going on. Fortunately it was just a work crew at the BU bridge, so we did get through pretty quickly.
While we were waiting in the traffic, the contractions felt a bit different again, and I started spewing more amniotic fluid. Fortunately Mark had thought ahead and brought some towels (although we should have been more forethoughtful and put one underneath me), so handed me one which I kinda shoved between my legs. Mark and I were debating which garage at MGH we should park in, or if he should drop me off out front. By the time we got there, we had determined that we should probably just leave the car if we could – I was definitely feeling like the contractions were pushing more, and really right on top of each other. I didn’t think I could walk, and I didn’t want Mark to be away from me for that long!
We arrived at the hospital at around 1:20, Mark pulled up right in front and said to the guy waiting there, “We’re having a baby!”. He actually sounded relatively calm to me, although I’m not sure he was feeling exactly that. The guys there were great, pulled up a wheelchair and opened the door for me. I couldn’t get out right away as I was having a contraction, but once it was over I managed to get out and sit on the wheelchair, keeping the towel between my legs. He wheeled me quite fast, Mark right behind him, and had actually radioed ahead so there was someone waiting at the elevator to whisk us right up to the labor and delivery floor. Which turned out to be 14, not 9 as Mark and I had thought! He had a medical emergency card, so the elevator bypassed anyone who was waiting, and they had told everyone at the first floor that we needed the elevator, so we headed right up.
They wheeled me in to L&D, where the receptionist started asking us if we had my blue card and insurance card. I had thought we didn’t need that stuff as I’d filled out all the paperwork in advance, so I hadn’t brought it with me. I had to tell Mark my number through a contraction! She was not feeling nearly the urgency I thought she should, taking her sweet time, so I said that my contractions were only 1-2 minutes apart. After a couple of minutes she said she would go and get someone; I felt like we waited much longer than we should have – a nurse even came by to take someone else in first! At this point I knew that I was much closer to delivering than I had thought even at home, so I was feeling a bit neglected!
In a few minutes more, we where wheeled into triage, and the nurse had me put on a Johnny. I had two contractions right on top of each other, barely time to breathe in between, then got up to change. I dropped the towel, and she said that “we definitely passed the towel test” – it was quite soaked. It was definitely greenish, so I said that I thought it might be meconium. I stripped then and there – modesty totally out of the window I just wanted to lie down again!
I hopped up on the table, and almost immediately felt my uterus pushing. I said, “I need to push!” The nurse said that they needed to check me first. I had no idea that it would be so blindingly obvious when the pushing stage came – my uterus was doing it whether I was going along with it or not. A midwife ran in, checked my cervix and said, “fully dilated, +2 station”. At which point they raced me down the hallway to the delivery room, and said that I should start pushing. After a few of the docs introduced themselves. I was in no state to pay any attention to that!
They were all very helpful, they did have me use the sitting squat position that is recommended by the Bradley method as well. I think I was holding my legs up, but there was a nurse on one side and Mark on the other, I think they were helping too. The contractions were still right on top of each other – no time for the one breath two breaths, three breaths and PUSH that I had practiced! It was pretty much breath and push push push push, breath push push push, okay legs down for a few seconds next one is coming breath push push push. I was definitely panting; the nurse was very helpful telling me to breathe more deeply. The pushes hurt, I could feel stretching burning in my perineal area, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. That may just be because there wasn’t time for me to even think about being in pain. I wasn’t screaming, nor grunting, maybe a combination of the two that was all about the exertion of the pushing. After a little while, they told me to try and push gently and then relax, push and relax – I guess this was the point when the baby was crowning and they were trying to avoid too much tearing. They asked me if I wanted to feel the head, so I did – but I think what I was feeling was actually my parts and not the baby’s head, not sure. Felt too squishy to me to be the head. They also asked if I wanted to look, but I couldn’t even think about opening my eyes I was too far immersed in just trying to control my breathing and the pushing. I thought I was doing okay with the gentle pushes, but then they started saying that the baby’s heartrate was dropping and we had to get it out NOW which was by far the best motivation I’d had. The next contraction came, I took a deep breath, and PUSHED. I remember saying “OH MY GOD”, I’m not sure if it was this push or one before, there were a couple that were quite intense. The feeling when the baby came out was so strange – all of a sudden I felt the head come out, and then the body just slipped out right behind. I have to say, the idea of finding out whether Fwed was a boy or girl did not enter my head for even one second during this process.
Or even after, until Mark said, “It’s a BOY!” – none of the medical personnel did, unlike what you see on TV. Thought that was amusing. They whisked Timmy away because of the meconium; the pediatricians intubated him and aspirated his lungs. That seemed like it took a couple of minutes although it may have been less than that – when they were finally done they gave him some oxygen, slapped him around, and he started yelling at them. Ironically I was so wrapped up in what was going on with me and the docs that I didn’t even notice that he hadn’t cried until he did. Which I’m glad of because I would have been really worried had it occurred to me that he wasn’t making any noises. In any case his Apgars were 8 and 9, so everything was looking good!
In the meantime, the docs pushed and pulled to deliver the placenta. I asked if we could just wait until it came out on its own; they said that there tends to be more bleeding that way, so they prefer to help it out. The happy clappy natural birth books all say that you should deliver it on your own – but I really have no idea what the truth there is, so I just went with what the docs said. They also gave me a shot of pitocin to help my uterus contract – I had been planning on having a hep-loc, but obviously there hadn’t been time for that!
I did get to look at the placenta after it came out, I thought it was really neat. Apparently when they pull it out it is inside out, so the doc showed me the back side, flipped it back right side round, and showed me the membrane that was also attached to it. The best comparison to something I’ve seen before is that it looked like a piece of liver.
The next order of business was stitching me up. I had a second degree perineal tear that required a few stitches, and some labial tears as well. A number of shots of lidocaine were needed to desensitize me – all the poking and prodding at that point was honestly worse than the delivery itself. The pains were much more sharp, as opposed to the crampiness of the labor and work of delivery. At the same time they were mashing my uterus. I’m not sure if that was to get it to contract more quickly, or just to feel and make sure that it was doing the appropriate thing. Quite astonishing how rapidly it got smaller – even just a few minutes after the delivery it had gone from watermelon to maybe canteloupe sized. After they were theoretically done with the stitching, the doc was still looking concerned, and said that there was still more bleeding than she was happy with. Nothing serious, I wasn’t hemorrhaging, but there was still blood coming from somewhere not normal. So I got another shot, this time of methergen, in my other thigh. Lovely. They’d also put in an IV by this point and were dripping in pitocin as well.
The doc found a couple more places on my labia that were “oozing”, so she put a few more stiches in to try and close those up. STILL oozing. More stitches. After those still didn’t stop the bleeding she said we’d try applying pressure, and also get a consult from another OB to see what he thought and maybe get another pair of hands in there. At this point, I *finally* got to hold Timmy – I think by this stage it was almost an hour and a half after he was born. So much for immediate contact after a natural delivery.
Unfortunately the application of pressure didn’t work to stop the bleeding. The second doc came in and took a look, thought maybe we could try a small vaginal pack to see if that did anything, and if not, they were recommending that I have a spinal and go into the OR so that they could use retractors to see what was actually bleeding, and stitch me up without me feeling every little tug and pull. I agreed in a second; as I said, the aftermath was so much worse for me pain-wise than either the contractions or the pushing. Having the vaginal pack put in was no walk in the park either, the doc really stuffed the gauze in there; I had to give Timmy back to Mark while they were doing it because I didn’t trust myself to hold onto him and not squeeze too hard.
Vaginal pack didn’t work either, so off to the OR we went. Although it took about three hours to get in there as there was an emergency C section that bumped us. (Which I don’t have any problem with at all.) At least during this time I got to hold Timmy, nurse him, call a few people and generally be a happy new mother!
So finally at about 7:30 I was wheeled into the OR for round 2. The anesthesiologists were really fun, we were doing lots of chatting and laughing, which was nice. The main doc had introduced himself to me as I got into labor and delivery, which of course I didn’t remember. I know someone had but I wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a two person lineup. He was joking with the nurses that I had the baby at home – which isn’t too far off! The spinal didn’t go as smoothly as I remember it doing with my C section – he apparently hit a nerve so I felt a sharp pain shooting down my leg. It took about 30 seconds to dissipate, and I was quite worried, but the anesthesiologists didn’t’ seem to think it was a big deal. A few minutes later they did get the spinal in in the right place, and laid me out on the table. There were two poles, one on either side of the bed, that had loops hanging from them for my ankles to go into. They looked more like medieval torture devices!
Forty minutes later, they were finally done. It turns out I had a vaginal tear in addition to the perineal and labial tears they had already repaired, so that’s where the bleeding was coming from. I asked if it was normal to have tearing there, and what it might come from. The docs said that it does happen from time to time, most likely just some part of the baby that got caught a little and ripped me open. They were saying that because I didn’t have an epidural the pushes are harder to control, so there tends to be somewhat more damage after a natural birth than one with pain meds. I felt like saying, you folks are the ones who told me he needed to come out NOW, so that’s what I did!
So at about 8:30 pm I was finally all fixed up. Finally got to really relax and enjoy Timmy as I waited for the spinal to wear off and be allowed to go down to recovery.
Now for some editorializing! I was really taken by surprise by this labor and delivery – I thought I was well prepared having read and practiced the Bradley method, as well as umpteen other books, both about natural birth and standard deliveries. The ‘emotional signposts’ that the Bradley method discusses made so much sense to me, I was really planning on using that as a mark of when we should be heading to the hospital. According to them, the initial response to early labor is excitement, followed by getting serious when the contractions are more intense and have to be worked through, followed by self-doubt when you’re about to transition into the pushing phase. Well. I definitely felt the excitement. But I was still fairly calm and relaxed even when the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart – in fact, just before I called the doc and subsequently had my water break, I was telling Mark I wanted to take some last pictures of my belly. (Which did not end up happening). But that is not something I would think someone ‘serious’ about working through the contractions would be saying. The other thing that totally threw me was that both the Bradley book and my doctor were saying that I should come in when the contractions were 60 seconds long. Which mine never were, at least not until we were in the car and on our way. So that was another reason I thought we still had a while to go. Finally, the Bradley book said that if you’re a “speedster”, delivering after just a few hours, you’ll typically find that the pain of the contractions is a very hard one to work through. So because I was not finding the contractions unmanageable, again, I thought that I still had a long time to go.
