She crawls

I got out of the shower and found this

He said it

Oliver was helping me clean out the cooler from a party we had last night.  I was taking the beer bottles and sodas out so that I could empty out the melted water.  As Oliver took the bottles out, he said several times, "I can't drink beer."  (I'm not sure if someone told him this or he figured it out on his own.  He also notes, from time to time, the the can't drive yet -- because his feet don't reach the pedals.)  And then, making a thoughtful connection, he said, "I don't drink beer, so I don't have a beard.  But daddy does."

What's happening?

Both the kids seem to have developed new skills and habits recently.  Emme is, of course, crawling really well and now sitting fairly well.  She can't get from sitting to crawling without falling, but she doesn't even seem to mind that (she's definitely tougher now than she used to be!).  She likes to be able to get around.  She has gone after the dog several times and once corned her against the couch, where she touched Lucy's paws and ears until Lucy licked her soundly (in the literal, not figurative, sense) and then got up and left.  She goes after all of Oliver's toys.  She doesn't mind her baby toys and will play with them when no other options are available, but she'd much rather have Oliver's Legos and trucks or even his puzzle pieces when left on the floor.  We talked her out of a library book by giving her a board book to chew on.  She still likes the Exersaucer and just within the last few days seems to have figured out that she can turn herself in it.  She can press the buttons to make sounds or play songs on it, and I think she likes standing up to see what's going on.  She still loves the swing but often prefers to sit beside me with a little support rather than on my lap.  She loves strings and ties of all kinds -- shoelaces, the ties on the green blankets, the ones on my cargo shorts.  And she's fascinated by my wedding ring.  Often when I'm trying to show her a toy or walk my fingers up to her belly or nose, she sees the sparkle and reaches out to touch it and just stares at it with such focus.  She babbles a lot and even says "mama" (though not with any intent or direction).  I often repeat it back to her, and she sometimes seems surprised that I repeated what she said.

The last two developments have just been in the last few days.  The first is her "clucking."  I noticed that she kind of smacks her tongue to make a clucking noise, and so I did it back to her, clicking my tongue against the roof of my mouth.  She thought it was wonderful -- just looked into my face with this expression of wonder and excitement and did it back.  And we sat there for several minutes clicking and clucking back and forth.  She keeps doing it.  It's like she's discovered some secret language that only she and I speak.  I love it.  The second just started yesterday when her Grandma Kay noticed that she clapped her hands yesterday.  I didn't see it clearly, but today she did it several times.  She's always been busy with her hands -- waving them up and down, banging them against her bulky diaper, smacking them against my hands, and now kind of wiggling them around while she's being fed.  I'm not sure if this is a continuation of that or if she's seen the teachers or Oliver clapping and picked it up.  It's definitely funny to see, though, like she's clapping to music or something.

