Category Archives: Motherhood

Half a Year for My Little Bean

Wow! Six months have passed. So has a lifetime, it sometimes seems.

So what is notable about Bean at six months of age?

  • A week before she reached five months she began pulling off the bottle again, frustrated, and wanted to eat often. So I switched her to the bottle n*pples for six months+ of age. The first week the flow was a little fast, but she rapidly adjusted. She now consumes 25-31 ounces a day as opposed to her previous 19-24 ounces.
  • Sometimes during a feeding Bean “gargles” her milk. She does this because she enjoys the sound and is experimenting. She smiles with delight as she does it. Some of her feedings are casual, slow-paced, and very social. Other times she guzzles her milk.
  • She’s now coordinated enough to hold two rhythm sticks. She has even banged them together a few times.
  • Bean babbles and says “baba” and “gaga.”
  • She sits upright with support of pillows. Or when I sit behind her, she can sometimes sit without my support; I’m there “just in case.” She isn’t sitting all by herself yet, but she loves to sit.
  • Bean adores interacting with the baby in the mirror. She greets that baby with enthusiasm and smiles. She coos and babbles to her. I tell her that the little girl in the mirror is her best friend.
  • She enjoys peek-a-boo when I cover my face or her face (a scarf is especially fun). She’s yet to cover her own eyes purposefully, but loves the surprise.
  • We broke out some new toys recently, one of them being cloth blocks. I stacked them in a tower, and Bean discovered the wonder of knocking them over. She laughed each time during that first encounter. She’s beginning to learn cause and effect.
  • During a feeding, she will massage my face with the hand closest to me. She squeezes my chin and cheek, and pats my face. She will also rub her foot along the arm that is holding the bottle.
  • Bean is ticklish just under her chin. She’s also got a little mischief in her eyes, when she’s being silly with me.
  • I love her giggle and her full laugh.
  • Bean knows just what the camera is for; when it’s turned on she hams it up, and she loves watching movies of herself.
  • Bean is now mobile by rolling. A few weeks ago she rolled from her back to her stomach maybe half a dozen times; the past few days she’s just started rolling like a little stone.
  • She’s starting to creep her way across the room; it looks a little like swimming on dry land; she will get herself turned 180 degrees to grab another toy or to see me.
  • Bean spends a lot more time happily on her tummy. She’s especially willing when someone is down on the floor face-to-face with her, holding a toy or a book.
  • She outgrew her aquarium bouncer about four weeks ago — not physically, but mentally; she grew bored being in it.
  • She goes into a rapture when she’s put into her exer-saucer and is beginning to understand that when she pushes buttons, voices speak and music plays.
  • Bean enjoys being held in a standing position.
  • Bean now puts her head against my neck and nuzzles in, especially when she’s tired or upset. It generates a precious feeling in me.
  • She’s a champion drooler. No teeth yet.
  • Bean sucks her toes, plays with her feet.
  • She turns to hear new sounds or watch things move. She watches when objects are dropped.
  • Bean still naps in my arms. The last time we tried to transition to napping in the crib, we attempted for three days, three naps per day, which meant three hours of full-on crying and sobbing each day (her, not me, but I nearly went over the edge myself). Then she caught a cold. I don’t know when we’ll be ready to release each other (I’m just as attached to this, I think). My Pixie is a tenacious one.
  • Progress happens rapidly. At a play date Friday, she sat next to another little girl and they reached toward each other and babbled together. She’s becoming very social!

Beautiful Bean, you’ve grown so much in just six months! I look forward to discovering more of the world with you over the next half a year and beyond.

Reassurance

From an email I wrote to a friend who has several children (but it was also me talking to myself and thus worth it to me to post):

Please tell me the fact that my daughter isn’t sitting unassisted at six months is okay. She’s long and petite; doesn’t have a lot of ballast in the butt to anchor her. (I don’t know what I’ll do when the next person to meet her says, “She’s so SMALL!” That’s one of two things people ALWAYS say. The other is, “She’s so alert!” I’m tempted to start saying that she makes up with brains what she lacks in brawn.)

Please tell me that my daughter flipping herself from tummy to back constantly doesn’t mean she’s never going to develop creeping, crawling, and walking. She flipped herself from tummy to back at the age of two weeks (she hated tummy time). Now she’ll accept it and remain on her tummy a few minutes, but it’s not her favorite thing. She has rolled from back to tummy a few times lately. I’m looking forward to when she makes the connection that she can control both ways.

Please help me remember that my daughter has been ill the past week and that it’s okay if we don’t do a whole lot of stimulating stuff. And it’s okay that I find things repetitive and tedious sometimes.

