Simon: 10 months

The sheer absence of a 9-month birthday post should indicate just how busy we’ve been lately, Little dude.  An unexpected trip to Kansas City (more on that in another post), adventures here in LA, and all kinds of eating and playing and moving and growing.  Your days are full!

 

 

Yes, you are quite the busy young gentleman!

 

Just after we got home from KC back in March, you started in on some solid foods (your first food ever – sweet potato – is chronicled here).  You were a little slow to ramp up on those at first (boob was and is still your most favorite meal), but now you’re off and running.  We’re doing baby-led weaning, so instead of eating a bunch of purees and stuff you’re headed straight into real solids.  So far your favorites are banana and mango, and plain Greek yogurt, and baba ganoush (really!) and hummus.  And yellow squash.  And waffles.  And carrots.  And fresh apple slices with cinnamon.  And watermelon.

 

With any luck, you won’t turn out to be a picky eater.  But we shall see.

 

 

Speaking of eating, you’ve also made some great strides in improving that.  For a while, your growth chart was dipping a little low (even for a breastfed baby), so we had a couple meetings with an awesome lactation consultant and took a few simple measures to help you pay attention to your eating.  Staying in meal mode on the breast instead of snack mode, stuff like that.  And it’s working marvelously!  We’ve been checking your weight every week or two; in the past 15 days you’ve gained almost a pound.  Way to go!

 

 

It’s doubly impressive when we consider what a workout you’ve been getting every day!  You’re pulling up on everything in sight (though preferably if my or daddy’s hands are there to brace you), and army-crawling just as fast as you can go.  It’s so weird to me that my baby is never in the same spot I left him anymore!  Mobility is pretty awesome, isn’t it?

 

 

Your favorite pastimes now include playing patty-cake (with Mama hands to help), scraping blocks and toys back and forth on the floor, and reading (and chewing on) stories.  Your current favorite songs are “The Wheels on the Bus” and “Young McSimon Had a Farm”.  We’ve done every iteration imaginable of the former, so now the bus is laden with a Simon (“cluck cluck cluck”), a Mama (“boobs boobs boobs”), a Daddy (“law law law”), Grammy, Granddad, Grandma, Grandpa, Great Grandmother, Great Granddad, Aunt Laura, Ella, Auntie Tea, Davie, Mona, Roxie, Macbeth, Maxie, and Eliza.  Young McSimon’s farm is also populated with every creature of land and sea.  (Why do you have a tapir on your farm anyway, huh?)

 

“bob bob bob” has started being interspersed with “ma ma ma”, and I flatter myself to think that you’re actually talking about me, but that’s probably overly-optimistic.  Soon, though, I’m sure!  (Psst! I’ll give you a real live chicken if “mama” is your first word, instead of “dada”)

 

 

Our whole house is still very fond of babywearing.  But I promise you that you are the reason I have all those wraps, not just an accessory or excuse to buy them  You’ve relapsed into hairpulling in a BIG way, though, much to my chagrin.  In fact, I’ve had to start actually disciplining you on that because you yank SO hard, and so often, that I’m about to go bald!  So for the past week or so we’ve started test-driving a two warnings system, followed (almost inevitably) by a one-minute timeout in the playpen.  I don’t think you get it yet.

 

 

You just get wigglier and wigglier, Wiggly Simon, and cuter and cuter.  You are my favorite, even though you’re a mess of trouble.  I love your sleepy milkbreath kisses, and watching you learn and grow.

 

Now I need to pick you up off the floor, where you’ve spent the past 15 minutes army-crawling in a giant circle and scraping your shape-sorter blocks.  You’re the best, Little Dude.  The BEST.

 

Love,

Mama

1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, 5 months, 6 months, 7 months, 8 months

 

Cross-stitching is not knitting

Since my knitting time has been sharply curtailed as of late (understatement of the year), I’ve been filling in the gaps with cross-stitching:  its small movements don’t disrupt the sleeping thing on my lap like knitting does.  I’ve got a couple larger projects cooking, but have mostly been working on ones of the near-instant gratification variety.

 

Like Jeff’s Valentine’s gift:

Pattern via pixystitches

 

And some birthday gifts for my parents.  My dad’s a Doors fan:

pattern via pixelpowereddesign

(I added some backstitching there because the colors didn’t contrast enough IRL, leaving Jim Morrison looking like an amorphous blob of flesh)

 

For my mom, the Downton Abbey fan:

pattern via pixystitches

 

(That’s just a shadow on the canvas; it’s not stained.)

 

And finally, for Yours Truly.  Because the only thing better than tea and Doctor Who is a combination of the two:

pattern via WibblyWobblyStitches

 

If you don’t know what episode that’s from, here.  Enjoy

 

I’ve been able to eke out a little time every now and again for kniting, too, but will save that for another post.  I’m also itching to show you my other cross-stitch WIP’s!