Oliver has also hit a clearly new phase.  One is fun; one is not.  As for the fun, Oliver has learned how to "play pretend."  Obviously he's been pretending on a certain level for as long as he's been playing with toys.  The white stuffed bear on his bed doesn't really roar; it's just pretend.  The difference is that there actually is a white stuffed bear on his bed.  The pretending he's doing now is very abstract, non-tactile.  He pretends he's an animal and makes the sounds or moves like them.  He recently started moving around the cushions on the couch to make a "jump slide" or a "water trayer" (sp?) (Wes and I have absolutely no idea what this is.  When Wes asked Oliver was a water trayer is, Oliver just said it's what's on the couch and could not be dissuaded from this circular argument.)  I sit with him on the water trayer -- he gets the middle cushion when the steering wheel, that moves forward to back like a bicycle wheel rather than left and right like a car steering wheel, is.  One day he told me we were eating cupcakes, chocolate ones with sprinkles.  When I started "eating" mine, he told me we had to take the paper off first.  This morning, he moved around the chairs from the table in Emme's room to make a truck.  It was yellow ("lello") with a yellow steering wheel.  He had to unbutton the real button on his shorts so he could get out the imaginary keys inside them. I sat in the back seat for awhile, then explained to him that Emme and I (who were playing on the gymnastic mat) were in the trailer hitched to the truck, which was a perfectly acceptable explanation for him.  He turned on some songs in the car, told me when we were at a stoplight.  We drove to Grandma and Grandpa's house, went to the pipe pool (I had to convince him that we didn't need to actually take our clothes off since we were just pretending to go swimming), and drove home.  He even pointed out the tractors he saw on the highway on our way back to our house.  This is definitely a cognitive development that has happened in maybe the last month.  There were a few occasions before this when Oliver would hold his hand flat and tell me he was giving me a paper, and a month or so ago he started to pretend to play catch with Wes with an imaginary ball (they would even throw it to Lucy, and Oliver would go pick it up when she failed to catch it).  But the amount of time and creativity and extent to which we're pretending is really at a new level.  I absolutely love watching him when he does that.  We have had to squash certain things -- he can rearranged the cushions on the couch, but the cushions cannot go on the floor, which is constantly covered in dog hair, the chairs for the truck could go on the gymnastics mat but not on his bed -- but he seems okay with those constraints.

Ollie also had another big "first" recently, taking in his first movie in an actual theater (or anywhere for that matter -- the kid hardly makes it through a ten-minute Berenstain Bears video, let alone an hour-long movie).  I took him last Sunday afternoon to see the new Winnie the Pooh movie.  I talked it up ahead of time, got us some popcorn, and was prepared to leave at any point if he just couldn't sit any longer.  But he did pretty well.  He really liked the popcorn.  He did pretty well not talking too much and also talking very quietly when he did, which was another worry of mine.  I hadn't counted on the fact that he wouldn't be heavy enough to keep the seat down, so I spent most of the movie with my leg or foot on his seat to keep it from collapsing up on him.  (I think there actually is something available to address this issue, but I didn't want to take him out of the theater find out.)  He and several other kids had a little trouble sitting through the previews -- "Where's Winnie the Pooh?" he kept asking.  But once the movie came on, he was excited. He's too young to follow the overall plot line or most of the subplots, but he did enjoy seeing the characters that he's only recently come to recognize, and he knows some of their common dilemmas (Pooh is looking for honey, Eyeore has lost his tail, Tigger is bouncy).  He laughed when other people laughed.  Maybe 8-10 minutes before the movie was ending, he got out of his seat and was looking around.  I tried to get him to sit in his seat or in my lap, but he wouldn't.  He said he didn't want to leave, but he wasn't watching the movie anymore. We went out, but once out he said he would sit down.  We went back in for the last three minutes or so and sat right in the front row with him on my lap.  He really is probably too young for that long of a film, but I loved getting to see him experience this outing for the first time.  We have one Winnie the Pooh book at home, and I downloaded the theme song and Tigger song for his playlist.  I also rented an old Winnie the Pooh movie to let him watch during his nap time today.  It's the kind of thing I would never do before, but I honestly didn't think he would sit through anything that long.  It won't be a regular event quite yet, either.  There are very few movies on the big screen that are appropriate and short enough for a kid his age, but it was a fun special event to have together.

