Because I Said So
My life as a Mom

Day 3 of of Project Ferber, and the magnificent Pickle put himself to sleep without crying!!!

Yeah, I’m still reeling.

Night one: 45 minutes of crying, 1 wakeup w/ 60 minutes of crying

Night two: 30 minutes of crying, 1 wakeup (put himself back to sleep)

Night three: NO CRYING AT ALL!!! Number and quality of wakeups remains to be seen.

And oh my god, his mood has been *so* *much* *better*.  It’s like night and day - the cranky little demon we’ve been living with for the past month is gone and my sweet wonderful baby has returned.  I hereby apologize for every smug skeptical comment I have ever made about sleep training.  Sleep training ROCKS.

And after the first night, seems to be a success (knock wood).  Pickle fell asleep at 8:30 after about 45 minutes of crying, woke up at 1 and cried for another hour, then slept until 7 and woke up in the best mood I’ve seen him in ages first thing in the morning.  (He had been in the habit of waking up at 5:30am screaming.  Waking up at 7am quietly babbling is a massive improvement.)

Our downstairs neighbors haven’t left us any nasty notes, so either they prefer the sound of a crying baby to the sound of our rocking chair or they’ve simply decided never to speak with us again.  Ah well, c’est la vie.

Fingers are crossed that tonight will involve shorter periods of crying and continue the trend of waking only once (or not at all!) and sleeping until at least 6:30 and waking up happy.  Hm. I think I need more fingers. Read the rest of this entry »

Just…please.

Anti-vaccination fervor on my local parenting list has reached panic levels, and so far there have been a grand total of TWO posts begging people to not drink the Kool-Aid.  And one of them was written by me.

Vaccines save lives.  End of story.  To everyone who says that it’s “a complicated issue,” I would like to ask you - do you want your kid to die of polio?  If the answer is NO, then get them vaccinated.  There, I just uncomplicated it for you.   Now go read what Science-Based Medicine has to say on the issue, because those guys are smart.

Experimentation into the effects of gravity on everyday objects continues.  Thus far, results have been inconclusive.

Category A: Things Which Fall On The Floor When You Drop Them

• plastic cup
• book
• other book
• pacifier 
• magazine
• napkin
• apricot slice
• sippy cup
• bottle
• stuffed toy
• rattle
• wooden blocks
• other wooden blocks

 Category B: Things Which Do Not Fall On The Floor When Dropped 

• [remains empty]

Clearly, further investigation is warranted…

I’ve just registered at Sproglogs and entered in all of Pickle’s height and weight info from his yellow card. It’s all information I have, but now in handy interbunny chart form!

I haven’t added anything else because I already have all his pictures up on Flickr and videos on Youtube and milestone “diary entries” here. But if I ever need to look at his growth curve online, I am *all* *set*.

Put Pickle to sleep last night. Five minutes later, hear crying. Wait it out. Doesn’t stop. Go in to rock him back to sleep….find him STANDING UP IN THE FRELLING CRIB.

Now, this isn’t the first time he’s pulled himself up to standing, or even the first time he’s done it in the crib. But it’s the first time he’s done it (a) at bedtime, (b) from lying down, and (c) wearing a sleepsack.

He’s napping now. As soon as he wakes up, we are going to Babies R Us and cleaning out their babyproofing section. Gates are going up EVERYWHERE. Padding will be afixed to the edges of EVERYTHING. (Meanwhile a part of me is thinking, wouldn’t it just be easier to cushion the baby?)

I’ve just deleted a crapload of spam and have changed the comment settings to prevent such things in the future - going forward, you now must have a previously approved comment in order to comment. This means that if it’s your first visit, your comment may take a while to get through moderation because I don’t remember to check the queue every day. Be patient!

I don’t think the Pickle has an excessive amount of toys, but we do have a fair amount.  Between gifts and hand-me-downs we’ve recieved and the occasional Babies R Us impulse buy, he’s got a pretty decent collection.  And yet, his favorite things to play with are, in no particular order:

• my glasses
• the remote control
• plastic cups
• the top to one of our tupperware containers
• his own hands and feet
• random bits of paper

Sigh.  Babies.

The flouride issue has been making the rounds of a local parenting Yahoo group. I was dissmissive at first, but now that I’ve done a little more research I’m completely paranoid that Pickle has been getting too much flouride since we mix his powdered formula with tap (or Brita-filtered) water.

I’d estimate about half of his daily milk intake is formula at this point, and I’ve been strongly toying with the idea of giving up pumping once he hits 8 months. (Arguments in favor include (1) I HATE PUMPING and (2) my supply is less than great these days anyway. Arguments against include (3) some breastmilk is better than none! and (4) ZOMGWTFFLOUROSIS????)

The easiest fix would be to switch from powdered formula to premixed, which is prepared with unflouridated water. The major downsides to that are premixed formula doesn’t keep nearly as long as the powdered stuff, and is REALLY FUCKING EXPENSIVE. But probably still cheaper than investing in a reverse osmosis filter.

And it’s a short-term problem because in another 4 months he’ll be switching to cow’s milk anyway (or goat’s milk, or soy, if he suddenly develops a dairy sensitivity), so maybe we should just suck it up and do it. I can probably find somewhere online to buy in bulk and save, right?

Gah. One more thing to ask my ped about at our next well-baby visit, I guess. Or maybe I’ll just email Dr Mike.

…today.

1. Head injury.  Pickle can now pull himself up from a sitting position to standing…almost.  He’s done it exactly twice and his balance, to put it mildly, sucks.  One wobble and BOOM!  He’s back down on the ground, and pissed about it.  Meaning that Mom’s job is to hover around him and cushion the fall, except when he’s too fast for me.  Oops.

(On a side note - any moms of older kids reading this whose kids pulled up sitting–>standing before they mastered lying down–>sitting?  Because the Pickle has never once pulled himself into a sitting position.  I’m not worried, just curious.  How many babies actually go through all the stages of mobility in the “correct” order?)

2. Poison. Pickle likes to play with paper.  And by play with I mean chew on.  And by chew on I mean eat.  And because I’m mean, I try my best not to let him actually swallow any because lord knows what kind of toxic chemicals go into newsprint.  The key word being “try.”

3. Electrical fire.  Did you know that if you over-microwave a chunk of butternut squash, it will turn into a toxic-smelling black lump that sticks to the bottom of the whatever you had it sitting in?  Okay, maybe that one was my fault.  But it was supposed to be for his dinner.  (He had some pureed peas instead.  Gotta get those veggies in somehow!  Otherwise, dinner was a teething biscuit, a piece of banana, half an apricot, and some yogurt.)

4. Drowning. My dear darling boy, pulling up in the bathtub is such a bad idea I don’t even know where to begin.  Looks like the end of the baby bath for us, which means I need to buy a big squishy bathmat this weekend.