Happy Hallowe'en!

So is orange his colour? :)

Dispatches

I'm still tired out so in summary:

- do not "pop out" to one last store, no matter how popular the candy there will make you, with baby in tow for the meltdown will make you regret it.

- Noah does have thrush, which so far has just manifested as thrush on his tongue and no pain yet... but this clears up what our plans for tomorrow might be, since we'll be at the doctor's.

- my tooth infection appears to be outlasting antibiotics, so we'll deal with that then too

- I'm in need of a week off in some tropical paradise! Except I can't imagine time off away from Noah and there goes the time off... :)

Baby's growing up

I am recovering from the infection debacle, but slowly. And I lost 4 lbs! This is not good, at this point - not that I am underweight, but the losing during breastfeeding just can't be optimal.

I nested in with Noah the last two days, although Wednesday I was so nauseated from the painkillers and woozy that Carl had to be hovering a fair amount. Yesterday I was back firmly in the saddle and just put everything within reach in the rec room and we had a one-room (plus bathroom) day, Noah and I.

It was blissful, watching DVDs while playing with him and cuddling and dancing a bit in a cautious way. I eased up on my "don't spend your days in front of DVDs" rule and didn't do a lick of housework or anything. Not what I want, overall, but now and then I think it's fine. Noah didn't seem to mind that my attention was sometimes focused on the boob tube. Changing locales and using only the playmat also brought some changes out with him.

First, he's just way more alert and interactive every day. He's starting to settle into a vague routine, although his feeds during the day are still a bit all over the map. He plays for up to an hour, as long as there's someone to play with the last while. Play is stretching, kicking, waving his arms, watching, smiling, and making sounds. Oh and staring.

Not much rolling though, and I'm starting to - not worry, but keep an eye on his lack of interest in his hands. He is only at 9 and a half weeks, but he really rarely notices them, although he is stretching them towards things more. (He's developed the strangely disconcerting habit of patting my breast while he feeds too.) Somehow all this comes across sometimes as a little passive - another word would be content. He isn't yet motivated to go greet the world with touch and motion, too much. He's observing. And I hope that's all okay - I think it is, but I am sometimes a born worrier.

(I know I should enjoy that it's so safe, right now.)

Second, he likes to fall asleep more on his own. I should celebrate this because it bodes well for future sleep and in fact, he is sleeping 5-6 hrs through now about 4 nights a week (including last night! yay!). But I'm a little sad too in that selfish way... he's bigger, he likes to stretch out, and as much as he loves to be held and comforted and gets grumpy if he doesn't have cuddle time, he's also growing up and doesn't need to feel like he's in the womb listening to my heart to fall asleep. It's a tiny step to independence. And that's what we're into, for the next 18 years - the long slow path to it. But boy, there's a little bitty bit of missing there about the newborn that fussed if you dared set one inch of his body off mine or Carl's.

Third, I improvised a kick gym by holding rattles at his feet, and he kicked at them. So maybe I shouldn't worry so much, if he's doing that with his feet. Hmmmm. Writing this out is good. :)

Fourth he is starting to like his tummy, even if it looks rather uncomfortable when he runs out of energy and plants his face down on the quilt. He fell asleep on his tummy yesterday, after 15 minutes of happy lifting and shifting and smiling and a bit of movement scootching up. I left him that way since I was right next to him to keep an eye out for SIDS and he slept well for over an hour.

Of course then when he woke up he was shocked to find the world upside down!

This weekend we need to do some baby shopping - something other people's generosity has made so unusual. We don't have anything like a snowsuit that goes in the carseat well - nothing with slits for a 5-pt harness, in other words - and I want to see what there is on the market. I think he could use some sleepers, although last night out of desperation (see above about not doing laundry :)) I tried the next size up and it wasn't ridiculous after all and people gave us a few in that size. And a kick gym, since I haven't been successful on eBay.

And maybe a few more clothes, if Value Village has cute ones in. Yes, it's all about the second-hand stuff when it comes to baby outfits, as much as I admit I actually like the clothes at Baby Gap (the cottons are just nicer; I'm sorry but they are). With luck maybe there'll be some used Baby Gap there. :)

Shandra

Parenting through pain - ugh

So I had this root canal and I delayed taking the antibiotics 'cause Noah had had his immunizations and in case he suddenly went off the milk or something I thought it would be good to give him a couple of days. My dentist said she thought it would be okay.

