a day

G's out of town for a few days, so for the 2nd wknd in a row, the little munchkin and I are flying solo.  Last week, we were literally flying, and I can't wait to blog about THAT exciting trip in my next post.  This week, we're hanging out at home.  So far, it's been much easier, especially knowing that I can go back to work and drop the kid off in daycare for the next 3 days (G gets back on Wed night).

I know I sound horrible, but man I'm tired.  I ADORE our kid, but hanging out with her 24-7 is definitely challenging these days.  I have a new respect for single parents.  This weekend started off fine with a great day yesterday.  I was proud for getting 2 naps out of Diya, but then ended up regretting it last night. She's been transitioning between two and one naps these days, so most days, it's just one.  But the problem is that she has a hard time holding out until the afternoon and starts to get tired and cranky by mid-morning.  But if you put her down, then chances are that she'll nap then for a couple of hours, wake up by noon and not sleep for the rest of the day.  I'm not really sure what's better honestly.  During the week, I say morning crankiness is MUCH better because she's in daycare anyway.  But you see my problem on the weekends . . .  So anyway, yesterday, I was able to manage 2 naps, but she woke up from her 2nd at 5pm and didn't sleep til after 9.  So yah, I screwed myself there.

Today started off hard from the first.  Early (well, not really, but too early for me) wake up.  Breakfast was fine, she even ate a bit while I put away dishes.  Her Highness is picky these days, so you can't take that for granted.  But then I left her playing on her mat for a second to pee and she went ballistic.  I came rushing back to realize she's fallen backwards on her head.  On the mat, but she must have fallen hard because these days she likes to climb the little ledge over to our fireplace, and I'm guessing she fell from there.  It's just another inch or two off the ground, but I'm sure it shook her.

Then diaper change time . . . she had a monster poop that was mostly stuck to her.  So I might have gotten a little excited changing.  But dude, she was wailing the whole time, squirming around, AND trying to touch her crotch (which is fine except that there was POOP there.  I was trying to clean her up and hold her up a bit since there's poop on her butt too and I didn't want it touching her changing table sheets.  OMG, you would have thought I was torturing her the way she went on.   (Totally having deja vu here, didn't I just write another poop story that was pretty much like this except that Tucker ended up eating it?)

Finally, I let her off the table.  She seemed happy at first and followed me to the bathroom to throw the poop away.  Honestly, this one stunk so much that I would have buried it somewhere if it was possible.  Plus, it took me like a million wipes to clean up, so all that went in the toilet too.  I came back to grab a little baggie for the diaper and suddenly saw the kid take a face plant onto the floor. No idea why, but just lost her balance and wham, hit the hardwood.  Ugh, so I threw out the diaper, soothed her for a minute, and went back to the bathroom to realize that the kid's poop had PLUGGED UP THE TOILET.  She was still wailing through all this, so I decided that the plumbing issue could wait a minute and picked her up.  And the poor thing clung to me for a few minutes until she forgot she was in utter pain and wanted off to play with the electrical socket.  (I'm kidding, but I'm sure it was something hazardous).  And oh, did I mention that last night Mia stepped on her leg by accident and left a big ol' scratch on it?  The kid's not having a good weekend, poor thing, and will probably be all nicked up and bruised everywhere by the time G gets back.  Which is just awesome.

THEN, she started fussing cuz she was tired, I decided to make her hold out for the afternoon nap today.  So I decided the best thing to do was head out for a bit.  So we went to Whole Foods.  Ya, don't judge me, for fun I go out to Whole Foods.  It's a whole 15 minutes farther than our neighborhood Lucky and Nob Hill stores, so for us, it's an OUTING.   Anyway the other annoying thing she started doing today was cry whenever we were about to do something she doesn't like.  So every time I put her pants on this morning (I kind of get it, that kind of stuff still hurts for her because of her hips -- but when she's in a good mood, she doesn't really fuss about it), we'd have a little screaming fit.  When she thought we were about to ride in a car, she also went ballistic.  That, I didn't get, she doesn't mind car rides, so who knows.  Oh, so when she had that monster poop?  We also ran out of diapers, so I had to take her with me to go grab another box from the garage.  I think that's when her sudden new fear of cars first emerged because I think she thought we were going out somewhere and crying all over again and looking all freaked out.   So here I was carrying this wailing, naked baby, praying she wouldn't pee on me, and looking for diapers in our disaster of our garage.  It was crazy, she was literally trying to push off of me like I was about to throw her in the car and lock the door.  SO weird.

Where was I?  Oh ya so little screaming fit but otherwise sane ride over to Whole Foods.  She loved being in the grocery store.  For the first time ever, I was able to fit her legs through the little shopping cart -- it takes a little maneuvering with her legs, gotta get the bad one in first and then kind of stretch her other one, but once she was in there, she was in heaven.  Grabbed a couple of tangerines I'd picked up and started banging them around together.  Then bit into one, skin and all.  Yah, so I've never been able to get her to really eat oranges, but clearly I've been going about it the wrong way.  Letting her steal one from the grocery store is clearly the way to go.  She refused to give it up, so finally, I just peeled a portion of it and gave it back to her to nosh on.  Because, you know, I'd much rather have a shoplifter than a screamer on my hands.  She managed to eat a good half of it, but when I tried to give her the rest at home on her high chair, she spit it out and tried to feed pieces of it to the dogs.  I guess as soon as it stopped being the forbidden fruit, she lost interest.

On the way home, she started hacking in the back, and I wondered if she was choking on a tangerine seed.  Thankfully, she wasn't.

And that's where we are.  And guess what, it's only noon!! 

another poop story

Recently, I decided that it was time for us to go back to cloth diapers.  We used to have do a diaper service, and it was great.  Every week, they'd come and haul our bag of dirty diapers and bring us fresh ones.  We used disposables during the first few weeks (because G stole like a million packs of Pampers from the hospital -- we were there for a week, and he'd hide half-used packages in our bags so that they'd bring us more.  Plus we had a lot from our baby shower, so it made sense to use them up first) and at night.  But ultimately, we switched to cloth for full-time day use and I've always liked them better.  They seemed to be better for preventing diaper rash, better at holding in the poop blow-outs, and nicer to the environment. 

Diya's daycare wouldn't deal with cloth, though, so then we switched to a cloth/compostable option.  Still with the service, but they take away all our diapers and compost the non-cloth ones.  The compostable diapers are actually pretty cool.  If you're willing to spend the money and want to be environmentally friendly, these are almost like disposables.  We gave those to Diya's daycare and used cloth at home.  And then when Diya got into her cast, the cloth didn't fit inside there, so we had to full time compostable -- a little one stuffed inside the cast, and a giant one on the outside to hold everything in.  It's been almost 5 months since she came out of the cast and we just hadn't bothered going back yet.  Mostly, I worry about dealing with frequent diaper changes with Diya's brace.  It's a pain to take off and on.

I've missed cloth diapers though, and as Diya gets older, I've been wanting to give them another go.  For one thing, she pees less frequently now, so it doesn't seem like it'll be as much of a pain to take her brace off and on.  And, there are a lot of cloth diapers that are more absorbent than the ones we'd been getting from the diaper service.  So it's not like we'd be changing her diaper every 30 minutes like the olden days.  Also, her new daycare has said that they'd be willing to handle cloth diapers too, so really, it'd be there problem during the week. 

So . . . we're trying again.  But this time, I want to go all in.  No more service, we do our own wash.  Mostly just so we have more options as to what kind of diapers we get.  And I want to start using cloth at night time too.  I've been buying all kinds of diapers online to get our stash built up enough to just do laundry every few days or so, and to stop our service.  I think G's getting a little tired of the daily diaper packages. 

The big problem with this plan is that I'm pretty grossed out by diapers in general and all things poop-related.  I had a bit of a melt down when Tucker kicked up poop on my leg (I tried to find the link to this post and couldn't), and it's all I can do to shake Diya's solids down the toilet now without yakking (yes, like responsible people, we dump her dumps into the toilet, even with our compostables, and there have been times when I've missed the toilet and poop's landed on the rim.  Last week, I thought I lost my poop in the hallway, only to realize it landed on the underside of the rim somehow.  I seriously went down the hallway looking for a nugget, ewing the whole time.  If you visit my house, don't worry, I'm obsessive about cleaning that toilet rim now).  Anyway, I'm still worried about how this is going to work with me having to wash this stuff. 

So far, though, the trial runs have proven to be not much grosser than the compostable poops.  I shake the poops out, and put the diapers in a laundry bag.  The only difference is that I keep a little Bio-Kleen next to the toilet to do a quick spray before throwing them into the laundry bag.  Just to avoid any staining.  The pee ones I just toss in as is.  I'm a little grossed out when I throw the diapers into the toilet, but honestly, I'm always just as grossed out pulling out the disposable/composable bins and trying those bags up. 