The less fun phase we've going through right now is kind of an escalation of certain behaviors and kind of a return to previous ones.  Oliver is both a little more sassy and much more sensitive to being reprimanded. He's been trying out certain responses to things I tell him -- "No you won't do that, mommy" or "You can't say that to me."  I'm not sure where he learned these.  They aren't really phrases we use with him (unlike the one Wes got back the other day -- "We talked about this...").  I've talked to him before about being bossy, and now I've started talking to him about being rude, too, hoping that the concepts start to sink in so that he can identify the behaviors and not just certain words or phrases to avoid.  He gets time-outs if he persists in the behavior.  He's been having a hard time sharing things with Emme, though he obviously enjoys her most of the time.  Now that she's into his stuff, it's hard to help Ollie understand that some things that were "his" before (by virtue of being things that were not mine or Wes's) are now "theirs."  The Legos, for example, are things that she can't hurt and can't hurt her.  If she wants to play with them, there's no reason she shouldn't be allowed to.  Unlike, for example, his puzzles, which she could destroy, or his Cookie Monster and blanket, which are sacrosanct as his alone.  Unfortunately, this also extends to "her" toys that he wants to play with.  He likes the large, colorful, plastic beads that can pop together and make a string.  He pretends they're a train.  Emme, of course, chases them around wanting to play, too, and Oliver gets upset when she tries to take them.  He has learned from our admonishments that when he takes something from her, even something she's not supposed to have, that he needs to give her something in its place.  Unfortunately, he also interprets that to me that he can take something he wants to play with and give her something else that she may or may not be interested in.  He'll tell me "Emme doesn't want" whatever it is that she has an he wants.  On top of all of this, he often gets very upset -- dramatic face contortions, crying with real tears, sobbing -- when he's told to do something, to not do something, or to do something different than what he is.  This morning I was watching him out front with his lawn mower while Wes mowed.  When I told him gently that he needed stay in a different part of the yard than where Wes was mowing, he scrunched up his face and started crying.  Most of it is a show put on for effect, but sometimes he really is upset.  This is a departure from either ignoring what he's told or willingly accepting it.  The acceptance with sadness or anger is new.  He used to react this way when my mom told him "no" or reprimanded him (always kindly), but never with me or Wes.  I don't know if it's more of the settling into a world with baby sister or just a phase that's normal for his age, but I won't miss the sassiness or the dramatic tears if and when that phase passes (though as far as the sassiness and rudeness goes, I'm guessing it's a "comes and goes" kind of phase).

So those are the kids.  Wonderful, adorable, challenging as ever.  And blessedly at the moment, asleep.

(Back) To School

On her first day

It's that time of year around here.  The school buses are running, there's abundant school supplies out in Target, and I am once again being inconvenienced daily by the militant crossing guards on every side of every school within a ten mile radius of our house.  I have another ten days or so until my first day of classes, and Oliver never really took a summer vacation, save our several road trips, so Emme is the only one who has really "started" school this week.  She made it through her first five days in daycare quite well, and I even seem to have survived the ordeal without any mental breakdown.  She's attending the same daycare as Oliver in one of the three infant rooms.  Her teacher is one who had shown a lot of interest in her as she came and went with me to drop off and pick up Oliver the last few months, so that was nice.  There are seven or eight kids in her room on any given day, and Emme is the second or third youngest.

It turned out to be a good time to start her.  She's recently become much more interested in watching her surroundings and especially the people in them.  She's a much more content baby now that she can roll and crawl so well, and the fact that she gets picked up less (as a result of her ability to move herself) means she's spitting up less.  She hasn't really hit a point of obvious separation anxiety and never cried when I left her this week.  And she has also been excited to see me when I go to pick her up, which is wonderful.  Oliver loves helping drop her off in the morning and pick her up in the afternoon.  Natalee, Emme's teacher, always asks Oliver if she can come back the next day.  He said "no" the first time, but "yes" since then.

Ollie and I found this tractor when we were wandering
around campus waiting for Emme to wake up
one afternoon.

Emme and the other babies usually play in the morning.  Now that she's settled into a regular nap schedule (amidst the noise and lights and other kids that inhabit the room while she naps), she sleeps for about 45-60 minutes between 9:30-10:30AM.  She gets some baby food around 11:45, and then the whole room goes down for a nap around 12:30.  The first few days she hardly slept -- the first day maybe just an hour total -- but by Thursday her second nap was almost three hours.  As an added bonus, she's now going down for naps and bedtime (always in her crib -- no more swing in our room now that the temperatures have dropped a bit and the upstairs isn't so hot) without a peep, either because she's so tired or because she so appreciates the dark, quiet room.  She has gone down as early as 6:30 some evenings, and has slept long and pretty soundly all week.  I think we got one night straight through (maybe 7:00PM until 5:30AM, then she nursed and slept until 8AM), but most nights she still up once.  I'm hoping that in the next month or two that will change, but I'm not prepared to do anything about it right now.