Were we ever wrong. Sunday night I got the searing pain and swelling that only come with a root/bone infection gone wildly wrong, and despite starting the penicillin then it has been raging out of control. We doubled the antibiotics. I took ibuprofin and it didn't work and after consulting Motherisk (which is a fabulous resource for Canadians, esp. Torontonians) we determined I could take Tylenol 3 (with codeine in it). For Sunday, Monday, Monday night, and Tuesday until about 4 pm, the painkillers made very little dent in it - about 20 minutes out of a 4 to 6 hr dose. Finally, finally it is starting to recede - swelling and pain alike.

But man, it sucks. For a bit there I thought we might have to put Noah on formula. I thought I was going to go insane with pain, and Carl really had to step in and take care of the baby here and there while I laid on the floor and sobbed (literally; it was worse than labour in many ways due to the unremittingness of it). I didn't sleep from Sunday at midnight to last night at 7. It was crazy.

I felt vulnerable in a way I never have before. It's one thing to get sick on one's own, but having a baby, if you get sick you're messing up their days too, and in this case putting breastfeeding at risk, not only from the drugs one might have to take, but also milk production. (My body is a trooper because it has continued to produce milk despite lack of calories and all this stress and pain and infection, although frankly I felt more like my body let me down with the infection in the first place.) It really hit home that I have to take a bit more care with me, too.

Lynn was brilliant. She really is able to dissociate out of a lot more physical pain than anyone else, or maybe she just has a higher tolerance. In any case, although I wouldn't count on being able to do it again - and having backup is really important - she was the most able to still change diapers and croon, rock the baby, and keep calm around him. Not a hundred percent, as the aforementioned breaks showed, but man. Occasionally past trauma comes in handy, although I think probably non-traumatized parents also rise to the occasion each and every day.

Of course Noah slept 6 hrs every night, while I could not take advantage of it. :) He also discovered he can grab onto my lip, in a weird sort of not-really-paying-attention way that he is batting and and grasping things these days. That was - painful, but I managed to be gentle disengaging him. I have a tiny baby fingernail scratch and I'm oddly proud of it. Being a mum is occasionally so weird!

I did get thinking about us growing up. When my mum was sick it was often a major crisis, at least where I remember it (when admittedly we were older enough to handle it). She would get (understandably) stressed and yell and stuff. Maybe my dad didn't help enough; my memory is foggy on that. And lord, with this pain I could see that a toddler or a defiant 5 year old or a bitchy pre-teen would be really really hard to cope with. At least a baby is clearly just doing baby things.

But I renew my commitment to try to handle things differently - get a sitter, get relatives in, whatever, rather than getting so stressed that every illness becomes a battlefield. Because that is what it felt like, growing up. And I so don't want to do that.

When the painkillers really actually started working yesterday I took Noah in my arms and danced for joy and he almost laughed. I would say it was probably an accident of sound but ooohh am I looking forward to baby laughs.

Now of course my concern is thrush because massive antibiotics can certainly do that. I am popping acidophilus pills and being ultra-hygienic and everything. But Noah's tongue is a bit white. Cross your fingers for us. :)

Spaced out on codeine,
Shandra

2 months / eyes nose and toes

Dear Noah,

You are amazingly two months old. You had your shots right on the very day and you hated that. You cried for about 5 minutes in the doctor's office, slept, and then had about a 20 minute crying jag at home - pain, I bet, but maybe also working off those feelings.

We spent a lot of time this weekend just holding you, skin to skin. You popped a fever, so we gave you Tempra and you weren't too sure about the taste but you let it go down.

You're 22 inches long and 11.5 lbs - right on the 50th percentile. Your eyelashes and eyebrows have been coming in again darker, and the eyelashes in particular frame those stormy blues magnificently. If your eyes stay the colour they are now they will be a steely blue limned with grey, the blue like your dad and the grey eerily like someone Lyria knows. And you use them constantly: you love to look and your attention span is amazing, spending up to 45 minutes watching a mobile or on your playmat.

Alley asked in the comments about your features and maybe you would like to know, too. You have the feet from your dad's side of the family: broad and thick and solid, like weights at the end of your legs. They're made to be used, as long as you can find shoes for them. And we will, when it's time. That's one of the differences between you and your sister: she had my narrow feet.

Your hands are really your own: I fancy that you have your dad's palms, strong and broad, but the long fingers are more like mine. We have never seen hands quite like yours, and that's where the joke that you will be a concert pianist comes from - strength and reach. But of course what you do with these hands will be up to you. Again, even accounting for baby fat, your sister's hands were narrower. You'r starting to use them a bit more, flailing them the way you're looking, sucking on your fingers. But you are still more the observer.