Sounds good right?  This morning, though, I realized there might be a few tweaks to still work out.  Well, actually, the other day she had a poop and I realized I didn't know what to do with the wipe.  See, during this trial period, our diaper set up isn't really optimized for the cloth diapers.  We have 2 diaper pails, one for compostable, one for trash/disposable wipes/etc.  I have a little laundry bag on the side, but once we switch over, it's not going to be the best way to go.  For one thing, it's kind of hard opening the damn bag with a diaper in my hand.  Anyway, the other thing is that if the wipes are really poopy, we take those to the toilet too and flush them down.  Just to avoid stinking up the baby's room too much.  Anyway, the other day she had a poop, and I didn't know where to put the wipe.  Usually, they just lay on top of the diaper until they all get hauled to the bathroom.  But I don't want poop stains on the outside of my new cloth diapers.  So while trying to figure out where to set it down, I accidentally TOUCHED poop.  So ew, ew, ew. 

Anyway, that was earlier.  This time, I thought I had it figured out.  Diya had her first monster poop in the cloth (actually I feel totally bad -- I think she may have pooped during the HALF HOUR it took for her to fall asleep for her nap this morning, but then finally just fell asleep with poop in her butt.  Maybe.  I don't know, it was a monster poop, I would think it'd be hard to sleep through.  But whenever it happened, she had a monster poop in her butt when she woke up).  It was mostly solid but super soft, and there was poop all over her vag, and it was pretty disgusting.  And of course, fun to clean up, because for one, she's been really squirmy in the changing table lately.  Plus, she had this stuffed dog in her hand that she refused to give up. 

So here I am, trying to hold her butt up long enough to clean it (cuz there was poop in the back too and I was trying to avoid getting it all over the changing table).   She's waving her fricking dog around, and started SCREAMING when I took it away.  I figure I have this wipe/diaper thing sorted out and set the diaper down on the floor and several extremely poopy wipes on top of the diaper pail.  I even set a kleenex down on the pail to avoid getting poop on the pail, and worked hard to avoid, you know, touching!! the poop.  So far, so good.  The kid is still screaming, and I have no idea if the stuffed dog touched poop before I managed to wrangle it away from her.  So when she was clean enough to give it back to her, I still wasn't sure if it was ok to.  I tried to smell it, but man the whole room reeked at this point, so it was hard to say if there was a particular funk coming from it or not.  (Do you think I'm terrible for admitting that I finally just gave it back to her?). 

OK, so this right here is the whole point of my post, so if you've stuck it out for this long, you're in for a treat.  So I'm feeling proud, right, of getting better at this.  Things are going well, and aside from maybe some poop damage to a stuffed animal, I'm doing all right.  The kid's only screaming a little bit now.  And all of a sudden I look over and there's Tucker EATING the poop from the kid's diaper!!  Not smelling, or just checking out, but totally noshing.  And had gotten a fair amount of it out.  Can I just say, OMFG, really????  Dude, I'd even mostly closed it, but he'd somehow managed to nose his way in. 

EW EW EW EW

So yah.  That was fun.  I chased him out of the room, screaming like a banshee (which of course had the kid just staring at me like WTF).  The most unsatisfying part was that I couldn't even really chase him far b/c I had this kid squirming away on top of the changing table still.  I stuck a new diaper on her, set her in her crib for a few while I went to dump out the poop.  Like I said, it was a bit soft, so there was some that wouldn't come out so I sprayed the hell out of it and I guess we'll see how well it washes out.  I did manage to make it past the rim and into the toilet.  The wipes got flushed, and whatever, the room still stinks so it was a lot of work for not much reward (contrary to what you might be thinking, it's not my cloth laundry bag that reeks -- that actually just smells like BioKleen).

I, of course, then immediately called G to tell him what HIS dog had done.  When he stopped laughing, he asked me why I hadn't just put the diaper on top of the OTHER diaper pail instead of the floor.  In retrospect, I said, that probably would have been best.  But never in a million years did I even think that I'd have to worry about the dog eating the kid's poop.  Then he wanted to know why I hadn't just let Tucker help me clean that portion of the diaper that wouldn't fall out into the toilet. 

Clearly I'm not utilizing my dogs to their full potential.  

these are the days

I've always loved LOVED kids.  Like, seriously, I think I knew when I was 9 years old that I wanted one or maybe two or five.  But I tended to like them on the older side.  Babies seemed a little tiny and useless.  Honestly, all they do is poop and cry all the time.  I thought that when I was 9 and pretty much thought that right up until the moment I gave birth, probably several months after even. 

And then I don't know when I started to come around (I'm assuming I've come around anyway, seeing as how I have this kid that I kind of think is awesome).   But still, I realize why you really just can't see the value in babies until you have your own.  And then, I'm not sure how that translates into liking OTHER people's babies.  Because you hear it all the time, including from my own mouth -- some other baby comes into the room, and I'm all "AW, so cute, I remember when my little bugger was this tiny.  Those were the days, huh kiddo?"  And I look wistfully down at my much larger child and remember the days when it didn't hurt my arms to carry her around. 

All of us are on crack when we think this.  Or we're lying.  Or maybe the hormones that let us willingly endure torture from a little nugget barely the size of our hand still haven't worn off.  Because back when our own darlings were that size, we were a colossal sleep-deprived mess with vomit and poop all over our clothes.  

So before you start thinking I'm terrible (but come on, you know you agree with me, whether you have kids or not), I will say that I'm SO aware of how quickly this time has flown.  These days, Diya doesn't want to be rocked to sleep anymore.  We're down to nursing once a day.  She wants to try to eat on her own.  She hands me her sippy cup to give her some water, and I melt, just happy to be needed for something.  I know I'm going to blink and suddenly she's going to be off to college in another state.  It scares the shit out of me, and there are days when I want every moment to last forever, just like exactly the way it is.  

But then there are mornings like today.  And I don't look back, I look forward, to a time when she becomes some one you can talk to, reason with.  Today, she's been having one of those "goddangit, i woke up too early with pee up my back and i'm not letting you forget it, witch" days.  The tears started when we were changing her outfit (although apparently dad was able to win giggles before he took off for work), continued after her morning milk.  Which seemed sufficient at the time, but ten minutes later, she caught sight of her sippy cup and decided that she needed more seven seconds ago.  Then it was on to pointing at the window wanting to play ball.  Which entails me carrying her, throwing the ball, running after the ball, picking it up, letting her throw the ball, and then leaning down again to pick it up and throw it again for real.  You know, kind of like playing chess with yourself but so much harder on your arms. 

That ended much too soon for her liking because I may have enlisted Mia's help with the fetching portion but that was not to her majesty's liking.  Of course Mia then went off with the ball, and you would have thought the world had ended the way tears started flowing. 

I was finally able to convince her to chase the ball around in the kitchen herself, and she happily threw it across the room, crawled over to it, and repeat long enough for me to get her breakfast going.  I think Mia was peeved to have both her ball and her game be commandeered by the baby (who has way too many off-limit toys already).  She sulked in a corner, but honestly, I could only deal with one offspring's drama and hurt feelings at a time. 

Anyway, she's napping now.  It was one of these mornings where 8:30 rolled around and I figured it was respectably late enough to try for a morning nap while I finally got some breakfast and tea.  I had already called G at 7 to tell him that he better not be late coming home from work because there was only so much I can take.  He was still driving to work at the time.

The drama queen behavior is a new thing.  She points and cries if it's not immediately offered to her.  Whether it's running around outside or the hot pan on the stove top, it has to be hers if she wants it.  And seriously, the tears will start running down her face immediately.  She's an on and off switch, laughing with glee when you provide and in utter despair when you don't.  I had been thinking this was something I could look forward to in teenage land, but clearly, my daughter has gotten a head start. 

I'm finding that I have no patience for this phase.  Give me the hospital visits and middle-of-the-night wake ups.  I might complain about them but they don't grate on my nerves the way the whining does.  On these days, I look forward to the time when I can tell her, "I'm sorry, you can't have that knife because you can do some serious damage to your pretty face if you're not careful" and have that be the end of it.  Anyone have some earplugs I can borrow until then?

In other news, you know how dogs sometimes have pieces of grass stuck in their butthole after they poop?  And you have to help them pull it out because if they're like Mia, they freak out that it's there and can't just push out a little harder?  And it's because you can't stop the damn dogs from eating grass because they're idiots like that?  Well, anyway, this morning, our human child had a blade of grass stuck in her butt when she pooped!!   Dammit, why won't anyone listen to me when I tell them that grass isn't for eating???

Clearly, it's been an eventful morning. 

hip update

About a month ago, we had a follow-up appointment and x-ray for Diya's hips.  The news was pretty discouraging.  In the two months since our last appointment, Diya's hip had made no progress.   Two months of full-time brace wear (on top of the one month before the appt, as well as 7 weeks of cast + 2 weeks of harness) and we had nothing to show for it.  The angles of the hip were exactly the same as last time.  We may as well not have even come in for the x-ray. 

It was a huge blow after the success of our first post-op appointment where Diya had been ahead of schedule.  In my head, although I knew it was premature, I had pictured us maybe coming off the brace during the day and graduating to nights only.  To make the whole thing even harder to swallow, Diya had just turned one.  And back when all this started, I had hoped that by the time she reached 1 year, we'd at least be down to only wearing the brace at night.  The process has already taken a lot longer than I had initially hoped, though I guess I didn't realize back then what was reasonable to hope for. 

