Baby Steps

My baby girl had a big day today. In less than two weeks she will be turning one. That's bittersweet enough to think how fast this first year has gone by. Then she had to go and do so much more to make me super proud and a little sad all at the same time.

Today was Mia's last session of physical therapy. Her therapist and I waxed sentimental thinking about how far she's come in less than 6 months. When we first started therapy, she hated to be on her tummy and did not want to bend. I know that sounds silly, but my little girl preferred to be board straight, either laying on her back or being held in a standing position. And also, there was the whole head tilt to the right, turn to the left that was caused by her torticollis (the reason for the therapy). As of this morning she was crawling all over the place, pulling up, cruising and even standing on her own. Her therapist said she doesn't see a tilt at all any more (the turn was the first to go) and that she may even be walking before her birthday party... in less than 2 weeks!

So after therapy, we went to the mall for lunch and a little shopping. After we got home, refused to take a nap (she fell asleep 2 minutes away from home, unfortunately), had a snack and played a little, mommy started making dinner. Mia decided she didn't want mommy to do anything but  hold her. So every couple minutes I picked her up, cuddled her, then set her back on her feet on the floor. One time I did this and then stepped back. She reached out for me and... took two steps!! I scooped her up and fawned over her "yey Mia, yey! What a big girl! You took two steps! Momma's so proud of you!" She was happy that mommy was making such a big deal over her, but I don't think she even realized what she did. I tried to get her to do it again but was only able to get her to take one more step. I made sure to notify all the important people (daddy by voicemail, grandma by phone, and her aunt by text) and fawned over her a little more before returning to dinner.

For the icing on the cake, Mia ate dinner like a champ! She chowed down on broccoli, noodles, ground turkey and cooked green peppers. She really made her mommy proud today!

Necessity is...

It is said "necessity is the mother of invention." I think for infants and toddlers, necessity is the mother of fun milestones. Friday night, DH and I took Mia to Go Roma for dinner. (For those of you who don't have the pleasure of a Go Roma, it's halfway between a nice sit-down restaurant and fast food and totally kid friendly). Mia's sippy cup had been in her diaper bag earlier in the day, but she took it out to play with it and, silly mommy, I forgot to put it back in. So when we got to the restaurant and ordered our food (buttered noodles for Mia), they asked if she'd like milk, apple juice or a fountain drink. I told the girl she only drank water, so I guess we'll take fountain drink, and she handed us one of those kid's harder plastic cups with a straw. My LO had never drank from a straw and so I had DH fill it halfway with water and figured it would be a good distraction until the food came.

Mia enjoyed chewing on the straw for awhile. For some reason, I bent my head down next to hers and made a sucking noise with my mouth. She put her mouth on the straw and blew in, making the cup vibrate with bubbles. Again, I made the sucking noise next to her face and this time, she sucked the water up the straw! She was so surprised by the water it threw her into a coughing fit, but she immediately wanted to try again. She got the hang of it pretty fast, although she always had to blow air in first and then suck the water up. But now, at 11 months old, she can use a straw! I'm pretty impressed by my little peanut. And to think, this all came about by being a slacker mommy. ;)

Goodbye Itsy Bitsy Bikini

I'm not ashamed to admit it, I've always been a slender gal who looked pretty damn good in a bikini. Never mind that I didn't have much to fill up the bra-cups, and perhaps that's why I preferred the ones that the ladies with the over-inflated fake boobies wear that only cover their areolas (and they say nursing in public shows too much boob!). On me, they covered my entire breast and then some. But I think my bikini-wearing days are behind me. Its true that I have shed most of my baby-weight, and perhaps have even dropped as low as my high school weight, but my body... well, it just isn't what it used to be. To be more specific, I have this tummy-flab issue that just won't go away. I've never had a six-pack, or hell, even a two-pack, but my stomach used to be much more presentable than it is now. Plus, there's the whole issue of if it's okay for a mom to wear a bikini. I don't think I'd judge other moms if they did, but I'd feel like I was being judged all the time if I wore one.

So today when I was at Target, I thought I'd check out the tankini selection. Um, how sad. Nothing looked cute, and my choices were pretty much black, brown, or army green. Not the fun, bright colors that I'd usually pick. This tankini search I feel will be a long one.

It must be nice to be a Dad

NOTE: I realize that not all Dads are the same. Some are super involved and even perform roles typically performed by moms. Some do way less than my husband. This post is purely intended as a vent.

