Archives for Category "Journaling"
February 8, 2009
TLG - Snapshot
TLG at 7.5 MonthsI want to try to jot down some notes about TheLittleGuy before another few weeks or months go by. He's growing and changing very fast and I'm afraid if I don't write some of this down I'll forget it all as we move on to the next phase. The changes happen incrementally day-by-day, but then 2 weeks will go by and we'll all of a sudden realize he's got a whole new pattern or skill.
I know - this is unremarkable in that it's all normal baby stuff. Nevertheless, he's our only baby, so we want to try to mention the notable baby things that he does.
So, here's what things are like right now, at the beginning of February 2009. He's 7.5 (well, by the time I post this, now 7.75) months old.
He has 8 visible teeth, four on the bottom (which came through first) and four on the top, which all showed up within just a few days of each other.
He is not crawling yet. But he is mobilizing around and does a little bit of a commando-crawl (pulling himself forward with his arms). Just today we watched him figure out how to get from laying on his tummy to sitting.
He still is primarily on breastmilk for food, but he eats cereal (rice +/or oat) + [something]) in the morning and at night. The [something] is often carrots, but we've also tried peas, apple, pears, sweet potato, banana, prunes, and avocado. We think we'll have him start doing a meal with cereal at daycare soon - it may eventually decrease how much I have to pump during the day. We let him play with sippy cups of water and sometimes he drinks from them, but not a whole lot.
He's not really into finger foods much yet, although we'll keep trying.
His sleep pattern is mixed right now. He got sick in mid-December and has had a runny nose and phlegmy cough since. Between that, the 5 teeth that came through in January, and developmental stuff (rolling, starting to pull up, working on crawling) his sleep has been a bit fitful. He usually goes to sleep around 6:30 or 7 after a bath, rubdown, story, and nursing, but may wake just once or twice or several times before getting up for good around 7 or 8 in the morning.
Some of his favorite toys right now include: red plastic bat, O-ball, teddy bears, blue monkey, blue puppy, cookie tin, tambourine, crinkly snake/dragon, leap frog music toy, green mirror, jacob's ladder blocks, and lamaze jingly block toy.
Some of his favorite books right now include: Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you See?, Snuggle Puppy, Moo Ba LaLaLa, A to Z, Hush Little Ones, Polar Bear Polar Bear What do you Hear?
He really likes to stretch his arms out and hug his Dad. He also really likes the 'jump jump jumping bean!' routine that we learned in his baby yoga class.
He likes his bathtime and the Sandra Boynton bathtime book a lot.
He's pretty worn out after a day at 'school' and comes home, plays for a little bit, has some cereal + [something], and then is ready for his bedtime routine. So far he's not the kind of kid who fights sleep, but rather makes it quite clear that he just wants to go to bed! I hope this attitude persists, actually.
We just discovered that he is able to turn his tongue sideways (he's using it to check out all his new teeth). His father can do that, but I can't. We can both curl our tongues, so we expect that TLG can, too, but haven't seen him try that yet.
He likes to watch the cats if they are in view and sometimes talks to them as they walk by.
He only has a few consonants - Mah, Buh, and sometimes Uh-vah! But there is lots of inflection in his babbling sometimes. We're convinced he tried to sing along to Snuggle Puppy once and that we heard him say 'Uh-oh' at an appropriate moment.
When we take him out and about he likes to watch people and will sometimes pick someone and stare at them until they notice him and (he hopes) smile at him.
He doesn't really show many signs of stranger anxiety yet, but he does fuss a bit when we pick him up from school if we don't pick him up right away. Our m.o. is to try to sneak by him and gather up all of his stuff before he sees us, but that rarely works.
He can sit in high chairs at restaurants and can last through a casual meal (say at Noodles or IHOP or Chipotle something like that), but we haven't tried a place where we couldn't get out easily if we had to.
He laughs a lot at PeekABoo with Dad and when I nom-nom his tummy and sides. He likes to pull my face towards his using my hair and slobber on, er, kiss, me. He really likes to play with his Dad's baseball caps.