Your shoulders seem wide to me: man-sized already. But I may be projecting there, since I see you on your dad's so often. You are using your muscles to really work at holding up that head, although it's still a big struggle. At tummy-time you lift it up too and once or twice you've even braced with your arms.

Your chin and lips are mine: that set of the mouth that comes right down my maternal line, my mum's, her mum's, her mum's mum's. You're using it well already with so many expressions, but unlike the rest of us you don't chatter incessantly yet. You make some noises, but you save them up for when you really are excited. Your sister had it too, and when you sleep sometimes you fall into the open-mouthed position she had that last night and it catches at my heart, even as yours gets bigger.

Your nose identifies you with your dad's family again, and your sister: a pug-like nose right now, and I think it's adorable. The blonde hair is like both my mum's side and your dad's dad's side of the family, but I can't tell if it's really growing or destined to fall out. The crazy spikes are yours, although something like my sister's hair was around then too.

Your ears are funny. Your sister had both ears like your dad: a little pointy bit at the top giving an elven cast to them. You have one ear like that, and one like mine, rounded, so they don't really match at all. But they certainly work, and you love music - and jump at odd sounds.

When we saw the doctor you were gassy and grunting, which she pronounced as colic based on how often you do that. Now I thought colic was crying, so I thought it a bit silly, but if it is you manage it with tremendous good humour. I know your smiling is somewhat instinctive, but you do it a whole lot and it's gorgeous, like you. The doctor also thinks you're feeding too often - every 4 hours or so at night, timed start to start, and every 1.5 - 2 hours during the day. But I am not in a rush to try to change what your body seems to know. You have become a lot faster, which really helps me feel less chained to the rocking chair. But thanks to some over-active let down a few of those feeds have been a bit rough lately! We're working it out still, mostly using gravity or pumping a bit.

You've taught me a lot this last bit: I actually manage to sit still to play with you, and you need that. You're not a newborn anymore that way, and I'm learning to both let you be and play and play with you. You've also taken so much delight in doing things with me that I've started a bit of exercise alongside you, and been wearing you while I do a few chores, and even had you in the swing while I cooked. It's really nice to be able to do those things and chat to you. It's like learning them all over.

You are still the most beautiful boy in the universe.

Spice woes / Bottles

We were up aaalll night dealing with a number of things, most especially a nursing strike. I was having a stressed-out day yesterday for abuse-anniversary and dentist reasons, and so in the interest of self-care and general laziness, I ordered pizza. With pepperoni, which we almost never get.

And apparently Noah hates it (this is my best guess) because he hunger-cried, drank, shrieked in indignation, slept 20 minutes - etc. - all night long. I pumped (and dumped) a bit in between to get the nastymilk out, and by 6 this morning it was sorted out. But in the meantime it was horrid. It's somehow deeply distressing to have a hungry baby and have him treat the breasts like poison. I admit that, on top of the rest of things, it pushed me to sit in the rocking chair and cry a little.

And you know, Noah went to sleep while I was. I was feeling guilty that perhaps his upset was not just the pepperoni but that I was having a somewhat-hard day underneath the calming routine of playtime and naps and feedings and such. But I think it really was the milk. This may be one of those cases where the expectations on mothers to be calm and sainted and never upset is a bit of a crock. I certainly believe that a totally stressed mum will affect her kids, and that's one reason I went for pizza. But I also saw that it's not the complete end of the world to be human, too. Yay.

This morning my mother dropped by unexpectedly with a friend of hers at about 10 am and I was in my pyjamas and my hair was a wreck. But you know what? It was okay. Another yay. I'm glad I have decent pyjamas that are more like "loungewear" though. And she brought a gift from a godmother-type individual (to me, not Noah): a Pack 'n Go! Oh my god! Spiff baby gear!

This afternoon I had a root canal. Readers of my other journal may remember that we used to have a severe dental phobia, because of childhood shit and threats, that we have been working on with the help of a really good caring dentist. And generally speaking we're fine with routine dental stuff now. But this was our first root canal, and the whole idea was a little freaky, especially since we'd had no pain or anything to make it look appealing by comparison. So that was the stress. It went fine, so far. The freezing is still wearing off. :) I have revowed to make sure Noah grows up flossing, which (besides brushing, which is a given) is the number one way to prevent all this kind of nastiness.

On Noah's end, he had to do without Mummy and tits for 2 hours, but I had pumped some milk (before the pizza, thank god, and believe me I thought about using it in the night but decided we needed to work out how to work the spice issue out) and put it in a bottle.