It really must be nice to be a Dad. To be able to get up and go where-ever, whenever you please without having to worry about what you're going to do with the child(ren). To be able to sleep in if you want to and tune out the sound of your child's voice. To perform your chores and tasks without interruption and without a child attached to your leg or crying out for your constant attention.

As I sit here and write this, my husband is sleeping. He is normally the morning person. Saturdays are supposed to be my day to sleep in while he gets up with the baby. Sure, I wake up when she does to nurse her, but after that, I get my one free hour to sleep. It is divine. Except for the fact that I'm usually wide awake because the baby is laughing/squealing/whining the entire time I'm trying to sleep in and I can't sleep at all. But, I digress.

Today, I really need that extra hour of rest. Tonight I'm working my paid job until 11pm. Once I get home, pump, and get ready for bed it will be 12:30. Wait, no, scratch that, it will be 1:30 am because tonight begins (ends?) daylight savings and we lose an hour. So I will get a grand total of 4.5 hours of sleep, assuming that she doesn't wake up in the middle of the night. And tomorrow morning we will go to church; its something I feel is important for our whole family.  

Why is my husband, the morning person, sleeping in, you might ask. Well, last night he went to play hockey with his buddies at 10:30 at night. Did he have to clear it with me to make sure that I’d be home at the time since our little one would be sleeping? Oh, of course not. Of course I’d be home. It would be crazy to think otherwise; I’m the mom and that’s my job.

Dads have it so easy! They get the love and admiration of their children and all they have to do is be there occasionally and play with them, take them to fun things like baseball games. They don't even have to be the disciplinarian anymore like in the old days of "wait till your dad gets home."

My husband does help a lot. He helps with dinner if he's done working in time and usually cleans up. He changes diapers (even poopy ones) and gives Mia her baths. And those rare days I get to sleep in, he gets up when Mia does (if he's not up already), changes her diaper, and brings her to me in bed so I can nurse her there. He's not all bad. I just wish he had some sense of the burden I carry being a mom. I guess it's a burden I'll have to carry on my own, along with the majority of all other moms the world over.

The value of a Community Part 2

Before Mia was born, I was convinced that I was going to be the ultimate mom. And of course, part of being the ultimate mom is making your own baby food. So I went ahead a registered for a bunch of baby food making supplies, such as the food grinder, baby food storage trays, and baby food cookbooks. And my friends and family did their part in buying me these wonderful supplies.I didn't need a food processor, as I already owned a Magic Bullet, full-size food processor, and mini food processor.

As Mia grew and neared the magical age of six months, I got excited about the prospect of making and feeding her this homemade baby food. Other moms on my board were already beginning to give their babies purees at as young as four months, and I read about their experiences on our birth board. And then I read a post from one mom who said she was waiting till six months or older, and that she was going to do Baby-Led Weaning (BLW) with her child. I had never heard of this BLW and decided to check it out myself. I started by finding the BLW board on BabyCenter. The sticky post on the board had a ton of information and links about BLW. I continued to do my research and found that this may be a better system than the usual spoon-fed often force-fed baby feeding that I knew of and even participated in with children I babysat.

The concept of BLW is relatively simple. You give your baby soft, finger sized sticks of food that they can pick up on their own and feed themselves. It is like the table food concept that the main-stream crowd begins around 9-10 months old, except with larger sized pieces of food. The biggest concern for most people is: "won't she choke?". The answer: "most likely not." Of course there is a small chance of the baby choking, but no more than in any other food situation that the baby might be in.

The most attractive parts of BLW for me were that my baby would feed herself, allowing us to eat our meals at the same time! What a concept! Also, she could eat what we were eating, no need to make special food for her or spend hours cooking and blending food that she will probably spit out anyway. BLW is a gradual thing of course; when a baby starts doing BLW, the chance of food actual being chewed and swallowed is minimal. But with time, the baby learns how to bite off the food, move it around with her tongue, chew it (no teeth required, those gums are quite up to the challenge), and finally swallow it. The the eventual evidence in her diaper is like finding gold for most parents! Gagging is par for the course, but it is completely different from choking and is a good thing. The gag reflex helps baby learn how much food she can safely put in her mouth. Finally, babies who are introduced to solids using the BLW method are often better eaters. They are introduced to many different tastes and textures early and are more willing to eat a variety of food.