I wouldn't say there is a "good part" of daycare beyond the necessity for it -- it provides a safe, nurturing environment in my absence so that I can attend school and do my work --, but the best part of her being where she is is that I can go visit.  I never did this with Oliver because I worked off campus and couldn't regularly visit.  And the one time I did have lunch with him (during a week when parents were invited), he and the other kids cried so much upon our leaving without them that I never tried again.  I could, and might, now, since I could prepare him for it and explain what was going to happen.  But since I'm on campus full time now and can be consistent, I've decided to visit Emme daily if possible at least until she moves up to the next room.  I go between 11:30 and 11:45, usually help feed her some baby food, nurse her if she wants it, and play with her for a little bit.  I stay around thirty minutes, then give her one more kiss and leave.  I'd like to think it helps keep her calm and happy as she gets ready for her nap, and I love the break from work.  Even if I'm frustrated at work, I can just enjoy being with her for a few extra minutes.

There will be some difficult times to come -- she hasn't been sick yet but is sure to pick up something soon and need to stay home, she will eventually have a few days or weeks or fussing when dropped off, I will feel guilty for being away from her on the long days -- but so far, it's going well.  Oliver continues to thrive, now in the three-year-old room.  He's learned to use scissors, gets to play on the "big boy" playground with a slide and swings, and does learning centers each day.  His new teachers love him as much as the last ones did, and he's in with some kids he knows and some that are new to us.  The daycare director joked the other day that they like repeat business (siblings get preference to the center), and added kindly, "Especially your kids."  I would like to think that Wes and I are primarily responsible for how well Ollie is doing so far, but I know that a lot of it is from things he's learned and experienced at daycare.  And so I'm thanks for that, too, and hoping the same is true for all our kids.

It's only a matter of time

Emme is mobile -- and she's getting into trouble with it, literally and figuratively.  Yesterday, she found the dog bowl.  Fortunately, it was empty of any dog food, but that was her first foray out of the main living room.  She really can crawl quite well now, though she occasionally face plants if her hands slip under her, and she sometimes gets tired after a lot of crawling, especially on the hardwoods, and kind of lays her head down and fusses from all the effort.  We don't need to move the dog bowls or put a gate up at the base of the stairs yet (the prior one that protected Oliver having been irreparably bent when I fell over it twice in my early pregnancy haze), but those will probably happen soon.

Emme also had to have her crib mattress lowered.  She loves her mobile -- I need to video her watching it raptly move around in a circle above her head before she loses interest -- so much so that she recently started reaching up for the animals on it.  Several times I was rinsing out diapers in the bathroom when I heard a clicking some.  It turns out that Emme had "caught" one of the animals and was preventing the mobile from turning, even with the motor running.  That seemed like a bad idea for several reasons, and so she got moved further away from it rather than take it down.  It probably also saves her head from the changing table (that attaches to the top of the crib) when she crawls under it before going to sleep or after waking up.

I know it's really cliched to say that your kid is growing up too fast, and I really didn't feel that way with Oliver.  I sometimes am startled to see the nearly three-year-old he is in front of me and remember him at Emmeline's age, but he seems to have grown up right in line with the time that had passed.  Perhaps it's because I've been so much busier this time around with school and work and no maternity leave, perhaps it's because I've had a second child to keep an eye on during the early baby days, or perhaps it's because she's learning to do things earlier that Ollie did, but I do feel like Emme's little baby days have flown by and she'll be one before I know it or am entirely ready for it.  Regardless, it's still fun watching her learn new things and delight in life.  