And then, to cap it off, after the appointment, I decided to post my frustration on a hip board that I've been part of for a while.  I also mentioned that Diya still had a hard time moving her legs, especially the bad one.  She won't straighten it out downwards.  I keep reading about babies being able to wear pants again once they were out of their spica cast.  But we can't get pants on her still because she holds her legs in the froggy position even with the brace off.  She cries when we move it.   Bath times had been especially rough because she can't sit up in the baby tub.  She seemed fine as long as she was lounging back in the tub, but when we tried to raise her a bit to a sitting up position (to scrub her back or let her play with toys), she'd start wailing.   The problem is, in the tub, the legs are scrunched in a bit.  She can't hold them out horizontally because the tub is too small.  Not sure if that makes any sense the way I'm describing it. 

Anyway, so I mentioned the pain in my post, and suddenly, I had a bunch of people responding saying that I should get a second medical opinion.  Because that kind of pain doesn't seem normal.  So THAT was fun to hear.  Nobody talked about what would be a reasonable progress to hope for in terms of hip angles between doctor appointments.  Which is what I'd been mostly frustrated about.  So overall, the post was a bust. 

AND, the week before this, we had gone in for our 1yr check up with our pediatrician, and she had also been concerned about the pain.  She told us to ask our specialist about possibly trying physical therapy because she should be moving her leg a bit more than she does.  So in light of that, these posts were especially fun to read. 

I LOVE our ortho doc, so I was able to read these responses without having a meltdown.  At the actual ortho appointment, the doc and occupational therapist had been unconcerned about the lack of progress.  These things take time, they said.   Diya is still doing fine.  And as for physical therapy, she doesn't need it.  Of course her leg will be stiff from holding it in a brace all day long.  When she's allowed to take it off, we'll be surprised at how quickly it'll get back to normal.  

So I guess medically, all is still fine.  The projected time for full time brace wear is 6-8 months, we're still just at 4.  So I can't hope for miracles, I suppose.  And of course I need to stop posting about my appointments in online groups.  But I'm not very good at waiting, and lately, it just feels like we've been waiting for a long long time.  If she doesn't progress any further, then the next step is more invasive surgery.  But no one is ready to talk about that yet.   There's nothing left to do now other than wait for our next appointment which is still another 5 weeks away. 

In other news though, Diya is getting to be much more active despite her brace.  Within the last few weeks, she's started "crawling."  It's an army crawl, with her pushing with her arms.  But she's actually gotten pretty fast with it.  Until this week, I could leave her on the floor of our room while I showered and expect her to quietly play with her toys.  I can see her through the shower door, and she can keep herself entertained pretty well.  On Monday, though, I watched as she pulled herself along to the nearest electrical socket and started poking at it.  So if you'd been a fly on my wall that morning, you'd have seen me rushing out of the shower with conditioner in my hair trying to move her.  Only to have her then make her way to the other side of the room where the dog water is and be sitting in a little puddle before I could dry myself off.  In the 4 minutes it took me to feed the dogs that morning, she'd found the OTHER bowl of dog water in the living room.  Is it bad that I start cracking up whenever she does this?

Bath times have gotten much more pleasant, so I think she is able to move that leg a bit more now than before.  We're able to sit her up for brief periods during the bath without fuss.  And I think that was really the only source of distress during the baths.  Now that she's not all freaked out about her leg hurting, she's been splashing and enjoying the water just fine. 

A few weeks ago, she started sitting up, which is something she hasn't done since before she got her cast.  She does it with her legs splayed out, like a gymnast doing splits.  Until now, she could never keep her balance this way, and lately, she's been starting to get better at it.  I know it's cheesy, but I feel so proud of her when she does these things.  Probably even more so than your typical parent, just because I see how difficult it must be with that big brace on. 

So I guess progress does come slowly and eventually.  Ultimately, these new milestones don't say a whole lot about her hips.  That is, she could be army-crawling through the house at lightning speed, and it doesn't mean that her hip is getting better.  But for her sake, I'm glad that she's able to be more mobile.  Cuz she could be in this thing for a while longer still. 

And I guess it's pretty darn cute for us, too.  Though it means that we might have to start baby-proofing after all. 

the end?

Last Wed, I decided to stop pumping. I was packing up my pump parts that morning and decided that I didn't feel like it. It was time. The day's been coming for a couple of weeks now, so it's really not as rash as it sounds. It's been in the works since Diya turned 1 (can you believe is? She's ONE YEAR OLD, actually 13 months now!). We started giving her regular whole milk a week or two before her first birthday. We started working harder at her sippy cup skills. Daycare has been working on her regular cup skills, since I guess they go straight over to that.

Each time I thought about stopping pumping, though, the moment never seemed right. She's still not that great with her sippy. And she blows bubbles with a regular cup. True, the two aren't necessarily linked. There's nothing to stop her from taking her whole milk in a bottle. And she loves bottles. But I want to be done with the whole deal, pump parts, bottle nipples, the whole shebang. And it's supposed to be a good transition time. Many people argue (including the American Pediatric Association, our daycare, and several friends that I rely on for childrearing advice) that if we wait too long, it could be much harder to make the switch. And I certainly don't want a 3 yo walking around with a bottle in her mouth all the time. I don't even want her with one at 2. So now seemed like as good a time as any. And honestly, I need the counter space in my kitchen. Our bottle/pump part rack takes up an awful lot of space near the sink.

But still, I waited for excuses to stall. I was worried she wouldn't get enough fluids. Plus, although she liked whole milk just fine, I didn't want to make the switch all at once. She tends to get constipated a lot, and dairy's not great for that. So for weeks, we've been slowly mixing the whole milk into her breast milk bottles. I kept waiting for her to loosen up. But the problem is, she's had the tendency for constipation since she started solids months ago. I could be waiting her whole life for the right time.

So in the end, I needed to do it like a band aid. On Wed, I took my pump into work with me just in case I caved, but didn't look at it once. It was actually harder that night at home to not do it at bedtime, just one more time. It's not that I'll miss pumping. I've hated it from the first, and this day couldn't come soon enough. God, it's been the bane of my existence since I started doing it regularly at 6 months, and can I tell you how much I would have paid Gregg to do it instead if somehow we could have switched roles?

What I will miss though is nursing. I'm not stopping that yet. I'll still nurse for a while mornings and evenings as long as Diya wants. But I know that she probably won't want to for long. I think she hasn't been that into it for a while. She'll take it when offered, nurse quickly, and move on. I think she holds out for solid food. So I've decided to continuing offering first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. It's only a matter of time I think before I start to dry up now. Usually, in the evenings, when I've offered her the boob, at least half the time, she's fussed and I've just given up and pumped instead.

EXCEPT: I started writing this post last Wed and I figured we'd already be done nursing now. But so far, my kid's actually taken the boob happily whenever I've offered it! And during the day last Thurs, it almost seemed like she wanted it. (It's hard to say for sure, she kept staring intently at my chest, but she was also pretty attracted to the picture of the dog on my shirt that day.  And maybe I was feeling a little nostalgic too). So we'll see, for now, she seems to have other plans, and I'm happy to be oblige for a bit longer. Though I'm definitely definitely not going to miss the pump.

meal times

Before the little munchkin was born, a friend told me to savor my mealtimes because they would be the last times I really got to enjoy my food without a wailing infant in the background.  Gee thanks, you couldn't have also bothered to tell me the kid's mealtimes would be out of control for the foreseeable future too?

No one bothered telling me that.  That things get better briefly only to present new challenges around the next corner.  At our house, first it was breastfeeding.  As in, the kid didn't really want to do it and didn't know how.  But it got easier and we seemed to finally be moving right along.  But then she started daycare and drinking out of bottles.  And suddenly, she didn't want to nurse anymore.  I mean, why bother when bottles are much less work.  So nursing sessions suddenly became scream fests (you know, me screaming and the kid wailing, or maybe the other way around?).  That was a fun period, all kinds of mother-baby bonding at the boob and all that. 

We kind of got through that phase but I couldn't wait for us to start solids just to make things easier.  I was tired of pumping, and I just never produced milk the same way after she stopped nursing regularly.  It was always a struggle to keep up with her bottle intake.  So the 6 month mark came along, and I was ready with a bowl full of mashed avocados mixed in with the familiar taste of breastmilk.   Delicious, right?  Who wouldn't love it?

Well, clearly my kid.  Diya didn't like solids.    Not when she was 6 months or 7 or even 8. Then all of a sudden, she started loving EVERYTHING and we couldn't keep her from putting everything in her mouth (including every random kernel/piece of dust on the floor).  And somewhere in there, she started to tolerate nursing again, so I figured we had it made.

Except now we've entered new territory.  She still loves to eat but wants to feed herself.  Which is fine except that she doesn't really know how to eat with a spoon yet.  Sometimes, she manages it with help, but most of the time, my attempts to help result in screaming (again, me/her, who the heck knows).  So I leave her to it and suddenly, 2 seconds later, we have a big pile of blueberry mush all over the table and floor.