Simon: 8 months

I woke up at 3am with a baby sleep-nursing, and all of a sudden it popped into my head: I never wrote his 8-month blog post!  So this is my much-belated contribution.  The pictures, at least, are accurate: he wasn’t feeling terribly cooperative when we took them the day after we got home from Kansas City.

 

You passed your 8-month birthday in an awesome way, Little Dude:  surrounded by family in Kansas City.  There were a million hugs and kisses and feet squishes and tummy tickles, and you loved every blasted minute of it.  You, sir, seem to be a social butterfly.

 

Since I’m so late in writing this darn thing I can barely remember which of your awesome new skillz happened before 3/16 and which came after.   But as of right now, sitting is old news.  Standing while hanging onto our fingers, the side of the couch, or the slats on the bedframe is the new hotness!  You can’t pull yourself up into it yet, but when we get you situated you’re as happy as a clam.  The other day I even saw you lift one of your little feets just a bit.  Cruising is on the horizon, methinks.

 

 

You’ve got lots of awesome sounds…”pa pa pa” (complete with exaggerated lip smacking), a few “buh”s, and you even called Daddy “Mama” once.  I’ll forgive you for that one.

 

 

I’m dying to talk about Fun With Solids, but that *definitely* didn’t happen until after 3/16, so I’ll save it for your next birthday post

 

 

I love seeing how your play has evolved.  Toys are constantly falling in and out of favor: poor Sophie must be feeling pretty neglected by now.  Of course, the non-toy “toys” are always the best:  the Aquaphor tube, a measuring cup and spatula, our metal water bottles.  Anything that you see Mama Daddy use is MUCH cooler than the babyish stuff!

 

 

Growth-wise, you seem to have switched from height mode to bulk mode:  according to the doctor’s office measurements you’ve been about 27″ for three months running, but you keep adding ounces somewhere: mostly in the tummy and chin area, it seems

 

 

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I have the best job in the world.  You are fantastic.

 

Love,

Mama

 

1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, 5 months, 6 months, 7 months

Standing up for our rights is HARD

On Saturday, for the first time in nearly 8 months of proudly nursing in public, someone tried to tell me not to feed my baby.

We were having lunch in the dining room at my grandparents’ retirement home.  Grandmother, Mom, Dad, my aunt and uncle, Simon and me.  I was nursing Little Dude as we waited for our food to arrive.  He was looking around at all the blue-hairs at surrounding tables, his eyes fairly rolling backwards to see all the interesting stuff around him with his mouth full of delicious boob.  A veritable sea of oldsters gazed from afar and – in some cases – came to our table just to tell Grandmother how precious her little great-grandson is.  And there was mushroom and leek soup.   It was all quite nice.

So imagine my surprise when a staff member came up to us and told me that I couldn’t nurse Simon there or at least needed to cover up; that “there are males present! You are being offensive.”. When I calmly informed her that I would not, that Missouri statute expressly provides me the right to breastfeed in public, she turned to my grandmother and said “I just can’t allow this here, Jewell.  I can’t allow it.”

 

I wanted to dig a hole in the ground and crawl in.

 

I’ve imagined something like that happening before.  The first few times I plugged his scream-hole while out shopping, or snuggled him in for a nurse-y nap in a restaurant, I thought about how I’d respond if someone tried to infringe upon our rights.  Turns out that – like many other events in life –  reality was a little bit different than imagination. 

I was sitting there at the table in the corner (unsuccessfully) holding back tears while this woman tried to tell me not to feed my baby, barely standing up for what I knew was right.  After her futile (and wholly inappropriate) supplication to Grandmother, the server stalked off.  I was seeing fire, shaky with adrenaline, and – for the first time – ashamed about feeding my baby.  Of course, my family was none too pleased, either.  My mom (who breastfed two babies in the ’80′s when “that just isn’t what nice people do”) immediately stood up to take me out so I wasn’t stuck crying in the corner, and Dad was hot on her heels.  My aunt (who breastfed two babies in the ’70′s when “that really just isn’t what nice people do”) hastened our speedy retreat, and waited to help settle the check.

I was so happy that they were all livid on my behalf, and so supportive of me.

Mom immediately went to the reception desk to get the name of the woman’s supervisor.  The woman followed us there and started her argument again, with an extra dose of patronization:  ”Listen, sweetie…”.  (Mom says I told her “Don’t ‘sweetie’ me!” but I don’t even remember saying that; I was so mad.).  She didn’t want to give us her supervisor’s info, so Mom began informing her exactly how illegal her actions were while I got the supervisor’s name and number from the receptionist.

A few minutes later, back in Grandmother’s apartment, Simon was playing on the floor happily and we were sitting around feeling helpless and infuriated.  A knock on the door, and a nurse supervisor from the assisted living wing (where Granddad lives) came in for a chat.