The other thing that really took me by surprise was how fast the pushing stage went. Again based on the Bradley book, I was imagining that I’d have time to think about what position I wanted to push in, what felt comfortable and what didn’t, that I’d have a few minutes in between contractions to relax and take in the wonder of it all. Not so much. I had to be so focused because the pushes were so close together that I really didn’t experience any wonder at all. It was just my body doing it’s thing, and my mind trying desparately to keep up! I almost might consider having an epidural if we end up having a third child – experience yet another aspect of labor.
The last thing I wanted to mention is that despite all the tearing and stitching, and “piles”, my recovery really has been so much easier than after my C section. I was bounding up and down stairs the first day I was home, versus taking quite a few minutes to walk up the stairs into the house when I arrived home after Ant was born. I went for a half hour walk yesterday during which my quads and glutes felt a bit tired going up hills, but it was much longer than I could manage after the C. I can pick Ant up with no problem, jump up in the middle of the night to check on Timmy when I hear a funny noise, and manage nursing him and changing diapers without Mark’s assistance at night. “They” say that recovery is easier after a vaginal birth, but it was just hard for me to imagine until I experienced both myself. Which I am so incredibly glad and grateful that I did.
Friday, September 19, 2008
He's here!
Timothy Edward was born yesterday at 1:48pm. 7lb 5oz, 20 inches. And looks astonishingly like his big brother when he was born.
Short version of the delivery - we arrived at the hospital just in time for me to start pushing, and Timmy was born 13 minutes after we got into the room. Fixing me up afterwards took way longer, and eventually involved a spinal. Still waiting to have all that checked out so I can get out of this flipping bed!
Tim is a total cutie, and nursing like a champ. About to meet his big bro - hoping that goes well!
Short version of the delivery - we arrived at the hospital just in time for me to start pushing, and Timmy was born 13 minutes after we got into the room. Fixing me up afterwards took way longer, and eventually involved a spinal. Still waiting to have all that checked out so I can get out of this flipping bed!
Tim is a total cutie, and nursing like a champ. About to meet his big bro - hoping that goes well!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Get the baby off Mommy!!!
This weekend, we had some friends with an eight-week old daughter visiting us for an afternoon. Ant was sitting in his high chair (he's taken to eating only in that recently and eschewing his booster seat), eating supper. I thought I would take the opportunity to hold the little girl, who was quietly sleeping on her mom.
(Aside - it was incredibly difficult to find a position that was actually comfortable for me to hold her in - belly very much in the way! Still no signs of that changing anytime soon though).
Just a few minutes after we got settled, Ant looked over, and started getting quite upset. "Get baby off Mommy! Mommy no hold Meghan! Get baby OFF!". He demanded to get out of the high chair, and came running over to me with his arms up for me to pick him up. I offered to let him sit on my other side, while I continued to hold the wee one - NOT acceptable. Daddy took him upstairs to calm down (not really) while I gave her back to her mom, and Ant immediately wanted to be held by me when he came back down.
So despite seeming so accepting of the upcoming reality the other day when he was jumping in the crib, the actuality of my holding another baby did not go over nearly as well.
I'm just hoping that when it's HIS baby, things will be different.
Please?
(Aside - it was incredibly difficult to find a position that was actually comfortable for me to hold her in - belly very much in the way! Still no signs of that changing anytime soon though).
Just a few minutes after we got settled, Ant looked over, and started getting quite upset. "Get baby off Mommy! Mommy no hold Meghan! Get baby OFF!". He demanded to get out of the high chair, and came running over to me with his arms up for me to pick him up. I offered to let him sit on my other side, while I continued to hold the wee one - NOT acceptable. Daddy took him upstairs to calm down (not really) while I gave her back to her mom, and Ant immediately wanted to be held by me when he came back down.
So despite seeming so accepting of the upcoming reality the other day when he was jumping in the crib, the actuality of my holding another baby did not go over nearly as well.
I'm just hoping that when it's HIS baby, things will be different.
Please?
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Whirlwind - and results!
The past 6-8 weeks have been a whirlwind of house work and getting things ready for the changes to come. Our house was built in '99 with three bedrooms upstairs that we were originally using as our bedroom, the guest room, and the office. When Ant arrived, we turned the guest room into his bedroom, leaving the spare bed there so when push comes to shove we still have a place for people to stay. Now that Fwed is on the way, we decided that we hardly use the office anymore as we both have laptops with wireless access and mostly use our computers downstairs - so it made sense to turn that into Fwed's room. We do still need a place to put some office stuff, so decided to finish the basement. It ended up being a much bigger endeavor than I imagined at first.
1. Clean out and organize the garage so we had a place to store all the stuff from the basement while we were working.
2. Install shelves in the garage to accomodate all the extra stuff that now needs to be stored there
3. Move everything from basement to garage (we had a lot more crap than I ever imagined!)
4. Get the basement done - my BIL and his friend did most of the work for us, in terms of putting up a wall between the laundry room and basement, putting up the drywall
5. Get the plasterer in to plaster the drywall
6. Clean up from 5 (LOTS of dust!)
7. Paint the new basement (I love the color blue we chose, definitely makes me happy)
8. Install trim
9. Paint trim
10. Choose carpet, get it installed
11. Move stuff back from garage to basement
12. Clean garage (I swept and MOPPED the basement because of all the dust - I had to laugh at myself while mopping though!)
13. Move office furniture down to basement
14. Move rest of office furniture to attic
15. Put together crib
That's as far as we've gotten - still have a huge amount of junk and paperwork in the office that needs to get filed / sorted through / recycled before we can move the dresser into place and get rid of or move the file cabinet. But we're getting there, at least now Fwed has a place to sleep.
The other nice thing is that it means that the whole idea of a new baby seems to have become more solidified in Ant's mind. He is now calling the ex-office the 'baby's woom'. This morning he wanted to jump in the baby's crib, so I said he could after we changed his diaper. Once I put him in there, he said, "Baby come out of mommy's belly soon. Baby sweep in cwib. Baby dump (jump) in cwib wif Antony!". I had been saying to him in previous days that the baby would be coming out soon, and would eat, sleep and cry a lot - he put together 'baby sweep in cwib' and 'baby dump in cwib wif Antony' all on his own though! I had to explain that the baby wouldn't be doing much jumping to start with - but it makes me feel a lot better about the upcoming changes that Ant seems to be starting to accept and understand what will happen.
Much better than the "no thank you baby" I got when I first told him this weekend that the baby would be coming out soon!
Top of the post has one view of the basement before / after (unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture of the REAL before, that is before we moved all the junk out!)
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
My pee in the.... bath!
As with many kids his age, Ant has successfully peed on the potty a few times, but no longer seems interested at all. However, he finds peeing in the bath highly amusing.
Last night I got in the bath with him (as I do fairly frequently), and he was saying as he climbed in, "My pee in the bath!". I asked him, "How about if you pee on the potty", and asked Mark to put him on there, however, that was completely unacceptable. So he got in the bath.
Stood there for a couple of seconds, and then sure enough, out came the stream, to peals of laughter. (his, not mine). Came quite close to my leg, so I said, "No peeing on mommy!" and moved him out of the way.
At which point he stopped peeing, walked closer to me, aimed at my leg and started up again.
No more doubt about whether he has bladder control, if he can start and stop at will like that! I guess we have to work on peeing in the potty being more amusing than peeing in the bath or on mommy.
Last night I got in the bath with him (as I do fairly frequently), and he was saying as he climbed in, "My pee in the bath!". I asked him, "How about if you pee on the potty", and asked Mark to put him on there, however, that was completely unacceptable. So he got in the bath.
Stood there for a couple of seconds, and then sure enough, out came the stream, to peals of laughter. (his, not mine). Came quite close to my leg, so I said, "No peeing on mommy!" and moved him out of the way.
At which point he stopped peeing, walked closer to me, aimed at my leg and started up again.
No more doubt about whether he has bladder control, if he can start and stop at will like that! I guess we have to work on peeing in the potty being more amusing than peeing in the bath or on mommy.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
It's the end of the world as we know it!
I, a self-proclaimed anti-vegetarian (my diet, not against people who are vegetarians!!), have eaten three *salads* in the last few month or so!!!
As a child, I absolutely refused all fruits and vegetables, to the point where I would eat pasta with butter rather than have it tainted by pasta sauce, and would eat only white pizza.
Midway through high school I finally tried pizza, and actually liked it - and that was the beginning of a slippery slope towards omnivoriciousness. I gradually added more and more veggies to my repertoire (another big step was the first time I ate broccoli when my mom cooked some after college). I did try a salad once or twice, but really couldn't stand the way I felt I had to chew the lettuce for about half an hour before I could convince it to go down my gullet.
A few weeks ago at a charity dinner hosted by my sister (the kind where a chef comes into your house to prepare a meal), I declined the salad as per my usual procedure. However, when they arrived, Mark's salad actually looked pretty good, so I asked if I could try it. To my utter astonishment, it was actually fabulous! Baby greens with candied walnuts and pine nuts, some kind of cheese I don't remember, and a champagne vinaigrette. Nothing at all like what I always thought a salad was - the romaine lettuce et al. I was no longer a salad virgin!!!
Then this past weekend at a wedding, I did NOT decline the salad, and once again thoroughly enjoyed it.
The piece de resistance? I went shopping a couple of days ago and bought some baby greens, feta cheese and greek vinaigrette. And today, when we had some people over for dinner, made my very own salad. Which I proceeded to eat with gusto. Yummy!
I'm still not much of a fruit eater, but maybe that's on the way too.
Just goes to show, that sometimes it really is worth trying new things. Yay, me!!
As a child, I absolutely refused all fruits and vegetables, to the point where I would eat pasta with butter rather than have it tainted by pasta sauce, and would eat only white pizza.