My response so far has been to forget the spoon altogether and focus on foods she can pick up with her fingers.  Lately, she's been able to eat what we eat, so I come home and try to either cook dinner quickly or make her a small version of whatever we'll be having later.  A while back, I made a Thai curry with veggies and tofu.  And it worked out beautifully.  First I cooked up the tofu and gave her some while I was chopping up veggies.  She stuffed them into her mouth (to the point where I think she didn't know what to do with them all) and still had room for some cooked vegetables after.  It seemed like such a productive way to handle it -- she got to take all the time she needed, I wasn't sitting around waiting for her to finish.  I brought all my veggies to the dining room table where she was eating, so I could keep her company (and from choking on her tofu).  Win/win for everyone.

Sounds great, right?  Except then, we ran into another snag.  Diya's realized that it's fun to eat her food, but it's even MORE fun to feed it to the dogs.  So now, instead of finger foods being my savior, I'm not entirely sure what to do.  I spend lots of mornings watching her take each piece of egg and holding it down into Mia's face.  Mia likes to gobble straight out of her hands.  They're a bit of a tag team now too.  I'll walk away to bring more food or something, and I'll suddenly see the two of them at it.  When I say something, both look at me, kind of guiltily but then the kid actually starts giggling.  She thinks this is funny. 

What's extra fun is that dog feeding is interspersed with self feeding, so the kid's hands are covered in dog slobber when she'll suddenly decide to take another bite herself.  Awesome.  And somehow, I think she's realized that she needs to treat the dogs equally.  Cuz she'll make sure to drop food over on the other side to Tucker also. 

So then my newest technique was to keep the kid distracted and just feed her myself.  That worked pretty well actually.  Until daycare lectured us this week on not reinforcing the skills they taught at home.  I guess instead of feeding herself with the spoon on Mon, Diya just sat there and waited for the teacher to feed her.  So basically, she totally ratted us out, the little turd. 

So we're back to dog feeding and self spoon feeding and kitchen generally looking like an earthquake hit it after each meal.  On the plus side, the kid's not terrible at eating with a spoon.  Also, her favorite food?  Avocado.

naptime (i.e. yet another sleep post)

The other day, a friend marveled at our kid's napping abilities and told me how lucky we were.  It made me start thinking about how this happened.  Because for months, I feel like all I did was complain about nap issues and how poorly our kid did it.  So, for anyone interested, I've put together some tips on raising a good napper.  These tips have worked well for me, and you know me, always sharing my hard-earned wisdom. 

• Create a regular naptime routine. For us, having regular naptimes never really worked, but what did was to have a general routine. About 2 hours after waking up, Diya was tired, so I would immediately start putting her down for her nap. At first, it wasn’t quite 2 hours (more like an hour and a half, and since she breastfed for ONE HOUR, it didn’t leave a lot of time to do much else after). And as she grew older, her periods of awake time lengthened, and her feeding times shortened.
• Stick with it. Always. No matter what. Our kid liked being swaddled and rocked, so that’s what we did. She could already have fallen asleep randomly on my boob or on someone’s shoulder, but still, we’d change her diaper, swaddle, and put back down (even if it meant waking her up in the process). Nowadays, she likes the sleep sack and her lovey blanket. We wouldn’t dream of putting her to sleep without it, and I’ve actually gone back home when I’ve shown up to daycare without it.
• Avoid leaving the house during naptimes. No naps in the car or stroller.
• Avoid feeding just before sleep, to reduce the chances of the kid waking up early with poop in her butt.
• Avoid visiting people that live more than 20 minutes away, since there is no chance of you being able to go, visit, then come back within the awake period.
• Encourage people to visit you instead but tell them to keep their voices down so as to not wake the baby prematurely from her nap.
• Also make sure they text you when they arrive instead of ringing the doorbell, so as to avoid the dogs going crazy and waking the baby up prematurely.
• Start eating dinner at 4 so as to get the baby to bed early (that’s not a nap tip, just a general bedtime tip).
• Avoid leaving the house after 4 for the same reason as above.
• Generally figure you will have no life after the baby is born until about 7-8 months when the naps are set in place. Then only plan on having a life in 2-3 hour increments (maybe 4 once the child is a bit older) so as to not interfere too drastically with the established nap schedule.
• After that allow for periods of adjustment as nap needs change (from 3 naps to 2, 2 to 1). Restructure your life accordingly.
• Brag about your child’s excellent nap habits to any existing friends over email and on your blog (unless they live within 20 minutes of you, in which case you may be able to brag in person).
• Wait for your child to become a teenager.

 

the best dog in the world

On April 27, at around 4pm, we lost our wonderful dog Bandit. Who was, as anyone who's ever met her knows, the best dog in the world. I've been meaning to write about it for a while and by this point, I think most of you already know. But it's been a little hard for me to know exactly what to say.


After months of weakness, and the final weeks of being unable to even poop or pee on her own, we decided that it was time. My husband has had Bandit since he was in college. His brother first got her as a puppy while they were living together at Chico State. My brother-in-law finished school and left, and somehow Bandit became Gregg's dog. Over the years, she's touched many lives, and has been the first dog experience for many of us. And after having a dog like Bandit, it's hard to imagine any other dog measuring up. All of us thought she'd live forever because isn't that what perfect dogs do?

I met her relatively late in her life. And she kind of hated me at first. Well, not really, but she was definitely standoffish. I think she was jealous of Gregg's attention. It wasn't until I started running with her one summer that she decided that I might be all right. After one or two runs, she knew the drill. I'd reach for my tennis shoes and she'd already be waiting by the door. Sometimes, as evening approached, if I hadn't made a move for my shoes, she'd look at me expectantly. And every time we went out, without fail, she'd find the cleanest lawn that we could and plant a big old poop. I never learned to carry bags with me, and the two of us would be tearing ass after the poop happened, hoping no one had seen it. I have to admit that I didn't know much about responsible dog ownership in those days.

She was the dog that understood every word you told her, that would follow you to the ends of the earth if she loved you. She liked people just fine but didn't go out of her way to be nice. I remember one time, I was watching her for a week while I lived in San Diego. My roommate said that whenever I left for class, she'd hang out staring at the door until I came back. Once, my roommate tried to tempt her with a hot dog. Bandit was suspicious at first, finally went over to grab it, and then went right back to her position by the door.

On the day she died, we had the vet come to our house. Gregg had to make the final decision, of course, and I'm sorry to say that I pushed him towards it. It was hard for me to see her the way she was. She couldn't move on her own. She had a permanent spot on the rug in front of our back door, or just on the other side of that door if we wanted her outside. Sometimes we'd just leave her on the grass so that she could pee all over herself (because she wouldn't go while we held her up and we figured it was better she went on herself than not at all). By the end, she was getting daily baths, something I know she hated but she couldn't run away from them anymore. I couldn't keep seeing her like that, although for Gregg, I know it was hard to imagine not having her here. She didn't make it easy either -- a few days before the end, we suddenly saw her playing tug with Mia. There was a toy that she wanted and she clearly wasn't giving it up. Mia actually finally gave up. Until the end, she looked at us like she always did, like she knew what we were thinking and like she would live forever.

So I pushed, but when the day came, I had second thoughts too. Even as our local vet was calling to make sure "we were still on", our specialist was calling to discuss Bandit with us one last time. I swear, it was like we were waiting for a stay of execution order from the governor. But what she said - for me, at least - made it more clear that we were doing the right thing. Still, the whole thing sucked. The vet came with a tech and it was all over before we knew it. Before she showed up, Gregg and I stressed over getting a print of Bandit's paw with this Christmas ornament that we've had well, since Christmas, but had never gotten around to doing. We kept messing up the print and snapping at each other.

The only other thing I really remember clearly from it all is that right when they gave her a sedative to knock her out, it was like Bandit was already gone. And she had her tongue stuck to the linoleum. Seems so silly but Gregg and I actually kind of laughed a little because it was like it was stuck on there. And then that was it. Suddenly, the vet was telling us that it was over and they would give us a few minutes and wait outside.
The whole thing didn't quite feel real. It was hard for me to even cry. What's been worse is after. I keep wondering how long I'll be looking for Bandit by the back door. At first, I expected to see her there every time I walked into the kitchen. Now, it'll happen randomly, I'll look out the window and wonder where she is. A few weeks after it had happened, we went to Oregon to visit my family and saw a dog at the farmer's market that looked exactly like a younger version of Bandit. And both Gregg and I caught our breaths a little.

hogging the squeaky toys, of course

on a hike at the ripe old age of 14

Always stylin'

the younger version

a rare moment of closeness (though really she just wanted the bed and figured Mia would move if she just plopped herself down on top of her)

Anyway, may you rest in peace, Bandit. There's never going to be another dog like you, and things just haven't been the same since you left.  Where ever you are now, I hope that there are lots of squeaky balls for you to tear up and rabbits for you to chase. 

the nanny search

A couple of months ago, we finally started Diya back up at daycare after keeping her home for months.  She rotated around between me, Gregg, and my mom while she was in her spica cast, but after that, no one had any time off left so it was back to daycare.  I struggled a lot with the decision because I just couldn't imagine how she'd do with her brace.  I even ended up postponing my return back to work one week because the week after she got her brace was pretty hellish.  She was cranky and clearly in pain.  We thought the brace would be easier than the cast but it really wasn't at first. 