Carl tried when Noah got fussy, but he didn't get the hang of it yet (although Carl said he got the taste of some milk and calmed down, he just didn't keep going). He wasn't all that starved by the time they picked me up, anyway. But it was a first step towards being able to take a class in January, which I am really hoping to do - one class. One night a week, for me and my adult brain. If I can manage to tear myself away. After the root canal I felt like I'd been away from my baby forever. Which may inspire a post later on, but right now it's time to go dance around and kiss some baby toes. :)

"some of my best friends are..."

Conversation this morning:

Me, holding Noah on my legs and making the appropriate gestures and rocking him merrily, to the CD: It's fun to stay at the YMCA /They have everything for young men to enjoy / You can hang out with all the boys
Carl: something I don't remember verbatim about dance clubs
Me: I'm just getting him ready for Pride!
Carl: What if he's not gay?
Me, ignoring that Pride is not just about that: I've done my best! When I ran out of onesies in the middle of the night a few weeks ago I put him in a flowered onesie and watched three episodes of The L-Word!
Carl: ... the L-word is not going to turn* any boys gay
Me: ....

(I keep forgetting that. Cough.)

Noah's favourite dance hits thus far - you be the judge:
Willaby wallaby woo - Raffi
Like a Prayer - Madonna
Cecilia - Simon and Garfunkle
Dancing Queen - Abba
I'm too sexy - Right Said Fred
YMCA - Village People
The grand old Duke of York - us (You know, The grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men, he marched them up to the top of the hill...)

*No, of course you can't "turn" someone gay and of course we aren't trying to turn anyone gay, or straight, or anything. No worries. :-)

Chicken'd

I chickened out of the mums' group today. My excuse is that Noah gets his shots Friday so he should go play with all the polio carriers after and not before.

The reality is I had a dream about writing and I woke up thinking that I have to be writing so as not to be a mum who says she's finishing her first novel but a writer who has finished her first novel who is also a mum. Yes, it was some last minute identity crisis. Perhaps I am not ready to go out and interact as a parent as opposed to a political activist or a creative individual or a student or an editor. Or maybe I'm just lazy and the computer is closer than the rec hall.

And in any case I wrote during one of Noah's naps and then took him to Costco because, you know, going to Costco helps me meet all my personal goals. Were it not for my 45 minutes of writing (after the web journalling, email reading, and tea-making. Oh yes and note gathering), I would have to say that I had truly fallen to the dark side. But that ounce of redemption is there. And it was a nice 45 minutes. I spent last year being jealous of my character because her baby lived, and now we are somewhat on the same page again that way.

And... it is fun to take a baby to Costco, if said baby is my beautiful Noah and looks around at everything pleasantly with big eyes and approves of my buying pine nuts as if I were going to have time to make pesto. He really did. I held up the pine nuts and he smiled. Obviously the trip was necessary.

I also invented a new favourite game, which is inventively called Laundry: the folding. It works like this. Noah and I go down to the rec room and I place him gently on the folded-down futon, safely in the middle. Then I grab the clean laundry out of the dryer quick, quick, and bring it over. Then I swoop each piece of laundry in front of his face and say, "wheee, mummy's blue underwear" or "whee, daddy's black sock" and he watches them sweep by and wriggles and smiles. Then, when the stakes are raised, I actually rub the texture of something on his cheek or his hand like this: "ooooh, this sock is fuzzy!" See, whee for looking, oooh for feeling.

It's a great game. Really. I'm thinking of publishing the rule book for a fortune.

We had very frustrating nursing today: overactive letdown was us, although I cannot blame a long sleep on my poor over-endowed breasts, because Noah nursed every 2 hours all night. Maybe it's a growth spurt or maybe he'll never sleep again! In any case I tried pumping a bit out at the start of the nurse, and it didn't help. I tried applying a towel at letdown and it didn't help. I had to resort to lying on my back and having Noah nurse against gravity, which you apparently can only do so many times before mastitis sets in, but it worked. Thank god. The poor guy was very unhappy when milk was squirting in his mouth and up and out his nose. So was I.

And hmm. That was pretty much the day!

Shandra

Big Boy Sleep

The face of joy. (Oct. 7) I'm adding pictures into past entries. Two in Oct and a few in Sept. :)

Wow. Noah was up at 5 am (and 1:30 am, so much for the big sleep) and then at 7:15 without much sleep in between. While preparing to go out to a fundraiser for parents of multiples (that would be twins, triplets, etc.) that involves used baby clothes (!) I put him in his co-sleeper to watch the mobile, which he did until it stopped.