He is still a giant among babies - bigger than most of the kids in his room, although one of the youngest there. He weighs more than 25 pounds and is now too tall for his exersaucers (his feet go flat, even at the highest setting). His 18-month onesies are starting to be too small (too short in the torso), so we just picked up some 24-month onesies for him today.
The next few months up until his first birthday should bring several more break-throughs and milestones. He's my little man - so much fun to hang around with! We can't wait to see what he does next.
Here's a pic from a week or two ago. A bunch more pics from month 8 are here.
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January 25, 2009
Creative Impulse
The first* five people to respond to this post (by comment, email, facebook, or twitter) will get something made by me. (Be careful with the twitter tho, my feed there is busy and I might miss it.)My choice.
For you.
This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
* I make no guarantees that you will like what I make.
* What I create will be just for you.
* It'll be done this calendar year.
* I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
* You have no clue what it's going to be.
The catch: You have to put this in your weblog (or facebook page or journal) as well.
(Idea swiped from a buddy on LJ.)
*Chronology of receipt of responses will be determined by me - in other words, don't trust the timestamps at various sites.
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November 30, 2008
Tab Dump
Well, I didn't manage to finish off NaBloPoMo very well. Oh well. Here's a few things clogging up my browser tabs at the moment:- Ten Myths Conservatives Believe about Progressives. And how to rebut them at the dinner table.
- Climate change impacts are happening faster than the models predict. We are in deep doo-doo. Tim O'Reilly writes about why he loves Twitter. I especially appreciated:
I don't know who first used the term "ambient intimacy" but it's a great description of what begins to happen on Twitter. I know not just what people are thinking about or reading, but enough about what they are doing that our relationship deepens, just like real-world friendships. People who follow me on Twitter learn that I'm making jam or pies, or gardening or riding my bike or feeding the horses, things that I'd never (or rarely, since I'm doing it here) share on my blog. I know a lot more about many of my professional contacts that makes them more into friends. And in the case of my family, who keep their updates private and visible only to a limited group of real friends, we can keep in touch in small ways that mean a lot. I get special moments of my wife or daughters' day that we might not have shared otherwise. It's truly lovely.
Now - three and half weeks until Christmas and I've done almost no shopping or prep at all. We are definitely having a tree for the boy's first Christmas, though. So, you know, send him presents. ;-)
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November 20, 2008
Email and Technology
I have hundreds and hundreds of messages in my personal email inbox. This after I've sort of quietly declared email bankruptcy a couple of times in the last few years, unsubscribed from almost everything, and started over. This depresses me. In the GTD model, this is just way too many open loops and potential commitments that are unresolved. Bad, bad, bad for my psyche.Not unrelated, my Blackberry had to be reset to its virgin state and now I have to get that all configured again. What a pain.
And of course, these here websites are still broken, broken, broken. Basically, I'm doing rather poorly on the technology front these days.
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November 14, 2008
Plum Tuckered
Exhausting day, and once again I got nothing for this here bloggy-thing.Journal-y, instead, then. I got lost on the way to work this morning. Argh. While I'm transitioning back, I've been driving in rather than taking the Metro, and took a wrong turn (or missed a turn, or something) in the drizzly rain this morning. Rrrrrrr. I rarely drive downtown-that's my excuse. I was very worried that I was going to run into road closures while trying to find my way to the office due to the G20 meeting this weekend, but fortunately I did not. Still, it made me later than I'd wanted to be. Grump.
TheLittleGuy is working on his skillset every day with incremental improvements in one dimension or another happening all the time. He has rolled over (back to front and front to back) a couple of times, but stopped doing that to grow a second tooth and nom nom a little bit of banana. He's also ever more skilled with his paws and is fast approaching the grab-everything-and-toss-it-on-the-floor stage. I worry a little bit that the kid will speak first in LOLcat-ese, because I talk to him like that sometimes: "You haz a toof!" Hehe.