For one thing, she came out of the cast looking disgusting.  Big old stains across her legs where poop had collected and we had been unable to reach while she was in the cast.  Her legs were infected in places, an area under her knees looked like there might be mold growing.  AND to top things off, they cut her with the saw when they removed the cast.  She screamed bloody murder the entire time they were removing it and didn't stop for a long long time after.  Between the trauma and the scars and the pus, the first week was horrible.  Gregg even wished we could get the cast back.  The brace was hard to take off for each diaper change.  She seemed uncomfortable in it at night and woke up every 45 minutes to an hour.  I couldn't bring myself to take her back to daycare like that, so I took off that whole first week. 

When she finally did go back, I wasn't much happier.  Our daycare, that I'd always had a love-hate relationship with anyway, had grown in our absence.  Before we had removed her, it was a brand new daycare with few kids.  Diya was actually the first baby in the infant room and had the teacher's attention to herself for a long time.  Then two more kids started.  One was quite a bit older and spent a chunk of his time with the toddlers in the next room.  The other was a mellow, low-maintenance chubby little boy a few months younger than Diya.  They got along really well and things still seemed ok.  I didn't love the teacher, but she was caring and that seemed to be the most important thing.  The things that bugged me -- Diya wouldn't nap there.  And anytime she fussed, the teacher seemed to just want to give her a bottle even when it wasn't time to eat.  I spent a lot of time working on Diya's routine during my maternity leave and subsequent time off periods.  One day back at daycare and it all went frustratingly kaput. 

When we came back after Diya's cast had been removed, the problems had magnified because now there were more babies.  And the frazzled well-meaning teacher could not keep up.  I'd visit during lunch and it would be chaos.  Babies would be crying in their playpens, and she'd be running around like a chicken with her head cut off trying to figure out who was up for a bottle.  One might be getting fed but the others would just be hanging out by themselves.  My child was always in good spirits and seemed perfectly content on her own.  But if I hadn't shown up during lunch every single day for a week and put her down myself for her 2nd nap, I kind of doubt she'd have gotten one.  Against CA regulations, the daycare was understaffed.  There were chunks of time when it'd be just this one teacher to 5 or more kids (1:4 is the required ratio). 

It was a stressful time for me.  I was trying to get back into the swing of things at work but couldn't focus.  I'd come pick Diya up every day and be dismayed to realize she had slept for maybe half hour to an one hour tops.  At home, she takes 2 naps, for a total of AT LEAST 3 hours but usually more.  Her bottles would have been given to her randomly so there never seemed to be a pattern each day.  I'd have to repeat her schedule to them every morning and if I wasn't exact, I'd find things would be done differently (solids first, then milk, nap before anything else, etc).  I felt like a micromanager but didn't know what else to do. 

So Gregg and I started looking for a nanny.  Which brought on its own drama.  For one, they are super expensive.  And at first, we seemed to be mostly interviewing duds.  I called one Indian woman who didn't even speak enough English to talk on the phone, she had to put her teenage daugther on.  We interviewed this Vietnamese lady whose English-speaking skills were also pretty poor.  But what ended the interview for me was when she said that her last baby had refused to eat anything.  I asked her how she'd handled it and she said that she had prayed a lot.  One girl told me that she hadn't really worked with infants but "was sure she could figure it out."  Another sounded illegal and asked if we would be able to pay in cash.  More than a couple were freaked out by dogs.  We did though finally manage to narrow it down to a few potential candidates and started debating if we were willing to take on the payroll headache of having a household employee.  And then randomly (well, after we had a huge blowout with me going on about Gregg not taking this seriously enough), Gregg stumbled onto this daycare that was a couple of minutes from our house. 

We went to visit and I was dubious.  They seemed fine but they are a Spanish immersion program.  Hmm, I said, I don't even speak Spanish.  Am I not going to be able to understand our kid's first words?  Or not be able to communicate with her teachers?  From past experience, I have a lot to say about how Diya's days go.  More than that, all the other kids there are older than Diya.  I wondered how that would work with Diya's brace.  Would they be careful around her?  I visited one morning with Diya but couldn't get a sense of how things would go for her there.  It's a small daycare, and I guess they recently relocated.  So they're not at capacity yet.  Diya would be the only infant (again) at first.  So it was hard to know if they'd be any better about Diya's eating and napping schedule than the old place.  When I visited, I was struck by the teacher's awesome Spanish-teaching skills but had no idea how the caregiving would work. 

The director seemed good though, and Gregg seemed into the program more than I was.  I think he especially felt weird about having a stranger in our house watching our baby.  And that part didn't sit that well with me etiher.  Plus the thing is, Diya really likes other kids.  Not to mention that it would cost us more to hire a nanny for 3 days a week than we'd be paying for a full daycare.  So we decided to give it a shot. 

And I have to say that I'm HUGELY impressed (Gregg's been crowing about it for weeks now, you know it being his find and all -- never mind that he had to be prodded into looking for it but whatever).  From the beginning this daycare has been about finding Diya's routines and encouraging them.  I told them on the first day when she generally naps and haven't had to mention it since.  They experimented a bit that first week and tweaked a few things.  But since then, her daily time sheets read remarkly the same, at least as far as napping and meal times are concerned.  And amazingly, she naps at this daycare!!  Usually about 45 minutes in the morning and about 2 hours in the afternoon.  She's done better at home, but at least this is in the ballpark of what's normal.  This is something she never did well at the old daycare, even when she was the only baby there.   

She fits in well with the other kids.  It's been nice because her schedule going in was almost like what the other kids already did.  She's the only one that still takes a morning nap, but otherwise, she eats at around the same time and her second nap coincides with the afternoon nap time.  That's a huge plus.  She eats breakfast and lunch with everyone and has an afternoon snack when everyone wakes up.  Coming at the end of the day to find that she's been all over the place with the bottles and solids is something that's never happened here. 

AND, they've been great about working on developmental issues, which is something I couldn't even hope for at the old place.  If I mention something, they've already started doing it.  For instance, I'm going to be weaning soon and want Diya to be drinking from a sippy cup before I do.  Turns out they had already been working on her drinking from one before I brought it up.  Diya was constipated and before I said anything, they were pushing her to drink more water and eat more fruits.  I love that we're on the same page and they're often ahead of me.  I remember a couple of weeks ago, the teacher was telling me that the director is very strict about teaching the kids to feed themselves and drink from sippy cups.  I was a little bit worried that day, had this whole picture of them forcing a spoon into her hand and shoving it into her mouth.  OMG, what are they going to be doing to my child, I wondered.  First, they wanted to deprive her of her toys, and now THIS?  But each meal now, Diya has been demonstrating her new skills and it's pretty exciting to see how proud she is of them. 

And mostly, I love how much they seem to love her.  Maybe it's just for my benefit, but each of the teachers there has mentioned a number of times what a sweetheart she is, how she barely cries, how much she LOVES TO EAT, etc.  Clearly she saves the crying for mom, but whatever.  When I pick her up or drop her off, the older kids always start screaming her name.  I've picked her up a bunch of times now to find that the teachers have done her hair in pigtails.  It's been pretty darn cute.  

So I guess for now, the nanny search is off.

my life, continued

A few weeks ago, I got to go check out a couple of wedding dresses with my awesome future sister-in-law.  Afterwards, I went to lunch with her and her friends.  It was a lovely day in Berkely.  We were all sitting outside enjoying champagne and waiting for our meal.  Cute little restaurant, great company.  One of the other girls was telling us about how her standards of cleanliness had changed since having her daughter.  She may have been talking about the strawberry mess on her daughter's face just the day before. 

I don't know why exactly but it seemed like the perfect moment to share my similar experience on this topic.  Because just the day before, Diya had decided to throw up.  It could have been because of the teething.  It could have been because her appetite wasn't what it normally was, but Gregg thought she must be hungry and kept shoveling food in her that night.  Or it could have been the Advil we decided to give her for pain relief.  Whatever it was, one minute she was kind of hacking a little and then all of a sudden, she decided to have a lovely projectile vomit moment.  Gregg was changing her at the time. She still had her bib on from dinner, so the first thing he thought to do was push the bib up against the vomit to hold it in.  I can't even make fun of him for it because I stood nearby and did nothing. 

Anyway, so the problem with this though was that she wasn't done vomiting, so the next round of projectile went up her face since the bib was in the way.  There was vomit everywhere, including all over her face, poor thing.  Some of it probably went up her nose.  There was vomit on her eye, her hair. She was bawling up a storm and it was all Gregg and I could to do to wipe her up and calm her down.  And maybe try not to laugh.  What we should have done was just bathed at her at that point.  But it was bedtime already, and she was hysterical.  So all we could manage was a quick wipe before just deciding to put her to bed. 