And then while I watched him he put himself to sleep. In his co-sleeper. All on his very own.

Guess who's not rushing out to the fundraiser? As much as it pains me (and it does) to not go find ultra-inexpensive clothing (and the 3-6 month stuff seems hardly worn when you do find it and he's close enough to fitting it; and I know it will be picked over by the time he wakes up and nurses and is changed and then we get in the car... etc.) this is a moment of much celebration. For lo, the baby has hated the wide expanse of the co-sleeper and also wanted to be rocked and soothed to sleep. And today he put himself down.

~~~

We took Noah over to M's on Thursday for coffee and it was a lot of fun, although not as much fun as it would have been if he hadn't been a bit grunty/fussy. Gas combined with hunger, and when I nursed him there he was distracted and wriggly. But oh, getting out was nice. This week has been especially confining: a lot of rain, I still don't have my own car which I could rant about but really comes down to not quite being ready to lock into payments for a new one or put the effort into finding a good used one. And oh yes, one-hour nurse on demand.

~~~

I have compromised on y'all's excellent cookie giving out suggestion. And it is a good one. And I should do it. But I have this strange quirk in my personality that I keep stumbling over that makes it hard to go trade cookies for friends... yes I know that's not the point and not what it's about. Truly, I do. And if only Lyria would take charge of it, we'd be well on our way. But she won't, because I stressed her out this year ignoring the fact that she was practically dying living at my parents' every month and she's completely gun-shy right now about things. (At least I think she won't.)

And I have this - mnn - chip on my shoulder? Expectation? Whatever it is, it still feels to me like trading cookies for friends. It comes from lousy elementary school experiences involving being at the nadir of class popularity combined with ill-conceived hippy carob cupcakes. A party would be easier, except I really should have done that before Noah 'cause the idea of having a full-scale party here right now is scary. So I came up with two solutions. The first is that I'm organizing a cookie exchange. See? I can handle cookies (and snacks and drinks and festivities at my house) as long as they're reciprocal.

Your first Thanksgiving

So Noah, yesterday was your first Thanksgiving, and you were 7 weeks and 1 day old.

It was extremely low-key. Our family Thanksgiving was cancelled because your grandparents are both sick, and no one wants to pass any germs to you or to me right now. I called around to see if anyone else wanted to come spend it with us, but everyone I called had plans already which was to be expected, and so I gave up ('cause probably if I'd kept going I'd've found someone!). Your dad and I decided not to make a production of it.

So we hung out and you did your things. Here's what you did: you played in your swing for about an hour, you laid in your sling - thank goodness you like your sling again - for lots of contact time. You played in your playmat for a stunning 40 minutes, and made all kinds of sounds, practicing your voice again. You smiled a lot, all day. You have finally started touching your hands to each other and feeling your fingers and it's very cute.

In the afternoon we were going for a walk, but it was raining. So we went for a drive instead. I didn't know Guildwood was so close to country-ish roads, but we are, and we made it up to Stouffville and went through a drive-through and got doughnuts. The fall colours were great, and we saw miniature horses, and cows. I also discovered a riding school just 25 minutes away. I kind of hope you want to learn to ride 'cause I do, and I was thinking when you're old enough maybe we could take lessons together one year (at the same time I mean; I hope they would have a class for kids your age), if they're not crazy-expensive.

But your parents made their first major parenting error: halfway through the drive I noticed that when we switched from the plan to go for a walk to the plan to put you in the car we didn't fasten your straps properly. So you were riding in your carseat unsafely. I thought I was going to throw up and I bet you'll have me triple checking from now on. I hope all our errors come to such a good end.

What to be thankful for was really easy, besides the usual: you, your health, and oh yes - you.

Happiness & Thanksgiving

I posted a truncated version of this in my other journal but I wanted to expand on it a bit.

(I'm not sure when I'll go back to one journal, or what I'll do with them, but a topic for another time.)

I've always been a bit wary of people who talk about their children giving them purpose or who believe they were born to be parents or anything like that. I personally believe in the many-optioned universe (I could be this, or that, or that, or this and that) and that joy and happiness are to be found in many more places than we give them credit for. I also, because of issues in my family and I suppose observation of a few others, have sometimes found that the parents who are the most sure of themselves are the ones that I consider might be doing damage to their kids.

Because having a child in one's family is about the child, not the adult, at least that's my airbrushed theory. In fact it's both, but I think it's always, always, always critical to remember that you raise a child for the child; that it's not about bringing you glory or even happiness but about the sacred (in the vague sense, not a particular religion) responsibility of protecting and teaching and supporting a vulnerable human being. So that they can become who they are, and not who you wanted or what you ordered up in your mind when you were drawing up the blueprints of your life.