I know it’s not a contest, this raising of children. But sometimes being around other parents tempts comparison.

I can tell you this: I marvel at my daughter’s curiosity and sweetness. She is pure. And loving. And adorable. I’m very, very blessed to be her mother.

And her Aunt LP arrives Thursday for another visit! I hope by then Husband is over his second bad cold and Bean is over her first, so we can all enjoy our visit. 🙂

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The good:

  • We paid off our car loan and the title arrived today.
  • Bean discovered the delight of knocking a tower of cloth blocks over. Repeatedly. And she laughed each time.
  • I repurposed a basket that came with a floral arrangement when Bean was born, converting it into her Easter basket. Not that she’s old enough yet for it, but it will make a nice decoration.
  • Bean’s low-grade fever broke.
  • To reduce the risk of credit fraud, we completed the paperwork (quick and simple) to permanently opt-out of prescreened, pre-approved credit card and insurance offers. (You can too; go here.)
  • My free book arrived today.
  • Every Thursday morning Bean and I watch the garbage truck haul away the garbage (since it happens right outside her window, that’s unavoidable), and now the guy who works the truck looks up and waves at us each week.

The bad:

  • Husband thinks he is having a reprise of The Crud that he just got over.
  • Sometimes I miss the validation of shared experiences with coworkers one gets from an outside job. Sometimes the delight of a moment (such as Bean and her block tower) feels also a little lonely.

The ugly:

  • I ate an entire bag of Dove Promise dark chocolate eggs in the past two days. Oink.

At least the good outweighs all the rest.

Music Every Day

We want to provide Bean with a variety of musical exposure. The Music Together songs are an excellent start. We listen to a classical music radio station sometimes. And we have a huge collection of music on CD which is stored also on our computers. (Ain’t technology grand?) So I made seven CDs of music (no classical but pretty much everything else) to spice up every day life. We listen to regular rock stations too, but I like the idea of having personally created playlists for her. Husband made one for her the night we returned from the hospital; it’s called Bean Dance Mix. I haven’t listed that here, since it’s his compilation. If you’d like to see the (very long) list, you can see more. I’ll probably make more over time, since we have thousands of songs. (Ain’t technology grand?) Continue reading →

Ick of Sick

Starting Sunday we again attempted to help our wee one nap in the crib. Let’s just say we’ve failed spectacularly. You might even call it an Epic Fail.

Yesterday she began sneezing and coughing a lot. At first I thought it was from the snot from so much crying, and that her throat was dry and hoarse from crying. But she awoke this morning much snottier, coughing a lot, and she slept less deeply last night than usual. She’s very tired and subdued.

So until she feels better, I’ll continue to hold her for naps.

EpicFail02
funny pictures
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The Inconsolable Child

This observation was included in an article about adult discomfort with a crying child who won’t be comforted, and what to do for the child. The answer: just stay near. The excerpt articulates what I struggle with when my child cries.

“The inconsolable state of grief, or what feels like an intolerable level of loss or disappointment, is a very important point where the child begins to deal with our most fundamental relations — call it existential despair, or call it, ‘damn it, don’t you understand, this tragedy is unfixable!’. If a precious toy is lost, or a trust betrayed, or some such tragedy, it may evoke the feeling that this is not something I will be negotiated out of. I won’t be seduced by offers of warmth or food or entertainment. This is non-negotiable. (Is this what is known as integrity?)

“Somehow it feels as though what we ask for in that inconsolable state is the acknowledgment that, ‘yes, it is unfixable. No, nothing could be worse than this.’

“What prevents the so-called adult from being able to truly BE with the inconsolable child? I mean the child seems to know exactly what to do and how to do it. It wails and moans with great stamina. What about the adult, though? Do adults experience the exact same level of inconsolability? What has really changed in ‘growing up?’ What has changed is that the adult has acquired a learned ability to deny, and negotiate the unnegotiable tragedy. We are considered grown up when we no longer behave childishly, but the really vital question is whether we have faced the unfixable tragedy of life. Have we faced it, or have we negotiated it into a managed state? Doesn’t the child show us exactly where we stopped in growing up ourselves? The impulse is to calm the child, to make things better. But the scream comes back, ‘Don’t even try to calm me down!’ whether in words or equivalent. Why is this so unnerving? Doesn’t it evoke all the fear, resentment, frustration, which hasn’t really changed at all since our own childhood? And isn’t the impulse to get the child calmed down, by any means possible, an impulse to stifle this Pandora’s box? It’s an enormous challenge to really be with the child in its inconsolable state.