It was at this moment that I saw the other girl's face and realized that for most people, vomit vs. strawberries isn't quite on the same playing field.  Huh.  Go figure. 

my life

Last Tues, we had Diya's doctor's appointment up at Stanford and the cleaning people coming to our house.  So we all left the house early and little more rushed than usual.  As always, cleaning up for the housecleaners takes longer than it's sometimes worth.  And since we had decided to try to go without  professional cleaning for a while (b/c we like to dream big like that), the house had been messier than usual.  Anyway, the point is that the dogs for once had to stay outside all the day, and we got home pretty late (after waiting almost an hour to get Diya x-rayed -- I'm not sure how long I went on and on to Gregg for about how ridiculous that was, but I'm guessing the parents of all the sick children there were all SO relieved that they were waiting with their kids instead of me.  I think even Diya handled the wait better than I did). 

When we got home, the house was clean, but either Mia or Tucker had somehow gotten into some new planters we had finally filled up.  We couldn't tell exactly who the guilty party was.  Mia was the only one that looked guilty but she's much more sensitive to our moods than Tucker is, so that doesn't say a whole lot.  We were annoyed that our hard planting work had been wasted, but it wasn't until a little while later that it occurred to Gregg that the planter boxes had contained both dirt and fertilizer.  So if they had eaten anything, they probably would have ingested fertilizer as well.  When I took them out for their walk a little later, Mia had black runs.  Tucker may have also but since he decided to run off and poop in the bushes, I couldn't tell. 

We were concerned about the whole thing (especially with the black runs) but then had a cranky infant to put to bed and dinner to deal with.  So by the time we started googling fertilizer and dogs, it was close to 9.  I know, it doesn't sound late but believe me, if you're the sleep-deprived parent of a teething infant, the evening hours getting ready for bed are pretty precious.  And by the time we realized it can be pretty toxic, it was even later.  Which is why I got to spend a good hour of that night on the phone with the ASPCA describing what had happened.  Did you know they have a poison control hotline?  And apparently it's staffed even at 10 o'clock at night.  They charge a small fee for the consultation but in return, they're willing to discuss your case with you for over an hour.  It's awesome. 

As an added bonus, you get to answer all kinds of questions about your dogs that make you feel like the wonderful pet parent that you are.  When do you think your pet ingested this fertilizer?  Uh, anywhere from 7am - 7pm.  Worst case scenario, how much do you think they could have ingested?  Up to a pound.  And it's just one dog that ate it all?  Well, we're not sure.  But just one dog had the runny poop?  Well, again, we're not sure.  And it was just the once?  Yes, oh wait, my husband just went out with a flashlight and found another hard black turd on the lawn.  So you definitely think they ingested something?  There used to be dirt in a planter box, now it's all over the ground. That's really all we know. 

After being placed on hold several times and having several vets consult on our case (turns out this specific fertilizer has a high iron content which could destroy a digestive track), they agreed that the best approach was to wait and see.  Go out with them everytime they went out and look at their poop.  If they vomit or poop blood, call back or run to the nearest emergency vet.  Etc. Etc.

Gregg said that Tucker's poop the next morning was a mix of black and brown -- like he worked through the black stuff and the later part was normal (seriously, we took the "examine all poops" directive to heart).  So clearly, it was a Bonnie and Clyde operation.  We still don't know who the ring leader was.  But fortunately, the dogs made it.  And at $65 for the phone call, I'd say that was the cheapest vet bill ever. 

cry it out

Ever since I became a parent, I've heard again and again how babies should be able to sleep through the night by the time they are about 4 months old.  That seems the magic number when the internet and (even the more reputable sources like pediatricians) seem to think that some form of training your baby to sleep is necessary.  I'm not against sleep training in principle (though I tend to think that 4 months is still a bit too early).  What's driven me insane are the numerous conversations I've had about letting your baby cry it out. 

Even if you're not a parent, you probably know the general principle. By letting your baby cry it out s/he will develop long term good sleep habits that include sleeping through the night and falling asleep on his/her own.  Actually, there are lots of variations to the theory.  Very few involve just letting the baby cry indefinitely.  Some "experts" suggest going in at periodic intervals, etc.  But basically, all the methods involve listening to your baby cry herself to sleep. 

So I know I'm going to probably ruffle a few feathers and come off pretty strong because I know that I'm in the minority of people who thinks it's all a bunch of crap.  And I'm not really sure what's prompted my sudden anger at this all of a sudden.  But I'm realizing how it comes up in almost every conversation I have with other moms.  I'll go to a party and some one will tell me how they had to resort to it.  Close friends have talked about it now for almost all of Diya's 10 months.  Last week when Diya was extra fussy, there was one day when I was home and hadn't had a bite to eat at 3pm.  My mom happened to call and made a comment about how crying is good for the baby sometimes.   The other day, I had lunch with a friend and it came up again, this time, for once, with some one who was in complete agreement with me. 

So here it is. I think crying-it-out is bull shit.  It's the easy way out, and it's cruel.  Really?  The message you want to send to your 4-month old baby is that she can cry to her heart's content and no one will come for her?  At least not after midnight.  Sure, cry earlier and we'll come get you.  Wait, what's that?  You can't tell time yet?

Does it work?  Probably.  I'm not surprised that parents who do some form of CIO report success.  But I think it's because the baby learns that no one is coming and finally just give up hope.  People say that babies learn to self soothe, but I wonder where would they learn that from?  I think they really just fall asleep out of emotional exhaustion.  And I'm sorry, I believe that my role as a parent involves making sure my child feel loved, secure, and safe.  I believe that if I work hard to create stability for Diya now, she will learn independence and confidence as she gets older.  Not because I left her alone in a crib to figure it out for herself.  Sure it might be hard at first and involve more sleepless nights in the beginning, but I'd much rather be that kind of parent. 

Also, isn't crying the only way for babies to communicate at this point?  If Diya is hurting or hungry, how else is she going to let me know?  And if I take that away from her by choosing to only respond selectively, how is that not cruel?  Honestly, I'm not sure what the theory behind CIO really is -- is it that our babies should sleep through the night but won't because nobody has taught them to?  Or that they're being devious somehow and forcing us to endure more sleepless nights just for the sake of it? 

About a month or so ago, I started noticing a little bit of a change in Diya's cries.  These days, sometimes she'll cry if something doesn't go her way.  If I take a toy away from her, for example, or you know, a dangerous  appliance, she'll wail.  This was at 9 MONTHS -- at 9 months, I started to feel like she was starting to realize that crying might get her what she wanted.  Definitely not at four months or 6.  Up until then, I don't even think she had the capacity to manipulate.  She cried because something wasn't right, whether she needed food, a diaper change, or just comfort.  And what other way could there be for her to let us know?  As a parent, isn't my job to fix that for her, whether it's at 2 in the afternoon or 3 in the morning? 

And then that whole thing about babies not needing to eat during the night after a certain point -- I don't know if I buy that either.  I remember at 4 months, Diya became extremely distracted during the day.  Suddenly, the world was too interesting for her to want to waste time nursing.  And then, at night, she'd suddenly wake up starving.  In the dark, when there were fewer distractions, she'd finally start eating properly.  What if I had started sleep training then? 

I'm not saying that some form of sleep training might not be necessary at some point.  But 4 months seems way too young, and CIO should really be the last option when you're ready to kill yourself because you're so tired.  Maybe this sounds too judgmental.  After all, I have a child who has generally had good sleep habits from the beginning.  I hear moms talking about waking up every 45 minutes.  Sure, there might be extreme circumstances that I know nothing about.  But I'll tell you this, for a child with good sleep habits, Diya still throws a lot of curve balls.  At 4 months, she went through that distraction phase that lasted a good 3 weeks or so.  At month 5, she got extremely sick and was hospitalized.  For a period of a good 2-3 weeks that month, she was at some stage of illness that had her waking up frequently.  In January, at about month 6, she started teething.  In March, she got her harness, then surgery, then cast, and then her brace.  Last week, she started teething again.  I know that I've had it relatively easy in a lot of ways, but it's not like I'm spouting off from my "peaceful nights of 8-hour sleep" mountain or anything.

And I know that there are things that we could do differently too.  Diya still needs us to rock her to sleep more often than not, at least for a few minutes until she's drowsy.   Gregg worries that she'll need this even when she's a 40-pound toddler.  And I get all tense even when she's doing her little crying fit in the middle of the night.  It lasts less than a minute and I'm already ready to run in there.  If it weren't for Gregg pointing out that her eyes are closed and that she's desperately trying to fall back asleep on her own, we would have been up a lot more this last week.  So maybe I can be a little bit too sensitive.  But you know what I've found to be the most effective sleep training method?  Time and consistency. 

