Posts Tagged ‘solid food’

9 Month Stats

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Weight: 22 lbs on the dot (above average)
Height: 28 1/2 inches (average)
Head circumference:  46 cm (above average, “Which is good” my pediatrician said, “so he doesn’t look like a weirdo. Because his weight is above average too.”)

We had a different doctor today, one I had never met before but I immediately liked based solely on the fact that he shares a name with a certain TV sitcom paleontologist. Let’s call him Dr. G. I thought about asking how Rachel was doing but figured it wasn’t good to piss off the guy in charge of sticking my baby with needles. Alas, it didn’t do me any good since he still suggested we finish Baby Evan’s Hep B series AND talked me into the H1N1 shot. You know I was on the fence about it back in October at his 6 month appointment but it became a moo point (like a cow’s opinion)  when the office didn’t have their doses yet. But after The Great Sickness of 2009 (which I’m not totally convinced WASN’T H1N1) I’ll do anything to keep Baby Evan from suffering though another week of misery.

Besides his name, I also liked Dr. G based on his total support of breastfeeding. He said he knew my lactation consultant well, referred new moms to Papoose for support all the time and used to be very active in La Leche League. His own wife nursed their children until they were 2 1/2 and he said as long as I was happy doing it I should definitely continue nursing Baby Evan past a year.  Instead of asking “Where does the baby sleep?” he just asked “How’s the baby sleeping? Do you lay him down on his back?” And hold on to your hats, AP mamas, but he also said bed-sharing was a great idea as long as E and I were comfortable with the situation. He and his wife bed-shared until their son was FOUR (although the story he then told about kicking his son out after he vomited ON HIS FACE one night made me pretty glad Baby Evan likes his crib). He’s my new favorite doctor at the practice and I’m going to make a point of asking for him in the future.

In other news, the trauma of being stuck with TWO GIANT ENORMOUS MASSIVE SHARP HORRIBLE PAINFUL POISON-COATED NEEDLES disrupted Baby Evan’s sleep patten enough that he woke up twice last night. It may also have been because we forgot to feed him any solids yesterday (oops) so he needed the calories. I will not make the same mistake again today, and plan to offer a six-course baby meal tonight (sweet potato, avocado, applesauce, teething biscuit, baby cheese puffs and yogurt) so he’ll be nice and full at 7 pm. Mama likes her sleep.

7 Months

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

I’m not really prepared to be the mother of a 7 month old. How did my baby get this old?! I don’t know why I never really got past 6 months in my head, but for some reason it never occurred to me time would keep going. I think it’s because 6 months was supposed to be our big milestone, the end of the exclusive breastfeeding and the moment when I no longer had to be Baby Evan’s only source of food. SURPRISE. Motherhood lesson #1: babies don’t give a crap about what you want. Really though, I don’t mind that much. He’s old enough now that he has to be really really REALLY hungry before he starts screaming, so I’m able to get some baby free time while E gets daddy time. I even missed bedtime last night so I could attend the mom’s knitting group at Papoose and made my first baby washcloth. Or at least I WILL have made my first baby washcloth when someone shows me how to finish it. I don’t think it will work very well with a knitting needle stuck to one side.

As for milestones…we have achieved forward momentum. It’s not really crawling, since he still hasn’t figured out how to get his knees under him while in motion (although he can get up on all fours while stationary and rock back and forth as if he’s trying to will his body forward). No, Baby Evan gets around by sort of half dragging half kicking his way across the floor, in a way that could only be described as “desperate gun shot victim crawls for safety” or “injured animal attempts escape”. Although I doubt either of those would move at the incredible speed Baby Evan can reach. There’s this corner of the kitchen where he always pauses and looks back, as if daring me to remember closing the baby gate, right before he disappears towards the HALLWAY OF DOOM, which holds the dog food, a bathroom and the basement stairs. In the 7 month old mind, all those things should be explored with one’s mouth. Unfortunately, the gates can’t do anything about his amazing ability to find the ONE piece of paper or bottle cap or dog kibble or dust bunny on a floor covered in baby toys and immediately try to eat it. We should send the babies to Afghanistan and say “Whatever you do, DON’T put Bin Laden in your mouth.” BOOM! Problem solved.

Our new nighttime routine is going…well, not really WELL, but better than I expected. More nights than not we make it past midnight before a feeding and until 4 or 5 am before the only way to get any more sleep is bringing him to bed with me. I’m hoping we get down to one early morning feeding followed by a couple extra hours of sleep by 9 months, so I’ve started checking stuff off Dr. Sears’ causes of nighttime waking list. We bought a space heater to keep the nursery warm (it’s now the most comfortable room in the house). We dress the baby in a cotton onesie before putting on his cozy jammies so they won’t itch. We set up the humidifier to help with his congestion. We play the Baby Go To Sleep cd on repeat all night. Even the worst insomniac in the world would fall asleep in that room, and yet it’s not quite good enough for my darling babycakes. The GIANT GLARING PROBLEM with this plan is that all the eating Baby Evan was doing at night now happens during the day. And I think his top teeth are coming through. So lets just say our days are  mostly spent topless.

As fast as the last 7 months have gone, the next couple are going to just fly by. We’re going to Pennsylvania to be godparents to my best friend’s baby next weekend, the weekend after that we’re going to Virginia (shh!! it’s a surprise party for my grandmother!), then it’s Thanksgiving. We don’t know yet how our holidays are going to play out or where we’ll be but I am ridiculously excited for Baby Evan’s first Christmas. The excitement on his face when he realizes all that wrapping paper those presents are for him to eat to play with is going to be fantastic.

For your viewing pleasure, a baby escape. He made it from the carpet to that spot in the time it took me to turn on the camera. If you listen carefully you can hear his cackle of laughter as he disappears:

I Say Potato

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Last night at dinner with my parents, my dad asked if he could give Baby Evan a french fry. “Sure, whatever” I said, “It’s not like he eats anything anyways.”

And then the little jerk stuck the fry in his mouth, chewed it up and smiled. MY BABY’S FIRST FOOD WAS A FRENCH FRY.

After all the natural, locally grown, organic, homemade, steamed, pureed fruits and vegetables I painstakingly chose and patiently offered, my child chose a DAMN FRENCH FRY. I suppose it shouldn’t come as too much of a shock, considering the sheer volume of fries I ate during my pregnancy, but I was really hoping we could start with avocado or banana or Cheerios or ANYTHING WITH NUTRITIONAL VALUE.

For the record, we’re calling it “potato” at breastfeeding group.