Seven months old

Sibling affection

Wes and I decided to have more than one child for many reasons.  This is one of them.

In honor of World Breastfeeding Week

Emme is almost seven months old, and breastfeeding is going well.  She's more easily distracted when nursing, so I sometimes have to take her up to her room to get her to eat well, but when she's really hungry, she eats quite a bit.  When she's finished eating, she kind of stops, looks up at me, and gets a huge smile on her face.  Kind of like she suddenly realizes I'm there, too.  She always has a long stretch at night without nursing, and recently we've had several nine, ten, eleven, even one twelve hour stretch.  Thank you, baby.

Now that I've had the experience of nursing two babies and sharing those experiences with other new moms, I know a few things to be true for me.  That, like seemingly everything in motherhood and parenting, is about the best anyone can say.

Breastfeeding may be best, but it's also, in my opinion, easiest.  When the baby is hungry, the food is ready.  Simple as that.  When Wes has, on the odd occasion, tried to give Emme a bottle late at night or early in the morning so that I can get some more sleep, I end up waking to the baby's cries and then staying awake through the whole thing.  We learned pretty quickly that if I'm in the same house as a nursing baby, it's easier for me to nurse than for him to try to help with bottle.  The flip side to this is that breastfeeding is easy because I am doing it.  It makes it easier on everyone, yes, but I'm also doing all the work.  It's a reality that is important to acknowledge even as I laud the act of breastfeeding.  So often it's all or nothing when women talk about nursing -- either it's wonderful and everyone should do it or it's horrible and no one should be pushed to do it.  I think it's helpful to realize that, like with everything, it's somewhere in the middle.  A lot of work for mom, but with a lot of benefits for her and baby.  Cheaper than formula, but then time is money, and there's a lot of time involved in breastfeeding.

For me, some breastfeeding paraphernalia has been really helpful.  I didn't use the Boppy much with Emme because I was just more comfortable nursing, but I used it a lot with Oliver.  I did use a nipple shield very briefly when trying to get Oliver off the bottle he had used during his stay in the NICU and onto the breast.  And I definitely use my breast pump.  A lot.  With Oliver, I used it right away at the suggestion of the lactation consultant who wasn't sure (along with everyone else) exactly how long he would be in the NICU.  Maybe because of that, I had a great milk supply early on (I pumped in addition to nursing, not in lieu, which is an important distinction).  With Emme, I pumped literally the third day because I was going back to classes and wanted to have enough milk to make it through the day.  I managed to pump two or three four-ounce bottles in two or three days, which was more than enough, and since then I've basically made an extra bottle a day.  I get up, I nurse, and then I pump.  Until this week, when I decided that the 700+ ounces of frozen milk in the bottom of my chest freezer was, quite simply, enough.  No need to stockpile any further.  Notably, though, this massive stockpile made it possible for me to leave Emme for five days to go to New Orleans and seven days to go to San Diego without having to worry about having enough milk for her.  Now, though, I know there's plenty there, and as long as it doesn't dwindle past about 200 ounces, I know I can do the bit of traveling I have planned this fall without worry.  So for the past three or four days, I dropped that pumping in the morning.  I nurse all day, but since she's not getting any bottles, I'm not making any either.  Just dropping that one pumping session first thing in the morning was hard.  Some combination of that and her sleeping longer at night meant that I had a lot of extra milk built up in the morning.  Unfortunately, the only way to get the body to stop making the extra is to not express it.  So I went a couple of days with a very full chest and sleeping on my back.  I think we've about figured things out.  I will continue to try and make just enough, and then when I get close to weaning, I can do it more slowly than I did with Oliver, using up my stash a bottle a day so that I dry up a little more slowly.

