A tooth!

We had quite an eventful Memorial Weekend! On Friday evening I picked Ivy up, ran home to drop Cory off and feed the baby, and then on to pick up Grandma and go over the mountains to Mom's house. Ivy slept almost all the way there, which was fantastic - she started to get a bit punchy when we had about ten minutes to go. It was great.

And then we spent the whole weekend hanging out at Mom's house. We experimented with textures in the garden, we played with a couple of new toys, we took naps, we cuddled. On Sunday evening, Ivy was a little fussy, and then she bonked her face onto my sternum, which lead to an hour of crying. But I could tell it wasn't the bonk that was hurting, it was just the catalyst - teething was the real problem. Ivy's grandpa went out for some Motrin and by the time he got back she was fine again. But I gave her a dose before bed anyway, which I think helped; she woke up whimpering a few times and nursed quite a bit. And then in the morning she had a tiny point of a tooth! Hooray!

I was also able to see my cousin and her boyfriend and his 10-year-old daughter who is nonverbal autistic. She was enamored with Ivy and wanted to hold her, and we have a great picture of them together.

Monday was a beautiful day, and it was a good thing too, because the car broke down just as we were getting back into cell phone range as we came over the mountain pass. We waited outside for an hour until a tow truck arrived, and he took us the 60 miles home. (Or rather, to our mechanic.) My aunt and uncle met us there and drove us home, and Cory is now on a bus into the city so he can get a rental and talk to the mechanic.

And now we wait for daddy to come home so we can get to day care and then to work. Ivy was kind enough to wake up at 6, and is already taking a nap on me. She's pooped too, I guess!

Neurotic!

I consider myself a pretty laid-back mom overall. We haven't had any big bloody injuries yet, but those medical issues she has had I've been able to take in stride. I let her get dirty, I let her try things, I let her fail at things. The one exception to my laid-back trend is milk production.

I work in the membership department of an association, and I'm elbow deep in data every day, and I enjoy being obsessive about keeping member records up to date. When I was trying to get pregnant, before my infertility diagnosis, I used FertilityFriend for a few years, faithfully entering the date each cycle began, my symptoms throughout the month, and my temperature every single morning.

When Ivy was born, I downloaded an app that compiled data on which side I nursed last, what time we started and stopped, and the duration of each session. Ivy was not a good nurser at the beginning, and it was a struggle to juggle latching and hitting the button on the phone - and then hitting the button again when she'd fall asleep or unlatch or fuss. In the end, I realized that I didn't need the app, I could just switch a little ring from hand to hand to remember which side came last, and I could just listen to my baby tell me she was hungry. It was liberating.

But the game changed again when I went back to work. I set up a Google spreadsheet of how much Ivy drinks at daycare every day, how much I pump at work, how many times I pumped (so I can see my average ounces-per-session), the difference between her intake and my output, how much milk I have in my freezer, how much frozen milk is at daycare, and then a graph of total inventory by day. It was fun to keep up with at the beginning, but then she grew and started drinking more, and it started getting stressful. When I get below 100 ounces in my inventory, I get concerned. When Ivy drinks more than I pump in a day, I get concerned. I add pumping sessions during the weekend just to catch up when she's "beat" me more than a few ounces in a week. A couple of weeks ago when I started sending food with her to daycare, I felt like a failure, even though she was ten months old and perfectly ready to eat food during the day. Nursing is SO important to me; and that, combined with my freakish propensity to obsess over spreadsheets and graphs, have made me a data monster, I fear. But unlike the app, I think this spreadsheet will stay with me until she's no longer getting most of her calories from milk.



What's your parenting neurosis?

11 Months

We have a very busy baby on our hands! 11 months is not marking the start, but we are well underway with having a little one who is crawling over to off-limits things, pulling up on everything, and cruising around the furniture. Everything is a toy or a musical instrument or a science experiment. She is learning to stop what she's doing when we say "no!" but then tries to do the thing again a few seconds later. Her strawberry-blonde hair is long enough for spiking up in the bath, and the continued lack of teeth doesn't keep her from stuffing her little face with broccoli florets. We also have a first word: "hi!" I heard a very intentional "mama" this morning too. She may have said "dada" intentionally long ago, but it's hard to tell when it's babbles and when it's intentional. When you start singing pattycake, she claps. (She also claps when you tell her to, or say "yay!" She waves at people tons. She likes grabbing Dexter's tail and poking Linus in the eye. And she is growing like a weed - a couple of weeks ago she stepped up her milk consumption at daycare and I couldn't keep up, so now I send her with three ounces of pureed food too. It has helped me not worry so much about running out. She also gets dinner, which is usually more puree and a bit of whatever we are eating. She also likes those teething biscuits. (They're so messy though!) Her sleep has been disrupted the last few nights too; lots of waking up and flailing around. And lots of nursing. But not much fussing, and I'm thankful for that!