Thanksgiving is the week after next, people!. We have neither the time nor energy to brine and prep the bird this year, so we sent up the bat signal to one of our fine local catering establishments (aka Whole Paycheck) and will get the bird and a few sides from them. Yumm.
My constant low-grade backache starting with surgery-recovery-atrophy followed by lack of exercise and lugging my giant baby around is now being exacerbated by that old familiar work stress settling into its usual knots in my shoulders. Oh. Joy.
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November 10, 2008
Journally
Exhausting day today. First day (half-day) back at the coal mines since TLG was born. I'll be slowly easing back into things, which flexibility I'm grateful for, but it's still a drag.So I got nothing on the bloggy front today.
Zzzzzzzzz.
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November 8, 2008
A Few Parenting Observations
Parenting stuff - delete from feedreader if not interested. You've been warned. :-)I don't want to turn this into a 'mom blog' (whatever that means) but I will write about parenting stuff and about the kid now and then. I'll try to put a warning like the one on this post for those who are skimming in a feedreader just so that if you're not interested in the parenting stuff you can skip it.
So, just a couple of observations I'd been meaning to jot down. Backdrop: our kid is 4.5 months old now.
I have always tried to avoid telling small children, especially girls, "Oh, you're so cute" or to otherwise emphasize their looks. My thinking is that it places an over-emphasis on appearance and is not something the child has any control over anyway. The challenge, of course, is that for very young children, they don't do much, and so there's not a whole lot else to comment on! We put TheLittleGuy in his sunglasses and a boyish outfit and take him out and we get all kinds of comments about how cute he is. Which is nice - anyone who says anything nice about my kid is immediately on my good side. But, I still try to avoid commenting on how babies look and instead try to focus on what they're doing. Since I now have a better sense of what are appropriate developmental milestones, I can say things like "Look at how she holds up her head" or whatever. (Our guy was comparatively slow with that - he has a huge, heavy head.) Along similar lines, a few years back there were some studies that suggested that kids/people who were told they were smart all the time were more likely to give up on something if it didn't immediately come easy to them. Accordingly, even though we know TheLittleGuy is a genius (and gorgeous to boot), we're not going to tell him that. Instead, we say things like "Good job practicing [x]!" or whatever.
I still feel like an honorary member of the child-free tribe even though we have TheLittleGuy. That's for a longer post, sometime. But I thought I would share some information to help dispel one of those mysteries about parents. There's a lot of cutesy jokes about how parents of babies/small children are obsessed with poo. And in a way, it's true. I can have lengthy discussions with TheGuy about TLG's input and output. But that's just it - it's not that the parents have a brain transplant and all of a sudden find baby poo intrinsically fascinating. It's that for many weeks and even months BabyOutput is one of only a very few pieces of actual data you get about how your kid is doing. And it does provide more information than you might think. So that's my PSA for non-parents. It's not about the poo itself, it's about the information it conveys.
On another note, I know some parents get very offended when non-parents compare the non-parents' pets to the parents' children. We, as a rule, do not. I suppose if it were done to be insulting, we might, but not so far. My cats are still smarter and more capable than TLG right now. That will change, of course, but it hasn't yet. My attitude is: Small mammals are small mammals.
And one more observation than I'll stop for the night. When I was late in the pregnancy and kept muttering to anyone who asked how I was doing: "I want this kid out" people would say "Oh, but once he's out and making noise you'll want him back in!" That is definitely not true for me. I wasn't sleeping well while pregnant so it's not like nighttime infant care is a big change. And there is no way I would go back to being pregnant. It suuuuucked. It is much better having him out and about. By far.
With that, here is the gorgeous genius kid picture of the day (well, of a few days ago) with the Halloween bear that his Maine grandparents sent to him:
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October 13, 2008
LJ Meme
A meme making the rounds on the LJs I read. Feel free to consider yourself pinged. Drop me an email (since my comments are still broken) if you continue the meme on your site.01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
Yes - two of them, now!
02) What was your dream growing up?
To not be poor.
03) What talent do you wish you had?