I didn't use a nursing cover with Oliver, but I also rarely nursed in public.  Neither of my children had any respect for my modesty while breastfeeding, and while some women may feel comfortable flashing a little breast while nursing (which is fine) or are able to do it more discreetly or with a receiving blanket, neither worked for me.  With Emme, I got one and have used it any number of times.  She can latch on and off without me worrying about covering up, I'm more comfortable nursing, and she doesn't get so distracted by wherever we are.  As an added bonus, I've used it as a coverup while pumping hands-free at my sister's house (with her husband around) and even while driving.  Some people argue that a nursing cover just makes nursing seem even more taboo -- something that shouldn't be done in public -- but for me it makes nursing out of the house possible and something I'm more willing to do, which seems to be the goal.  And if a little kid asks their mom what I'm doing or someone walks by me at the mall and puts it all together, they're still getting the message that breastfeeding out of the house is necessary and well, just fine.

I do enjoy breastfeeding.  I love getting to snuggle with my babies and stare at them while they eat.  I love being able to meet their needs and often instantly soothe them with the breast.  I love this further wonderment in what my body can do to create and sustain life.  I am thankful that my body has been able to do this with not a whole lot of challenges, as it's not always the case.

But I must say, as much as I enjoy it, I'm not someone who is especially interested in extended breastfeeding.  I am not a small-busted woman, and breastfeeding doesn't help things.  I have an ample milk supply and strong let-down, so I wear nursing pads every day.  I'm not one of those women who can put on a nursing tank and just go out for the day -- there has to be layers of support (this time I at least learned to wear nursing bras with an underwire).  I'm in school and working, so I have to pump to keep up my supply when I'm not with her, which I can't imagine doing long term.  Basically, by about a year, when the baby can move to cow's milk and no formula is necessary, I'm ready to have my body back.  I shed my last few pounds with Ollie when I finally weaned, and my sense is that will happen this time, too.  I recognize the merits of extended breastfeeding, but at some point everyone has to decide to wean, and this is my decision.  One of my good friends nursed her daughter until later than I did and wrote a lot and thoughtfully about her decision to finally wean.  Another friend of mine is still nursing her 2+-year-old daughter even as she is expecting her second.  Others made it to six months and called it enough.  And they all made good decisions, in my opinion, because they made informed ones.  They all sought help and support and information when they wanted it or as they needed it, and then chose what to do with it.  I think that's what most "pro-breastfeeding" women want for each other.  There are those, I suppose, who really do judge others who don't breastfeed or don't breastfeed "long enough" by their estimation.  But I think most of us who have had good experiences just want the same for others, and so want others to have the help and support and information necessary to let that happen.  However, I'd like to think that any reasonable woman recognizes her experience is not the same as others, and that the decision to nurse or not, to wean and when, is each woman's alone.

So on this, the first day of World Breastfeeding Week, I say -- Go forth and nurse.  Nurse at home in the nursery and on your living room couch (in front of some show that your infant should certainly not be watching, for me Law and Order: SVU).  Nurse at the mall and in a restaurant.  Nurse for you and for your baby.  And if you choose not to, just make sure it's an informed choice and not one that results from lack of help or support or information.  And when you choose to wean, don't feel guilty about it for even one minute if it's the right time for you and your baby (knowing, even as I write this, that I felt a little guilty when I weaned Ollie and will again when I wean Emme).  And if breastfeeding was horrible for you, don't feel guilty about that either.  There's just only so much a person can handle, and no one should suffer through their baby's infancy because breastfeeding just sucks (pun intended).  And if breastfeeding was wonderful for you, tell others about it.  Tell you daughter about it (and your sons -- Ollie has definitely been a convert to breastfeeding!).  Because the more little girls (and boys) and teenage girls (and boys) and newly married women (and men) and newly pregnant women (and their husbands) hear about and see women breastfeeding -- the ups and downs, the initial struggles and eventual successes -- the more common it will be in society.  Which is, of course, the goal of World Breastfeeding Week.