There are rules for BLW. First of all, baby should be 6 months old before starting BLW and able to sit up on a lap or in a highchair. Six months is the age when baby's digestive system should be mature enough to handle new foods. Also, food should be soft enough to be easily mashed up, although give to baby in a two-inch stick shape. Harder foods can be steamed or roasted, softer foods, such as avocado or ripe pears, can be offered raw.

We've had a great experience with BLW. Now that Mia has mastered the pincer-grip, she prefers her food served in smaller pieces, and she eats so many different foods. Just this week alone she's eaten cooked celery, green peppers, pasta, kidney beans, acorn squash, tilapia, hummus, avocado (one of her favorites), pears, grapes (another fave), banana, chicken, pork chops, potatoes, pita bread, cucumbers, and probably some other things that I can't remember at the moment. It's fun to share meal times with her, having her at the table with us and letting her join in our dinner conversations. BLW has changed the way my husband and I eat dinner as well. We now sit at the table like a real family instead of in front of the TV and we are trying foods we haven't eaten before. And to think, I would have never heard of this concept had it not been for my mommy community!


Green beans at 6 months

Avocado at 9 months, Mia's Favorite!

The value of a Community Part 1

So a friend of mine from high school, who is basically now just a Facebook friend, is pregnant. Not that this is something out of the ordinary, a lot of my friends (especially FB friends) have had or are having babies. But suddenly, I felt this need to share my knowledge with her. There are all these cool things I know now having a 10 month old that I did not know when she was "brand new" or when I was pregnant. And I realized that most of these things were things I learned from my Babycenter Birthboard. Despite having friends and family with small children and despite reading books about babies, I learned this information from a collection of strangers all over the country. I cannot share all this information in just one post (or FB message to that friend) so I'll start with one very important topic: carseat safety.

I have to give credit where credit is due; the person I learned the most about this topic goes by the screenname of Dela-Where. Not all of the informaton I learned came from her, but much of it did. She taught me the ins and outs of keeping my baby warm in the winter while keeping her safe in her carseat. She pointed out to all of us the importance of not putting our babies in a big puffy jacket or snowsuit and then putting them in the carseat. This is very unsafe because it puffs out and makes the straps looser so that baby is not a snug in her seat as she should be. In one extreme case, during a car accident, a baby was ejected from a carseat with the winter coat still buckled in.

Similarly, those BundleMes and similar carseat blankets are not safe either. These things are considered "aftermarket" and not manufactured to fit in specific carseats (and will validate your carseat warrantee if you're ever in an accident). Since they don't usually line up with the seatbelt slots, they re-route the seatbelt straps, making them longer and therefore looser on the baby. Once again, looser seatbelts equal less safety in an accident. How should you keep your baby warm in the winter then? Put them in a thin, fleece jacket or snow suit, warm up your car before putting the baby in it, and cover the baby with a blanket when going outside. There are also some products that can be purchased that keep baby warm while staying safe, such as a carseat poncho and infant seat covers that stretch over the top like a showercap.

Finally, I learned about extended rear facing (ERF) for children on my Babycenter Birthboard. The law in most states is that babies should be rear facing until 20lbs AND 1 year of age. So the general thinking goes that once the baby is a year old and weighs 20 lbs, the child should be in a front-facing carseat. While this is compliant with the law, it is not safest for your baby. Leaving your baby rear facing for as long as possible is safest for your baby, since in the case of a front end collision (more common that rear-end collisions) the baby's head will snap forward when front-facing which can sever the spinal cord causing paralysis or even death. For this reason, we will be rear-facing Mia until she is at least 2 years old, if not longer.

Mommy Fail

So I have my first Mommy Fail for the month of March. I've been wanting to teach Mia how to blow out her candles for her first birthday party last month. A friend of mine had taught her daughter how to do that a few years ago, and it was quite impressive. I had lit a candle in the bathroom this morning to kill the smell of bleach cleaner. When it came time to blow out that candle, I thought I'd show Mia, use it as a teaching moment. Unfortunately, the candle holder was one of those ones that look like a real tall wine glass. She wasn't getting the blowing thing, just wanted to touch it. I was holding her close arm down so she couldn't reach it. I finally gave up on the teaching moment, and blew it out myself. Then, somehow with her other arm, she reached out and knocked the candle holder down, spilling hot wax all over the bathroom counter. Thankfully, the wax didn't get on her or me. Just on my freshly cleaned bathroom counter. Fail! Hopefully this means I got my fail out of the way and I'm done for the month. For some reason, I highly doubt that.