Many, but one is the ability to play the guitar. I know, I just need to practice...
04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
Depends on the day - if I'd been at work all day, probably a vodkatini - Belvedere, a little dirty.
05) Favorite vegetable?
Don't know that I have one - I like most veggies. Lately I tend to be eating a lot of broccoli and spinach.
06) What was the last book you read?
Goodness, probably some baby health book. Last fiction might have been Russo's Bridge of Sighs.
07) What zodiac sign are you?
Taurus, and yes, I'm stubborn.
08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
Just ears, although I only occasionally wear earrings.
09) Worst Habit?
Procrastinating.
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
Sure.
11) What is your favorite sport?
To watch: baseball. Once TheLittleGuy is old enough, we are even planning to take him to Florida to watch some spring training. To play: swimming (if that counts).
12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude?
My spouse calls me a frustrated idealist, doomed to lament missed opportunities for the rest of my days.
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
Probably make some dumb joke and then chit-chat.
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
I have been pretty fortunate - most of the 'bad stuff' that's happened to me has been fairly first world in character, probably not worth bitching about in the grand scheme of things.
15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
I had to ask my husband to come up with a weird fact about me.
16) Do you have any pets?
Two cats.
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
I'd feed you and show off my giant baby.
18) What was your first impression of me?
N/A
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
I'm mostly indifferent to clowns, but if I had to choose I'd say scary.
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
Thinner; duh.
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
Either, as necessary.
22) What color eyes do you have?
Hazel/green.
23) Ever been arrested?
No.
24) Bottle or can soda?
Bottle, if possible.
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
Save it for TheLittleGuy's college fund. For which, by the way, we are accepting donations now. Heh.
27) What's your favorite place to hang out at?
My house, with my boys.
28) Do you believe in ghosts?
No.
29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
Spare what?
30) Do you swear a lot?
Hell yes. (I'm trying to stop - little pitchers, and all.)
31) Biggest pet peeve?
I have a lot of pet peeves, but I try to be zen about them these days - who has the energy?
32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
Intense. (But I mean a very specific thing by that.)
33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
Sure.
34) Favourite and least favourite food?
I'm pretty much an omnivore so this changes daily. But today, I'll say... strawberry shortcake (favorite) and cold fish loaf (least favorite - had some overseas once; ewww.)
35) Do you believe in God?
Not as such.
36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?
--------------------- COPY THIS PART----------------------------
01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
02) What was your dream growing up?
03) What talent do you wish you had?
04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
05) Favorite vegetable?
06) What was the last book you read?
07) What zodiac sign are you?
08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
09) Worst Habit?
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
11) What is your favorite sport?
12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude?
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
16) Do you have any pets?
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
18) What was your first impression of me?
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22) What color eyes do you have?
23) Ever been arrested?
24) Bottle or can soda?
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
27) What's your favorite place to hang out at?
28) Do you believe in ghosts?
29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
30) Do you swear a lot?
31) Biggest pet peeve?
32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
34) Favourite and least favourite food?
35) Do you believe in God?
36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?
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August 21, 2008
Child-Blogging - TheLittleGuy is 2 Months Old
Ok, back to the baby-blogging/mommy-blogging/kid-blogging/whatever-you-call-it. TheLittleGuy is two months old (9 weeks as of today, actually.) He had his two-month check-up earlier this week and got a first round of vaccinations. Apart from a bit of hollering at the needle sticks he tolerated it all reasonably well. The unsurprising news to us is that he's a big fellow. We figured this out when he stopped fitting into a bunch of his clothes and I had to go buy him some NINE-MONTH-SIZED clothes. At his check-up his stats were as follows (birth stats are in parentheses):Head circumference: 16.75 inches (15 inches)
Length: 23.75 inches (20.75 inches)
Weight: 16 pounds 4 ounces (9 pounds 8 ounces)
Although it's a bit exhausting right now. One friend pointed out to me that I'm feeding a child who's about the size of a typical 6-month-old, and 6-month-olds can eat solids to get some of their calories. This little fellow can't yet. I'm keeping up - and pumping a little bit each day to freeze as a backup stash - but sometimes I get really tired (or really hungry, myself.) Kellymom points out that babies this small know what they need, though, and he needs to eat for proper brain development:
breastmilk is a perfect food. There are NO empty calories or fillers. The amount of fat or calories in breastmilk is not affected by mom's dietary fat or sugar intake. [...]So, since the doctors are unconcerned, and he seems to be hitting other milestones too, as well as growing into football-player stature like my male cousins, we'll just feed him what he wants. And we'll delay solids as long as possible. I told the doctor we expect him to be 25 pounds and walking at his 4-month appointment. Heehee.