Midway through high school I finally tried pizza, and actually liked it - and that was the beginning of a slippery slope towards omnivoriciousness. I gradually added more and more veggies to my repertoire (another big step was the first time I ate broccoli when my mom cooked some after college). I did try a salad once or twice, but really couldn't stand the way I felt I had to chew the lettuce for about half an hour before I could convince it to go down my gullet.
A few weeks ago at a charity dinner hosted by my sister (the kind where a chef comes into your house to prepare a meal), I declined the salad as per my usual procedure. However, when they arrived, Mark's salad actually looked pretty good, so I asked if I could try it. To my utter astonishment, it was actually fabulous! Baby greens with candied walnuts and pine nuts, some kind of cheese I don't remember, and a champagne vinaigrette. Nothing at all like what I always thought a salad was - the romaine lettuce et al. I was no longer a salad virgin!!!
Then this past weekend at a wedding, I did NOT decline the salad, and once again thoroughly enjoyed it.
The piece de resistance? I went shopping a couple of days ago and bought some baby greens, feta cheese and greek vinaigrette. And today, when we had some people over for dinner, made my very own salad. Which I proceeded to eat with gusto. Yummy!
I'm still not much of a fruit eater, but maybe that's on the way too.
Just goes to show, that sometimes it really is worth trying new things. Yay, me!!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
You can't make this stuff up.
Title and email courtesy of my sister (S is my niece, who will be 3 in October):
S discovered something that she thinks is totally hilarious… When we were driving back from AC I turned around and was telling her something and must have raised my eyebrows. All of a sudden her little face lights up and she says, “Mommy! What are those lines on your forehead?!?” (Picture her tone of voice as totally awestruck). “Can I touch it??”. She must have made me raise my eyebrows 10 times so she could see the cool lines. She wanted to know why she doesn’t have any. Hard to explain to a two year old that mommy is OLD and those lines are not that funny to me. Last night she remembered about it and wanted to see the “Rainbow on Mommy’s head”
I must say, I do prefer for the lines on my forehead to be called my "rainbow" rather than just wrinkles!
S discovered something that she thinks is totally hilarious… When we were driving back from AC I turned around and was telling her something and must have raised my eyebrows. All of a sudden her little face lights up and she says, “Mommy! What are those lines on your forehead?!?” (Picture her tone of voice as totally awestruck). “Can I touch it??”. She must have made me raise my eyebrows 10 times so she could see the cool lines. She wanted to know why she doesn’t have any. Hard to explain to a two year old that mommy is OLD and those lines are not that funny to me. Last night she remembered about it and wanted to see the “Rainbow on Mommy’s head”
I must say, I do prefer for the lines on my forehead to be called my "rainbow" rather than just wrinkles!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Magical apparating teeth!
We've thought a couple of times over the last few months, "Oh, Ant must be teething, he's drooling / chewing / pulling on his ears...". But haven't noticed anything.
Lo and behold, I happened to get a glimpse at his upper right gum during bathtime on Saturday, and there was a second molar there. And not recently erupted either.
Tipped him upside down at the hockey rink on Sun (the best position I've found for seeing those upper choppers), and look! the two-year molar on the other side is there too!
It's tough getting a look these days - Monday I managed to see the bottom right while he was doing his big open mouthed grin about something I forget now, and the bottom right was in too, and also quite far out.
Finally, playing with our neighbor on her swing set yesterday, another open mouthed squeal of delight that showed me the bottom left, and that tooth is in too (although not quite as far in as the other three.)
So Ant just got all four of his two year molars, without us even noticing. We have definitely been lucky in the teething dept!
Lo and behold, I happened to get a glimpse at his upper right gum during bathtime on Saturday, and there was a second molar there. And not recently erupted either.
Tipped him upside down at the hockey rink on Sun (the best position I've found for seeing those upper choppers), and look! the two-year molar on the other side is there too!
It's tough getting a look these days - Monday I managed to see the bottom right while he was doing his big open mouthed grin about something I forget now, and the bottom right was in too, and also quite far out.
Finally, playing with our neighbor on her swing set yesterday, another open mouthed squeal of delight that showed me the bottom left, and that tooth is in too (although not quite as far in as the other three.)
So Ant just got all four of his two year molars, without us even noticing. We have definitely been lucky in the teething dept!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Potty training failure.
This past weekend was it (actually, I started this post last week, it's now two weekends ago that I tried this). I had read the Azrin and Foxx book, “Toilet Training in Less than a Day” three times, spent the evening before making up reminder worksheets and lists for myself to refer to during the training, purchased snacks I thought Ant would like, dug around in the attic for my old baby doll that would ‘pee’.
The method was developed in the early 70’s by two psychologists who were interested in teaching retarded children and adults to use the bathroom on their own. After they came up with a procedure for that population, they realized that with minor modifications, the same ideas could be used to train children of normal intelligence. Hence the book. The method is based on a few principles – that children desire their parent’s and other’s approval, ongoing approval and treats for following instructions, repetition of the procedure, teaching someone else (i.e the doll) to use the procedure, manual guidance when instructions aren’t followed, mild disapproval when the procedure isn’t followed (i.e. pants are wet instead of the potty being used), and reducing the amount of instruction that is used as the different steps are learned.
Essentially, you first help your child teach the doll how to use the potty, and at the same time demonstrate the approval he will receive. Then you wet the doll’s pants, and have the child help you tell the doll that while we love her, we don’t love wet pants – then the doll has to practice going to the potty. After the child seems to understand the process and is able to help the doll, you then have him walk through the pottying process, providing manual guidance when he’s not doing it on his own, lots of praise as he accomplishes each steps, and treats (including lots to drink) for being a ‘big boy with dry pants’ – you do the dry pants checks, well, have the child do them, about every five minutes. As he starts to do each part of the process himself you provide less and less instruction, and less praise, until he’s doing the entire pottying of his own accord and you’re only praising the dry pants.
One of the keys to this method is that the child has to be motivated by praise from you, and the idea of praise from other family and friends. Not so much with Ant. He really doesn’t seem to care terribly much about that at all, which made things a bit difficult.
Another part of the process is “verbal rehearsal”, where you walk your child through the process by asking him questions. Well, the answer I most frequently got to questions like “Antony, will you use the potty like a big boy” was a fairly emphatic “NO”. Not quite the way the scenario plays out in the book. What they say to do if you do not get the answer you want is to ask the question again, provide the answer you’re looking for, then ask him again. I wasn’t remembering that at the time, so I flailed a little bit.
Another mistake I made was in pushing Ant to use the little potty chair we had, rather than letting him do what he actually tried to, and use the stool and potty seat we also acquired. Mark and I had decided that the stool was a bit unsafe, especially if Ant was going to be pulling down his own pants, so we preferred he use the chair. So when he walked over to the toilet, put the potty seat on, pulled over the stool and sat down, I said no, no, we’ll use this one instead. I think that was a bad call on my part, I should have just gone with what he wanted to do.
Finally, one of the things you’re supposed to try and do is to have the child do a number of potty trials and sit on the potty for as long as possible (up to ten minutes) in the hopes that the first time they do pee it’s on the potty, so you can praise them. Well, Ant was much more interested in playing with the syringe we were using to feed the doll water, using it to stir his drink with, than he was in following my instructions and using the potty. With the result that when he did pee (I had been wondering if he had the necessary bladder control – it took over an hour of him in big boy pants before he finally peed, so at least I answered that question), it was not in the potty but in his pants. At that point I tried to get him to do the practice trials that are supposed to teach your child to get to the potty and lower their pants quickly, but again he was totally not interested, so I decided that we had to call it a day and try again another time.
All in all it ended up being a good thing, as he got a violent stomach bug later in the day and spent the next week throwing up. I don’t think that trying to reinforce the potty training under those circumstances would have worked terribly well either.
Overall, I still think that it’s a promising approach, and may just try it again in a while, when I feel like Ant will be less distracted, and perhaps better motivated by making us happy. We’ll see…
The method was developed in the early 70’s by two psychologists who were interested in teaching retarded children and adults to use the bathroom on their own. After they came up with a procedure for that population, they realized that with minor modifications, the same ideas could be used to train children of normal intelligence. Hence the book. The method is based on a few principles – that children desire their parent’s and other’s approval, ongoing approval and treats for following instructions, repetition of the procedure, teaching someone else (i.e the doll) to use the procedure, manual guidance when instructions aren’t followed, mild disapproval when the procedure isn’t followed (i.e. pants are wet instead of the potty being used), and reducing the amount of instruction that is used as the different steps are learned.
Essentially, you first help your child teach the doll how to use the potty, and at the same time demonstrate the approval he will receive. Then you wet the doll’s pants, and have the child help you tell the doll that while we love her, we don’t love wet pants – then the doll has to practice going to the potty. After the child seems to understand the process and is able to help the doll, you then have him walk through the pottying process, providing manual guidance when he’s not doing it on his own, lots of praise as he accomplishes each steps, and treats (including lots to drink) for being a ‘big boy with dry pants’ – you do the dry pants checks, well, have the child do them, about every five minutes. As he starts to do each part of the process himself you provide less and less instruction, and less praise, until he’s doing the entire pottying of his own accord and you’re only praising the dry pants.
One of the keys to this method is that the child has to be motivated by praise from you, and the idea of praise from other family and friends. Not so much with Ant. He really doesn’t seem to care terribly much about that at all, which made things a bit difficult.
Another part of the process is “verbal rehearsal”, where you walk your child through the process by asking him questions. Well, the answer I most frequently got to questions like “Antony, will you use the potty like a big boy” was a fairly emphatic “NO”. Not quite the way the scenario plays out in the book. What they say to do if you do not get the answer you want is to ask the question again, provide the answer you’re looking for, then ask him again. I wasn’t remembering that at the time, so I flailed a little bit.
Another mistake I made was in pushing Ant to use the little potty chair we had, rather than letting him do what he actually tried to, and use the stool and potty seat we also acquired. Mark and I had decided that the stool was a bit unsafe, especially if Ant was going to be pulling down his own pants, so we preferred he use the chair. So when he walked over to the toilet, put the potty seat on, pulled over the stool and sat down, I said no, no, we’ll use this one instead. I think that was a bad call on my part, I should have just gone with what he wanted to do.