Since I really believe this it makes me a bit sheepish to admit that I feel - so right, and I dare say rather replete with rightness - to be spending my day singing kid songs and dancing around with a baby in my arms and figuring out how to tell when Noah's had enough of the swing. Some of it's hard. Sometimes I really would like say, a couple of days at work with shopping at lunch time and dinner out afterwards and a break. It was a long weekend here and although that meant Carl had more time with us, it didn't change a whole lot. No sleeping in for the holiday! No expanse of time to clean out all my drawers! (My traditional Thanksgiving activity.)

It seems quite scary to say this because of course Noah will now die, or some other tragedy will occur, because we can't have happy. But I'm happy. I'm happy in the way I was when I found the right job, the way I feel when I've met the right people. It's disgustingly stereotypical but so true. Noah, you are what I was waiting for. And Emily - god, I miss you.

Circadian rhythms

Noah slept almost 7 hrs last night. It would have been more restful if I hadn't kept waking up sure he was dead. But man. I don't intend to expect this kind of - amazing event - each night but it is great. My body hardly knows what to do with itself, except demand more. That's not skillful parenting; it's just luck.

I had to sort through Noah's things too because he'd outgrown his three tiniest onesies and is on the verge of outgrowing a bunch of others. Also, I no longer really knew what was around in what size. People have been so generous with Emily and Noah that I can go shopping in his closet and dresser and pull out things in almost every size to about 1 years old. I found some really cute things he's about to grow into. Also as it's starting to get cooler some warmer things, although really I don't know that we won't just keep the thermostat reasonably high for one year. Gas is hugely expensive this year, of course, but this is the one year to do it.

Yesterday and this morning he played and played, where "play" is defined as looking, kicking, stretching, smiling, and sometimes rolling onto one's side. I think I need to set up the play pen, with different hanging toys in each corner, so I can kind of rotate him around. A kick gym is probably in our future too, especially if I can find one second hand or on eBay-local (shipping makes it so not worth it.)

He also is smiling more and more and gave Carl a huge cheek stretcher this morning that I personally think was totally recognition.

For me - well, it's Saturday and I had a nice lazy morning, but there is a bit of a cognitive thing where I wish a little bit for a bit more free time because, you know, Saturday should be a break. Carl's working again, but at the kitchen table, so he could at least watch him while I did some laundry and cleaning. More needs to be done but I decided to sit down with a tea for a bit. The house is actually not doing too badly, although the backyard is a bit of a disaster. FlyLady strikes again because it's true: you can do things in 5 or 15 minute bits, and keep the main areas afloat.

What I really need - and I say this mildly because actually, I'm really happy and thinking of writing a post on happiness in my other journal and possibly copying it over here - is some way to have family fun other than baby watching. We need to work out new fun since old fun was going out to things that aren't necessarily that easy now. And so far it's been hard to do that. So that's my secondary goal, after the 'socialize more' - have more fun.

Gosh. :-)

On the social front we had lots of good intentions this week and little actual face to face socializing. I did spend more time on the phone and I also invited people over for dinner, but no one could come yet. I need to invite more in advance! And not this Monday because it's Canadian Thanksgiving but next Monday I'm joining a mum-baby-toddler group.

So things continue apace!

Shandra

10 pounds!

Here's Noah smiling at Noah

Well we have a real little growing guy here. Noah's official weight this morning: 10 lbs. He's on the 50th percentile for everything - not bad for a guy who, at his 2 week checkup, was in the 6th percentile.

That's my little eating guy.

It's been a whirlwind week in some ways. On Wed night he freaked me out totally by sleeping 6 straight hours - I woke up and thought he was dead, despite his grunting having woken me up (I know, I know, crazy) and then spent the next 3 hours of sleep time dreaming that I'd left him behind somewhere. Part of that is guilt that he slept the 6 hours in his car seat; Carl got tired of waiting for him to wake up and just put the car seat in the cosleeper. That's a bit of a risk, and I don't think we'll do it again.

But oh, was it bliss. A little preview. Last night he revered to his usual trying-to-play time at 2 am. What I learned though is that it will happen. We can help him or hinder him but he will do it on his own time when he's ready.