“That child is ourself. We want love, which is always going to turn out to be less dependable than the infinite we hoped for. We want psychological security and it will never be enough. We want physical security. We want to continue as me forever. Our wants, and perceived needs come up bang against the wall of aloneness which wanting and hoping and grasping creates. Then, can we be with the sadness this evokes? Can we feel it, the impulse to run away from it, the absoluteness of it, the non-negotiable nature of our predicament as a vulnerable, scared human being? Perhaps if we truly perceive the fact that there is nothing I can do, then the child/adult may for the first time be free from an enormous burden of managing the unmanageable.

“The notion that I, as an ‘adult’, should know what to do with the inconsolable child is a myth which can only add pressure and fear when I realize I don’t know what to do. As soon as there is a formula of how to deal with inconsolability, then I am the adult raising the child. But in truth, the child and I are both trying to grow up together. Why should I know what to do? And he or she has something to remind me of here.

“You say to stay near. I agree. What ideas, fears and so on separate us from the child? Whether it’s the child or ourselves, it’s the same pain, isn’t it? Whether we are 2 years old, 32 years old, 92 years old, we face the same fear of the unknown, and the same unnegotiable grief when someone or something we love isn’t available. Can we openly not know the answer?”

“Doesn’t such a state of openness communicate itself? — to a child, to a dog or a cat, or to the people we live with?”

–Kevin Frank, When a Child is Inconsolable: Staying Near

Quiet

I think about posting, but my interest and energy wane. I’ve nothing insightful to share. Every day is full, not a minute idly spent. Bean changes daily. I do the same tasks daily. Husband has been in bed sick with The Crud since Saturday. My throat is sore. Please, may I be spared?

I’d like to write about the intimacy of motherhood — how the amount of time spent gazing into this little person’s eyes, touching and interacting with her hundreds of times a day — pulls at the center of my being, how primal and wild and physical it feels. In my infancy I was on the other side of the relationship, but I don’t have a conscious memory of it. Yet I’m tired, and have only precious few hours to myself before I must sleep — after I fold the laundry, refill the cat’s food bowl, prepare the coffee maker for tomorrow, pick up the toys, take out the garbage, load the dishwasher, etc….

I’ve been having intense pregnancy dreams. These dreams are joyful. I awoke this morning with a wishful pang and an urge to purchase a home-pregnancy kit. I know it’s not the case; I’m not pregnant. (I’m not convinced my body could handle such a big project again anyway.) The dreams might be due to the fact that two dear friends recently announced that each is pregnant; their babies are due late September to October.

Is it possible, however, that I want to try again? In Internet parlance, WTF?!

I’m so busy living I don’t have time to navel-gaze about it. It’s refreshing, but it leads to a dearth of blog posts.

Guess Who…

rolled over from her back to tummy this afternoon?

Twice!

For months Bean’s been going tummy to back easily because when I put her on her stomach for “tummy time,” she gets bored and/or tired and/or frustrated, and flips herself over. It’s the other direction she hadn’t figured out. The past few days I’ve been playing a game — laying her on a large towel and rolling her side to side to help her experience the process. This afternoon, I was lying on the floor playing with her, when she oh-so-casually just rolled herself over!

She immediately began playing with a toy, then leaned a little too far over, and rolled onto her back and began sobbing. I can only conclude she cried because she had not intended to do that. I comforted her and played with her while she was on her back, and a few minutes later she simply rolled back to her tummy.

I know it’s a small thing, and if you don’t have a child you might think it’s no big deal. But to me, watching this little person grow, it’s a Big Accomplishment.

It’s probably an accomplishment on par with my being able to do this! (For a fat, out-of-shape mother of “advanced maternal age,” I think it’s pretty impressive.) 😉

you mean, like this?

Babies Everywhere

On February 8th, our friends in upstate New York celebrated the first birthday of their son.

On February 8th, our friends who are Bean’s Emergency Backup Parents (guardians), welcomed their niece into the world (in Florida).

On February 10th, another couple (long-time friends who live locally) welcomed their daughter. We met her tonight. She is lovely, all 6 pounds and 13 ounces of her. It’s hard to believe Bean was that small not very long ago! Bean has a new playmate, though it will be a few months before either can appreciate this.