Finally, one of the things you’re supposed to try and do is to have the child do a number of potty trials and sit on the potty for as long as possible (up to ten minutes) in the hopes that the first time they do pee it’s on the potty, so you can praise them. Well, Ant was much more interested in playing with the syringe we were using to feed the doll water, using it to stir his drink with, than he was in following my instructions and using the potty. With the result that when he did pee (I had been wondering if he had the necessary bladder control – it took over an hour of him in big boy pants before he finally peed, so at least I answered that question), it was not in the potty but in his pants. At that point I tried to get him to do the practice trials that are supposed to teach your child to get to the potty and lower their pants quickly, but again he was totally not interested, so I decided that we had to call it a day and try again another time.
All in all it ended up being a good thing, as he got a violent stomach bug later in the day and spent the next week throwing up. I don’t think that trying to reinforce the potty training under those circumstances would have worked terribly well either.
Overall, I still think that it’s a promising approach, and may just try it again in a while, when I feel like Ant will be less distracted, and perhaps better motivated by making us happy. We’ll see…
Monday, June 16, 2008
Diary of a great evening
I don't know what it was tonight, the three hour nap that Ant took this afternoon, the three combined hours of naps from yesterday (1 hour in the car and then another 2 in the late afternoon, poor guy was zapped), but we had an absolutely fabulous evening.
When I arrived home from work, Ant was running up to me, saying "AAAAAAAH!", sometimes waiting for me to return fire, sometimes not, then doing a lap around the first floor. This lasted for probably about fifteen minutes, and Nana and Papa were included in the fun too.
After they left, we played with the buckles on the booster seat, climbed up and down on "Nana's chair", played with the buckles some more, moved Nana's chair over to the vacuum sealer and played with that and some coins (vacuum sealer was off, but so much fun to open, close and put things into).
Next was supper time - I asked if he wanted tuna or meatballs, and he replied emphatically, "Meatbawws!". Always nice to have direction for meals! I prepared the TJ's meatballs to a little bit of fussing, I can never cook anything quickly enough, but it settled down pretty quickly once the "meatbawws and sauce" were provided. He asked to sit at the table instead of having the booster seat tray on, and was actually a lot less messy than normal with this meal. Ate three whole meatballs, plus dipped half a slice of toast in the leftover sauce and ate that too.
After we were done eating, more playing with the booster seat, including a totally unprompted rendition of "five little monkeys jumping on the bed", complete with finger wagging "NO mowah mon-keys jumpin' on da bed!"
Our next activity was bringing in the packages the UPS man dropped off, and opening said packages. Ant's favorite was the new car seat, which he proceeded to have me put next to the stairs, followed by more playing with buckles, getting in an out of the seat, and more singing. We talked about how this new carseat was for Papa's car, because we already have one in Antony's car and in Mommy's car.
The latter led to asking to "SEE Mommy's CAH!" - which I said we couldn't do because I had ridden my bike home. So he wanted to "see mommy's bike!". Down to the basement we went. And "rode" the bike around the garage, down the driveway, down to the corner and back again. By riding what I really mean is Ant was sitting on the seat and I was pushing the bike.
Upon our return I decided it was bedtime, and actually managed to get Ant upstairs with a minimum of fuss. We had a grand time taking of his socks, and then mine. Apparently I am not allowed to wear socks if he's not! Around then Daddy arrived home, and we had to "go downsairs, see DAddy!". Which entailed more running around in circles. Very exciting.
Preparing for bed was also a very pleasant experience - takes a while these days, but much fun was had by all. Including a phone call to Nana and Papa, where Antony had a five minute phone conversation with them! He was often just repeating what they were saying, but he did say "Hewwo Nana" or "Hewwo Papa" all by himself, as well as answering their questions in the affirmative when appropriate. Papa asked if the new carseat had come, and Ant said "Yaaaah". Papa then queried, "who's car is the car seat going in?", and Ant answered, "Papa's cah!". He asked "Nana doin?" when she got on the phone, she told him she was making supper, and a minute or two further on in the conversation, he said "Nana makin' suppah". He's listened on the phone before, but never come at all close to having an actual conversation like he did tonight.
We then played the monster spray game (I pretend to be a monster, giving very friendly growls from time to time), and he makes a "tsch tsch tsch" noise while pretend spraying me, at which point I run away because the monster spray is very effective. (This game was originated by his ten month older cousin).
After that came "miwk and sorie" time, we read three or four books, had a very nice teethbrushing where he actually made a pretty good effort all on his own, after asking Daddy to come up. A few more "sories" with Daddy, and off to bed he went with minimal complaints.
All in all, an amazingly fun evening!
When I arrived home from work, Ant was running up to me, saying "AAAAAAAH!", sometimes waiting for me to return fire, sometimes not, then doing a lap around the first floor. This lasted for probably about fifteen minutes, and Nana and Papa were included in the fun too.
After they left, we played with the buckles on the booster seat, climbed up and down on "Nana's chair", played with the buckles some more, moved Nana's chair over to the vacuum sealer and played with that and some coins (vacuum sealer was off, but so much fun to open, close and put things into).
Next was supper time - I asked if he wanted tuna or meatballs, and he replied emphatically, "Meatbawws!". Always nice to have direction for meals! I prepared the TJ's meatballs to a little bit of fussing, I can never cook anything quickly enough, but it settled down pretty quickly once the "meatbawws and sauce" were provided. He asked to sit at the table instead of having the booster seat tray on, and was actually a lot less messy than normal with this meal. Ate three whole meatballs, plus dipped half a slice of toast in the leftover sauce and ate that too.
After we were done eating, more playing with the booster seat, including a totally unprompted rendition of "five little monkeys jumping on the bed", complete with finger wagging "NO mowah mon-keys jumpin' on da bed!"
Our next activity was bringing in the packages the UPS man dropped off, and opening said packages. Ant's favorite was the new car seat, which he proceeded to have me put next to the stairs, followed by more playing with buckles, getting in an out of the seat, and more singing. We talked about how this new carseat was for Papa's car, because we already have one in Antony's car and in Mommy's car.
The latter led to asking to "SEE Mommy's CAH!" - which I said we couldn't do because I had ridden my bike home. So he wanted to "see mommy's bike!". Down to the basement we went. And "rode" the bike around the garage, down the driveway, down to the corner and back again. By riding what I really mean is Ant was sitting on the seat and I was pushing the bike.
Upon our return I decided it was bedtime, and actually managed to get Ant upstairs with a minimum of fuss. We had a grand time taking of his socks, and then mine. Apparently I am not allowed to wear socks if he's not! Around then Daddy arrived home, and we had to "go downsairs, see DAddy!". Which entailed more running around in circles. Very exciting.
Preparing for bed was also a very pleasant experience - takes a while these days, but much fun was had by all. Including a phone call to Nana and Papa, where Antony had a five minute phone conversation with them! He was often just repeating what they were saying, but he did say "Hewwo Nana" or "Hewwo Papa" all by himself, as well as answering their questions in the affirmative when appropriate. Papa asked if the new carseat had come, and Ant said "Yaaaah". Papa then queried, "who's car is the car seat going in?", and Ant answered, "Papa's cah!". He asked "Nana doin?" when she got on the phone, she told him she was making supper, and a minute or two further on in the conversation, he said "Nana makin' suppah". He's listened on the phone before, but never come at all close to having an actual conversation like he did tonight.
We then played the monster spray game (I pretend to be a monster, giving very friendly growls from time to time), and he makes a "tsch tsch tsch" noise while pretend spraying me, at which point I run away because the monster spray is very effective. (This game was originated by his ten month older cousin).
After that came "miwk and sorie" time, we read three or four books, had a very nice teethbrushing where he actually made a pretty good effort all on his own, after asking Daddy to come up. A few more "sories" with Daddy, and off to bed he went with minimal complaints.
All in all, an amazingly fun evening!
Friday, June 6, 2008
One tantrum, two tantra?
The last couple of nights, I have had the pleasure of witnessing Ant's first two real tantrums.
#1 started at dinner time. He wanted ketchup for dinner. I started off with a small bit on the tray, then managed to get him to eat some of my mac-n-cheese (which is a good way of disguising broccoli). After he was done with the mnc, he asked for "mowah ketchup!". I gave him a little in a bowl. That was okay. What was not okay was when he asked for more again and I told him there was still some left and he had to finish that first. So so so not okay. Much screaming, screwing up of face, demanding of "MOWAH MOWAH MOWAH" ensued. I tried to get him to calm down by telling him to look at me which usually works. Yeah - not so much. I tried giving him little bits of ketchup on a spoon to show him that yes there really was some left in the bowl. That just seemed to make him madder. I said he couldn't have more until the bowl was empty, so he turned it upside down, I assume to try and get what was in there out so he could have more. Sneaky little guy! At this point it became clear that supper was going nowhere fast, so I cleaned him up (still screaming) and carried him upstairs (still screaming) to change his diaper and put him in his pjs. Finally, after I deposited him on the changing table and provided "Dogald", he regained his composure. Definitely the first time he had been so hard to distract from his desire.
#2 happened the very next day. I figured one of the reasons for the previous day's performance was that he was overly hungry as dinner didn't start until 6 (normally he eats at 5:30). So when we got home from daycare I took him out of the car and upstairs, to start preparing supper. He desperately wanted to stay in the car, and started crying even as we walked into the basement. Once we got upstairs and I put him down, he immediately went for the doorknob, yelling in fine tantrum fashion "go downsairs! go downsairs! go downsairs!". Pulled off the safety knob with no problem and threw the two halves on the floor. With intent. Stomping feet, the whole nine yards. At this point I so couldn't give in to him! So we went upstairs to get Dogald again. Not quite as effective this time, but I brougt him back down to the first floor and just held him on "Papa's chair" for a while. He eventually calmed down - every minute or two he would start crying again and say "go downsairs" a few times, until he gave in to me and let himself be interested in one of the other options I was offering (his photo album of relatives). Whew!
I have to say, after a certain point I had a hard time not laughing. Poor kid.