He's socially smiling, mostly at me, his mum. I have this favoured position that I feel is partly really unfair - after all, I have the tits, so I automatically get loved. I try not to get too into it, and remind myself that this kind of love is hardwired and that it's natural and beautiful and still something to be very careful with and not start thinking it means that I'm doing everything right. And yet, when he smiles at me when I pick him up, it does in fact feel like I won an Oscar, a Nobel Prize, and a brand new car, all at once.

He's loving all his toys too, at least the ones that are visually oriented. He's not using his hands much, not touching them each to each. I find that interesting; it's almost a personality thing, like he's more into observation than experimentation.

Yesterday I walked to the library and he got hungry before we got back (it's about a 40 min walk). So I popped into the Guild park and breastfed him on a bench on a beautiful sunny day that wasn't too hot and wasn't too cold. It was a lot of fun. And yes I covered up so no one would be shocked... but in Toronto it's my right by by-law to breastfeed in public and I was really glad because boy, he would have been a mess if he'd had to wait. I'm glad to have gotten confident enough to have had at least one session looking out over the flowers at the lake. It felt very earth-goddessy. (In fact Lyr was around and beside herself with glee, speaking of - not earth goddesses but something like.)

I have pictures but am still a dolt about this half-installed software. But this is a three day weekend (Canadian Thanksgiving) so hopefully Carl will have time to fix it for me. (Yes, I know, I know. It is pathetic. But I'm frustrated with it.)

Hope everyone's Friday is going well. :-)

Shandra

Swing along, sweet chariot

Noah's passed out in his swing, and he is so cute. At least twenty zillion times a day I look at him and my heart feels like it will implode from the - cuteness? joy? love? some combination anyway.

Normally I'm not a huge fan of using the swing as a soothe-all, but he's been gassy again since about 3 am, and the motions and uprightness of it really seems to help. I tried the Snugli and it went okay for a bit, but then he got fussy. So swing it is, even if it means less contact with my body.

We'll have to see about the walk this afternoon; I really would like to have one, but that's more 'sit in seat' time. What's a way to gauge that anyway? I've sort of kept it to one in-seat activity a day, but I really have no clue what I'm doing there. Except he likes it and is sooo cute and hey, another baby gift well in use. It will do for now.

Oops he's waking up now and he looks so serious. He's figuring out where he is and chatting to make sure I'm here. And here I am chatting back, but I'd better go.

Shandra

6 weeks

Hey Noah,

So you've hit that 6-week milestone and are no longer a new-newborn. We'll find out on Friday how much weight you've gained but I can tell you you have chubby thighs and a double chin and you're definitely longer. We had to pack away the two teensy-tiny newborn outfits because they didn't fit (mostly they wouldn't go over your head). It looks like the next outfit to go will be your pirate outfit from the Gap, the outfit I bought after the ultrasound that showed your sex. Now that one will be hard to let go of.

This week you made some leaps and bounds out of my arms. You fit your swing, all of a sudden, and you love it: you coo and smile and fall asleep in it, although what seems to please you most is watching the post go by and ignoring all the toys that attach to it. You like your mobile a lot too. You don't object to a bit of tummy time. And of course you still love your playmat the most, cosy as it is. You have an amazing attention span: you play by yourself for 15 or 20 minutes, as long as you've had plenty of contact time before the play session. Then you get tense and start waving your arm and finally you'll make those grunting sounds to get my attention.

You really are starting to smile now and then and it's a delight. You have the most radiant self: when you're happy it's all through you, and when you're not that comes out too. Yesterday you were gassy (I think I am going to limit my dairy because it seemed related to a bunch of milk I drank, and you know I was allergic to milk at your age until I was 9) and whenever you were awake you had a discombobulated, unhappy look as well as grunts and twists and farts and spit ups and burps. You didn't cry much though: as long as someone responded to your grunts and rubbed your tummy or held you upright, that was good enough for you. Today is much better and you could enjoy your toys more.

You spent some time this weekend in your paternal grandmother's arms, because she came down spontaneously just to see you. You looked really cosy there and I felt both kind of glad for a bit of additional freedom (except for Saturday's cluster feeding in the morning) and a bit empty armed. We took you for your first trip to the library, which is a 30 min walk away. You slept through it.

Sleeping wise you haven't changed your habits much. You still have a period between 1 and 4 am where you tend to nurse lightly and sleep for short periods, and that is really continuing to tire me out. But you're still too little to change it much: the No-Cry Sleep Solution says to wait until 4 months to try anything more proactive than keeping night feedings dim and silent and helping you sleep places other than our arms. On that front you're doing well: last night I even put you down in your box/bassinet at 4:30 when you weren't all that deeply asleep, and as long as my hand was on you you were fine. I woke up with quite the cramp, but that was okay.