On the subject of babies, and relating to the previous post about breaking addictions since becoming a parent, I’ve released another attachment: to having bookshelves filled to the brim with books. I have two six-foot bookcases — one in the office and one in the living room. The one in the living room I have culled of all but either books I’ve not yet read (about 2 dozen) or books that are reference or have enough illustration to be interesting to little eyes someday. Onto all the other now-empty shelves will go things like the little boom box we use (on an upper shelf), random stuff like pens and paper, bibs, a page-a-day calendar, etc. that will not be able to sit close to the floor when Bean begins reaching and grabbing. We’ll also store some of her toys and books on the lower shelves. All of the culled books (the notches on my belt, you see, of my conquests) will be boxed and stored. I never re-read books. Too many new ones to read! And you know what? I’ll probably forget what’s in the boxes as soon as they are out of sight. What’s important is that I read them at some point.

The Time Has Come

It’s 9:36 p.m. as I begin writing this, and I still haven’t bathed today. I thought I might actually take a long soak, then wash my hair before bed tonight, but already it’s closing in on my bedtime (if I want to be decently energized tomorrow). Instead I spent the evening (from 7:00 until now) organizing photos.

The thing is, this mothering is intensive. It’s becoming more so as Bean grows more alert and interactive for longer periods. No sooner than I rise in the morning than it seems time to put her to bed, but my body aches from all the hours in between.

Today there was a meal at 5:30 and play until 6:45 a.m., then a nap until 8:30 a.m. (I hold her for all naps), then a meal and play until 11:30 a.m., then a nap until 1:00, then a walk to the park and swinging on the swing, then an attempted nap at 2:30 p.m. (plus more eating in there), then up at 3:00, playing and a crying jag (Bean’s) until we got out of the house for a walk in a different park from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m., then picking up unhealthy food to go, eating dinner, then bathing Bean and putting her to bed by 7:15 p.m. She self-amuses briefly, but she really wants to be interacted with, so by “play” I mean either interacting with her and her toys & books, or involving her in watching me do a household task. Also, Husband does a lot of interacting on weekends with her.

The amount of time I have to spend on the computer is incrementally decreasing each week, so there is no point having it on the coffee table in the living room. Also, because the cat destroyed nearly all my laptop cords, and because Bean’s little hands will soon be over everything, my laptop will now live in the office. A logical place, eh? I feel a distance developing between me and the Internet. There just isn’t much time anymore, not if I want to spend my few precious hours doing other things for myself as well.

There was a point before Bean was born that I wondered if I would be able to sever the addiction I had to my computer and the web. Would I rise to the occasion? The answer is clear. I am constitutionally incapable of choosing the computer over my daughter. I’ll still use the computer, but it will have to be squeezed in among the many other pursuits — reading a book, knitting (which I haven’t done in ages), exercising, etc. Wow, imagine that. I’m actually living! In the real world. In the here and now. More often, at least.

I’ll still read my favorite blogs, and I’ll still post. And a lot of my play group communications are via email, so I’m not going Luddite on you. Just don’t worry if you don’t see much activity ’round here. I can also always be reached by email.

Nearly Half a Year!

I swear Bean’s gained two pounds in the past two weeks. She’s been eating every 1.5 to 2 hours, except at night. Lately Bean’s been sleeping from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m., eating hugely, then sleeping again until 6 a.m. Or she’ll sleep from 7 p.m. until 2 a.m., eat, and sleep again until 6:30. I think the fact she’s probably doubled her birth weight (finally!) contributes to night sleep duration. She packs it all in during the day.

There’s lots of things we notice about her at five months of age.

Bean…

  • has developed a cough — a theatrical stage cough that she uses to get attention.
  • is teething; sucks on icy cold washcloths more than any other teething device.
  • spends much more time on her tummy and increasingly enjoys it.
  • is beginning to creep; all that tummy time is working!
  • has much stronger arms; she has clocked us hard occasionally.
  • makes high-pitched noises and babbles.
  • beams whenever she hears a familiar song or rhyme (especially from the Music Together class).
  • rolls from tummy to back, and almost rolls back to tummy.
  • loves music; sometimes participates by vocalizing the “resting note.”
  • enjoys being read to, and her current favorites are Barnyard Banter, Moo Baa La La La, and Jamberry.
  • laughs heartily and often.
  • loves hearing the Zzzz or Bzzz sound; it makes her usually at least grin, and often she giggles.
  • enjoys peek-a-boo.
  • wrinkles her nose when she smiles.
  • now allows herself to be held inward, facing over the shoulder.
  • likes to sit, and practices sitting up every day; she almost can sit alone.
  • exhibits much more control over her hands and feet, making finer movements.
  • sucks her toes.
  • when hungry, doesn’t scream and cry anymore, but rather grunts and then smiles when we get the bottle out; she’s able to anticipate and understand more.
  • puts weight on her legs and likes to practice standing.
  • sleeps on her side in the crib.
  • smiles hugely when we start the “This Little Piggy” ditty in clear anticipation of our saying “Wheee! Wheee! Wheee! All the way home!” (at which point she giggles).
  • loves being worn in the Moby wrap and especially when I dance with her.
  • clearly attempts to express her desires by saying “Eehn! Eehn!” when she wants another toy, or to be picked up, or for a rhyme or song to be repeated.
  • raises her arms to be picked up.
  • will turn to look at something I point at if it’s nearby.
  • wakes quietly from naps in my arms and plays with my fingers; she also strokes my hand (that holds the bottle) while she drinks.
  • loves to be “tossed” up in the air and “pretend” to fall; the sudden movements make her laugh.
  • rides the bucket swing at the playground and loves it.
  • sits in the stroller like a big girl (not in her infant seat snapped into it).
  • is more consistently sleeping 8-9 hours at a stretch overnight!