#1 started at dinner time. He wanted ketchup for dinner. I started off with a small bit on the tray, then managed to get him to eat some of my mac-n-cheese (which is a good way of disguising broccoli). After he was done with the mnc, he asked for "mowah ketchup!". I gave him a little in a bowl. That was okay. What was not okay was when he asked for more again and I told him there was still some left and he had to finish that first. So so so not okay. Much screaming, screwing up of face, demanding of "MOWAH MOWAH MOWAH" ensued. I tried to get him to calm down by telling him to look at me which usually works. Yeah - not so much. I tried giving him little bits of ketchup on a spoon to show him that yes there really was some left in the bowl. That just seemed to make him madder. I said he couldn't have more until the bowl was empty, so he turned it upside down, I assume to try and get what was in there out so he could have more. Sneaky little guy! At this point it became clear that supper was going nowhere fast, so I cleaned him up (still screaming) and carried him upstairs (still screaming) to change his diaper and put him in his pjs. Finally, after I deposited him on the changing table and provided "Dogald", he regained his composure. Definitely the first time he had been so hard to distract from his desire.
#2 happened the very next day. I figured one of the reasons for the previous day's performance was that he was overly hungry as dinner didn't start until 6 (normally he eats at 5:30). So when we got home from daycare I took him out of the car and upstairs, to start preparing supper. He desperately wanted to stay in the car, and started crying even as we walked into the basement. Once we got upstairs and I put him down, he immediately went for the doorknob, yelling in fine tantrum fashion "go downsairs! go downsairs! go downsairs!". Pulled off the safety knob with no problem and threw the two halves on the floor. With intent. Stomping feet, the whole nine yards. At this point I so couldn't give in to him! So we went upstairs to get Dogald again. Not quite as effective this time, but I brougt him back down to the first floor and just held him on "Papa's chair" for a while. He eventually calmed down - every minute or two he would start crying again and say "go downsairs" a few times, until he gave in to me and let himself be interested in one of the other options I was offering (his photo album of relatives). Whew!
I have to say, after a certain point I had a hard time not laughing. Poor kid.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Aggravation and Amusement
Funny story from Saturday when I had taken Ant to the mall to get him some new shoes. We came out, and I put him in the car and turned his music on while I was putting the bags and stroller in the trunk. When I finally got in to turn the car on, it wouldn't start!!! This little symbol was flashing on the dash, a steering wheel with a lock on it. I pulled out the instruction manual yet again (had a flat tire the week before, which also displayed an icon that meant nothing to me), and it said that it was a jammed steering wheel, to turn it to the side to unlock it, then start the car. I did that to no avail. So then I called the service folks, and the woman I spoke to said to move the wheel from side to side. This was on the bluetooth, so Ant could hear the conversation. I grimaced, "The steering wheel is really hard to turn!", as I kept trying. Ant started chatting away in the back seat "Hahd to tuhn. Hahd to tuhn. Seering wheel is hahd to tuhn!". The lady on the phone thought that was really amusing (and remarked that she was impressed by his enunciation), as did I. That didn't work either, so she had to tell me to call roadside assistance. When we hung up, Ant said with no prompting, "Bye Mary", which was her name, and which I had already forgotten. Before I called the assistance people I decided to try one more thing - it was close to lunch time, and I SO did not want to have to wait for them for an hour! So I put the car in neutral, took off the parking brake, and pushed the car myself using the door jamb. Meanwhile Ant was announcing "Mommy pushing cah! Mommy pushing cah." Fortunately, that seemed to do the trick and I was able to start the silly thing. That's three warning lights in the space of two weeks though, I'm starting to get nervous to drive it!
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Me so quirky!
Ova Girl wrote a brilliant post describing six quirky things about her. I have way too much time on my hands (NOT), so I signed up to continue the meme. I had fun trying to come up with six interesting / different / wacky things about myself - it took me a while. Because I'm really just so normal. Titter.
1. The quirkiest thing about me, although it's not a personality quirk, is that I hiccup. Not your average run of the mill bout of hiccups every once in a while; I have hiccupped every day since sophomore year of high school. I have just passed the 19 year mark (egads!) It's not constant by any means, at this point it's probably on the order of a dozen times a day, but it's completely random, and usually only 1-3 hiccups at a time. When they first started it was hundreds of times a day (yes, I did count), but they've slowed down to quite a manageable clip now. Quite a conversation piece, let me tell you!
2. I was born in South Africa, moved to the States when I was ten. Which, unfortunately, was too young to keep my accent. I have a pretty vanilla American accent now. But there are a few words that I have real trouble with pronouncing the American way, with really no rhyme or reason. They are (in no particular order): garage, water, and herb. The latter, of course, I pronounce the way it's supposed to be pronounced, with an H sound at the beginning. There are no "erbs" anywhere near my house! ;-)
3. I really cannot stand having the sheets on my bed tucked in. I don't exactly feel claustrophobic, but I like to really snuggle into my bed, and with the sheets tucked in on the sides, one just can't do that! Anytime I go to a hotel, one of the first things I do is pull the sheets out of the sides.
4. Excel files. Data. I'm a fanatic! I don't just make lists in Excel, I make files that do all kinds of calculations for me. Sometimes I even write macros to make things easier. I have a file that calculates my weight gain while pg (and compares this time to last - so far exactly the same, strangely enough). I have one that has all my friends' due dates in it, and updates to show how many weeks they are any time I open it. When I was tracking Ant's words, my Excel file computed the new words added each month, previously suspected words that were now confirmed, total words, and number of words starting with each letter. I admit it, I'm a total geek!
5. I really hate wasting paper towels. It seems like such a silly thing to use a disposable wipe for things where a re-usable one will do. To that end I now have four sponges next to my sink - one for cleaning Ant's dishes with (so it doesn't ever touch things that might get him sick), one for our dishes, one for counters, and one for the floors. And yet somehow I still feel like we go through paper towels at an inordinate rate. Perhaps I should institute a paper towel sign-out sheet. Only partially kidding!
6. Consistent grammar / spelling mistakes drive me nuts (not typos, those happen to everyone, yours truly included). I really have to reel myself in from commenting about them (not on blogs, but RL). "Your" when "you're" is what is intended. "It's" instead of "its" or vice versa (although I must admit, I do catch myself with that one from time to time). I/Me. A few I've recently come across on some of the message boards I frequent - "vile" instead of "vial", and "nauteous" instead of "nauseous" are more common that I ever would have imagined. I read those and have to tell myself, "down, girl, down!"
So those are six quirky things about me. I'm becoming all full of angst about choosing six other people to tag for this task; and don't feel quite right stealing OG's method of tagging the first six commenters (plus, honestly, I don't want to discourage anyone!), so I'm just going to leave it at this - if you haven't already done this exercise and feel like taking some time for a bit of self reflection, leave a note in a comment, and I'll link to your entry. I'd love to read it!
And re-reading this post, I have to add another quirk; I have a very very hard time ending a paragraph without an exclamation point. I must EM-PHA-SIZE my excitement! Sign of a poor writer, I know, but I just can't help it. (I even wanted to put one there, but had to stop myself.)
1. The quirkiest thing about me, although it's not a personality quirk, is that I hiccup. Not your average run of the mill bout of hiccups every once in a while; I have hiccupped every day since sophomore year of high school. I have just passed the 19 year mark (egads!) It's not constant by any means, at this point it's probably on the order of a dozen times a day, but it's completely random, and usually only 1-3 hiccups at a time. When they first started it was hundreds of times a day (yes, I did count), but they've slowed down to quite a manageable clip now. Quite a conversation piece, let me tell you!
2. I was born in South Africa, moved to the States when I was ten. Which, unfortunately, was too young to keep my accent. I have a pretty vanilla American accent now. But there are a few words that I have real trouble with pronouncing the American way, with really no rhyme or reason. They are (in no particular order): garage, water, and herb. The latter, of course, I pronounce the way it's supposed to be pronounced, with an H sound at the beginning. There are no "erbs" anywhere near my house! ;-)
3. I really cannot stand having the sheets on my bed tucked in. I don't exactly feel claustrophobic, but I like to really snuggle into my bed, and with the sheets tucked in on the sides, one just can't do that! Anytime I go to a hotel, one of the first things I do is pull the sheets out of the sides.
4. Excel files. Data. I'm a fanatic! I don't just make lists in Excel, I make files that do all kinds of calculations for me. Sometimes I even write macros to make things easier. I have a file that calculates my weight gain while pg (and compares this time to last - so far exactly the same, strangely enough). I have one that has all my friends' due dates in it, and updates to show how many weeks they are any time I open it. When I was tracking Ant's words, my Excel file computed the new words added each month, previously suspected words that were now confirmed, total words, and number of words starting with each letter. I admit it, I'm a total geek!
5. I really hate wasting paper towels. It seems like such a silly thing to use a disposable wipe for things where a re-usable one will do. To that end I now have four sponges next to my sink - one for cleaning Ant's dishes with (so it doesn't ever touch things that might get him sick), one for our dishes, one for counters, and one for the floors. And yet somehow I still feel like we go through paper towels at an inordinate rate. Perhaps I should institute a paper towel sign-out sheet. Only partially kidding!
6. Consistent grammar / spelling mistakes drive me nuts (not typos, those happen to everyone, yours truly included). I really have to reel myself in from commenting about them (not on blogs, but RL). "Your" when "you're" is what is intended. "It's" instead of "its" or vice versa (although I must admit, I do catch myself with that one from time to time). I/Me. A few I've recently come across on some of the message boards I frequent - "vile" instead of "vial", and "nauteous" instead of "nauseous" are more common that I ever would have imagined. I read those and have to tell myself, "down, girl, down!"
So those are six quirky things about me. I'm becoming all full of angst about choosing six other people to tag for this task; and don't feel quite right stealing OG's method of tagging the first six commenters (plus, honestly, I don't want to discourage anyone!), so I'm just going to leave it at this - if you haven't already done this exercise and feel like taking some time for a bit of self reflection, leave a note in a comment, and I'll link to your entry. I'd love to read it!
And re-reading this post, I have to add another quirk; I have a very very hard time ending a paragraph without an exclamation point. I must EM-PHA-SIZE my excitement! Sign of a poor writer, I know, but I just can't help it. (I even wanted to put one there, but had to stop myself.)