Despite the tiredness I really am treasuring the quiet time with you in the middle of the night, watching dim dvds or surfing the 'net or just holding you and looking you over. It may be the hormones but it's hugely unusual for your mum to sit still and peaceful like that and enjoy it. That's one of the gifts I think you have brought along with you into this world: a lot of peace and a peculiar kind of patience. It makes me really sad for mums in countries that would have to be going back to work at this point; I can afford to sit with you and be tired and all those things because the only thing I have to do is take care of you. No 10 am meetings.

This week you also gave me a huge amount of laughter and a few tears. You keep grabbing onto your hair and holding it in the fist of doom. Then it pulls and you startle and scream, and - you guessed it - clench your fist tighter and try to wave your arm. Those pain shrieks are sounds I hope I don't hear too much. But after you're free I have to laugh because you really don't know whose hands those are or what they're doing. You make goofy faces. Your farts and poos are *loud*. And you just make me smile.

I've learned to leave for a walk when you've finished feeding and not procrastinate. I'm just learning now that really I should sleep when you sleep a lot of the time. And I am learning patience, as you start to develop your own agenda. Where you used to fall asleep really easily now you need a bit of coaxing during the day, because you're so busy looking around, and I'm learning that too.

Your dad has been awfully busy, and paged in the night and up at 4 am to fix things, but he finds time each and every day to hold you, most often the hours before work and after dinner even if he's working at the time. (He types one handed too.) He talks about you a bit on conference calls, when asked, and he sounds really proud and happy. Today he laid with you on his chest while you slept and I slept and it was cosy and warm.

Your honourary aunt L, who for various complicated reasons I might tell you when you're over 20 has had mixed feelings about you, spent a lot of time and energy this week supporting our love for you. I felt this web of love that holds you up, some of the strands of it almost invisible but very strong nonetheless. In a few more weeks my goal is to venture out a bit more into our shared community and connect us both up to it a little better.

Shandra

Outings (some tmi)

Thank you all for the great advice and comments, by the way. I'm looking for that cream, even though this rash cleared up in a day.

(Here is the TMI paragraph) And I am a little more reassured about the bleeding, even if I still think the ob was not listening to me properly. The bleeding is wearing me down a bit, because it's heavy and bright red. It may be that it hits low level triggers. And my own ob is a good listener, so I'm spoilt. :)

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Friday my mum and I took Noah on his first trip along the yuppie madness that is Queen Street in the Beaches. It was lunchtime on a sunny, albeit it fall-cool, day and so all the strollers, most of them vastly more expensive than my eBay scored Evenflo travel system, were out in full force. Seriously, the two essential accessories in the Beaches are a baby and a dog.

I say that with a fondness for it though because I grew up in the area, taught in the area, and I cannot go there without running into people I know. It's my hometown, as a subset of Toronto. Sure enough we ran into two people I know and an additional one my mum knew.

(Sometimes I wish we had been able to agree on/afford a house in the Beaches. But in our price range we were really squished to the bottom of the market and Carl needed space and I needed not to live in a disaster of a fixer-upper, so that's why we're off in technically-Toronto-really-suburbia land.)

It went really well: we timed it between feeds and he was mostly asleep. I poked in some baby stores, but mostly I people-watched. The only thing I found that was remotely appealing was the Cuddle Wrap, which was pretty much like a combination of these: http://www.cottoncradles.com/stretchywraps.htm. Clearly I am obsessed with carriers. I refrained from buying one, because we have the sling and the Snugli, but I may yet change my mind.

I keep wondering when I'm going to want to shop for clothes for Noah. We don't need any at all: people have been so overwhelmingly generous with gifts and hand me downs that we've been well stocked. But I still find it strange for me that I haven't wanted to add my own stamp. I wonder if it's still burnout from the way I shopped like mad for Emily. But it may just be lack of energy and opportunity. Well that and I want to get clothes I love when he's a size that will last for a bit.

There has been one exception: one of Noah's honourary aunts sent me a link to a baby costume website I am too lazy to copy and paste (except by request) and if they weren't so expensive I would buy a bunch. Although my sister took care of that too: he has a pumpkin costume all set to go. Not my actual first choice but see, now I feel obligated (in a reasonably good way) that he wear that one, since it was given in love.

Always a good thing, that love.

Getting out and about did a lot for my mood and tunnel vision that was developing. Today we are probably heading over to M's (did I mention? No - the potluck was moved to next Tues 'cause of her kid having a fever) for a visit, which should be really nice too.

Shandra