I know, too, that most of my friends have tried CIO and it's not like their kids are neglected or suffering.  At some point, I suppose we all do what we have to do.  But I don't care, I still think it's all a bunch of crock. 

just a regular girl

Since Diya first got sick back in December, I feel like I've been on edge. Waiting for something worse to happen. Worrying that somehow we're doing something wrong with her, not carrying her properly in the brace, not thinking of something that we should be doing. Sometimes, I've been envious of other parents who worry about their babies sleeping or eating. Because it seems like those things you can google and find information about, sometimes way more than you really needed or wanted. A while back, I happened to be randomly reading an old email I sent to a friend when Diya was first born. It was frantic and tired and probably a tad bit dramatic.  Sometimes I miss those days, those times when a friend could simply tell me to chill out and I can do it. 

These days, my questions always seem a little more complicated and hard to find the answer to.  We have a poop explosion in the cast, how the heck do I get it all out?  Now that the cast is off, her legs are stained brown with poop, is there an easy trick to clean her?  When she wakes up screaming at night, is she feeling pain?  When I tell the day care to not sit her up without pillows and I come back to find her upright, without pillows, her legs spread out wide, did they just pop her hips back out?  There's a decent online community for parents with hip kids, but it's not quite the same.  Our doctor is awesome but doesn't really know about the day-to-day practical stuff.  Mostly, this has been all been exercise for Gregg and I in creativity and fending for ourselves. 

And honestly, I feel a bit justified for being a worrywart.  Because when I first worried that the cause of Diya's infection in December was something bigger, it turned out that it was.  And then they told us she had even more issues with her hip.  But it's hard now for me to let things go and relax.
 
So last week, when Diya started waking up at night screaming, I again went through the usual checklist.  This has happened before actually -- when we first put her in the harness, then again after the brace went on.  This time, it seemed to get worse and worse instead of improving with time.   First, it happened only occasionally. Then every couple of hours. Then maybe every 20-30 minutes. Most of the time, she let out a few screams and then fell back asleep.

It killed me not to go in there to her (well, it did initially.  Now I'm so sleep deprived that I'll doze off a bit and then realize that she did too).  But she usually has her eyes closed while she's doing this.  So going in makes it worse.  Most of the time, she's already quiet before we get in there and we just end up waking her up again.  Within a minute or two, she settles back down, tosses for a while but eventually falls asleep. Unless she loses her blankie during all the tossing and throwing.  Then it's on until Gregg goes into give it back to her. So I guess in a way, we're lucky that she falls back to sleep mostly on her own. But then it sucks that it's happening so frequently because it means that I haven't slept for more than a 2-3 hour block in an awfully long time. I've been mostly a walking zombie and it's amazing that I've even been functioning at work at all.

During the weekend, she was cranky and didn't want to nap either. It reminded me of when she was 2 months old (you know, those early days that I so do not want to live over again, even though I just finished saying how I miss those days). The only thing that seemed to console her was going outside, so it meant that the dogs got a lot of walks this weekend.  For the whole week, Gregg and I wondered what was wrong.  She's usually a great sleeper.  I figured it had to be her hip. And I figured it was probably daycare somehow, because I was annoyed at our daycare, and she finally started back up there a couple of weeks ago.  If anything, I figured it was the increased activity at daycare that was making her hips sore.  We had some other fancy explanations floating around too and then, on Sat, we saw that she had 3 front teeth coming through on the top! So guess what?  Nothing to see here, just good old-fashioned teething. 

Also, now, as of yesterday, she has a cold. 

And yesterday, she started at a new daycare.  A Spanish immersion daycare!  Where they believe that kids should be independent and do whatever they can for themselves as soon as they're ready.  And where they seem unconcerned about her brace hindering her too much.  When I put her down in the morning and pushed a few toys her way so that I could talk to the teacher, the teacher told me that they didn't normally do that.  Do what?  I asked.  Hand kids toys apparently.  How will she ever learn to crawl towards her toys on her own if we're always giving her what she wants?  If she wants it, she will find a way to get it.  Is it sad that my first thought was, OMG, my poor deprived baby!?  They won't even let her play with toys here.  She wailed and wailed the whole time I was there, too, so all in all, I was feeling like a terrible parent. 

But oh, by the way, already last week, Diya started trying to crawl with her brace on.  She doesn't quite do it yet, but she does slide and wiggle backwards now.  So this morning, I set her down and what do you know, she scooted over a little bit, ran into a toy and then started pulling it towards her.    And she smiled at the teacher when she saw her, so clearly no one was too abusive to her yesterday. 

And THEN, the huge news is that on Tues, we had a doctor's appointment.  Diya got the first set of x-rays and guess what?  Her hips are doing great!  We didn't somehow manage to pop it out of socket again, like I'd been freaking out about.  It's still exactly where it needs to be.  Even better, the pelvic bone is already starting to re-align itself against the femoral bone.  It's angled less sharply than it was before.  In fact, the doctor said that Diya was ahead of schedule!  AND we can already see the little ball developing between the pelvis and femur (when Diya's hip was out of the socket, that ball didn't form).  It'll take a while for that hip to catch up to the normal left one, but the fact that we can see the ball already alleviates a little more fear about various complications.  Honestly, I didn't quite catch all of it, pretty much tuned out after I heard that our little champ was AHEAD OF SCHEDULE. 

So anyway, I guess all in all, what I mean to say is that it's been a bit rough lately, but suddenly this week, I find myself feeling a little lighter.  When I called the daycare a little while ago, the director told me that Diya was doing very well, cold and teething aside.  She's a very good baby, she said.  Of course, I know this, but I'm probably biased.  And she said, she's worked with many over the years, and she knows -- we definitely have a good one.  So HA, in your face, hip dysplasia and everything else.  My kid's doing pretty darn well.  

Bandit update

Oops wrote this on Sat but looks like I forgot to post it for some reason. 

We went to the vet Friday, but we're still not entirely sure what is happening next.  The vet thinks Bandit has multiple issues, big shocker.  She thinks that Bandit's right leg is worse than the left, and the weakness is probably related to her arthritis, neurological issues, and possibly a ruptured disc.  The arthritis has been an problem for a long time, but it's looking like it's finally starting to wear her down.  The neurological issues -- Bandit can't quite tell where her leg is in relation to the ground.  This is something I remember our specialist telling us also. Back then, it seemed to be a slowed reaction more than anything else.  Now, if you pick up her leg and drop it back down, she holds it up just a bit off the ground.  And the ruptured disc would explain the new sudden downturn.  But it has nothing to do with Gregg getting too rough or any specific injury, just mostly likely wear and tear that finally caused one of the discs along her back to rupture.  The vet was actually great and drew a picture to help me understand it all, but not really sure I can reproduce it here.

So what does it all mean?  Your guess is as good as mine.  Initially, the plan was to start her on some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication (NSAIDS).  If they worked (and didn't cause too many side effects) they might at least keep Bandit pain free for the time being.  But then they ran some blood tests and Bandit's liver and kidney enzymes are elevated.  So now the vet is worried about the meds hurting Bandit more than they might help.  She wants to consult with our specialist before putting Bandit on them, as some of the elevated enzymes are probably related to her Cushing's Disease.  Until that conversation happens, we're at a bit of a standstill.  In the meantime, we have some painkillers that we just started giving.  Maybe they'll help a bit, maybe they won't.

If the NSAIDS aren't an option, or don't end up working, there aren't too many things left to try.  Apparently there are several different kinds, but they're not easy on the system, and Bandit just might not be able to handle it anymore.  The painkillers might help for a bit, or sometimes putting Bandit back on the steroids might do it too, the vet said.  Or we could try getting her wheels, but honestly, that's beyond my stretching point.

The appointment lasted over 3 hours (which is awesome considering it was on a day I was supposed to be working from home) and cost approximately $650.  And then I ended up having to go back also, which ate up another hour.  The second trip was to go back with a pee sample since they had been unable to collect any pee from Bandit while we had been there.  After the doc wasn't able to collect some directly from Bandit's bladder, the tech even had me hold Bandit up outside while she followed me around with a ladle. So then when we got home, I got the fun task of holding Bandit up and trying to collect her pee into a platic tray. 

I guess nothing else to do but wait and see for a few more days.

Update:  not much else to report.  Bandit is the same.  Due to schedule issues, the vets never did get a chance to talk to each other.  In the meantime, Bandit has been on some general painkillers that aren't helping.  More blood tests came back and the regular vet is even more reluctant to put Bandit on the NSAIDS, although she's said now that it's up to us if we want to try them.  If Bandit's inability to walk is due to arthritis, the NSAIDs will help (though not without side effects).  If it's mostly neurological, they will not help but still cause the side effects.  It's anybody's guess at this point how Bandit will react to the drugs. 

Also, that pee I collected apparently had a fair bit of blood in it, so there might be some other issue going on that we will need to explore if Bandit manages to hold on for much longer. 