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
BPA free?
I was pointed to a contest to win one of two BPA feeding kits by the delightful Tonya.
I have been hearing about a lot of people choosing to use the "Born free" bottles for their babies recently, as well as just bad things about plastics in general.
It's one of those things that I feel like I should do something about, particularly for Ant's sippy cups because he chews the hell out of the lids, and I can actually see little fibers coming off. But at the same time, finding plastic free (or BPA-free) kids stuff is not the easiest thing in the world, and I hate to say it, but I've just been too damn lazy.
But, thanks to Tonya and the soft landing site, it's just gotten a lot easier.
I have been hearing about a lot of people choosing to use the "Born free" bottles for their babies recently, as well as just bad things about plastics in general.
It's one of those things that I feel like I should do something about, particularly for Ant's sippy cups because he chews the hell out of the lids, and I can actually see little fibers coming off. But at the same time, finding plastic free (or BPA-free) kids stuff is not the easiest thing in the world, and I hate to say it, but I've just been too damn lazy.
But, thanks to Tonya and the soft landing site, it's just gotten a lot easier.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Fwed notes: 14w2d
I sent this to my mom and sis in an email, but forgot to post it here. So I'm doing a little backdating so it goes in the right place...
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I am pretty confident I've started feeling Fwed move in the last few days. I've felt the same fluttering motion I felt at first with Antony about five times (actually, make it six, I just felt it again!) over the last three days. I know it's really early to feel movement, but I felt it at 15w5d last time, and "they" say one can feel it earlier with a second pregnancy. It hasn't lasted for long, only about 30 seconds each time, but it's distinct from anything else I've been feeling recently. I also felt just a wierd sensation around where my uterus is after the last time I felt him move, I imagined that it might be him flipping over. I don't know if they do that yet, but it was somehow a much bigger feeling something.
I had my OB appointment on Thursday, and everything was good. Weighed me, took my bp (100/58), had me pee in a cup, and then brought out the doppler. We could hear the heartbeat instantly, which was nice. Right around 160bpm. After that the doc came in, and said that they didn't have the first trimester results back yet, but that based on the ultrasound they want to change my due date to 9/10! She said if the baby is measuring off by just a few days they don't worry about it, but Fwed was measuring big by nine whole days, so they wanted to change it. I told her that I was 99.99% sure about my ovulation date - she said they wanted to change it regardless.
There were three things she said it would make a difference for - the first trimester screening, if I were to go into preterm labor (they do what they can to stop it before 34 weeks, after they don't), and if I were to not go into labor by my due date. Other than that, it doesn't really make much of a difference. I told her that I fully expect to go late, based on my Mom and sister being a week + late with all their babies... she said that we would definitely take into account that we had changed the due date if that were to happen. I'm still not entirely happy about it. I thought that the dates were right on based on my earlier ultrasound, where they measured the gestional sac (7w4d which is what I was), and crown-rump length (8w1d, so only 4 days ahead) I think I will print out the chart I was keeping with my temperature and ovulation predictor sticks and argue it one more time at my next appointment. I am 100% sure that I did not ovulate nin e days earlier than I thought, that would have put it on day 7 of my cycle, which is just so unlikely. I think Fwed is just big! It seems second babies in our family run that way.
The other interesting thing from the appointment is that I asked if the mass I feel in my abdomen in the morning could be my bladder. Dr. B said that it could - they do have to separate your bladder from your uterus when they do the c-section, and sometimes it doesn't re-attach. So that would explain why I have only had to get up *one* night so far this pregnancy to pee - your bladder is supposed to be in your pelvis, underneath your uterus - with my floating around in my abdomen instead, it's got a lot more room to expand ;-) She said we just need to be aware of it in case I have another C-section. I do wonder where it will go as my uterus expands!
Later that day we got a voicemail with the results of the first tri screen - our probability of Down's syndrome is 1:4000, and trisomy 13/18 is 1:10000, so it's quite unlikely. I still would like to call them back and find out how those numbers change if we use what I think is my correct due date.
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I am pretty confident I've started feeling Fwed move in the last few days. I've felt the same fluttering motion I felt at first with Antony about five times (actually, make it six, I just felt it again!) over the last three days. I know it's really early to feel movement, but I felt it at 15w5d last time, and "they" say one can feel it earlier with a second pregnancy. It hasn't lasted for long, only about 30 seconds each time, but it's distinct from anything else I've been feeling recently. I also felt just a wierd sensation around where my uterus is after the last time I felt him move, I imagined that it might be him flipping over. I don't know if they do that yet, but it was somehow a much bigger feeling something.
I had my OB appointment on Thursday, and everything was good. Weighed me, took my bp (100/58), had me pee in a cup, and then brought out the doppler. We could hear the heartbeat instantly, which was nice. Right around 160bpm. After that the doc came in, and said that they didn't have the first trimester results back yet, but that based on the ultrasound they want to change my due date to 9/10! She said if the baby is measuring off by just a few days they don't worry about it, but Fwed was measuring big by nine whole days, so they wanted to change it. I told her that I was 99.99% sure about my ovulation date - she said they wanted to change it regardless.
There were three things she said it would make a difference for - the first trimester screening, if I were to go into preterm labor (they do what they can to stop it before 34 weeks, after they don't), and if I were to not go into labor by my due date. Other than that, it doesn't really make much of a difference. I told her that I fully expect to go late, based on my Mom and sister being a week + late with all their babies... she said that we would definitely take into account that we had changed the due date if that were to happen. I'm still not entirely happy about it. I thought that the dates were right on based on my earlier ultrasound, where they measured the gestional sac (7w4d which is what I was), and crown-rump length (8w1d, so only 4 days ahead) I think I will print out the chart I was keeping with my temperature and ovulation predictor sticks and argue it one more time at my next appointment. I am 100% sure that I did not ovulate nin e days earlier than I thought, that would have put it on day 7 of my cycle, which is just so unlikely. I think Fwed is just big! It seems second babies in our family run that way.
The other interesting thing from the appointment is that I asked if the mass I feel in my abdomen in the morning could be my bladder. Dr. B said that it could - they do have to separate your bladder from your uterus when they do the c-section, and sometimes it doesn't re-attach. So that would explain why I have only had to get up *one* night so far this pregnancy to pee - your bladder is supposed to be in your pelvis, underneath your uterus - with my floating around in my abdomen instead, it's got a lot more room to expand ;-) She said we just need to be aware of it in case I have another C-section. I do wonder where it will go as my uterus expands!
Later that day we got a voicemail with the results of the first tri screen - our probability of Down's syndrome is 1:4000, and trisomy 13/18 is 1:10000, so it's quite unlikely. I still would like to call them back and find out how those numbers change if we use what I think is my correct due date.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Fwed notes: 13w3d
First things first - the NT scan last week looked good. I had put off posting because I wanted to scan the u/s pictures and post them too, but ended up leaving them at my mom's house and haven't managed to coordinate my brain and either email or phone to get them back again!
This was my first ultrasound at this gestational age, and it was amazing to see how much like a person Fwed already looks. I could clearly see his little heart beating away, the two hemispheres of his brain, the spinal cord, hand bones, legs. Still little skinny chicken legs, but all the pieces seemed to be there. He was moving his hands around quite a bit, and legs too. I had thought that at this age I would see him moving all around the place, that was the impression I had gotten from reading about other's u/s at around this age. But rather, he seemed to have hiccups - full body jerks every now and again, although not rhythmic enough to actually be hiccups. Of course, given that I have now hiccupped every day for the past 19 years, hiccups would not be a big surprise.
The NT measurement was 2.0mm, where "they" look for anything under 3.0. It's a bit higher than what some of my friend's measurements have been, but Fwed was also measuring at 13w4d (when I was 12w2d), and the NT measurement grows as the baby grows. Nevertheless, I will breathe a bit more easily when I get the results of my blood screen back as well, I assume at my apt on Thursday. The nasal bones seemed to be properly formed, which is a good sign.
Not much else going on in Fwed's world. I seem to be over the queasiness, although I find that if I eat too much at dinner (ahem, or for my after dinner snacks), I don't feel that great. The remainder of my few symptoms seem to have mostly disappeared as well, as they did with Ant - although my skin is still not as clear as it was with him. I think the old wives suggest that means a girl - we'll see!
This was my first ultrasound at this gestational age, and it was amazing to see how much like a person Fwed already looks. I could clearly see his little heart beating away, the two hemispheres of his brain, the spinal cord, hand bones, legs. Still little skinny chicken legs, but all the pieces seemed to be there. He was moving his hands around quite a bit, and legs too. I had thought that at this age I would see him moving all around the place, that was the impression I had gotten from reading about other's u/s at around this age. But rather, he seemed to have hiccups - full body jerks every now and again, although not rhythmic enough to actually be hiccups. Of course, given that I have now hiccupped every day for the past 19 years, hiccups would not be a big surprise.
The NT measurement was 2.0mm, where "they" look for anything under 3.0. It's a bit higher than what some of my friend's measurements have been, but Fwed was also measuring at 13w4d (when I was 12w2d), and the NT measurement grows as the baby grows. Nevertheless, I will breathe a bit more easily when I get the results of my blood screen back as well, I assume at my apt on Thursday. The nasal bones seemed to be properly formed, which is a good sign.
Not much else going on in Fwed's world. I seem to be over the queasiness, although I find that if I eat too much at dinner (ahem, or for my after dinner snacks), I don't feel that great. The remainder of my few symptoms seem to have mostly disappeared as well, as they did with Ant - although my skin is still not as clear as it was with him. I think the old wives suggest that means a girl - we'll see!
Friday, March 7, 2008
Fwed notes: 12 weeks
I have not been nearly as good at writing about Fwed as I was Phred. I think because most of what I have to say now is simply for my own interest in how different my symptoms are with this pregnancy than they were with my first. I feel like this is a completely opposite pregnancy which I really wouldn't have thought possible.