Do not try to limit your baby's nursing by stretching out feedings, limiting time at the breast, using a pacifier to "hold baby off" until a specified time has passed, or offering water so that baby nurses less. It can be dangerous to limit your baby's growth by limiting nursing, as your baby needs the nutrients and fat for proper growth and brain development. Only by continuing to feed your baby on cue will you ensure that his needs are perfectly met and that your milk supply is maintained.
The biggest bummer is that there are lots of cool clothes people gave to him that he only got to wear once, if at all, because he grew so fast. There are certainly worse problems to have - and we'll bequeath the clothes to a friend's baby who's due in January.
Oh yes, we are only having the one. One is enough - he's just fabulous; why mess with success? Plus, I saw a very pregnant woman walking around the shopping center the other day and flashbacked to pregnancy and said to TheGuy: "OMG I DO NOT WANT TO BE PREGNANT EVER, EVER AGAIN." (Much less have major surgery to extract the child! I'm still not what I would call 100% recovered from the c-section, although I'm doing fine and don't have any more follow-up appointments scheduled unless something comes up.)
But anyway, look at this face - what a cutie. I know that we're biased, but I do think he'll be a heartbreaker someday.
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July 30, 2008
Is This Thing On?
Greetings, people of the web!I am starting to feel the urge to redo all of my websites, so maybe that means at a minimum I'll start posting more again. Of course, this could just be a result of TheLittleGuy sleeping for 6 hours straight last night. And that might not happen again for months, so I'm trying not to get my hopes up...
We've started his "month 2" flickr set. He's incrementally more interactive each day, but most days still consist of primarily eating, sleeping, and sometimes fussing. I've got some residual minor complications from the c-section that are still reducing my activity level (and thus driving me bonkers) but apart from that and general tiredness I'm doing alright. I do feel like I've missed most of a beautiful summer being fairly housebound, but I'm trying to get out more to various moms groups and LLL meetings and such. At least I have the interwebs to keep me company...
Here's a goofy photobooth shot from yesterday:
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June 17, 2008
Quick Update
Meta and Journally:Yes, I am still pregnant. No, I am really, really not happy about it. Yes, comments are broken on this site right now - send email instead. There's a full moon coming, so maybe TheLittleGuy will want to come out to see. If he doesn't, the doctors will probably want to evict him, and none of us really want to start down that path. Sigh. Oh, not that I'll ever have time to write again, but I have much to say about the politics and ideologies of pregnancy and birth. I'm sure the politics and ideologies of parenting will be even more fun. Goodie.
Politics:
Hillary was never going to take it to the convention and all the shrieking ninnies who thought she would destroy the Democratic party in pursuit of her own evil feminine ambitions really need to get over themselves. Barack is not the great progressive savior some seem to think he is, but he'll do - better than most. John McCain is completely unacceptable. I hope that Obama does not choose Webb for VP because Virginia needs to keep a non-insane Senator for a little while longer. Other than that, I don't care who he picks, as long as it's not someone like Hagel or Chafee.
Apocalyptic weather and such:
My spouse's home city is suffering under a 500-year flood. We've had wave after wave of severe thunderstorms here. There have been Metro derailments, houses burning down near friends of ours, water outages with 'boil everything' orders a few miles north of us. It's feeling pretty apocalyptic, I must say.
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