She was exceedingly kind, compassionate, helpful, apologetic, and empathetic.  A nursing mother herself, she apologized repeatedly for the woman’s actions and stressed just how inappropriate they were – as well as how they actively contradicted state law and facility policy.  She made sure that I had the woman’s supervisor’s info, and offered again her sincere apologies for the whole dustup.  If it weren’t for her, I would’ve been on a personal vendetta against the retirement home.  But because of her kindness and understanding, I was just pissed as hell at that woman as an individual.

When Granddad came in and Grandmother filled him in, he was upset about the whole thing too.  Who wants to hear that their granddaughter and great-grandson were treated so poorly as guests in their home?  But after texting furiously with my legal representation (heh) and rehashing the incident with my family, and that great reassurance from the nurse supervisor, I was significantly less fired up than I’d been just half an hour ago

Since I went to all the trouble to get her supervisor’s info, this morning I followed through and called him to issue a formal complaint about that woman.  It was an incredibly productive conversation.  And, it turns out the supervisor’s wife is nursing their baby and is a lactation activist herself, so he found it personally – as well as professionally – horrifying.

This is where it gets good, and why I’m so happy with the ultimate outcome:  in addition to disciplinary action against that woman, her supervisor also assured me that all facility staff will receive formal training about breastfeeding law and the organization’s own (existing but apparently unpublicized) support policy.  Though the issue clearly doesn’t come up much in a place with an average age of 110 (give or take a year ), he was very eager to emphasize the importance of supporting nursing mothers and babies: not just because of Missouri statute, but as an issue of company policy and guest service.  The supervisor apologized profusely and repeatedly for the whole situation, and seemed genuinely as upset as we were that it occurred at all.

For my part, I explained that I wasn’t out to sue anybody for infringing on my rights: I just wanted the staff to be educated so this wouldn’t happen in the future – to me or to anybody else’s granddaughter (or whoever).  Personally, I can recover from the embarrassment of the moment and will gladly forgive and forget, if it means that no visitor ever has to be treated like that again.  As in all things, I really feel like education is key.  I hope that by having a positive conversation with him rather than going in guns a’blazing, my arguments were more effective.

And speaking of education?  The supervisor promised me that that woman will never be able to call a guest “sweetie” or try to make anybody eat with a blanket over their head ever again

“Ain’t nobody gonna try and take MY boob!”