Although I have not had nearly as hard a time of it as Emma, I have felt much more queasy, and for much longer (5-12+ weeks vs. 6-8 last time). My skin isn't nearly as clear as it was with Ant. I haven't been either as tired or as hungry. I've been having very vivid, bizarre, dreams which is highly unusual for me and didn't happen before. (I had one about how I was super strong and squeezing about twenty cars into our driveway which normally holds four by picking them up with one hand and packing them in. Followed by pulling up thousands of maple seedlings out of the asphalt. ???) My digestive system doesn't seem to have slowed nearly as much. No food aversions.
And despite weighing about 8 pounds less, I'm showing so much more! I look about like I did at 18 weeks with Ant. Here is a pic, if you're interested - on the left is 15 weeks with Ant, in the middle is 11wks with Fwed, and on the right is 18 weeks with Ant. I had to start telling people at work already because I was getting questions and pointed stares!
I have my NT scan on Monday, and am looking forward to seeing the little guy again. And, of course, hoping for good news.
Although I have not had nearly as hard a time of it as Emma, I have felt much more queasy, and for much longer (5-12+ weeks vs. 6-8 last time). My skin isn't nearly as clear as it was with Ant. I haven't been either as tired or as hungry. I've been having very vivid, bizarre, dreams which is highly unusual for me and didn't happen before. (I had one about how I was super strong and squeezing about twenty cars into our driveway which normally holds four by picking them up with one hand and packing them in. Followed by pulling up thousands of maple seedlings out of the asphalt. ???) My digestive system doesn't seem to have slowed nearly as much. No food aversions.
And despite weighing about 8 pounds less, I'm showing so much more! I look about like I did at 18 weeks with Ant. Here is a pic, if you're interested - on the left is 15 weeks with Ant, in the middle is 11wks with Fwed, and on the right is 18 weeks with Ant. I had to start telling people at work already because I was getting questions and pointed stares!
I have my NT scan on Monday, and am looking forward to seeing the little guy again. And, of course, hoping for good news.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Ant diary: 18 months
Growth check: We had Ant's 18month appointment yesterday. He was 35 inches (98%), and 24lb 12oz (34%). Which makes him 4th percentile in weight for height. Very tall and skinny, although he looks perfectly well proportioned and not at all emaciated to me. His head size was 41%, which is about where he has been for a while. So that's all good.
Talking: Ant is getting closer and closer to real sentences. He's saying a lot of three word phrases now, and even four-word ones on a fairly regular basis. His first four-worder was "put it Diaper Champ" in response to me asking where we should put his dirty diaper. The other day it was "see ight on pees" (see light on, please). He seems to skip the L's rather than substituting for them. The best phrases have been "Mommy/Daddy, I ove you" - totally out of the blue. Awwwwwwww. Other advances with talking have been the occasional use of pronouns (I, me and my). Also, he added the ABC song to his repertoire. And when "pop goes the weasel" was playing at my sister's house the other day, just the tune, he said "pop the weasel" at the end of it. It is completely astonishing that all this stuff is already in there! He has also started "counting" - he gets the number 2, but I don't think anything beyond that. But he has memorized the sequence - I've heard him say "one two see" quite a few times, and "see sowah sive six seven" (funny how they all start with S), and for Mark he said "eight seven" counting backwards with the microwave. So I think he'll be putting those together soon. He also likes to kiss things (including his milk before I put it in the microwave), and says "mwah" as he does it, just like I do when kissing him. It's funny what little mimics they are!
Movement: Not too much new here. He has taken recently to spinning round and round in circles, often laughing the whole time. Very funny. He also can really ride his fire truck now, pushing himself all the way around the first floor, including turning and backing up. "beep beep beep".
Mental: Ant seems to have a very good memory for words in stories and songs. He can't yet seem to help me find things I'm missing though. I can't wait for that to come! I said last month that it seemed like he was starting to get shapes and colors. Shapes, definitely. He is easily able to get all the shapes into the shape sorter at Mom's house (except the heart, that proved to be a bit of a problem as there's only one way it can go in), and can find the correct shape. Colors he will occasionally get right, but not much more often than random chance. When he does or doesn't want to do something now, he really lets us know, mostly by throwing tantrums. He screams, arches his back, and occasionally has come close to throwing himself out of the arms of the person holding him. It has been particularly bad when we want to put him in the car seat, but he wants to play in the car instead. The doc said that we *cannot* let him play in the car anymore, because then he never knows when we go to the vehicle if it's to play or to go. Made a lot of sense to me. It's going to be tough though, because he really loves playing in there. We have spent hours!
Toys and games: I decided to pull out a couple of puzzles Ant had gotten for Xmas this month, without much expectation. Much to my surprise, he was able to get all the animals in the farm puzzle back in the right places (when I handed the pieces to him one by one), as well as each of the vehicles in the other puzzle. He had the most trouble with the airplane, which he really thought should go in upside down. He still loves his Donald Ducks, and has started to show more interest in having a blankie. Also still really enjoys the school bus, making/crashing towers, and playing in the car. He likes playing taking turns with various things - spoons/forks when we're feeding (we often swap - "Mommy's turn... Antee's turn"), or with the fire truck he sits on (he likes me to sit on it too, but man, the handles stick into my legs!), or taking turns twisting the net on the hockey set with Granny.
Feeding: This has been our first really rough month food-wise. He is turning his nose up at what we offer much more often, and has had a few meals that consist of either practically nothing or something I'd rather he not eat too much of, like cereal bars. One day he had a cereal bar for afternoon snack, then two more for supper. Ugh. He is still gaining weight at the rate of about 1lb/month though, so even when he barely eats I console myself with that.
Sleeping: Same as last month, mostly one nap except when he's under the weather. Going to bed at 7:30. Although I did a bad thing and taught him how to turn on the light in his room. Which means he does that when he wakes up ("ight ON" is what we hear through the monitor), and is no longer happy in his crib until 6:45, wanting to get up closer to 6:15. Bad mommy!!!
Personality: We went to visit our friends M, K and their son B (five weeks younger than Ant) Pres. day weekend. It was so interesting to see the differences between the two kids personality wise. B immediately warmed to me and Mark, and wanted each of us to pick him up quite often. Ant, on the other hand, A) didn't like it when I had B, and B) really was not interested in interacting with M or K. He was either doing something on his own (or with Brendan) or with Mark or me.
Talking: Ant is getting closer and closer to real sentences. He's saying a lot of three word phrases now, and even four-word ones on a fairly regular basis. His first four-worder was "put it Diaper Champ" in response to me asking where we should put his dirty diaper. The other day it was "see ight on pees" (see light on, please). He seems to skip the L's rather than substituting for them. The best phrases have been "Mommy/Daddy, I ove you" - totally out of the blue. Awwwwwwww. Other advances with talking have been the occasional use of pronouns (I, me and my). Also, he added the ABC song to his repertoire. And when "pop goes the weasel" was playing at my sister's house the other day, just the tune, he said "pop the weasel" at the end of it. It is completely astonishing that all this stuff is already in there! He has also started "counting" - he gets the number 2, but I don't think anything beyond that. But he has memorized the sequence - I've heard him say "one two see" quite a few times, and "see sowah sive six seven" (funny how they all start with S), and for Mark he said "eight seven" counting backwards with the microwave. So I think he'll be putting those together soon. He also likes to kiss things (including his milk before I put it in the microwave), and says "mwah" as he does it, just like I do when kissing him. It's funny what little mimics they are!
Movement: Not too much new here. He has taken recently to spinning round and round in circles, often laughing the whole time. Very funny. He also can really ride his fire truck now, pushing himself all the way around the first floor, including turning and backing up. "beep beep beep".
Mental: Ant seems to have a very good memory for words in stories and songs. He can't yet seem to help me find things I'm missing though. I can't wait for that to come! I said last month that it seemed like he was starting to get shapes and colors. Shapes, definitely. He is easily able to get all the shapes into the shape sorter at Mom's house (except the heart, that proved to be a bit of a problem as there's only one way it can go in), and can find the correct shape. Colors he will occasionally get right, but not much more often than random chance. When he does or doesn't want to do something now, he really lets us know, mostly by throwing tantrums. He screams, arches his back, and occasionally has come close to throwing himself out of the arms of the person holding him. It has been particularly bad when we want to put him in the car seat, but he wants to play in the car instead. The doc said that we *cannot* let him play in the car anymore, because then he never knows when we go to the vehicle if it's to play or to go. Made a lot of sense to me. It's going to be tough though, because he really loves playing in there. We have spent hours!
Toys and games: I decided to pull out a couple of puzzles Ant had gotten for Xmas this month, without much expectation. Much to my surprise, he was able to get all the animals in the farm puzzle back in the right places (when I handed the pieces to him one by one), as well as each of the vehicles in the other puzzle. He had the most trouble with the airplane, which he really thought should go in upside down. He still loves his Donald Ducks, and has started to show more interest in having a blankie. Also still really enjoys the school bus, making/crashing towers, and playing in the car. He likes playing taking turns with various things - spoons/forks when we're feeding (we often swap - "Mommy's turn... Antee's turn"), or with the fire truck he sits on (he likes me to sit on it too, but man, the handles stick into my legs!), or taking turns twisting the net on the hockey set with Granny.
Feeding: This has been our first really rough month food-wise. He is turning his nose up at what we offer much more often, and has had a few meals that consist of either practically nothing or something I'd rather he not eat too much of, like cereal bars. One day he had a cereal bar for afternoon snack, then two more for supper. Ugh. He is still gaining weight at the rate of about 1lb/month though, so even when he barely eats I console myself with that.
Sleeping: Same as last month, mostly one nap except when he's under the weather. Going to bed at 7:30. Although I did a bad thing and taught him how to turn on the light in his room. Which means he does that when he wakes up ("ight ON" is what we hear through the monitor), and is no longer happy in his crib until 6:45, wanting to get up closer to 6:15. Bad mommy!!!
Personality: We went to visit our friends M, K and their son B (five weeks younger than Ant) Pres. day weekend. It was so interesting to see the differences between the two kids personality wise. B immediately warmed to me and Mark, and wanted each of us to pick him up quite often. Ant, on the other hand, A) didn't like it when I had B, and B) really was not interested in interacting with M or K. He was either doing something on his own (or with Brendan) or with Mark or me.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
We have a Fwed!