We've now officially hit the 2 week mark -- 2 weeks since Bandit has been able to walk on her own and nothing has really changed. 

nearing the end again

For the last week, Bandit has once again been deteriorating. She hasn't been able to walk more than a few feet on her own since last Thurs or so.  We have had to help her up to pee (and hold her there while she does it.  Once she peed on Gregg's leg, so now I make sure to give her a wide berth).  More often than not, she poops sitting down and leaves us a little pile to clean up from under her.  Unlike previous episodes, her appetite seems just fine, and she's been drinking up a storm too. Mentally, she seems quite with it. And randomly, even during the last week, she'll manage to surprise.  Once, Gregg left her on the lawn, and she actually seemed to have gotten up and moved closer to the house all by herself.  The other day, she grabbed onto a toy that Mia had and held onto it.  The two of them tugged for quite a while until Mia finally gave up.  This morning, they did something similar, except that the interaction seemed a bit more hostile, so I broke it up quickly before Mia tried to jump an old dog.

I know that Gregg's been struggling with it more than I have.  For me, I've been thinking for a while that it's time.  I've hated seeing Bandit like this.  I don't want to remember Bandit this way, as a dog who pooped and peed on herself all the time.  I guess I want her to go as I would want to, on a high note.  But I can see those moments that Gregg struggles with.  Looking at her these days, some people might not even guess that she's as far gone as she actually is.  Her coat looks good, she looks up at you when you come over.  And really, her life isn't all that much different in a lot of ways.  She slept all day anyway.  But then the time comes for her to go outside and do her thing, and it's just not happening anymore.

We've been waiting this week to see if she perks up again.  Well, I know that Gregg has.  This dog does seem to have like a million lives, so there was always a chance it was just another blip. But it's been a week now.  He's been waiting too for our vet to call back.  Turned out that she was out all week, and finally got back Tues.  Specifically, we wanted to know if the current episode was due to Bandit's legs.  She definitely seems weak in the back legs, that's what keeps her from walking.  And Gregg said he pushed her around a bit last week after he found her sitting in her poop YET AGAIN, and since then she hasn't been able to get up or walk.

Our vet called me back yesterday and basically said there wasn't anything else she could think of.  She'd be happy to examine her and see if there was something fixable, but from what I described, she thinks it's just weakness that could be neurological or related to her arthritis.  She didn't seem to really buy Gregg's injury theory (thank goodness, cuz I wasn't liking the thought of him feeling guilty over this).  But regardless, not a whole lot to do unless we want to subject her to a bunch of x-rays and tests.  She suggested that if we wanted to, we could take her into our regular vet (this vet is our Cushing's specialist) to talk about possibly some pain medications that could help her.  But I think she was just trying to help us grasp at straws.  And is thinking that any vet we see will probably tell us what she already knows.  Since 10 minutes out of our 11.5 minute conversation focused on quality of life issues, I have a  pretty good idea what our vet thinks.  And she came out and said that we were in the hospice stage at this point, so it was up to us to decide how far we want to take this.

So we'll see.  I'm taking her to our regular vet this morning and then I guess we can figure out what to do next.  

convo #2

The background
As many of you may remember, my mom visited us for about a month around the time that Diya was born.  We had a lot of little blow ups during that time because that's what my mom and I do.  A particularly memorable one is when she got on my case for drinking one can of Sprite during the time that she was here.  A can that I probably didn't finish because I rarely finish cans of soda and end up just sharing them with Gregg (who'll take like 3 big gulps and before I know it, it's all gone).  Anyway, I remember that the can cost me a good half hour or so of complaining about how that can't be good for the baby (I was nursing at the time and Diya was probably just a week or two old), and how I shouldn't be drinking soda with all that sugar, etc etc.  BTW, my mom thought there was nothing with me consuming up to several cups of coffee each day, but omg, the soda, the horror. 

Also
I feel strongly that Diya doesn't need juice.  She's old enough now to have some, but juice is actually considered pretty terrible for babies. They offer only empty calories, they can interfere with nutrient absorption, the actual fruit is supposed to be a better way to get the nutrients rather than the ingesting in the processed form of juice.  Anyway, it's not great, but unfortunately, Diya's been pretty constipated and prune and apple juice are both supposed to help with that.  So after talking to our pediatrician about it, I've been giving her small amounts of a prune/apple juice + water cocktail after each meal to help regulate her.  I'm not wild about it, but I don't want her to be all plugged up either.  The goal has always been to wean her off of it as soon as her body adjusts to the new foods in her system. 

The convo
My mom:  But didn't you guys have juice while you were growing up?

Me:  Sure, but what does that matter?  I don't want Diya having it.  You guys let us drink it, so we had it.  (I swear, I tried hard not to sound accusing here.  Because, honestly, I don't see it as a point of childhood abuse or anything.  Whatever, we had juice, we're still alive.  It's not a big deal, but I feel strongly about it now.  It's just that my mom was already starting to sound a little whiney and I was already a bit riled up.  So I wasn't trying to be accusing, but I can't guarantee that my tone didn't sound annoyed). 

My mom:  Isn't it worse to have soda? 

Me:  Yeah, but I keep reading about how juice is one of the top 5 worst things to give to kids. 

My mom:  But isn't soda just as bad?  There's so much sugar in it. 

Me:   Um, yes.  But it's not like I'm going to be letting Diya drink soda either. 

My mom:    But you drink it.  (And I swear, she said this like she was winning some sort of huge point). 

The analysis
I will bet any of you a thousand dollars that this was her passive aggressive reference to me drinking that one can of Sprite over 6 months ago. 

The supporting evidence

1. I am VERY sure that this is the only can of soda my mother has seen me drink in like 20 years.  Not because it's the only one I've had, but it doesn't really happen with that much frequency (anywhere from a few times a week to every month or so).  But more significantly, the times that I'm around my mother happen with even less frequency. 
2. My mother is the queen of passive aggressive.  When the initial sprite incident happened, she brought it up for a good week or so after every time Diya seemed fussy or burped.  As she did a separate incident where I had a few slices of cheesy pizza.  When I rolled our garbage and recycling out to the curb a week or so after my c-section, she berated me for a good half hour.  And then mentioned it off and on for weeks, especially to Gregg because I'm pretty sure she felt that he should have been the one to take the cans out (even though he didn't even realize I was taking the garbage out any more than she did -- they were both hanging out in the living room when I did it).  She didn't come out and actually say that to him, but she must have told him at least a half dozen times how I shouldn't be doing things like that so soon after my surgery.  And then she wanted me to ask my doctor about it at my next appointment 2 weeks later. 
3. I can think of ABSOLUTELY NO OTHER POINT to this conversation. We literally went from talking about constipation and juice to discussing the sugar content in soda.  The juices I give Diya don't even have any added sugar in them.  You draw me some other line that makes even a little bit of sense, and I will happily consider it.   

all felt up

My mom is here this week to help care for Diya.  And don't get me wrong, it's great to have her here while Diya is still in her cast.  But as always, it can be a bit of a mixed bag as well.  My favorite moment thus far?  On Sat, after she'd arrived, she made a comment about how I looked even thinner now than before I was pregnant.  It's true, I do weigh a couple pounds less.  So I said, yes, I probably have, but man, I can't seem to lose this pregnant belly.  So I don't know where the weight is coming off from exactly.  And she made a comment about how, yeah, that can take some time, blah blah blah.  A typical conversation would have ended there. 

But a conversation with my mother included a followup.  Later in the day, she happened to see my belly while I was sitting on the couch pumping.  And I'm not being self deprecating or anything.  I really do still have a baby bump. I manage to hide it with clothes but there's no question that it's there.  If I were a celebrity, I'd be all over the cover of US magaize with a baby bump question mark plasted all over my middle.  So my mom looks at it, does a bit of a double take, and then starts RUBBING IT, going, "oh,  is this what you meant by a big belly."  And said something else like, wow, it is a big belly.   The comments alone would have been sufficient, but who am I, Buddha?

Um, thanks?  And yah, definitely thanks for feeling me up.  Love that.  It's like when I first had the baby and started nursing.  I swear, she'd start feeling up my boobs, to - well, I'm not sure what exactly.  To determine if I was full?  To see if I had milk-producing boobs?  To somehow feel like she was helping my milk come out??

I told this story to my co-worker yesterday and she started cracking up (which had been mostly my reaction when it was happening, but I'm not crazy, right?  It's weird?).  And my co-worker mentioned how she's reading Tina Fey's book at the moment, and there's an anecdote in there about her going bra shopping with her mother and her mom making her try on bras at the store with her shirt on, just out in public instead of using the dressing rooms.  Or something like that.  And how it had been mortifying at the time, but now, as a mom, she (as in Tina Fey) sort of gets it because you spend so much time pulling boogers out of their noses that this kind of thing becomes 2nd nature.  I mean, what's a little feel up when you've been pulling boogers out of their noses and wiping the poop off their butts for years?  I'm probably totally misrepresenting the actual anectode.   But the point I think was that maybe it's easy for parents to forget boundaries because when their children are little, there are none really. 

So of course, now I remember my mom feeling me up trying to guage my bra size when I was a teenager and her doing it with my little brother in tow.  And then am realizing there's really no point to this story other than just sharing it, and I should have just stopped with the story instead of trying to analyze it.  But OMG, will I do this sort of thing to my children too?