The moral of the story?  Sometimes it’s surprisingly hard to stand up for your rights.  But by being firm and forthright, and with the support of your family (and the law!), it’s really possible to get things done.  Because baby’s gotta eat!

~~~

I’ve specifically left out the facility’s name in the above, because I really don’t want to spread negative attention on what was overall a positive situation.  They have provided our family with exceptional service these past few years, and I’m fully confident that the next time we visit, Simon will be able to eat his lunch whenever and wherever he chooses.

 

PS> Ironically, that happened just days after this most excellent post started circulating.  Please go read it, and share with your friends!

Early March? Really?

(Disclaimer:  This is going to be a “where has the time gone?” post.  Consider yourself warned.)

 

It’s March 4, and I’ve got all the windows open here in the apartment.  Since we have a corner unit it’s actually pretty nice in here, but when it gets properly hot again I’ll be wishing for a proper cross breeze.

 

I can’t believe that we’ve been in LA for over six months.  I’m glad that we’re over halfway done with our time here and will be moving on to our next adventure (Yay Akron!) soon, but believe it or not I’m also going to miss this weird city a little bit.  I won’t miss the shitty air or the traffic or the weather (god no not the weather), but I will miss South Pasadena’s community, seeing flowers in January, and the lovely ladies who have dragged me kicking and screaming into friendship (ever notice that happens wherever I go?  Why do perfectly nice people insist on liking me?  It’s weird.).

 

The biggest little mindfuck with all of this, though, is that I came to LA with a newborn and I’m going to leave with a 13-month-old.  And last week when we enjoyed the two days that pass for springtime in SoCal (we’re now firmly onto “summer”), it hit me just how goddamn quickly time is passing.  Simon had another visible growth spurt overnight, and right now he’s laying on the floor flipping back and forth from tummy to back, and chewing on all his favorite toys.  He seems so tiny but also…not.  When we leave in a few months, he’ll be walking (or very close to it), eating grown-up food, maybe even saying a word or two.  I really can’t describe motherhood as anything but “mindfuck”.  The whole thing’s giving me whiplash.  In the best possible way, of course.

 

In just a little bit here we’re going to get dressed, take the dog on her customary walk then read stories and practice sitting up.  We’ll eat a bunch of boob and hopefully take a nap so I can cross-stitch or knit a bit.  Then Jeff will get home and it’ll be chicken soup and biscuits for dinner.  Pretty much like every other day, but also not, because he’ll never be this tiny again.

Mindfuck.

Simon: 7 months

On the one hand, this past month has been business as usual. Storytime, bathtime, boobtime, playtime, diapertime, rinse and repeat.

But on the other hand: wow.  NO. So much more!

As usual, you’ve been busy, big guy!

Maybe you inherited my compulsion for productivity, or maybe playing with your biggirl friend Ella has just lit a fire under your ass to catch up.  Who knows.

But either way, in this past month you’ve figured out:

~How to fit both feet in your mouth at once (How? Seriously?  And, more importantly:  why?)

~How to stay sitting up for at least a few seconds at a time, especially when there’s a doggy in front of you for motivation

~How to grow one-and-a-half teeth! (the bottom middle pair)

~How to say “bwuh”, “aohhhgga”, and “Guggh”.  I’m sure these mean something very profound in the language of your people.

We got to go on some good adventures this past month, too (and if I ever get my act together, I’ll blog about them).  We went to Florida to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa, and then we went on a hiking adventure at Big Bear.  We wrapped up the month with an outing to Hollywood, and even a trip to the Huntington Library with Mona and Babydave and Tea and Ella!  WOW.

Last week we ordered you your very own high chair, and gave that a whirl.  I think we’ll let you try a little bit of avocado or sweet potato (your first grownup food!) right after we get home from Kansas City next month.  In the meantime, you really enjoy joining us at the table for meals! (and Daddy and I enjoy not having to trade off eating because we’re holding you)

It seems like every morning you wake up a whole different baby, one with more and more ideas and more ambitions.  Luckily for you, the skills to fulfill those never lag far behind.  It’s pretty gosh darn awesome.

Can I mention one tiny thing, though?

If possible, could you please try and think about sleeping without a boob in your mouth?  Maybe just once in a while?  It’s hard for Mama to knit when I’m also playing human pacifier…

But that’s my only quarrel.  You are a truly exceptional baby, in every way imaginable.  You are adorable and wonderful and perfect and I have SO MUCH FUN with you every day.  The past 7 months have been awesome, and I can’t wait for the next 7. And the next after that.  And after that.

Now I’m gonna go eat your beebee toes,

Mama

The end.

I couldn’t resist.

1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, 5 months, 6 months

Cranberry Orange Bread with Vanilla-Clove Glaze

Y’all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  Jeff and I have discovered that pretty much the only way he’ll partake in said meal on weekdays is if I entice him with delicious home-baked goodness of some sort.

 

WELL TWIST MY ARM WHYDONTCHA.

 

My usual repertoire of cinnamon rolls and bran muffins was getting a bit stale (hurr hurr), and whole cranberries were on sale at the grocery store, so I started piddlefarting around a couple weeks ago and came up with this.  Then I tweaked a few things and made it again, because diligence.  Eet ees mee meedle nam.

Long story short, this thing is delicious.  In fact, I think it may be Jeff’s favorite non-chocolate semi-healthy baked item, which is really sayin’ something.

 

And now I share it with you, for your weekday (or weekend) breakfast (or snacktime) pleasure (or indifference).

 

Also, if I were a good and thoughtful person I would’ve taken pretty pictures without the dish drainer in the background.  But I’m not a good and thoughtful person, so there.  The fine folks at Rubbermaid can thank me for the free publicity

 

Cranberry Orange Bread with Vanilla-Clove Glaze

1c whole wheat flour

1c white flour

2t baking powder

1/2t baking soda

3/4t salt

1T orange zest (if you have it.  No biggie if omitted.)

2c fresh cranberries, rinsed and roughly chopped

1/2c walnuts, chopped (if such things appeal to you.)

3T flax meal (because everybody needs more fiber.)

1/4c room-temperature butter

3/4c packed brown sugar

1 egg

1t vanilla

3/4c orange juice

Preheat oven to 350*F.  Grease a standard-size loaf pan and line with parchment paper.

 

In a medium-sized bowl, sift together dry ingredients; stir in orange zest, flax, walnuts and cranberries.

 

In a large bowl, cream together butter, sugar, egg and vanilla.  Stir in orange juice.  Stir in flour/cranberry mixture *just* until moistened (batter should be lumpy, like for muffins).  Pour into prepared pan.

 

Bake 45-60 minutes, or until loaf is springy to the touch.  Cool slightly, then turn out on a wire rack.

 

Vanilla-Clove Glaze

1c powdered sugar

1T vanilla or caviar from 1/2 vanilla bean

1/2t ground clove (nutmeg, or mace, if you’re fancy)

splash of milk or cream to achieve perfect drizzly texture

Combine and wisk together well, adjusting powdered sugar or milk as needed for texture.  Glaze while loaf is still slightly warm.

I love you.

 

 

Have a good weekend, guys.