Happy five months, my little Bean!

123 Meme

This meme has been making the rounds. I’m not certain how I feel about the relevance of posting three sentences from a nearby book (and skipping the five preceding sentences), but what the heck.

I’ve been tagged by The Friendly Humanist for a new blog meme. Here are the rules:

  1. Pick up the book nearest you with at least 123 pages. (No cheating!)
  2. Turn to page 123.
  3. Count the first five sentences.
  4. Post the next three sentences.
  5. Tag five other bloggers.

The book nearest me with at least 123 pages is a book I’ve had in queue for at least 10 years. I pulled it off the shelf the other day to think about reading it (so little time, so many books). Here are the sentences:

R’tu enabled the sisterly cooperation and dietary control women needed to successfully bear larger-brained babies. R’tu braided the mental, physical, and spiritual together in ever-expanding spirals of cultural expression. We thus led ourselves along the course of our evolution by enacting consciousness.

This begs the question: What is R’tu?

It’s a Sanskrit word. If Wikipedia is correct, it means:

Ritu (?tú) in Vedic Sanskrit refers to a fixed or appointed time, especially the proper time for sacrifice (yajna) or ritual in Vedic Religion. The word is so used in the Rigveda, the Yajurveda and the Atharvaveda. In Classical Sanskrit, it refers to an epoch or period, especially one of the six seasons of the year, Vasanta “spring”, Grishma “the hot season”, Varsha “the rainy season”, Sharad “autumn”, Hemant “winter”; and Shishir “the cool season”, or the menstrual cycle.

This link doesn’t define it, but it gives a sense of the concept’s importance in Sanskrit literature.

The book I used for the meme is Blood, Bread, and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World. Here is how the author defines the term.

Ritual, fromt Sanskrit r’tu, is any act of magic toward a purpose. Rita, means a proper course. Ri, meaning birth, is the root of red, pronounced “reed” in Old English and still in some modern English accents (New Zealand). R’tu means menstrual, suggesting that ritual began as menstrual acts. The root of r’tu is in “arithmetic” and “rhythm”; I hear it also in “art,” “theater,” and perhaps in “root” as well. The Sanskrit term is still alive in India, where goddess worship continues to keep r’tu alive in its menstrual senses; r’tu also refers to special acts of heterosexual intercourse immediately following menstruation, and also to specific time of year.

This should be an interesting book. The author, Judy Grahn, is an American poet, was a member of the Gay Women’s Liberation Group, helped establish The Women’s Press Collective in 1969, and is co-director of the Women’s Spirituality MA program and Program Director of the MFA in Creative Inquiry at the New College of California.

As for tagging others, I’m copping out on this one. I barely have the energy to finish this post, and I’d like to eat dinner. Besides, I don’t want to wear out my welcome with friends and recently tagged five people for another meme. If you want to play along, feel free, and leave a comment.

So Big

Today was a Big Day. We went to the park, and Bean rode the bucket swing at the playground. She was thrilled. She grinned and flirted and giggled. She stared at the trees swaying in the wind. She watched other children run around. And then, I decided to see if she was big enough to sit in the stroller without being in the infant seat. And she was! So instead of facing me and looking up at the world, she faced away from me and got a whole new perspective.

I’m really pleased for her. It’s odd; I felt a little lonely pushing the stroller. Up until that point, I could always smile, coo, talk and sing, and she’d be engaged with me. The new position engaged her with the world. It’s a small reminder of the eventual direction her life will take, and it was poignant.

However, she isn’t through with me yet. I held her for two naps in the chair, and she fell asleep within three minutes each time. (I love watching her sink into sleep. She smacks her lips a little and turns her head toward me.) Then around 5 p.m. she got whiny; I pulled out the Moby wrap and she brightened. I put her in it and danced slowly to lullabies with her, and then she fell asleep against my chest.