I had my first ultrasound for my new pregnancy yesterday. I was *nervous*, as I'm not feeling much of anything - not that I felt much when I was pg with Ant, but I have even fewer symptoms this time. So nervous. However, thankfully, those nerves were for no reason. Everything looked great.
Here's Fwed at 7w4d. You can see Fwed him/herself, as well as the yolk sac, and gestational sac (the whole of the big black blob). The white area toward the bottom is apparently what will become the placenta. And if you look very carefully around Fwed in the left picture, you can see what will be the amniotic sac. Everything seemed to be measuring right on target!
I think it's interesting to compare with our 8w ultrasound from Antony. The picture somehow seems so much clearer. You can definitely see arm buds, as well as a rudimentary face. The placenta to be seems a lot thicker / more obvious. And the yolk sac is nowhere to be seen. I'm surprised that it would disappear so quickly!
Hopefully everything will contine to go well! I have my first OB appointment on Feb-21.
Here's Fwed at 7w4d. You can see Fwed him/herself, as well as the yolk sac, and gestational sac (the whole of the big black blob). The white area toward the bottom is apparently what will become the placenta. And if you look very carefully around Fwed in the left picture, you can see what will be the amniotic sac. Everything seemed to be measuring right on target!
I think it's interesting to compare with our 8w ultrasound from Antony. The picture somehow seems so much clearer. You can definitely see arm buds, as well as a rudimentary face. The placenta to be seems a lot thicker / more obvious. And the yolk sac is nowhere to be seen. I'm surprised that it would disappear so quickly!
Hopefully everything will contine to go well! I have my first OB appointment on Feb-21.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Ant diary: Seventeen months
The way I write these diaries each month is to go back to the previous months' entry, read each section again, erase, and write the new entry. It's quite amazing to see each month how much progress has been made since the previous one!
Talking: Two-word phrases are now de rigeur for Ant. He's got the 'belonging' concept down - "Mommy's cah", "Mommy's heah" (hair), "Daddy's petah" (computer), "Antee's shoes", etc. He's using a bunch of other phrases with regularity; "sit down", "cookie monsah" (monster), "curiou Geohge", "ight on/off", "plug in" (or "plug it in"), "Mommy coming!" are just a few examples. Three word combos also pop out quite often, "Happy Buhfday Geohge" is a favorite (one of his favorite curious george stories), this morning he said "Antee coat on" when I opened the closet to get his coat out. The other new thing is singing! So far he "sings" Baa baa black sheep and twinkle twinkle. Doesn't get too much beyone the first couple of lines, although he can fill in words quite a bit further on in the songs.
Movement: He's finally started getting interested in climbing on things like the coffee table and ottoman. And feeding himself with a fork or spoon.
Mental: Ant is surprisingly good at sharing - it will be interesting to see if going to daycare helps or hurts with that. If he's asked nicely, he will almost always hand over a toy he's playing with to another child - at Alexander's birthday party, for example, he was playing with some of Alex's trains. Alex was not pleased with the situation... I asked Ant if Alex could have a turn and as calmly as could be he picked up both trains he had and offered them to Alex. Mom took him to the library yesterday, where Ant played with another boy's train, while the other kid played with Ant's truck. When he decided he was done, he walked over to the other little guy, holding out the train to him!
He absolutely adores his books these days. We start the bedtime routine at 6:45; by 7 we're reading books and usually stop at 7:30 because we think it's bedtime, not because Ant is showing any signs of disinterest. As I mentioned above, he absolutely adores his Curious George book. He has his favorite stories and pages, and will request them by name. What surprises me is that in a LOT of places, if I stop and leave a word blank for him to fill in, he will. Things I would never guess he would know! Like one place where there are footsteps, and all of a sudden they're passing George... I didn't read it quickly enough the other night, and And said "passin Geohge!".
I think he's starting to distinguish colors a bit. In the CG toy store story, there's a page with yellow, blue, green and red hoops. I'll ask him to point out different colored hoops, and he will. I'm not positive on this one yet, will have to do some more querying . He's also got a few shapes down, circles, squares and triangles. He hasn't shown much interest in his shape sorters for a while, I'll have to take those out again and see if he can now get the shapes into the correct holes on his own. Hasn't shown any inclination to do that up 'til now.
Toys and games: Ant has really enjoyed drawing this month. He will often come up to one of us and say "daw, daw!". We've tried different implements, pencils seem to work best. Crayons go in his mouth, markers get on everything (nice big green mark on the ottoman, for example). He still really enjoys taking anything and everything out of boxes, bags, cupboards etc. He also likes his toy screwdrivers and hammers. Still spends an amazing amount of time with the Parents school bus I got for him ages ago, that was definitely a good investment! Another favorite game is playing with water in the sink. He'll say "meas cup" (measuring cup), we'll get one out of the drawer, then "Ahdah, ahdah" (water, water). We take him over to the sink and hold him so he can reach the faucet. He likes to get the water in the cup and drink, pour, turn the faucet on more/less - for a good half hour or more (we usually stop when our arms can't take it anymore!)
Feeding: He's gotten quite good at feeding himself with a spoon. Almost always uses his right hand, although occasionally the left. He can also use a fork fairly well. I was telling him he needs to stab the food with the fork, so now he says "tab, tab!" any time he's using it. Seems to be going through more phases of liking/not liking foods. He was off grapes for a while but is eating them again now, and turning his nose up at bananas, which he used to eat tons of.
Sleeping: Almost always on one nap now, except when he's sick, when he's more likely to do two. He's going down at 7:30 most nights and gets up at around 6:45. Not bad! Occasionally he'll let out a yell or two at around 10pm, but he settles again very quickly.
Daycare: Actually going quite well. Ant still cries when we drop him off, but stops before we even get to the door. Which is nice. He also seems very contented when I look in the window in the afternoons when I pick him up. He really enjoys playing with the other kids - when I picked him up on Tuesday, he was saying "home, home" for a little while, but after I had his jacket on he and his friend Megan were just cracking up at each other. Just standing there, one would laugh, then the other. Back and forth. Just adorable!
Talking: Two-word phrases are now de rigeur for Ant. He's got the 'belonging' concept down - "Mommy's cah", "Mommy's heah" (hair), "Daddy's petah" (computer), "Antee's shoes", etc. He's using a bunch of other phrases with regularity; "sit down", "cookie monsah" (monster), "curiou Geohge", "ight on/off", "plug in" (or "plug it in"), "Mommy coming!" are just a few examples. Three word combos also pop out quite often, "Happy Buhfday Geohge" is a favorite (one of his favorite curious george stories), this morning he said "Antee coat on" when I opened the closet to get his coat out. The other new thing is singing! So far he "sings" Baa baa black sheep and twinkle twinkle. Doesn't get too much beyone the first couple of lines, although he can fill in words quite a bit further on in the songs.
Movement: He's finally started getting interested in climbing on things like the coffee table and ottoman. And feeding himself with a fork or spoon.
Mental: Ant is surprisingly good at sharing - it will be interesting to see if going to daycare helps or hurts with that. If he's asked nicely, he will almost always hand over a toy he's playing with to another child - at Alexander's birthday party, for example, he was playing with some of Alex's trains. Alex was not pleased with the situation... I asked Ant if Alex could have a turn and as calmly as could be he picked up both trains he had and offered them to Alex. Mom took him to the library yesterday, where Ant played with another boy's train, while the other kid played with Ant's truck. When he decided he was done, he walked over to the other little guy, holding out the train to him!
He absolutely adores his books these days. We start the bedtime routine at 6:45; by 7 we're reading books and usually stop at 7:30 because we think it's bedtime, not because Ant is showing any signs of disinterest. As I mentioned above, he absolutely adores his Curious George book. He has his favorite stories and pages, and will request them by name. What surprises me is that in a LOT of places, if I stop and leave a word blank for him to fill in, he will. Things I would never guess he would know! Like one place where there are footsteps, and all of a sudden they're passing George... I didn't read it quickly enough the other night, and And said "passin Geohge!".
I think he's starting to distinguish colors a bit. In the CG toy store story, there's a page with yellow, blue, green and red hoops. I'll ask him to point out different colored hoops, and he will. I'm not positive on this one yet, will have to do some more querying . He's also got a few shapes down, circles, squares and triangles. He hasn't shown much interest in his shape sorters for a while, I'll have to take those out again and see if he can now get the shapes into the correct holes on his own. Hasn't shown any inclination to do that up 'til now.
Toys and games: Ant has really enjoyed drawing this month. He will often come up to one of us and say "daw, daw!". We've tried different implements, pencils seem to work best. Crayons go in his mouth, markers get on everything (nice big green mark on the ottoman, for example). He still really enjoys taking anything and everything out of boxes, bags, cupboards etc. He also likes his toy screwdrivers and hammers. Still spends an amazing amount of time with the Parents school bus I got for him ages ago, that was definitely a good investment! Another favorite game is playing with water in the sink. He'll say "meas cup" (measuring cup), we'll get one out of the drawer, then "Ahdah, ahdah" (water, water). We take him over to the sink and hold him so he can reach the faucet. He likes to get the water in the cup and drink, pour, turn the faucet on more/less - for a good half hour or more (we usually stop when our arms can't take it anymore!)
Feeding: He's gotten quite good at feeding himself with a spoon. Almost always uses his right hand, although occasionally the left. He can also use a fork fairly well. I was telling him he needs to stab the food with the fork, so now he says "tab, tab!" any time he's using it. Seems to be going through more phases of liking/not liking foods. He was off grapes for a while but is eating them again now, and turning his nose up at bananas, which he used to eat tons of.
Sleeping: Almost always on one nap now, except when he's sick, when he's more likely to do two. He's going down at 7:30 most nights and gets up at around 6:45. Not bad! Occasionally he'll let out a yell or two at around 10pm, but he settles again very quickly.
Daycare: Actually going quite well. Ant still cries when we drop him off, but stops before we even get to the door. Which is nice. He also seems very contented when I look in the window in the afternoons when I pick him up. He really enjoys playing with the other kids - when I picked him up on Tuesday, he was saying "home, home" for a little while, but after I had his jacket on he and his friend Megan were just cracking up at each other. Just standing there, one would laugh, then the other. Back and forth. Just adorable!
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